MODERNISING EDUCATION.

Press, Volume L, Issue 15037, 4 August 1914, Page 3

MODERNISING EDUCATION.

IN GERMANY'S GREAT CITIES

(niOli A COHRBSrONTIENT.)

BERLIN. June ■ 23.

Germany is modernising her education. A great movement 'is on foot to democratise universities: to increaso specialisation ;'and to bring into the curricula the live, pulsating problems of our new civilisation which universities have hitherto ignored. Beside this goes a movement for the scientific teaching of trades and occupations which have hitherto been learned by rule of thumb. The municipal iuen. who aro the most active, most creative of the Empire's social workers, are determined to get a grip on university life, and to undermine _the authority of tho academic dry-a&-dusfc scholars. Tho movement is spontaneous, independent of Legislatures, and of Education Ministers. In most States, particularly in Prussia and Saxony, .officialdom- distrusts change; and Prussia's present Minister of Cults, Herr yon Trott zu Solz, is actively fighting the reformers., But the reformers are making way, and the old universities, being threatened with competition, are yielding reluctantly to tho inevitable.

Thomost notable featuro of tho movement is tho ambition or municipalities tostart up-to-dato universities which will ho under their own control and cat bo run on modern and ultra-spec-ialist lines. In law the municipalities have notning to do with higher education, whicn is a State affair;' but under n'unicipal constitution towns are practically freo to follow their own'social impulses, and already many - special h'gn schools aro under municipal control. Tho municipal ambition is to enlarge tho programmes of these special schools, .inJ to gel tbem recognised as About a.dozen plans aro under discussion. The. loading towns are Hamburg, Frankfort-on-Main, Cologne, Dresden, and Posen. Other universities ~are planned by small towns, among them Altdorf, Wirtenberg, and Helmstadt. These had their own universities in the past, and want them revived. Thoro i.s a strong movemeut for tho removal of universities from tne groat cities to. small cities, and even to the country. But tha first motive oi the municipalities is tho belief that they cart orgjuuso a betTor and more modern txnication thai. *s given by the present ut ivcrsitiiis, the.ihief service of which, as expressed by Hamburg's Mayor, is that "they produce t-very year tivo ihi.usand loclorial theses."

Municipal university programmes aro all up-to-date. They reject the faculty of theology without which no existing German . university is ■ complete; and they have .liberal plans for teaching social and political .science, 'art-history and art criticism, journalism, commerce, municipal administration, and other things which the old universities try to exclude. The municipalities also want greater specialisation. They are not content with tlii; increasing specialisation and , differentiation of rcienco itself, and with the appointment-, of special protessors for* evety newly recognised department of science. They want the universities themselves to bo differentiated. There should be universities in which classics predominate, universities predominant in natural science, universities with a primarily and political scientific character. Each university would have a specially good library and collections bearing on its special subject. Formerly Prussia's Education Ministry was friendly to this movement, and set about giving to Gottingen a predominantly scientific character. Of late the tendency has changed. The present Education Minister holds that if university programmes be exaggefaied in one direction the universities will decay to the level of special high schools. The towns think otherwise. Their aim Ls to build up universities around already existing high schools or academies, with the intent that each new university shall take its predominant character from its nucleus. Frankforb-on-Main's .iew university, which will ue opened this autumn, has this character. It is built round tho existing academy for social ana commercial science.* Frankfori-on Main has spent £600.000 in enlarging this institution. Tho new university will be predominantly sociological. Hamburg's new university, the creation of which has been temporarily by an adverse vote ia tho- "Burgerschaft, 1 ' is to bo pre-

dominantly colonial. Its nucleus is tho local Colonial Institute, which waa | started six years ago. Dresden has got ready £900,000 -and valuable land. Bites for a now university, the nucleus ot which aro to bo the existing Technical and Veterinary High Schools. Dresden aims at laying out an entire university quarter on the outskirts of the ( city, which quarter will rpahso the ideal tii.iversitv town of. tho future.. lno plan is being retarded by the jealousy o»" Leipzig, Saxony's only other univcr sity town, and by the hostility of the Education Ministry. This hostility springs from the fear that municipal universities will be independent of tho Government, and may become centres of democratic, oven + ot sorialist. propaganda. Only attei Kaiser Wiihelm personally intervened did Frankfort's municipal university get Government sanction. The parties m power particularly resent the exclusion of the theological faculties, and Kaiser Wilbolm's friend, the theologian i'roiossor Adolf Harnack, is vehemently op-, posing cnis new ultra-modern trend. j Civic reformers are m particular zealous for municipal universities, oe~ cause they object to the complete ignoring by existing universities of municipaT science and practice. Prussia's two gieatest universities, Berlin and Bonn, givo no municipal instruction at all. Just now mumcipalism is jumping ahead rapidly. Its sphere is being enlarged by widespread municipal trading, and its reputation as work for , am-' bitious men has risen owing to tho revulsion among the abler, more active Germans against high politics. The city of Cologno has now opened what is practically a University of Municipalism, the first of its kind in Europe. This is the High Schpol for Communal and Social Administration, which gives a special municipal education to civic officials and candidates. The aim is to rescue municipal government from academically trained doctors of law, who at present, monopoliso the higher branches of tho service, much to the service's loss. Tho programme includes social politics, housing and land questions, the labour problem, municipal law, municipal taxation and finance, ehool law and practice, building public charity, statistics, care of children, and all other things which come withm a municipal official's sphere of work. Tl™ ourso of study comprises at least one winter and ono summer term. Students aro mostly young men who have completed tho usual juristic training at tne oiSary university; but have reali ed that this training is insufficient 01 the of political and socia administration Also among tho students ji re many officials who are trying to make up" for tho lack of past training. Germany's ablest burgerraetsters aro among tho lecturers. rrom the first tho students are put to practical work, and are rehired to collaborate in the municipal administration of the city. When their courso of education is hushed they know more about the science and practice of municipal administration than do many senior officials. \fanv of the more active reformers t rontent with this specialisation education. They declare that the oro-rammes of the special and techSoal h?* schools aro not _umejently comnrSensive. These high schools are pS,, greatest educational achievement* In *__f?SIS ] Cl 2800 students. and "guest auditors "both of whom have only partial Sent qualifications, there are noarl> v*ana This means that the State Ms done enough for technical education £ the narrow sense. The mpdeSSseS want the sphere of special high X3T enlarged beyond tho mere y {■Smcal They hold that there should bepreparatory high schools for practically every - occupation that exists. The definition as expressed by the South .German Education Congress »: The State must aim at the Uimmu-

tion of economical wasto b-fc' ensuring that all occupations, however moan, shall 'bo -..practised by men who havo been trained to do their work scientifically." As the State shows no sign of doing this, the municipalities are setting to work. Berlin got a start with ten special "Facbschulo,'" attendance at which is compulsory on yoa ig n?en and women after they have left tho elementary public schools. Most of • tho ' special subjects taught aro recognised trade« which are Bubject to fixed laws Since then Berlin has branched out into the teaching of all sorts of looso and unorganised occupations. The municipality has just opened a college for saleswomen in shops; and hero for most classes of girls employed in or apprenticed to Berlin sh_?s attendance is compulsory. Already there are 1500 students. These aro taught how to attend on customers; how to keep goods in order; how to dross windows: tho technical characteristics of products; and even tho insidious art of blarneying the public into buying what it does not want. In other German towns nre rino such saleswomen's colleges. The Berlin school with its forty-nino classes is the biggest.