Theories of History and of Education in Germany and France During the 19th Century

Abstract

I normally resist separating intellectual history from the social and institutional history of intellectual life.¹ For this brief presentation, however, I must reduce my comments on social and intellectual history to one broad thesis: Just as the industrial revolution took place at different times and rates in the major European countries — with significant historical consequences, so too there was something like an educational revolution with a time scale of its own. Unlike the industrial revolution, the educational revolution took place much earlier in the German states than it did in England and certainly in France, and this too had notable consequences. Moreover, the radical transformation of secondary and higher education in the German states during the decades around 1800, much like the English industrial revolution, set patterns that subsequently recurred, with certain variations, in other European countries, including in France from the 1870s on. One important element in this educational revolution was the emergence of the so-called research imperative, the institutionalized expectation that university faculty must do original research, while also introducing their students to an increasingly codified set of research practices. The other crucial component in the educational revolution was the establishment of research-based professional qualifications for future secondary teachers, as well as for civil servants and clergymen, and the ultimate extension of educational prerequisites and entitlements to a whole range of other learned professions.