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Could Separate Be Equal? Helene Lange and Women's Education in Imperial Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

James C. Albisetti
James C. Albisetti*
Affiliation:
History Department of the University of Kentucky
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Extract

Throughout Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, advocates of expanded educational opportunities for girls and women faced numerous obstacles. Not only did they have to overcome the widespread opinion that women did not need and could not master advanced education, but they also had to find ways to integrate their proposed reforms into existing educational systems. This latter problem proved to be particularly troublesome in Germany, where access to the universities and to the professions depended on fixed educational prerequisites, but where, in the 1880s and ‘90s, the classical Gymnasium that had traditionally prepared boys for the universities was being severely criticized from many quarters. Did the pursuit of equality for women require acceptance of the unpopular curriculum of the Gymnasium? Would insistence on a separate curriculum for girls mean that female education would continue to be perceived as being second-rate? Was there a third way?

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , Fall 1982 , pp. 301 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 by History of Education Society 

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References

Notes

1. On secondary education for boys in Imperial Germany, see Abisetti, James C., Secondary School Reform in Imperial Germany, forthcoming from Princeton University Press in 1983; for the various criticisms of the Gymnasium, see chapters 3, 4, and 5.Google Scholar

2. Anthony, Karen, Feminism in Germany and Scandinavia (New York, 1915), p. 33.Google Scholar

3. On the “ballast” of dropouts in the Gymnasium, see Albisetti, , Secondary School Reform, Chap. 3.Google Scholar

4. Lange, Helene, Die höhere Mädchenschule und ihre Bestimmung (Berlin, 1887), which is reprinted in her Kampfzeiten: Aufsätze und Reden aus vier Jahrzehnten (2 vols.; Berlin, 1928), 1:1–56.Google Scholar

5. In all Germany, there were 22 publicly operated higher girls' schools in 1820, 56 in 1840, and 103 in 1860; in Prussia alone there were 206 in 1891. The number of private schools still outnumbered the public by 3 to 1 in Prussian in 1900. See Westenholz, Elizabeth Meyn-von, Der Allgemeine Deutsche Lehrerinnenverein in der Geschichte der deutschen Mädchenbildung (Berlin, 1936), p. 70; Kasuya, Yoshi, A Comparative Study of the Secondary Education of Girls in England, Germany and the United States (New York, 1933), p. 50; and Lexis, Wilhelm, A General View of the History of Public Education in the German Empire, trans. by Tamson, G. J. (Berlin, 1904), p. 85.Google Scholar

6. For an excellent discussion of the social function of the higher girls' schools in the nineteenth century, see Part I of Zinnecker, Jürgen, Sozialgeschichte der Mädchenbildung (Weinheim and Basel, 1973).Google Scholar

7. Voss, Ludwig, Geschichte der höheren Mädchenschule (Opladen, 1952), p. 268, says that a school in Cologne was the only public higher girls' school in Prussia that did not have its own elementary classes in 1886. In Bavaria, however, girls' schools generally started at age ten: see Wychgram, Jacob, Vorträge und Aufsätze zum Mädchenschulwesen (Leipzig, 1902), p. 60.Google Scholar

8. Prussian schools grew from an average of four teachers per school in 1832 to 11 per school in 1901; by 1886, over half had at least seven separate classes: Zinnecker, , Sozialgeschichte der Mädchenbildung, pp. 31, 35, 36.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., pp. 50–53; Lange, Helene, Entwicklung und Stand des höheren Mädchenschulwesens in Deutschland (Berlin, 1893), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

10. 91% of public schools were run by men, with women being directors usually only in Catholic schools; 88% of private schools were headed by women: ibid., p. 13. In Prussian public girls' schools in 1891, men teachers outnumbered women 1268 to 924; Lexis, , A General View, p. 85.Google Scholar

11. Meyn, , Lehrerinnenverein, pp. 72–75; Bäumer, Gertrud, “Geschichte und Stand der Frauenbildung in Deutschland,” in Lange, Helene and Bäumer, Gertrud, ed., Handbuch der Frauenbewegung (5 vols.; Berlin, 1901–06), 3:108–14; Schneider, Karl, Ein halbes Jahrhundert im Dienste von Kirche und Schule (2nd ed.; Stuttgart and Berlin, 1901), p. 442. For an account of the Weimar congress by one of the women who attended, see Twellmann, Margrit, Die deutsche Frauenbewegung im Spiegel repräsentativer Frauenzeitschriften (2 vols.; Meisenheim am Glan, 1972), 2:298–301.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., 2:304–06; Zinnecker, , Sozialgeschichte der Mädchenbildung, p. 89; Russell, James E., German Higher Schools (2nd ed.; New York, 1905), p. 130. The Prussian Ministry of Education did not have an official assigned exclusively to the girls' schools until Stephan Waetzoldt in 1899: Wychgram, , Vorträge, p. 251.Google Scholar

13. Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 1:10. Agnes von Zahn-Harnack notes how often feminists cited this statement: Die Frauenbewegung (Berlin, 1928), p. 164.Google Scholar

14. Dauzenroth, Erich, Kleine Geschichte der Mädchenbildung (Ratingen bei Düsseldorf, 1971), pp. 153–54; Lange, Helene, Lebenserinnerungen (Berlin, 1930), pp. 128, 134; Bogerts, Hildegard, Bildung und berufliches Selbstverständnis lehrenden Frauen in der Zeit von 1885 bis 1920 (Frankfurt-am-Main, 1977), pp. 42–46.Google Scholar

15. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 25, 48, 46–47, and 1–48, passim. Frandsen, Dorothea, Helene Lange: Ein Leben für das voile Bürgerrecht der Frau (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1980), does not provide any additional information on Lange's personal life and development beyond what is found in her memoirs. Lange's friend Henriette Schrader-Breymann attributed her later stress on the school as an agent of moral training to the fact that her mother died when she was so young: Lyschinska, Mary, Henriette Schrader-Breymann (2 vols.; Berlin and Leipzig, 1922), 2:390.Google Scholar

16. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, p. 72. A better sense of her personality, at least in later years, can be gained from Lange, Helene, Was ich hier geliebt: Briefe 1919–1930, edited by Emmy Beckmann (Tübingen, 1957).Google Scholar

17. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 73–95, passim. She left Berlin for Hamburg in 1916, but returned to Berlin with Gertrud Bäumer in 1920.Google Scholar

18. Ibid., pp. 106–07, 99–100, 114–19; Lyschinska, , Schrader-Breymann, 2:393; von Bunsen, Marie, Die Welt in der ich lebte (Leipzig, 1929), p. 45.Google Scholar

19. Lyschinska, , Schrader-Breymann, 2:393.Google Scholar

20. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 109–10, 137–41; Lyschinska, , Schrader-Breymann, 2:31; Henschke, Margarete, Ulrike Henschke (Berlin, 1931), p. 98. Unfortunately, Franziska Tiburtius's memoirs do not provide the information they could on Lange in these years: Erinnerungen einer Achtzigjährigen (2nd ed., enlarged; Berlin, 1925).Google Scholar

21. Twellmann, , Frauenbewegung, 2:329. The other signers of the petition were Cauer, Minna, Jessen, Louise, Loeper-Housselle, Marie, and Eberty, Frau, all of whom were members of the liberal circle of the Crown Princess.Google Scholar

22. Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 1:10, 14, 17–18, 26, 32, 45. On the surplus of secondary teachers in the 1880s, see Albisetti, , Secondary School Reform, Chap. 3, and Herrlitz, Hans-Georg and Titze, Hartmut, “Ueberfüllung als bildungspolitische Strategie: Zur administrativen Steuerung der Lehrerarbeitslosigkeit in Preussen, 1870–1914,” Die deutsche Schule, 63 (1976):348–70.Google Scholar

23. Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 1:108, 39, 51. The lack of pedagogical training for secondary teachers was seen as one of many factors causing overburdening in the boys' schools: see Albisetti, , Secondary School Reform, Chap. 4. On the normal school for women secondary teachers at Sevres, see Mayeur, Françoise, L'enseignement secondaire des jeunes filles sous la Troisiême République (Paris, 1977), pp. 106–25.Google Scholar

24. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 157, 155; Schneider, , Ein halbes Jahrhundert, pp. 447–48; Schneider, Karl, Bildungsziel und Bildungswege für unsere Töchter (Berlin, 1888), pp. 8, 17, 27; Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 1:58.Google Scholar

25. Bogerts, , Berufliches Selbstverständnis, pp. 102–03, 117; Schneider, , Bildungsziel, pp. 30–31; von Cotta, Alice, “Das Viktoria Lyzeum in Berlin,” Deutsche Rundschau, 77 (1893):84. Other courses for women teachers were founded in Göttingen and Königsberg.Google Scholar

