Knowledge, Authority and Power: The impact of university extension on popular education in Vienna 1890-1910

[p. 159] The exam is nothing more but the bureaucratic baptism of knowledge, the official recognition of the trans-substantiation of profane knowledge into a sacred one, it goes without saying that the examiner knows everything. Karl Marx¹

The impulse for the utmost generalization of ‘Bildung’ has its source in the entire secularization, in the subordination of ‘Bildung’ as a means below acquisition, below the raw fortune of earth. Friedrich Nietzsche²

Towards the end of the nineteenth century a long-lasting and fundamental shift in the whole system of knowledge was partly stabilized in the establishment of new relations between knowledge and the public. This changed the mediating institutions as well as the character of knowledge itself. By regulating and reforming the elementary school system and university education, which had formerly been directly linked to the authority of religious or ecclesiastical institutions, knowledge was gradually secularized and made accessible to a [p. 160] wider public. This process of secularizing the elementary school and university education, together with the creation of a standardized examination and qualification system, led to a temporary change in the whole system of knowledge. New institutions, authorized to produce and support science and education, came into being which judged knowledge and education by more modern criteria such as performance and qualification. These new criteria could be demonstrated by way of certificates and licences, and which could be acquired irrespective of the advantage of social class or social origin. In addition to changing economic and political structures, the change from feudalism to the more centralized constitutional state also changed the whole system of the production of knowledge which ultimately leads to a new relation between knowledge and power. As a consequence of the growing importance of the natural, as well as the social sciences, expert knowledge, especially in its materialized form of technology or the machine, developed into an autonomous force of production which was capable of inducing social change.

When one compares the late-nineteenth-century forms of adult education with the contemporary situation, one readily notices that science was much more crucial to adult education then that it is today. Popular education in that period can be described as ‘scientific’ education, not only with regard to the structure of the educational institutions involved, but also with regard to its contents and aims. From this point of view, it is interesting to understand ‘popular education’ in the late nineteenth century in terms of the context of both the authorities which promoted it and the way in which it regarded itself. The key issue addressed in this paper concerns the effects which the import of university extension had upon the already existing forms of popular education in Austria. As in most other European countries, university extension reached its peak in Austria around 1910, but gradually lost its importance in subsequent years. The brief life of this specific institution raises the question as to whether changes can be discovered in the context of the popularization of knowledge and education in this period. Since university extension in Austria did not arise in a vacuum of popular education, it is interesting to investigate whether and in which ways university extension instigated changes in the practice of Volksbildung (popular education), and which forms of [p. 161] knowledge were actually ‘extended’.

One of the major catchwords for early liberal popular education was undoubtedly `knowledge is power’, which found its origin in epistemological claims for a new consolidation of philosophy on a merely empirical basis. This credo functioned as a shibboleth for the rising bourgeoisie as well as for the labour movement in their respective demands for social change towards the industrial age. ‘Knowledge is power’ can be seen as a clear expression of the modernist confidence in the emancipatory effects of knowledge and its socio-political dimension. Furthermore, this phrase emphasized the belief in the objective quality of the kind of knowledge which could assume such a power that is ‘knowledge as power’. One cannot jump to the conclusion that liberal Volksbildung could be identified with workers’ education in this early period. However, it can be argued that the workers’ educational movement was closely associated with ‘knowledge is power’ in the degree to which this slogan was integrated into the political programme of the working-class movement. Wilhelm Liebknecht, for instance, stressed, in his very illuminating ceremonial address on the occasion of the establishment of the workers’ educational association in Dresden in 1872, that the Social Democratic Party is the ‘true party of education’ because it aims at the transformation of the state and society, whereas the ‘parasitic bourgeoisie’ does not do so. As a result of the fact that the ruling élite in an unfree class society has a special interest in maintaining its monopoly of knowledge and power, in keeping knowledge under lock and key, and offering it, if at all, in the alienated version of school training in conformity with the state, the priority was supposed to be the transformation of political circumstances. In the words of Liebknecht,

Freedom through education is the wrong catchword, the catchword of false friends. Our reply is: education through freedom! Only in a free democracy people can acquire education. Only if the people obtain political power by fighting, the door to knowledge will be open. Without power for the people there will be no knowledge! Knowledge is power – power is knowledge!³

In this case the slogan was already embedded in a theory of society, in an [p. 162] explicit political calculation, which, on the one hand, related knowledge to political power, that is to the ruling class, but, on the other hand, operated with a quite idealistic conceptualization of education and knowledge, not suspicious of knowledge itself. lt is worth noting that the labour movement considered the natural sciences in particular as a technical and economic innovative force against the old feudal structures, so to speak as the engine of the successive Entzauberung der Welt, in Weber’s terms, as an objective and neutral tool, which, once applied in the right way by proletarian hands, could grow to a mighty social power. In this way the relation of the labour movement and science, especially in the form of the natural sciences,⁴ always remained an ambivalent one. On the one hand, it was a potential weapon, on the other hand, a productive force, which had to be enforced for the benefit of humankind.

As Liebknecht saw it, people were excluded from the ‘temple of science’ by class interests, and the access to education was blocked by a ‘Chinese wall’, which had to be first dismantled by means of political agitation. Despite this revolutionary rhetoric, the social-democratic labour movement remained aligned with scientistic conceptions as far as its own educational work was concerned, thus interpreting the education of the intellect, in a very classical pattern, as a fight against the body. In this regard the labour movement did not differ markedly from the liberal bourgeoisie, which, as Schorske put it, devoted itself to a late ‘Voltaireism’ by trusting in the feasibility of controlling the body by means of using the intellect, in the long run by trusting in the possibility of social progress achieved with the help of science, education and hard work.⁵ Volksbildung and Arbeiterbildung were closely connected at this early stage and were thus difficult to distinguish.⁶ The less institutionalized liberal popular education of the late nineteenth century, before 1890 as well as afterwards, was less revolutionary and oriented more towards concrete educational questions and reforms. In the specific context of knowledge and power liberal Volksbildung was thus less programmatic but not unpolitical, although the meaning and the relation of these notions were transformed in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

In his almost classic study, Keilhacker discusses this central point in connection with the ‘saturation’ of university extension and the development [p. 163] of Volksbildung in the 1920s by pointing out that the catchword ‘knowledge is power’, although still used by the labour movement, was gradually being discarded.⁷ In his study, Keilhacker fails to analyse his findings, nor does he answer the question as to why the university should be the most competent authority in popular education. lt is generally noticeable that excellent studies, such as those by Siemering, Stern, Keilhacker and, later, Vogel, relate their explanations of the phenomenon Volksbildung to general changes in society, that Volksbildung was an answer to the social question; but they do not discuss the specific question why the popularization of science should be a panacea.

It is not within the scope of this paper to answer all these open questions; rather, it intends to introduce some new questions and possibly some new hypotheses and tentative conclusions.

