Humboldt's Ideal

Humboldt's ideal of education refers to the holistic education of the arts in conjunction with the respective study direction. This ideal goes back to Wilhelm von Humboldt, who in the time of the Prussian reforms relied on a growing educated middle-class and thereby promoted the claim on general education. Today, the term often refers to the central idea of the unity of research and teaching at universities and various other institutes of higher education (in contrast to pure teaching professorships without research obligation).

Humboldt, as head of the ministry of culture and public education in the Prussian Interior Ministry, incorporated this ideal into educational reforms. In the actual policy it did not extend to the Prussian elementary schools, which also came under the section next to the universities. Occasionally it is therefore alternatively referred to as Humboldt's university ideal.

Humboldt's educational ideal developed around two central concepts of public education: The concept of the autonomous individual and the concept of world citizenship. The university should be a place where autonomous individuals and World Citizen are produced at or more specifically, produce themselves.

Academic freedom describes independence of the university from outside governmental and economic constraints. The university is to evade government influence. Humboldt demands that the scientific institution of higher education should loose itself "from all forms within the state". Therefore, his concept of university planned, for example, that the University of Berlin should have its own goods in order to finance itself and thereby secure its economic independence. Academic freedom also demands, next to independence of the university from outside governmental and economic constraints, the independence from within; i.e. free choice of study and free organization of studies. The University should therefore be a place of permanent public exchange between all involved in the scientific process. The integration of their knowledge shall be pursued with the help of philosophy. Philosophy is supposed to represent a kind of basic science, which allows members of different scientific disciplines to bring an exchange of their discovery and to link them together. Humboldt's educational ideal formed German University History decisively for a long period, albeit it was never realized practically in its entirety or cannot be realized. Great intellectual achievements of German science is linked to it.

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