Classical humanism and scientific philology

In 1840, Ludolf Wienbarg (1802–1872), one of the leading exponents of a group of progressive writers known as ‘Young Germany’ (Junges Deutschland), launched a vehement attack on the course that classical studies had taken in recent decades.²³⁷ Wienbarg maintained that the pursuit of “classical humanness” (classische Humanität), which in his view should be the sole motivation behind the study of antiquity, had increasingly disappeared from view by the rise of scientific philology, which had recently “claimed the authority of a self-contained science” (abgeschlossene Wissenschaft) that was exercised “for its own sake.” (8; cf. 69 f.) With these words, Wienbarg referred to the attempts of a previous generation of academic philologists, represented by Friedrich August Wolf (1759–1824), Barthold Niebuhr (1776–1831) and August Böckh (1785–1867), to transform the study of the ancient world to a proper “science of antiquity” (Altertumswissenschaft) that served no other purpose than that of “reine Wissenschaftlichkeit.” (72, 92) Wienbarg felt deeply worried by this development because it brought in its wake a distinct movement away from what he deemed the proper task of classical studies: to enable students to “ennoble” their human nature by the study of the “eternal models” provided by the Greek and Roman classics. (59, 95) In Wienbarg’s view, the “psychological and anatomical interest of science” gained ever more ground on a “poetic and artistic interest” in classical antiquity. (77) “Science advances unstoppably,” he noted with great concern, “leaving behind it in mournful solitude poetry, the young, the heart that wants to admire, the character that wants to be toughened, the eye that wants to be formed by great examples (großartige Existenzen). It’s not the ancients anymore whom one meets in antiquity, it’s our professors’ views on the ancients and on the ancient world. One seeks the Athenians and finds Böckh; one seeks the Romans and meets with Niebuhr. “Up to now – said Goethe –the world believed in the heroic spirit of a Lucretia, of a Mucius Scaevola and allowed itself to be warmed and inspired by it. But now comes historical criticism and says that those persons have never lived, but should be seen as fictions and fables which (…) the Romans invented. But what are we to do with such a miserable truth! (…) If the Romans were great enough to invent such a thing, so should we at least be great enough to believe in it.”” (78)

In Wienbarg’s view, the scientific approach to the classical world, or the “scientific principle” (wissenschaftliches Princip), as he called it (87), excluded a humanistic approach.²³⁸ Scientific philology placed the classics at such a distance that a modern philologist could hardly be expected to take delight in their “classical humanness.” Therefore, the only option left to Wienbarg was to ban scientific philology from the realm of humanistic studies. Although he did not intend to put an end to scientific philology as such, he solemnly declared to defend “a sacred boundary within which the unapproachable heroes of antiquity rule.” This sacred, humane realm, off limits to scientific philology, should form “the antique hall (Antikensaal) of the young, where nothing surrounds them but what is great and beautiful, the last asylum of all strong, educated minds.” (87) Wienbarg was so pessimistic about the suffocating and seemingly irreversible advance of scientific philology that the only way he saw to reorient classical studies to their proper humanistic goal was, ironically, to rigorously curtail classical education. His reform proposal, in fact, belonged to the most radical of the entire century. Wienbarg contended that learning Latin and Greek should lose its obligatory character and be left to the students’ personal choice. Moreover, he held that classical education should at the earliest commence at the age of fifteen, as truly understanding the classics would not be possible at a younger age. (32, 37)²³⁹

Although Wienbarg received virtually no support for his exorbitant reform plan, the antagonism between scientific philology and classical humanism was soon widely acknowledged as a serious problem. Ever since Wienbarg’s days, classical humanists have been concerned about the impact of scientific philology on the original importance of their discipline.²⁴⁰ Yet, the actual conflict between science and humanism has hardly ever been the object of thorough research. Although scholarship on the scientification of classical philology is immense, as far as the conflict between science and humanism is concerned, most scholars restrict themselves to observing that Wolf’s foundation of Altertumswissenschaft has “left philology and (…) the humanities with a dilemma” that is “still open.”²⁴¹

Yet a critical evaluation of this dilemma is urgently needed for at least two reasons: firstly, by assuming an opposition between scientific philology and humanism one easily tends to downplay the fact that what is known as the ‘philological method,’ i. e., a procedure aiming at sound textual interpretation through thorough study of historical sources, had been at the very core of classical humanism ever since the days of Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) and Poliziano (1454–1494).²⁴² Critical, philological method was of such central importance to the tradition of humanism that the very modern, scientific philology that many classical humanists decry would have been wholly unthinkable without it. It is true, of course, that various specific research methods that were developed in the 19^th century (such as the Lachmann method) as well as specific academic subdisciplines (such as archaeology) were still unknown to older humanists. Yet, to radically oppose the use of scientific method to the tradition of classical humanism is certainly to put matters much too simply.²⁴³

Secondly, it is important to realise that the opposition between scientific method and humanism is itself a product of a typically 19^th-century way of thinking. Indeed, it was only in the second half of the 19^th century that the idea that true science excludes humanistic values began to gain a broad foothold. The idea that humanistic studies were eis ipsis unscientific would not have made any sense to Renaissance humanists, nor to virtually all philologists of the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, who, as we shall see in this chapter, employed a concept of science that manifestly did incorporate humanistic values. Thus, the fundamental problem with the supposed opposition between scientific philology and humanism is that it ultimately begs the question. It excludes humanism from the realm of science on terms that are only acceptable to people who already believe in this exclusivity from the outset. The relation between scientific philology and humanism, then, is usually analysed in a distinctly one-sided fashion. In this chapter I aim to restore the balance by first discussing the concept of science employed by late 18^th-century classical humanists who were still unaffected by 19^th century developments; secondly, I will examine how this initial concept of science was gradually undermined under the influence of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Finally, I will consider how two leading academic philologists, Friedrich August Wolf (1759–1824) and Friedrich Creuzer (1771–1858), incorporated this ‘Kantian turn’ into their views on classical scholarship. We shall see that both Wolf and Creuzer, for all their endeavours to transform classical philology into an independent “science of antiquity,” remained ultimately committed to humanistic ideals. Far from sacrificing humanism to science, their greatest dream was to make scientific philology subservient to humanistic ends.

Classical education as schöne Wissenschaft

In the 18^th-century Germanies, classical studies were usually grouped among a set of disciplines known as the ‘schöne Wissenschaften.’²⁴⁴ This interesting term, originating in the 17^th century, reached the peak of its popularity between 1750 and 1780. Negatively, the schöne Wissenschaften distinguished themselves from the ‘faculty sciences’ (Fakultätswissenschaften) – theology, law and medicine –as well as from other ‘higher sciences’ (höhere Wissenschaften), such as mathematics and physics.²⁴⁵ Positively, the schöne Wissenschaften were characterised by a primary focus on what later became known as aesthetic disciplines, that is, disciplines in which beauty of form played an essential role: poetry, architecture, painting, music, dance, etc. When relating to education, its meaning was usually narrowed down to literary genres alone, above all poetry, rhetoric and historiography, that is, to the genres that formed the primary object of classical school studies.²⁴⁶ As the ancients were unanimously considered the unrivalled masters of these literary disciplines, the term schöne Wissenschaften was often equated with classical literature.²⁴⁷ Apart from classical literature itself, the term schöne Wissenschaften also comprised disciplines that were needed for a full understanding and appreciation of classical texts, such as history, mythology, antiquities, geography etc. Although in these ancillary disciplines, beauty itself did not play a central role, they could be grouped among the schöne Wissenschaften because they ultimately contributed to the understanding and appreciation of beautiful, classical literature.²⁴⁸ As far as education was concerned, the term schöne Wissenschaften therefore took on a meaning very similar to that of classical school studies. It comprised both the classical writings that formed the main subject of classical education and the ancillary disciplines needed to explain them.

