A School for the Higher Education of Daughters (c. 1860)

Until the end of the 19th century, the privilege of attending a Gymnasium (a college-preparatory secondary school) was reserved solely for boys. The only institutions that offered girls an opportunity for higher education were the so-called Höhere Töchterschulen (Schools for the Higher Education of Daughters). These schools, however, did not prepare girls for further academic study, but rather for the task of managing a household. Accordingly, the course of study ended when the girls were 15 or 16 years old. Until the first girls’ Gymnasien opened in the 1890s, well-to-do parents who wanted to give their daughters an academic higher education sent them to private girls’ schools or boarding schools. Lithograph, c. 1860.

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© Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz