New Profession, Old Order: Engineers and German Society, 1815-1914

New profession, old order Engineers and German society, 1815-1914

KEES GISPEN University of Mississippi

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The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon 13,28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Cambridge University Press 1989 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1989 First paperback edition 2002 A catalogue recordfor this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Gispen,Kees, 1943New profession, old order: engineers and German society, 1815-1914/KeesGispen. p. cm. Revision of author's thesis. Bibliography: p. Includes index. ISBN 0 52137198 8 1. Engineering - Social aspects - Germany - History. I. Title. TA157.G55 1989 303.48/3-dc20 89-7115 CIP ISBN 0 521371988 hardback ISBN 0 521 52603 5 paperback

Not a single civil engineer remained on the tenured faculty after the well-known hydraulics specialist Ludwig Franzius left for Bremen in 1875. 14 In addition to the small regular teaching staff, there were substantial numbers of part-time instructors. Their primary orientation, like that of the tenured faculty, was toward their outside employment. Many were younger engineers or architects, temporarily stationed in Berlin and compelled to teach one or two courses at the Bau-Akademie. In 1876, prior to unification with the Industrial Institute, the Bau-Akademie offered the least number of courses of any higher technical institute in Germany. 13 By far the largest problem was the refusal of the corps' administration to make separate specialties of architecture and civil engineering. This lack of differentiation led to tensions between architects and civil engineers and to mutual recriminations between the younger and older generations in the corps. Inevitably, civil engineers complained about excessive training in drawing, artistic subjects, and architectural styles, whereas architects believed that there was too much emphasis on science, civil engineering, construction technique, hydraulics, and railroad design. The combined program, described at one time as a "forced marriage," required an exceptionally long and difficult course of study and examinations in both areas.16 Even so, the result was insufficient knowledge and "dilettantism" in civil engineering as well as architecture. 17 One architect summed up the situation in 1867: "With force they want to make us simultaneously into architects and engineers. And what do they achieve other than that we are in truth neither architects nor engineers but dilettantes in both fields, merely administrators with technical knowledge." 18 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

DBZ(1876):388. DBZ (1872):93, 371-3, 379-82, 387-9DBZ (1872):395. Prussia, Haus der Abgeordneten, Verhandlungen (HdA), 17 March 1876, 743—4. "Von der Bau-Akademie zu Berlin," DBZ (1876):21-2, 73-5, 81-3, 99-101. DBZ(1872):418. DBZ (1872):297, 307, 372, 392, 418. DBZ (1867):443.

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The shortcomings of the Bau-Akademie were most aggravating to the younger generations of graduates and to those who had left the corps or were contemplating leaving it for the private sector. For civil engineers or architects to work outside of government was a relatively novel development in the middle of the nineteenth century. The opportunity to do so arose first for architects, and mostly in Berlin, where urbanization occurred earlier and on a larger scale than in the rest of Germany. The concomitant building activity and growth in contracting business, particularly after the introduction of freedom of trade in construction in 1868, created the conditions for architectural entrepreneurship or private employment that had largely been absent before. Civil engineers faced somewhat greater difficulties in this regard, as the construction of roads, hydraulics projects, railroads, or other large-scale engineering projects tended to remain a government affair longer than did housing. 19 But even for them the trend was in the same direction. Regardless of whether or not the Bau-Akademie's graduates stayed in government, all of them felt the need for better professional training. Thus, it is not surprising that the most vociferous criticism and the initial impetus for reform came from the corps's younger generation in Berlin. In 1866, a group of seven mavericks decided to take the offensive. Confident that the future would belong to those who excelled in their profession first, and only secondarily in "cultivation," the young architects and engineers envisaged a "fundamental reform of [their] employment conditions and [their] training at the Bau-Akademie." 20 They formed a partnership to publish a new technical journal that would reflect their outlook. The founders of the Deutsche Bauzeitung, a commercial venture, were all junior members of the staid Architekten-Verein in Berlin. Founded in 1824, this association still bore the "patriarchal imprint of a family of all the older and younger members of the Prussian state's technical civil service residing in Berlin" and was known for the "unlimited domination [Herrschaft] of the directorate," which consisted exclusively of senior corps members employed in the Ministry of Trade. 21 The Deutsche Bauzeitung soon developed into one of the leading publications for civil engineers and architects in Germany. It owed its initial success primarily to its publication of incisive and persistent criticism of conditions at the Bau-Akademie and in the corps. From its founding in December 1866 to the announcement of reforms in the late 1870s, the Deutsche Bauzeitung's two central themes were abolition of the "lawyers' 19 Not until 1920 did a separate society for civil engineering see the light: Der Bauingenieur 1 (1920):l-2, 281-2, 485. 20 DBZ (1872):290; DBZ (1867):443-4. 21 DBZ(1916):53O.

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monopoly" and "differentiation" (Trennung der Fdcher) between architecture and civil engineering. 22 The chief editor and driving force of the Deutsche Bauzeitung was Karl Emil Otto Fritsch, in 1866 a twenty-eight-year-old Berlin architect. 23 Fritsch worked incessantly and successfully to arouse public opinion, the only force that would "eventually decide the question in spite of all conservative efforts to the contrary." 24 He inveighed against the "highest exponents of railroad technology [who] considered a specifically architectural training for railroad engineers indispensable," attacked the "odious privilege" of lawyers in the Prussian railroad administration, and accused certain high corps administrators of incompetence and laziness. He felt vindicated when top political officials of the Ministry of Trade expressed concern about the lack of professional competence of corps railroad engineers. 25 Eventually his exposes of abuses and mismanagement caught the attention of the Prussian Landtag. 26 Fritsch and his companions were not merely muckrakers; they also developed detailed plans for reorganization and improvement. They opposed the plans of the corps' conservative elite to exclude the Realschule with Latin and to restrict admission to the Bau-Akademie and the state examinations to Gymnasium graduates. 27 They urged replacing the excessively difficult and wide-ranging second state examination with a simplified test of the candidate's competence in his chosen specialty, architecture or civil engineering, without requiring knowledge of all police regulations and administrative procedure. 28 As for the Bau-Akademie, under the rubric of "intensification of professional training" ( Vertiefung der Fachbildung), Fritsch called for elimination of the obligatory but ineffective apprenticeship year with a corps member prior to enrollment. It should be replaced with an additional year of courses at the BauAkademie, which would then take four years to complete. The expanded curriculum should be divided into a lower and an upper division of two years each. Modeled on the Parisian Ecole poly technique, the lower division would cover a common program in the basic auxiliary sciences and drawing for all students, concluding with a comprehensive examination. The upper division would be a specialized professional school, with ar22 23 24 25 26