It is significant that in the late 18^th century, both classical literature and classical school studies were understood as sciences (Wissenschaften), a term that had a distinctly different and broader meaning than that familiar to us today. As Werner Strube points out, the element ‘Wissenschaft’ in ‘schöne Wissenschaft’ in the first place denoted a certain disposition: both the knowledge of the rules that must be observed to produce something beautiful and the capacity to put this knowledge into practice.²⁴⁹ Poetry, for example, was seen both as the science (knowledge) of the rules that must be applied to compose a beautiful poem and as the capacity to write such a poem.²⁵⁰ In the second place, the term Wissenschaft was also used to refer to the aesthetic disciplines themselves: e. g. poetry, oratory, etc.²⁵¹ For our present investigation it is of crucial importance that in the late 18^th century, the concept of science did not yet exclude values. On the contrary, the very term schöne Wissenschaften testifies to the fact that values were seen, not just as involved in a substantial number of ‘sciences,’ but as their central point of focus. Beauty, far from being relegated to the realm of subjective judgment, was seen as a worthy object of scientific knowledge. Although it was generally agreed that knowledge of the beautiful could not lay claim to the same degree of certainty as the higher sciences,²⁵² it was nevertheless recognised as a science in its own right.²⁵³

The close association between beauty and science, reflected in the concept of schöne Wissenschaft, was of eminent importance to the classical-humanistic ideal of education that I have exemplified by the case of Karl Gottfried Siebelis. This ideal, which was widespread in the late 18^th century, was based on a normative approach to the ancient world: it focused on classical literature and art as storehouses of eminent values. However, this normative approach, which is reflected in the majority of ‘constitutive aspects’ – in the concept of Humanität, in the ideal of elevation, in the focus on intellectual, aesthetic and moral values as well as in the phenomenon of enthusiasm – could not possibly be epistemologically justified if values would have been excluded from the domain of true science. Only because values were considered an object of solid and, therefore, communicable knowledge, classical education could preserve its markedly normative character. The concept of schöne Wissenschaft, then, was a sine qua non of the humanistic approach to classical studies. The anti-utilitarian tendency of classical humanism, too, was consolidated by the concept of schöne Wissenschaft. This can well be illustrated by an essay by Johann Gottfried Herder on the relation between the schöne Wissenschaften and the higher sciences.²⁵⁴ Herder started from the common perception that the higher sciences related to various forms of professionalism, whereas the schöne Wissenschaften preceded, or transcended, professional training: “The schöne Wissenschaften have the advantage of being suited for all classes and occupations, whereas each of the higher sciences forms a separate field of its own.”²⁵⁵ As the schöne Wissenschaften formed a “common field” (Gemeinflur) to everyone’s advantage,²⁵⁶ they alone laid a valid claim to humane education. At one point, Herder therefore even proposed to rename them as “bildende Wissenschaften.”²⁵⁷ Herder’s colleague Friedrich Gedike, director of the Friedrichswerdersches Gymnasium in Berlin, argued in a similar vein that “the Gymnasium should only educate the dilettant.” (Die Gelehrtenschule soll nur den Dilettanten bilden.)²⁵⁸ In other words, the concept of schöne Wissenschaften, by its marked opposition to the specialised, higher sciences, contributed to creating and protecting a realm of education that remained free from occupational restrictions and exclusively aimed at providing general, humane Bildung.

Finally, the concept of schöne Wissenschaft offered ample scope for education to focus thoroughly on the classics as a single, main subject. This follows from the fundamental distinction between school and academic education that was built into the concept of schöne Wissenschaft. In Herder’s view, it was the task of the schöne Wissenschaften to cultivate and discipline “the so-called lower faculties of the soul, sensual knowledge, wit, imagination, the sensuous instincts, pleasure, the passions and the inclinations.” Only on this fundament, the higher mental faculties (“the judgment, the intellect, the will and the intentions”) could be successfully developed.²⁵⁹ From this view, it naturally followed that the schöne Wissenschaften belonged to school education, whereas the higher sciences were reserved for the academy. The schools, Herder argued, should be careful not to “overburden” the young with “so-called higher knowledge” (höhere Kenntnisse) at a stage when they had not yet trodden “the beautiful path of the ancient writers.” To him, the classics must be extensively studied before other topics were allowed to enter the curriculum.²⁶⁰ Thus, the concept of schöne Wissenschaft helped to justify the thorough study of the ancient classics as a “main subject” characteristic of the classical-humanistic ideal of education.

It appears, then, that the concept of schöne Wissenschaft provided the classical-humanistic ideal of education with a solid theoretical foundation. It was well suited to justify a type of classical education that was characterised by a normative approach to the ancient world, an anti-utilitarian concept of general, humane Bildung and a primary focus on the classics as a main subject.

The Kantian turn

With his Critique of Judgment (1790), Immanuel Kant launched a trenchant and seminally influential critique on the concept of schöne Wissenschaft, which he considered an “absurdity” (Unding). He was convinced that there was “neither a science of the beautiful, but only a critique [of the beautiful], nor schöne Wissenschaft, but only schöne Kunst.”²⁶¹ Kant’s critique sprang from an attempt to narrow down and solidify the concept of science, which up to then had been used in a variety of meanings. Although Kant did not yet develop a consistent concept of science himself, he insisted that true science deal exclusively with knowledge that was obtainable by the application of strict method and therefore determinable with complete certainty. “True science,” he wrote, is “only that [science], whose certainty is apodictic.”²⁶² Thus, if the concept of schöne Wissenschaft would be viable, “it should be possible to establish in a scientific way (wissenschaftlich), that is, by arguments (Beweisgründe), whether something should be considered beautiful or not; therefore, the judgment on the beautiful, if it were to be attributed to science, would not be a judgment of taste,”²⁶³ which, to Kant, was “not to be determined by arguments at all.”²⁶⁴ To Kant, however, it was a judgment of taste, as there seemed to be no objective concepts on the basis of which it could be decided why certain things are considered beautiful whereas others are not.²⁶⁵ This “subjectification” of aesthetics by Kant, as Gadamer called it, was of profound and immediate influence on the philosophical way of reflecting on science.²⁶⁶ After Kant, the concept of schöne Wissenschaft declined rapidly. As early as 1801, August Wilhelm Schlegel called the expression “almost obsolete.”²⁶⁷ A few years later, Hegel wrote that the term schöne Wissenschaft was no longer in use.²⁶⁸ Meanwhile, the ideal of rigorous science experienced a spectacular upsurge. Schlegel wrote that “all science is rigorous by nature; the appearance of play and freedom, which plays an essential role with everything beautiful, is entirely excluded [from science].”²⁶⁹ In his Geschmackslehre oder Ästhetik (1818), the philosopher Wilhelm Traugott Krug wrote: “Art we call ‘fine,’ inasmuch as it is concerned with production or presentation of the aesthetically-pleasing; science is never concerned with that, but only with the production, or rather the discovery of truth.”²⁷⁰ This dissociation between science and art, realised in the wake of the Kantian turn, drove a wedge between the elements of knowledge and beauty, which for long had been successfully combined in the concept of schöne Wissenschaft.

The paradigm shift in the philosophical way of defining science profoundly influenced ideas on classical education. The study of classical literature, with its major focus on aesthetic values, was increasingly at risk of not being acknowledged as a true science and therefore of being discarded as frivolous.²⁷¹ As a result, defenders of classical education endeavoured to transform classical studies in such a way as to make it meet the new demands of science. Aiming to reduce the traditional focus on aesthetic and other values, they highlighted that aspect of classical studies that was the most strictly methodical and therefore best fitted the Kantian view: philology.

Classical philology as ‘pure science:’ Friedrich August Wolf

From the 1790s onwards, a group of leading academic philologists undertook to apply the changing demands of science to classical philology. The central aim of these scholars was to conceive of classical philology as a clearly ordered system in which interdependent subdisciplines were all assigned their proper place and task.²⁷² This quest for clarity and systematic order can be measured by a new type of publication emerging in the last decade of the 18^th century, which provided theoretical, encyclopaedic surveys of the constitutive parts of classical philology. One of the first of those works was the Encyklopädie aller philologischen Wissenschaften, für Schulen und Selbst-Unterricht (1793) by Erduin Julius Koch. Koch’s initiative was followed by a whole series of subsequent publications, prominent among which were G.G. Fülleborn, Encyclopaedia Philologica (1798); J.H.C. Barby, Encyklopädie und Methodologie des humanistischen Studiums oder der Philologie der Griechen und Römer (1805); J.C.L. Schaaff, Enzyklopädie der classischen Alterthumskunde, 2 vol. (1806 – 8); Fr. Creuzer, Das Akademische Studium des Alterthums (1807); F.A. Wolf, Darstellung der Alterthumswissenschaft (1807); Fr. Ast, Grundriss der Philologie (1808); Fr. Ficker, Anleitung zum Studium der griechischen und römischen Classiker (1821–5); A. Matthiä, Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der Philologie (1835).²⁷³ The most famous and influential of these publications was Wolf’s Darstellung der Alterthumswissenschaft (1807).²⁷⁴ In this work, Wolf aimed to “elevate everything that belonged to the full knowledge of (…) antiquity to the value of a well-ordered philosophical-historical science.” (5) All different subfields of classical philology he wanted to assign a clear place and task. (ibid.) Already in his lectures on the “encyclopaedia and methodology of the studies of antiquity,” which he delivered from 1785 onwards at the University of Halle, Wolf defined his goal with great precision: his aim was to present an “encyclopedia of philology in which, after the entire circle of (…) subjects covered by ancient literature would have been passed through, the scope, the content, the [mutual] linkages, the utility, the tools [and] finally the correct and fruitful treatment of each one of the individual disciplines [were] explained.” (6) Wolf’s penchant for the transformation of the study of antiquity into a systematically ordered whole showed the influence of Immanuel Kant, who wrote that “each doctrine (Lehre) is called science (Wissenschaft) when it is a whole of knowledge that is ordered according to principles.”²⁷⁵ In Darstellung der Alterthumswissenschaft, Wolf gave further substance to his objectives by subdividing classical studies into twenty four subdisciplines, ranging from “fundamental” disciplines (grammar, hermeneutics and criticism), to specialist ones such as mythology, numismatics and epigraphy.²⁷⁶ Because he emphatically wanted these interdependent disciplines to form a systematic whole, he chose to denote the study of antiquity by a name that was expressive of the intended systematic ordering: Alterthumswissenschaft.²⁷⁷ (30) His quest for conceptual clarity was accompanied by a quest for solid, certain knowledge. Wolf expected the knowledge yielded by a properly operated science of antiquity to possess a degree of certainty that would “often not be less” than that yielded by “the mathematical calculus.” (40 f.) He clearly modelled his concept of Altertumswissenschaft on the example provided by what he called the “exact” or “more precise” (genauere) sciences. (9, 40) Also in this respect, Wolf ’s concept of science closely resembled that of Immanuel Kant, a resemblance that earned him the reputation of being the “Kant of philology.”²⁷⁸

