The Prussian education system established compulsory, mainly municipality-funded primary schooling for all young citizens, girls and boys alike, ages five to thirteen or fourteen, through the Generallandschulreglement Frederick the Great issued in 1763, work shaped by the churchman and educator Johann Julius Hecker. Its eight-year Volksschule course taught reading, writing, music and religious instruction under a strict ethos of duty, sobriety and discipline; Prussia paired it with formal teacher certification, building on the teacher-training seminary Hecker had founded in 1748, becoming one of the first countries in the world to make primary schooling both tax-funded and generally compulsory, decades before France or Great Britain achieved the same in the 1880s. The system was admired abroad for its efficiency and its reduction of illiteracy, and it directly influenced education reformers in the United States and Japan, including Horace Mann and Michigan's 1835 constitution.
Facts
Founded Year CountryPrussia (Kingdom of Prussia; present-day Germany) 2 Classification
Institution TypeNational Education System 1 FAQs
Could parents keep children home in summer under the 1763 Prussian school regulation?
No. The regulation ordered a special shepherd to be hired rather than let children miss school.
No. The General Regulations of Elementary Schools and Teachers, issued on 12 August 1763, anticipated the excuse that children had to guard the cattle in summer. It told magistrates and judges in towns and communes to see that a special shepherd was engaged rather than allow children to be kept from school. The same regulation said no vacations were to be given, not even during harvest time, and that summer schools would still open for about three hours each weekday. Children could be dismissed early only after the clergy and the schoolmaster certified that they knew enough.
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Source Wikipedia: Horace Mann
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Early nineteenth-century American educators, Horace Mann among them, studied the Prussian model directly; Michigan's 1835 constitution embraced it outright with a state-administered, tax-funded school system.
Source Wikipedia
Additional Source Common school (Wikipedia)Prussian education system, Influence on Other Countries section
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Source Prussian education system (Wikipedia)intro of the articletier 2Quote, intro of the article
The Prussian education system was established in Prussia as a result of educational reforms in the late 18th and early 19th century, and has had widespread influence since.
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1. Prussian education system (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundationintro of the articleQuote, intro of the article
The Prussian education system was established in Prussia as a result of educational reforms in the late 18th and early 19th century, and has had widespread influence since.
2. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationPrussian education system article
Generallandschulreglement in 1763
Founded By: Johann Julius Hecker, Johann Julius Hecker article
Hecker's educational work was a major influence on the formulation of Prussia's first general school law, issued by Frederick II in 1763
View the Source Wikipedia: Horace Mann
Associated With: Horace Mann, Admiration of the Prussian Model sectionQuote, Associated With: Horace Mann, Admiration of the Prussian Model section
long enjoyed the most distinguished reputation for the excellence of its schools.
Common school (Wikipedia)
Policies Informed: Common School, Prussian education system, Influence on Other Countries sectionView the Source Wikipedia: History of education
Wikimedia FoundationIn Category: Institutions and Systems, Prussian education system articleView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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