Changes in science and education in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

As was indicated above, the role and function of science and education fundamentally changed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Foucault makes it perfectly clear that in modern times human beings no longer remained only the subjects of knowledge but also became the objects of possible knowledge as a result of the rise of the humanities.⁸ With the formation of scientific disciplines like medicine, psychiatry, sociology, economics, pedagogics and others, which altered the matrix of disciplines as well as the paradigmas of research,⁹ the human being becomes the centre of research and an object of disciplinary action. On the state level, the process just described was manifest, in the form of ‘modernization from above’, in several reforms by Habsburg neo-absolutism with regard to the administration, economy and law, and the socio-economic innovations which finally led to the turn from feudalism to the centrally administered constitutional state. The rise of the so-called Staatswissenschaften,¹⁰ which in the form of the Kameral- oder Policey-Wissenschaften were supposed to help the consolidation of the ‘power and prosperity of governments’, has to be seen in this context.¹¹ These [p. 164] ‘police-sciences’ made it obvious that the condition of states must be seen as a crucial political resource, especially in the context of military and economic competition. It is not surprising that the first state-controlled or municipal welfare institutions, such as clinics, orphanages and schools, but also prisons, were established about the same time as the term Bildung first emerged in pedagogical discourse. The power-political divide et impera doctrine of Enlightened Absolutism in Austria, which remained valid beyond the subsequent period of Restoration, reads as Alles für das Volk, nichts durch das Volk. However, the emphasis of this doctrine lay on the reproduction of ‘well-behaved and pretty tractable servants’. In the light of the military and political tensions between Prussia and Austria, questions of scientific competitiveness and education of the people, regarded as pure Dressur, were seen as an important governmental resource and as also significant in foreign affairs.¹²

From the Middle Ages onwards, the universities’ main task had been to legitimize the power of the sovereign. However, in the eighteenth century the main task of the universities changed slightly and was extended due to the growing need for qualified civil servants.¹³ In 1784 legal studies had became a precondition for professional entry to the legal system and the administration. From fear of importing revolutionary ideas to the universities, the Austrian authorities were eager to promote only the natural sciences, which were presumed less dangerous, by establishing technical colleges and institutes of technology. Teaching at the university level was thoroughly controlled by the police and the administrative bodies, who investigated the political opinions of the students and professors as well as the prescribed curricula. A proper cordon sanitaire was built around the universities to avoid any infiltration of the ideas of enlightenment, especially the philosophy of Kant and Hegel, but also the notion of Deutschnationalismus or Liberalism.¹⁴ Looked at retrospectively and with the exception of German nationalism, this was extremely successful. In the Vormärz period, university teaching, let alone research, generally remained despotically regulated, censored and therefore completely inefficient despite the commencement of ‘modernization from above’.

The reforms in the wake of the bourgeois revolution of 1848 only yielded slight progress at the secondary-school and at the university level.¹⁵ A new [p. 165] organizational constitution based on the Humboldt University model brought little upgrading of the prestige of professors and resulted in the introduction of the habilitation (venia docendi), so that from that time university lecturers (as Privatdozenten) were allowed to teach at the university. As a result of the active political role of the students during the revolution of 1848 the old university of Vienna was dismantled and converted into barracks. The departments were put under military command and resettled on the outskirts of the city. No longer was the potential enemy a foreign aggressor, but the potentially revolutionary population within the Habsburg state itself. Despite the guaranteed freedom to teach and conduct research, the university, at the beginning of the liberal era in the 1860s, was still dominated by a Catholic-conservative appointments policy as well as by the fact that teaching had to be in accordance with ‘Christian Revelation’. The numerous, partly anonymous, critiques of the university system voiced at that time scrutinized the sclerosis of the old university system, especially with regard to its inefficiency in the face of the dawning imperial age.

Science is an autonomous power in a bourgeois society, as autonomous as art, industry, trade and commerce [...] Prussia owes her mighty influence in the German confederacy to her continuous cultivation of science, France her domination over the ideas of the neighbouring countries, England her lasting power in industry and commerce [...] Austria herself has refrained from using science as a means of power and influence in the first half of the century.¹⁶

Increasingly, the power-political dimension of science and education infiltrated public discussion, pointing to its value in foreign and internal affairs. The ‘increase of her [Austria's] intellectual means and the growth of her cultural elements will also increase her influence abroad; it now nurtures a moral defence against the destructive elements of uncultured radicalism.’¹⁷

Following the university reform of the liberal era in 1872 and the forced industrialization, which resulted in nationalist and social differences, the universities in the Habsburg empire were ascribed the function of ‘intellectual bulwarks’ and were increasingly considered the ‘flagships of the national [p. 166] educational process’.¹⁸ In the time of Stremayr, the German-liberal minister for educational affairs in the period 1871-1880, a German university was established in Czernowitz as the ‘outpost for German Bildung in the east of the monarchy’.¹⁹ Furthermore, the German language became a compulsory subject at all secondary schools of the Danubian monarchy to lay the groundwork for a common commercial and command language.²⁰ Given these responsibilities, even veteran generals were converted to outspoken and enthusiastic advocates for an extensive Volksbildung. Moltke argued, for example, in the German Reichstag in 1878:

The power of Germany is grounded in the equality of her people and this equality cannot be produced by external matters, but it must be generated through the community [orig. Gemeinschaft, C.S.] of the intellectual and moral foundations, that is by Volksbildung.²¹

The significance of knowledge and education was certainly enhanced to a great degree by involving the university in the profit-seeking interest of capitalism, which finally led to the integration of scientific research into the social life. The ‘scientization’ of practical experience went along with science becoming more and more socialized, thus leading to both an increased social impact of science as well as a greater governmental interest in science. From now on, the state was fully involved in acquiring academic professional qualifications as well as in initiating scientific research.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Wissenschaft had become an authority per se. Nonetheless, access for the broader masses to higher education was still denied despite all the reforms. The university remained a pure élite institution, characterized by a highly class-reproductive structure. As statistics show, the socially selective character of the university increased during the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. This is demonstrated in the declining quota of students from the lower strata, although the total number of students in Austria – the cisleithanic half of the Habsburg empire – increased nearly fivefold from 5,646 to 25,941 students between 1851 and 1909.²²

[p. 167] These multi-layered processes of general change in the system of knowledge, the transformation of science into a progressive force exerting pressure on society, also altered the public image of science. Together with the functional conversion of knowledge, science offered a playground for projections of various, politically irredeemable, hopes to the social democratic labour movement as well as to the liberal reform movement.

