19 th-century classical humanism: the case of Karl Gottfried Siebelis (1769 – 1843)
“So oft Siebelis die Classe betrat, war ein würdevoller Ernst über sein Antlitz verbreitet. In langsamen, gemessenen Schritten bestieg er das Katheder. Gleich beim Anfange der Stunde sah und hörte man, daß er vom Gegenstande auf’s tiefste erfüllt war und mit ganzer Seele darin lebte und webte.” (Karl Ameis, 1845)
Lithograph (1841) by Julius Fiebiger (1813 – 1883).54
Introduction
In this chapter I will describe the ideal of classical education endorsed by the Saxon classicist Karl Gottfried Siebelis (1769 – 1843). As rector of the Gymnasium in Bautzen (Saxony), Siebelis played a leading role in educating the local citizenry of the Oberlausitz, the region around Bautzen, for almost four decades. Throughout his life, he showed a great devotion to classical literature and an unwavering commitment to his educational vocation. As Siebelis’ views were widely shared among classical schoolteachers, they can be seen as representative of 19th-century classical humanism.55
Karl Gottfried Siebelis was born on the 10th of October 1769 as a baker’s son in Naumburg (Saxony).56 Since both his parents died when he was three years old, he grew up in very difficult circumstances under the guardianship of his step-grandparents. Being of lower middle class origin, a university career initially seemed an unlikely prospect. However, as his eminent talents were discovered at the Gelehrtenschule of Naumburg, he was encouraged to graduate. Thanks to a small inheritance from his parents he could afford to study theology, philosophy and philology in Leipzig. As a student, he was extremely poor and had to make some money as a private tutor. In 1798, he got his first official job as conrector of the Stiftsschule in Zeitz (Saxony). In 1804, at thirty-four years old, he was appointed to the rectorship of the Bautzen Gymnasium, a position he would keep for the rest of his life.57 Under his leadership, the school developed into a highly-reputed institution, and Siebelis acquired considerable prestige among the local citizenry. As a member of the mayor’s cabinet, he had personal contact with the Saxon king when important decisions concerning the Gymnasium were to be made. On his retirement, he won the honour of being elected a Knight of the Königlicher Sächsischer Zivilverdienstorden, and his financial security was guaranteed by the local citizenry. His private life, however, continued to be miserable. His wife died in 1810, his eldest daughter in 1833. Yet, he found great comfort both in his Christian faith and in the classical studies to which he devoted himself throughout his life with heart and soul. He retired in 1841 because of physical debilitation, only to live on for two more years. He peacefully died in his bed on the morning of the 7th of August 1843.
Siebelis set out his educational views in various ‘school programs’ (Schul-programme) that were published annually. Four program texts directly relating to classical education were jointly published in 1817 as Vier Schulschriften (henceforth VS).58 The 1832 text, Stimmen aus den Zeiten der alten griechischen und römischen Klassikern, was published in an extended version in 1837 (henceforth SZ). A number of other school programs, in which Siebelis expounded the harmonious relationship between classical education and Christianity, were published in 1837 as Disputationes quinque (DQ).59 Important and detailed information about Siebelis’ teaching practice is contained in his autobiographical notes, published by his son shortly after his father’s death in 1843 (henceforth AB), as well as in the memoires recorded in 1845 by Siebelis’ student and admirer Karl Friedrich Ameis (1811 – 1870), who attended the Bautzen Gymnasium between 1828 and 1832.60 In addition to his educational writings, Siebelis published many academic works. The most important was his well-known Pausanias edition, produced between 1822 and 1828.61 Siebelis also published textbooks for school use as well as theological works.62
In the first part of this chapter, I will identify nine ‘constitutive’ features of Karl Gottfried Siebelis’ ideal of classical education that I found to be shared by virtually all classical humanists of the time. In the second part of the chapter, I will give an account of Siebelis’ teaching practice. With this twofold portrayal I aim to describe an ‘ideal type’ of 19th-century classical humanism.63
Nine constitutive aspects of classical humanism
1. Refining human nature
In Siebelis’ view, the “main purpose” of higher education was to educate pupils to “Humanität.”64 This term, which I will translate as “humanness,” was greatly popularised by Herder’s Briefe über Humanität – which belonged to Siebelis’ favourite readings.65 Siebelis used it to refer to the human condition in which the properties that make a human being a human being are fully developed. To Siebelis, becoming truly ‘human’ was only possible by cultivating “the nobler part of our nature,” that is, “our immortal soul,” which distinguishes us from animals.66 He considered it education’s task to “lift” students “above common inclinations” (der gemeine Sinn) and to raise them to a “magnanimous way of thinking” (großherzige Denkungsart).67 Siebelis’ educational ideal, then, was emphatically an ideal of elevation. In his view, the human race fell apart in “uncultured and ordinary people who always prefer the useful to the decent” and people who, being “ennobled by humanness and culture (Bildung) esteem human dignity above anything else.”68 Only those people who had managed by way of study to acquire a certain nobility of mind he deemed worthy of being called ‘human.’69 It is notable that Siebelis spoke of ‘humanness’ instead of ‘humanism. ’ This last term was coined in 1808 by the Bavarian pedagogue Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer (1766 – 1848), who used it as a polemical tool to distinguish the ideal of classical education from another, allegedly inferior ideal of education – based on criteria of efficiency and utility – which he named “philanthropinism” or “animalism.”70 Although the term ‘Humanismus’ was picked up by a small number of educationalists, it was only in the second half of the 19th century that it came to be widely accepted.71 Until the mid-century, classicists like Siebelis generally preferred the term Humanität, which had been sanctioned by tradition.72
2. Exemplary subject matter
According to Siebelis, cultivating one’s human qualities was only possible by a continuous engagement with an ideal, exemplary subject matter. Students should intensively study “the true, the beautiful and the good,” that is, the three elements of the “Platonic triad,” which was highly popular among classical humanists.73 As the only “aspirations worthy of a human being” were those based on “truth, beauty and morality,” humane education should focus exclusively on what was intellectually, aesthetically and morally exemplary.
