During the Age of Enlightenment, Menschlichkeit in German translated the concept humanitas of Cicero, a person with the qualities one would hope for in a friend or trusted colleague.
Die Menschenerziehung published in 1826 by Friedrich Froebel outlined his ideas for educating a “better human being”. His philosophy of human development provided the basis for a plan to implement these ideas.
One of the most important books on education ever written, it was translated into English by W.N. Hailmann in 1887.
Frederick William III of Prussia at first seriously considered ways of fulfilling the promise he had made in 1815 to establish constitutional government.
Economic reformers succeeded in enacting the Prussian Customs Law of 1818, which united all the Prussian territories into a customs union free of internal economic barriers; this later formed the nucleus of a national customs union.
In 1834 the Zollverein, or Customs Union, including most of the states of the German Confederation, came into existence.
To those, whose hopes had risen so high during the Wars of Liberation, the peace settlement of 1815 seemed to be an instrument of blind reaction.
In place of the Holy Roman Empire the peacemakers of the Congress of Vienna had established a new organization of German states with a federal Diet meeting in Frankfurt am Main. Delegates were appointed by and responsible to the rulers whom they served.
By the end of 1820 the reform movement came to a complete halt. It had succeeded in altering the political and economic structure of society, but it had been unable to establish a tradition of liberal government and national loyalty in Germany.
Although the critics of the established order could be defeated, they could not be silenced. There were now men in the German states who refused to submit without question to princely authority and to seek freedom only in the inner recesses of the soul.
The liberals, or moderates favoured a monarchical system of authority, but the crown was to share its powers with a parliament elected by the men of property. Influence in public affairs should be accessible to all male citizens who had demonstrated through the acquisition of wealth and education that they were capable of exercising the franchise intelligently. Their path of civic wisdom was the happy medium between royal absolutism and mob rule, a medium that had been established in Britain by the Reform Bill of 1832 and in France by the regime of Louis-Philippe. The liberals favoured the transformation of the German Confederation into a national monarchy in which the states’ rights would be curtailed but not destroyed by a central government and a federal parliament.
The democrats, or radicals, looked with scorn on the golden mean between autocracy and anarchy that the liberals sought. They preferred an egalitarian form of authority in which not parliamentary plutocracy but popular sovereignty would be the underlying principle of government. While they were forced to accept the crown as a political institution, they nevertheless sought to transfer its power to a parliament elected by universal male suffrage. While not as influential as the moderates, the radicals remained an important source of opposition to the established order.
Growing criticism of the restored political order forced conservatives to define their ideological position more precisely. The old theories of monarchy by divine right or despotic benevolence offered little protection against the assaults of liberalism and democracy. The defenders of legitimism began to advance new arguments based on conservative assumptions about the nature of man and society.
The relationship between the individual and government, so the reasoning went, cannot be determined by paper constitutions founded on a doctrinaire individualism. Human actions are motivated not solely by rational considerations but by habit, feeling, instinct, and tradition as well. The impractical theories of visionary reformers fail to take into account the historic forces of organic development by which the past and the present shape the future. An enduring form of government can be built only on the traditional institutions of society: the throne, the church, the nobility, and the army. Only a system of authority legitimated by law and history can protect the worker against exploitation, the believer against godlessness, and the citizen against revolution. According to these tenets, the political institutions of the German Confederation were valid, because they represented fundamental ideals deeply embedded in the spirit of the nation.
The hard times that swept over the Continent in the late 1840s transformed widespread popular discontent in the German Confederation into a full-blown revolution. After the middle of the decade, a severe economic depression halted industrial expansion and aggravated urban unemployment. At the same time, serious crop failures led to a major famine from Ireland to Russian Poland. In the German states, the hungry 1840s drove the lower classes, which had long been suffering from the economic effects of industrial and agricultural rationalization, to the point of open rebellion. There were sporadic hunger riots and violent disturbances in several of the states, but the signal for a concerted uprising did not come until early in 1848 with the exciting news that the regime of the bourgeois king Louis-Philippe had been overthrown by an insurrection in Paris (February 22–24). The result was a series of sympathetic revolutions against the governments of the German Confederation, most of them mild but a few, as in the case of the fighting in Berlin, bitter and bloody.
But even more important was the attempt to achieve political unification through a national assembly representing all of Germany. Elections were held soon after the spring uprising had subsided, and on May 18 the Frankfurt National Assembly met in Frankfurt am Main to prepare the constitution for a free and united fatherland. Its convocation represented the realization of the hopes that nationalists had cherished for more than a generation. Within the space of a few weeks, those who had fought against the particularistic system of the restoration for so long suddenly found themselves empowered with a popular mandate to rebuild the foundations of political and social life in Germany.
Once the spring uprising was over, the parties and classes that had participated in it began to quarrel about the nature of the new order that was to take the place of the old. There were sharp differences between the liberals and the democrats. While the Frankfurt parliament was debating the constitution under which Germany would be governed, its following diminished and its authority declined. The forces of the right, recovering from the demoralization of their initial defeat, began to regain confidence in their own power and legitimacy.
By the time the Frankfurt parliament completed its deliberations in the spring of 1849, the revolution was everywhere at ebb tide. The constitution that the National Assembly had drafted called for a federal union headed by a hereditary emperor with powers limited by a popularly elected legislature. By the summer of 1849 the revolution, which had begun a year earlier amid such extravagant expectations, was completely crushed.
Enabling students to build individual character by choosing their own way was the ideal for education envisaged by Humbolt.
Berlin University profoundly influenced education throughout central, eastern, and northern Europe, after being founded in 1810 under the influence of Wilhelm von Humboldt. Among the scholars he appointed were Friedrich Carl von Savigny, and Johann Gottlieb Fichte.
Friedrich Froebel arrived in Berlin in 1812, after studying at Frankfurt and Göttingen .
Universities built on the Humboldtian model have provided students with the ability to address recalcitrant problems, leading to major scientific breakthroughs with important economic effects.
Starting with Johns Hopkins University, American universities were early to adopt several of the German educational and scientific principles. During the 20th century these principles have been recognised as valuable in most of the world.
A sense of fulfilling one’s nature or purpose in response to the challenges of a particular historical and societal context.
Our understanding of the world is not a spectator sport, but more like an active ingredient in societal renewal.
Bildung is about our responsibility for and participation in an evolving process of social maturation that reimagines culture, technology, institutions and policies for the greater good.
Bildung entails a dynamic world view that values independence of mind and spirit grounded in ecological and social interdependence.
These qualities of heart and mind are not optional extras for the transition to a better world:
how well we learn to perceive and feel and know differently,
our capacity to question our assumptions,
our inclination to empathise with strangers,
to relate wisely to what is old and new,
to perceive the relationship between parts and wholes
Our task is not so much to “be the change we want to see in the world”, it rather is to become the change we want to see in the world.
Jon Amos Comenius is considered by many to be the father of the idea of universal or democratic education. A Czech philosopher and theologian who lived from 1592 to 1670, he declined the offer to be President of Harvard University. His genius lay in grasping that since learning is as natural as breathing or eating or sleeping, education should be seen as an aspect of nature’s formative process; and since nature is often experienced as sacred, and we are part of nature, an organism’s lifelong disposition to learn is the wellspring of meaning and purpose in life.
The authors of The Nordic Secret, Lene Rachel Andersen and Tomas Bjorkman argue that Bildung lies at the heart of their story of how the Nordic countries developed from poor agrarian and mostly authoritarian societies, to affluent, stable and relatively happy social democracies. They encapsulate the idea as follows:
“Bildung is the way that the individual matures and takes upon him or herself ever bigger personal responsibility towards family, friends, fellow citizens, society, humanity, our globe, and the global heritage of our species, while enjoying ever bigger personal, moral and existential freedoms. It is the enculturation and life-long learning that forces us to grow and change, it is existential and emotional depth, it is life-long interaction and struggles with new knowledge, culture, art, science, new perspectives, new people, and new truths, and it is being an active citizen in adulthood. Bildung is a constant process that never ends.”
The notion that we become ‘more’ human through various forms of maturation or development lies at the heart of Bildung, and sets it apart from other forms of education. This notion has many intellectual forebears and Hegel is certainly one of them. In The Phenomenology of Mind he writes:
“The spirit is never at rest but always engaged in ever progressive motion, in giving itself new form.”