DBZ (1867):443-4; DBZ (1872):289-91; DBZ (19l6):526-32. On Fritsch, see DBZ (1915), supplement to No. 71 (following 408). DBZ(1867):443-4. DBZ(1871):328. DBZ (1872):291, 297; DBZ (1873):4l0; DBZ (1876):21, 83, 100-1; DBZ (1877):31-42; "Die Organisation des Bauwesens in Deutschland und der Ausbildungsgang der deutschen Baubeamten," DBZ(1867):57-8, 62-3, 69-70, 81-2, 115-16, 150-1, 190-1, 240, 296-7, 3589, 369-71, 464-5, 492-3. 27 DBZ (1873): 129. 28 DBZ(1873):373.

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chitecture and civil engineering going their separate ways. Its final examination was to be coterminous with the first state examination — in either civil engineering or architecture. 29 The logical conclusion of these recommendations was to abolish the Bau-Akademie in its existing form. 30 Once it was changed and organized around specialized engineering disciplines, instead of as a civil-service academy that emphasized technical-administrative subjects, the school should merge with the Industrial Institute. Their combination would create the kind of comprehensive institution that already existed in most other German states under the name of technische Hochschule.31 In the end, only this would solve the basic problem: the Bau-Akademie's incompetent governance by a small clique of old-fashioned and aged officials in the Ministry of Trade's section for public works. 32 Despite an initially hostile reception by the Architekten-Verein's older generation, the Deutsche Bauzeitung soon gained a large following. 33 By the early 1870s the logic of its arguments had created broad support for a technische Hochschule. To defuse the remaining opposition, Fritsch, in a meeting of the Architekten-Verein in April of 1874, addressed himself to the mistaken idea that "uniting the Bau-Akademie with other technical schools is identical with its demotion to a lower rank and exactly contrary to all attempts at raising the standing of our discipline [Fach] and our profession [Stand]."54 Such views, he argued, were rooted in antiquated notions of professional rank that equated the latter strictly with civilservice employment. The misguided corps members who believed that were "no longer even aware of the natural connections between their discipline and the other technical specialities" and had nothing but contempt for their "colleagues who have no connection with the civil service."35 That such attitudes were mistaken was evident from the example of the universities, Fritsch contended. He argued that the essence of the universities' social superiority over the technical schools lay precisely in their combining in one institution a universe of disciplines. This gave an advantage not merely because it made possible the kind of specialization lacking at the Bau-Akademie but primarily because of the climate it created for intellectual exchange, comradery, stimulation, and contact between the various disciplines. The university experience in and of itself 29 30 31 32

DBZ DBZ DBZ DBZ

(1872):380. (1873): 129. (1873): 130. (1873): 130, 363-4, 371-3.

33 Within a few years, all but one of the Architekten-Verein's approximately 850 members (1871) had taken a subscription; DBZ (1916):532; DBZ (1871):311. 34 DBZ(1874):78-9, 85-6, 95, 124-6. 35 DBZ (1874): 125.

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managed to create a social and professional elite that dissolved the old barriers between state and society. In contrast, the technical specialties were segregated into a petty hierarchy of separate academies and schools for their various subfields, and they were racked by mutual suspicion, jealousy, rivalry, and hostility. Unless this internal divisiveness and narrow-minded bigotry could be overcome by banding together in a comprehensive technische Hochschule, engineers would continue to "struggle in vain . . . for greater significance . . . in the public life of our nation." 36 As future developments would show, Fritsch vastly overrated the powers of higher education and of the practical Bildung he emphasized to create social solidarity and respectability. The employment setting was just as important in this regard, perhaps more so. The engineers would soon overcome the educational fragmentation he criticized, but they did not thereby acquire the unity or the social power to which they aspired. Even so, Fritsch's arguments focus attention on the problem of a changing occupational and social structure. His attacks on the conservative opponents of a technische Hochschule were symptomatic of Germany's transition from a preindustrial social-occupational structure to a capitalistindustrial structure. In the older setting, professional status was almost automatically equated with employment in the higher civil service. In the more modern industrial constellation, occupations in the private sector that called for the same kind of academic qualifications as formerly demanded only by government service had grown enormously in relation to the past. As a consequence, the division between the higher and the lower occupations no longer coincided with the division public versus private. In the pluralist and differentiated occupational structure of capitalist-industrial society, the professions came to encompass a range of employment settings and to rely more heavily than before on a mixture of education, career opportunities, function, and income for distinguishing them from the lower occupations. 37 Fritsch's critique also highlights a related issue: the growing conflict between the social dimensions of professionalism and its substantivespecialized dimensions. Technological development, industrialization, and urbanization were causing a change in their traditional balance. The kind of professionalism in which market forces take precedence over "social honor" increasingly came into conflict with the older variety that stressed "universal cultivation." As time went on, the former reduced to ever 36 DBZ (1874): 124—5. For a modern and more sophisticated version of this argument, see Dietrich Riischemeyer, "Bourgeoisie, Staat und Bildungsbiirgertum," in Burger und Biirgerlkhkeit im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Jiirgen Kocka (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 110. The socialization role of the universities is also the theme of Konrad H. Jarausch's Students, Society, and Politics in Imperial Germany: The Rise of Academic llliberalism (Princeton University Press, 1982). 37 Kees Gispen, "German Engineers and American Social Theory: Historical Perspectives on Professionalization," Comparative Studies in Society and History 30, 3(Summer 1988):550-74