3. The classics
Like most humanists, Siebelis was of the opinion that “the true, the beautiful and the good” had never been more perfectly represented “than in the writings of the ancient Greek and Roman classics.”74 According to Siebelis, the ancient Greek and Roman authors were called ‘classics’ in the proper sense of the word “because, being endowed with excellent intellectual and moral gifts, they possessed a cultured taste for the true, the beautiful and the good, which they preserved in their writings.”75 Therefore, there was no better means to the “advancement of humanness” than to embark on an intensive spiritual dialogue with the great writers of classical antiquity.76 It seems never to have occurred to Siebelis that “the true, the beautiful and the good” might also be studied in anything else than classical literature. It is a revealing fact that under his rectorship, German literature was never taught as a separate subject, not to mention French or English literature. Throughout his life, Siebelis adhered to the distinctly traditional view that when it came to education, the Greek and Roman classics were the only kind of literature truly worth studying.77
4. Intellectual education
Siebelis laid his beloved Platonic triad at the foundation of his analysis of the individual educational benefits of the study of classical literature. Firstly, classical studies were of eminent importance as a “means to excite, cultivate and exercise the intellectual faculties of the human mind: comprehension (Verstand), judgment and reason, wit and acumen, the faculty of divination and memory.”78 The study of classical literature stirred the human mind in so many different ways that Siebelis considered it eminently suited to the “harmonious refinement of our human nature.”79
5. Aesthetic education
Besides its intellectual benefit, Siebelis expected classical education to serve an aesthetic purpose. Above all he admired the classical world for a quality rarely recognised today, but widely celebrated at the time as the preeminent forte of classical civilisation: perfect form. In Siebelis’ view, no other people had climbed to such heights “in the art of sensualising (versinnlichen) thoughts,” that is, in the art of “representing (darstellen) beautiful thoughts lively and vividly.”80 It was because of their aesthetic accomplishments that Siebelis considered the classics perfectly suited to cultivate one’s “sense of beauty.”81 With Johannes von Müller (1752 – 1809), a famous Swiss historian whom he greatly admired, he valued the ancients as “prototypes of good taste.”82 In Siebelis’ teaching practice, this valuation of classical literature’s aesthetic qualities came down to a predominant emphasis on the cultivation of stylistic and oratorical skills. One of the major benefits of classical education Siebelis considered the fact that it provided “examples by which one could refine one’s [faculties of verbal] expression.” 83 As classical literature contained “the best samples of each style of writing,”84 there was no better means to perfect one’s writing skills than by imitating the classical models. He also extensively used classical examples to train his students’ oral proficiency. In Siebelis’ view, true humanness could only come to full growth through the cultivation of what he considered one of man’s defining characteristics: speech.85 The aesthetic value of classical education was of such importance to Siebelis that the classical curriculum at the Bautzen Gymnasium was principally determined by aesthetic criteria. It only featured authors whose writings were considered excellent stylistic models, which precisely for that reason were worthy to be called “classical.”86 The large majority of works that Siebelis treated in class belonged to the three genres in which beauty of form was of central importance: poetry, oratory and historiography.87 As a Primaner, Siebelis’ student Ameis read Cicero (selected orations), Horace (Epistulae and Carmina), Vergil (Georgics), Juvenal (Satires); Sophocles (Ajax and Electra), Euripides (Hecuba), Homer and Theocritus (Idylls), all of which were unanimously agreed to be great stylists.88 Historians were also read, but in Prima they were left to private reading.89 One additional genre was moral philosophy, which Siebelis only deemed suited to education when the texts in question excelled not only by their content but also by their style. Hence he devoted much attention to the philosophical works of Cicero (Disputationes Tusculanae; De finibus bonorum et malorum; De natura deorum; De officiis).90 He also considered Plato suitable for young men because of the “magic of his language.”91 Works falling outside the curriculum were without exception works deemed to be of insufficient stylistic quality: philosophical texts without literary pretension (Aristotle);92 literary works with a non-classical style (Silius Italicus, but also works of Tacitus (e. g. De Oratoribus) that heralded the “degeneration” (Ausartung) of the classical style);93 and all other texts that did not claim literary quality, such as scientific or technical texts.94
6. Moral education
To serve the third part of the Platonic triad, Siebelis strongly recommended classical education on ethical grounds. In his view, Greek and Roman literature were “rich storehouses of lessons of wisdom and virtue.”95 In Stimmen aus den Zeiten der alten griechischen und römischen Klassikern (1837), he went at great length to discuss the various virtues which he considered the fruit of intensive classical study: curiosity (3–11), piety (15–19), decency and moderation (19 – 25), justice (25–31), prudence, (31f.), bravery (32–7), and a lofty, noble way of thinking (38–42). He underlined the importance of these virtues with numerous quotations from classical authors, mostly from Cicero and Plato, but also from many others, such as Lucrece, Horace, Vergil, Pliny, Seneca, Quintilian, Homer, Aeschylus, Xenophon, Herodotus, Demosthenes, Theocritus, Plutarch, Lucian and Polybius. Emphasising the “exemplary aspect” of classical studies, Siebelis found that “the Greek and Roman classics (…) should influence our cast of mind and life.”96 With particular emphasis Siebelis taught students the importance of patriotism (Vaterlandsliebe), which he considered a “sacred feeling, which needs to be maintained and cultivated in young hearts with the most faithful care.”97 Substantiating its importance by addressing great classical exempla, such as Aristides, Epaminondas, Camillus and Cato, he aimed to instill in his students “love of [their] homeland and ancestral folk.”98 Typically, Siebelis believed that the moral benefit of classical studies was intrinsically connected to its aesthetic benefit. To him, the ancients’ highly developed sense of form had much to do with their strong patriotism and sense of public responsibility. Precisely because the ancients wrote “for the common good” and not, like modern writers, “for après-diners,” they avoided “metaphysical language and abstract concepts.”99 Conversely, Siebelis expected a highly developed sense of form to exert a beneficial influence on morality. With Cicero he regarded the study of great literature as the “mother of [both] doing right and speaking well.”100
