LEARNING TO READ: FRIEDRICH GEDIKE'S

PRIMER OF 1791

DAVID PAISEY

I hate books: they only teach oneto talk about matters of which oneis ignorant.

Rousseau ; Emile., book 3.

I N a culture still as firmly based as ours on written language, it is hardly possible to over-estimate the importance to the individual and to society of the skill of reading. It givesa degree of power, through access to recorded information, from the simple signals ofeveryday life to complex messages, and through access to the accumulated experience ofothers and to the legal and other codes of authority. It has further an integrating function,as a means both of communication and participation, and of the dissemination of standards.Its history in European society, from the Reformation which required all Protestants tofind their own way to theological salvation through private reading of the Bible, a directiontechnically facilitated by the recent invention of printing, has been one of conflict betweenthese emancipatory and normative aspects.

The history of the methods of teaching how to read naturally reflects something of thisconflict, and elementary teaching-methods are still hotly disputed after centuries of experi-ment. The recent acquisition by the British Library of a rare German reading-primer,Friedrich Gedike's Ktnderbuch zur ersten Ubung im Lesen ohne ABC und Buchstabiren,issued in 1791 by the Berlin publisher Johann Friedrich Unger,^ gives me an opportunityof examining it against the background of developments in parts of Germany, whichI hope may reveal aspects of some general interest. Friedrich Gedike (1754-1803),brilliant son of a poor village preacher, was a practical educator (he became headmasterof the Friedrichswerdersches Gymnasium in Berlin at the early age of 25, and of theBerlin-Kollnisches Gymnasium 'Zum Grauen Kloster' in 1793) and civil servant (Ober-konsistorialrat from 1787) as well as an educational theorist. While his theories, rootedin concern for individual development, were in some respects in advance of what couldbe achieved in the Prussia of his day, and while he was considered too much of a free-thinker for some official tastes, he was in fact politically quite astute, and an effectivecommunicator who won considerable respect. He is remembered today inter alia as aninnovator in the teaching of foreign languages, for which he produced a series of primersand readers, and perhaps best of all for his introduction, in 1788, of a common qualifyingexamination for higher education {Abttur), which institutionalised for his own intellectualsector of the bourgeoisie this means of access to positions of influence and prestige, andwhich may be compared with the reform instituted soon afterwards in the Prussian armyby Grolmann (1808) under which promotion to officer in peacetime was made dependent

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on standards of knowledge and education.- Harald Scholtz, who has documented Gedike'scareer and achievements,^ and to whom readers are referred for an assessment of his variedtheoretical works, plausibly sees Gedike's preoccupation with justification by achievement,embodied in his reliance on norms throughout all stages of a child's schooling, as in partpsychologically determined by his early education in an orphanage. He was a liberal, andfor his time progressive, though it must be emphasised that, despite his concern for publiceducation of all classes and his idea that children should be taught to think for themselves,the beneficiaries from reforms in his day were largely the children of the bourgeoisie,leaving out of consideration the most numerous and most deprived sections of the popula-tion. In this respect his Kinderhuch is quite typical of him, though it is unlike his othertextbooks in being intended as a tool of pre-school education. It was written for one of hisdaughters (he had five daughters and three sons) and meant for use in the home, with asympathetic mother or tutor directing. The title makes clear its approach: to avoid makingthe child start by learning the alphabet and then proceed to build up syllables and words(sometimes called the synthetic method, and already current in antiquity). In a prefaceGedike justifies his adoption of the opposite, or analytic, method: the former, he says, isunnatural, as single signs and sounds mean nothing to a child, whereas the natural mode ofperception is from wholes to parts, from effects to causes, and from the signified to thesign. So he begins with words, but emphasises that they are not to be treated like Chineseideograms: the child is indeed to learn letters, but through words whose meaning isappreciated and not in isolation. The first 31 pages are devoted to words printed in lower-case letters, and in red and black as a means of distinguishing on each page the particularletter to be learned, which appears first at the beginning of words, then in the middle (fig-)-The words of the first line are repeated four times, at the top in red, at the bottom in black,and twice in red and black with the relevant letter in one case red and in the other black;other words occur at least twice. The child is to be encouraged to find recurrences, whilenoting similarities and differences, all under active guidance. The words chosen are asfar as possible concrete, and have one or two syllables only. Pages 32-40 are devoted towords with initial capitals, pages 41-46 to words with similar endings but different initials,pages 47-79 to sentences including words from the earlier sequences, and pages 80-106to short sentences illustrating natural history. Thus far all is printed in Fraktur (Gothictype), with pages 1-73 in red and black, and pages 1-40 printed on alternate rectos andversos only, each two leaves stuck together, so that the most heavily-used part of the bookis made really stout. From page 74 onwards the printing is in black only, and pages 47-106use different type-sizes to emphasise individual words. Pages 107-124 provide proverbsand moral and entertaining stories, in prose and verse, each printed first in Fraktur thenin Roman type, pages 125-145 have similar material alternately in Fraktur and Roman,and finally, on pages 146-154 the natural history sentences occur again, this time incursive type, preceded by two pages of words in both Fraktur and cursive. Gedike hadwanted to postpone teaching his daughter to read until she was seven, but had been movedby her entreaties to produce this book for her when she was five. The introduction includesa tribute to the type-setter, entirely justified in view of the complicated presswork, but