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smaller proportions the latter and the allied notion of service toward society at large - an orientation in which the economic-financial aspects of professionalism were decidedly less pronounced than the social-status aspects. The problems of the engineers in the German historical context so magnified the normally hidden tensions between these two dimensions that the actors became conscious of the larger historical process they were acting out. 2. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE IN BERLIN

Fritsch's arguments in favor of integrating Berlin's higher technical institutes in the Architekten-Verein's debates of 1874 carried the day, and in April of that year the association, with a large majority, passed a motion urging Minister of Trade Achenbach to "integrate the BauAkademie and the Industrial Institute into a single, large Technische Hochschule. "58 The desire for reform evident in the resolution passed by Berlin's influential Architekten-Verein and the unrelenting editorial agitation in the Deutsche Bauzeitung were reinforced by similar resolutions from the VDI and other technical associations, such as the Verband Deutscher Architekten- und Ingenieur-Vereine. 39 The pressures on the Prussian government to alleviate such massive discontent coalesced in 1874 with two other developments to provide the circumstances that resulted in the reorganization of Prussian higher technical education. The first of these was a growing sensitivity to the dictates of economic and technological rationality among politicians and business leaders, following the collapse of the economic boom of the early 1870s. The other factor was energetic support from the Landtag and from Heinrich von Achenbach, the new minister of trade. 40 At the end of 1873, Achenbach had succeeded Itzenplitz, who had resigned over a scandal involving the Ministry of Trade's administration of Prussia's railroads.41 The episode caused Achenbach to review conditions in the corps precisely at a time when the Deutsche Bauzeitung s campaign against the ministry's public works section was at its height. Following 38 DBZ (1874): 124-6. 39 DBZ (1874):311; DBZ (1870):231. On the VDAIV, see VDIZ (1869): 1-8 following 602; VDIZ (1871):712-17, 772-3; DBZ (1869): 193-5, 205-6, 383-4; DBZ (1870):20-l, 175-7, 1967, 2 3 1 - 3 ; Siegfried Weil, Die Hauptorganisationen der deutschen Technikerschaft, ihre Entwicklung

und Tdtigkeit (Lahr: Moritz Schauenburg, 1912); text of resolution, DBZ (1874):313-15. 40 On Achenbach, see Neue Deutsche Biographie, s.v. "Achenbach, Heinrich," by Heinz Gollwitzer. Achenbach's brother Adolf, a mining engineer, was chairman of the Kuratorium of the mining academy at Clausthal. Also see DBZ (1875): 154-6. 41 On the scandal, see DBZ (1873):63-4, 94-5; HdA, 14 January 1873, 7 February 1873; G. R. Mork, "The Prussian Railway Scandal of 1873," European Studies Review 1 (1971):35-48.

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up on a suggestion by Fritsch, Achenbach, on 6 and 7 April 1875, convened a "conference on the reform of the education of Prussian technical civil servants." The twenty-four participants constituted the elite of Prussia's civil engineering and architecture world. Besides Achenbach himself, eight of his top officials from the ministry's sections for public works and railroads took part, as did five other corps engineers, three engineering professors, including the directors of the Bau-Akademie, Lucae, and the poly technical school at Aachen, von Kaven, and the two top technical officials of the city of Berlin. The representatives from the private sector included three directors of private railroad companies, all former civil servants, two well-known private architects, Martin Gropius, the greatuncle of Walter Gropius, and Julius Raschdorff, the designer of Berlin's new cathedral, and, finally, Fritsch. 42 The result of the conference was an almost complete vindication of Fritsch's views. Though the issue of a technische Hochschule did not arise, Fritsch's recommendations for reform of the Bau-Akademie, such as differentiation, simplified examinations, and a four-year curriculum, were all accepted.43 In addition, the conference addressed itself to the question of admitting mechanical engineers to the corps. The need for this was a result of the growing mechanical complexity of public works projects, especially those pertaining to the railroads. The problem was that Prussia's mechanical engineers were trained only at the Industrial Institute and generally did not even possess the Abitur of a Realschule with Latin. They could therefore not be admitted to the corps in their current form. On the other hand, mandating the Abitur for this group threatened the flexibility and openness that was deemed essential for technological progress and economic efficiency in the private sector. In Fritsch's words, requiring the Abitur probably would result in a "sharp class distinction between the scholarly and the practical machine builders, which would be detrimental to the healthy and organic development of this discipline." This had to be weighed against the benefits, "namely that. . . the number of bigots who believed machine builders were inferior to the Baumeister belonging to the sphere of the civil service and the divinely inspired deputies of Art . . . will gradually die out." 44 The inability of the conference to settle the matter foreshadowed future developments and indicated the key problem to be resolved before the Industrial Institute and the Bau-Akademie could be merged. 42 "Das Handelsministerium und die Verwaltung des offentlichen Bauwesens in Preussen," DBZ (1874): 393-5, 401—2, 410—13; also see "Konferenz zur Beratung von Reformen im Ausbildungsgange der preussischen Staats-Baubeamten," DBZ (1875): 154-6. 43 Regulations of 27 June 1876, in VDIZ (1876):688-92. Only the proposed separation into compartmentalized lower and upper divisions was rejected. 44 DBZ (1876):317; DBZ (1875):156.

