1 Riehl, Wilhelm Heinrich Die bürgerliche Gesellschaft, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta'scher Verlag, 1854), 106.Google Scholar

2 Regierungsentschließung dated February 27, 1829 quoted from Otto Barthel, Wolfgang Konrad Schultheiss (Nuremberg: Stadtbibliothek, 1970), 151.Google Scholar

3 Karl, A. Schleunes notes that in 1851 King Maximillian II of Bavaria read Riehl's account of the Revolution and was so impressed that he invited Riehl to Munich where he became one of the Bavarian monarch's advisors. Karl A. Schleunes, Schooling and Society: The Politics of Education in Prussia and Bavaria, 1750–1900 (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1989), 147.Google Scholar

4 To cite just one example, in 1911 the Freie Bayerische Schulzeitung, a publication representing the views of “progressive” schoolteachers, published several teachers’ petitions from 1848, in an attempt to fashion a narrative linking the efforts of the teachers in the Revolution to the struggles of Bavarian teachers in the new century.Google Scholar

5 Nipperdey, Thomas “Mass Education and Modernization: The Case of Germany 1780–1850,“ Royal Historical Society Transactions, 5th series, 27 (1977): 168–69.Google Scholar

6 Nipperdey, “Mass Education,“ 170. The same argument is made in Nipperdey's “Volksschule und Revolution im Vormärz. Eine Fallstudie zur Modernisierung II” in his collection of essays Gesellschaft, Kultur, Theorie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976), 206–227. In the first volume of his history of nineteenth-century Germany Nipperdey also describes the elementary schoolteachers as “elements of unrest and opposition” and labels them as “representatives of liberal-democratic opposition in general.” Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck 1800–1866 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1996), 413–14.Google Scholar

7 Collective of authors, Geschichte der Erziehung (Berlin: Volk und Wissen, 1969), 297.Google Scholar

8 Busshoff, Heinrich “Die prueßische Volksschule als sozialer Gebilde und politischer Bildungsfaktor in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,“ Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 22 (1971): 396, quoted from Schleunes, Schooling and Society, 130. For a similar orthodox Marxist analysis which stresses the revolutionary participation of the teachers in 1848 see Helmut König, “Die Lehrer an der Seite der Volksmassen in den Kämpfen der bürgerlichdemokratischen Revolution 1848/49,” Jahrbuch für Erziehungs- und Schulgeschichte 20 (1980): 55–74.Google Scholar

9 Tenorth, Heinz-Elmar “Lehrerberuf und Lehrerbildung,“ in Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte. 1800–1870. Von der Neuordnung Deutschlands bis zur Gründung des Deutschen Reiches, ed. Jeismann, Karl-Ernst and Lundgreen, Peter (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1987), 262.Google Scholar

10 Ibid., 262.Google Scholar

11 Sperber, Jonathan Rhineland Radicals. The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848–1849 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 86.Google Scholar

12 Skopp, Douglas R. “Auf der untersten Sprosse: Der Volksschullehrer als ‘Semi-Professional’ im Deutschland des 19. Jahrhunderts,“ Geschichte und Gesellschaft 6 (1980): 400.Google Scholar

13 Skopp, “Auf der untersten Sprosse,“ 400.Google Scholar

14 Skopp, Douglas “The Elementary School Teachers in ‘Revolt': Reform Proposals for Germany's Volksschulen in 1848 and 1849“ History of Education Quarterly 22 (Fall 1982: 356.Google Scholar

15 LaVopa, Anthony J. “Status and Ideology: Rural Schoolteachers in Pre-March and Revolutionary Prussia,“ Journal of Social History 12: 3 (Spring 1979), 431.Google Scholar

16 Baumgart, Franzjörg “Lehrer und Lehrervereine während der Revolution von 1848/49,“ in Mentalitäten und Lebensverhältnisse. Beispiele aus der Sozialgeschichte der Neuzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 173–88, quotation from 184.Google Scholar