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quite exceptional in that it names the craftsman concerned, a small but touching exampleof Gedike^s liberalism: 'I consider it an obligation here publicly to commend the skill anddiligence of Herr Melzer, overseer in the famous Unger press, who has typeset this book.'^The book was printed in instalments, as the text was written and supplied to the press, andthe little girl, instructed by her mother, had always mastered each printed gathering beforethe next eagerly awaited one arrived. In under two months she was already reading

other books.The Kinderbuch, Gedike says, was not only not meant for teachers in ordinary schools

used to the traditional (synthetic) methods, but was also too expensive for them. It wouldhave been still more expensive, had he been able to realise his original plan of providingeach of the first 31 pages with a small engraved illustration of the group of nouns chosento embody each letter. He expressed the hope that his book might initiate a useful reformin teaching methods, but said he would be content if its effects reached only a small circle.This was modesty, and not a lack of passion on his part: his other writings show theintensity of his commitment to reform. But the book did only ever reach a small circle;though Heinrich Fechner^ says that there were three editions, I have only found evidenceof one more, the second, produced by Unger in 1798.^ It is said"̂ that the great Swisseducational innovator Pestalozzi made some use of the book for a short time in his classes(and, incidentally, that he used red and black on spelling-cards to distinguish vowels andconsonants); but it should be noted that his 'natural' method of teaching reading, alsobased on a theory of perception but arriving at the opposite conclusion that simple pre-cedes complex, gave traditional weight to first instruction in the alphabet and the spellingof syllables, and so was quite contrary to Gedike's spirit.^ Copies of the Kinderbuch seemextremely rare. The British Library's new acquisition has the bookplate of WalterSchatzki of Frankfurt am Main, who allowed this copy, together with many other children'sbooks from his collection, to be illustrated in Arthur Riimann's Alte deutsche Kinder-biicher (Wien, 1937), which is a good visual introduction to the subject. Although itsinfluence was negligible, the book is of high intrinsic interest, and several of its aspectsneed to be seen in historical perspective. Within Gedike's own work, it marks an advancein practicality on the views on teaching reading in his Aristoteles und Basedow (1779),where he maintained that a start should not be made before a child was twelve at least, andnot with units as small as words, but with connected paragraphs, with no teaching of thealphabet until the child could read alone. But his developing concern with the subject wasvery far from isolated, as his proposals were part of a multifarious literature of reformwhich, though its roots stretch back as far as the sixteenth century, gained particularmomentum in the second half of the eighteenth. It would be foolhardy to attempt a sum-mary of the complex strands and refinements of theory and practice within this movement,and interested readers are referred to the specialist literature.^ What united most exponentsof often widely divergent tendencies was reaction against the traditional system of teachingfirst, by rote, the alphabet, usually by names of letters rather than sounds, then meaninglesssyllables, and only thereafter moving on to spelling out words, while texts would be theLord's Prayer and catechism, and eventually the Bible.'** Gedike hated to see children as