As order and precision were among Wolf’s main concerns, he was highly critical of the conceptual obscurity that characterised classical studies up to his day. He strongly disapproved of the fact that the various subdisciplines of the study of antiquity were plagued by “fluctuating boundaries and an indeterminate scope.” (11) Therefore, right at the beginning of his treatise, he expressed his discomfort with the conceptual and terminological confusion surrounding classical learning. Above all, the term schöne Wissenschaft aroused his disapproval, which he described as “wholly unsuitable” to capturing the nature of classical studies. Antiquity, Wolf argued, had various “sides that plainly attract by everything else than by beauté.”²⁷⁹ To Wolf, the ultimate objective of the true scholar of antiquity (Alterthumsgelehrte) was not to value the quality of perfect form, but “to raise one’s view to the purely scientific.”²⁸⁰

Nothing illustrates with more clarity the shift in thinking about classical studies than Wolf’s attempt to replace the concept of schöne Wissenschaft with a new concept of “pure science.” “It would be to adversely narrow down the scope of classical studies,” he wrote, “if, as happens (…) by most people studying the ancient works of art, one would highlight with false disgust (Eckel) only the classical and the beautiful, leaving everything else to the so-called antiquity-mongers.” ²⁸¹ The traditional, exemplary perspective on the ancient world Wolf complemented with an historical perspective, which he even considered superior to the traditional view: “The point of view focusing on the classicality (Classizi-tät) of individual writers and works of their kind should prevail less in the true expert on antiquity than the purely historical [perspective].”²⁸² In Wolf’s view, then, the primary aim of classical studies was no longer to appreciate classical texts for their exemplary qualities, but to gain “historical and philosophical knowledge, by which we can get to know the nations of the ancient world (…) in all possible respects through their remaining works.”²⁸³ This gradual shift of emphasis from an exemplary to an historical perspective on the ancient world is also discernible in the works of several of Wolf’s colleagues. In Über das Studium des Alterthums, und des Griechischen insbesondre (1793), Wilhelm von Humboldt warned against the risk of neglecting the historical perspective on antiquity by an exclusive focus on matters of form.²⁸⁴ In Das Akademische Studium des Alterthums (1807), Friedrich Creuzer argued in a similar vein that a classical philologist should not only study the famous classical works of literature, based on the “immutable laws of beauty,”²⁸⁵ but also “the polished, elegant, meticulous works of the learned Alexandrians and of the Romans.”²⁸⁶ Under the influence of the post-Kantian concept of science, then, the traditional interest in valuable, classical works of art gradually gave way to the objective of historically reconstructing the ancient world in all its different facets.²⁸⁷

Scientific philology as a humanistic discipline

The transformation of classical philology initiated by Wolf and Creuzer posed a major challenge to the classical-humanistic ideal of education as transmitted by most practical schoolteachers. In the first place, as the concept of schöne Wissenschaft was discredited by the Kantian turn, classicists faced increasing difficulties in justifying their primary focus on classical literature as a storehouse of intellectual, aesthetic and moral values. As values were no longer considered a worthy object of scientific knowledge, the epistemological foundation of the traditional, normative approach to the ancient world significantly weakened.

Secondly, the traditional view that classical education served a non-vocational purpose became harder to maintain. From the early 19^th century onwards, classical philologists increasingly tended to equate the educated man with the professional scholar, specialising in scientific philology. Friedrich Ast described the academic philologist as the “Gebildete par excellence.”²⁸⁸ S.M. Stockmann, in his edition of Friedrich August Wolf’s Encyclopädie der Philologie, maintained that “the most learned man should be the most educated and noblest man as well.”²⁸⁹ Wolf himself even expressed contempt for amateurs, whom he derogatorily described as “persons of general curiosity” who, acquiring “a certain familiarity with the ancient world,” never met the ideal of the “true expert of antiquity” (der eigentliche Alterthumskenner).²⁹⁰ To Wolf, these “unlearned wretches” (ungelehrte Stümper) would never be able to serve the interest of true science .²⁹¹ In other words, the increasing emphasis on classical studies as a professional, academic discipline weakened the focus on general, humane values that had been central to the traditional ideal of classical education.

Thirdly, as the traditional distinction between the schöne Wissenschaften and the ‘higher sciences’ seemed no longer tenable, the schools were at risk of losing their relative independence from the academy. In the course of the 19^th century, the Gymnasien included more and more subjects in their curricula that traditionally fell outside the scope of school education: modern languages, physics, astronomy, technology, natural history, etc.²⁹² The curricula offered by the schools increasingly resembled that offered by the universities. Thus, the thorough focus on the classics as a main subject, characteristic of traditional education, gradually lost strength. In short, the transformation of classical studies by scientific philology effectuated no less than an outright reversal of the traditional ideal of classical-humanistic education, at least at a theoretical level. In the wake of Kant’s expulsion of the schöne Wissenschaften from the realm of scientific knowledge, there was less room for a type of classical education that was characterised by a normative approach to the ancient world, a non-vocational concept of general, humane Bildung and a thorough focus on the classics as a main subject.²⁹³

However, despite the major challenge that the quest for a new concept of science posed to classical humanism, it is noticeable that Wolf and Creuzer themselves did not consider scientific philology and values to be mutually exclusive. On the contrary, as has often been observed, both Wolf and Creuzer intended to transform classical studies in explicitly normative terms. It was because they considered classical antiquity the best and most beautiful world that had ever been, that they recommended it as the perfect object for scientific study. In the introduction of Darstellung der Alterthumswissenschaft, Wolf described antiquity as “the inner sanctum of the (…) arts of the Muses,” which houses the “eternal sources of beauty.”²⁹⁴ Even the non-exemplary remains of the ancient world in Wolf’s view were sanctified by the sacred stature of antiquity as a whole. Even the “mediocrity” of many remains of the ancient world, he wrote, “still had a nobler stamp than modern mediocrity.” For unlike the latter, the first always remained ultimately oriented towards the “eminent models” from which they drew their ultimate justification.²⁹⁵ Wolf’s colleague Friedrich Ast described Greek antiquity as a “perfectly organised and beautifully shaped body,” in which “everything individual has the character of general, humane Bildung, because in everything [individual] the spirit of the whole is reflected.”²⁹⁶ Friedrich Jacobs stated that “if we consider antiquity in its most dignified form as a closed world of the noblest and most beautiful that has been formed by the human mind, (…) as a world in which everything that can elevate, purify and fertilise the human mind reveals itself in the most varied and perfect of forms, then we can not be indifferent to anything filling this sacred circle. (…) Then the entire inner coherence of the ancient world (…) is worth our most careful attention.”²⁹⁷ Only seemingly, then, did Wolf’s and Creuzer’s transformation of classical philology entail a turn away from a humanistic perspective on antiquity. At a deeper level, it testified to their conviction that not only ancient literature and art should be studied as exemplary models, but that antiquity at large was the most beautiful world of all times and should therefore be studied in its entirety. Their high appreciation of the ancient world is also evident from the fact that Wolf and Creuzer conceived of Altertumswissenschaft not only as a clearly ordered system, but also as an “organic whole,” another concept that was central to Kant’s view of science.²⁹⁸ Underlying Wolf’s endeavours to transform classical studies into scientific philology was his conception of ancient civilisation as a self-contained work of art, whose beauty and inner coherence was worth the highest admiration. This conception of antiquity’s “organic unity,” however, could not itself be traced back to scientific principles. As Axel Horstmann put it, the organic unity that Wolf perceived in the ancient world was not guaranteed “by a particular method of knowledge, but (only) by the object of research itself, by Greco-Roman antiquity, which was (…) a priori identified as an organic whole.”²⁹⁹ (it. added) It appears, then, that Wolf’s concept of science had much more in common with the concept of schöne Wissenschaft than he would have been willing to admit. It is ironic that Wolf, in the same treatise in which he made short shrift with the concept of schöne Wissenschaft, celebrated antiquity as harbouring the “eternal sources of beauty.” His introduction of a broad, historical perspective on the ancient world was still motivated by the conviction that the classical world was the most beautiful that had ever been.³⁰⁰