17 Thien, Hans-Günter Schule, Staat und Lehrerschaft. Zur historischen Genese bürgerlicher Erziehung in Deutschland und England (1790–1918) (Frankfurt/New York: Campus, 1984), 187.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., 196. For the Saxony case see H. J. Rupieper, “Die Sozialstruktur der Trägerschichten der Revolution von 1848/49 am Beispiel Sachsen” in Probleme der Modernisierung in Deutschland, ed. by Helmut Kaelble et al. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1978), 80–109.Google Scholar

19 Thien, Schule, Staat und Lehrerschaft, 166–205, especially 200–01. Thien's argument, it must be noted, does not simply rely on empirical evidence of teacher participation but also rests on his evaluation of the teachers as a non-revolutionary social group which did not identify with the common people but rather found itself uncomfortably situated in an intermediate position between Volk and state.Google Scholar

20 Bölling, Rainer Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Lehrer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), 83.Google Scholar

21 Kuhlemann, Frank-Michael in his outstanding general history of the Prussian elementary school system, does not enter into the debate about the degree of teacher participation but instead chooses to focus on the aftermath of the Revolution, arguing that while the reactionary policies of the 1850s temporarily halted the social mobilization of the teachers, the liberal tenets of the emancipation movement survived and continued to influence a significant portion of the elementary teaching corps throughout the second half of the century. See his Modernisierung und Disziplinierung. Sozialgeschichte des preußischen Volksschulwesens 1794–1872 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 321–27.Google Scholar

22 Blessing, Wérner K. Staat und Kirche in der Gesellschaft. Institutionelle Autorität und mentaler Wandel in Bayern während des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 122.Google Scholar

23 Blessing, Staat und Kirche, 123.Google Scholar

24 Schleunes, Schooling and Society, 131.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., 131.Google Scholar

26 Wehler, Hans Ulrich Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, vol. 2 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1987), 735.Google Scholar

27 On the history of Bavarian elementary education in the first half of the nineteenth century see J. Neukum, Schule und Politik. Politische Geschichte der bayerischen Volksschule 1818–1848 (Munich: Ehrenwirth, 1969); Blessing, Staat und Kirche, chs. 2–4; Max Liedtke, “Gesamtdarstellung,” in Handbuch der Geschichte des Bayerischen Bildungswesens, vol. 2, Geschichte der Schule in Bayern von 1800 bis 1918, ed. Max Liedtke (Bad Heilbrunn: Julius Klinkhardt, 1993), 11–133; Schleunes, Schooling and Society, chs. 3–5; and Steven R. Welch, Subjects or Citizens? Elementary School Policy and Practice in Bavaria 1800–1918 (Melbourne: Department of History, University of Melbourne, 1998), chs. 1–3.Google Scholar

28 Kabinettschreiben from Ludwig I dated August 3, 1833, quoted from Michael Doeberl, Entwicklungsgeschichte Bayerns (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1931), vol. III, 120–121.Google Scholar

29 Verordnung vom 31.1.1836, die Bildung der Schullehrer im Königreiche Bayern betreffend (Munich: n.p., 1836), 38.Google Scholar

30 Prior to 1846 schoolteachers had traditionally been granted residence or settlement rights in the communities in which they taught. In 1846, however, an ordinance was issued which stipulated that in the event of a transfer to a new community the teacher would now be required to apply for residence rights and faced the distinct possibility that his application would be rejected by a community reluctant to burden itself with future poor relief obligations for the teacher and his often large family. The 1846 ordinance was regarded by many schoolteachers as proof of the anti-teacher bias of the regime and triggered a flood of petitions to the Bavarian Diet calling for repeal of the discriminatory measure. See Johannes Guthmann, Ein Jahrhundert Standes- und Vereinsgeschichte. Der Bayerische Lehrer- und Lehrerinnenverein. Seine Geschichte (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1961), 71. On marriage restrictions see Klaus-Jürgen Matz, Pauperismus und Bevölkerung. Die gesetzlichen Ehebeschränkung in den süddeutschen Staaten während des 19. Jahrhunderts(Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981).Google Scholar

31 See Christian Weinlein, Der Bayerische Volksschullehrer-Verein. Die Geschichte seiner ersten 50 Jahre 1861–1911 (Nuremberg: Friedrich Korn, 1911), 1–2.Google Scholar

32 Strohmeyer, Bitten u. Wünsche mit Vorrede und Schlußseufzer eines fränkischen Schullehrers (n.p. 1848), 18.Google Scholar