Finally, it should be noted that Siebelis hardly ever made an essential value distinction between the Greeks and the Romans. Although approvingly quoting Johannes von Müller’s words on the singular glory of the Greeks,101 as far as the educational benefit of classical studies was concerned, he saw no reason to estimate the study of Roman literature even slightly lower than the study of Greek literature. Therefore, throughout his life, he advocated a traditional, Latin-dominated curriculum. His greatest idol, who took pride of place in his classes and whose sayings he never grew weary of quoting, was not a Greek, but a Roman author, who ever since Petrarch’s days had been celebrated as the ultimate model of stylistic and moral excellence: Cicero.102
7. Thoroughness
Apart from its intellectual, aesthetic and moral benefits, there was one overarching aspect of classical education that Siebelis mentioned time and again with great emphasis: the fact that, by its high degree of difficulty, it contributed to the virtue of thoroughness. To Siebelis, true humanness only came about when we “learn to understand something by hard work and effort, which does not automatically present itself to us. This is particularly the case with the ancient classics, and the fact that understanding them requires some effort, that is chiefly what is so good about [them] (it. original), apart from the fact that painfully-won knowledge of truth, beauty and goodness penetrates the mind more deeply than knowledge that was easily acquired.”103
Since it was above all the formal aspects of classical texts which granted them their high degree of difficulty, Siebelis believed that “precise knowledge” (Genauwissen104) of a text’s formal structure was conditional to a thorough understanding. The most important form of textual explanation, therefore, was grammatical explanation, “without which each other [form of] explanation (whether aesthetic or philosophical) is unhappy chattering, an empty game with bubbles, and [without which] nobody will or can succeed to understand a writer in the proper way.”105 For the same reason, Siebelis rigorously disapproved of using translations (which “suppress thinking and inhibit the [student’s] own effort”) and was even opposed to the practice of annotating texts in school editions (as students must be “practically forced to think [for themselves]”106). In sum, Siebelis’ ideal of humane education was emphatically an ideal of learning. He could not possibly conceive of ‘humanness’ if it was not to be intrinsically bound up with studiousness.107
8. Anti-utilitarianism
A penultimate constitutive aspect of Siebelis’ view of classical education was his conviction that the study of classical literature served, and should serve, a non-vocational purpose. Like most humanists, he held that “a mind nourished by this [classical] study will also better understand the Bedarfswissenschaften and apply them more skilfully and productively than he who, without having first awakened the prudent human being within him, restricts himself to a skilled profession (bürgerliches Fach).”108 Therefore it was Siebelis’ express purpose to keep classical education entirely separate from vocational considerations.
This emphasis on the classics’ general (i.e. humane) educational potential also explains Siebelis’ ambivalent stance towards academic philology. Although he never stopped producing philological work himself and even acquired fame with some of his publications, he was of the opinion that academic philology derived its ultimate justification from the classics’ educational value. He saw himself first and foremost as a schoolteacher, whose primary concern were the seventeen hours of classical education he delivered in Prima each week.109 Sometimes he even derogated his own philological writings, describing them as “rather the product of (…) collecting zeal” than of “acumen and a creative mind.”110 So convinced was he of the classics’ educational value that in the year of his death, he “thank(ed) God that he had let [him] become a practical teacher (praktischer Schulmann) and that [he] had not followed [an older colleague’s] advice to pursue a habilitation.”111
9. Enthusiasm
Last, but not least, Siebelis’ ideal of classical education was animated by a lofty, almost religious admiration for classical civilisation in general and classical literature in particular. Throughout his life, he remained in the grip of “a fiery, passionate love” for the Greek and Roman classics, which made him feel that he could only truly “live in [classical] literature.”112 His task as a schoolteacher he regarded as nothing short of a sacred mission. Wishing to bestow humanness on young men “entering the forecourts of the temple of science,”113 he estimated “the honour of his school, the moral well-being and scientific progress of his pupils above anything else.”114 Siebelis’ exalted enthusiasm also permeated his teaching. According to Karl Ameis, in Siebelis’ classes “imagination and feeling played an essential role,”115 so that “a wonderful fragment of an old classic was never read without the bright flow of [Siebelis’] speech merging into the rapid oscillations of enthusiasm.”116 Siebelis’ “utter devotion to the [classical] cause”117 also emerged from the solemn celebrations of his birthday, when he addressed his students from the balcony of his official residence, summoning the best five in Latin to toast with him on “the enthusiasm for the profession.”118 When he finally retired after thirty-seven years of faithful service to classical education, he kept spending most of his spare time reading classical authors, alone as well as in the comforting company of current and former students.119 Yet, for all his passion, Siebelis was wary of losing control. Although being “imperturbably cheerful,” his basic mood of “honest seriousness” was only very rarely broken by merriment.120 Karl Ameis mentioned that in all the years he attended Siebelis’ classes, he only heard him laugh heartily twice.121 The inexhaustible, high-minded enthusiasm which Siebelis exhibited as a classical schoolteacher is important to keep in mind as it prevents us from making an over-analytical interpretation of his educational ideal. Siebelis’ persuasion was rooted in a deferential attitude towards what he saw as the awe-inspiring classical heritage. It was this basic sense of reverence which was the animating force behind the individual arguments with which Siebelis defended classical education throughout his life. These arguments, for all their rational vigour, would ultimately not have made sense to him if he had not deeply cherished and esteemed the literary legacy to which they referred. In the final analysis, then, Siebelis’ ideal of education must be understood, not as a sum of rational arguments, but as an organic conglomerate of views rooted in a heartfelt love of the Greek and Roman classics.122
