Saxony (Sachsen) School Records

Educating children was the responsibility of the Church. Through the Church the knowledge of antiquity as well as Christian ideas were transmitted through two types of monastery schools. One school prepared boys and girls for the Church, the other educated children of the nobility. Classes were held in Latin covering the follwoing subjects: grammar, rhetoric and dialectics, geometry, mathematics, music and astronomy. Around 800 AD Charles the Great began to establish schools for everyone. Mandatory schooling was to assure culture and religious instructions for the people. When in 1250 the cities through merchants and craftsmen began to blossom, city schools were established. The teachers displaced monks. Reading, writing and mathematics were taught in Latin but eventually replaced by the German language. In the middle of the 17th century new educational ideas arose. People believed in their own abilities and thinking. New knowlege, discoveries and inventions challenged the old ways. Schools became institutionalized and structured. It took time to integrate new structures. In the beginning of the 19th century the education of children was undergoing some major changes. Subjects were determined by children's ages. Prep schools were established. In 1837 a binding curriculum was installed and by 1846 some 60 percent of German children went to school regularly.