Abstract
THE main features of education in Germany as remoulded under the Nazi regime are presented in a bulletin (“Education in Germany”. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1939) prepared for the United States Office of Education by Dr. Alina Lindegren, specialist in west European education, who visited Germany in 1935 and 1936 and completed her investigation of the subject a year ago. Among the most pregnant changes have been those in the education of teachers. Long before the Nazi party came into power its leaders resolved on a rapid unification of the teaching staffs and on eliminating teachers antagonistic to its views. The resultant limitation and precise definition of objectives must have been important factors in the production of a vigorous and efficient system. For teaching in elementary schools, candidates must enter two-year training colleges in which the curriculum includes three main fields: political world-view (weltanshauliche) education, scientific study and practical work. Entrance conditions include ability to sing and to play the violin, piano or organ and to instruct in gymnastics and sports. Women must in addition qualify in needlework and home economics. Aspirants to secondary school teaching posts must spend a year in one of these training colleges so as to mix with candidates for elementary school-teaching and so help to unify the profession. The declared purpose of the secondary school is to give preliminary training to especially gifted young people fit to qualify themselves eventually for authoritative positions in the political, cultural and economic life of the nation, and “the constant basis of selection shall be physical fitness, fitness as to character, mental fitness or ability, and national fitness”. Conditions of study in the universities, which are subject to close control by the Reich Government, are elucidated by a comparison with the corresponding conditions in the United States.
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Education in Germany. Nature 144, 321 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/144321a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/144321a0