The variety of classical humanism
The fact that classical humanists widely agreed on the core values of classical education did not prevent them from disagreeing in other respects. Siebelis’ aversion to utilitarianism was so strong that he could hardly appreciate education in topics derived from or relating to the material rather than the spiritual world, such as natural history, geography or statistics. Such ‘material’ topics Siebelis did not expect to have a stimulating effect on the human soul.123 To him, they dealt with little more than “empty facts, which one gets to know the moment one needs them.”124 At the Bautzen Gymnasium, geography, natural history and technological subjects were therefore credited only a few hours a week and were concentrated in the school’s lower grades.125 In Prima, the only topics left besides the classics and religion were history (two hours) and mathematics (two hours).126
However, although such scepticism towards ‘material’ topics was widespread among classical humanists, appreciating them was not in principle incompatible with a humanistic perspective on education. Unlike Siebelis and others like him, some humanists were convinced that a modern Gymnasium curriculum should contain both ‘spiritual’ and ‘material’ topics. Ludwig Gedike (1760–1838), for example, Siebelis’ predecessor at the Bautzen Gymnasium, had a markedly positive opinion of the latter. Not only did he actively advocate the transformation of some neighbouring Latin schools into Bürgerschulen, he also introduced subjects at the Bautzen Gymnasium which had never been part of the curriculum before, such as natural history, physics and drawing. In 1803, he even withdrew from the Bautzen Gymnasium to become director of the Bürgerschule in Leipzig.127 That he was nonetheless a classical humanist in the full sense of the word, is unmistakable on reading his views on classical education. In De finibus, institutioni iuventutis in studio scholastico et academico rite assignandis, commentatio brevis, the program text of 1792, he sang the praises of classical studies in the most lyrical tones, touching upon most of the constitutive aspects of classical humanism just reviewed, including anti-utilitarianism.128 Gedike’s belief in the importance of ‘material’ topics, then, did not detract from his basically humanistic view of education.
A second conviction most classical humanists in the period 1770–1860 shared was that classical education was quite compatible with Christian faith. Siebelis, himself of Lutheran confession, was strongly opposed to the idea, cropping up with increasing frequency in the course of the early 19th century, that the predominance of classical education adversely influenced Christian morality. He found that there was “no higher principle of humanness (Humanität) than pure, merry religiosity, free of superstition, that is, knowledge of, reliance on and love of the highest.”129 In various writings, Siebelis attempted to illuminate the harmonious relationship between classical humanism and Christianity. In Stimmen aus den Zeiten der alten griechischen und römischen Classiker (1837), he substantiated the importance of acknowledging our dependence on God and of piety with an extensive list of quotations drawn from classical literature.130 In his Disputationes quinque, published in the same year, he went to great length to show that the pagan image of God corresponded in essential respects with the God of Christianity.131 In the school program of 1821, he described the Gymnasium as a “temple of God’s Spirit” where “as servants of Christ we must do with all our heart and with good intentions the will of God.”132 Not only did he consider religious education a “main subject” next to the classics,133 but he even found that religious education was best offered by classics teachers.134 Teaching both subjects himself all his life, he was asked by the town magistrate to confirm in person those students who had attended his confirmation classes.135
Although the large majority of humanists believed that classical education rather contributed to Christian faith than detracted from it, some humanists were not so sure about this. Friedrich August Wolf (1754–1824), for example, largely refrained from commenting on the relationship between classical education and Christian faith; and, due to some other statements in his writings, even acquired the reputation of being a kind of disguised heathen. A classical humanist like Eduard Eyth (1809–1884), on the contrary, teacher of classics in Württemberg, was seriously worried that a surplus of classical humanism would harm the Christian religiosity of normal people, which is why he advocated a considerable extension of religious education. Despite their divergent views on the relationship between humanism and Christianity, however, both Wolf and Eyth were classical humanists in the full sense of the word. As we shall see later, they both fully shared the nine constitutive views that have been outlined above.136
Thirdly, there was a distinct tendency among classical humanists to conceive of education as principally separate from political issues. Most classics teachers spent their days in the relative seclusion of a local school community without ever engaging in political controversies. In Siebelis’ view, politics fell entirely outside the scope of Gymnasium education. “Neither Jesus nor Socrates,” he wrote, “dealt with politics; their job was to teach people about God and divine things, about their destination and responsibilities.” How could Gymnasium teachers therefore “desecrate the sanctity of their profession with worthless political chatter?”137 Calling the state “a divine institution,” Siebelis held that “everyone should subject himself to the authorities (Obrigkeit), since they are ordained by God.”138 Siebelis himself “consciously ignored various opportunities to write, in order not to sin against the strict commandment: see to it as a leader (Vorgesetzter, i. e. when holding a prominent position in society) that what belongs to the state does not suffer damage.”139 Teaching, Siebelis argued, was a “silent profession,”140 which should be guided by the principle: “Fear the Lord and the King, and do not mingle with the rebellious.”141 According to this principle, Siebelis’ comments on Saxon state policy remained remarkably scarce. He once approvingly quoted Johannes von Müller’s claim that the study of classical literature, although imbued with a republican ethics of virtue, was easily compatible with a monarchical state.142 In general, however, he remained decidedly aloof. His only comment on the quartering of French and Russian troops in the Bautzen Gymnasium and his personal residence during the ‘Battle of Bautzen’ (1813) was that it annoyingly interrupted school routine.143 He contacted the Saxon king a few times, but only to request money for the Gymnasium or approval for a school plan.144 Since to Siebelis