Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T05:32:45.353Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Realgymnasium Question

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2021

A. Marshall Elliott*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Romance Languages in the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Extract

The present struggle for university reform in Germany to give to the Realgymnasia the same rights and privileges as are held by the Gymnasium proper, bears so much resemblance to the reform which is taking place in this country and which this Association has at heart to promote, as a part at least of its mission, that I have thought a glance at the question would not be entirely without interest at this stage of our development. The leading features of the discussion in Germany and in the United States are as nearly identical as the differences of the school and university systems in the two countries could admit. The primal cause at the bottom of the controversy in both places is the same, that is, monopoly; the principles fought for have been the same, namely, equality of rights: Lehrfreiheit, Lernfreiheit and Studienfreiheit; the pivotal point about which the whole movement has taken place and is taking place is the selfsame in both, that is, the cutting out of the existing system some disciplina in order to give room, in accordance with the demands of modem culture, for another or for other disciplinae which are held to bear a more direct relation to our present life.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1885

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Note ∗ page 235 According to the plan of studies for the Higher Schools of Prussia, as promulgated on 31st March of this year, seven varieties of these institutions are recognised; viz, three with a nine-year course, each: Gymnasium, Realgymnasium and Oberrealschule; three with a seven-year course, each: Progymnasium, Realprogymnasium and the Realschule, corresponding to the nine-year course minus the prima; one with a six-year course; the hëhere Bürgerschule.

Note ∗ page 236 Originally the Realgymnasium could give the right to attend only the Technischen Hochschulen, the Forst—and Bergakademie and to enter the 'Postoffice and Revenue departments.