ABSTRACT
Every aspect of German education so far discussed has been seen to have been conditioned in varying degrees by the social and political situation of the time, in particular by the impact on a conservative society of trends connected with industrialisation and the development of a proletariate. To many the fundamental problem of the time was either how to suppress the revolutionary tendencies associated with socialism or how to win over the working masses to national values and respect for the ‘German tradition’. To others, however, the task was seen as that of mobilising education for the benefit of those whose interests were insufficiently recognised in the political structure of the state. In no sphere of education were these aspects clearer than in that of adult education, and only in the light of these considerations can its content and methods before 1918 be properly understood.
