Chapter 4

SCHOOLS

German children go to day schools. This is not to say that there are no boarding schools in Germany; but the prevailing system throughout the empire is a system of day schools. The German mother does not get rid of her boys and girls for months together, and look forward to the holidays as a time of uproar and enjoyment. She does not wonder anxiously what changes she will see in them when they come back to her. They are with her all the year round,--the boys till they go to a university, the girls till they marry. Any day in the streets of a German city you may see troops of children going to school, not with a maid at their heels as in Paris, but unattended as in England. They have long tin satchels in which they carry their books and lunch, the boys wear peaked caps, and many children of both sexes wear spectacles.

Except at the Kindergarten, boys and girls are educated separately and differently in Germany. In some rare cases lately some few girls have been admitted to a boys' _Gymnasium_, but this is experimental and at present unusual. It may be found that the presence of a small number in a large boys' school does not work well. In addition to the elementary schools, there are four kinds of Public Day School for boys in Germany, and they are all under State supervision. There is the _Gymnasium_, the _Real-Gymnasium_, the _Ober-Real-Schule_, and the _Real-Schule_. Until 1870 the Gymnasiums were the only schools that could send their scholars to the universities; a system that had serious disadvantages. It meant that in choosing a child's school, parents had to decide whether at the end of his school life he was to have a university education. Children with no aptitude for scholarship were sent to these schools to receive a scholar's training; while boys who would have done well in one of the learned professions could not be admitted to a university, except for science or modern languages, because they had not attended a Gymnasium.

A boy who has passed through one of these higher schools has had twelve years' education. He began Latin at the age of ten, and Greek at thirteen. He has learned some French and mathematics, but no English unless he paid for it as an extra. His school years have been chiefly a preparation for the university. If he never reaches the higher classes he leaves the Gymnasium with a stigma upon him, a record of failure that will hamper him in his career. The higher official posts and the professions will be closed to him; and he will be unfitted by his education for business. This at least is what many thoughtful Germans say of their classical schools; and they lament over the unsuitable boys who are sent to them because their parents want a professor or a high official in the family. It is considered more sensible to send an average boy to a _Real-Gymnasium_ or to an _Ober-Real Schule_, because nowadays these schools prepare for the university, and any boy with a turn for scholarship can get the training he needs. The _Ober-Real Schule_ professedly pays most attention to modern languages; and it is, in fact, only since 1900 that their boys are received at a university on the classical side. They still prepare largely for technical schools and for a commercial career.

At a _Real-Schule_, the fourth grade of higher school, the course only lasts six years. They do not prepare for the Abiturienten examination, and their scholars cannot go from them to a university. They prepare for practical life, and they admit promising boys from the elementary schools. A boy who has been through any one of these higher schools successfully need only serve in the army for one year; and that in itself is a great incentive to parents to send their children. A _Real-Schule_ in Prussia only costs a hundred marks a year, and a _Gymnasium_ a hundred and thirty-five marks. In some parts of Germany the fees are rather higher, in some still lower. The headmasters of these schools are all university men, and are themselves under State supervision. In an entertaining play called _Flachsmann als Erzieher_ the headmaster had not been doing his duty, and has allowed the school to get into a bad way. The subordinates are either slack or righteously rebellious, and the children are unruly. The State official pays a surprise visit, discovers the state of things, and reads the Riot Act all round. The wicked headmaster is dismissed, the eager young reformer is put in his place, the slackers are warned and given another chance.... Blessed be St. Bureaukrazius ... says the genial old god out of a machine, when by virtue of his office he has righted every man's wrongs. The school in the play must be an elementary one, for children and teachers are of both sexes, but a master at a _Gymnasium_ told me that the picture of the official visit was not exaggerated in its importance and effect. There was considerable excitement in Germany over the picture of the evil headmaster, his incompetent staff, and the neglected children; and I was warned before I saw the play that I must not think such a state of affairs prevailed in German schools. The warning was quite unnecessary. An immoral, idle, and ignorant class of men could not carry on the education of a people as it is carried on throughout the German Empire to-day.

I have before me the Annual Report of a _Gymnasium_ in Berlin, and it may interest English people to see how many lessons the teachers in each subject gave every week. There were thirty teachers in the school.