33 Nipperdey, “Mass Education,“ 171.Google Scholar

34 Blessing, Staat und Kirche, 72; see also Blessing's article “Allgemeine Volksbildung und Indoktrination im bayerischen Vormärz. Das Leitbild des Volksschullehrers als mentales Herrschaftsinstrument,” Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 37 (1974), 565, where he asserts there was “considerable revolutionary potential present” among elementary schoolteachers, particularly those in the newer Bavarian regions.Google Scholar

35 Sperber, Rhineland Radicals, 44. On the persistance of separatist tendencies in Franconia and their expression in 1849 see Christoph Klessmann, “Zur Sozialgeschichte der Reichsverfassungskampagne von 1849” Historische Zeitschrift 218 (1974): 313.Google Scholar

36 Sperber, Rhineland Radicals, 288.Google Scholar

37 Verwaltungsbericht from the Rhine Palatinate 1830/33, in Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv (hereafter BHStA), MInn 15370. On the Rhine Palatinate teachers see Werner Weidmann, “Schulbildung und Lehrerstand in der Pfalz um die Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts und die 1848/49er Revolution,” Jahrbuch zur Geschichte von Stadt und Landkreis Kaiserslautern 22/23 (1984/85), 269–98.Google Scholar

38 For the most recent overview of the Revolution in Bavaria see Hermann Reiter, Die Revolution 1848/49 in Bayern (Bonn: Pahl-Rugenstein, 1998).Google Scholar

39 Petition to the Chamber of Deputies dated March 26, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

40 Skopp, “The Elementary School Teachers in ‘Revolt',“ 341.Google Scholar

41 In 1848 and 1849 a total of sixty petitions were submitted to the Diet by Bavarian teachers. See Gernot Kirzl, Staat und Kirche im Bayerischen Landtag zur Zeit Max II. (1848–1864) (Munich: Stadtarchiv, 1974), 32 and 122.Google Scholar

42 Guthmann, Vereinsgeschichte, 55n.Google Scholar

43 Quoted from Ludwig, J. L. Ein Lehrerleben. Selbstbiographie (Augsburg: Bayerischer Lehrerverein, 1876), 57.Google Scholar

44 Blessing, “Volksbildung,“ 565.Google Scholar

45 Guthmann, Vereinsgeschichte, 53–57. For a detailed record of the teacher meeting in Munich in December 1848 attended by 200 teachers see Verhandlungen u. Beschlusse der am 27. 28. u. 29 Dzmbr. 1848 stattgehabten Lehrer-Versammlung in München (Munich: n.p., 1848).Google Scholar

46 Woerlein, J. W. Aufruf an alle Schulgemeinden und Volksschullehrer Deutschlands zu Petitionen an die Stände des Reichs um Verbesserung der mangelhaften Zustände der deutschen Volksbildung. Mit steter Hinsicht auf Bayern (Fürth, 1848), 15.Google Scholar

47 Petition dated March 20, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

48 Woerlein, Aufruf, 12. Further sharp criticism of pre-1848 school policy in Bavaria can be found in Adolph Gutbier, Andeutungen über die Schulreform in Baiern (Munich: n.p., 1849), 17.Google Scholar

49 Verhandlungen der Kammer der Abgeordneten, Protokollband (hereafter Vh/KdA PB) vol. 11, 254.Google Scholar

50 Petition dated November 11, 1849, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

51 Ibid.Google Scholar

52 On this point see the petition from teachers in Lower Bavaria, dated April 20, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

53 Petition from teachers in Lower Bavaria, dated April 20, 1848, and petition from assistant teachers in Upper Franconia, dated June 8, 1848, both in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

54 Petition from teachers in Nuremberg and Fürth, dated March 20, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994; and Strohmeyer, Bitten, 10–11.Google Scholar

55 Petition from teachers in Lower Bavaria, dated September 20, 1849, in BHStA, MK 22994; and Heinrich Zagler, Einiges über die misslichen Zustände der bayerischen Volksschulen, nebst Winken und Angaben zur Verbesserung derselben (Munich: n.p., 1849), 25.Google Scholar

