Jenisch free school

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The Jenisch'sche Free School was an educational institution for girls in Lübeck that existed from the beginning of the 19th century until 1923 and was run by a private foundation .

founding

The establishment of the school goes back to Margaretha Elisabeth Jenisch (1763–1832), the wealthy but physically handicapped daughter of a Hamburg banker and senator. After her father's death, she moved to live with relatives in Lübeck in 1787, and in the 1790s began to organize free handicraft and school lessons for girls from poor families. An " industrial school" founded in 1797 by the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activitiesfor poor girls ”, which combined lessons with practical training, served as a model for her own establishment of a“ free school for poor girls ”. The exact year of foundation is uncertain; the years 1803 or 1806 are mentioned. Classes initially took place in Jenisch's house; until 1811, when she was completely paralyzed, she not only directed and administered the school, but also gave lessons herself.

In 1811 Jenisch bought the former house of the mayor Mattheus Rodde at Breite Straße 776 (today No. 13) and set up the school in the side wing, for which Hermann Heinrich Schliemann was employed as the main teacher, one of the first graduates of the Lübeck school teachers' college founded in 1807 and up 1833 also teacher at the industrial school of the non-profit society. The school soon had up to 140 students.

Foundation, endowment

From 1827 Jenisch pursued the plan of a foundation to secure the existence of the school after her death. In this foundation, established on September 3, 1829, she brought the majority of her assets in the amount of 60,000 Marks Lübisch (according to today's purchasing power around 1,120,000 euros) as foundation capital as well as a new schoolhouse in the Hartengrube 742 (today No. 1 , Corner of the Großer Bauhof ). The interest on the capital, together with the proceeds from the sale of handicrafts, secured the school income at least comparable to the school fees of the public schools.

At the head of the foundation was the oldest male descendant of Jenisch's brother Martin Johann Jenisch the Elder as the “patron” . He had to be informed of the annual statement and all significant incidents; Changes to the foundation regulations, the foundation capital or the property of the foundation required his written approval. The actual administration of the foundation and supervision of the school was carried out by four heads: two family members residing in Lübeck, a clergyman of the cathedral parish and a member of the city council for the poor. If the school could no longer be operated, the foundation capital should revert to the founding family.

After the founder's death in 1832, the school was reopened on May 6, 1833 in the building in the Hartengrube, which had been renovated at the family's expense.

School organization

Application for admission to the Jenisch'sche Free School (form)

The organization of the school was based closely on the model of the industrial school of the non-profit society. The school was a “ free school ”, so classes were free. According to the deed of foundation, up to 120 girls from families who could not afford the school fees required at other schools were to be accepted, whereby, in addition to neediness, particular attention was paid to the impeccable lifestyle of their parents. At the time of admission, the girls should be at least eight years old and have a basic knowledge of reading and knitting. Girls should also be explicitly included who “do not serve because of physical infirmities”, but who were later able to earn their living through manual labor. The parents had to commit themselves in writing to ensure regular school attendance until their daughters reached confirmation age. If they did not keep this agreement, they had to pay an amount equal to the school fees for elementary schools to the municipal poor institution. As a rule, the girls attended school at least until they were 16.

Due to the social differentiation of the school system at that time, schools for girls “of the lower classes, from which primarily female servants, as well as future wives of workers or day laborers, as well as the smaller craftsmen emerge”, should only convey the knowledge necessary for these classes and exclude everything, “ which can alienate the pupils from their future next destiny. ”. Accordingly, it was also the aim of the Jenisch free school to educate the girls "to be godly, discreet and capable servants" so that after leaving school they could earn their living mainly as maids, but also by sewing or similar simple activities. The girls therefore only received elementary lessons in religion, reading, writing, mental arithmetic and singing; Most of the class time, which ran from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, was devoted to practical work and training in knitting, sewing, darning, marking clothes and spinning flax and woolen yarn. The older girls also did the cleaning and housework. The handicrafts made were sold or handicrafts were made to order; Half of the proceeds were used to maintain the school, the other half was credited to the individual students and billed annually. When they left school, they received a dowry on laundry and clothing and the excess amount as a savings bank balance .