LESSONS SUBJECT PER WEEK

Religion 31 German 42 Latin 112 Greek 72 French 36 History and Geography 44 Mathematics and Arithmetic 56 Natural History 10 Physics 20 Hebrew 4 Law 1 Writing 6 Drawing 18 Singing 12 Gymnasium 27 Swimming 8-1/2 Handfertigkeit 3 ---- 502-1/2 lessons

The headmaster took Latin for seven hours every week, and Greek for three hours. A professor who came solely for religious teaching came for ten hours every week. But most of the masters taught from sixteen to twenty-four hours, while one who is down for reading, writing, arithmetic, gymnastics, German, singing, and _Natur_ could not get through all he had to do in less than thirty hours. On looking into the hours devoted to each subject by the various classes, you find that the lowest class had three hours religious instruction every week, and the other classes two hours. There were 407 boys in the school described as _Evangelisch_, 47 Jews, and 23 Catholics; but in Germany parents can withdraw their children from religious instruction in school, provided they satisfy the authorities that it is given elsewhere. The two highest classes had lessons on eight chapters of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, on the Epistle to the Philippians, and on the confessions of St. Augustine. Some classes were instructed in the Gospel according to St. John, and the little boys learned Bible History. So Germans are not without orthodox theological teaching in their early years, whatever opinions they arrive at in their adolescence.

Every boy in the school spent two or three hours each week on German composition, and, like boys in other countries, handled themes they could assuredly not understand, probably, like other boys, without a scruple or a hesitation.

"Why does the ghost of Banquo appear to Macbeth, and not the ghost of Duncan?"

"How are the unities of time, place, and action treated in Schiller's ballads?"

"Discuss the antitheses in Lessing's Laokoon."

"What can you say about the representation of concrete objects in Goethe's _Hermann and Dorothea_?"

These examples are taken at random from a list too long to quote completely; but no one need be impressed by them. Boys perform wonderful feats of this kind in England too. However, I once heard a German professor say that the English boy outdid the German in _gesunder Menschenverstand_ (sound common sense), but that the German wins in the race when it comes to the abstract knowledge (_Wissen_) that he and his countryfolk prize above all the treasures of the earth. No one who knows both countries can doubt for a single moment that the professor was right, and that he stated the case as fairly as it can be stated. In an emergency or in trying circumstances the English boy would be readier and more self-reliant: but when you meet him where entertainment is wanted rather than resource, his ignorance will make you open your eyes. This, at any rate, is the kind of story told and believed of Englishmen in Germany. A student who was working at science in a German university had been there the whole winter, and though the city possessed many fine theatres he had only visited a variety show. At last his friends told him that it was his duty to go to the _Schauspielhaus_ and see a play by Goethe or Schiller. "Goethe! Schiller!" said my Englishman, "_Was ist das?_"

The education of girls in Germany is in a transition state at present. Important changes have been made of late years, and still greater ones, so the reformers say, are pending. Formerly, if a girl was to be educated at all she went to a _Hoehere Toechterschule_, or to a private school conducted on the same lines, and, like the official establishment, under State supervision. When she had finished with school she had finished with education, and began to work at the useful arts of life, more especially at the art of cooking. What she had learned at school she had learned thoroughly, and it was considered in those days quite as much as was good for her. The officials who watched and regulated the education of boys had nothing to do with girls' schools. These were left to the staff that managed elementary schools, and kept on much the same level. Girls learned history, geography, elementary arithmetic, two modern languages, and a great deal of mythology. The scandalous ignorance of mythology displayed by Englishwomen still shocks the right-minded German. If a woman asked for more than this because she was going to earn her bread, she spent three years in reading for an examination that qualified her for one of the lower posts in the school. The higher posts were all in the hands of men. Of late years women have been able to prepare for a teacher's career at one of the Teachers' Seminaries, most of which were opened in 1897.

