German knowledge of American schools remained very limited throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reverse was true for American scholars during this period, many of whom expressed growing interest in German education through their studies at Germany's renowned universities in Berlin, Jena, Heidelberg, and Göttingen. Although the German university tradition still held the respect of many American educators crossing the Atlantic, an increasing number of American school people turned their attention to German methods of teaching, school structure, teacher education, and the curriculum in elementary and secondary schools.

German schools aroused the curiosity of American educators long before the unification of Germany in 1871. Horace Mann, an American champion of the common school, published in 1846 one of the first assessments of the Prussian school system to appear in the United States. His conclusions reflected the great American idealistic faith in the power of republican government to form free and democratic schools. Mann's faith in American education was strong enough for him to proclaim that Americans “do not desire to copy or study the systems of foreign nations, usually so different from our own; we hope rather that they will study and copy ours.”