26. Meyn, , Lehrerinnenverein, pp. 175–77. Women teachers needed to have five years of teaching experience and two to three years of study to take the new examination.Google Scholar

27. Schneider, , Ein halbes Jahrhundert, p. 452. The report was Lange's work cited in note 9.Google Scholar

28. Bogerts, , Berufliches Selbstverständnis, pp. 106–07; Dauzenroth, , Mädchenbildung, p. 154; Zahn-Harnack, , Frauenbewegung, p. 191.Google Scholar

29. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 181–95; Meyn, , Lehrerinnenverein, p. 167.Google Scholar

30. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, p. 161; Lyschinska, , Schrader-Breymann, 2:417.Google Scholar

31. Lange, Helene, Higher Education of Women in Europe, trans. by Klemm, L. R. (New York, 1900), pp. 75, 11, 62, 28, 27, 29, 33. The original title was simply Frauenbildung.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., pp. 13–23; Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 164, 113. On Girton College, and especially on Emily Davies's efforts to prevent its being used to try out new structures for the men's colleges, see Stephen, Barbara, Emily Davies and Girton College (London, 1927).Google Scholar

33. Lange, , Higher Education, pp. 100, 102, 21, 104–05.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., pp. 103–04, 140–42.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., pp. 132, 139. The two works that reopened the question of female physicians, which had been dormant for several years, were Weber, Mathilde, Aerztinnen für Frauenkrankheiten eine ethische und sanitäre Notwendigkeit (2nd ed.; Tübingen, 1888), and Dr.Waldeyer, Wilhelm, “Das Studium der Medizin und die Frauen,” Tageblatt der deutschen Naturforscher und Aerzte, Vol. 61, part 2 (1888):31–44. See my article, “The Fight for Female Physicians in Imperial Germany,” forthcoming in Central European History.Google Scholar

36. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 175–80; Bäumer, Gertrud, Geschichte der Gymnasialkurse für Frauen zu Berlin (Berlin, 1906), pp. 7–21.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., p. 14. Supporters of the Realgymnasium pushed hard during the 1880s to have the universities opened fully to its graduates, but the Ministry of Education resisted, largely on the basis of the already overcrowded professions: see Albisetti, , Secondary School Reform, Chap. 3.Google Scholar

38. Twellmann, , Frauenbewegung, 2:352–58, 376–77.Google Scholar

39. These petitions are most thoroughly catalogued in Boedeker, Elizabeth, 25 Jahre Frauenstudium in Deutschland (4 vols.; Hannover, 1938–39), l:xxvii–xxx. For reactions of the various state governments, see Cohn, Gustav, “Die deutsche Frauenbewegung,” Deutsche Rundschau, 86 (1896):411–17.Google Scholar

40. Tiburtius, , Erinnerungen, p. 205; Bäumer, , Gymnasialkurse, pp. 25–28; Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 204–07; Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 1:171–72. On the school conference of 1890 and its aftermath, see Albisetti, , Secondary School Reform, Chap. 7.Google Scholar

41. Bäumer, , Gymnasialkurse, pp. 30–32, 40–47; Dauzenroth, , Mädchenbildung, p. 160.Google Scholar

42. Boedeker, , Frauenstudium, 1:xxxvi. These first Abiturientinnen were also the occasion for the survey of opinion about women's “fitness” for university studies, Kirchhoff, Arthur, ed., Die akademische Frau: Gutachten hervorragender Universitätsprofessoren, Frauenlehrer und Schriftsteller über die Befähigung der Frau zum wissenschaftlichen Studium und Berufe (Berlin, 1897). Kirchhoff reports that at the University of Berlin, Heinrich von Treitschke and Erich Schmidt drove approved female auditors from their lectures in November 1895, which makes Bosse's decision seem to be more a concession to professors opposed to women students: ibid, p. vii.Google Scholar

43. Boedeker, , Frauenstudium, 1.xxxvi–xxxvii; Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 1:271.Google Scholar

44. This Frankfurt Reformgymnasium, beginning Latin only in the fourth year of the nine-year course and Greek in the sixth, was designed to reduce overburdening in the early grades and to delay the choice of educational track: see Albisetti, , Secondary School Reform, Chap. 7.Google Scholar