young as three years old being forced to learn in this purely mechanical way," and a con-temporary, Samuel Heinicke (who in 1778 founded, in Leipzig, the first German institutiontor the deaf-and-dumb), went so far as to condemn the traditional method as a crime worsethan torture and witch-burning.'- Other reformers, notably the eccentric but influentialJohann Bernhard Basedow (1724-90), whom Gedike particularly admired, and the writerand publisher Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746-1818), devised methods beginning withthe learning of sounds, not of signs. As Gedike well knew,'^ his was not the first attemptto propound a more radical method without the initial teaching of spelling, and even morethorough-going schemes followed in the same line, the most extreme being that of aFrenchman, Jean Joseph Jacotot (1790-1840), who began, not with single words or evenparagraphs, but with a whole book (Fenelon's Les aventures de Telemaque).

The subsequent history of the subject, in Germany and elsewhere, has remained com-plex, with new versions of the differing methods current in Gedike's day still competingand combining in the most various ways. His own proposals prefigure today's 'look-and-say' school (the 'whole word' method probably has more advantages in a phoneticallyirregular language like English), and there are English first-reading books on sale now withthe same use of colour printing to emphasise individual letters, though of course far morecomplex typography is no longer a technical problem; even our recent Initial TeachingAlphabet experiment has a history which includes Campe's attempt at simplifiedorthography. English readers do not have to contend with the different printing types{Fraktur and Roman) which Gedike strove to inculcate, and it must be said that he failedhere to tackle the problem of teaching writing, though his pages in cursive type are agesture in that direction.'•* It was left to later educators, such as K. Vogel of Leipzig inthe 1840s, to combine the teaching of writing, for which ability to spell is essential, withthatof reading by a 'whole word' method. And itgoes without saying that modern teachingpractice is based on a much more exhaustive interdisciplinary theory than Gedike'srudimentary epistemology and psychology, though there seems to be general agreementthat there is no one correct way to teach reading, and that the attitude of the teacher to hispupils is crucial for the effectiveness of any method.'^

Reading reform was of course only part of the general shift in the eighteenth centuryto what we now call child-centred education, the great innovator being Rousseau, whoseEmtle appeared in 1762; Basedow was instrumental in propagating his ideas in Germany.For all his emphasis on education for intellectual self-reliance (my epigraph from Emile^^should be understood in this sense, as an indictment of bad teaching-methods, not asPhilistinism), in which Gedike was a true disciple, maintaining that first teaching shouldnot be tied to books lest children come to see them as the sole source of wisdom and know-ledge,'^ it may seem ironic that the second half of the eighteenth century should have wit-nessed a sudden explosion in the publishing of literature for children, a genre which hardlyexisted before. Unfortunately, the success of some excellent works, such as those of Campe(who was perhaps the first 'professional' writer for children in Germany, and a publisheras well), unleashed a flood of bad imitations on to the market, as Gedike complained: 'asif writing for children were easy'.'^ In fact, both the reforms and the exploitation of a