‘Knowledge is power’ in early liberal popular education

The relation of between knowledge and power in early Volksbildung differed from later periods in several respects. Without going in any detail into the numerous institutions and activities of the early popular education movement between 1870 and 1890,²³ it is useful to point out some structural differences in the context of ‘knowledge and power’. Basically, the term ‘knowledge’, in the German meaning of the word, functioned, from the early popular education initiatives onwards, as an umbrella term referring to both culture and education. But unlike the narrow concept of knowledge in the sense of scientific knowledge, which was introduced later with the ‘academic turn’ of Volksbildung, the older, more idealistic and ‘new-humanist’ notion of knowledge gained its special quality from its links with the notion of truth. In this early stage, knowledge was not considered to be a productive factor to gain power, but rather as a medium through which the state of a minority could be reversed and partly equalized.

Although the logic of the natural sciences, including their objective-empirical method, produced the notion of knowledge used here, the overall concept of knowledge as a way of explaining the Kosmos²⁴ still remained a more philosophical one. Knowledge was understood, for example, in the works of Bernard Bolzano, as an intellectual source leading to enlightenment, a direct counteracting force to superstition, foolishness and ignorance as the ‘origin of all evil’.²⁵ As the ‘light of truth’, knowledge was referred to as the purifying liquid of reason and enlightenment, which, once applied to society, would deliver ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’. In this early phase of liberal popular [p. 168] education, knowledge, understood as judgement, also became an authority expected to be capable of attacking educational monopoly and the basis for the legitimation of the feudal powers. In the more political sense, knowledge was not identified with Hochkultur (high culture), a term which did not itself come into being before the establishment of the Bildungsbürgertum (educated bourgeois élite) at the end of the century, but rather, to the contrary, as a critique of its late feudal equivalent, the authority of aristocracy and clergy. Thus ‘knowledge’ and ‘power’ should be regarded not so much as complementary related factors, but as diametrically opposed elements, whereby knowledge as a counterforce confronts all false authorities by revealing their irrational basis. The catchphrase ‘knowledge is power’ was not as yet interpreted in terms of an empirical-scientific calculation capable of maximizing welfare within society in a ubiquitous way whose exclusive enemy is nature.²⁶ In early liberal Volksbildung, knowledge was neither equated with science, nor, as in the later Marxist-socialist conceptualization, identified with knowledge counter to the ruling discourse, whose contents and methods could be demonstrated. The specific trait of the knowledge incorporated in the early liberal Volksbildung was the claim that it actually was ‘knowledge’ and enlightenment, the reverse of superstition, foolishness and ignorance, and perhaps, even metaphysics.

The innate connection between knowledge and truth is especially transparent in the works of the more politically-oriented educational associations, such as the German-liberal Steiermärkische Volksbildungsverein (Styrian Popular Educational Association), founded in 1870, where the attack on the authority and the educational monopoly of clergy and aristocracy was clearly pronounced. The distinctive feature of this early popular education was its outspoken pro-Protestant anti-clerical, anti-militarist and socially critical defence of the constitution against Catholic-conservative reaction, a tendency towards federalism and a small Germany. A further characteristic of early popular education was that knowledge was not defined in terms of its factual dimension, and this is why it embraced, even if only hypothetically, a more social dimension. In combination with the ‘anti-authoritarian’ character of this knowledge, its comparatively ‘wild’ quality, which was not yet subjected to approval by superior institutional authorities, this social dimension lay perhaps [S. 169] in its perception of the individual moving from illiteracy to literacy, and its confirmation of the possibility of ‘remaking the world’.

The mediating agencies for popular education at this time were not oriented towards an academic type of teaching and their relation to knowledge was not scientific. Their links with the university were, therefore, rather informal and limited to co-operation with a few university professors. The latter only introduced their ‘symbolic capital’ at the university level without any kind of organizational links. With regard to its contents, the knowledge disseminated was not really homogeneous and varied from courses in basic skills, such as reading and writing, to those on regional history or instructions on breeding poultry. The struggle against illiteracy was certainly the prime task of all these educational efforts. Therefore, the social-reforming élan was mainly directed towards improvement of the compulsory school system. Consequently, apart from the financial and material support of local schools, the early liberal popular education paid great attention to the organization of decentralized public libraries. In fact, it can be claimed that the establishment of these public libraries in the struggle against illiteracy was the main concern of early liberal Volksbildung, while libraries specializing in scientific matters were opened, mainly in the urban areas, after the turn of the century, a role that was later played by the already highly developed Volkshochschulen.

The introduction of university extension in Vienna

As already hinted at above, the introduction of the English model of university extension, which was mainly promoted by Ludo Moritz Hartmann,²⁷ led to some changes in educational provision. However, the introduction of extension, which was statutorily established at Vienna University in 1895,²⁸ was not carried out as an extension of the university to reach a wider public, but rather as an extension of already existing educational activities at the university level. In its Austrian variant, university extension, known as volkstümliche Universitätskurse or Universitätsausdehnung, must be viewed as a ‘formation from below’, which enlarged the scope and the opportunities of the Wiener [p. 170] Volksbildungsverein,²⁹ founded in 1887, in the direction of the university level. Only in this way was it possible to extend the already extremely successful concept of the ‘scientific sunday lectures’ and to build a secure basis for them.

While recognizing the truth of Steele’s statement that ‘the special attraction of the English model of university extension for many academics lays in their perception that it had developed the scientific method for a more general social application’,³⁰ the popularization of science and academic education by way of long-term courses under academic supervision had already become part of the programme of the Wiener Volksbildungsverein.³¹ The introduction of extension cannot simply be considered, therefore, as a breach with conventional practises or concepts of educational work. It was a logical development which certainly accelerated the process of ‘scientization’ of Volksbildung towards the eventual ‘academic change’. In this respect one must question Vogel’s argument that university extension in Vienna had introduced through the ‘establishment of courses and of academic teachers, a scientific yardstick to Volksbildung that had been totally unknown before’.³² The more appropriate interpretation would be to suppose that it was the ‘yardstick’ itself, the proportion of the scientific element in popular education, which represented a new quality but was not oriented towards a scientific education as such.