From Wolf’s and Creuzer’s normative approach to the ancient world we can conclude that the concept of Altertumswissenschaft was a far cry from what we nowadays call ‘historicism.’ Wolf and Creuzer aimed at anything but a detached, empirical knowledge of the ancient world. Instead of relativising classical antiquity by studying it from a contextualising or comparative perspective, they assigned an absolute status to it that in their view justified its timeless educational value. Ironically, the ‘historical’ study of antiquity which they propagated was ultimately legitimised by their conviction of antiquity’s supra-historical value.³⁰¹ Wolf’s and Creuzer’s understanding of scientific philology as a humanistic discipline is also indistinguishable from the ultimate purpose they wanted it to serve. Both scholars believed that one could only truly identify with the ancients by fully immersing oneself into the school of academic philology. To Creuzer, the ultimate goal of academic philology was “to restore the image of a more divine humanity” and to “reveal the meaning and eternal value” of “the best which the human mind has ever brought forth.”³⁰² Wolf contended that only the academic scholar, who succeeded in getting hold of “fixed, general principles,” would succeed in capturing the ancient “spirit, which mould[ed] everything individual into a harmonious whole.”³⁰³ Both Wolf and Creuzer, then, were not only inspired by a humanistic perspective on the ancient world, but looked upon scientific philology as the only true access to it. This point of view is exemplified by Wolf’s and Creuzer’s position on textual criticism. Both scholars distinguished between a lower and a higher form of textual criticism. In its lower form, they argued, critical judgment was formed by deduction on the basis of “historical evidence,” usually consisting of “handwritten documents.”³⁰⁴ In its higher form, critical judgment must do without such palpable evidence and was formed entirely by “inner arguments,”³⁰⁵ accessible to the initiate alone. Higher criticism required no less than a “genial vision” of “the nature of things.”³⁰⁶ Being an “art” (Kunst) in the full sense of the word, it could not dispense with “lively imagination,” “ingenuity and profundity” and “feeling.”³⁰⁷ It was “divinatory” by nature, enabling one, not to logically reconstruct, but to “sense the original.”³⁰⁸ (it. added) This highest form of academic philology would ultimately induce an “Epoptie,” a “vision of the sacred,” a sudden “insight in ancient humanity itself.”³⁰⁹ It is noticeable that although higher textual criticism entirely lacked the possibility of reasoned demonstration, Wolf nevertheless credited it with a degree of probability “no less convincing than that of which the exact sciences rightly boast.”³¹⁰ Neither Wolf nor Creuzer regarded this visionary treatment of ancient texts as unfounded or murky. On the contrary, they understood it as the highest form of professional philology. Obtaining a mystical “vision of the holiest” they perceived as the greatest conceivable token of academic competence.

The humanistic objectives of scientific philology finally explain why Wolf and Creuzer considered Altertumswissenschaft of crucial importance to educational ends. It was because they looked upon antiquity as an ideal, exemplary world that they regarded classical philology eminently suited to “educate and discipline one’s faculties (…), to sharpen one’s sense of truth and beauty, to refine one’s judgment of the beautiful, to tailor and regulate one’s imagination, to awaken and bring to equilibrium all the faculties of the soul.”³¹¹ So convinced was Wolf of philology’s educational value that he could not believe “that what is gained by historical studies of the ancient world for the harmonious development of the mind could be as perfectly achieved in any other way.”³¹² In Wolf’s view, then, “knowledge of ancient mankind acquired by philological-historical research [was] (…) more than arbitrary, empirical knowledge.”³¹³ It ultimately served the humanistic purpose of educating a human being as a human being.³¹⁴ In the final analysis, then, the often assumed opposition between scientific philology and humanism does not stand up to scrutiny. In its first origin, the concept of Altertumswissenschaft sprang from the recognition of the exceptional value of ancient civilisation that had inspired classical humanists for many centuries. Wolf’s and Creuzer’s wish to emancipate classical philology as a self-contained science cannot possibly be detached from their humanistic perspective on the classical world. Indeed, it was precisely because they considered classical antiquity far superior to any other civilisation that they deemed it worthy of a true science of its own. To them, scientific philology was the ultimate form of humane education.³¹⁵

With this conclusion we are in a position to consider the relation between humanism and the changing concept of science in more detail. With ‘ideal type’ classical humanists such as Karl Gottfried Siebelis, Wolf and Creuzer shared the conviction of the unique, universal value of classical culture. For all three men, classical studies drew their final justification from antiquity’s potential of providing timeless models that could help people approach the ideal of true “humanness.” Wolf and Creuzer differed from Siebelis, however, in their belief that not only classical literature and classical artefacts were of exemplary significance, but the classical world as a whole. No matter how seemingly trivial or obscure the object of scientific philology, Wolf and Creuzer considered its study apriorically justified by the sacred stature of antiquity as such. When seen from this perspective, the new epoch that began with Wolf and Creuzer is best described, not as heralding the ‘decline’ of humanism, but rather as a gradual broadening of the humanistic horizon: Wolf and Creuzer projected the exemplary perspective on classical civilisation – a perspective that had traditionally been largely confined to classical literature and art – to antiquity as a whole, thus incorporating into classical studies many a poorly exploited field of knowledge. Yet this projection was not without problems. Traditional humanists such as Karl Gottfried Siebelis based their appreciation of classical culture on a relatively small number of texts and artefacts whose qualities could be concretely demonstrated. Although Siebelis extensively occupied himself with non-classical authors – such as Pausanias, Clitodemus and Philochorus – he made it very clear that he considered such research to be of secondary importance.³¹⁶ His priority was to teach and explain the canonical, exemplary texts that he deemed worthy of explanation as well as imitation. Even when he spoke of “the ancients,” “the Romans” or “the Greeks” in generalising terms, he nearly always referred to the select company of exemplary, classical authors that he taught at school. With Wolf and Creuzer, this traditional distinction between exemplary and non-exemplary remnants of the classical world became increasingly difficult to sustain. Wolf and Creuzer looked upon antiquity as imbued with an all-pervasive, sanctifying spirit that made the most obscure detail reflect the beauty and splendour of the whole. Thus, not only canonical texts and artefacts, but all aspects of ancient culture were seen in an appreciative light. The problem with this view, however, was that the supposed exemplary character of the studied objects could no longer be concretely demonstrated. The beauty and unity that Wolf and Creuzer had in mind could not be exposed, explained or imitated, but only be sensed. It is not coincidental that both scholars described the ultimate phase of scientific philology in terms of an initiation into a mystery that would finally yield a sacred “vision” of ancient humankind. They were acutely aware of the mystical, nearly religious nature of their scientific ideal.

In my view, this mystification of classical antiquity was the real challenge that Wolf and Creuzer posed to classical humanism. They rid the traditional, exemplary perspective on the ancient world of its primary relation to values that were concretely demonstrable, making it dependent instead on a vague, mystical vision of ancient humankind that could only be time-bound. In Vormärz, academic philology touched upon ever more aspects of the ancient world that did not have an obvious connection with concretely demonstrable values. As the zenith of Hellenophilia had passed, philologists were less and less inclined to consider these individual aspects as infused by an all-pervasive, unifying ‘spirit.’ As a result, there was an ever widening gap between the positive results of academic philology and its underlying humanistic motivation. At the end of the century, this gap would become so wide as to compel many a classicist either to turn his back on academic philology and to reorient himself to the tradition of classical humanism, or to give up on humanistic values and to focus on a new ideal of objective science. This last step would be taken by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moel-lendorff (1848 – 1931), who expressly aimed to altogether abandon the traditional, exemplary perspective on the ancient world and replace it by a concept of pure, self-contained Wissenschaft.³¹⁷ It is easy to see that Wolf and Creuzer would not have approved of the course that classical philology has taken after their deaths. The ongoing weakening of the exemplary perspective would have deeply worried them, not just because it put an end to their personal vision, but because in their view it deprived scientific philology of its ultimate justification. Ironically, however, they were themselves to blame for setting this development in motion. By severing classical philology from its primary relation to concretely demonstrable values, they enabled it to steer a course that would eventually thwart the very humanistic purpose that it was intended to serve. Wolf’s and Creuzer’s transformation of classical studies into Altertumswissenschaft, then, is overshadowed by a deep irony. Precisely because their humanistic perspective on the classical world assumed nearly religious proportions, they eventually weakened the position of classical humanism. Against their intentions, the concept of Altertumswissenschaft turned out not to consolidate, but to jeopardise the classical-humanistic ideal of education.