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newly emancipated market are facets of the same phenomenon, the growing power of thebourgeoisie. I have already remarked that the beneficiaries of these educational advanceswere confined to this class: there can be no more shocking example of such discriminationin action than that of the author ofEmile, which is a programme for ideal education throughprivate tutoring, abandoning his own five real illegitimate children one by one at birth toan orphanage: they would have been working for their living by the time Emile was toreceive his first formal instruction in reading and writing at the age of twelve to fifteen.But the principal obstacle to the downward penetration of reform was naturally theestablishment, for which social and intellectual emancipation was a threat and whichrequired education to be supportive of the status quo, so that even in schools for the upperand middle classes any change was a slow process. Secularisation was a major constituentin the eighteenth-century reforms, and was a particular area of official concern, as the self-asserting middle class sought ways to a non-eschatological salvation. Emile was publiclyburned in Paris and Geneva; and in Germany, especially after the traumatic shock of theFrench Revolution, various rear-guard actions were fought to preserve the old methodsand textbooks for the unemancipated majority. As an extreme example, in 1776, the pro-posed introduction of a new ABC, spelling and reading-book in Nassau-Weilburg led tosuch serious popular protest, because it contained no Ten Commandments, Articles ofFaith and Lord's Prayer, that the local authorities felt obliged to call in a body of 800 menfrom the Palatinate to restore order.'^ Education policy was still largely determined byecclesiastical authorities: in Berlin, though a secular Oberschulkollegium had been createdin 1787 with the task of local organisation and inspection, it was not until about 1812 thatthe church surrendered some rights of examination of teachers and inspection ofparochial schools,̂ ** so it is not surprising that the old methods of religious indoctrinationlingered on. While Gedike could get away with including no religious texts in his Kinder-buch (like Campe and others, he argued that too early exposure to their difficult conceptshad the undesirable effect of making religion uninteresting to children), and among allits moral tales none with a theological basis, we must remember that it was not intended forgeneral use in schools. In this respect it follows the precedent of an ABC-Buck publishedin Leipzig in 1772, definitely not for the lower classes, by C. F. Weisse, author of the mostsuccessful and popular magazine for children of the period, Der Kinderfreund (1776-82),whose readership has been shown to be overwhelmingly bourgeois.^' In contrast, an officialPrussian decree of 29 January 1795^^ prescribed that teaching in schools for the poor shouldcomprise first the alphabet, then the Bible, catechism, hymnbook, spelling, writing andsome simple arithmetic. Not until the late 1820s did the poor-school curricula in Berlincome to include other subjects such as science, geography and history,^^ and the spellingmethod of first instruction was not forbidden in Prussian schools until 1872.^

We may contrast with the Kinderbuch an exactly contemporary 'approved' reading andwriting-book, not Prussian, it is true, but indicative of the general line for schools ofofficialdom: ABC oder Namenbiichlein zum Gebrauch der Stadtschulen in den kaiserlich-koniglichen Staaten (Graz, 1791),̂ ^ which exemplifies the traditional alphabet-firstspelling method, and, after some proverbs and little Christian moral stories, finishes with

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prayers and catechism. Almost all Gedike's secular moral stories have as chief actorsbourgeois children, with the lower classes usually appearing only as recipients of charity,and embody a comfortably static view of society only less direct than the still feudalexhortation to be satisfied with one's station in the Graz primer:

Ein jeder Stand hat seinen Frieden,Ein jeder Stand auch seine Last . . .Verzehre nicht des Lebens KrafteIn trager Unzufriedenheit;Besorge deines Stands Geschafte,Und niitze deine Lebenszeit/^

It is interesting that one story both have in common (not quite a word-for-word corre-spondence), is exceptional in embodying a piece of popular folk-lore: a boy who haslearned from servants' tales to fear the bogeyman ('der schwarze Mann') has to be talkedout of his terror oil seeing a chimney-sweep. We should remember that Gedike and hiscontemporaries were children of the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, and thatit was not until the Romantic era that folk-lore really became intellectually Respectable'.We might also note the high degree of coincidence between the selections of proverbs inGedike's Kmderbuch {1791) and Campe's Abeze- und Lesebuch (Braunschweig, 1807). Itcannot be assumed that Campe copied Gedike, however, since his book was a reworkingof his original Neue Methode, Kinder aufeine leichte und angenehme Weise lesen zu lehren(Altona, 1778), which had been read so avidly throughout Germany that Campe couldonly locate (by advertising) two incomplete copies when he decided to embark on therevision. But sources and priority of publication need not detain us, as the important thinghere was the nature of what was being taught. This was sometimes a matter of consciousconcern for the reformers themselves, who usually wanted all classes to learn to read, butonly in order to read a limited range of literature. And for the state, education is alwaysfor a purpose: in the Prussian official deliberations which preceded the publication in 1776of the Kinderfreund, a reader for schools, by Friedrich Eberhard von Rochow (1734-1805), even the functionaries of the Oberkonststortum took exception to the tact that thepursuit of Prussian economic and military ends might be too easily inferred from someof the contents.''