This tendency towards the ‘scientization’ of popular education in the later phases of the early liberal popular education before 1890 would appear, on the one hand, to have been channelled by the efforts of teachers to professionalize their activities. They probably calculated that contact with the university, an improved organizational structure and a more academic basis for educational work would entail some professional advance. On the other hand, young university lecturers in particular had already been working in popular education for some time. Their initiative and persuasive skills finally opened the doors of the university to the popularization of science, while they expected that this would also have an influence upon the deep-rooted élitist tendencies in the university itself.³³ The interest of these academic proponents of university extension in a modernization of the university was best demonstrated by the active role played by men like Lampa,³⁴ Hartmann or Jodl in university affairs, as for instance in the case of the dispute about the reintroduction of [p. 171] tuition fees,³⁵ and in relation to the threatened return of the university to confessional control.³⁶

As can be seen in the first bulletin of the committee for volkstümlichen Universitätsvorträge, it is clear that extension was understood as the systematic deepening and further organizational development of existing popular education, which would not itself have been able embrace the new task because of its financial situation and lack of staff. Apart from transforming the existing single lectures into coherent courses and the organization of evening classes, there had been attempts since 1890 ‘to prepare the ground for university extension by drawing attention to the successful English model’.³⁷ This model was proposed in a petition, prepared by Hartmann, Suess und Reyer, to the academic senate of Vienna University in 1893, which was signed by sixteen university lecturers and thirty-seven professors from all faculties.³⁸ Research is still required on the reasons why this model was finally approved and supported by the Ministry of Education to the tune of 6,000 guilders per year and which was increased to 14,000 guilders in 1897.³⁹ This state subsidy was a clear expression of the government’s interest in scientific education and it the proponents of extension were keen to point out that it was Austria which recognized the importance of university extension in this manner.⁴⁰

Frequent references to the success of the English model of university extension also certainly played a major role, not only because extension was not a German invention, but also because it represented an obviously successful educational innovation. De facto, the introduction of university extension was indeed based upon the well-established English practises. A committee was established for this very purpose, a special syllabus was designed, the labour movement and unions were involved, and an official university extension journal, Wissen für Alle (Knowledge for Everyone), was established in 1901. The similarity with the English model was further evidenced by the statutes of the organization. The first paragraph formulated the general aim of extension in terms of the ‘promotion of scientific education for all of those who were not hitherto able to gain access to academic education’.⁴¹ With few exceptions, only academically trained people could give lectures. The second article referred to the ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ of the courses by ensuring that [p. 172] ‘lectures concerning matters related to contemporary political, religious or political struggles which had the potential to lead to agitation’ should be banned.⁴² On the other hand, however, the statutes prescribed that extension lectures should not be included in the official university prospectus and that the lectures should not be delivered on the campus.

Apart from the state subsidy, these are the first traces of a specific Viennese model which did not actually intend to extend the university by these means. According to Keilhacker, the most important difference between the English model and its German-Austrian variant resided in the fact that while university extension in England led to a systematic extension of the university itself, the Austrian initiatives constituted no more than co-operation between Volksbildung and die university.⁴³ Unlike England, where extension became the engine for the foundation of new university colleges, or even universities, and where it was sometimes possible for suitably qualified participants to graduate from university, the doors of the Austrian university remained closed to the participants of university extension. When the extension committee, with the approval of the Ministry of Education, decided to introduce a trial with terminal examinations in 1900, the ‘unofficial’ character of these exams, which cost one crown and led to a ‘private certificate’⁴⁴ was immediately emphasized. The success of this pilot project was negligible with only four per cent of all participants taking the examination, and among them there was not a single worker.

The impact of university extension on popular education

It is not easy to answer the question as to how far the introduction of university extension in Austria influenced popular education and its approach to ‘knowledge and power’. There can be little doubt that the introduction of extension contributed to the institutionalization of the ‘academic turn’ in Volksbildung, and that it brought about a change in the conception of knowledge by gradually making it more scientific and by altering the structure of popular education. Following the breakdown of the feudal unity of knowledge and property as [p. 173] a consequence of the fundamental changes in the means of production and the relations of production themselves, science and the university developed into important independent authorities. Both the bourgeoisie and the labour movement made use of the widely assumed objectivity of the natural sciences for their own ideological purposes, although in different ways. With reference to the Kulturstaatsgedanke, the bourgeoisie combined the development of natural sciences with the humanistic notion of universal education which was best personified by Goethe.⁴⁵ In this context science and education meant ‘knowledge about the laws of the material and the moral world’.⁴⁶ The labour movement did not regard the rationality of the natural sciences as ‘class-specific’ and found confirmation for its idea of ‘equality’ and the ‘makeability’ of the world. According to the socialist theory of evolution, with its roots in Darwinism, the liberation of science, in the German sense of the word Wissenschaft, was supposed to be the main key for an egalitarian transformation of society.

On the other hand, the bourgeois understanding of culture, with its sources in the Enlightenment, did not serve as a ‘key political concept representing an alternative utopia to bourgeois society’.⁴⁷ It served rather to strengthen its social impact by a revaluation of education and professional performance. By the end of the century, the notion of Bildung (education), especially in the German-speaking countries, became a modern conditio humana, a characteristic trait of the human condition, according to which ‘the animal is an animal through nature; a human being becomes a human being only through education; therefore, an uneducated human being remains an animal.’⁴⁸

The ‘academic turn’ initiated by the Universitätsausdehnung doubtlessly resulted in an enormous step towards professionalization. The quality of the education offered and the qualifications of the people imparting it, from now on mainly academics, were improved. Furthermore, there were improvements in the differentiation and systematization of popular educational activities. In addition to basic courses offered by the Wiener Volksbildungsverein, the courses provided by Universitätsausdehnung now included more advanced studies in the natural sciences and the humanities which were attended by numerous workers.⁴⁹ The embodiment of extension on a university basis [p. 174] initiated the standardization of the educational provision and introduced a distinction between the providing agencies. It also initiated the centralization of popular education which turned Vienna into the centre of popular education in the cisleithanic half of the Habsburg monarchy. Starting from Vienna, university extension spread over the country and was rapidly introduced at the universities of Innsbruck in 1897 and Graz in 1898.

The universities’ claim to play a leading role in popular education was based on the ‘two-class-theory’⁵⁰ of education in the late nineteenth century. According to this theory, the social division between the educated and the uneducated was regarded as the decisive determinant of social stratification. The most prominent task of the academic élite was to bridge the gap between itself and the uneducated masses and thus to secure a social balance between the classes. The university did not hesitate to assume this leadership position since it helped to legitimize and popularize its own social role and function. Hartmann explained this in a distinct way when he said that it was evident ‘to every close observer that Vienna University became popular for the first time when the volkstümliche Universitätskurse were introduced, and is now seen by the majority of the Viennese not as an institution to educate the privileged classes but as a common concern for all the social strata.’⁵¹ In actual fact, the university still remained an exclusive and élitist institution, but extension assumed the task ‘of fostering not only the respect for science in general, but in particular the respect for research and the scientific activities of the universities’.⁵² In a debate in the Austrian House of Representatives, Professor Dr Stanislaus Ritter von Starzynski stressed that ‘as far as the accessibility of science to a wider public and its popularization are concerned, the volkstümliche Universitätsvorträge have proven to be extremely satisfactory at almost all universities.’⁵³

However, the greatest popularizing effect on the universities and on science was certainly the foundation of the Volksheim Ottakring, the first ‘popular university’ in Vienna, founded in 1901, which had gradually developed from the Universitätsausdehnung and which moved into its own building in 1905. This association came into being as a ‘bottom-up’ initiative after several participants in a philosophy course had voiced their interest in more [p. 175] intense scientific studies. Establishment of this popular university can be regarded as the most important organizational outcome of Universitätsausdehnung in Vienna. The altered relations between knowledge and power in the new role of the university within Volksbildung were indicated during the laying of the foundation stone of the Volksheim in December 1904. Surrounded by senior representatives of the university and the government, Ritter von Kink, the president of the Austrian chamber of trade and commerce, concluded his solemn inauguration speech with the almost magic words ‘knowledge is power’ accompanied by some strokes with a hammer.⁵⁴ Besides such illuminating facts, one has to stress that the Volksheim Ottakring very neatly embodied an entirely science-oriented popular education as well as the underlying social-reformist conception of the academic élite.⁵⁵ This popular university, or Volkshochschule as it called itself, reached its peak in the 1920s, and was neither merely an extension of the university nor an agency pursuing scientific popular education in the usual kind.

