The Age of Enlightenment dominated advanced thought in Europe from about the 1650s to the 1780s. It developed from a number of sources of “new” ideas, such as challenges to the dogma and authority the Catholic Church and by increasing interest in the ideas of science, in scientific methods. In philosophy, it called into question traditional ways of thinking. The Enlightenment thinkers wanted the educational system to be modernized and play a more central role in the transmission of those ideas and ideals. The development of educational systems in Europe continued throughout the period of the Enlightenment and into the French Revolution. The improvements in the educational systems produced a larger reading public which resulted in increased demand for printed material from readers across a broader span of social classes with a wider range of interests. After 1800, as the Enlightenment gave way to Romanticism, there was less emphasis on reason and challenge to authority and more support for emerging nationalism and compulsory school attendance.
History of education
Before the Enlightenment, European educational systems were principally geared for teaching a limited number of professions, e.g., religious orders such as priests, brothers, and sisters, health care workers such as physicians, and bureaucrats such as lawyers and scribes, and they were not yet greatly influenced by the Scientific Revolution. As the scientific revolution and religious upheaval broke traditional views and ways of thinking of that time, religion and superstition were supplanted by reasoning and scientific facts. Philosophers such as John Locke proposed the idea that knowledge is obtained through sensation and reflection.Encyclopædia Britannica, "Education," in "Encyclopædia Britannica Online" http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/179408/education (accessed on April 3, 2009). This proposition led to Locke's theory that everyone has the same capacity of sensation, and, therefore, education should not be restricted to a certain class or gender. Prior to the 17th and 18th centuries, education and literacy were generally restricted to males who belonged to the nobility and the mercantile and professional classes. In England and France, “idealized notions of domesticity, which emphasized the importance of preparing girls for motherhood and home duties, fuelled the expansion of schooling for girls.”de Bellaigue, (2007) p. 11
Educational ideas John Locke in English and Jean Jacques Rousseau in French authored influential works on education. Both emphasized the importance of shaping young minds early. By the late Enlightenment, there was a rising demand for a more universal approach to education, particularly after the American and French Revolutions.
Enlightenment children were taught to memorize facts through oral and graphical methods that originated during the Renaissance. The predominant educational psychology from the 1750s onward, especially in northern European countries was associationism; the notion that the mind associates or dissociates ideas through repeated routines. It offered a practical theory of the mind that allowed teachers to transform longstanding forms of print and manuscript culture into effective graphic tools of learning for the lower and middle orders of society.
Many of the leading universities associated with Enlightenment progressive principles were located in northern Europe, with the most renowned being the universities of Leiden, Göttingen, Halle, Montpellier, Uppsala, Glasgow and Edinburgh. the faculty and graduates of these universities, especially Glasgow and Edinburgh, centres of the Scottish Enlightenment, had a significant impact on Britain's North American colonies and, later, the American Republic. Glasgow led the way, in moral philosophy, notably with Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, and Thomas Reid.
However, in general the universities and schools of France and most of Europe were bastions of traditionalism and were not hospitable to the Enlightenment. In France the major exception was the medical university at Montpellier.Elizabeth Williams, A Cultural History of Medical Vitalism in Enlightenment Montpellier (2003) p. 50
Growth of the education system
Literacy Education was once considered a privilege for only the upper class. However, during the 17th and 18th centuries, “education, literacy and learning” were gradually provided to “rich and poor alike”.Kurtz, (1994), pp. 14, 15. The literacy rate in Europe from the 17th century to the 18th century grew significantly. The definition of the term "literacy" in the 17th and 18th centuries is different from our current definition of literacy. Historians measured the literacy rate during the 17th and 18th century centuries by people's ability to sign their names. However, this method of determining literacy did not reflect people's ability to read. This affected the women's apparent literacy rate prior to the Age of Enlightenment mainly because, while most women living between the so-called Dark Ages and the Age of Enlightenment could not write or sign their names, many could read, at least to some extent.Melton, (2001), pp. 81–82.
The rate of illiteracy decreased more rapidly in more populated areas and areas where there was mixture of religious schools. The literacy rate in England in the 1640s was around 30 percent for males, rising to 60 percent in the mid-18th century. In France, the rate of literacy in 1686-90 was around 29 percent for men and 14 percent for women, before it increased to 48 percent for men and 27 percent for women.
