Absolutism and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria

"James Van Horn Melton has produced an important work on the educational policies of the absolute state and the social purposes behind them." The Eighteenth Century

• List of tables; List of abbreviations; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Administrative divisions of the Habsburg and Hohenzolln monarchies, 1780; Part I. Cultural and Religious Forces: 1. Popular schooling in early modern Prussia and Austria; 2. The rise of Pietist pedagogy; 3. From image to word: cultural reform and the rise of literate culture in Theresian Austria; 4. The catholic appropriation of Pietist pedagogy: Johann Ignaz Felbiger; Part II. Social and Economic Forces: 5. Mastering the masterless: cameralism, rural industry, and popular education; 6. From compulsory labor to compulsory schooling: education and the crisis of seigniorial authority; Part III. The Limits of Reform: 7. School reform in Frederickian Prussia; 8. The Theresian school reform of 1774; Conclusion; Selected bibliography; Index.