56 Zagler, Zustände, 46–47; and Strohmeyer, Bitten, 19f.Google Scholar

57 Zagler, Zustände, 25–26.Google Scholar

58 Woerlein, Aufruf, 10.Google Scholar

59 See, for an extreme example, Zagler, Zustände, 30–37.Google Scholar

60 Quotation from a petition from teachers in Wassertrüdingen, dated March 25, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994; Kirzl, Staat und Kirche, 37.Google Scholar

61 Petition dated March 20, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

62 Strohmeyer, Bitten, 19. At least two seminaries, Altdorf and Schwabach, experienced disturbances during 1848, as the seminarians took up some of the causes espoused by their elder colleagues. See Martin Dömling, 100 Jahre Lehrerbildungsanstalt Eichstätt 1835–1935 (Nuremberg: n.p., 1935), 32, and Johann Günther Muhri, “Das Kgl. Schullehrer-Seminar zu Altdorf im Spannungsfeld der bildungspolitischen Forderungen von 1848/49” in Schulgeschichte im Zusammenhang der Kulturentwicklung ed. Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck and Max Liedtke (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt, 1983), 184–212.Google Scholar

63 Gutbier, Andeutungen, 65.Google Scholar

64 Woerlein, Aufruf, 7; and petition dated September 20, 1849, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

65 Woerlein, Aufruf, 7.Google Scholar

66 Petition dated April 20, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

67 Woerlein, See Aufruf, 6–7, and Zagler, Zustände, 8.Google Scholar

68 Woerlein, Aufruf, 4.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., 4, and Strohmeyer, Bitten, 19f.Google Scholar

70 Petitions dated April 20, 1848 and March 25, 1848, both in BHStA, MK 22994, and Strohmeyer, Bitten, 19f.Google Scholar

71 Kay, Joseph The Social Condition and Education of the People in England and Europe (London: Longman Brown Green and Longmans, 1850), 297.Google Scholar

72 Petition dated March 25, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

73 See Ernst Maier, Karl “Schulpolitische Auswirkungen der Reaktion vor und nach 1848 in Bayern,“ in Regionale Schulentwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert ed. Kriss-Rettenbeck, Lenz and Liedtke, Max (Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt, 1984), 125.Google Scholar

74 Woerlein, Aufruf, 6–7.Google Scholar

75 Sperber, Rhineland Radicals, 201–04, especially Tables 5.4 and 5.6. Sperber specifically mentions two activist Palatinate schoolteachers, Orscheid in Hengstbach, 240, and Edinger, “Commander of the People's Guard of Heuchelheim,” 444.Google Scholar

76 Sperber, Rhineland Radicals, 288. In his account of the 1848 Revolution in the Bavarian countryside, Reiter makes no mention at all of the teachers—but his account excludes any consideration of the Rhineland Palatinate. Reiter, Revolution, 62–7.Google Scholar

77 Blessing, Staaat und Kirche, 122.Google Scholar

78 Ibid., 122.Google Scholar

79 Confidential circular from the provincial government of Upper Franconia dated December 28, 1848, in Staatsarchiv Bamberg, K3 DII 97.Google Scholar

80 To cite just one example, a letter to the provincial government of Lower Bavaria July 7, 1849, from an official in Landshut noted that some teachers had supported the subversive forces and served as “eager, and because of their influence on the peasantry, especially dangerous propagators” of revolutionary ideas, in Staatsarchiv Landshut, Fasz. 654, Nr. 3418.Google Scholar

81 Ausschreiben from Max II to Cultural Minister von Ringelmann dated February 14, 1852 in Geheimes Hausarchiv Munich (hereafter GHA), Kabinettsakten Max II, Nr. 79/5/232.Google Scholar

82 Report from Ringelmann to Max II dated June 20, 1852 in GHA, Kabinettsakten Max II, Nr. 79/5/232.Google Scholar

83 The provincial reports and a comprehensive catalogue for all the Bavarian provinces can be found in BHStA, MA 99796 I-II. The figures I cite are based on the individual provincial reports in MA 99796 I.Google Scholar

