The Teaching of German in : An Historical Survey

by EDWIN H. ZEYDEL

The impression has generally prevailed that the Germans whose descendants are today so strongly represented in the population of Cincinnati did not come to the city in great numbers until the 1840's and that they emigrated chiefly because of some kind of "oppression," whether religious or political. This is not borne out by the facts. In Notices Concerning Cincinnati (1810) Daniel Drake speaks of Germans among the 3,371 souls that made up the population1; and in his Natural and Statistical View, or Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country (1815) the same author reports that the German inhabitants, chiefly Lutherans and Presbyterians, were united into a congregation in 1814 as the "Lutheran Society," meeting for services in German and English every Sunday with their pastor, Rev. Joseph Zesline (i.e. Zaeslin), lately of Philadelphia.2 Even older than the Lutheran Society was the German Methodist congregation under Rev. Boehm. That there were able and prominent Germans among these early settlers is attested by the fact that Cincinnati's first mayor in 1802, the year the settlement of 400 persons was incorporated as a village, was the German David Ziegler, a native of the Palatinate, who held the rank of major in the American army and commanded for a short time. Another outstanding German during this early period was from Alsace, who became Cin- cinnati's first merchant-prince, with an exporting and shipping business, an iron foundry, a sugar refinery, vineyards, and an estate which extended all the way from Pike Street to the top of Mt. Adams. He was instrumental in bringing many Germans to Cincinnati from the eastern states to work in his various enterprises. The noted Indian fighter Ludwig Wetzel, though well known in Cincinnati, was never a permanent resident of the community. There were, then, a number of Germans in Cincinnati during the original period of settlement, but the early records are silent on the

^.30. 2p.l64. 3On Ziegler, Baum and Wetzel, see William A. Rengering II," Early Germans in Cincinnati, and Biographical Studies of four Representative Men," University of Cincinnati: Master's Thesis, 1951. 30 The Bulletin matter of formal instruction of the German language.4 If, however, the example of the settlers in Germantown, Pennsylvania, is any criterion — they seem to have introduced the teaching of German in their community by 1702, at the latest —- we might be justified in assuming that such classes had come into being soon after the arrival of Germans in Cincinnati even before the beginning of the nineteenth century. But this is only speculation. Nor is there proof that the numerous private schools existing as early as the 1820's, or even before, among them Locke's Female Seminary, Picket's Female Institution and Kinmont's Boys' Academy, offered instruction in German. The same is true of the public schools, which were organized in 1825, despite strong opposition in the State Legislature. The existing evidence sets the beginnings of German teaching in Cincinnati in 1835, in an improvised parochial school in the Catholic Church on West 5th Street under the supervision of a Father Henni. This in- struction took place every day, but in other churches which followed suit, it was offered only on Sundays. The first teacher in the edu- cational venture on West 5th Street was a Dr. Bunte. In less than a year, 150 pupils were attending these classes, many of them from Protestant families. Another German school, the Emigrant School, was founded in 1836 by the Presbyterians and the Emigrants' Friend Society under the direction of Judge Bellamy Storer. It was connected with the Lane Seminary, and its agent was a Polish gentleman by the name of Lehmanowsky. The principal, F. C. Salomon, who came from Erfurt, Germany was assisted by two teachers. Encouraged by the success of these and possibly similar ventures, the Cincinnati Germans, who in those early days seem to have been a very articulate group, brought pressure to bear upon the Board of Education with a view to achieving a fusion of their private German schools with the infant public school system. Failing in this, they prevailed upon the State Legislature in 1838 to pass an act empowering boards of education to merge German private schools with the public schools. But even this brought no immediate action in Cincinnati. A special reason for the desire of the Germans to press for the introduction of their native laaguage in the public schools, besides their feeling that this was their privilege as taxpayers, lay in their belief that it would somehow improve the quality of those schools. 4The statement of Louis Viereck in German Instruction in American Schools (in Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education for 1900-01, Washington, 1902, pp 531-708) p. 557, that in 1831 there were 1500 German pupils in Cin- cinnati private schools as against 400 in the public schools is completely errone- ous. The Teaching of German in Cincinnati 31

