The persistence of religion in Germany's modernizing schools, from empire to republic

Germany's well-established, and often envied, public elementary schools of the early twentieth century, encompassing the years from the late German Empire through the Weimar Republic, were both centers of reform pedagogy and sites of persistent confessional religious education. This article uses schoolbooks, curricula and pedagogical literature to examine the relationship between these two educational currents, the first associated with modernity and the second with tradition. The article stresses continuities from Empire to Republic, both in reform pedagogy and in religious curricula, pointing to elements of modernity in the conservative Empire, and to the persistence of tradition amidst the turmoil of the 1920s. In addition, it suggests not only that reform and religion coexisted but that reform of religious instruction helped to maintain its place in the modern school.