Part 1 (1/2)

The Condition and Tendencies of Technical Education in Germany.

by Arthur Henry Chamberlain.

INTRODUCTION

The question of the technical phases of education is, with any nation, a vital one. Perhaps this is true of Germany as it is of no other European country. This may be mainly due to one of several causes. First, as to the length of time technical education has had a place in the German schools. In some form or another, and in a greater or lesser degree, such instruction has been in vogue for many years, and has in no small measure become part and parcel of the educational fabric of the nation.

Again, throughout the various German States, the work is rather widely differentiated, this owing in part to the fact that the varying lines of industry in adjacent localities even, give color and bent to the technical education of any particular locality. An extensive field is thus comprehended under the term ”technical education”. Then, too, Germany as a nation must needs better her condition in order that she may prove self-sustaining. The country is not a wealthy one, and if in trade, in manufacture, and in commerce, she is to compete, and that successfully, with the world powers, strength must be gained along such lines as those opening through technical education.

The hope is entertained that the following pages may prove of value, not alone to the student of technical education as it exists in Germany, but particularly to those who are endeavoring to inst.i.tute and develop industrial and technical training in this country. The possibility along these lines is exceedingly great and the interest and attention of thinking people is focused here. They look to this form of education as a partial solution of some of the most obstinate problems now confronting us.

I

If one were to point out the most distinctive feature of the educational system in the Fatherland to-day, it would perhaps be the highly specialized condition of the technical schools.

In approaching our problem we naturally ask ourselves the question as to how far the industrial progress of a country is influenced by technical education. In no time as in our own has so much stress been laid upon the commercial side of our existence. New trades, new industries are springing up; specialization is becoming more far-reaching and more firmly established than ever before; compet.i.tion is becoming keener; the application of science to the arts is more varied.

In this latter field we find Germany in the very fore front, she having developed along these lines to a greater extent than have many of our nations. Ill.u.s.trations of this application lie all about us,--in the bettered transportation facilities by railroad and by ocean vessel; in the more improved bridge and building construction; in the methods of water supply and drainage; in modes of heat, light, and ventilation; in electric vehicles, sound transmitters, labor-saving machinery; in finely adjusted instruments that bring far away worlds almost within reaching distance; in these and a thousand other ways is made manifest the result of the application of science to the arts. Germany is taking a prominent part in this warfare for industrial supremacy, and that she expects her technical schools to be largely instrumental in answering many of the problems of the present and the future cannot be doubted, especially when one is made aware of the diversity and extent of the schools of a technical character scattered over the Empire.

It will be readily understood from the foregoing how difficult a matter it is to make any one cla.s.sification that will cover in an adequate manner the various types of existing inst.i.tutions. Frequently a school is found which in some respects is distinctive. To place such a school in this or that category would of course do violence to the cla.s.sification, while to form a new cla.s.s only serves to further complicate and bewilder. Again, various of the inst.i.tutions mentioned may offer such a differentiated schedule or be made up of so many parallel departments as to ent.i.tle them to admission into two or more of the cla.s.ses given.

Another point of difficulty lies in the fact that the term ”technical”

would in Germany be somewhat more sweeping than with us in America. We do not cla.s.s technical training with so-called manual training or handwork of the elementary schools. In our present study however, we shall find that while in the main we are dealing with the technical training of boys from fourteen to eighteen years of age,--comparable in a measure to our high or secondary school courses, we shall also include the industrial, vocational, or trade training of men and boys alike, as well as work in the more simplified forms of handicraft, as carried on in the lower or elementary school. Reference will also be made to the instruction of a higher order,--such for example as makes for engineers.

These facts will be illuminated as the study proceeds.

In reading into these schools their real significance, several points must be kept constantly in mind. At an early age the German youth is supposed to have solved the problem of his likes and dislikes, his abilities and shortcomings; to have gained such a perspective of his probable chances for future success, as to choose the line of work or occupation he shall follow. It is only fair to state, however, that circ.u.mstances have much to do with such decision, viz,--the occupation of the father, the financial outlook of the family, the industrial demands of the locality, the particular educational opportunities offered,--these and like problems entering in as vital elements.

Then too, the founding and sustaining of a technical school is a matter to be noted. This may be in the hands of the general government, of the state, of the munic.i.p.ality, or may be looked after by private enterprise. The Guilds, Vereins or a.s.sociations may organize, equip and foster schools of such character as train directly for their particular lines of work. It must be stated however in this connection, that there seems to be a strong tendency at the present time toward the centralizing of control in the states. This has been brought about in large measure through the ever-increasing willingness on the part of the state to give financial backing to the schools, and thus has quite naturally arisen the desire and necessity on the part of the state, that it have a controlling voice in the school administration. Herein lies one of the main differences between such education in Germany and that of our own country.

Conrad's Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, 1900, in an article ent.i.tled ”Gewerblicher Unterricht”, gives the following table on state expenditure for trade and technical instruction in recent years:

Prussia:

Marks 142,000 ($33,796) in 1874; Marks 475,000 ($114,050) in 1885; Marks 4,672,000 ($1,111,936) in 1899.

Saxony:

Marks 235,000 ($60,214) in 1873; Marks 570,000 ($135,660) in 1885; Marks 1,138,000 ($270,844) in 1898.

Wurttemburg industrial continuation school:

Marks, 58,000 ($13,804) in 1869; Marks 129,000 ($30,702) in 1879; Marks 164,000 ($39,032) in 1889; Marks 208,000 ($49,504) in 1897.

The cost of the state per capita of the population of the expenditures was as follows:

Prussia, Pfennigs 15 (3 cts.) in 1899; Saxony, Pfennigs 29 (7 cts.) in 1898; Hesse, Pfennigs 22 (5 cts.) in 1898.