THE GERMANS AT SCHOOL 613 



shop or in the business. But the nineteenth century changed those 

 paternalizing conditions and brought complete freedom. The result 

 was a steadily growing insubordination and obstinacy, frivolous breaches 

 of contracts and unreliability, together with a craving for enjoyment on 

 the moral side, and a lack of careful training on the professional side. 

 The community felt this inability to get hold of the boys who had left 

 school as one of the most serious national dangers. In response to this 

 need the continuation schools were founded which are to develop the 

 youth after the school years in moral, practical and intellectual respects. 

 The essential difference from all other schools lies of course in the fact 

 that these take only a fraction of the boy's time in order not to interfere 

 with his work. But they receive their real social background by the 

 legal obligation of the employer to give to every boy the opportunity to 

 attend these school classes. Compared with the general elementary 

 school, the continuation school is professional, while the other is a 

 humanistic school. On the other hand, compared with the real tech- 

 nical schools both lower and higher, it combines the technical instruc- 

 tion with general education. But, above all, the technical schools de- 

 mand for some years the whole working time of the pupils, while the 

 continuation schools are only supplementary to the chief business of the 

 boy. The technical schools, such as for instance all the agricultural 

 schools or the special industrial schools or the commercial schools, are 

 strictly professional; the continuation schools are essentially educa- 

 tional. It may be said that even the technical element in them becomes 

 subordinated to the aim of making a whole man and not only a skilful 

 worker out of the boy who has left the school in his fourteenth year. 

 The principle of this continuation school has conquered all Germany, 

 but the realization of it looks very different in the various parts of the 

 country. In some, the communities are forced by law to establish such 

 schools, in other parts the towns are free to arrange them according to 

 the local needs. On the whole this difference seems less important, as 

 the continuation schools are flourishing wonderfully in some parts in 

 which the laws give large freedom in the matter to the community. 

 The point about which the discussion at present seems much more 

 excited is the question whether the school teacher or the man of prac- 

 tical life, the master in the arts and crafts, the business man, the farmer, 

 the industrial specialist, is to be the decisive factor. The men of the 

 workshop complain that these schools become worthless as soon as the 

 methods and the points of view of the school teacher control them, and 

 the opposite party believes that the highest value is missed if the spirit 

 of the factory and not that of the schoolroom enters into them. 



As the continuation schools were to serve the needs of young people 

 in many different walks of practical life, the schools themselves had to 

 develop an almost unlimited manifoldness. A subtle adjustment to the 

 local conditions as well as to the varieties of industry and trade had to 



