Education and Middle-Class Society in Imperial Austria, 1848-1918

CONCLUSION: Education, Society, and the State in the late Nineteenth Century

CONCLUSION Education, .Society, and the State in the late Nineteenth Century sAustria modernized its secondary and higher education after 848, =le 2/3 above and table 2' in the appendix). Slowed industrial growth and depressed conditions in agriculture and commerceduririg the late . 1870s and 1880s discouraged study iIi the Realschulen and technical colleges that would lead to careers in engineering,applied science, and technological fields; but those same conditions encouraged shifts to Gymnasium and university education that might lead to legal or medical practice, public ,or private bureaucracy, and teaching. Enroil- ' ments in the Austrian medical faculties, for instance, declined during the late 1870s in reaction to the overcrowding early in that decade but then rose strongly again in the 1880s despite. the'straitened business conditions (see table 2 in the appendix)Y Weak conditions in the general economy could slow the increase in total enrollments in the short run 'and cause shifts of students from one segment of secondary or higher education to another, but: so 3.1S0 could excesses of new graduates seeking positions in various professions . Surpluses could occur during periods of general economic ex~ pansion as well as in economic downturns. In state service the supply of new candidates'from the secondary schools and universities grew sufficientlybetween the 1850s and the 1880s to reduce sharply the .numbers of uneducated persons in the lower bureaucratic ranks. Indeed , educational requirements for governmental employment tended to rise in tandem with the growing numbers of Gymnasium graduates and law students during the second half cif the century, with some of the most significant moves toward higher qualifications coming in periods of economic recession and the greatest oversupply of educated 254 CONCLUSION· job-seekersY Between the 1890s and 1914, some regions saw cyclical swings as shortages of secondary school teachers gave riseto increased numbers of students in the philosophical faculties and led to sur~ pluses of new candidates for teaching posts. Still, short-term surpluses of educated job-seekers could not reverse the stronger general trend during the late nineteenth century of~ rising popular aspirations: for advanced education and for careers' in the various educated and semieducated callings. In the face of persistent growth in popular demand for advanced education from the mid-nineteenth century onward, the Austrian central government found that it had diminishing powers to control the rising enrollments. The educational authorities were increasingly conscious of this after 1880. It was relatively easy for the central and provincial governments to. help open the gates by expanding the institutional networks in the 1860s and 1870s, but official efforts to limit the opening of new secondary schools thereafter could not prevent the numbers of students from continuing to rise. Attempts during the 1880s and 1890s to stiffen admissions standards for the Gymnasien and Realschulen and to di~ert some youth to vocational education also failed to stem the growth in secondary school enrollments. The new wave of rapid growth in secondary and higher education after the mid-1890s forced the ministerial authorities to expand teaching staffs and existing facilities even if they were loath to open new institutions. In Austria, as in Germany, the numbers of students relative to the school-aged population ballooned in both secondary and higher education after around 1895. That trend signified important qualitative changes in advanced education and in popular attitudes toward it that went beyond simple responses to economic growth and increased employment opportunities. As access broadened, the middle-class and lower:-middle-class population and, more gradually, the responsible authorities changed their views about the purposes of secondary and higher education. The admission of women to the philosophical and medical faculties around 1900 and the efforts to raise girls' secondary schools toward equal status with the boys' schools, for example, represented changes in basic notions about the target audience for advanced education. As enrollments expanded, Gymnasien and Realschulen functioned even more than' previously as multipurpose secondary schools, not merely as preparatory schools for. students headed for the universities and technical colleges. Officials in the Ministry of Re- Education, Society, and the State 255 ligion and Instruction might try to resist these tendencies, but between the mid-1890s and 1914 they increasingly bowed to public pressures by. streamlining programs and requirements in secondary and higher education rather than stiffening them: Members of the public and some educators criticized the hallowed curriculum and pedagogy of the classical Gymnasien as outmoded and demanded greater equality...