Franz Xaver Kefer

The Bavarian King Max I Joseph donated the tomb of Franz Xaver Kefer with great respect for his services. In the old Munich south cemetery location it stands opposite the final resting place of his friend and colleague Hermann Mitterer .

Franz Xaver Kefer (* 1763 in Axöd near Eggenfelden ; † September 11, 1802 in Munich ) was the founder and initiator of the holiday school in Munich, which became the model for all later vocational schools .

origin

The son of a bailiff, Kefer was born in Axöd, a hamlet near Eggenfelden .

Career

Kefer came to the Asbach monastery at the age of 10 as a student and singing boy, and three years later to the teachers' seminar in Landshut , where he was noticed for his hard work and musicality. He studied logic and physics at the Munich Lyceum. In October 1790 he was employed as a supervisor and tutor "in grammatical subjects, then invoicing and calligraphy" at the Electoral Military Academy , which had only been founded shortly before the Bavarian army reform initiated in 1788 by Benjamin Thompson . Soon after, he was appointed professor there.

The male holiday school in Munich

Initially without any financial support, but with the permission of the elector, Kefer opened a school on August 18, 1793 to train male trainees and journeymen in their free time in addition to their professional activities in writing, reading and arithmetic. She was housed in a room in Kefer's apartment in what is now Sendlinger Strasse in Munich . The influx was so huge that Kefer had to move into a larger apartment in January 1794, in which two rooms were already used for the school. An assistant was also employed at Kefer's expense for teaching. From this point on, lessons took place every hour and in different classes.

Two years after the school was founded, in July 1795, the first public final examination took place. Like all later events in Munich City Hall , it took place in the presence of the electoral and city school commission. Kefers school was merged with the "Holiday Drawing School" that his friend Hermann Mitterer had founded to form the "Central Holiday School Munich ". The institute was very popular from home and abroad. His organizational and didactic concepts and reform models were essential preliminary stages to today's dual vocational training.

The female holiday school in Munich

Kefer was a proponent of monoeducation . In order to enable further education for “bourgeois daughters and female servants ”, the “Female Sunday and Holiday School” was introduced in 1801 in addition to the “Male Sunday and Holiday School”. In addition to reading, writing, arithmetic and “Christianity”, all the virtues of housewives should be taught here. According to the ideal of the time, the school was supposed to educate people “without an artist” to practical skills and “domestic happiness”. Unlike in elementary schools, the teachers had to be exclusively female.

further activities

In 1800 Franz Xaver Kefer became school inspector for other educational institutions, but continued to work as a teacher at the holiday school with interruptions. Shortly before his death he was given the title of “Elector and City German School Inspector” because of his services. Kefer created a "natural history cabinet" for the school in order to be able to present all types of wood and minerals for teaching purposes. In addition, he worked as a textbook author.

Merits

Kefer implemented the dual apprenticeship training with the introduction of the Sunday and holiday school. Their visit was required by law. It became a second place of learning and since 1798 no apprentice could be acquitted without a school leaving certificate. The guilds' monopoly on training was broken, and training was henceforth state-monitored, standardized and improved. Kefer's proposals for apprenticeship training were actively supported by King Max I Joseph. In 1803 the public journeyman's examination was introduced by law in Bavaria.

Private life and early death

"He lived in a happy but childless marriage for seven years and died on September 11, 1802 of a breast disease."

Honor of the king and final resting place

The Bavarian ruler Max I. Joseph donated his tomb in the Altes Südfriedhof in Munich with the following inscription:

Max Joseph, Elector, honors the memory of Franz Xaver Kefer, founder and first teacher at the holiday school for artists and craftsmen in Munich with this memorial. Thousands of his pupils through Europe honor it in their hearts, friends and comrades of his office with tears. He died on September 11, 1802, aged 39. He was followed by his wife Franziska, b. Brandtl on November 10, 1851.

The two cups in relief on the upper edge of the monument could be based on the award that Kefer had received in gratitude in 1801 from some masters and journeymen of the sword sweepers' guild and the cutlers in the form of an 18 inch high cup made of silver (Gräberfeld 3 - Row 1 - Seat 32) Location .

literature

• Christa Berg, Handbuch der deutschen Bildungsgeschichte , 1996.
• Franz Xayer Kefer, How good and useful it is that the schools of girls were separated from those of boys , Munich, 1802.
• Johann Nepomuk Holg, Die Handwerks-Gesellen and Männliche Central Holiday School in Munich Digitized , Munich, 1863.
• Horst Ehrlich, Die Kadettenanstalten, Structures and Design of Military Education in the Electorate of Bavaria in the Later 18th Century , Munich, 2007.
• M. Weichselbaumer, First Decade of Holiday School , 1793–1803.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Clemens Alois Baader, The learned Baier, or Lexicon of all writers ... Nuremberg and Sulzbach, 1804