The peoples’ university was seen not only as an institution on an equal footing with the university, but in a certain way even as an institution one step ahead of the university, as a kind of a shadow university. Due to the greater flexibility of the comparatively unbureaucratic popular university, and the high expectations of this private institution held by its proponents, the popular university was expected to act as the pacemaker for the university, which thereby could profit from the experiences generated by the popularization process. Hartmann expressed this view most clearly by proposing the establishment of state-subsidized Volksprofessoren⁵⁶ (professors for popular education) and claiming that ‘not everyone is suited to be a popular teacher. Generally, the most qualified scientist, the best teacher and the best speaker are probably just good enough for that enormous and difficult task.’⁵⁷ Joseph Luitpold Stern voiced a quite similar message in quoting James Moser, another university lecturer, and stressing it can only be ‘presented in a popular way if it has first been penetrated by the theory of cognition’.⁵⁸ In his opening statement at the first German Volkshochschultag in 1904, Albrecht Penck, a professor of geography, hit the key point in referring to the retroactive effect of the popularization of science on science itself and emphasized that ‘science derives [p.176] great advantages from its popular treatment'.⁵⁹

In this context, the highly developed popular university was skilfully brought into the discussion as a reference for open or implicit criticism of the condition of the universities. Although the Volksheim Ottakring was based upon the model of the university, it differed from the university in terms of its fundamental commitment to the demands of contemporary democracy and by avoiding defects of the university system. The Volksheim Ottakring was ahead of the university in terms of the equality between teachers and learners, the free access to courses, the self-imposed ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ in the educational activities, the open structure of the institution, the integration of disciplines, die high level of the courses, and, last but not least, the improved teaching aids. The educational élite was able to make use of this innovative structure of die Volksheim in two ways. It was used, on the one hand, as the vehicle to bring the need for reform to the university, and, on the other hand, as an argument for more subsidies.

The proponents of popular education continued to stress that the seminars and the laboratory work done at the universities themselves could be seen as an example for the popular university, but at the same they mentioned en passant that the hierarchical tone from the lectern or mere lecturing should be avoided in popular education. According to the general objective of Volksbildung to promote independent and critical thinking, there should be, as in science itself, ‘no trust in the master’s words’.⁶⁰ With special regard to academic teachers, it was emphasized that the popularization of science and education should be protected from any ‘dilettantism in person or subject’.⁶¹ Furthermore, any opportunity was seized upon to call attention to the poor equipment and insufficient accommodation of the universities,⁶² sometimes in the rather roundabout way of referring to the fact that even university students attended courses at the Volksheim Ottakring⁶³ for which the university lacked the necessary conditions.

The theoretical basis of the educational efforts of the progressive academic élite created the ‘theory of class reconciliation’, which assumed that the popularization of science and education could bridge the gap between the social classes. The reconciliation of classes was employed especially as an argument [p. 177] addressed to the public authorities in order to legitimate the work as well as to emphasize the growing need for appropriate funding. This practical use of class reconciliation was only one of the features and was less important than the social applicability of the theory. In the context of the popularization of science and education by the educated, Ernst Mach explicitly mentioned the ‘reduction of social guilt’⁶⁴ towards the lower classes upon whose shoulders the bourgeoisie had achieved its own social position. This undoing of social guilt would, according to Mach, finally be to the advantage of the whole of society.

The ‘common interest’ was usually emphasized and was explicitly interpreted in metaphors of industrial or economic development. University extension, as Mach put it, was not only for the benefit of the people but also for industry, and it is ‘unquestionable that the educated worker is able to manage jobs that are quite different from what the uneducated worker can do’.⁶⁵ The economic importance of thermodynamics, mechanics and electricity would make it ‘necessary to create a whole army of working engineers, who are capable of understanding these laws and are skilled enough to drive the machines’.⁶⁶ Vice versa, the educational work itself was interpreted in industrial terms by comparing, as Hartmann did, the performance of Volksbildung with the concentrated work of the modern large-scale enterprise.⁶⁷

Apart from these references to economic advantage, the socio-political uses of Volksbildung were also stressed. In this case, the ‘reconciliation theory’ presumed that ‘any class arrogance is a sign of lack of education’,⁶⁸ a result of the lack of a capability ‘to look beyond oneself into general matters’.⁶⁹ According to this understanding, only the educated worker could be considered as a ‘good’ worker, not because he or she would have actually risen in society, but because of the domesticating and pacifying effect of education. In Jodl's words:

And what would the upper classes want if they look, with a bit of political understanding, at their position in the State where universal suffrage reigns; might they want nothing else than this kind of worker that I have just described? Is there any other way to find not only the remedy for one class, but for the sake of the [p. 178] whole of society?⁷⁰

Emil Reich also thought that Volksbildung, without directly intending to bridge the political and economic gap between classes, had a harmonizing effect when he spoke of the ‘Lord's peace of mutual respect in our Volkshochschulen’.⁷¹

All these statements depict more or less clearly the altered role of ‘knowledge’ and ‘power’ with regard to an entirely scientized popular education. The increase of the ‘factual dimension’ of the knowledge disseminated, and the expression of the general transformation of knowledge into science, also increased the subjective attractiveness of knowledge, but to some extent decreased its ‘social dimension’. The educated worker could of course develop into a more efficient worker, able to be utilized in the factory in multiple ways, but he or she still ultimately remained a worker. Although knowledge for everyone, as offered by the volkstümliche Universitätskurse and the Volksheim Ottakring, was primarily a matter of scientific knowledge and was also disseminated by the academics in an almost exclusively academic way, the Austrian university itself – unlike in England – remained closed to the participants in popular education. As Max Scheler stressed in the mid-1920s, the Volkshochschule should ‘in no case develop into a means of social advancement’.⁷² To the contrary, it should be the task of the Volkshochschule to take away the burden carried by the university ‘by opening its gates even wider than it has already done’.⁷³