A main teacher and an auxiliary teacher for school lessons as well as three female handicraft teachers were employed for the approximately 120 students; A supervisor living in the school building was responsible for the organization of the school, in particular the ordering and sale of handicrafts, and compliance with the school rules. Hermann Heinrich Schliemann remained the main teacher until 1857, followed by Wilhelm Heinrich Friedrich Ahrens (until 1890) and Johannes Friedrich Gottlieb Reimpell.

Further development and end

The ratio of work and school lessons at the Jenisch free school did not differ significantly from the conditions at the public elementary schools for girls, where half to two thirds of the teaching time was also devoted to handicrafts. Over time, the focus has shifted more from work to school lessons. In 1865, half of the 36 weekly lessons were for needlework; In addition to (depending on the class) 2–5 hours a week of religion and biblical history, 6–12 hours a week of German, reading and writing as well as 2 hours of arithmetic and singing per week, 2 hours of object lessons or realities and world studies were given. This means that the number of weekly lessons in general subjects was even higher than in the simultaneous public girls' schools. Just as there, general education at the Jenisch free school increased in the second half of the century. In 1876 the subject of history was added to the curriculum and in 1880 all subjects of the elementary school curriculum except drawing were taught. In 1884 the curriculum was largely aligned with that of the three-class public elementary schools. Handicraft lessons and from 1887 also general housekeeping lessons in housekeeping, cooking, washing and ironing were still on the curriculum.

In the first decades of its existence, the school enjoyed a good reputation; in the 1870s, however, the high school college found in its inspection reports poor quality of teaching and insufficient knowledge of the pupils in general subjects and urged a reduction in manual labor classes. The main teacher at the time, Ahrens, ran the school as a kind of family business: his wife and three of his daughters were employed as teachers. His successor in the school management, main teacher Reimpell, tried hard to raise the level of the school again; Above all, he criticized the fact that the division into only three classes after 7-8 years of school attendance led to tiresome repetitions of the same material. After repeated applications to the foundation's board of directors, in 1906 it was finally converted into a seven-grade school.

Inscription on the former school building St.-Annen-Str. 4th

After the previous school building had become too small, the school moved to its final building in St.-Annen-Straße 4 in 1872 . Since 1903 the Lübeck state contributed to the maintenance through an annual subsidy; The teaching staff this year consisted of one main teacher and five female teachers.

The reorganization of the Lübeck school system through the Education Act of 1885 left private schools and free schools largely unaffected; the introduction of municipal "free schools", ie elementary schools without school fees, in 1886, however, called their right to exist in question. At the turn of the century, the school councilor Georg Hermann Schröder was already discussing its abolition in favor of a uniform elementary school system. The reintroduction of tuition fees for all public elementary schools in 1909 brought the Jenisch free school again strong popularity, so that the number of female pupils rose to over 300 by 1914. The foundation thus ran into financial difficulties, which were exacerbated by the devaluation of money after the First World War . As early as January 1918, the foundation board therefore turned to the high school authorities with a proposal to close the school and to fulfill the foundation's purpose in the future through training grants and additional courses for underprivileged primary school students. The negotiations between the foundation and the Lübeck authorities dragged on with no results until the almost complete destruction of the foundation's capital by inflation forced the closure of the school last attended by 320 girls in March 1923. The remaining students were distributed to the public elementary schools. Through a contract concluded between Martin Rücker von Jenisch , the foundation's patron at the time, and the Lübeck state, the property that remained in the foundation's property was left to the city for school purposes. The building at St.-Annen-Str. 4 now served the kindergarten teacher seminar of the women's vocational and technical school founded after the war, the holding of courses for the training of nannies and lessons for vocational students . The city Carl Friedrich von Rumohr hotel management school has been located in the building since 1998. The Jenisch School Foundation continues to exist in a different form and is still the owner of the building.