Returning to Bildung as praxis, the profound interplay of biological, psychological, social and spiritual features of life is reflected in a line from the classic 1943 text, Education through Art, by Herbert Read:
“The aim of imaginative education…is to give the individual a concrete sensuous awareness of the harmony and rhythm which enters into the constitution of all living bodies and plants, which is the formal basis of all works of art, to the end that the child, in its life and activities, shall partake of the same organic grace and beauty. By means of such education we instil into the child that ‘instinct of relationship’ which, even before the advent of reason, enable it to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly, the good from the evil, the right pattern of behaviour from the wrong pattern, the noble person from the ignoble.”
A healthy society that is attuned to nature and other sources of intrinsic value depends upon making this educative process the axis upon which society turns.
Piaget, J. (1993) John Amos Comenius Prospects (UNESCO, International Bureau of Education), vol. XXIII, no. 1/2, p. 173-96. Available Online
Kandinsky, an instructor at the Bauhaus school, distributed a questionnaire in 1923 asking which of the primary colors should represent each of these basic forms.
The consensus was that the triangle should be assigned the color yellow, the circle blue and the square red. These motifs became an enduring symbol of the Bauhaus.
One of the guiding principles of the Bauhaus architectural movement was that all objects can be formed by simple shapes, the triangle, circle and square.
You can see these motifs in Walter Gropius’ houses, Marianne Brandt’s teapot, Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings and in the works of many other Bauhaus artists.
A pendant incorporating a triangle, circle and square has been designed in honor of this artistic movement, which celebrates its 100th birthday in 2019.
This pendant incorporating a triangle, circle and square is printed in interlocking cast metal so that the circle and square swing freely in relation to the triangle.
Intricate origami stars folded as Christmas decorations in Germany are named as a tribute to Friedrich Frobel.
A 19th century German educator, who is the father of the kindergarten concept, he taught children to fold origami stars to improve their manual dexterity.
The stars have a long tradition in the state of Thuringia in Germany and to this day people still fold “Fröbelsterne” before Christmas and hang them on their trees.
Pendant is inspired by Froebel stars (Fröbelsterne)
The Fröbelstern pendant is 2.1 cm (0.8 inches) wide and 2.5 cm (1 inch) long.
According to the fashion of the humanists, Jan Cizek used the latinized form of his name, Johannes Zeising.
A former monk from Silesia, Jan Cizek was educated for the Roman Catholic priesthood, studied at the Jagiellonian University of Cracow from 1504 and became a Franciscan monk at Breslau in 1510.
He and a couple of his colleagues, Michael Weisse and Johann Mönch, were influenced by the writings of Martin Luther (1483-1546). As a result the three friends were expelled from Breslau around 1517.
Zeising wrote on the topics of Scripture, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper in ways that influenced the “Colloquy of Austerlitz” held on March 14, 1526.
He wrote that the salvific spiritual presence of Christ manifested itself in living things, in the thoughts, hearts, and souls of believers.
“If salvation came through the Scriptures or the sacraments, then everyone who read or heard Scripture or received the sacraments would receive salvation and moral transformation.”
“Preaching is vain when God does not use it to do his inner work in people. For the person who is born again, the external word is a testimony of the internally experienced truth.”
“On the external or serving and the inner or essential word of God”
Zeising objected to the idea that the external, written, and preached word has the same power as the inner and essential word of God.
“The external word is a mere letter and transient voice. The inner, living word is Spirit and life. God does his work in people through the Holy Spirit how and when he wills. The outer word can transmit an external, rational knowledge of Christian doctrine and a historical, literal belief, but not a spiritual rebirth. Spiritual rebirth is a work of the Spirit; it produces a knowledge of God that is written in the human heart, and brings salvation.”
In respect to baptism and the Lord’s Supper, Zeising distinguished between the direct, salvific inner event and its external witness or signification through water baptism and the partaking of the communion elements, the same distinction that he drew between inner and outer word.
The protocol of the Austerlitz colloquy distinguished between a spiritual communion necessary to salvation and the reception of outer signs, which was not necessary to salvation:
“All believers should recognize and acknowledge two kinds of communion, one inward and spiritual, the other an external remembrance. The first, the spiritual, is necessary for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life; it happens through faith and is sufficient for salvation. The other communion is in no sense to be disparaged, but should be held in all respects according to the last will and testament of Christ.”
