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state secondary schools for boys.
385
2. SECONDARY EDUCATION.
This section will deal with the State Secondary schools for Boys
(allmänna läroverk), and the parallel Communal (kommunala) and Private
Schools which receive State grants or other aid, and moreover with the
Girls’ Secondary schools.
State Secondary Schools for Boys.
The oldest schools in Sweden, as in most countries, were the mediaeval
monastery schools and cathedral schools and the town schools maintained
by the burghers. As the monastery schools were abolished at the
Reformation, it is out of the two latter classes that the present State
secondary schools were gradually evolved.
In the time of Gustavus Adolphus were founded the first higher schools, or
gymnasiums; the oldest of these was established in 1623 at Västerås by
Johannes Rudbeckius. The first School Code was drawn up in 1649 under
the influence of Comenius, who had been summoned to Sweden. This Code
is considered to be a pedagogical masterpiece; but, as a matter of fact,
it was never completely carried into effect, and in many cases not applied
at all. In the Code a sharp line of demarcation was drawn between the lower
and the higher school, the trivialskolan or junior department, and the
gymnasium or higher department, an arrangement which survived for two centuries.
These establishments were almost exclusively training colleges for priests and
government officials.
At the beginning of the 19th century, however, complaints made themselves
heard with greater and greater insistence against the secondary schools,
particularly on the ground that the instruction imparted in them was not suited
to the needs of such boys who intended to enter practical careers. The School
Code of 1807 provided for a modicum of modern education by giving a larger
place on the syllabus of instruction to the mother tongue, mathematics and
history, and by introducing into the curriculum natural history and modern
languages; also by enlarging the "skrivarklassen", as it was designated in the
School Code of 1649, after 1807 rechristened "apologistklassen", which may,
mutatis mutandis, and on a smaller scale, be compared with a modern class of
an English public school. Nevertheless, people went on complaining: what they
complained about was that "scholastic education" (den lärda bildningen) had
suffered, without any compensating improvement in the non-scholastic or
"medborgerliga" education, that is the education of the common "citizen". The
School Code of 1820 endeavoured to solve the problem by erecting two distinct
classes of schools, the lärdomsskolor (lower and higher) for scholastic education,
and apologistskolor for the common citizen’s education. This system, however,
soon encountered a vigorous opposition. It was arraigned of having "encouraged
severance on principle", the consequence being that the children were separated
too early from one another, and brought up to be "bad citizens". Uniformity
and the "spirit of citizenship" ought, the complainants declared, to be the
guiding principles in State schools.
25—133179. Sweden I.
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