In the 90 years from the death of the founder until the school closed, it was attended by around 10,740 students.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b G. Behrens : Topography and Statistics of Lübeck and the Bergedorf office shared with Hamburg. Second part. Von Rohden, Lübeck 1839, pp. 265–267 ( digitized version at the State and University Library Hamburg Carl von Ossietzky)
  2. ↑ a b c d e Margaretha Elisabeth Jenisch, b. 1763, d. 1832, and the free school she founded for poor girls. In: Neue Lübeckische Blätter 3 (1837), pp. 177–181.
  3. ^ Claus-Hinrich Offen: School in a Hanseatic civil society. On the social history of the lower school system in Lübeck (1800–1866). Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1990 (publications on the history of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, series B, volume 17), p. 251 (note 33), 253 (note 40).
  4. ↑ Calculated from Gerhard Ahrens: Kaufkraft-Multiplikator , in: Antjekathrin Graßmann (Hg.): Das neue Lübeck-Lexikon. The Hanseatic City from A to Z. Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 2011, p. 440.
  5. ↑ Cf. Sylvina Zander: Little desire to sew, otherwise a good child ... Upbringing girls and women in Lübeck. Archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck 1996 (Publications on the History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Series B, Volume 26), pp. 188–190.
  6. ↑ a b Sylvina Zander: Little desire to sew, otherwise a good child… Upbringing girls and women in Lübeck. Archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck 1996 (Publications on the History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Series B, Volume 26), pp. 193–194.
  7. ↑ Quotes from the instructions for the Lübeck elementary schools in 1824, quoted from: Claus-Hinrich Offen: School in a Hanseatic civil society. On the social history of the lower school system in Lübeck (1800–1866). Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1990 (publications on the history of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, series B, volume 17), p. 242.
  8. ↑ a b State Manual of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck for the year 1903 . Gebr. Borchers, Lübeck 1903, p. 106 ( digitized in the Internet Archive).
  9. ^ Claus-Hinrich Offen: School in a Hanseatic civil society. On the social history of the lower school system in Lübeck (1800–1866). Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1990 (Publications on the History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Series B, Volume 17), pp. 237-253.
  10. ↑ a b c Sylvina Zander: Little desire to sew, otherwise a good child ... Upbringing girls and women in Lübeck. Archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck 1996 (Publications on the History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Series B, Volume 26), pp. 265–269.
  11. ^ A b c Carl Theodor Plessing : Margaretha Elisabeth Jenisch. On the 100th anniversary of her death. In: Lübeckische Blätter 74 (1932), pp. 480–481.
  12. ↑ Sylvina Zander: Little desire to sew, otherwise a good child ... raising girls and women in Lübeck. Archive of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck 1996 (Publications on the History of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Series B, Volume 26), p. 261.
  13. ^ Carl Theodor Plessing : Envoy a. D. Baron von Jenisch. In: Vaterstädtische Blätter , year 1924/25, No. 3, issue of November 2, 1924, pp. 10–11 ( digitized version of the journal at the Archives of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (PDF, 39.7 MB), accessed on November 25, 2017 )
  14. ↑ Envoy a. D. Baron v. Jenisch †. In: Vaterstädtische Blätter , year 1924/25, No. 4, issue of November 16, 1924, p. 13 ( digitized version of the journal at the Archives of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (PDF, 39.7 MB), accessed on December 8, 2017)

literature

  • Claus-Hinrich Offen: Art. JENISCH, Margaretha Elisabeth . In: Alken Bruns (Ed.): Lübecker Lebenslaufen , Wachholtz, Neumünster 1993, pp. 189–191 (also in: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck , Volume 10, Wachholtz, Neumünster 1994, pp. 187ff.)
  • Christine Lipp: Margaretha Elisabeth Jenisch . In: Women in Lübeck History. Portraits of women from Lübeck over the centuries. Catalog for the traveling exhibition. Hanseatic City of Lübeck 2005, pp. 16-17, or exhibition boards online at the women's office of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (PDF, 2.2 MB).