The increase in literacy rate was more likely due, at least in part, to religious influence, since most of the schools and colleges were organized by clergy, missionaries, or other religious organizations. The reason that motivated religions to help to increase the literacy rate among the general public was that the Bible was being printed in more languages and literacy was thought to be the key to understanding the word of God.American Eras. 8 vols. Gale Research 1997–1998, "Education Overview" “By 1714 the proportion of women able to read had risen, very approximately, to 25%, and it rose again to 40% by 1750. This increase was part of a general trend, fostered by the Reformation emphasis on reading the Scripture and by the demand for literacy in an increasingly mercantile society. The group most affected was the growing professional and commercial class, and writing and arithmetic schools emerged to provide the training their sons required”.de Bellaigue, (2007) p. 12 The impact of the Reformation on literacy was, of course, far more dramatic in Protestant areas. Therefore, literacy rates in predominantly Protestant Northern Europe rose much more quickly than those in predominately Catholic southern Europe. The Jesuits, who were the product of the Catholic Counter Reformation contributed moderately to increased literacy in Catholic regions.
Prussian system The Kingdom of Prussia introduced a modern public educational system designed to reach the entire population; it was widely copied across Europe and the United States in the 19th century. The basic foundations of the Prussian primary education system were laid out by Frederick the Great with his "Generallandschulreglement," a decree of 1763, drafted by Johann Julius Hecker. It mandated the schooling of all young Prussians, both girls and boys, to be educated by mainly municipality funded schools from age 5 until age 13 or 14. Prussia was among the first countries in the world to introduce a tax-funded and generally compulsory primary education. In comparison, compulsory schooling in France or Great Britain was not successfully enacted until the 1880s.James van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria (2003)
The Prussian system consisted of an eight-year course of primary education, called Volksschule. It provided not only basic technical skills needed in a modernizing world (as reading and writing), but also music (singing), religious (Christian) education in close cooperation with the churches and tried to impose a strict ethos of duty, soberness and discipline. Mathematic and calculus were not compulsory in the start and taking such courses was requiring additional payment by parents. Frederick the Great also formalized further educational stages, such as the Realschule and the highest stage, the gymnasium (state funded secondary school), which was used as university-preparatory school.Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (2008) ch 7 The final examination, Abitur, was introduced in 1788, implemented in all Prussian secondary schools by 1812, and extended to all of Germany in 1871 and is in place till the present. Passing the Abitur was a pre-requisite to entering the learned professions and higher echelons of civil service. Generations of Prussian and as well German teachers, which in the 18th century often had no formal education and in the very beginning often were former petty officers without pedagogic training, tried to gain more academic recognition, training and better pay and played an important role in various protest and reform movements.
The Prussian system, after its modest beginnings, succeeded in reaching compulsory attendance, specific training for teachers, national testing for all students (of all genders), national curriculum set for each grade and mandatory Kindergarten.Ellwood Cubberley, The History of Education: Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization (1920) online In 1810, Prussia introduced state certification requirements for teachers, which significantly raised the standard of teaching.
In the 18th century, states were paying more attention to their educational systems because they recognized that their subjects are more useful to the state if they are well educated. The conflicts between the crown and the church helped the expansion of the educational systems. In the eyes of the church and the state, universities and colleges were institutions that existed to maintain the dominance of one over the other. The downside of this conflict was that the freedom of thought on the subjects taught in these institutions was restricted. An educational institution was either a supporter of the monarchy or the religion, never both.Brockliss, (1987), pp. 445–53.
Also, changes in educational criteria for higher income professions such as lawyers and physicians became stricter, e.g., requirements to have certain educational experience before being licensed, helped to promote increases in the numbers of students attending universities and colleges.Brockliss, (1987), p. 5.
Print culture
The explosion of the print culture, which started in the 15th century with Johannes Gutenberg's printing press, was both a result of and a cause of the increase in literacy. The number of books published in the period of the Enlightenment increased dramatically due to the increase in demand for books, which resulted from the increased literacy rates and the declining cost and easier availability of books made possible by the printing press. There was a shift in the percentages of books printed in various categories during the 17th century.