The German system of public education in the period between the 15th and early 20th centuries. Part 2

Abstract

The second paper in the set explores the evolution of the Prussian elementary school system on the cusp of the 18th and 19th centuries. The authors examine the activity of squire Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow with regard to the establishment of rural schools on his lands. The work's materials are grounded in a body of related research and special literature. The study's methodological basis rests on the principles of historicism, research objectivity, and systemicity, which are traditional in historiography. The authors have made use of the problem-chronological method to explore certain facts in the evolution of the German (Prussian) system of public education in the context of the then-existing historical situation. The use of this particular method has helped gain insight into the process of centralization of the German system of public education in the late 18th century. The authors conclude by noting that, essentially, by the end of the 18th century the pedagogical community and central government in Prussia had both reached a common understanding of key needs in the elementary education system. It is in this period that a set of bills were passed regulating the nation's primary education system. Even dozens of years later, many of these pedagogy-related regulations would still retain their relevance, with modifications made to them only based on natural changes in the state of affairs in society.