The continuity of Gymnasium education

At this point, we need to observe that the transformation of classical studies into scientific philology had only a restricted impact on classical education at the Gymnasien. First and foremost, the transformation of classical philology was realised at academic institutions. Wolf wrote his Darstellung der Alterthumswissenschaft in his capacity as a university professor, addressing an academic audience.³¹⁸ Creuzer, who never spent a single day teaching at a Gymnasium, titled his treatise on classical education “The Academic Study of Antiquity.” (it. added)

Nevertheless, the transformation of classical philology clearly left traces in school education. Due to the spectacular rise of scientific philology, the academic competence of classics teachers at the 19^th-century Gymnasien was astonishingly high. Nearly all of them had attended the philological seminars at the university for some years, where textual criticism was conducted at the highest level.³¹⁹ Many teachers, especially headmasters, published widely on academic subjects and enjoyed esteem comparable to that of university professors. A public guarantee of academic competence was given by teachers’ scientific contributions to the so-called Programmabhandlungen, which were published annually by most German Gymnasien during the greater part of the 19^th century. Moreover, since the 1830s, many schools founded so-called Lehrerbibliotheken (teachers’ libraries) to facilitate teachers in their academic enquiries.³²⁰

As a result of this increased emphasis on ‘Wissenschaftlichkeit,’ classical school education was at risk of falling prey to academism. The inclination of classics teachers to indulge in philological, often text-critical digressions was an object of frequent complaint.³²¹ This academism can be seen, for example, in the distinction between “statary” and “cursory” reading (statarische and cur-sorische Lectüre) which grew increasingly common in the course of the 19^th century.³²² Statary reading, which consisted in analysing texts in great detail, focusing above all on grammar, philology and textual criticism, not only tended to slow down the reading tempo, but also to result in (quasi-)academic philological lectures hardly appropriate to school education.³²³ Therefore, students could resort to “cursory” reading, which gave less attention to linguistic and philological details, aiming instead at global understanding and the cultivation of taste.³²⁴ The very distinction between statary and cursory reading testifies to the increasing importance of philological rigour in classical school education.³²⁵ The influence of academic philology can also be measured by the increased production of classical school editions. The commentaries to the texts in these editions were often of a purely academic nature, whereby, according to critics, they tended to “turn attention away from the author rather than towards him.”³²⁶ However, despite the obvious impact of classical philology on school education, a large gap separated the schools from the universities. This can be illustrated by the example of Karl Gottfried Siebelis. During his study at the university of Leipzig, Siebelis was accepted into the Societas Philologica Lipsiensis, which had been founded in 1784 by the reputable philologist Christian Daniel Beck (1757–1832). One of his fellow students was Gottfried Hermann, who would later become one of the protagonists of 19^th-century Altertumswissenschaft. At the Societas Philologica, Siebelis and Hermann were initiated into the higher realms of classical philology: they were expected to prepare both written papers and oral presentations on complex philological issues that would be discussed in a small circle of selected students under Beck’s leadership.³²⁷ This kind of highly advanced, small-scale instruction would become the standard type of education at the numerous philological seminars that would later be founded at all German universities and that would play a key role in transforming classical studies into a professional, academic discipline.³²⁸ Yet, notwithstanding the advanced philological training that he received, Siebelis remained true to the belief that at the Gymnasium, the classics were primarily taught because of their aesthetic and moral value. As we have seen above, his choice to become a ‘practical schoolteacher’ was explicitly motivated as a choice not to pursue an academic career, but to spend his life serving the noble task of familiarising young people with “all that is true, good and beautiful.”³²⁹

The conceptual distinction between Gymnasium and university education was so sharply drawn that until far into the 19^th century, academic innovations had only a marginal impact on school education. In 1858, when the transformation of academic philology was largely completed, Friedrich Lübker observed that “the philological science and its treatment in academic teaching (…) with few exceptions seems not to have an immediate (…) effect on the Gymnasien.”³³⁰ Lübker perceived that up to his time, classical school education preserved much of its traditional form. Firstly, it aimed primarily at the greatest possible mastery of the classical languages, especially Latin. Secondly, the curriculum retained its almost exclusive focus on texts, a further limit being raised, thirdly, by the criterion of classicality. In other words, classical school studies clearly preserved their traditional bias towards the schöne Wissenschaften. Although text-critical digressions may have regularly occurred, they never became a central focus of school education.³³¹ Likewise, “statary” readings might on occasion have seriously slowed down the average reading tempo, but they did not prevent students from going through quantities of texts vastly surpassing any classical pensum prescribed at schools today.³³² Due to its traditional focus on classical form, school education offered only limited room for academic innovations to integrate. The turn away from the aesthetic and moral qualities of classical texts, characteristic of 19^th-century academic philology, hardly gained a foothold at the schools, nor did the high-flown ideals accompanying such shifts of focus. Indeed, one can easily imagine an academic scholar like Friedrich August Wolf fantasising about an Altertumswissenschaft yielding a mystical vision of “ancient humankind.” But it is hard to see what such a vision could have meant to an average classics teacher, labouring to explain the subtleties of a Ciceronian period to a noisy group of adolescent sixth-graders.³³³

It should be noted that the academic philologists who set the transformation of classical philology in motion were not only fully aware of the major difference between school and university education, but advocated its preservation. Although Wolf considered the expansion of philology to serve a humanistic purpose, he held that the “study of humanness” (Humanitätsstudien), in its “properly understood” meaning – that is, as opposed to the highest ideal of humanness pursued by academic philology – should be restricted “to what the English call classical learning.” Since true scientific philology would “remain forever unknown to most people,”³³⁴ the “propaedeutic education (…) for literary careers” should be confined to the traditional humanistic curriculum, which aimed at the acquisition of “knowledge of (…) beautiful and classical works.”³³⁵ Wolf even uttered the wish that “this [classical] means of education (…) in all parts of the fatherland will (…) soon again become what it was in earlier times.”³³⁶ It is a remarkable fact that the founding father of modern, scientific philology pleaded for a return to the past with respect to Gymnasium education.³³⁷ Wolf was not the only scholar to make a clear distinction between school and university education. Johann Gottfried Herder, for example, is best known as an adventurous philosopher who was among the first to point to the superiority of Greek over Roman culture. He was of pioneering importance to the development of a historical understanding of the classical world, which he based on a theory on the natural rise and fall of national cultures.³³⁸ As a result, Herder has often rightly been seen as anticipating 19^th-century trends in classical philology. However, his much lesser known school addresses, delivered at the Weimar Gymnasium in a period stretching from 1765 to 1802, show a substantially different picture.³³⁹ In these speeches, aiming to convince a local audience of students, parents and townspeople of the importance of classical education, Herder was not occupied at all with proving the superiority of the Greeks over the Romans nor with commenting on their historical genesis. Instead, he recommended both Greek and Roman classics as “eternal monuments of schöne Wissenschaft.”³⁴⁰ Another example is Barthold Niebuhr, a typical new-type philologist, whom Wienbarg branded as standing “at the forefront of scientific aberrations in the study of antiquity.”³⁴¹ Niebuhr’s fame is largely based on his Römische Geschichte (1811–32), in which he discussed Roman history from a detached, historical perspective. In his “Letter to a Young Philologist,” however, a short treatise on the uses of classical education, he recommended his addressee to abstain from “scholarly investigations” and to focus primarily on the classics’ stylistic excellence.³⁴² A third example is August Böckh, who is well known for having been one of the first scholars to highlight various negative aspects of Greek culture in his Staatshaushaltung der Athener (1817), thus paving the way for an ‘objective’ approach to the ancient world that would aim at “knowledge of the known” (Erkennen des Erkannten).³⁴³ However, in a speech delivered at the birthday of King Friedrich Wilhelm III in 1822, Böckh stated that the unique importance of classical education was to fulfil young people with the most beautiful forms through the study of classical texts.³⁴⁴ Finally, the discrepancy between academic developments and classical school education was also reflected in the Encyklopädie des gesammten Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesens (1859–1878), edited by K.A. Schmid. Here, the entries classische Philologie and classische Bildung were no longer listed independently, but ranged under the general entries Philologie and Bildung, reflecting the disappearance of the normative element from both ancient philology and pedagogy. “Classische Schullectüre,” however, was still listed as a separate lemma, reflecting the preservation of the normative approach to antiquity in school practice.

As these examples poignantly indicate, we are all too inclined to consider academic developments in isolation from school education. By only studying the philological innovations made by Wolf, Creuzer, Niebuhr or Böckh, we tend to ignore the fact that all of these scholars advocated traditional classical education for Gymnasium students. Although academic philology clearly left its traces in the schools, the Gymnasien, by their primary focus on classical texts remained immune to academic influences to a remarkable extent. The broadening of humanism that we have observed in the present chapter remained primarily confined to the universities. In the protected atmosphere of the schools, the classical-humanistic ideal of education was able to survive for a long time indeed. The Gymnasien lived on as breeding grounds of schöne Wissenschaften, long after the term itself had fallen out of use.

