The Neresheim school regulations

"... the education of the country people is very inadequate. Everything is left to the people themselves, the schoolmaster and the parish priest. Everyone sends his children to school whenever and however he chooses. Every schoolmaster teaches what he himself has been taught and how. This is so bad that even in the most respectable villages very few can read the printed word in a decent manner... “ Following this inventory, the Abbey of Neresheim issued its first school regulations in 1721 under Abbot Amandus Fischer, which counteracted the worst conditions of mere learning off by heart with regular painful punishment.

In 1769, the publishing house of the imperial monastery of Neresheim published an "Instruction for the Schoolmaster", which attracted attention throughout the German-speaking world as a "quite extraordinary phenomenon". This is followed by several editions of a "Lehrbüchlein für die Neresheimischen Landschulen" (Textbook for the Neresheim Rural Schools), and the "Reichsstift-Neresheimische Schulordnung” (Imperial Abbey of Neresheim School Regulations) in 1790. The authors were the conventuals P. Karl Nack and P. Beda Pracher, directors and visitators of the Neresheim school system.

"These school rules do true honour to the imperial monastery of Neresheim". This is the verdict of Friedrich Nicolai, Berlin (1733-1811), reformer of the German school system.

At the request of the Abbot of St. Gallen, P. Beda Pracher presented the Neresheim teaching method for introduction in Switzerland in 1783. In 1784, Father Beda Pracher was commissioned by Duke Karl Eugen to introduce his school regulations to the Catholic schools in Württemberg. The Neresheim educational reform set an example and provided the impetus for the future orientation of elementary schools and the introduction of compulsory state education.

Lyceum Carolinum

In 1802, the imperial monastery of Neresheim fell to the House of Thurn and Taxis as a result of secularisation. Prince Carl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis abolished the monastery, but allowed its school institutions to exist and continue in view of their importance and reform achievements.

On 1 November 1803, the "Lyceum" educational institute named after him is founded..

On 1 November 1803, the educational and teaching institute named after him, the "Lyceum Carolinum", is opened. Conventuals from the abbey, who had already been teaching, were employed as professors. In the Benedictine tradition, they continue to focus on a combination of humanistic and realistic education.

Two events put an end to the hopeful continuation of their scholastic work: the death of the prince in 1805 and the mediatisation of Neresheim on 1 November 1806. After only three years of existence, the Lyceum Carolinum had to close. The "pedagogical century", the epoch of enlightenment, scholarship and scholastic development, finally came to an end in Neresheim on the Ulrichsberg.

 

The teaching materials of the Lyceum Carolinum

The introduction of the Neresheim normal school system had become a model for the whole of Württemberg. In the area of the imperial monastery and the region, the monastery seminary had played a decisive role in the education and further training of an accomplished new generation of craftsmen. It had also fostered talents who, thanks to the knowledge they had acquired, held responsible positions in spiritual, scientific and administrative services in southern Germany and neighbouring countries.

The achievements and reputation of the Neresheim seminary persuaded Prince Carl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis, the new lord of the house, to continue the teaching activities of the monastery even after its secularisation. The seminary was renamed “Lyceum Carolinum”.

The school was now supervised by the princely government in Regensburg. The school was run by thirteen professors - who, without exception, were members of the former imperial foundation. Three educational goals distinguished the subject matter: "What is for those who are destined for the bourgeois trades, for those who are destined for the teaching profession and for those who are destined for the scholarly profession".

In the first category, agriculture, civil architecture, practical arithmetic and geometry were taught. For the second, the art of education, methodology and the duties of the future office, the laws and ordinances for the princely schools, formed the programme. The curriculum in the third

grouping included Latin and Greek, the reading of the classics, poetics, rhetoric and aesthetics, as well as philosophy, elementary mathematics and physics.

 

Seven lecture halls, the rich library and the so-called Armarium, a natural history cabinet with diverse collections and instruments, whose furnishing was begun as early as the 16th century, were available for teaching. The oldest exhibits among the preserved teaching materials probably belong to the time when the Armarium was built, so that their origin can only be documented in isolated cases, which in no way diminishes their historical significance and quality.

Initially, some of the equipment seems to have been the result of lively contact and exchange with teaching conventuals from other Benedictine monasteries, who were also increasingly turning to the natural sciences. Subsequently, individual pieces of equipment were purchased specifically for teaching purposes or their production was even commissioned.