More than forty years ago the English princess in Berlin was not satisfied with what was done in Germany for the education of women; and one of the many monuments to her memory is the Victoria Lyceum. This institution was founded at her suggestion by Miss Archer, an English lady who had been teaching in Berlin for some years, and who was greatly liked and respected there. At first it only aimed at giving some further education to girls who had left school, and it was not easy to get men of standing to teach them. But as it was the outcome of a movement with life in it the early difficulties were surmounted, and its scope and usefulness have grown since its foundation thirty-eight years ago. It is not a residential college, and it has no laboratories. During the winter it still holds courses of lectures for women who are not training for a definite career; but under its present head, Fraeulein von Cotta, the chief work of the Victoria Lyceum has become the preparation of women for the _Ober Lehrerin_ examination. This is a State examination that can only be passed five years after a girl has qualified as _Lehrerin_, and two of these five years must have been spent in teaching at a German school. To qualify as _Lehrerin_, a girl must have spent three years at a Seminary for teachers after she leaves school, and she usually gets through this stage of her training between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. Therefore a woman must have three years special preparation for a subordinate post and eight years for a higher post in a German girls' school.

The whole question of women's education is in a ferment in Germany at present, and though everyone interested is ready to talk of it, everyone tells you that it is impossible to foresee exactly what reforms are coming. There are to be new schools established, _Lyceen_ and _Ober-Lyceen_, and _Ober-Lyceen_ will prepare for matriculation. When girls have matriculated from one of these schools they will be ready for the university, and will work for the same examinations as men. Baden was the first German State that allowed women to matriculate at its universities. It did so in 1900, and in 1903 Bavaria followed suit. In 1905 there were eighty-five women at the universities who had matriculated in Germany; but there are hundreds working at the universities without matriculating first. At present the professors are free to admit women or to exclude them from their classes; but the right of exclusion is rarely exercised. Before long it will presumably be a thing of the past.

An Englishwoman residing at Berlin, and engaged in education, told me that in her opinion no German woman living had done as much for her countrywomen as Helene Lange, the president of the _Allgemeine deutsche Frauenverein_. Nineteen years ago she began the struggle that is by no means over, the struggle to secure a better education for women and a greater share in its control. In English ears her aim will sound a modest one, but English girls' schools are not entirely in the hands of men, with men for principals and men to teach the higher classes. She began in 1887 by publishing a pamphlet that made a great sensation, because it demanded, what after a mighty tussle was conceded, women teachers for the higher classes in girls' schools, and for these women an academic education. In 1890 she founded, together with Auguste Schmidt and Marie Loeper-Housselle, the _Allgemeine deutsche Lehrerinnen-Verein_, which now has 80 branches and 17,000 members. But the pluckiest thing she did was to fight Prussian officialdom and win. In 1889 she opened _Real-Kurse fuer Maedchen und Frauen_, classes where women could work at subjects not taught in girls' schools, Latin for instance, and advanced mathematics; for the State in Germany has always decided how much as well as how little women may learn. It would not allow people as ignorant as Squeers to keep a school because it offered an easy livelihood. It organised women's education carefully and thoroughly in the admirable German way; but it laid down the law from A to Z, which is also the German way. When, therefore, Helene Lange opened her classes for women, the officials came to her and said that she was doing an illegal thing. She replied that her students were not schoolgirls under the German school laws, but grown-up women free to learn what they needed and desired. The officials said that an old law of 1837 would empower them to close the classes by force if Helene Lange did not do so of her own accord. After some reflection and in some anxiety she decided to go on with them. By this time public opinion was on her side and came to her assistance; for public opinion does count in Germany even with the officials. The classes went on, and were changed in 1893 to _Gymnasialkurse_. In 1896 the first German women passed the Abiturienten examination, the difficult examination young men of eighteen pass at the end of a nine years' course in one of the classical schools. Even to-day you may hear German men argue that women should not be admitted to universities because they have had no classical training. Helene Lange was the first to prove that even without early training women can prepare themselves for an academic career. Her experiment led to the establishment of _Gymnasialkurse_ in many German cities; and even to the admission of girls in some few cases to boys' Gymnasium schools.