Gedike did actually ask the question publicly why the lower classes were so bad atspelling despite their being taught it more intensively than anyone. His answer, that thefault lay in the teaching method,-^ was partly correct, but left out the disadvantageousconditions in their schools, from which many emerged still illiterate. At the time he wrote,there was nothing like a coherent system of schools in Berlin and Prussia ;̂ ^ his work as anofficial helped to prepare for the later Prussian public education policy, but meanwhilethe lower classes' share of formal education, at elementary level, was paltry and precarious.There was a simple reason for this: with the exception of a quite inadequate number oicharity schools for the very poor and some free places in parochial schools, all tuition and

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teaching materials had to be paid for, and means determined both the quality of teachingand the subjects taught. In schools in the country, where the majority of the populationlived, one teacher could be found trying to instruct ioo or 150 children of various agessimultaneously,̂ *^ while the unqualified teachers of small, unlicensed schools, particularlynumerous in the towns (Winkelschulen), were sometimes teaching as a second job, under-taken simply to make ends meet; and to compound their difficulties, primers and readerswere all written in High German, almost a foreign language, since the children, and oftenthe teachers themselves, spoke only dialect. A Berlin decree of 1738,̂ ^ whose provisionsremained in force until 1812, included a sliding scale of charges for teaching of (in ascendingorder) the alphabet alone, the alphabet plus reading, and the same plus some arithmetics^Not only the small class, the well-qualified teacher and the varied curriculum, but inmany cases school attendance itself, was only for the better-off. The first Prussian decreeseeking to compel universal education had been passed, untypically early for Europe, in1717, and prescribed that, in places where schools existed, children^-^ should attend dailyin winter, and in summer (when peasant children were needed to work on the land) atleast once or twice a week; but this was a policy which could not be implemented, A centurylater, in 1816, in Berlin, while nearly two thousand poor children were receiving fee-paideducation in poor and parochial schools, an estimated six thousand were still receiving noeducation at all, and under a quarter of the children employed in factories were receivingeven the most rudimentary evening or Sunday education.^'^ In 1827, a fifth of the Berlinchildren of school age were not attending school; a decree of 9 March 1839 prescribed thatchildren could only be employed in factories after three years' schooling and not betorethe age of nine,^^

If we ask who actually learned to read in Gedike's Germany, unfortunately no very clearanswer can be given. Estimates of literacy at that period vary widely, as statistics hardlyexist, and 'literacy' is itself a vague concept, denoting for some simply ability to signone's name, for others stages in the constantly developing process of learning to read.^^All emphasise, however, that conditions differed so widely in the various parts of Germanythat generalisations for the whole country can be belied by almost any local picture, RudolfSchenda, who has estimated that at the end of the eighteenth century, in central Europe,perhaps one in four of the population over six years old was a potential reader, also quotesa German opinion, that of I. H, Wessenberg writing in 1814, to the effect that Prussia,together with France and Italy, was one of the more backward areas in advancing populareducation,^^ Country areas were usually worse than the towns in this respect: J. N. Becker,writing in 1799, said that of the peasants living around Berlin, scarcely one in six was ableto read and write.^^ Therefore, against such a background, repeated in many othercountries, reforms in teaching-methods could hardly be expected to make much impressionon the population at large, nor could pre-school tuition in the home, for which the Kmder-buch was primarily intended, be extended to the children of the illiterate: for them thecycle of deprivation was inescapable. So while the movement of educational reform towhich Gedike contributed was indeed progressive, and while his Kinderbuch exemplifiesan admirably sympathetic and caring attitude to children and their needs, we should not