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Still, the conference had made much progress, and Fritsch looked to the future with the "best of hopes." 45 In fact, the first of the series of reforms and changes that eventually led to the establishment of the technische Hochschule in 1879 were introduced in 1875. Starting with the winter semester of that year, Achenbach approved a new charter for the Bau-Akademie, and a beginning was made with the differentiation between architecture and civil engineering. Moreover, to soften its bureaucratic regimen, a small academic senate and general faculty council with limited powers were established. 46 Though small, the changes of 1875 clearly pointed to a future technische Hochschule and therefore sufficed to mobilize opposition from the old guard in the ministry's public works and railroad sections. The center of opposition was the Technische Bau-Deputation, which served as the supervisory board and examination commission of the Bau-Akademie. Fearing for their jobs, worried about contamination by "uncultivated" mechanical engineers, and locked in a competitive struggle for power and prestige with legally trained civil servants, the members of the Technische BauDeputation resisted all change that would undermine the autonomy and exclusiveness of the corps and of the narrow gateway into it, the BauAkademie. Asked by Achenbach in late 1875 or early 1876 for an opinion on the question of a technische Hochschule, the Technische Bau-Deputation replied that it opposed the plan by a vote of eleven to five.47 Such opposition caused the Deutsche Bauzeitung to intensify its agitation. In January of 1876 it launched a new, five-part series of editorials "On the Bau-Akademie in Berlin," running concurrently with the session of the Landtag and urging it to pressure the government into action. The Landtag was in a good position to do so. The government had included in its budget a request to fund additions to the Bau-Akademie and the Industrial Institute. The member of the budget commission responsible for these items was the National Liberal publicist and representative, Wilhelm Wehrenpfennig. Wehrenpfennig, a former Gymnasium teacher and co-editor of the Preussische Jahrbucher with Heinrich von Treitschke, took it upon himself to look closely into the matter. 48 It appears that he established contact with Fritsch in early 1876 as part of his investigations and made the latter's cause his own. 49 The arguments Wehrenpfennig advanced in the Landtag on behalf of a technische Hochschule were in part verbatim quotations from

45 46 47 48 49

DBZ (1875): 156. DBZ (1875):492; DBZ (1876):99. DBZ (1876): 126. On Wehrenpfennig, see DBZ (19OO):375-6. "Das Project einer Polytechnische Schule," DBZ (1876): 124-6.

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Fritsch's articles in the Deutsche Bauzeitung.50 Going along with Wehrenpfennig, the budget commission became the conduit whereby the Deutsche Bauzeitung s demands became the reform program of the Prussian Landtag. In the plenary session of 17 March 1876, it voted a resolution requesting the government to set up a technische Hochschule.51 The famous pathologist Rudolf Virchow and Finance Minister Otto Camphausen expressed their support for the project. Eduard Lasker summed up the feelings of the majority when he concluded his speech on the topic by saying that "we want a Polytechnikum."52 Once again, the crucial question of admission standards was left open. The budget commission had been unable to reach an agreement on this point, but had not wanted to let the issue stand in the way of the technische Hochschule project itself. Wehrenpfennig was originally inclined to adopt Fritsch's view that graduation from a Gymnasium or Realschule I. Ordnung was "essential." 53 But some of the other members, as well as Achenbach, were unwilling to "exclude in future the Provincial Trade Schools as preparatory institutions." 54 Because a major educational reform bill was slated to be introduced by Culture Minister Falk in 1877, it was decided "to forgo precise determination of admission standards at this point." 55 The Landtag's resolution apparently stiffened Achenbach's resolve to proceed.56 Backed by the legislature and supported by the Staatsministerium, in the next few years he forced the technische Hochschule down the throats of the stalwarts of the corps of engineers and architects. In the spring and early summer of 1876, a building site near the zoological gardens in Charlottenburg was approved by the Staatsministerium and the king. In August, an ordinance was passed excluding from admission to higher technical education after 1878 graduates of those Provincial Trade Schools that had retained the organization of 1850. Also in August, graduates from all German polytechnical schools who had the proper Abitur received the right to take the Prussian state examination for admission to the corps.57 In June of 1876, new "regulations for training and examination for Prussian government service in the building and mechanical specialties" were promulgated. They followed the recommendations of the 1875 con50 51 52 53 54 55

HdA, 17 March 1876, 732-6; DBZ (1876):21-2, 73-5, 81-3, 91-3, 99-101. HdA, 17 March 1876, 732-46 (especially 735). Ibid., 742. DBZ (1876): 101. HdA, 17 March 1876, 735. Ibid., 733—5. Also see Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen: Sammlung amtlicher Aktenstiicke des Handelsministeriums sowie der beziigtlichen Berichte und Verhand/ungen des Landtages aus 1878/1879 (Berlin: Oswald Seehagen, 1879), 93. 56 HdA, 17 March 1876, 733, 736; HdA, 14 February 1877, 531. 57 HdA, 14 February 1877, 531-3; DBZ (1876): 126, 362, 399.

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ference almost to the letter and created a separate civil service examination for mechanical engineers. Significantly, the latter were allowed admission to the state examination and the corps on the basis of graduation from those Provincial Trade Schools that had adopted the 1870 reorganizational plan. The fact that admission to the mechanical engineering branch of the corps became possible without classical secondary education was a revolutionary change and a big boost for the social ambitions of the Provincial Trade Schools (model 1870) and their supporters. 58 3. THE PROBLEM OF PREPARATORY EDUCATION

Following this flurry of activity, the technische Hochschule project appears to have entered a phase of stagnation. It was not until March 1879 that its capstone, the new charter finally integrating the Bau-Akademie and the Industrial Institute, was granted. By that time the political climate had completely changed. The government's collaboration with the liberals had come to an end, and Achenbach had been replaced by the more conservative Albert von Maybach. That the socially liberal impetus driving the technische Hochschule project was nevertheless allowed to run its course probably was because of its emphasis on substantive professionalism, specialization, and technological rationality. These coincided with a similar predilection for efficiency and economic pragmatism that characterized the new, conservative outlook at the highest levels of government in the second half of the 1870s.39 The major reason for the interval between the initiation of reforms in 1875—6 and their conclusion in 1879 was the unresolved question of preparatory education. Senior corps engineers continued to resist the technische Hochschule for fear it would lower admission standards. In 1878, James Hobrecht, the arch-conservative chairman of Berlin's ArchitektenVerein, pointed to the danger "that admission standards might be fixed in a way that ran counter to the furtherance of the social interests of engineers." 60 The government and the backers of the technische Hochschule initially gave some weight to such concerns. In 1876, Achenbach stated that the different preparatory educations made the "question whether 58 VDIZ (1876):688-92; DBZ (1876):317-19. 59 The conservative predilection for pragmatism and dislike of humanism after 1878—9 is mentioned in Hans Rosenberg, Grosse Depression und Bismarckzeit: Wirtschaftsablauf, Gesellschaft und Politik

in Mitteleuropa (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1967), 125-6. Bismarck was certainly no opponent of modern and technical education, considering it a safeguard against political radicalism from a classically educated but increasingly unemployable academic proletariat; ZSTA II, Geheimes Zivilkabinett, 2.2.1, Nr. 22307, 173-9. Extended discussion of this theme can be found in James C. Albisetti, Secondary School Reform in Imperial Germany (Princeton University Press, 1983). 60 DBZ(1878):420.

