German Adult Education Following the Unification of 1871

Abstract

German unification in 1871 was followed by an intense inter est in adult education as a tool for forging the disparate German states into one nation. Representative of the institutions for adult education established during the 1870s were "The Society for the Diffusion of Adult Education" and "The Humboldt Academy." Their programs consisted largely of "science" lectures and small lending libraries dispersed throughout Germany. In their attempts to remain neutral on all contemporary issues, they lost, however, their ability to attract many social groups including the working class. After the promulgation of the Anti-Socialist Law of 1878 most adult education designed expressly for the working class was suppressed. The working class countered by rejecting upper and middle class values and education as alien to it. During the 1890s there emerged a strong emphasis by many adult educators on art and aesthetic programs for the general public. At the same time other adult educators believed that an indiscriminant exposure to "culture" was not necessarily educational. Supporting this view, one influential educator in Berlin, Robert von Erdberg, advocated an intensive, individualized education for the potential leaders among the working class as well as other social classes. This, he believed, would be more effective in formulating social values that could weld together the mutually divisive elements in German society. This view was eventually to revolutionize adult education in Germany.