ABSTRACT
In the course of the nineteenth century it became the generally established rule in all states that only textbooks approved by the state could be used in publicly-controlled schools. For a long time a list of such books was kept for the Prussian Minister of Education by the Royal Prussian Information Office for Schools (Königlick Preussiscke Auskuriftsstelle für Sckulwesen). In practice, this meant that no writer of textbooks could afford lightly to disregard the policy of the government, and steps could be taken at a high level even to force authors into line with the prevailing propaganda requirements. For example, in 1889, the Emperor issued an instruction that recent German history was to receive greater attention. It was to be used, he stated, to demonstrate “that the power of the state alone can protect the individual, his family, his freedom and his rights”, how Prussia’s kings “have exerted themselves to raise the conditions of the workers” and “how considerably and constantly in this country the wages and conditions of the working class have improved under this monarchic protection”. It was also laid down, for instance, in the Prussian regulations of 1901 that German was to be given prominence in order to awaken “patriotic fervour” and so that “the hearts of our young people may be elevated with enthusiasm for the German ‘Volkstum’ and the greatness of the German mind”. In the same spirit a Prussian directive of 1902 (‘Requirements of a Good German Reader for Elementary Schools’) stressed that nothing must be said to make the child aware of denominational controversy or divert his attention from “the Prussian state, the German fatherland and humanity as a whole”. This order of precedence was significant and characteristic. In the textbooks of the Empire, it should be added, humanity played a very inconspicuous part.