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separate schools or a unified institute should be established. . . highly disputable under any circumstance." 61 In 1877, Fritsch attacked the Provincial Trade Schools because they provided "too little general secondary education and a harmful excess of prematurely specialized education." 62 Fritsch, incidentally, had no illusions concerning the true value of the Abitur from Gymnasium or Realschule I. Ordnung. But so long as the state and the public at large insisted on measuring Bildung that way, "a single profession can ill afford to emancipate itself from the general custom." 63 Breaking with the old ways, however, was precisely what the government eventually decided to do. It reformed the Provincial Trade School into a completely new institution, the Oberrealschule. The new school was promulgated in November of 1878, following a conference of experts — all of whom for one reason or another favored non-Latin secondary education — organized by the Ministry of Trade in August of the same year.64 From a program consisting of the last three years of school before the Industrial Institute, the curriculum was expanded to nine years. Five years were added at the bottom, and one at the top. 65 The untenable situation that the trade school did not have regular linkage with established patterns of primary education and therefore always had irregularly and ill-prepared students was thereby terminated. Classified as a "generally cultivating" school, the Oberrealschule cast off the last remnants of vocational training for industry. It became parallel to the Gymnasium and the Realschule I. Ordnung, with the exception that it did not offer Latin, but stressed modern languages, mathematics, the natural sciences, and drawing. It was given the right of admission to all departments of the future technische Hochschule as well as to the state examinations in all branches of the corps, except mining. 66 It did not receive rights of admission to any other branches of the civil service, nor to university study, all of which lay outside the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Trade. Its creators' expectations for wider rights in the comprehensive education bill being prepared in the Ministry of Culture failed to materialize. The changing political constellation prevented the bill's introduction, and in 1879 its primary sponsor, Adalbert Falk, the National Liberal minister of culture, fell from power. The Oberrealschule, which was the most controversial aspect of the reforms in technical education of 1876—9, was largely the creation of Wilhelm Wehrenpfennig. Backed by influential parliamentarians like Johannes 61 62 63 64

HdA, 17 March 1876, 739. DBZ(1877):453. DBZ (1876): 161. Das technische Unterrkhtsivesen in Preussen, 7—22, 284; also see "Zur Reorganisation der preussischen Gewerbeschulen," DBZ (1878):323-4. The Oberrealschule is also discussed in Albisetti, Secondary School Refrom, 8 2 - 9 8 . 65 Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen, 16. 66 DBZ(1878):482.

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Miquel, the future finance minister, Wehrenpfennig had emerged as one of the most perceptive critics of Prussia's system of technical education. 67 The severity of the economic depression after 1873, he argued, was in part a consequence of the disappearance of nonacademic technical education when the Provincial Trade Schools had in effect become preparatory schools for the Industrial Institute. Because it was impracticable to return them to their prior status or convert them into vocational schools, they should be officially changed into what they already were anyway: general secondary schools without Latin. Nonacademic technical schools could then be founded anew and separately. Recognizing Wehrenpfennig's abilities and strong interest in the problem, Achenbach in 1877 invited the Landtag deputy to join the Ministry of Trade as head of the new Bureau of Industrial Education. Wehrenpfennig accepted, survived Achenbach's fall, and in the next two decades played a key role in the implementation of a whole new organization for Prussian technical education. 68 Soon after accepting his new post, Wehrenpfennig emerged as an advocate of non-Latin secondary education, popular with many liberals as an expression of their desire for greater social pluralism and educational diversity in the higher ranks of society. The section for commerce and trade in the ministry, where Wehrenpfenning found his new colleagues, moreover, had also always been partial to genuinely modern schools. This preference, part of the long-standing economic liberalism of the Prussian Ministry of Trade, went back all the way to Kunth and Beuth. 69 Wehrenpfennig established contact with the teachers and directors of the Provincial Trade Schools, who had long sought to change their schools into "generally cultivating" institutions; they provided him with the models for the 1878 reform of the Provincial Trade School into the nineyear Oberrealschule.70

Such ideological aspects blended with practical and organizational concerns. The Provincial Trade Schools, since 1876, gave admission to the mechanical engineering branch of the corps and sufficed for informal attendance at the Bau-Akademie. But their students were excluded from admission to the state examinations in civil engineering and architecture. The invidious distinctions sanctioned by these regulations had no basis in the reality of modern life, according to Wehrenpfennig. He pointed out that "the responsibilities of a governmental mechanical engineer are no less than those of a governmental civil engineer or architect." Moreover, 67 HdA, 14 February 1877, 5 1 5 - 4 1 ; Lundgreen, Tecbniker, 82. 68 Cf. note 48. 69 Rudolf Hoffmann, "Geschichte des Realschulwesens in Deutschland," in Geschichte der Erziehung vom Anfang an bis auf unsere Zeit, ed. K. A. Schmid (Berlin: J. G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung Nachfolger, 1901), vol. 5, sect. 2, 1—106; also see the Landtag debates reprinted in Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen. 70 ZSTA II, Rep. 92 Wehrenpfennig B III 5, 2 0 - 1 ; Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen, 79.