the best place in which to work was a place “about which the newspapers had the least to say,”145 he personally saw to it that the annual school reports of the Bautzen Gymnasium did not grow too long and were only a kind of appendix to the treatise they opened with.146 Also the fact that he left many school addresses unpublished (e. g. on the occasion of translocations, confirmations, graduations, etc.147) illustrates Siebelis’ inclination to shun publicity. Consistent with his restraint in political matters was Siebelis’ reluctance to look upon the Gymnasium as an instrument of social change. Although basically considering classical education the best preparatory schooling for future students and non-students alike,148 in practice he focused exclusively on the Gelehrtenstand, which he aimed to supply with “worthy members.”149 Like many other humanists, Siebelis was worried about the overcrowding of the classical schools, which he hoped to reduce by not leaving vocational choices to children themselves.150 “True enlightenment” (wahre Aufklärung), he wrote, was “rather the state in which every member of civil society thinks and judges correctly in all matters which must be important in his professional sphere, and in which each man has the knowledge necessary for his profession, whereby he is enabled to become within his circumstances a good, useful content and happy man.”151 Although the large majority of classical humanists were as restrained as Siebelis in political and social matters, some humanists actively participated in politics. The most famous example is Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), who from 1809 onwards was in charge of the Prussian educational reform that aimed at nothing less than effectuating by humanistic education the spiritual elevation of the Prussian people, needed to compensate for the loss of external power resulting from their defeat by Napoleon in 1806/7. One of the leading thoughts of Humboldt’s reform proposal was to spread classical education among such broad layers of society that even a simple carpenter would profit from the blessings of being educated in ancient Greek.152 It should be realised, however, that Humboldt, for all his attempts to make classical education serviceable to political and social goals, wholeheartedly shared all the constitutive views of classical humanism that together make up its ideal type. Political commitment, in other words, could profitably be combined with a humanistic view of education.153 For a sound understanding of classical humanism it is worth realising that besides the core values discussed in the previous section, there was a broad range of values and ideas that offered ample scope for disagreement. We should take care not to narrowly equate classical humanism with the constitutive features that remained constant over time. In reality, classical humanism occurred in many different forms and proved adaptable to changing circumstances. To this characteristic I will return in the second part of this book.
Teaching practice
Let us now investigate how the ‘ideal type’ of classical humanism as discussed in the previous sections related to educational practice. Which methods of teaching were used to help students achieve the desired goals? At the Bautzen Gymnasium, as at all German Gymnasien of the time, classical education was divided into a receptive, philological and a productive, oratorical component. On the one hand, students intensively studied classical texts, not only to understand them as well as possible, but also to grasp their aesthetic and moral value. On the other hand, they were expected to apply classical standards themselves, in both written and spoken Latin, and to a lesser extent Greek, productions.
The old Gymnasium at the Bautzen corn market, c. 1868;
photography by Gottlob Adolph Meister (1826–1905).154
Explaining the classics
Like all humanists, Siebelis described the philological side of classical education as ‘explaining’ (erklären) the classics.155 This process of explanation he divided into three different levels: grammatical, historical and spiritual (geistige) explanation.156 Grammatical explanation was in turn subdivided into verbal and syntactical explanation. The first included learning the properties of individual words: their spelling, their pronunciation, their inflection as well as their significance. Attention was paid not only to their common, but also to their original meaning.157 Furthermore, Siebelis recommended precise distinctions between synonyms and awareness both of Latin idiom in general and the specific idiom of individual authors.158
Closely tied to verbal explanation was syntactical explanation, which was concerned with the use of tenses and modes, particles, elliptic and proverbial expressions and, in the case of poetry, dialects and metre. To elucidate obscure passages, Siebelis recommended careful analysis of a sentence’s syntactical structure, a practice that was known as “construing” (construiren).159
Grammatical explanation was practiced intensively in the two lowest grades of the Bautzen Gymnasium and materialised in the following way:160 of the ten weekly (i. e. two daily) hours devoted to Latin in the two lowest grades, one entire hour was devoted to exercising the declinations and conjugations. Another hour was dedicated to translating German into Latin, while a third hour was devoted to grammatical exercises taken from Heinrich Esmarch’s 1779 adaption of Christoph Speccius’ Praxis Declinationum et Coniugationum of 1655.161 At the second lowest grade, a separate hour was devoted to the explanation of important grammatical rules. In the remaining hours, original Latin texts were read, both from Friedrich Gedike’s Lesebuch für die ersten Anfänger (1782) and from Eutropius.162 Expected to have prepared the assigned text at home, pupils were alternately asked to read a paragraph aloud, explicate its grammatical construction and to translate it into German, first literally, then more freely. When the entire text had been treated in this way, all grammatical difficulties were extensively analysed and explained. Then, one pupil was asked to paraphrase in his own words the content of the text just discussed, so that the teacher could verify whether it had been properly understood. Finally, all pupils were required to produce a written German translation of the treated fragment at home. A second level of explanation, which Siebelis captured under the generic name of “historical explanation,” focused on what we nowadays would call ‘contextual’ subjects. To fully understand a classical text, it was necessary to reflect on many aspects relating to political and literary history, mythology, geography, religion as well as so-called Alterthümer (antiquities).163 In his own lessons, Siebelis only dwelled on such topics “insofar as it seemed necessary to clarify the meaning” of the texts.164 Delving more deeply into them he left to the students’ “private industry” (Privatfleiß), especially since at his time so many excellent textbooks on a wide range of contextual subjects were available.165
