Synopses & Reviews
Focusing on the reigns of Frederick the Great of Prussia (1740-86) and Maria Theresa of Austria (1740-80), James Van Horn Melton examines in this book the origins, aims, and achievements of the compulsory school movements in these states. Melton draws on a broad range of sources to show how school reform was part of a broader effort to transform social, economic, and cultural behavior at the popular level.
Review
'\"James Van Horn Melton has produced an important work on the educational policies of the absolute state and the social purposes behind them.\" The Eighteenth Century'
Table of Contents
List of tables; List of abbreviations; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Administrative divisions of the Habsburg and Hohenzolln monarchies, 1780; Part I. Cultural and Religious Forces: 1. Popular schooling in early modern Prussia and Austria; 2. The rise of Pietist pedagogy; 3. From image to word: cultural reform and the rise of literate culture in Theresian Austria; 4. The catholic appropriation of Pietist pedagogy: Johann Ignaz Felbiger; Part II. Social and Economic Forces: 5. Mastering the masterless: cameralism, rural industry, and popular education; 6. From compulsory labor to compulsory schooling: education and the crisis of seigniorial authority; Part III. The Limits of Reform: 7. School reform in Frederickian Prussia; 8. The Theresian school reform of 1774; Conclusion; Selected bibliography; Index.