The Idea of the Secondary School in Nineteenth‐century Europe

Abstract

The title echoes the well‐known phrase ‘the idea of the university’, and European universities have always been seen as institutions with a strong international dimension, developing according to common patterns. In their case, it was the ‘Humboldtian’ model embodied in the University of Berlin founded in 1810 which prevailed. For secondary schools, the lycees of Napoleon and the German Gymnasien, both taking shape around 1800, share this role. The main features of the lycee/Gymnasium model can be summarized: they were public, secular institutions; they were part of an elite sector with little organic connection with popular education; they were oriented to preparing for higher education, with a predominantly classical curriculum, taught by specialist teachers trained in the universities; and they offered an eight or nine year course culminating in an examination (baccalaureat, Abitur) which came to define a completed secondary education. Strictly speaking, “universities”: Vorlesungen uber die Idee der Un...