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cherish any illusions that both were applied by society in anything other than a highlypartial way. For literacy is a weapon, and the nature and effectiveness of the means of pro-viding it, as well as the identity of the groups for whom it is provided, have been of no lessimportance to authorities than the content of what is taught. The self-righteousness ofhindsight is not in order: after nearly two centuries of advance, with universal educationnow a reality, and with our more sophisticated (though in principle not so new) reading-primers, our schools are still turning out illiterate children. Judging by results, we shouldnot merely be entitled to ask, but are constrained to ask of our books and educationalinstitutions: whom are they for ? and what is their social function ? And what account are welibrarians to give of our libraries, the treasure-houses for the literate.^

1 Pressmark C.145.b.II.2 Peter Lundgreen, 'Schulbildung und Friih-

industrialisierung in Berlin/Preussen', Unter-suchungen zur Geschichte der friihen Industria-hsterung, vornehmlich im Wirischaflsraum Berlin!Brandenburg, ed. Otto Busch (Berlin, 1971),p. 610,

3 Harald Scholtz, 'Friedrich Gedike (1754-1803),ein Wegbereiter der preussischen Reform desBildungswesens\ Jahrbuch fur die GeschtchteMittel- und Ostdeutschtands, Bd. 13/14 (1965),pp. 128-181,

4 Preface, p. ix: 'ich halte es fur Schuldigkeit, hiebeioffentlich die Geschiklicbkeit und Muhsamkeitdes Herrn Melzer, Faktors in der beriihmtenUngerschen Offizin,. welcher dieses Buch gesetzthat, zu riihmen,'

5 H. Fechner, Grundriss der Geschichte der wtch-tigsten Leselehrarien, 2nd ed. {Berlin, 1900),p. 46.

6 This was announced in the Book-fair catalogue,autumn 1798, and a copy figured in the Gumu-chian sale catalogue: Les livres de t'ertfance duXV' au XIX' siecle {Paris, 1930), n. 134.Kayser's Bucherverzeichms has curious entries forboth, dating the first 1790 {the preface is certainlydated 5 Oct. 1790),, and ascribing the second, notto Unger, but to Mylius. I have found no lateredition in the Fair catalogues up to r8i2.

7 C. Kehr, 'Die Geschichte des Leseunterrichts',Geschichte der Methodik des deutschen Volks-schulunterrtchts, ed. C, Kehr {Gotha, 1877-82),Bd. 2 {1879), p. 387.

8 J. H. Pestalozzi, Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder tehrt{Bern and Zurich, 1801); the British Libraryrecently acquired a first edition of this work.

pressmark C.ii8.c.2o. At the time of his death,Gedike was planning a visit to Pestalozzi, onbehalf of the Prussian authorities, to learn fromhis theory and practice.

9 For an account in English, see Mitford M.Matthews, Teaching to read historicatly con-sidered (Chicago and London, 1966); or an olderone in German, H. Fechner, op. cit.

10 The familiar horn-books exemplify this inEngland, as does a popular textbook such asFrancis Fox's An introduction to spetling andreading {7th ed. London, 1754; 20th ed. 1815).

11 F. Gedike, Etntge Gedanken iiber die Ordnungund Folge der Gegenstdnde desjugendtichen Unter-richts {Berlin, 1791), p. 6.

12 C Kehr, op. cit., p, 385.13 F. Gedike, Einige Gedanken iiber Schulbiicher und

Kinderschr if ten {1787), reprinted in his Gesamm-lete Schulschriften., Bd. 1 {Berlin, 1789), p. 435.

14 His views on printing types {he was in favour ofabandoning Fraktur) and some consideration ofwriting may be found in Einige Gedanken Uberdie Ordnung und fotge, p. 25 flf.