The last, highest level of explanation Siebelis called “spiritual understanding” (geistiges Verständniß).166 Like many classical humanists, he considered it the ultimate goal of the explanatory process to “penetrate into the spirit” of classical authors by becoming intimately familiar with their “individuality” and “peculiarity.”167 Apart from thorough philological knowledge, this required “psychological insight:” only when one sympathetically put oneself in the position of the author in order to fully understand the particular choices he had made, could one ultimately succeed in capturing his spirit.168 Spiritual understanding could come about in several ways. One was to change the word order and metre of an ancient poem. When the fragment really possessed a “poetic spirit” (poeti-scher Geist), it would still be there after any such interference. Another method was rewriting a poetic text in prose. By comparing the prosaic and poetic version one would get deeper insight into the nature of the poetic spirit.169
Typically, Siebelis considered a deep, spiritual understanding of ancient texts only feasible once the process of grammatical and historical explanation had been successfully completed. Nothing was more repugnant to him than the “aesthetic and philosophical reasoning of those who use to subtilise (vernünf-teln) and rant about the spirit and the beauties of prose or poetry without properly understanding their language.”170 Therefore, although recognising spiritual explanation as the highest form of understanding, in practice Siebelis was more than satisfied when students succeeded in properly understanding a text grammatically as well as historically.171 Even in his own teaching, he appears to have predominantly restricted himself to these two basic levels of explanation.172
Another integral part of Siebelis’ teaching was to point out the many positive, formal qualities accountable for the texts’ classical status. “Wherever he could,” he tried to make students aware of “the clarity, simplicity, and precision” characteristic of the classical style173 and asked them to mark “beautiful, thoughtful passages.”174 The ultimate aim of the explanatory process, then, was not only to make students understand classical literature, but also to appreciate and admire its quality of form.175
Finally, Siebelis found that the process of “explaining” the classics could only bear fruit when two conditions were met. Firstly, students would only learn to truly love the classics when they would complement the fragmentary readings in class with sustained reading of classical literature at home. He required all Primaner to read on their own strengths both a Greek and a Roman author and took ample time to lend a hand when they asked for help.176 So convinced was Siebelis of the importance of domestic reading that he wholeheartedly agreed with an older colleague that the success of Schulpforta (Saxony), one of the best-reputed Gymnasien in the German-speaking world, was due “almost exclusively to the domestic industry of its pupils.”177 Secondly, Siebelis believed that classical education could only be achieved if what had been learnt in class was repeated over and over again. In his own classes, he included daily, weekly, monthly as well as holiday-related repetition sessions.178 Furthermore, he required students to take extensive notes on almost everything that seemed worthy of being memorised.179 These notes he encouraged them to arrange into clearly categorised Collectanea that had to be perused at least monthly.180
Imitating the classics
The philological side of classical education was paralleled by an oratorical side. Late 18th- and 19th-century classical education aimed at an active command of the Latin language.181 Students were educated to write and speak Latin fluently and, moreover, classically.182 At the Bautzen Gymnasium, like at all German Gymnasien, Latin for a long time retained its traditional status as a language of communication. In Prima, i. e., in the three highest-year classes of the Gymnasium, Siebelis consistently spoke Latin when explaining classical (both Latin and Greek) texts.183 Since the classics occupied approximately half of the curriculum, the Bautzen Gymnasium at Siebelis’ time might be reasonably said to have been a bilingual institution. Bilingualism is also apparent from the fact that about half of the writings that Siebelis included in the school reports which were distributed annually among the local citizenry to inform them about recent developments, were written in Latin.184 Also at official gatherings, the bilingual character of the school clearly showed. When Siebelis applied for the rectorship of the Bautzen Gymnasium, he had to teach two trial classes, one in Latin (on a letter by Cicero) and one in German (on ancient mythology).185 Shortly thereafter, on the occasion of his inauguration, he produced a Latin invitation letter next to a German speech.186 Most importantly, however, Siebelis not only actively used the classical languages himself, but expected the same of his students. Firstly, they were obliged to submit monthly Latin- or Greek-written extracts (Excerpte) from the classical texts which they were required to read for themselves.187 Secondly, each Primaner had to submit weekly Latin (and sometimes Greek) essays of a four-to-six-page length which Siebelis would elaborately correct at home with regard to “disposition, composition and expression.”188 Thirdly, Siebelis often prescribed exercises in Latin, and sometimes in Greek verse composition.189 The latter practice was so widespread that students who violated school rules were obliged to produce so-called “punitive disticha” (Straf-distichen), which were compiled in a special book.190 Since Siebelis, as rector of the school, only taught in the higher grades, his exercises in the active use of Latin and Greek were all clearly intended for advanced students. Yet at the Bautzen Gymnasium, as at most German Gymnasien, active writing exercises were part of the curriculum from the lowest grades onwards. Traditional beginners’ exercises were those in ‘composition:’ translating German into Latin (or Greek).191 Such exercises in ‘composition’ were generally known as Exerzitien, Stilübungen, or Scripta: concise German texts on a variety of themes (such as moral maxims, nature or mythology) were to be translated into Latin or Greek.192