Moravia was part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, which fell to the Habsburgs in 1526. Johannes Zeising was burned at the stake on April 10, 1528 at Brunn (Brno), formerly the seat of the Moravian Provincial Diet or Estates.
The incorporation of Bohemia into the Habsburg Monarchy against the resistance of the local Protestant nobility sparked the 1618 Defenestration of Prague and the Thirty Years’ War.
Silesia was part of the Kingdom of Bohemia until 1740, when Prussia annexed Silesia.
In 1813 Silesia became the center of the revolt against Napoleon. The Prussian royal family moved to Breslau, where Frederick William III published the letter An mein Volk (to my people) which called the German people to arms. The experience of the war of liberation strengthened the bond of Silesians to Prussia and the Province of Silesia became one of Prussia’s most loyal provinces.
William Strutt depicts the bushfires which engulfed Victoria on Black Thursday, 6 February 1851. The city of Melbourne was filled with dust, smoke and a rain of cinders, the glow of which could be seen from far out at sea.
“I can never forget the morning of that scorching Thursday, ever after memorable in the annals of the Colony as “Black Thursday”. The sun looked red all day, almost as blood, and the sky the colour of mahogany. We felt in town that something terrible must be going on up country and sure enough messenger after messenger came flocking in with tales of distress and horror.”
William Strutt in his journal.
Widespread bushfires covered a quarter of Victoria, approximately 5 million hectares. Approximately 12 lives, one million sheep and thousands of cattle were lost.
After an intense drought throughout 1850 and extreme heat, the weather reached record extremes. By eleven it was about 47 °C (117 °F) in the shade. The air cooled to 43 °C (109 °F) by one o’clock and rose to 45 °C (113 °F) around four o’clock. A strong furnace like wind came from the north and gained power and speed as the hours passed. The hot north wind was so strong that a ship at sea came under burning ember attack and was covered in cinders and dust.
Bushfires become possible, because of inappropriate landscape management by settlers. The people, who for tens of thousands of years had maintained tracts of walkable land and hunting grounds, where displaced by sheep eating the yams, which they cultivated as a major food source.
An estate purchased in 1799 with the intention to make agriculture the basis of a new system of education .
Returning to Berne from Paris in 1791, Philipp Emanuel von Fellenberg resolved to create a school for pupils of all social classes to learn skills and personal integrity. By fostering enterprise, Christianity and understanding, he hoped to prevent French style Revolutions and violent uprisings.
Working with Pestalozzi, their intention was elevating the lower and rightly training the higher orders of the state, and welding them together in a closer union than had previously been deemed attainable.
The school at first excited a large amount of ridicule, but gradually it began to attract the notice of foreign countries; and pupils, some of them of the highest rank, began to flock to him from every country in Europe, both for the purpose of studying agriculture and to profit by the high moral training associated with his educational system.
For forty five years Fellenberg, assisted by his wife, continued his educational labours, and finally raised his institution to the highest point of prosperity and usefulness. He died on the 21st of November 1844.
See Hamm, Fellenberg’s Leben und Wirken (Bern, 1845); and
Schoni, Der Stifter von Hofwyl, Leben und Wirken Fellenberg’s.
Blocking out, turning a blind eye, shutting off, not wanting to know, wearing blinkers, seeing what we want to see … these are all expressions of ‘denial’.
When we deny, are we aware of what we are doing or is this an unconscious defence mechanism to protect us from unwelcome truths?
Can there be cultures of denial?
Is denial always so bad – or do we need positive illusions to retain our sanity?
States of Denial is the first comprehensive study of both the personal and political ways in which uncomfortable realities are avoided and evaded. It ranges from clinical studies of depression, to media images of suffering, to explanations of the ‘passive bystander’ and ‘compassion fatigue’. The book shows how organized atrocities – the Holocaust and other genocides, torture, and political massacres – are denied by perpetrators and by bystanders, those who stand by and do nothing.
Congratulations to Stanley Cohen on winning the American Society of Criminology’s International Division Award for outstanding publication of 2000-2001 for States of Denial!