15 Theory and practice in the Federal Republic ofGermany and the USA may usefully be com-pared from two recent publications: Fibeln undErstleseiperke I; Konzepte, Dokumentation, Erfak-rungen, 2nd ed. {Frankfurt am Main, Arbeits-kreis Grundschule, 1976), and P. C. Bums andB. D. Roe, Teaching reading in today's elementaryschools {Chicago, 1976); both contain biblio-graphies. {The second incidentally points outthe sexist nature of the English language by usingthe pronoun 'she' to stand for 'the child' through-out.)

16 Je hais les livres; ils n'apprennent qu'a parlerde

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ce qu'on ne sait pas. {^mile., Paris, 1966, p, 238.)17 F. Gedike, Einige Gedanken iiber die Vbung im

Lesen (1785), reprinted in his Gesammlete Schul-schriften, Bd, i {Berlin, 1789), p. 377, andEinige Gedanken iiber die Ordnung und Folge,p . I I ,

18 Einige Gedanken iiber Schulbiicher., p, 422 flF.19 C, Kehr, op, cit,, pp. 341-342-20 Dietrich Rittershausen, 'Beitrage zur Geschichte

des Berliner Elementar-Schulwesens, von derReformation bis 1836', Mdrkische Forschungen,Bd. 9 (Berlin, 1865), pp, 302-303.

21 Bettina Hurrelmann .^ugendliteratur und Biirger-tichkeit (Paderborn, 1974), especially pp, 171-180.

22 Anweisung fur die SchuUehrer in den Land- undniederen Stadtschulen zur zweckmdssigen Besor-gung des Unterrichts der ihnen anvertrautenJugend, quoted by D. Rittershausen, op. cit.,pp, 275-276,

23 Ibid., p, 314.24 H. Fechner, op. cit., p, 9. This reform came later

to Prussia than to some other German states,25 A copy was donated to the British Library in

1974, pressmark 1568/497,26 P. 40: 'Every estate has its peace, / Every estate

its burden too , , , / Do not consume your vitalforces / In slothful discontent; / But perform thebusiness of your estate, / And make the best useof your life.'

27 H, Fechner, 'Die Geschichte des Volksschul-Lesebuches\ Geschichte der Methodik desdeutschen Volksschulunterrichts., ed, C, Kehr,Bd. 2(1879), p, 447,

28 Etnige Gedanken iiber die Ordnung und Falge,

P-23-29 D. Rittershausen, op, cit., gives a clear account

of the various types of city school,30 F. G, von der Reck, Ueber die Verbesserung der

Landschulen {Hannover, 1796), p, 48. The authorpaints a vivid picture of the country schoolmastercarrying into his classroom hymnbook, Bible,catechism and cane,

31 Reglement wegen der Teutschen Privat-Schulenin denen Stadten und Vorstddten Berlins, 16 Oct,1738, quoted by D, Rittershausen, op, cit.,pp, 216-222,

32 F.G, von der Reck, op. cit,, pp, 60-61, shows thatthe practice was common in other parts ofGermany,

33 Those privately educated at home were exemptfrom these provisions,

34 D. Rittershausen, op. cit., p. 310.35 P. Lundgreen, op, cit,, pp, 566-567,36 Amongst writers who have tackled this difficult

subject are Irene Jentsch, Zur Geschichte desZeitungslesens in Deutschland am Ende des 18.Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1937); Rudolf Schenda,Volk ohne Buch, Studien zur Sozialgeschichteder populdren Lesestoffe lyyo-igio (Frankfurtam Main, 1970); Rolf Engelsing, Analpha-betentum und Lektiire, Zur Sozialgeschichte desLesens in Deutschland zwischen feudaler undindustrieller Geselhchaft (Stuttgart, 1973),

37 R, Schenda, Volk ohne Buch., p. 444 and p, 42.38 J, N, Becker, Beschreibung meiner Reise, p. 120;

quoted by I, Jentsch, op, cit., p. 10,

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