Apart from Latin writing skills, Siebelis also strove to cultivate his students’ oral proficiency.193 Twice a year, each class was officially examined, once in front of the Schulcollegium and Gymnasialcommission (in late September), and once at a solemn public ceremony shortly before Easter.194 At these public ceremonies, which lasted for several days and were presented in front of an audience consisting of the students’ relatives as well as a variety of local dignitaries, oral graduation exams in Latin and Greek were invariably conducted in Latin.195 Sometimes, other subjects, such as history, were examined in Latin as well.196 Moreover, the examinations were interspersed with declamations and speeches delivered by a selected group of excelling students. Far into the 19th century, about half of these speeches were delivered in Latin. At the Bautzen Gymnasium, the speeches and lectures were concentrated in the so-called Mättigscher Gedächtnisactus, a ceremony directly preceding or following the public examinations, held in reverent memory of Gregorius Mättig (1585–1650), a local scholar, politician and patron who established a foundation that at Siebelis’ time still funded annual ‘free places’ (Freistellen) at the Gymnasium, intended for gifted children from disadvantaged families.197 The majority of Latin speeches delivered on this occasion were on moral issues, e. g. “On the essential causes that should encourage the student to industry,” or “On the art of winning affection from other people.”198 Very often they related to classical literature: e.g. “On Horace’s words: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” or “On the words of Xenocrates in Cicero: ita instituendos esse adolescentes, ut id sua sponte faciant, quod cogantur facere legibus.”199 Each year, the Primaner who had delivered the best piece of self-composed Latin prose or poetry was awarded the Stipendium Siebelisianum, which had been created for this purpose in 1829.200 Finally, students could exhibit their oral Latin proficiency at special occasions, such as at the annual official celebration of the king’s birthday. Moreover, at pivotal points in Siebelis’ career, students and former students sometimes composed solemn Latin or Greek speeches or poems in which they expressed their gratitude for the headmaster’s contribution to their education.201 Also when leaving school, they bade farewell with a Latin valediction speech.202 Within the classroom, too, there was ample opportunity to exercise one’s oral Latin proficiency. In Prima, where classical education itself was conducted in Latin, Siebelis regularly organised so-called ‘disputations’ (Disputationen): first, he read aloud a thesis on which he asked a student to write a Latin disputation, that is, a short defence (or a refutation). After Siebelis had examined it, he assigned three opponents to refute (or to defend) the thesis that the disputant, being assisted by a so-called ‘respondent,’ was about to defend (or to refute). The next day the students would dispute in Latin for an entire hour under the auspices of their teacher. Although the disputation proper was performed by the five appointed students, all class members were allowed to intervene. At the end, Siebelis evaluated their performances.203 Also Latin and Greek declamations were a regular part of the curriculum and of examination programs.204
It is worthwhile to expatiate a little on the practice of disputing, since it reveals an often forgotten fact about 19th-century classical education. In the 19th century, the practice of disputing had become much less common than it had been in the past. Disputations had been very regularly exercised in the 16th to 18th centuries at the evangelische Ratsschule, as the Bautzen Gymnasium was traditionally called. Their function was to prepare students for university life, which centred on the practice of disputing.205 By the 19th century, the importance of disputations in the academic world had radically decreased. However, we must keep in mind that disputations, which were nearly always conducted in Latin, remained a regular part of official academic occasions, such as inaugurations, throughout the century.206 Beyond any doubt, Siebelis’ disputing exercises at the Bautzen Gymnasium must be understood in the light of this ongoing academic practice.207 The major emphasis Siebelis put on the cultivation of oratorical skills, then, should not exclusively be explained from the exalted, classical ideal of eloquence and virtue with which he defended it in his educational writings. It was additionally justified by the plain fact that far into the century, not being able to speak Latin fluently, or at least properly, came down to not being able to pursue an academic career.208
The persistence of classical humanism
Surveying this picture of 19th-century classical education, we can hardly escape noticing that, both in its objectives and in practice, it was markedly traditional. The nine ‘constitutive’ aspects of classical humanism as they have been outlined above, were equally important to Siebelis as they had been to Renaissance humanists.209 Sharply aware of this continuity, Siebelis substantiated his position as easily by quoting great educationalists from the Renaissance as by quoting contemporary humanists. In his 1809 program text, for example, he quoted Muretus (1526–1585) to prove that classical education provided the best preparation even for the so-called Bedarfswissenschaften.210 On the importance of learning grammar rules, he recommended Melanchthon’s letters.211 The importance of slow, intensive reading he underlined with a quotation from Coelius Secundus Curio (1503–1569).212 To Martin Luther’s ideas about classical school education he devoted even an entire essay.213 Next to Renaissance educationalists, he lavishly quoted from both classical authors and contemporary humanists, often in the same footnote.214 In other words, Siebelis expressly intended to continue the age-old tradition of humanistic learning. He characteristically stated that in setting out his views on how to conduct classical studies, he “did not presume to say anything new (…), but only intended to encourage the execution of and compliance with long-established and well-known ideas.”215 Nor did he see himself as ‘looking back’ on a bygone age of classical wisdom, and Muretus or Melanchthon as people defending classical education from a distant past. All humanists who over the centuries had propagated and spread the study of the ancient classics he regarded as intimate, spiritual companions, no matter the gap of historical time between them. To Siebelis, they were all citizens of an enduring republic of letters founded on the timeless fundament of classical literature.216 Secondly, although Siebelis shared his time’s enthusiasm for the ancient Greeks and spent much more time on Greek than had been common in the past, this did not effectuate a significant change of the pursued educational ideal. The increased attention to Greek was incorporated into the traditional, classical-humanistic ideal of education. In Siebelis’ view, Humanität could equally well be achieved by the study of Greek as by the study of Roman literature. Thirdly, and finally, the Latin language, far from being reduced to a ceremonial oddity, retained its traditional status as a language of communication far into the 19th century.217 Classical education itself was not limited to the laborious decipherment and explanation of ancient texts but remained closely oriented to the practical ideal of eloquence passed down through the centuries.