45. Bäumer, Gertrud, “Die Geschichte der Frauenbewegung in Deutschland,” in Lange, and Bäumer, , Handbuch der Frauenbewegung, 1:97. See also the memoirs of one of the first graduates of the Karlsruhe Girls' Gymnasium, Straus, Rahel, Wir lebten in Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1961), pp. 66–84.Google Scholar

46. Bäumer, , “Frauenbildung,” p. 124; Zahn-Harnack, , Frauenbewegung, p. 179; Wippermanns Deutsche Geschichtskalender, 1898, p. 64; Voss, , Mädchenschule, pp. 321–23.Google Scholar

47. Bäumer, , Gymnasialkurse, p. 50.Google Scholar

48. See Albisetti, , Secondary School Reform, Chap. 8.Google Scholar

49. Bäumer, , Gymnasialkurse, pp. 51–57, 61.Google Scholar

50. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, p. 215; Bäumer, Gertrud, Im Lichte der Freiheit (Tübingen, 1953), pp. 149–50, 162.Google Scholar

51. Bäumer, , Gymnasialkurse, p. 52; Meyn, , Lehrerinnenverein, p. 180.Google Scholar

52. Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 245–51; Bäumer, Gertrud, Lebensweg durch eine Zeitenwende (Tübingen, 1933), pp. 211–14; Zahn-Harnack, , Frauenbewegung, pp. 195–97; Paulsen, Friedrich, An Autobiographical Study, trans. and ed. by Lorenz, Theodor (New York, 1938), p. 462. This conference of 1906 has never been adequately explored; its proceedings were not published, and, as will be seen, the ultimate reforms enacted in 1908 differed significantly from what the Ministry supported in 1906.Google Scholar

53. Kongress für höhere Frauenbildung, Die höhere Mädchenbildung (Leipzig and Berlin, 1908), pp. 1–10; Lange, , Lebenserinnerungen, pp. 246–47; Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 2:76–77, 155.Google Scholar

54. Güldner, Hans, Die höhere Lehranstalten für die weibliche Jugend in Preussen (Halle, 1913), pp. 8, 13.Google Scholar

55. Ibid., pp. 1–7.Google Scholar

56. Ibid., pp. 14–15. The decree did say that women could become directors, but did not suggest as Althoff had that it was desirable that they do so.Google Scholar

57. Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 1:330–41; Lange, Helene, Die Frauenbewegung in ihrem modernen Probleme (2nd ed.; Leipzig, 1914), pp. 47–48; Bäumer, , Lebensweg, p. 214.Google Scholar

58. Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 1:342–49; Lange, , Frauenbewegung, pp. 49–51; Frandsen, , Helene Lange, p. 69. Bogerts suggests that the Women Teachers' Association, and especially Gertrud Bäumer, was interested in 1906 in doing away entirely with the teachers' seminars, so that all women interested in teaching above the elementary level would attend the universities: Berufliches Selbstverständnis, p. 138.Google Scholar

59. Kongress für höhere Frauenbildung, Mädchenbildung, p. 55; Beckmann, Emmy, Die Entwicklung der höheren Mädchenbildung in Deutschland von 1870–1914 dargestellt in Dokumenten (Berlin, 1936), p. 172; Zinnecker, , Sozialgeschichte der Mädchenbildung, p. 84. von Pestalozza, Hanna Gräfin, Der Streit um die Koedukation in den letzten 30 Jahren in Deutschland (Langensalza, 1921), is not an adequate treatment of this subject.Google Scholar

60. Lange, , Frauenbewegung, pp. 60–61, 63; Lange, , Kampfzeiten, 2:208.Google Scholar

61. Lange, , Was ich hier geliebt, pp. 225, 138, 70, 320. The passage from Rousseau had helped to shape the girls' school in the 1800s.Google Scholar

62. Evans, Richard J., The Feminist Movement in Germany, 1894–1933 (London and Beverly Hills, 1976), p. 27.Google Scholar

63. The last pupils in the classical course and the first in the four-year Realkurse graduated in 1906, at which time the school closed because it was no longer needed: Berlin, Charlottenburg, and Schöneberg had opened public six-year schools: Bäumer, , Gymnasialkurse, pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

64. There were 16 women directors of public higher girls' schools in Prussia in 1914: Lange, , Frauenbewegung, p. 48.Google Scholar

65. Ibid., p. 55.Google Scholar

66. Evans, , Feminist Movement, p. 28. Evans' main interest is not educational reform, but he makes this assertion without giving any attention to the evolution of Lange's views after the “Yellow Brochure.”Google Scholar