84 Catalogue dated October 31, 1851 in Staatsarchiv Amberg, Stadtamhof 610.Google Scholar

85 As is the case with any lists drawn up by state authorities, questions about the reliability of the data arise. Provincial officials did not assemble their lists on the basis of uniform criteria. A few of the teachers on the lists apparently did nothing more “revolutionary” than sign one of the numerous petitions directed at the Diet. On the other hand, officials in the province of Lower Franconia candidly admitted that the list they submitted was far from complete. Weidmann notes that the official figures compiled by authorities in the Rhine Palatinate appear to be “deliberately understated” and exclude the names of teachers who voluntarily left their positions or emigrated once they recognized that the Revolution had failed. See Weidmann, “Schulbildung und Lehrerstand,” 291. The zero figure reported from the province of Upper Franconia is particularly suspect, especially in light of the circular issued by the provincial government at the end of 1848 which was quoted above and the status of Bamberg as a center of revolutionary agitation. It would appear then that the lists contain some dubious cases and also exclude some which should have been included. The overall number of nearly 400 schoolteachers actively opposed to the monarchy can, in my view, be taken to represent a reasonable estimation of the extent of revolutionary teacher activism. On the lists and their composition see Bernd Zinner, “Zur Revolution 1848/49 in Oberfranken” Archiv für Geschichte von Oberfranken 63 (1983), 97–124.Google Scholar

86 Skopp, See “Elementary School Teachers,“ 347.Google Scholar

87 The lists do not supply information on the religious membership of the revolutionary teachers, making a detailed comparison of participation in terms of this variable impossible.Google Scholar

88 Petition dated September 1, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

89 Ibid. On conservative teachers in 1848 see Guthmann, Vereinsgeschichte, 57, and Hermann Keßler, “Aus der Geschichte der schwäbischen Lehrerschaft. Die Bewegungen unter d. Lehrerschaft d. Rieses u. Schwabens im Herbst und Winter 1848/49” Der Daniel 1965, 12.Google Scholar

90 Guthmann, Cf. Vereinsgeschichte, 65.Google Scholar

91 Strohmeyer, Bitten, 24.Google Scholar

92 See the note from the Interior Minister dated September 4, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

93 Memo from the Cultural Ministry dated November 5, 1848, in BHStA, MK 22994.Google Scholar

94 Ibid.Google Scholar

95 Quoted from Guthmann, Vereinsgeschichte, 72.Google Scholar

96 Speech by Anton Westermaier on October 18, 1849, in Vh/KdA, PB 1 (1849), 188.Google Scholar

97 A copy of the draft of the 1850 school law can be found in Staatsarchiv Speyer, AS H1, 657.Google Scholar

98 Böhm, See Johann Das bayerische Volksschulwesen. Ein statistisches Hand- und Nachschlagebuch (Nördlingen: n.p., 1874), 157.Google Scholar

99 Schreiben from the provincial government of the Upper Palatinate to the episcopacy, dated April 4, 1851, in Archiv des Erzbistums Bamberg, 258.Google Scholar

100 The instructions from the Cultural Ministry are referred to in a confidential Ausschreiben from the provincial government of Upper Franconia to the officials of the provincial interior and finance administration dated July 23, 1849, in Staatsarchiv Bamberg K3 DII 97. Subsequent quotations in the text are from the same document.Google Scholar

101 Speyer, Staatsarchiv H1, 2016.Google Scholar

102 Letter from the local school inspector to the local school commission, dated April 13, 1848, in Staatsarchiv Nuremberg Reg. Abg. 1968, no. 2362.Google Scholar

103 Ludwig, See Lehrerleben, 57 and 62. Further publication of the Centralblatt itself was prohibited on March 26, 1850.Google Scholar

104 Regierungsentschließung dated October 10, 1849 in Johann Conrad Bauer, Erster Nachtrag zur Sammlung der das deutsche Schulwesen betreffenden allerhöchsten und höchsten Gesetze, Verordnungen und Vollzugsvorschriften im Regierungsbezirke der Oberpfalz und von Regensburg 1844–1852 (Sulzbach: n.p., 1853), 55.Google Scholar

105 This policy was explicitly spelled out by Ringelmann in his report of June 20, 1852, to Max II. GHA, Kabinettsakten Max II, Nr. 79/5/232.Google Scholar

