Weimar Germany. The words conjure images of ineffectual leaders and stopgap governments, of a haphazard democratic way station en route to Hitler and National Socialism. Historians have probed and assessed the weaknesses—sociological, political, economic, psychological—that bedeviled this ill-fated system. The chief defect oftentimes is judged to be a weak and divided middle class, which proved incapable of acting as a moderating and stabilizing force of the political center. A variety of studies have pinpointed the political and economic fragmentation of the German bourgeoisie. Another, not insignificant, factor helped split the bourgeois middle in Weimar Germany. Educational differences founded upon the clash between advocates of religious and secular schooling acted as a serious hindrance to bourgeois political cooperation.

Until recently, historians have tended to treat teachers as nonpersons. Female teachers especially have been portrayed as objects rather than subjects, as either the unknowing tools of the social elite or as the exploited minority whose labor is bought cheaply. Rarely have they been treated as subjects in control of their own activities. Seldom has the world of schooling been presented through their eyes. This essay attempts to reverse the traditional angle of vision and explore an educational event from the perspective of the teachers involved. Specifically it explores the failure of unions to organize teachers during the Great Depression.

The educational traditions of Scotland have always been distinct from those of England, and reputedly more democratic. Mass literacy was achieved at an early stage, the general character of the system was meritocratic, and the four universities were noted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for their vigor and their popular base. Yet the country has attracted little attention from the growing band of scholars studying the comparative social history of education. One exception is Hartmut Kaelble, who has used Scottish evidence in his studies of education and social mobility; but Scotland does not figure either in the recent collection of essays on higher education edited by Konrad Jarausch or in the most substantial work in this field, Fritz Ringer's Education and Society in Modern Europe. Ringer's book includes brief treatments of England and the United States, but it is essentially about higher and secondary education in France and Germany, and is notable for the mass of statistical data that it assembles and analyzes.

In Belgian educational circles toward the end of the nineteenth century, there was a tendency to adapt primary education to the new social conditions. The objective was expressed in the slogan: “The school for and by life.” “By life” meant that the education must not be alien to the surrounding reality but must allow itself to be inspired by it. Between the world wars, under the influence of Ovide Decroly, this was finally concretized in the study of the environment by means of active observation. “The school for life” meant that the primary school must meet the new needs. Economically, a better educated work force was needed for industry; socially, the workers' movements were making their influence felt. During the nineteenth century, the ideological opposition between the Catholics and the liberals dominated education, the former wishing to maintain the religious character of the society, the latter striving for secularization. Both the liberal and the Catholic bourgeoisie were confronted with the social question and, after the 1880s, with the organized socialist movement. The leading classes perceived socialism as a danger for the social order, fearing that it would threaten religion, undermine the family, and generate a spirit of rebellion. Clamorous strikes made that danger all too obvious. Greater attention to social problems was thus demanded, and this led to the beginnings of social legislation, among other things.

To the readers of the History of Education Quarterly:

With the publication of this issue, an important era in the life of the History of Education Quarterly comes to an end. For nearly twenty years the Quarterly has been published at New York University, where both the business and editorial offices have been located. Now those offices are being moved to Indiana University at Bloomington, where future issues will be published.