The Lyceum Carolinum's teaching materials, which have survived the changing use of the monastery buildings to the present day, can be divided into six groups: architectural models, machine models, miliary instruments, electrical devices, sundials and telescopes, measuring and drawing instruments. The number of architectural and machine models suggests that the practice-oriented promotion of young people "to the bourgeois trades" was always the main focus until the cessation of teaching.

Architectural models

How can a bridge be built over a stream bed with simple means, how can the roof truss of a residential house, a granary be erected? Both under ecclesiastical and princely sovereignty, there was always intensive building activity. The need for knowledgeable carpenters and master builders was correspondingly great, so that a well-founded education and further training in this profession paid off in the interest of the country's own development.

Machine models

Iron ore was mined in the Swabian Alb. Along the courses of the Kocher, Brenz and Fils rivers, hammer mills, scythe and nail forges worked alongside grain, oil, powder, and paper mills. They all needed manufacturing equipment: Water wheels and their power transmission, grinding, tamping, and vibrating mills. The functional understanding for the development and construction of these first machines was part of the requisite know-how of a new generation of craftsmen and engineers, taught with the help of illustrative functional models.

Militaria

Civil and military engineering were still undifferentiated in the 18th century. The professional career of Balthasar Neumann, the architect of the abbey church, exemplifies this duplicity. After an apprenticeship as a piece caster (gun and bell casting), studies of field metrology, geometry, architecture, and fortress construction, Neumann was appointed colonel of the Franconian district artillery. At the same time, he was the director of both civil and ecclesiastical as well as military construction for the high dioceses of Würzburg and Bamberg. With the goal of imparting certain basic knowledge of military technology and logistics, ballistics and fortress construction to the students in accordance with this vocational image of the time, the monastery seminary acquired "all kinds of war and field equipment" in model form from the nearby imperial city and fortress of Ulm, already as early as the middle of the 18th century.

Electrical devices

How could one imagine something that was neither solid nor liquid, nor gaseous, had no weight, occupied no space and yet was one of the components of nature? Electricity was probably the most fascinating discovery of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Francis Hawkesbee, an English natural scientist, had invented a machine for generating frictional electricity in 1709. In 1745, the Dutch mathematician, Mussenbroek, developed the "Leiden bottle" as the first capacitor of electric charges. Benjamin Franklin constructed the first usable lightning conductor in 1752. Alessandro Volta, professor of natural history in Padua, built the "Voltaic Column" named after him in 1796 as the first source of direct current.

To make the incomprehensible comprehensible, these inventions were eagerly copied. An abundance of different devices for the visible or tangible demonstration of electrical charges came into being. The electrical experiment was part of every progressive science lesson.

Sundials and telescopes

Daylight essentially determined the rhythm of life and work. The sundial, inherited from antiquity, served as a personal timekeeper in a further-developed, handy form. Due to their size, mechanical wheel clocks were limited to important buildings, and the introduction of the spring-wound pocket watch, invented in 1505 for general use, failed for a long time due to its costs.

A sundial, on the other hand, could be made with simple means. In combination with an astrolabe or a quadrant, it made it possible to determine the time relatively accurately. Provided that function and use were mastered.

The abandonment of the geocentric theory that the universe revolved around the Earth and the shift to the heliocentric view that the Sun was the centre of the planetary system was a tremendously bold step. It demanded "visible" confirmation. As a status symbol and sign of their changed mindset, many monasteries treated themselves to their own observatory. Neresheim resisted the lavish trend, and was content with acquiring several valuable telescopes so as to pursue the new view of the heavens with more modest equipment.

Measuring and drawing instruments

The new findings from natural science and astronomy, their evaluation and practical application required precise measurements, which in turn required precise tools. Thus, finally, further developed or newly emerging mathematical instruments belonged to the teaching aids, of which especially numerous quadrants, angle measuring instruments in various divisions and designs have been preserved. The collection also includes a number of proportional compasses for calculating ratios, which were also used to compare the numerous local and national units of measurement such as handbreadth, cubit, foot, and mile. Decades were to pass before the introduction of the uniform metric system.

The library, room 2

During the Baroque renovation of the monastery complex in 1699, the decision was also taken to build a new representative library. Its rich stucco work is attributed to the Wessobrunners. The ceiling paintings were executed by Christian Freihart von Dinkelsbühl in 1714.

"They built a library and collected books from all everywhere, for the benefit of all who read in it." "Constituens bibliothecam congregavit de regionibus libros,ut omnibus legentibus utilitas conferatur. "Inscription above the entrance to the Neresheim monastery library. Until the secularization of the monastery, the library contained about 12,000 volumes, including precious manuscripts dating back to the 12th century, as well as numerous incunabula. In addition to theological literature, important works of philosophy, jurisprudence and natural sciences characterized the outstanding position of Neresheim monastery as a teaching and educational institute.

The most valuable holdings have been in the possession of the princely court library of the House of Thurn and Taxis in Regensburg since 1803. Through donations and additional acquisitions, the "Old Library" today again possesses around 18,000 titles, which are supplemented by the "New Library", with currently around 120,000 volumes, which have been acquired since the rebuilding of the monastery in 1920. The "Old Library" with its baroque furnishings and historic book collection is located within the monastery enclosure. Thus, it is not generally accessible to the public. The fragile condition of the books, some of which are several hundred years old, means that their use is limited.

To give museum visitors an idea of the rich interior design and the inventory, the museum area in the room after the "Michaelisaal" contains a small "Michaelisaal" a small special exhibition on the "Old Library". Selected book rarities are displayed in original furnishings before their photographic reproduction.

 

The Armarium, room 3

In addition to its important library, the monastery had a so-called armarium - a cabinet with natural collections from the fields of mineralogy and geology, biology and botany. As early as the 17th century, the abbey expanded its cabinet with instruments for astronomical observations and mathematical calculations. Under  the auspices of Abbot Michael Dobler, the last imperial prelate of the abbey and "protector of the sciences and arts", numerous instruments were acquired in the second half of the 18th century for the demonstration of new physical knowledge, especially electricity.

School lessons were supported with experimental demonstrations. In the sign of the Enlightenment, there was at the same time an effort to make natural processes understandable, to purify popular piety "from its frivolous addiction to miracles and widespread superstition."

In the year of completion and consecration of the new abbey church, the Armarium received an interesting addition: a device for demonstrating vacuum and atmospheric air pressure. It was made by the well-known instrument-making workshop Brander and Höschel in Augsburg and bears the dedication note: “Michael S.R.I. Abbas XLV literam artiumque protector at museum physicum 1792." The distinguished company of guests, who had come to celebrate the consecration of the church, were also given an insight into the educational offerings of the monastery and proudly demonstrated the scientific equipment.

The last acquisition of teaching aids for the armarium dates back to 1805: Voltaic columns for demonstrating "touch electricity". They are arranged in the form of a tempietto, whose domed frieze bears the Latin dedication: "In honor of Prince Carl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis as the founder of the Lyceum Carolinum in Neresheim in 1805." The monastery had already been dissolved by this time, and only its seminary still exists in the form of the Lyceum Carolinum. Even the homage thus paid to the prince could not, however, prevent the school from also having to close down just one year later, in November 1806.

The last room in the museum's section on the natural sciences, teaching and learning, shows the "Armarium" with its historical furniture and equipment as it existed at the time of the Lyceum Carolinum. In addition to the teaching aids already shown, the physical and mathematical equipment, several biological and mineral collections were part of the illustrative material.

Among the preserved rarities of the Armarium are several remarkable collections, which were displayed not only for instruction, but partly also to show the scientific open-mindedness of the monastery convent.”

The minerals

The first and older collection objects may have been rock and fossil finds from the Jurassic limestone, clay slate and sandstone of the local Alb landscape.´ Parts of them have been preserved with their original preservation and inscriptions. From the regional soil exploration developed a special interest in rare minerals, also from non-European areas. By exchange and donation, a considerable mineral collection was built up in the middle of the 18th century.

The coin casts

The various currencies of the German small states of the 17th and 18th century presupposed considerable numismatic knowledge, especially in trade and commerce. Since a stockpiling of the most important coinages alone would have exceeded the means and possibilities of the monastery, plaster casts of the most important coins were sourced and used for teaching purposes at the monastery seminary and lyceum.

The feather pictures

Towards the end of the 18th century, the production of so-called feather pictures - authentic images of native birds, using real feathers. The "inventor" is considered to be Peter Hironymus Tröscher, born in 1742. The painters' guild in Cheb took up the idea. Several family businesses specialized in the handicraft production of the depictions. Market traders and peddlers brought the pictures into circulation. Spa guests of the Bohemian spas bought them as room decorations. Later on, such representations also found their way into the education of rural schools.

The Xylotheque

In the second half of the 18th century, Candid Huber (1743-1813) developed the idea of the wooden library in the Bavarian monastery of Ebersberg. Each "volume" consists of a particular type of wood. Inside are twigs, fruits, seeds, sometimes also specific insects of the woody plant. The Ebersberg xylotheques became a popular teaching tool of science-oriented monastic schools. The Neresheim wood library contains 141 volumes on tree wood, whole, half and rank shrubs.