Introduction

It was not only by its application to philology that the changing concept of science posed a challenge to the classical-humanistic ideal of education. At the same time that Wolf and Creuzer made their first steps on the way to a well-ordered and clearly conceptualised Altertumswissenschaft, theorists of education were occupied with applying the new concept of science to pedagogy. Their central objective, very much like that of Wolf and Creuzer, was to transform pedagogy into a “science of education” (Erziehungswissenschaft) in which the different, interdependent subfields would all be assigned their own place and task. By the 1800s, the scientification of pedagogy materialised in the publication of many textbooks, the most authoritative of which was August Niemeyer’s Grundsätze der Erziehung und des Unterrichts für Eltern, Hauslehrer und Schulmänner (1796), which enjoyed reprints well into the late 19^th century.³⁴⁵ Idealist philosophers also took vivid interest in developing a pedagogy that would meet the demands of science. Prominent among them were Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) and Reinhold Bernhard Jachmann (1767–1843), who in 1808, shortly after Prussia’s humiliating defeat by Napoleon, embarked on an ambitious project of establishing a “national [i. e. Prussian] education” (Nationalbildung) that would be entirely based on scientific pedagogical principles.³⁴⁶ The scientification of pedagogy was of eminent importance to classical studies, as it directly affected the famous Prussian educational reforms of 1809 – 1819. The two leading representatives of this reform, Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767 – 1835) and Johann Wilhelm Süvern (1775 – 1829), were deeply influenced by Fichte’s and Jachmann’s views. In their role as educational reformers, Humboldt and Süvern were not so much concerned with the positive content and practice of classical education, as with the question of how they could give substance to its legitimising, scientific “idea.” Convinced that the necessity of classical education could be scientifically deduced from the “nature of man,” they propagated the fundamentally equal importance of classical education to all people alike. With the proposed reform they aimed to develop a unified school system that would enable many more people than before to come into contact with classical education. In other words, as a result of the pursuit of scientific pedagogy, ideas on classical education took on a political and social dimension that in the past had at best played a marginal role.

It has never been properly investigated how the concept of science underlying the Prussian educational reform of 1809 – 1819 related to its humanistic objective. Humboldt is generally represented as a profound thinker whose noble endeavour to make classical education contribute to the formation of individuality and self-understanding was brutally curtailed by the advent of the Restoration. However, as we will see in this chapter, one of the major reasons for the ultimate failure of the intended reform was its uncompromising rigidity, which was itself a direct consequence of the underlying concept of science. To a significant extent, then, the concept of science that Humboldt and Süvern employed put them at odds with the humanistic ends that they intended to serve. It is the aim of the present chapter to investigate the challenge that scientific pedagogy posed to classical humanism in more detail.

National education: Fichte and Jachmann

Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Reinhold Bernhard Jachmann, with their respective Reden an die deutsche Nation (1808) and publications in the Archiv deutscher Nationalbildung (1812), embarked on the project of basing a theoretical pedagogy on the foundation of true science.³⁴⁷ This foundation both Fichte and Jachmann understood idealistically as the “rational principle” (Vernunftprinzip) of man himself, that is, as the “idea” of man, directly known to us by Reason. From this idea of man, the entire doctrine of education should be deduced: “(The) ideal of perfect mankind,” Jachmann wrote, “is the fixed scientific point (der feste wissenschaftliche Punkt), towards which all education should be directed and to achieving which every educational measure should be chosen.”³⁴⁸ Thus, the doctrine of education should be given a “philosophical foundation” and a “scientific derivation from a principle of reason.”³⁴⁹

From the rational idea of man, Fichte and Jachmann drew two far-reaching conclusions. Firstly, as it was applicable to all people without distinction, they argued that Bildung should not take into account traditional differences between people, such as determined by position, class or wealth. Rather, it should transcend existing class-boundaries and focus exclusively on the ideal of mankind to which all people equally aspire. In Fichte’s words, the new Bildung was “not Bildung of a specific class, but (…) Bildung of the nation as such,” in which “all class-distinctions” would be “fully dissolved.”³⁵⁰ As the equality of all people was dictated by Reason itself, ignoring it was seen as a serious offense: “To deflect only one single human soul from its divine destination by directing it towards a worldly goal would be a crime.”³⁵¹ Each individual human being was called to nothing less than to become the “representative of mankind” (der Stellvertreter der Menschheit) as a whole.³⁵² Paradoxically, realising this universal ideal was seen to be a specifically German task. The final goal was to develop a German “national education” (Nationalbildung) which, by transcending traditional class differences, would finally “educate the Germans to a whole” (die Deutschen zu einer Gesamtheit bilden).”³⁵³ To achieve this purpose, the educational landscape should be cleared from all institutions that tended towards differentiation rather than unity. Calling vocational schools a “great sin against humanity,”³⁵⁴ Jachmann wanted to unify the educational system to the greatest possible extent. “Away with the so-called academic and non-academic schools!,” he exclaimed in his treatise Über die Nationalschule, “away with the Gymnasia, away with higher and lower Bürgerschulen and whatever might be their name! There is only one humanity! There is only one German nation! There should be only one national school!”³⁵⁵

Furthermore, as the “national school” was to be wholly oriented towards the rational idea of man, it should consequently turn its back on the everyday world. For the everyday world, according to Jachmann, “uses her mental powers merely to attain sensual purposes,”³⁵⁶ that is, purposes that could not match the ideal purposes prevailing at the national school. To Jachmann, the concepts of world and school were “mutually exclusive.”³⁵⁷ Therefore, a student should “deliberately be distracted from the confusing activities of the outside world and be directed with fixed gaze towards his inner self.”³⁵⁸ Only in “the realm of Reason” should the school “build its quiet temple, in whose sanctuary, protected from the pestilential breath of the worldly spirit,” it should “develop and nourish the delicate seeds of humanity and educate [students] to an active life of Reason.³⁵⁹ The most striking testimony of the national school’s tendency away from the everyday world was Fichte’s plea not to allow students to know anything of base values such as self-preservation and well-being by “completely isolating” them “from the community.”³⁶⁰ To Fichte, only such physical distancing would enable students to exclusively live and act according to the scientific idea of man as prescribed by Reason. Focusing as they did on the rational idea of man, Fichte and Jachmann came into conflict with the concept of individuality. To Jachmann, each individual human being who did not conform to “the archetype of the perfect nature of man” was a “disproportion” (Missverhältnis) which it was education’s task to correct.³⁶¹ “Education (Erziehung) consists in converting the individual disparity into the ideal ratio of perfect human nature and in developing it to the highest perfection.”³⁶² In practice, this meant that a student making rapid progress in a particular subject should not be stimulated to further cultivate his talent. On the contrary, he should be urged to focus on other subjects.³⁶³ Only by thus restoring the balance, the ideal nature of man could be given true substance.³⁶⁴ The risk that in this way precious talents could be wasted did not interest Jachmann in the least. To him, “man is not born to be an excellent scholar, artist or craftsman in a short life on earth, but to approach the ideal of perfect humanity in an infinite progress.”³⁶⁵ Likewise, Fichte intended to forcibly make students conform to the rational ideal of man. “The new education,” he contended in his second address to the German nation, should consist in “completely destroying free will.” “Strict necessity of decisions and the impossibility of the opposite” should take its place.³⁶⁶ Like Jachmann, Fichte was unwilling to allow students the slightest deviation from the universal ideal of mankind.