At first sight one might regard this as a paradox. The more knowledge was secularized at the turn of the century by the establishment of the modern disciplines, the more popular education – especially after its ‘academic turn’ – reduced the ‘social dimension’ to the quality of independent reasoning. The ‘aggressive’ undertone, which to a certain extent had accompanied the relation of the early liberal Volksbildung to knowledge and power and which was directed against the authority of the clergy and the nobility, was replaced by an emphasis on the ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ of educational work. In this respect the scientization of popular education corresponded to the transformed role of science and university in both state and society.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the process of canonizing the [p. 179] rationality of Enlightenment in the form of new disciplines resulted in tying knowledge and education to the authority of the reformed universities. The acquisition of knowledge and education assumed a selective and regulative character through its respective exclusive rituals, such as examinations and licences, thereby establishing a modern form of ‘sacred’ knowledge. With the growing importance of the natural sciences at the universities, ‘knowledge’ was not regarded in public discourse as a counter to property and government control, but rather as a logical and empirical method to rule nature. Knowledge itself had turned into property and power in the form of technology and university education. Not ‘knowledge’ as such, but its acquisition, regulated by bureaucracy and controlled by the state, entailed social power and sometimes also led to property. According to Engelbrecht,

Holding an academic degree and thus an academic title represented a status symbol, and scientific work was the key to enter the circles of the bourgeois owning industry and property. The bourgeois with knowledge were proud to have risen far in a strictly hierarchic society without having access to property or inherited privileges.⁷⁴

This new relationship between ‘knowledge’ and ‘power’ that emerged at the fin de siècle was manifest in the fact that the Emperor himself honoured prominent scientists ‘by inviting them to sit in the Upper Chamber or by bestowing the title of nobility on them’.⁷⁵ When the educational bourgeoisie rose to become the cultural power and introduced various ‘theories of half-education’, mere ‘knowledge’, seen as universal education or factual knowledge, no longer equalled its social influence upon the individual. Nevertheless, the reformist movement, concerned with popular education as well as the social-democratic workers’ movement, projected their hopes on to science and scientific education, expecting thus to resolve social problems in a peaceful way.⁷⁶

One cannot ignore the role and the importance of Marxist-socialist theory, which regarded itself as ‘science’ and as an extension to science. Although the rhetoric of this social theory was explicitly built upon truth and counter-power, [p. 180] the theory still derived its own authority from the objectivity of empirical models of the sciences and hence the university. lt did not attack science as such, but the political system that controlled the access to science and made its results available only to the minority of the people. Knowledge and education did not represent the primary counter-power, this was found in organizing collective interests on a political level. Without any doubt, the academic leaders of the labour movement mostly agreed with the proponents of popular education who claimed that a general education of workers, that is their capability to make use of their intellect, could be of use. Although the workers largely participated in popular education for their professional development, it might not only be useful, but it could also develop a certain explosive power.⁷⁷

Conclusion

The most important impact of university extension on popular education in Vienna can only be depicted in very abstract terms. Involving the university in the concerns of popular education by extending the activities to the alma mater helped to raise the level of popular education as well as its importance in society. Through these links with the university the existence of popular education could be secured. On the other hand, the university profited as well, since the leadership role in questions of popular education was assumed by the university. Moreover, the university was able to strengthen its own position and its function in society through the popularization of ‘science’. In this context, ‘scientized’ popular education functioned in a very subtle way as a platform for reformist interests vis à vis the university.

After the establishment of the Volksheim Ottakring in particular, which was a direct ‘extension’ of university extension and the first popular university in Austria, popular education embraced disciplines not as yet recognized at the universities, such as experimental psychology and, to a certain extent, sociological studies. This popular educational institution also created an excellent model for the democratic mediation of knowledge by building well-equipped [p. 181] laboratories which ensured an egalitarian process of teaching and learning. By the beginning of the twentieth century knowledge, in the form of science, had become a power in itself in so far as its standardized production and the ritualized manner of acquiring it were concerned. In this way mere knowledge, when not purified by state-controlled examinations, lost more and more its social dimension.

In persisting with the principles of ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’, which had been created with university extension, popular education managed to ensure its own survival and its pedagogic success, although the knowledge offered did not directly result in social improvement. While popular education in Germany increasingly followed the tendency towards educating the personality, popular education in Vienna maintained the ‘Austrian direction’ of ‘educating people only intellectually while claiming that it was not important how people practise their ideas later’.⁷⁸

In conclusion, it can be said that the importance of the effects of the spread of science and education inaugurated by university extension cannot be over-emphasized from a democratic point of view. Despite some domesticating effects, the ‘scientization’ of adult education, which for the first time in history provided scientific education for the broader masses, can be considered as one of the major features brought to Volksbildung by university extension. In a general way this conclusion is also supported by Steele,

In this and many other ways extension has to been seen as part of the process in Europe of modernizing social life to take into account the demands for universal suffrage, modern technology and the introduction of an integrated welfare system, the site of complex negotiations between the intellectuals and ‘the people’ for the New Life. Unfortunately the New Life was never delivered in full.⁷⁹