To-day Helene Lange and her associates are contending with the schoolmasters, who desire to keep the management of girls' schools in their own hands. She calls the _Hoehere Toechterschule_ the failure of German school organisation, and she says that the difference of view taken by men and women teachers as to the proper work of girls' schools makes it most difficult to come to an understanding. Consciously or not, men form an ideal of what they want and expect of women, and try to educate them up to it; while women think of the claims life may make on a girl, and desire the full development of her powers. "The Higher Daughter," she says, "must vanish, and her place must be taken by the girl who has been thoroughly prepared for life, who can stand on her own feet if circumstances require it, or who brings with her as housewife the foundations of further self-development, instead of the pretentiousness of the half educated." In one of her many articles on the subject of school reform she points to three directions where reform is needed. What she says about the teaching of history is so characteristic of her views and of the modern movement in Germany, that I think the whole passage is worth translation:--

"All those subjects that help to make a woman a better citizen must be taken more seriously," she says. "It can no longer be the proper aim of history teaching to foster and strengthen in women a sentimental attachment to her country and its national character: its aim must be to give her the insight that will enable her to understand the forces at work, and ultimately play an active part in them. Many branches of our social life await the work of women, civic philanthropy to begin with; and as our public life becomes more and more constitutional, it demands from the individual both a ripe insight into the good of the community and a living sense of duty in regard to its destiny; and, on the other hand, the foundations of this insight and sense of duty must be in our times more and more laid by the mother, since the father is often entirely prevented by his work from sharing in the education of his children. Therefore, both on her own account and in consideration of the task before her, a woman just as much as a man should understand and take a practical interest in public life, and it is the business of the school to see that she does so. Over and over again those who are trying to reform girls' schools insist that history teaching should lead the student to understand the present time; that it should recognise those economic conditions on which the history of the world, especially in our day, depends in so great a measure; that it should pay attention not only to dates and events, but also to the living process of civilisation, since it is only from the latter inquiry that we can arrive at the principles of individual effort in forwarding social life."

Nowadays in Germany Helene Lange is considered one of the "Moderates," but it will be seen from the above quotation that she has travelled far from the old ideals which invested women with many beautiful qualities, but not with the sense and knowledge required of useful public citizens. She proceeds in the same article to say that scientific and mathematical teaching should reach a higher standard in girls' schools; and thirdly, that certain branches of psychology, physiology, and hygiene should receive greater attention, because a woman is a better wife and mother when she fulfils her duties with understanding instead of by mere instinct. Nor will education on this higher plane deprive women of any valuable feminine virtues if it is carried out in the right way. But to this end women must direct it, and in great measure take it into their own hands. She would not shut men out of girls' schools, but she would place women in supreme authority there, and give them the lion's share of the work.

It seems to the English onlooker that this contest can only end in one way, and that if the women of Germany mean to have the control of girls' schools they are bound to get it. Some of the evils of the present system lie on the surface. "It is a fact," said a schoolmaster, speaking lately at a conference,--"it is a fact that a more intimate, spiritual, and personal relationship is developed between a schoolgirl and her master than between a schoolgirl and her mistress." This remark, evidently made in good faith, was received with hilarity by a large mixed audience of teachers; and when one reflects on the unbridled sentiment of some "higher daughters" one sees where it must inevitably find food under the present anomalous state of things. But the schoolmaster's argument is the argument brought forward by many men against the reforms desired by Helene Lange and her party. They insist that girls would deteriorate if they were withdrawn throughout their youth from masculine scholarship and masculine authority in school. They talk of the emasculation of the staff as a future danger. They do not seem to talk of their natural reluctance to cede important posts to women, but this must, of course, strengthen their pugnacity and in some cases colour their views.

Meanwhile many parents prefer to send their daughters to one of the private schools that have a woman at the head, and where most of the teaching is done by women; or to a _Stift_, a residential school of the conventual type, which may be either Protestant or Catholic. A girl who had spent some years at a well-known Protestant _Stift_ described her school life to me as minutely as possible, and it sounded so like the life in a good English boarding-school thirty years ago that it is difficult to pick out points of differences. That only means, of course, that the differences were subtle and not apparent in rules and time-tables. The girls wore a school uniform, were well fed and taught, strictly looked after, taken out for walks and excursions, allowed a private correspondence, shown how to mend their clothes, made to keep their rooms tidy, encouraged in piety and decorum. In these strenuous times it sounds a little old-fashioned, and as a matter of fact a school of this kind fits a girl for a sheltered home but not for the open road. For everyone concerned about the education of women the interesting spectacle in Germany to-day is the campaign being carried on by Helene Lange and her party, the support they receive from the official as well as from the unofficial world, and the progress they make year by year to gain their ends.