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the state could "not tolerate that the architect or engineer who works for the population at large can study technology with a lesser preparatory education — and on the average will therefore be a worse engineer — than he who works in government service." 71 When a certain "preparatory education was considered good enough to study. . . at the academy, it should also be good enough for the subsequent state examination. "72 From all this it followed, Wehrenpfenning continued, that the existing rights of the Provincial Trade Schools had to be either abrogated or, after their reorganization into real secondary schools, expanded. The government opted for the second choice because it suited the requirements of modern society better than Latin-based schooling and because of the bigotry that equated Bildung and the classics. It could "not be acknowledged that mastery of the dead, classical languages is essential as the mark of higher general Bildung. . . . Such an attitude confuses the concept of Bildung with that of scholarly study of language and history and is based o n . . . arrogance toward a large part of the nation's educated classes." 73 The Landtag's budget commission shared this view. As its chairman, Count von Limburg-Stirum, put it in January of 1879, "care should be taken lest higher technical education be damaged by demands for classical preparatory education." The latter was "not essential for the higher Bildung that is definitely required for the purposes served by the Polytechnikum." The crux of the whole affair, said Limburg-Stirum, was that the "monopoly of classical preparatory education for {higher technical education] is broken up in a decisive way." 74 Such progressive intentions notwithstanding, the Oberrealschule was in fact highly problematic. In name "generally cultivating," its narrowly circumscribed rights - admission to the technische Hochschule and the technical civil service only — put it at a great disadvantage vis-a-vis the Gymnasium and the Realschule I. Ordnung. In practice this amounted to sanctioning not only its own social inferiority but also that of higher technical education. The new school was good enough for engineers, but not for any of the other professions.75 Nor were its handicaps reduced by very small numbers — initially (1882) there were only 12 Oberrealschulen, as compared with 251 Gymnasia and 86 Realgymnasia — and minuscule enrollments - an annual average of about 4,500 students during the 1880s, as compared with more than 102,500 at the two other school types. 76 71 72 73 74 75

Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen, 18. Ibid., 280; emphasis added. Ibid., 18-20. Ibid., 103. Theodor Peters, "Die neunclassige lateinlose Schule," in VDIW (1879):30-2, 38-40; also see Rudolf Ziebarth, in VDIZ (1879):60.

16 Detlef Miiller and Bernd Zymek, Sozialgeschichte und Statistik des Schulsystems in den Staaten des

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4. THE REACTION OF THE ARCHITEKTEN-VEREIN

Not surprisingly, the announcement of the Oberrealschule caused tremendous agitation in engineering circles. In Berlin's Architekten-Verein, the reform proposals stirred a debate in which the opposing sides broke down along the lines that divided civil engineering and architecture. James Hobrecht, the Verein's chairman and highest-ranking civil engineer in Berlin's building office, came out with a sharp denunciation of the projected reorganization in the meeting of 7 October 1878. If put into effect, warned Hobrecht, the reforms would "amount to a promotion for the trade school and a demotion for the technische Hochschule." The corps's engineers would have to fight the "attempts aimed at lowering the rank of our profession [Stand}." It could not be tolerated "that the Realschule without Latin will now also be given rights . . . for the special purpose of preparatory education of civil servants and engineers who are called upon to work in the higher positions of life."77 Hobrecht's warnings fell on fertile soil in the Architekten-Verein, and his speech received tumultuous applause. 78 The issue came up again at the following week's meeting. With an audience of over 300, almost twice the usual attendance, it was the turn of supporters of the new school. Architect Bockman, a senior partner in the prestigious firm of Ende and Bockmann and one of Germany's leading architects, marshaled the arguments in favor of the reforms. Bockmann, one of the participants in the ministry's August conference, stressed the "priceless advantages" for technical expertise and excellence of professional achievement of the new school's emphasis on modern languages. In addition, the Oberrealschule emphasized mathematics and natural science, which were definitely equal to Latin and Greek both with respect to their "ideal value" and as a method of intellectual training. 79 Bockmann acknowledged that the social position of engineers in the civil service was indeed a concern for all members of the profession. Though not denying that they encountered discrimination, he dismissed such treatment as the product of "historical conditions" and did not think the handicaps of technical civil servants would be any more difficult to surmount after the projected reform had taken effect. He echoed the liberal ethos of individual achievement, personal merit, and self-reliance that the new school would promote when he said that "the order of our times is such that the truly excellent and able man will not have any trouble deutschen Retches (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), 5 3 - 5 ; Albisetti, Secondary School

Reform, 82-7. 77 DBZ(1878):420-l. 78 DBZ (1874): 124. 79 DBZ(1878):431.

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asserting his worth in the face of that kind of prejudice." Technical excellence, to be achieved by emphasizing specialization, expertise, and a type of education that made them possible, was the road to social recognition, not the kind of retrograde harping on Latin and Greek of a Hobrecht. 80 Aware of the powerful sentiments against the Oberrealschule, Bockmann concluded with a plea for moderation. He urged the Architekten-Verein not to expose itself to the "public odium of pursuing a policy of narrow parochialism." 81 But Hobrecht's motion that the Architekten-Verein submit a petition to the minister of trade requesting cancellation of the projected reform was accepted, with 264 votes in favor and 24 against. 82 The majority's petition, for which its authors had in short time been able to collect some 1,600 signatures from all over Germany, was submitted to the Ministry of Trade in October of 1878. 83 It pointed out that breaking the Latin barrier for engineers and architects could mean only one of two things: Either the "lack of a classical education is no lack of general cultivation or . . . a civil engineer—architect does not need general Bildung." The first choice obviously was false, because all other professions required a curriculum that included the classics. That left the second choice, which not only was an intolerable affront but also would result in dire consequences: "If the civil engineer and architect are forced down the social ladder in relation to the other higher occupations [hb'here Berufsspha'ren] . . . the harm caused by it will soon become noticeable in the whole of our public life." 84 A counterposition from the Architekten-Verein's minority soon followed. It stemmed, for the greatest part, from architects in private business. Although it carried no more than thirty-six signatures, these belonged to the profession's "most respected and famous" figures.85 Fritsch, who had dropped his insistence on a classical secondary education, was also in this camp. The dissenters stressed the pluralism of the modern world, which allowed social prestige to be derived primarily from specialized skill and professional achievement, rather than general cultivation. "If German engineers do not yet occupy that position in state and society that our professional colleagues in France and England have achieved," they argued, this was not the result of insufficient Bildung, but was "due in the first place to the fact that their artistic and technical skills . . . have not yet reached the same height." The new school would remedy this 80 81 82 83 84 85

Ibid. Ibid. DBZ(1878):432-98. Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen, 284. DBZ(1878):498-9. Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen, 305.