[p. 182] Notes and References

¹ Karl Marx, Aus der Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie, Kritik des Hegelschen Staatsrechts (1261-1313), in Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels. Werke (MEW), Vol. 1 (Berlin, Dietz Verlag, 1961), 253.
² Friedrich Nietzsche, Weisheit für Übermorgen. Unterstreichungen aus dem Nachlaß (1869-1889) (München, dtv, 1994), 38-39.
³ Wilhelm Liebknecht, Wissen ist Macht – Macht ist Wissen, Festrede gehalten zum Stiftungsfest des Dresdner Bildungs-Vereines, 5. Februar 1872, 7.
⁴ Kurt Bayertz, Naturwissenschaft und Sozialismus: Tendenzen der Naturwissenschafts-Rezeption in der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung des 19. Jahrhunderts, Social Studies of Science, Vol. 13, 1983), 355-394.
⁵ Carl E. Schorske, Wien. Geist und Gesellschaft im Fin de Siècle (München-Zürich, Piper, 1994), 6.
⁶ Josef Weidenholzer, Bildungs- und Kulturarbeit der österreichischen Sozialdemokratie in der Ersten Republik (Diss., University of Vienna, 1977), 48.
⁷ Martin Keilhacker, Das Universitäts-Ausdehnungs-Problem in Deutschland und Deutsch-Österreich, dargestellt aufgrund der bisherigen Entwicklung (Stuttgart, Verlag Silberburg, 1929), 116.
⁸ Michel Foucault, Die Ordnung des Wissens (Frankfurt a. Main, Suhrkamp, 1974), 373.
⁹ Reinhold Knoll and Helmut Kohlenberger, Gesellschaftstheorien. Ihre Entwicklungsgeschichte als Krisenmanagement in Österreich 1850-1938 (Vienna, Turia & Kant, 1994), 76.[p. 183]
¹⁰ Wolfgang Pircher, Die Idee der modernen Gesellschaftswissenschaften als universitäres Lehrfach, in Projektgruppe Kritische Universitätsgeschichte (Ed.), Vernunft als Institution? Geschichte und Zukunft der Universität (Vienna, Edition ÖH, 1986), 55.
¹¹ Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi, Die Grundfeste zu der Macht- und Glückseeligkeit der Staaten oder ausführliche Vorstellung der gesamten Policey-Wissenschaft (1760), quoted by Georg Bollenbeck, Bildung und Kultur. Glanz und Elend eines deutschen Deutungsmusters (Frankfurt a. Main-Leipzig, Insel, 1994), 63.
¹² Grete Klingenstein, Universitätsfragen in der österreichischen Monarchie um 1800, in Richard Georg Plaschka und Karlheinz Mack (Eds), Wegenetz europäischen Geistes. Universitäten und Studenten. Die Bedeutung studentischer Migrationen in Mittel- und Südosteuropa vom 18. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, Vol. II (Vienna, Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1987), 80-87.
¹³ Susanne Pregglau-Hämmerle, Die politische und soziale Funktion der Österreichischen Universität – Historische Analyse und aktuelle Diskussion, Vol. I (Dissertation, University of Vienna, 1984), 102.
¹⁴ Ibid., 109.
¹⁵ Waltraud Heindl, Universitätsreform – Gesellschaftsreform. Bemerkungen zum Plan eines Universitätsorganisationsgesetzes in den Jahren 1854/55, Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs (Vienna, 35, 1985), 138.
¹⁶ Die Universitätsfrage in Österreich. Beleuchtet vom Standpunkte der Lehr- und Lernfreiheit [Sonderdruck aus dem Wiener Lloyd] (Vienna, Verlag Carl Gerold & Sohn, 1853), 12.
¹⁷ Ibid., 16.[p. 184]
¹⁸ Richard Georg Plaschka, Universität 1884 – Neues Haus mit neuen Weichenstellungen. Die Universität Wien in den Herausforderungen der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, in Günther Hamann, Kurt Mühlberger & Franz Skacel (Eds), 100 Jahre Universität am Ring. Wissenschaft und Forschung an der Universität Wien seit 1884 (Vienna, Universitätsverlag, 1986), 18.
¹⁹ Robert Kann, Hochschule und Politik im österreichischen Verfassungsstaat (1867-1918), in Gerhard Botz, Hans Hautmann & Helmut Konrad (Eds), Geschichte und Gesellschaft. Festschrift für Karl R. Stadler zum 60. Geburtstag (Vienna, Europaverlag, 1974), 519.
²⁰ Pregglau-Hämmerle (1984), op. cit., 179.
²¹ Leicht, H., Gasse, H., & Schacht, R. (Eds), Die neue Volkshochschule. Bibliothek für moderne Geistesbildung, Vol. 1, Grundlagen der Kultur (Vienna, Verlag Hutter, 1890), 12.
²² At Vienna University the total number of students in the same period increased by 311% from 2733 to 8502. See: Gary B. Cohen, Die Studenten der Wiener Universität von 1860 bis 1900. Ein soziales und geographisches Profil, in Richard Georg Plaschka & Karlheinz Mack, (1987), Vol. I, op. cit., 291.
²³ In 1877, 285 educational and reading societies existed in the cisleithanic half of the Habsburg monarchy, which included both liberal educational associations and associations of the labour movement and the unions. See: Ilse Pusch, Über die politischen und weltanschaulichen Strömungen des Wiener Volksbildungswesens von den Anfangen bis 1914 (Dissertation, University of Vienna, 1943), 140.
²⁴ Named after the popular ‘Kosmos lectures’ by Humboldt. See: Jürgen Hamel (Ed.), Humboldt über das Universum. Alexander von Humboldt, Die Kosmosvorträge 1827/28 in der Berliner Singakademie (Frankfurt a. Main-Leipzig, Insel Verlag, 1993), 31ff.[p. 185]
²⁵ Bernard Bolzano, Rede vom 3. Sonntag nach Ostern des Jahres 1817, in Dr. Bolzanos Erbauungsreden an die akademische Jugend, Vol. I (Prague, 1849), quoted here following Hans Altenhuber & Aladar Pfniß (Eds), Bildung – Freiheit – Fortschritt. Gedanken österreichischer Volksbildner (Vienna, Verband Österreichischer Volkshochschulen, 1965), 12.
²⁶ Bollenbeck (1994), op. cit., 45.
²⁷ Keilhacker (1929), op. cit., 30.
²⁸ Hans Altenhuber, Die Wiener Universitätsausdehnung um 1900 – ein neues Modell der Volksbildung, Erziehung und Unterricht. Österreichische Pädagogische Zeitschrift, 3 (1987), 164.
²⁹ Roswitha Kahl, Der Wiener Volksbildungsverein von 1887 bis 1938 (Dissertation, University of Vienna, 1978), 4.
³⁰ Tom Steele, A Science of Democracy: an outline of the development of university extension in Europe, 1890-1920, in Barry J. Hake & Stuart Marriott (Eds), Adult Education between Cultures. Encounters and identities in European adult education since 1890 (University of Leeds, Studies in Continuing Education. Cross-Cultural Studies in the Education of Adults, No. 2, 1992), 81.
³¹ Kahl (1978), op. cit., 86-106.
³² Martin Vogel, Volksbildung im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Theorie- und Institutionengeschichte (Stuttgart, Klett Verlag, 1959), 56.
³³ See: Keilhacker (1929), op. cit., 30. Between 1887 and 1893 the Wiener Volksbildungsverein organized 983 so-called Sunday lectures of which 217 were given by university lecturers. See: Schultze, E., Die Volks[S. 186]bildung ausländischer Universitäten, Voßische Zeitung (1896), quoted in Wolfgang Krüger, (Ed.), Wissenschaft, Hochschule und Erwachsenenbildung (Braunschweig, Westermann, 1982), 59.
