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>Wait, so, you're going to start with Prussia's rather, shall we say, statist education system, and completely ignore Britain's similar industrial age education
by rsj_hn 5y ago
>Wait, so, you're going to start with Prussia's rather, shall we say, statist education system, and completely ignore Britain's similar industrial age education system? Why focus on Prussia, not Britain?
Because the essay is about public education, e.g. state funded education. Not the history of all education. Public education in the West was pioneered by Prussia in the 18th Century and then copied by other nations in the late 19th Century:
"Prussia was among the first countries in the world to introduce tax-funded and generally compulsory primary education.[3] In comparison, in France and Great Britain, compulsory schooling was not successfully enacted until the 1880s.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system
Moreover the article traces the history of this movement by Horace Mann, an expert on Prussian education and the acknowledged "Father of public education" in the U.S.
> Today I learned that 54 years ago is "present day" when discussing education.
That's not what the essay says. Let me help in explaining what a period means: it ends one thought and starts another. Let me help explain what a paragraph does: it groups thoughts together. Often the first sentence of the paragraph makes a thesis, and then what follows provides evidence for the thesis. So he says it continues until the present, and then as evidence of this continuation he cites data from 1967, 1976, 1980s, 1998, 2008, 2016. That is meant to show continuation until the present.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago> Because the essay is about public education, e.g. state funded education. Not the history of all education. Public education in the West was pioneered by Prussia in the 18th Century and then copied by other nations in the late 19th Century My question remains - why is Prussian educational thought considered influential in the USA by the author, and no thought given to British educational thought? Because one guy visited Prussia to see their system? It's not like the USA's lower house of government is called the Diet, I'm pretty sure the USA does things the USA way, education included. If you want to strongly link Prussian educational thought to American educational thought, you might have to prove it beyond "this guy who thought education was important visited Prussia". PS - Horace Mann, yep, visited Prussia. However, didn't say shit about "let's use schools to control the people". Which even the author acknowledges with a a slight sneer: > Mann may have not been as explicit as his German counterparts in his hopes for social control (But he totally was for it, trust me, I'm a substack author).
- mdorazio 5y agoCome on, the parent post just answered your question again after it was already answered in the article, and you completely ignored it again. > Moreover the article traces the history of this movement by Horace Mann, an expert on Prussian education and the acknowledged "Father of public education" in the U.S. The person who basically founded the US public education system based it on the Prussian system, not the British one.
- EdwardDiego 5y agoDid you read my reply at all? Mann visited Prussia. Apparently he was an expert on Prussian education (No citations given, but let's take it said). Does that imply Prussian education systems? Or Prussian education values? Because, as I literally quoted the author saying, Mann isn't on record saying "Let's control the people, mwahahaha, wait, don't quote me on that", the author is heavily inferring it with no evidence.
- mdorazio 5y agoI genuinely don't understand how you're not making that logical connection here. It seems you're looking for some document where Mann says, "Look at me, I'm specifically basing my views on the Prussian system rather than the Prussian education values". This is absurd.
- EdwardDiego 5y agoWhy? US's upper house is called the Senate, nobody has stabbed in the back by multiple senators once! Plenty of systems are adopted without also adopting the values they evolved alongside. China and free markets. Lots of software companies and Agile. Various "democracies" with the system, but none of the values of "don't commit voting fraud, don't intimate opposition voters" etc. Adopting a system isn't predicated on adopting the values the system was designed in.
- BlueTemplar 5y agoBecause everyone in the West (including Britain and even the USSR) copied the Prussian model of education ?