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School Reform in Baden: Edict Issued by Margrave Karl Friedrich von Baden (May 13, 1803)

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4.) School supervisors at rural schools in all towns are the parish priest, the highest-ranking secular municipal superior, and a church elder or church censor [guardian of morals] (wherever they exist), who in this context proceed according to the order of and through the censor and moral courts if such exist, and on their own, if such do not exist, but always jointly, being answerable to Us for the good progress of the school system in each respective case.

5.) Chief school superintendents are, among Catholics, the school visitors decreed by Us, among Protestants Our special representatives or inspectors, who not only have to use each opportunity to obtain knowledge concerning the state of schooling but also have to visit, from time to time, according to regulations to be prepared in detail, the schools of their district.

6.) Subjects of instruction in these schools must be: a.) Spelling, b.) reading, c.) writing of the German language, d.) arithmetic, e.) singing, f.) Bible history, g.) materials of religious instruction, (among which we count primarily that which must be committed to memory.)

Apart from these basic schools, four types of ‘finishing schools’ have to be added in every location. The most important one among them

7.) is Christian instruction or catechism instruction, i.e. the pastoral education toward expansion and decent use of the religious materials learned at the basic school: in this regard, the church authority of each religious denomination has available more detailed orders, and thus We will be content to mention it here for the sake of completeness.

8.) The vocational school. In this school, certainly the girls must be taught spinning, knitting, and sewing in special classes by female teachers to be nominated. Where the first two female occupations are so common among the parents to begin with that the children can learn them at home with their mothers, official ordering of classes can be dropped, though an annual public examination of the children, in which they give a sample of the skills acquired, must not be omitted, so that, if parents’ negligence should become a habit, one could immediately intervene by arranging public schooling. [ . . . ] In places where intense farming or suchlike work does not keep boys busy throughout the year, one ought to ensure, as far as appropriate, that they, or at least the poor boys, not be easily exempted from it, that they learn some needlework appropriate to the nature of the region. This they could use to help themselves if necessary and earn some kind of livelihood, even if it came only down to knitting in the end. [ . . . ]

9.) The Sunday school, whose attendance one should urge those children who have left school as a rule up to their twentieth year, or if there are reasons to deviate from this, for at least another three years after leaving school. Supervised by school supervisors and, as far as possible, with special assistance by the priests, this school is charged with continued exercise in religious knowledge, in singing, in reading, particularly in reading written essays, in writing, especially independent composition of small essays suitable for use in everyday life, and finally in arithmetic. However, this should not take place to such an extent that they complete written work at Sunday school, but that in a particular case, they are given exercises to carry out during the week, having to bring them in the following Sunday [ . . . ]. This school shall (with the exception of the particularly busy time of the peasant) extend throughout the year and concerns both sexes.

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