³⁴ The experimental physician and former student of Ernst Mach, himself an engaged supporter of popular education, Anton Lampa supported the call of Albert Einstein to the University of Prague in 1911. See: Gerald Holten, Thematische Analyse der Wissenschaft. Die Physik Einsteins und seiner Zeit (Frankfurt a. Main, Suhrkamp, 1981), 214.
³⁵ Hartmann, for instance, initiated a vigorous press campaign in 1903, in response to an unanswered memorandum from the philosophy faculty dealing with the re-introduction of Kollegiengelder (lecture fees) – which had been abolished in 1898, in which he reproached the ‘insufficient shape of the institutes and clinics in Vienna' and warned of the ‘wrecking of Austrian Universities’. See: Höflechner, W., Zum Einfluß des deutschen Hochschulwesens auf Österreich in den Jahren 1875-1914, in Verband österreichischer Geschichtsvereine (Ed.), Bericht über den 18. österreichischen Historikertag in Linz 1990 (Veröffentlichung des Verbands Österreichischer Geschichtsvereine, Vol. 27, (Vienna, VÖG, 1991), 280.
³⁶ Friedrich Jodl, Der Klerikalismus und die Universitäten, in Pauö Molisch (Ed.), Der österreichische Hochschulkampf im Sommer 1908 (Innsbruck, 1908), 5-20.
³⁷ Die volksthümlichen Universitäts-Curse in Wien (1885 bis 1898). Bericht, erstattet vom Ausschusse für volksthümliche Universitätsvorträge der k. k. Universität Wien (Vienna, 1900), 2.
³⁸ Keilhacker (1929), op. cit., 30.[p. 187]
³⁹ Joseph Loos, (Ed.), Enzyklopädisches Handbuch der Erziehungskunde. Unter Mitwirkung von Gelehrten und Schulmännern, Vol. II [M-Z], (Wien-Leipzig, Verlag von A. Pichlers Witwe & Sohn, 1911), 743.
⁴⁰ Emil Reich, Volkstümliche Universitätsbewegung (Bern, Verlag von Steiger & Cie, 1897), 23.
⁴¹ Erlaß des Ministers für k. u. k. U. vom 14. Oktober 1895, Z. 24.273, an das Rektorat der Universität Wien (betreffend die Genehmigung des Statutes für die Einrichtung volkstümlicher Universitätsvorträge durch die Wiener Universität), in Leo Ritter Beck von Mannagetta & Carl von Kelle (Eds), Die österreichischen Universitätsgesetze. Sammlung der für die österreichischen Universitäten gültigen Gesetze, Verordnungen, Erlasse, Studien- und Prüfungsordnungen usw. im Auftrage des k. k. Ministeriums für Kultus und Unterricht (Vienna, Verlag Manz, 1906), 1017.
⁴² Idem.
⁴³ Keilhacker (1929), op. cit., 16.
⁴⁴ Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen, 11/12, (1900/0l), 1.
⁴⁵ Friedrich Jodl, Was heißt Bildung. Vortrag, gehalten anläßlich der Eröffnung des vom Wiener Volksbildungsverein erbauten Volksbildungshauses, in Altenhuber and Pfniß (1965), op. cit., 81.
⁴⁶ Marcellin Berthelot, Wissenschaft und Volksbildung, in Das Wissen für Alle. Volksthümliche Vorträge und populär wissenschaftliche Rundschau, 1 (1900), 1.
⁴⁷ Bollenbeck (1994), op. cit., 77.
⁴⁸ Jodl (1965), op. cit., 77.[p. 188]
⁴⁹ The total number of participants between 1895 and 1898 was 20.660, of whom 31,3 per cent were workers. See: Die volksthümlichen Universitäts-Curse in Wien (1885 bis 1898), op. cit., 9-13.
⁵⁰ Pregglau-Hämmerle (1984), op, cit., 238.
⁵¹ Ludo Moritz Hartmann, Das Volkshochschulwesen, in Dürer-Bund. 66. Flugschriften zur Ausdruckskultur (München, 1910), reprinted in Altenhuber and Pfniß (1965), op. cit., 127.
⁵² Ibid.
⁵³ Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen, 9/10, (1902), 130.
⁵⁴ Kahl (1978), op. cit., 133.
⁵⁵ Wilhelm Filla, Universität und Volkshochschule in der Ersten Republik (1918-1938), in Verein zur Geschichte der Volkshochschulen (Ed.), Bericht der 10. Konferenz – Schloß Münchenwiler bei Murten in der Schweiz 16. bis 20. Oktober 1990 – Volkshochschule und Universität vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Arbeitskreis zur Aufarbeitung historischer Quellen in der Erwachsenenbildung, Vol. 10 (Bonn-Frankfurt a. Main-Vienna, 1991), 115.
⁵⁶ Hartmann (1910), op. cit., 130.
⁵⁷ Ibid., 117.
⁵⁸ Joseph Luitpold Stern, Wiener Volksbildungswesen (Jena, Eugen Diedrichs, 1910), 46.
⁵⁹ Ibid.[p. 189]
⁶⁰ Hartmann in his opening statement at the constitutional assembly of the Volksheim Ottakring, quoted Emil Reich, 25 Jahre Volksheim. Eine Wiener Volkshochschulchronik (Vienna, 1926), 7.
⁶¹ Ludo Moritz Hartmann, Demokratie und Volksbildung, in Volksbildung. Monatsschrift für die Forderung des Volksbildungswesens in Deutsch-Österreich 1, (1920), quoted in Altenhuber and Pfniß (1965), op. cit.
⁶² Anton Lampa, Über Anlage und Nutzen einer physikalischen Sammlung für die Zwecke der volkstümlichen Universitätskurse, Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen, 1/2, (1900), 23.
⁶³ Ernst Mach, 30 May 1902, on the occasion of a budget debate in the House of Representatives, when he argued for an increase in the state subsidy. See: Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen, 9/10 (1902), 131.
⁶⁴ Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen, 6 (1900/1901), 90.
⁶⁵ Mach, Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen, 9/10 (1902), 131.
⁶⁶ Berthelot, Wissenschaft und Volksbildung, in Das Wissen für Alle. Volksthümliche Vorträge und populär wissenschaftliche Rundschau, 1 (1900),2.
⁶⁷ Hartmann, Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen, 6 (1901), 91.
⁶⁸ Jodl (1909), op. cit., 82.
⁶⁹ Ibid.
⁷⁰ Ibid., 84.
⁷¹ Reich (1926), op. cit., 5.[p. 190]
⁷² Max Scheler, Universität und Volkshochschule, in Leopold von Wiese (Ed.), Soziologie des Volksbildungswesens (München-Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1921), 181.
⁷³ Ibid.
⁷⁴ Helmut Engelbrecht, Geschichte des österreichischen Bildungswesens. Erziehung und Unterricht auf dem Boden Österreichs. Vol. 4: Von 1848 bis zum Ende der Monarchie (Vienna, Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1986), 24.
⁷⁵ Ibid., 241.
⁷⁶ See: Stuart Marriott, The Popular Universities in Europe, 1890 to 1920: what was being popularized?, in Barry J. Hake & Stuart Marriott (Eds), Adult Education between Cultures. Encounters and identities in European adult education since 1890 (University of Leeds, Studies in Continuing Education. Cross-Cultural Studies in the Education of Adults, No. 2, 1992), 81.
⁷⁷ See: Hertha Siemering, Arbeiterbildungswesen in Wien und Berlin. Eine kritische Untersuchung (Karlsruhe i. B., Braunsche Hofdruckerei, 1911), 32.
⁷⁸ Emil Reich, (Ko-Referat), Bericht über die Verhandlungen der Tagung von Hochschullehrern zur Beratung über volksthümliche Volkshochschulvortäge im deutschen Sprachgebiete. Zweiter Deutscher Volkshochschultag, (Berlin, 1906), 82.
⁷⁹ Steele (1992), op, cit., 83.

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