Nonetheless, some changes were unmistakable. Compared with the premodern Gymnasium, the importance of Latin as a spoken language declined. In the highest grades of the old evangelische Ratsschule, all lessons had been given in Latin and students were even officially prohibited to avail themselves of their mother tongue,218 whereas at the bilingual 19th-century Gymnasium such strictness no longer obtained. And although Siebelis continued to teach rhetoric as a separate topic,219 the number of opportunities to speak Latin significantly decreased. At the evangelische Ratsschule, there were about fifteen solemn celebrations a year, mostly linked to ecclesiastical Solemnities, at which students publicly gave proof of their improvements in the form of Latin or Greek speeches or recitations of self-written Latin or Greek poetry.220 In Siebelis’ time, such celebrations had been radically reduced to the half-yearly public examinations and some sporadic official ceremonies.
The decreased importance of Latin as a living language is further reflected by the disappearance from the curriculum of neo-Latin authors. At the old Latin school, the ancient classics were explained next to neo-Latin authors such as Muretus and Lipsius, and church fathers such as Cyprianus.221 At the 19th-century Gymnasium, as we have seen, the curriculum was restricted to authors from antiquity alone. Another substantial change was the gradual disappearance from the Bautzen Gymnasium of the Latin school drama. Having played a prominent role in school life at the old Latin school, by the 19th century, it had finally become defunct.222 Finally, the decreased importance of speaking Latin was compensated by an increased curricular share of classical reading. Much time originally devoted to exercises in the active use of the Latin language was now spent on extended reading loads. At the 19th-century Gymnasien, reading acquired an autonomy that it did not yet have in the past.223
However, the gradually decreasing importance of spoken Latin should not make us believe that Latin altogether lost its practical relevance at the 19th-century Gymnasium. As the teaching practice of Karl Gottfried Siebelis makes abundantly clear, classical education retained its traditional dual orientation towards explaining classical texts and learning to write and speak Latin and Greek. Siebelis’ students, far from being initiated only into the minutiae of textual interpretation, were also encouraged in a very practical way to improve their stylistic and oratorical skills by imitating the Roman and Greek models.
The persistence of classical humanism now confronts us with the question whether the term ‘neohumanism’ is appropriate for late 18th- and 19th-century classical education. One might understand the term ‘neohumanism’ as indicating a revival of the preceding humanism from which it does not necessarily or radically distinguish itself and thus as highlighting continuity. Yet, as explained in the introduction, most scholars use it to refer to a form of humanism that was developed to serve distinctly modern needs and thus as highlighting change.
Like most Gymnasien, the Bautzen Gymnasium underwent many changes in the period in question, most of which were of an organisational nature. Under Siebelis’ rectorship, the school underwent a gradual process of Verstaatlichung and bureaucratisation that met the needs of modern society. In 1820, in order to increase state supervision, a Schulkollegium was established alongside the traditional ‘Gymnasialdeputation,’ which had been in charge of almost all important decisions concerning the school. The competence of the Gymnasialdeputation was now reduced to “internal affairs,” whereas matters of wider impact fell to the Schulkollegium.224 In subsequent years, the influence of the state only increased. Since 1821, an official Abiturientenprüfung guarded entrance to the university.225 Since 1833, each school in the Oberlausitz was obliged to publish annual school reports with a fixed content.226 The most far-reaching reform followed in 1835, as the traditional four grades were divided into six grades, with the highest grade, Prima, being subdivided into thirds. From now on, Secunda and Prima formed the actual Gymnasium (making up four years) whereas the new grades Quinta and Sexta formed the so-called Progymnasium, which was specifically intended to prepare for the Gymnasium and was therefore no longer considered appropriate for pupils who would not continue their studies at the university.227 Thus, the Bautzen Gymnasium developed from an inclusive school serving a hybrid clientele to an institution that by specialising in university preparation became an exclusive breeding ground for state officials.228 Also, the curriculum of the Bautzen Gymnasium differed markedly from that of the old Latin school. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the classics were practically the only subject besides religion, whereas by the early 19th century, the curriculum had been considerably extended.229 Greek was now amply represented, although this was nothing new in itself. Already at the old Latin school, Secundaner (students at the second-highest grade) read Lucian, Plutarch, Pythagoras, Phocylides and Theognis next to the New Testament, whereas Primaner read Homer, Hesiod, Isocrates and Demosthenes. In the 18th century, the proportion of Greek in the curriculum temporarily decreased, until Siebelis’ predecessor Ludwig Gedike fully restored its rights.230
Against the background of these changes, which distinguished the 19th-century Bautzen Gymnasium from the preceding Latin school, it is even more notable how markedly traditional Siebelis’ views were concerning classical education. He never subscribed to the philosophically and anthropologically tinged ideal of cultivating individuality and equality that captivated the minds of utopian pedagogues such as Wilhelm von Humboldt and Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Nor did he advocate the transformation of classical studies into Altertumswissenschaft that was initiated by academic philologists such as Friedrich August Wolf and Friedrich Creuzer. As a practical schoolteacher, Siebelis remained faithful to the principles of what long before him had been established as the classical-humanistic creed. Since his case can be seen as broadly representative, we can conclude that with regard to classical school education, the term ‘neohumanism,’ with its emphasis on innovation, is inappropriate. Not only does it downplay the continuity which is its most striking feature, but it also obscures the fact that continuing a tradition was exactly what humanists like Siebelis sought to do. After all, it is not coincidental that the early 19th century gave birth to the term ‘humanism,’ whereas ‘neohumanism’ was something of which nobody had yet ever heard.