Photo in Society Bellamy Storer In 1836 the State Legislature had sent the theologian Calvin E. Stowe of Cincinnati to Europe to study the school systems of various countries; in the same year Stowe had married Harriet Beecher, who was to achieve wide fame as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. He returned with a very favorable estimate of the Prussian schools, and many of his recommendations were adopted not only in Ohio but in Pennsylvania as well.5 Finally, in 1840, after the passage of a new legislative act requiring all Boards of Education to introduce German when demanded by seventy-five "freeholders" representing forty or more pupils, the Board reluctantly introduced German. In September of that year, the first so-called German-English school was established in the Lutheran Church on Walnut Street between 8th and 9th Streets, with Joseph A. Heeman, who had taught in the Catholic School on 13th Street, as the German teacher. Among those who applied for such a teaching position about this time was the noted German writer Friedrich Gerstacker, the author of novels with an early American background and of Germelshausen, the tale of the sunken city which in our own time suggested the musical play Brigadoon. Gerstacker, however, never served in such a capacity. In November 1840 a second German-English school was started in the rear of St. John's Church on 6th Street. The total enrollment soon grew to 427, but in those days before truancy or attendance 5The Pennsylvania school law of 1837, a direct outgrowth of the Stowe report, placed German public schools on a par with English schools, and also established some purely German schools. 32 The Bulletin

laws6 the average daily attendance was only 200. The first-year or elementary class studied German and English both orally and with textbooks; the second and third years were considered advanced and offered German and English on alternate days.7 Despite their success, these German-English schools remained stepchildren of the Board of Education, so that in July of 1841 the Germans voiced a strong protest and demanded fair treatment. They specifically argued for a primary class in which only German was to be taught, a "middle" class for both English and German with two separate teachers, and an advanced class in which one teacher was to be in charge of in- struction for both languages. These proposals were ignored by the Board, and as the result of a new meeting by the Germans a private school along the above mentioned lines was started in the German Lutheran Church on Walnut Street with Heeman as the teacher. This grew so fast that the Board of Education offered to take it over. But Heeman refused to serve under the Board and returned to the parochial school on 13th Street. Heeman's withdrawal led to the appointment of Henry Poeppel- mann, who for over forty years taught German in the Cincinnati schools and whose praises are sung to this day by the children and grandchildren (now themselves octogenarians) of his pupils. To him were entrusted the duties of teaching and supervision in the two then existing German-English schools at 9th and Elm (the former Emi- grants' School), and Franklin east of Main, respectively. Two additional German teachers were hired almost immediately, and a Committee on German-English Schools was appointed by the Board (1842). By 1843 there were four German teachers in these schools. In the same year, Friedrich Roelker, who had emigrated from Ger- many in 1835 and come to Cincinnati in 1837, became a member of the Board and soon proved instrumental in helping the cause of language instruction8. By 1844, when emigration from Germany was reaching greater proportions, the Board admitted that the German-English schools were quite useful and appointed additional teachers of German. In 1847 President Hooper of the Board lavished

6The first state to adopt legislation providing for compulsory school attend- ance was Massachusetts in 1852. This account, as well as what follows, is based chiefly upon the work of John B. Shotwell, A History of the Schools of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, The School Life Company, 1902, 608 pp., especially pp. 289-310. 8Roelker, born in Osnabriick in 1809, started his career in Cincinnati as a public school teacher of English. Then he became principal of the Catholic Trinity School, which had been organized in 1836. But being dissatisfied with his academic calling, he studied medicine and became one of the most popular physicians of his day, besides being a respected leader of the Germans. See Rengering's thesis, note 3. The Library of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio has a large body of Roelker's manuscripts. The Teaching of German in Cincinnati 33 high praise upon the schools, asserting that German had a rightful place in the curriculum not because the German population demanded it, but because the subject possessed an intrinsic value per se. Gradu- ally, more Germans, among them men like Ludwig Wetzel, joined the Board. By 1848 the school system counted eight teachers and 600 pupils of German. In 1850 the Board decided to relieve its own members of the many details of administering the schools by ap- pointing the first superintendent. In the early period, the German classes in Cincinnati were closed to all but children of German-speaking parents. This produced charges of "segregation" by critics in other cities, notably St. Louis. As a result, the classes were opened to non-German children on an optional basis. It would be erroneous, however, to believe that since German was now looked upon with more favor by the Board, it achieved a prominent place in the curriculum. By the early fifties the nativist Know-Nothing Party, which may be compared with the one-hundred per cent Americans of a later date, raised a hue and a cry against the teaching of German in the public schools, claiming that it bred disloyalty and played into the hands of recent emigrants whose hearts were still in the country of their origin. This led to disturb- ances and to more protests on the part of the Germans. As a result, German was separated entirely from English in 1853, and some so- called German schools were opened in which German was considered almost more important than English. As early as 1842 the Ohio State Legislature had provided that any pupil in whose district no German instruction was offered could attend a school in which it existed. In the fifties, the Germans of Cincinnati invoked this provision with success. This was an im- portant concession to them by the Board. In 1827 the Woodward Free Grammar School had been incor- porated through the generosity of William Woodward. This became the Woodward High School in 1831, and in 1852 Hughes High School was established in the western part of town. For the year 1853-54 a "professor" of German was appointed for the high schools. The first such professor was Theodore Soden. At this time about one- fourth of the pupils were enrolled in either French or German classes, the majority of these in German. During the next ten years the prog- ress of this language was closely watched by representative Germans of the city. In 1867 German was introduced in the intermediate — or grammar — grades, and by 1870 10,440 pupils representing all levels, were studying the language in the Cincinnati public schools. 34 The Bulletin

