The Teaching of German in Cincinnati: an Historical Survey
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The Teaching of German in Cincinnati: 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 Fort Washington for a short time. Another outstanding German during this early period was Martin Baum 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 Ohio 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.