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deficiency, whereas the Gymnasium and the Realschule I. Ordnung failed to give adequate preparation in mathematics, general science, and drawing instruction. These traditional schools were "incapable of conveying to their students the drawing skills based on confidence of eye and hand that the engineer [Techniker] . . . needs before entering upon his professional study." 86 The government's decision to ignore all objections and implement the reforms as originally planned only stimulated the uproar in engineering circles. In December of 1878, Hobrecht and his followers submitted to the Landtag a new petition with 2,054 signatures of architects and civil engineers from all over Germany, demanding legislation to undo the reforms.87 In January of 1879, the Verband Deutscher Architekten- und Ingenieur-Vereine presented a resolution opposing the new Oberrealschule.88 A majority of about ten to one of its approximately 5,000 affiliated members condemned the Prussian government's policy. Altogether, the Landtag received four petitions against the reform, of which Hobrecht's was the most formidable. It also received forty-six separate petitions in favor of its policy, "in part from architects and engineers, in part from municipalities, Chambers of Commerce, school boards, and teachers of trade schools, as well as a large number of trade associations [GewerbeVereine]."89

The Landtag considered the petitions in late January of 1879- Wehrenpfennig pointed out that the opposition did not ask what was "the best preparatory education for technical studies, but which is the most functional for reaching equality with the lawyers." The most consistent opposition intended to allow only the classical Gymnasium. That school's well-known curricular shortcomings were being "ignored in the interest of alleged social honor [Standesehre]." Hobrecht and his followers forgot "only one thing, that in order to reach equality. . . with lawyers they would eventually also have to replace the Technische Hochschule with the university and study law instead of drawing and designing." 90 The Landtag was steadfast in its support of the government. Johannes Miquel summed up the sentiments of the majority when he remarked that "today, two paths to higher Bildung in fact exist, the natural scientific one, i.e., the 'modern' one, and the classical-formal one." He concluded by observing that "subsequent to the Reformation . . . we were theologians for a while here in Germany. Then we were philologists for some time, and our Gymnasien are still too eager to train philologists. But now we 86 87 88 89 90

"Zur Reform der preussischen Gewerbeschulen," DBZ (1878):489. Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen, 73—4. DBZ(1879):31-3Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen, 282-3Ibid., 89.

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want to become practical men as well, and that is why the [reorganization} of the Provincial Trade Schools . . . is legitimate." 91 The decision to become a nation of "practical men" increased the tensions within Berlin's Architekten-Verein to the breaking point. A few months after the Landtag had sustained the Ministry of Trade's creation of the Oberrealschule, the minority of architects who had favored nonclassical secondary education made good on an earlier threat and broke away. They formed a new professional organization, the Association for the Representation of Architectural Interests (Vereinigung fiir die Vertretung baukiinstlerischer Interessen), which in 1915 merged with the Bund Deutscher Architekten. The latter, founded in 1903, was an association of independent, "free-creative" architects who stressed the integrity of artistic design and excluded contractor-architects from membership. 92 Besides causing the departure of these progressive members, the conflict over the Oberrealschule disrupted the Architekten-Verein's relationship with the Deutsche Bauzeitung. In January of 1879 a new Weekly for Architects and Engineers (Wochenblatt fur Architekten und Ingenieure) saw the light. This periodical published rabid agitation against the Oberrealschule and urged Culture Minister Robert von Puttkamer, whose department acquired jurisdiction over higher technical education and the Oberrealschule in 1879, to undo the reforms. A lead article in the issue of 31 December 1880, entitled "Fostering Ideals," restated in nearly obscene language the position of the majority petitioners of two years before. As civil servants, government engineers occupied a "higher standpoint than the common man" and did their work in selfless dedication to science — an attitude they owed to the Gymnasium. Puttkamer was praised as a man "who does not share the view of those who damn the Gymnasium as a preparatory school for engineers — such as Herr Wehrenpfennig and his grateful allies who lack good will. . . and who want to . . . degrade the technische Hochschulen to institutions for the relief of urgent needs." The reactionaries begged the new minister "to prevent a small faction from depriving us any further of idealism, abandoning us to the grossest realism, and . . . delivering the civil-service profession to depravity." 93 Initially such scurrilous rearguard actions backfired. The government struck back by abolishing the Technische Bau-Deputation and replacing it with a new Academy of Architecture and Civil Engineering {Akademie des Bauwesens), whose membership was subject to ministerial approval and 91 Ibid., 208-9. 92 Herbert Ricken, Der Architekt: Geschichte eines Berufs (Berlin: Henschelverlag der Kunst und Gesellschaft, 1977), 93; Bernard Gaber, Die Entwicklung des Berufsstandes der freiscbaffenden Ar-

chitekten (Essen: Verlag Richard Bacht GmbH, 1966), 33. 93 "Bediirfnisanstalt," which has connotations both of production on demand and toilet; ZSTA II, MHG, Rep. 120, E. I. Gen. Nr. 1, Bd. 1-2, 89, 134.

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excluded the most outspoken critics of the new policy. 94 But that did not stop agitation over the issue, and the opposition even scored a temporary success when in 1886 the government briefly withdrew the Oberrealschule"s limited accreditation privileges - only to reinstate them permanently in 1890. 95 5.