In addition, instruction was offered in some of the existing private schools and academies. In 1871 the Board of Education created the German-English Normal School, an institution dedicated to the training of teachers. It started with 25 girls and one German teacher, Karl Knortz, who is remembered as a writer and poet of some note. He was succeeded by George H. Borger, then by L. R. Klemm and Mrs. Johanna Huising. In 1876 a committee on the German Department was appointed by the Board for the purpose of examining the performance of the classes. In 1882 Judge F. S. Spiegel, as a member of the Board, introduced translation from one language to the other in all grades of the district schools. By 1900 Cincinnati had about 175 teachers of German in its lower schools and four in the high schools, with over 18,000 pupils participating, among them children of English, Irish and even Negro parentage. In my early years in Cincinnati (resident since 1926), I recall meeting Irish and Negroes, by then in their middle years, who could still make themselves understood in German and revealed a surprising recollection of German folk songs which they had learned as children. The type of class organization, from the point of view of teaching in the German-English schools, was well established by the fifties. There was one teacher in the small German schools, and he or she gave instruction in both German and English. But the German- English schools either had special teachers of German or developed the so-called "parallel-class system," whereby all the pupils who elected German were taught a half day alternately by an English and by a German teacher up to and including the fourth grade. Officially stated, the plan in vogue in Cincinnati, even as late as 1914, was as follows: "In the lower grades of the larger schools two teachers were assigned to two classes, one teaching German and the other English to both classes alternately, the German teacher in addition taking charge of such branches as drawing, music, and primary occupation work. The upper grades were generally taught by a German super- vising assistant."9 When the school was small, a few special teachers took charge of all German instruction, and as such they were regularly employed staff members. By and large this system prevailed in Cincinnati from before of the nineteenth century to 1917. To illustrate the development of this system, there were 3 such teachers in 1840 and over 175 by 1914. In other cities very similar arrangements

Cincinnati Public Schools, 85th Annual Report, 1914, p. 68. The Teaching of German in Cincinnati 35 were in vogue, at least for a while, until teacher shortages, budgetary- demands or better counsel dictated otherwise. As for the quality of teaching and the amount of time devoted to it, Charles H. Handschin, writing a year before the outbreak of World War I, noted: "This instruction in Cincinnati, perhaps the best and most throughgoing of its kind now in the , deserves special notice . . . The time given to German instruction in such classes (i.e. the "parallel classes") does not exceed nine hours a week (in the first four grades) ... From the fourth to the eighth grades, 45 minutes to one hour a day are devoted to German. The pupils who elect German keep up their other work very satisfactorily, and no change seems to be desired."10 In other cities even more time was devoted to German. In Cleveland, for example, there was an equal division of time between English and German in 1869-70. In 1873 U. T. Curran, president of the Ohio Teachers' Association, told that body at its annual meeting: "Without doubt the English will be the language of this country. But the law authorizes the teaching of German in our schools, and it is highly proper that it should be taught. The memories of the fatherland are sweet, and the sound of the mother tongue on the lips of the child makes the father feel that his child is not separated from him. The vast storehouse of the German needs but this key to place its riches at the command of him who can use it. There are difficulties presented in the management of our schools where two languages are taught at once. The best experience has taught us that the lines of instruction should be parallel. The power of thinking in two languages will counterbalance any supposed deficiencies in either, and the two languages will give, in their reciprocal influence upon each other, linguistic culture, and will render pupils better trained than those who have drawled through the abstract formulae of so-called English grammar."11 From 1874 to 1887 John B. Peaslee was superintendent of schools. Coming from New England, where but little modern foreign language was taught in the schools, he was skeptical at first about the value of teaching German in the Cincinnati schools; during his tenure of office more than fifty per cent of all the pupils in all the schools were taking German. But two years after his retirement, in an address before the National German-American Teachers' Association in Chicago, he expressed enthusiastic approval of the program and stated that the pupils participating in the German instruction were superior, as a class, to those not in German. His concluding remarks were: 10The Teaching of the Modern Languages in the United States, U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin No. 3, Washington, 1913, p. 72. uQuoted by Handschin, ibid., pp. 53 f. 36 The Bulletin

"To those who oppose German instruction in our public schools let me say, that the statement that its cost is great has been shown to be without foundation in places where the best and most efficient organization of the department is effected; the belief that the study of the German language retards the progress of the children in English has been completely overturned by the statistics; the statement that this is America, and therefore we ought to teach the English language only, is not worthy of notice; the assertion that the study of German tends to Germanize our pupils and make them less loyal to our own country, is not borne out by the facts. Besides your sons and daughters are not compelled to study German, as it is an optional branch. Why then object to others enjoying its advantages? I have never heard the first valid reason offered against the study of German, and I believe that every intelligent man who will thoroughly investi- gate the subject free from all prejudice, must come to the same con- clusions as I have, viz.: that the study of two languages is for the best interest of the pupils. I not only thoroughly believe in the German department of our schools, but I am convinced that it would be better for the intellectual development of our pupils if they all studied the German language in connection with the English."12 In spite of the apparent success of the German program, the attacks against it never ceased, even in its heyday during the 1900- 1910 era. But whatever may be said against it, the charge that it added unduly to the school budget is not true. Statistics indicate that its costs never exceeded $40,000 per year, chiefly because the German teachers also taught other subjects. Before turning to the period of the First World War and its aftermath, I should like to discuss briefly higher education in Cin- cinnati in the nineteenth century insofar as it concerns the teaching of German. Lancaster Seminary had been opened in 1815 by the noted physician Daniel Drake, and in 1819 it became Cincinnati College, which in turn soon became Cincinnati Law School. In 1836 Woodward College had been founded as a branch of Woodward High School. German was taught there as early as 1837 by Wilhelm Nast, the founder of German Methodism. 1819 has been recognized as the official founding date of the University of Cincinnati, or at least of its first unit, Cincinnati College. There is no proof that German was taught there at that early date. The first mention of German instruction in the University catalogue occurs in 1875-76; two years of German (or French) were required for the B. A. and were electives for the B. S., but they were replaced by another elective in either degree program if the student had already passed their equivalent. At Xavier University, which was founded in 1831 by Bishop Fenwick as the Athenaeum and 12"Instruction in German and its Helpful Influence on Common School Education as experienced in the Public Schools of Cincinnati," July 19th, 1889. The Teaching of German in Cincinnati 37 became St. Xavier College under Bishop Purcell in 1840, the earliest available catalogue (1842-43) shows that only French was a required language. German and Spanish were electives and could be taken for an additional fee. Soon after the United States entered World War I in the spring of 1917, the teaching of German experienced a dramatic decline in the public schools. From 13,856 pupils enrolled in the subject in Septem- ber 1916, there was a drop by September of the next year to 7,546. The number of German teachers had fallen off to 72 by that time. A year later the Ohio Legislature passed an act prohibiting the teach- ing of German below the eighth grade; in 1921 the United States Supreme Court declared the act to be unconstitutional. Pressure groups, meanwhile, saw to it that German also disappeared from the high schools and, in good part, even from the institutions of higher learning. Events occurred of which fair-minded, level-headed Americans will always be ashamed. In recent years German instruction has enjoyed a full recovery at the municipal university, and at Xavier University and the Catholic colleges of the city. At the University of Cincinnati, it is presently the most popular foreign language, averaging a yearly enrollment of about 500 students. In addition, there is an annual average of one or two doctorates plus several master's degrees. Recent products of its Graduate department hold responsible positions in colleges and universities throughout the United States, and in Germany itself. Except for a few extra-curricular classes in three elementary schools which involve about one hundred participants, there is no German taught in the grade schools at present. In the public high schools, it has experienced a modest comeback. In 1960 enrollment in German instruction in these schools totalled 415 (174 in the first year, 164 in the second, with the rest in classes combining second, third and fourth year, or third and fourth-year pupils). This com- pares with an enrollment of 2,000 in French and 2,236 in Spanish. Latin, French and Spanish may now be begun in the seventh grade in Cincinnati, but not German. The parochial high schools offer a limited amount of German instruction. There is also an evening class in German at Hughes High School for children of German im- migrants; it is held under the auspices of the Swabian Beneficial Society. Since there seems to be a general trend back to the modern foreign languages in many parts of the country, Cincinnati may also soon witness a stronger revival of German instruction both in the elementary and the secondary grades.