It is important to note that the radicalism inherent in Fichte’s and Jachmann’s educational philosophy derived from their concept of science and its particular alliance with philosophical idealism. Fichte and Jachmann were among the first theorists of education to take the idealist foundation of science as their guiding principle. In an attempt to scientifically deduce the entire doctrine of education from the universal idea of the “nature of man,” they produced a pedagogical theory that strikes many modern interpreters as downright totalitarian.³⁶⁷

The unitary school: Humboldt and Süvern

After their defeat by Napoleon in 1806/7, the Prussian authorities famously set out to compensate for losses of “external power and outward splendour”³⁶⁸ by “cultivating a moral, religious, patriotic spirit in the nation, instilling again courage, self-confidence, willingness to make any sacrifice for independence from what is foreign.”³⁶⁹ A special role was reserved for an educational reform that aimed at “developing each mental power from within and encourage and nourish every noble principle of life.”³⁷⁰ From December 1808, this reform was led by Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767 – 1835), director of the Home Office’s “Department of Culture and Public Education” (Sektion für Kultus und öffentlichen Unterricht).³⁷¹ After his resignation in June 1810, his colleague Johann Wilhelm Süvern (1775–1829) elaborated his ideas into a general education Act (Unterrichtsgesetzentwurf) published in 1819.³⁷² Both Humboldt and Süvern were deeply influenced by idealist educational philosophy.³⁷³ In Humboldt’s view, the highest task of educational authorities was to produce “the deepest and purest view of science.”³⁷⁴ He regarded “wissenschaftliche Bildung” as conditional to the realisation of “the highest, generally-human” (das höchst allgemein Menschliche), which he described as the focal point (Brennpunkt) of all education.³⁷⁵ Süvern likewise attached overriding importance to the idealist concept of science, wanting the entire doctrine of education to be derived “exclusively from the idea.”³⁷⁶ To Süvern, education was “far too great and holy to derive its norm and goal from anything external, accidental, changeable and not be considered and treated in the purest independence.”³⁷⁷ Concretely, the idealist tendency can be measured by various aspects of Humboldt’s and Süvern’s reforms. Firstly, they wanted to develop a unified school system, which would later be known as the ‘Einheitsschule’ (unitary school). This new type of school would only provide a single type of elementary education. Whether elementary schools were independent institutions or integrated into a Bürgerschule and/or a Gymnasium, the content of education would be exactly the same: all pupils would finish their primary education at an equal level, thus being theoretically enabled to proceed to the next level without transitional difficulties. The same principle applied to the levels of the Bürgerschule and the Gymnasium.³⁷⁸ By thus precisely aligning the various educational levels and by excluding all parallel school forms, the reformers tried to strictly orient education towards the “idea of man” which they considered universally valid.³⁷⁹ Secondly, the unitary school, which aimed at “general education ” alone, would abstain from “immediate preparation for specific, individual professions.”³⁸⁰ Also, class-related differences should be avoided as much as possible: “The organisation of the [unitary] school,” Humboldt wrote, “is not concerned with a caste, not with an individual craft, nor with the learned (gelehrte) caste (an error of former times). (…) General school education (der allgemeine Schulunterricht) focuses on man himself.”³⁸¹ Since the idea of man applies equally to all people, “the meanest day labourer and the most finely cultivated man must (…) be made like-minded.”³⁸² Humboldt and Süvern, then, conceived of a school system that would perfectly fit the two main requirements set by Fichte and Jachmann: it should provide purely humane Bildung to all people alike and resolutely turn its back on worldly purposes.

Thirdly, the high ideal set by idealist philosophy materialised in very demanding curricular requirements. Süvern proposed the following curriculum for the elementary school alone (attended by children who had not yet reached the age of boyhood (Knabenalter), that is, children less than 10 years old):³⁸³ religion, German, foreign languages, elementary mathematics, drawing, arithmetic, natural history, elementary geography and history, singing, calligraphy, handicraft and agriculture.³⁸⁴ By thus confronting children of the most humble origins with a curriculum of almost encyclopaedic breadth, he hoped that even they would leave school as harmonically educated human beings.³⁸⁵ Finally, the idealistic tendency of the Prussian educational reform emerges from Humboldt’s intention to deny any dispensation for classical education. “All students,” regardless of origin, class or wealth, “should absolutely (schlechterdings) learn both [i. e. classical languages] at the lowest grade.”³⁸⁶ Whether the required effort would ever prove of any practical value, did not bother Humboldt at all. As the idea of man applied to all people alike, he famously stated that “to the carpenter it would be as useful to have learned Greek, as to the scholar to make furniture.”³⁸⁷ The idealist classicist Franz Passow (1786 – 1833) formulated it in much the same way: “Greek (…) does not befit better the King’s son than the meanest of his (…) subjects.”³⁸⁸

Humanism as totalitarian pedagogy

Despite its noble appearance, there was clearly a dark side to the idealism pervading Humboldt’s and Süvern’s educational philosophy. This becomes poignantly clear from a couple of rarely quoted paragraphs from Süvern’s education Act, relating to school sanctions. In §40, Süvern addressed the question of how to take action against parents who, by refusing to send their children to the unitary school, deprived them of the possibility of being educated according to the rational idea of man. In this case, Süvern wrote, school officials or policemen (!) should drag the children forcibly away from their homes and bring them to school. The parents should be “appropriately” punished: they should be fined, and, if that did not make them change their minds, even be imprisoned or forced into penal servitude. If even these measures did not succeed in breaking the parents’ will, the penalties would “be increased.”³⁸⁹ Nowhere does the totalitarian tendency of Süvern’s school plan surface more clearly than in these paragraphs on punitive measures. Süvern conceived them in perfect accordance with Reinhold Jachmann’s view that it was a “crime” to keep a child away from his “divine destination” in the idea. The idea of man was of such importance to him, that he had no scruples about removing disobedient parents from society and seeing them publicly disgraced.³⁹⁰

The totalitarian inclinations of the Prussian reformers did not go unnoticed at the time. The conservative educationalist and statesman Ludolph von Beckedorff (1778 – 1858), evaluating Süvern’s school plan shortly after its final rejection, criticised its totalitarian character.³⁹¹ In Beckedorff’s view, individuals should not be indiscriminately treated according to the same, uniform idea. On the contrary, to Beckedorff, a sound society thrived on the “natural inequality of people.”³⁹² “Civil society,” he wrote, “(…) exists as its citizens live in various activities, trades and occupations.” Therefore, everyone must be educated “according to the class or profession to which he has been appointed, either by birth or by his parents’ wishes or by his own resolution.”³⁹³ By its radicalism, Süvern’s plan struck Beckedorff as outright dangerous: “Who can guarantee that this [plan] will not finally, stepwise, result in Inquisition and Auto da Fé?” How is such a plan possible, he exclaimed, “in our age that uses to be proud of its liberality? (…) What would happen to our freedom of conscience and conviction?”³⁹⁴ Beckedorff also denounced the radical intellectualism underlying the 1819 Education Act. “Schooling,” he argued, “(…) is not the exclusive fundament of national education.³⁹⁵ (…) The [parental] home, public life, the church and the school all have an equal share in the education of the young.” To Beckedorff, Süvern’s plan “credited intellectual education (…) with an exaggerated influence (… ) on the moral direction [of man].”³⁹⁶

Taking the rigidity of Humboldt’s and Süvern’s reform plans into account, it may seem strange that the Prussian educational reform is usually very positively assessed in scholarship. Especially since the Second World War, scholars have been keen to highlight its “democratic” tendency. Its class-transcending ideal of elevating the common man by means of Bildung is mostly acknowledged as a forward-looking attempt to utilise education as a tool for social emancipation.³⁹⁷ Correspondingly, modern scholars usually dismiss Beckedorff as a mouthpiece of the Restoration, interested in little more than a return to premodern class structure.³⁹⁸ What is rarely acknowledged, however, is that the allegedly “democratic” principles of Humboldt’s and Süvern’s reform plans were applied with such ruthless consistency as to make it highly questionable whether they were truly democratic at all. The egalitarianism inherent in Humboldt’s and Süvern’s educational philosophy sprang from an unconditional enthusiasm about the “idea of man,” not from enthusiasm about the people on whom this idea was to be imposed. Humboldt’s sympathy with a carpenter learning Greek stemmed not so much from a sincere commitment to carpenters, but rather from a discomforting lack of interest in their true needs. Moreover, neither Humboldt nor Süvern succeeded in giving much concrete substance to the scientific “idea of man,” which they laid at the foundation of their educational philosophy. They were so strongly bent on stressing this idea’s universal nature that they shunned any attempt to relate it to the concrete living conditions of human individuals. Despite its noble appearance, then, Humboldt’s and Süvern’s reform plans bear the unmistakable stamp of idealist arrogance. It was precisely this radical idealism that played an essential role in the rejection of Süvern’s Education Act in 1819. Whereas this rejection is usually unambiguously attributed to the reactionary climate,³⁹⁹ on closer inspection, it appears to have been an extremely complex case. In his 1913 edition of the Education Act, Gunnar Thiele included an extended survey of comments on the Act drawn from different sectors of society at the request of Karl von Altenstein, head of the Prussian Culture Office (Kultusministerium). This list convincingly shows that Süvern’s plan was rejected, at least partly, out of concern over its idealist rigidity. A commission of catholic bishops, consulted by King Friedrich Wilhelm III, stated that they appreciated the “spirit” (Geist) of the plan, but criticised it for being unfeasible and idealistic.⁴⁰⁰ In practice, they said, elementary schools, Bürgerschulen and Gymnasien did not smoothly join together, so that a unitary school could never be realised. To them, it would be much more efficient to provide the Gymnasien with separate preparatory classes. They also found it too idealistic to teach compulsory Latin at each city school, as the Act proposed. Here, they argued, Latin was better taught as a facultative subject. And city schools in factory regions were better off without any Latin at all. Here, it would be much more useful to teach a modern language.⁴⁰¹ Interestingly, the bishops’ criticisms in no way betray a specifically “reactionary” character. Although overtly praising the Act’s “spirit,” they felt it threatened society’s natural diversity.⁴⁰² It appears, then, that the rejection of the 1819 Education Act cannot be unequivocally attributed to a climate of anxious reactionary sentiment. It is true that after 1819, the German governments were generally not favourable to reforms, but this should not make us ignore the Act’s inherent radicalism.⁴⁰³ Humboldt and Süvern, by trying to square classical education with a highly abstract, scientifically justified “idea of man,” lost sight of educational reality to a considerable degree. It is not coincidental that their pedagogical theory struck many contemporaries as outright dangerous.

Mythos Humboldt

At this point, it is worth observing that the idealist pedagogy underlying the Prussian educational reforms, despite its profound influence on the development of the German concept of Bildung, had a relatively minor impact on classical school education in practice.⁴⁰⁴ This observation can be substantiated by at least five different arguments. In the first place, despite their interest in scientific-idealist pedagogy, the traditional, humanistic view on classical education was not lost on Humboldt and Süvern. Besides his aspirations to base pedagogy on the foundation of true science, Humboldt acknowledged that “the study (…) of great masterpieces of poetry and eloquence of ancient and modern times cultivates a sound, strong sense of beauty.”⁴⁰⁵ To him, “the Greeks [were] not just a people of which it is useful to have historical knowledge, but an ideal.”⁴⁰⁶ In a letter to Wolf, he confessed to study mainly those Greek authors “who strongly lead us to an idealist perspective.”⁴⁰⁷ Süvern, too, valued the classical world above all for its unsurpassed works of literature, which as a teacher he is reported to have explained with great devotion and enthusiasm.⁴⁰⁸ Moreover, the antiutilitarian tendency of Humboldt’s and Süvern’s reform plans comported well with the traditional, classical-humanistic conviction that people should be educated to “humanness” before following their professional calling. It was only the radicalism with which they wanted to implement their ideas that made Humboldt and Süvern stand out from ideal-type classical humanists such as Karl Gottfried Siebelis.

In the second place, no matter how radical their ideas were in theory, in practice, Humboldt and Süvern had no option but to compromise. It was not only entirely unclear how their concept of a unified school system could materialise under the given circumstances, but they also knew that their revolutionary educational philosophy was not very likely to meet with sympathy among political authorities. Humboldt, in an attempt to win King Friedrich Wilhelm III over to his reform plans, accordingly made it very clear that overthrowing class society was far from his intentions. Rather, his stated aim was to produce “good and decent people” who were “enlightened according to their class.”⁴⁰⁹ Each man should be educated “as the circumstances allowed him.”⁴¹⁰ Humboldt did not object that “the very poor had their children educated in the cheapest or free elementary schools, the less poor in better, or at least more expensive” [schools], and that [people] “who could spend even more attended the academic schools.”⁴¹¹ As we have already seen above, neither Humboldt nor Süvern intended to encourage large numbers of children to attend the unitary school from beginning to end. It is remarkable that Humboldt and Süvern, for all their efforts to make education serve the equality of all people that they deemed dictated by Reason, showed a striking reluctance as soon as they were confronted with practical decisions.⁴¹² In the third place, Humboldt’s and Süvern’s influence on classical education is usually primarily measured by the reinforced position of classical Greek. Conversely, the reduction of Greek in the so-called Normalplan of 1837 is commonly taken to indicate that the influence of Humboldt’s and Süvern’s reforms had largely subsided. However, a close look at the figures shows that this interpretation is hardly tenable. In the Prussian school plan of 1812, the classical languages occupied nearly 40% of the curriculum, of which 24% was taken by Latin and 16% by Greek. The plan of 1837 showed a substantial increase of Latin and a relative reduction of Greek: of the nearly 46% occupied by the classics, 31% was taken by Latin, and only half as much (15%) by Greek.⁴¹³ This shifting relationship of Latin and Greek is given exceptional weight by modern academics. Klaus Sochatzy interpreted it as signalling that the “neohumanist enthusiasm for Bildung belonged to the past.”⁴¹⁴ Margret Kraul regarded the reduction of Greek as typical of the reactionary climate, which left no room for the ideal of “freedom, which the Greeks expressed in their works.”⁴¹⁵ Manfred Landfester spoke of a “relapse into a pre-reformatory state of knowledge.”⁴¹⁶ However, it is highly questionable whether such bold conclusions may be drawn from what, after all, remain relatively minor changes. Firstly, in 1837 the number of weekly hours spent on Greek over all years only dropped by 16% (from 50 to 42).⁴¹⁷ Secondly, in 1837, Greek occupied only a 1% (!) smaller share of the entire curriculum than in 1812 (15% to 16%). Thirdly, the 1837 plan had a larger rather than smaller total proportion of classical education than the plan of 1812 (46% to 40%). By far the most striking feature, then, of the development of the Prussian classical curriculum between 1812 and 1837 is its stability. Of course, subtle shifts in emphasis are not to be ignored, but to interpret the 1837 plan as the definite failure of the neohumanist Gymnasium is certainly to grossly over-dramatise the facts.⁴¹⁸

In the fourth place, it seems to be often overlooked that the unitary school plan intended to substantiate Humboldt’s and Süvern’s theory of education never obtained legal status and never existed as anything other than a draft.⁴¹⁹ The ideal of the unitary school was so far removed from educational practice that there could be no question of an effective implementation. Without denying the profound significance of the Prussian educational reforms, we should not forget that the Humboldtian unitary school never materialised. In the fifth and last place, the limited impact of the Prussian reform era on ideas about classical school education is demonstrated by the fact that well into the 19^th century, the Prussian reformers were rarely mentioned in writings on classical school education and educational history. Friedrich Thiersch, in his three-volume work on the Gelehrtenschule (1826 – 1829), never once mentioned Wilhelm von Humboldt, nor any of Humboldt’s colleague reformers. In a comment on recent developments in Prussian education, he focused on the administrator Johannes Schulze (1786 –1869), who only entered the Prussian Ministry in 1818.⁴²⁰ In 1835, Samuel Hoffmann published a voluminous textbook on Altertumswissenschaft, intended for both Gymnasium and university students.⁴²¹ In it, he provided a lengthy survey of 18^th- and 19^th-century writings on the value of classical studies, featuring numerous names and titles completely unknown to us now. However, the now famous names of Humboldt, Jachmann and even Friedrich August Wolf were not on this list.⁴²² Another example is a defence of classical education by the Bavarian schoolteacher Konrad Zeug, published in 1832.⁴²³ Zeug’s list of recommended writings on the value of classical education did not include works by any of the Prussian reformers, nor by Friedrich August Wolf or Friedrich Creuzer. ⁴²⁴ In the 11-volumed educational encyclopaedia edited by Karl A. Schmid between 1859 and 1878, the Prussian reform era was not credited with much importance either.⁴²⁵ In the lemmas Gelehrtenschulwesen (by Fr. Lübker), Bildung (by A. Hauber), Classische Schullectüre (by K. Nägelsbach) and Classische Studien (by W. Bäumlein) the names of Wilhelm von Humboldt, Süvern and Jachmann are not found at all, nor are the names of other influential reformers such as August Bernhardi and Friedrich Schleiermacher. It seems, then, that the importance of Humboldt’s and Süvern’s reforms for 19^th-century classical Gymnasium education has been substantially exaggerated. Scholars have attached so much importance to the revolutionary ideas underlying the Prussian reforms that they have often lost sight of the marked discrepancy between theory and practice. This conclusion is consistent with the results of recent research on the relationship between the Humboldtian reforms and the development of the German university. In “Bildung durch Wissenschaft? Mythos ‘Humboldt,’” Ulrich Hermann shows that Humboldt’s concept of the ideal university was not only far removed from the practice of 19^th-century German university education, but was only assigned with pivotal importance roughly a century after Humboldt’s activity as an educational reformer.⁴²⁶ It was only by projecting the “Humboldt myth” back to the 19^th century, Hermann argues, that historians of education gave rise to the view that Humboldt was directly responsible for “Germany’s rise (…) to the world’s leading nation in science and research.”⁴²⁷ Something similar, we can now see, applies to Gymnasium education. At least as far as classical education is concerned, the differences between the situation before, during and after the Prussian reform era are considerably smaller than is commonly assumed. Despite minor changes in the proportion of Latin and Greek, classical education, both in its objectives and teaching methods, remained a very constant factor at the German Gymnasien throughout the period 1770 to 1860, both inside and outside of Prussia. It was only at the end of the 19^th century that scholars such as Friedrich Paulsen gave rise to the view that with the Prussian reforms, a new, ‘neohumanistic Gymnasium’ rose from the ashes of the perished Latin schools. To the large majority of Humboldt’s contemporaries, however, such a view would not have made much sense. Most classicists saw themselves as heirs to an age-old tradition that remained largely unaffected by the many changes occurring outside the schools.