106 For the prohibition order see the Ausschreiben from June 6, 1850, in Staatsarchiv Nuremberg Reg. Abg. 1932 no. 978.Google Scholar

107 Guthmann, See Vereinsgeschichte, 60. Participation at this 1849 meeting was made virtually impossible for most Bavarian teachers due to outright or indirect prohibitions by provincial governments. See Weinlein, Der bayerische Volksschullehrer-Verein, 12–13.Google Scholar

108 Ministerialentschließung dated March 10, 1854 in BHStA, MInn 46082.Google Scholar

109 Memo from the Cultural Ministry to the Interior Ministry dated February 23, 1854, in BHStA, MInn 46082.Google Scholar

110 Printed in Bauer, Erster Nachtrag, 70–71.Google Scholar

111 Regierungsentschließung from August 19, 1852 in ibid., 97.Google Scholar

112 Quotation from a directive issued by the provincial government to its school inspectors dated April 20, 1853, in Staatsarchiv Würzburg RA 5780.Google Scholar

113 Ministerialentschließung dated April 12, 1853 in Staatsarchiv Würzburg RA 5780.Google Scholar

114 Ministerial Auftrag dated February 17, 1852, in Staatsarchiv Nuremberg Reg. Abg. 1968, no. 2362.Google Scholar

115 Regierungsentschließung from November 22, 1851, in Archiv des Erzbistums Munich and Freising Gen. Vorl. 221.Google Scholar

116 Denkschrift der vom 1–20sten October 1850 zu Freysing versammelten Erzbischöfe und Bischöfe Bayerns (Munich: Weiss, 1850).Google Scholar

117 Von Zwehl's reply is reprinted in Volksschulwesen und Kirche in Bayern. Sammlung allgemeiner Actenstücke zur Darstellung des Verhältnisses zwischen Volksschule, Staat und Kirche in den letzten zwanzig Jahre 1848 bis zum Schlüsse des Jahres 1861 (Regensburg: n.p., 1868), 6–7.Google Scholar

118 Volksschulwesen und Kirche in Bayern, 28–31.Google Scholar

119 Handschreiben from Max II to von Zwehl, dated April 23, 1854, in GHA, Kabinettsakten Max II, Nr. 79/5/232. Emphasis in original. Following quotations from the same note.Google Scholar

120 Verordnung vom 15. Mai 1857. Die Bildung der Schullehrer betreffend (Munich: n.p., 1857).Google Scholar

121 Motive zu dem Normative über die Schullehrerbildung v. 15.5.1857 in Volksschulwesen und Kirche, 33.Google Scholar

122 Ibid., 42–43.Google Scholar

123 Ibid., 49.Google Scholar

124 Verordnung vom 15. Mai 1857, 4 and 10.Google Scholar

125 Ibid., 4.Google Scholar

126 Ibid. Google Scholar

127 Motive zu dem Normative, 58–59.Google Scholar

128 Ibid., 30.Google Scholar

129 Ibid., 4.Google Scholar

130 Ibid., 44.Google Scholar

131 Schleunes argues in Schooling and Society that “during the decade following the revolution, Bavaria produced the most significant advances in schooling since the days of Montgelas” (145). In support of this position, he points to the introduction in 1856 of a seventh schoolyear for Catholic children, to the results of tests of army recruits in the 1860s which show a gradual decline in illiteracy for pupils who attended the Volksschule in the 1850s, and to the 1857 ordinance, which is given a much more benign reading than I have given here. As my account of the school policy of the 1850s should indicate, I disagree with Schleunes’ assessment of the nature and impact of school policies of the 1850s. The reports of school administrators and inspectors in the 1850s and well into the 1860s generally present a negative picture of elementary education. The real improvements in the quality of schooling, in my view, began in the 1860s and were linked to the liberal-inspired School Finance Law of 1861, the founding of the Bavarian Teachers’ Association in December 1861, to the new teacher education regulations of 1866 and to the introduction of new provincial curricula (Upper Bavaria, 1862; Upper Palatinate, 1869; Lower Franconia and Rhineland Palatinate, 1870). My own more critical interpretation of the 1850s can be found in chapter three of Subjects or Citizens? Google Scholar