Luisenschule (Posen)
[citation needed] There were a few private schooling establishments for girls, operational in Posen in the early 19th century; some offered advanced curriculum but proved short-lived,[1] while the others did not meet expectations of the local landed gentry and the growing urban bourgeoisie.
[10] Theoretically the school was opened only to Christians and offered both Protestant and Catholic religious instruction;[11] the headmaster was a Lutheran minister, Johan Gottlob Friedrich.
[16] It was again the princess who approached the new duke-governor, Eduard von Flotwell, and made sure that premises taken over from the freshly secularized Benedictine order were granted to the foundation;[17] in 1836 Luisenschule moved into the Gorka-Palace at Wasserstrasse, at that time at another corner of the Market Square.
Though technically the school remained private, the change effectively turned it into a joint, private-public establishment;[21] from this moment onwards the decision-making process was taking place in-between Barth, the foundation[22] and the provincial authorities.
[23] The hybrid nature was somewhat reinforced when in 1841 Luisenschule opened training courses for future teachers, heavily subsidized by the province[24] and later to be named Lehrerinnen-Seminar.
[27] In the mid-1840s the Poles-dominated Provinzialstände, local self-government bodies, asked that a Catholic school for girls be set up in Posen;[28] the petition is currently seen as intended to emulate an apparently successful formula of Luisenschule, though also indicative of some anxiety about its increasingly Protestant and German nature.
[33] Barth and some of the staff remained heavily engaged in counter-revolutionary politics, which prompted admonition on part of the schooling board chairman, Wendt.
[46] Renewed numerus clausus for Jews and Polish discomfort with the school's profile reduced the number of students; in the mid-1850s hovering around 200, by the end of the decade it went even below 100.
[48] The factor which contributed decisively to the Luisenschule crisis was opening of two new schools for girls, set up by the Sacred Heart and Ursuline orders in the late 1850s.
[49] The conventional schools proved tough competitors, as they offered a new, modern curriculum; e.g. it included English, the subject which Barth unsuccessfully tried to introduce later on.
They were aggravated by social and economic change; the urban centre of gravity moved away from the old town and renting premises at the Gorka-Palace, the source of not marginal income for the Luisenstiftung, was no longer lucrative.
Last but not least, Barth waged a guerilla war against the foundation board, working to transfer most of the decision making process to the headmaster's office.
This is not what Barth was aiming for; his objective was obtaining official financial backing with the school governance system possibly unchanged, the latter ensuring his personal rule in Luisenschule.
[58] Official takeover initially did not work to Luisenschule's advantage and its prestige declined; the seminar was reduced to a standard Volksschulseminar and the school turned into its Übungsschule.
Luisenschule seemed left far behind the conventional schools, especially behind the Ursuline one; the latter boasted of larger and better qualified staff, including a number of native French and English teachers, and attracted far more students.
Remnants of the Luisian multi-cultural tradition were ultimately dropped in 1888, the last year when Polish was taught;[70] Luisenschule was supposed to educate patriotic Prussian and German women.
Moreover, present-day historians note that at the turn of the centuries it remained somewhat unorthodox compared to standard Prussian female schools, acknowledged in particular for high level of teaching music, arts and physical exercises.
[78] In terms of social composition Luisenschule remained an institution of "höhere Töchter", girls mostly from higher and mid-range bourgeoisie; they were daughters of officials, merchants, etc.
The category "Höhere Mädchenschule" was reserved for schools meeting fairly high criteria related to staff and curriculum; Luisenschule was one of the few in the city which met them.
[82] Polish private establishments, some of them with long tradition, e.g. those ran by the Danysz sisters, Antonina Estkowska and Anastazja Warnka, were categorized in the lower rank of "Gehobene Mädchenschule".
[83] During the first decades of the 20th century Luisenschule was culturally entirely German; it formed part of the Prussian education system and worked to meet its political objectives.
[89] In December 1918 the Prussian administrative structures in Posen collapsed and political power was claimed by the freshly emergent local Polish body, Naczelna Rada Ludowa.
It seems that at this stage the Poles did not have a specific plan for the school; for the time being their intention was to ensure continuity of teaching and to remove the German political flavor.
Particular care was taken to emphasize Polish patriotic threads, links with the local Wielkopolska region and resistance to German pressure; eventually the school was named after a medieval princess Dąbrówka.
Apart from the building,[104] both establishments shared the female profile, teachers’ training courses and some students, who commenced education in Luisenschule but completed it in Uczelnia Dąbrówki.
Exact motives are not clear; it seems that managing board of the young establishment intended to bask in prestige of a hundred-year-old institution, as in 1930 it celebrated the centenary of birth.
[107] Unlike some other Poznań colleges, also hosted in premises inherited from Prussian schools,[108] after World War II the reborn Liceum Dąbrówki keeps claiming Luisian heritage and poses as an establishment set up in 1830; this is the reading advanced on its official web page[109] and in numerous commemorative publications.
[113] Gorka Palace, which for 43 years (1836-1880) served as Luisenschule premises, was damaged during the battle of Poznań but brought back to former shape; currently it accommodates the Archeological Museum.