THE

REACTION OF THE

VDI

The Oberrealschule not only convulsed the world of civil engineering and architecture but also drew mechanical engineers into the uproar, and the VDI, too, launched petition drives to the Landtag and broke down into a large majority and small minority. 96 Their respective positions, however, were the reverse of those in the corps. Only a handful of the VDI's membership opposed the government's reforms. Led by Rudolf Ziebarth, chief editor of the VDI's Zeitschrift, and by Berlin consulting engineers Johannes Gutermilch and Albert and Heinrich Putsch, a group of seventytwo mechanical engineers submitted a petition opposing the government's reforms.97 They had the support of Theodor Peters, the younger brother of the deceased (1869) VDI founder Richard Peters, and the VDI's chairman-elect for 1879. 98 Staunch Grashof supporters, the group justified its stance by referring to the VDI's resolution of 1876 in favor of the Gymnasium or the Realschule I. Ordnung. Preponderantly employed in the private sector, the VDI's status seekers made an argument slightly different from that of their colleagues in the corps. Instead of using the civil service as their reference point, they looked to the higher circles of society and industry. In November of 1878, engineer Albert Putsch conceded that, strictly speaking, the technical competence of engineers did "not require knowledge of Latin authors." Latin, however, was needed to create generally cultivated men "capable of taking the initiative in public life." 99 Without it, engineers remained "narrow-gauge" thinkers who would never reach positions of responsibility. "Free movement in the better circles of society and in the head offices," Putsch and his group argued, was "hardly imaginable without knowledge of the classical languages." 100 Apart from such substantive reasons, learning the classics was simply the social price to be paid for having been born in Germany, Putsch argued. "In actual fact, the pre94 ibid. 95 ZSTA II, MHG, Rep. 120, E. I. Gen. Nr. 7, Bd. 1, 8 3 - 4 ; Albisetti, Secondary School Reform, 82—7, 235—6; also see Chapter 6, section 5, in this volume. 96 Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen, 306—13. 97 VDIW (1878):427-9, 4 3 1 - 4 3 ; VDIW (1880):95. Das technische Unterrichtswesen in Preussen, 74. 98 Cf. note 75. On Peters, see Chapters 6 and 7 in this volume. 99 VDIW (1878) :427. 100 Ibid., 432.

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vailing opinion in Germany, whether justified or not, is that only he has general Bildung who has studied the classics. Every profession, including engineers, has to take this into account as a fact of life." 101 Spokesmen for the VDFs majority countered by accusing Putsch of obsequiousness and snobbery. Professor Kossak of the Industrial Institute believed that engineers should not uncritically accept the prevailing social standard just to further their status ambitions. They ought to "investigate whether these opinions are justified" and combat them "if proven erroneous." Fritz Dopp, a Berlin factory owner, contended that classical preparatory education required too many sacrifices of time and money and was so deficient in modern languages and natural sciences that the Oberrealschule was far preferable.102 To counter the petition of Ziebarth, Gutermilch, and Putsch, a large but informal group of VDI members submitted to the government its own "petition of Prussian industrialists and engineers," bearing 845 signatures and strongly supporting the Oberrealschule.103 Officially, the engineering society remained neutral, though most of the items dealing with the Oberrealschule in the VDI's weekly publications between November 1878 and December 1879 welcomed the government's action. Of the eleven articles in question, only two were critical of the reforms. The others were strongly in favor.104 One of these items actually took pride in the engineers' lack of polish and social grace. "The engineer, more dependent on 'know-how' than on 'knowledge,' quite naturally develops into a specialist," argued a certain engineer Kathreiner. "And specialists," he continued, "will always encounter less understanding for their [inconspicuous] achievements . . . than, for example, an architect for a splendid facade or a lawyer for a brilliant defense oration in court." 105 Another mechanical engineer warned the advocates of Latin and Greek to take at least enough English to make sure their children would still comprehend the "infinitely valuable and fitting proverb, 'Time is money.' " 106 Director Conrad Erdmann of the Duisburg Machinery Works spoke of the "sick ambition" of those who approved only of a "so-called humanistic education [as the] basis for a higher rank in personal life." He compared the inimitable leaders of Germany's industry, who by and large did not have classical preparatory education, with the majority of recently trained engineers, in whom he observed "only the harmful after-pangs of an im101 Ibid., 427. 102 Ibid., 428-9, 431-2. 103 Das technische Untenicbtswesen in Preussen, 78, 306-13; VDIW (1880):94-6; VDIW (1879): 102-6. 104 Against: VDIW (1879):30-2, 38-40, 106. For: VDIW (1879): 15-16, 22-4, 60, 100, 102, 174, 200-1, 207, 439. 105 VDIW(1878):346. 106 VDIW (1879):22.

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practical education." The only thing that mattered to Erdmann was the "practical training" of engineers. Everything else was unimportant. 107 The fact that the Oberrealschule found numerous supporters, while classical secondary education had but few adherents at that time, contrasted markedly with the VDI's official position on education only a few years earlier. As recently as 1876 it had still supported Grashof in favor of the Gymnasium and Realschule I. Ordnung. In early 1879, the VDI Direktor could do no more than issue a lame statement about internal divisiveness and complain about the government's failure to consult the engineering society in the matter. 108 The change was part of a fundamental reorientation in the attitudes of the VDI's articulate membership toward technical education and professionalization. Shaken by the nineteenth century's most severe economic depression, many engineers were no longer prepared to accept uncritically the leadership of their professorial mentor and his faction. Thus, a phase in the history of the engineering occupation was drawing to a close — a phase in which the drive for professional status had focused almost exclusively on strict emulation of Bildung and on a kind of engineering scholasticism modeled on the "pure" natural sciences, while the practical dimensions of engineering and the personnel requirements in industry had received short shrift. A renewed interest in the virtues of shop culture and educational rationality in terms of the needs of industry was breaking through in the late 1870s. Henceforth, such economic considerations would play a dominant role in the further development of the engineering profession. 107 Ibid., 207. 108 Ibid., 165, 189.

PART II Reorientation: industrial capitalism and a "practical" profession