Making Popular Education known to the Public: Dissemination of Volkshochschulen in Austria 1870-1930

Author/Authoress:	Stifter, Christian H.
Title:	Making Popular Education known to the Public: Dissemination of Volkshochschulen in Austria 1870-1930
Year:	1994
Source:	Marriott, Stuart/Hake, Barry J. (Eds): Cultural and Intercultural Experiences in European Adult Education. Essays on Popular und Higher Education since 1890 Leeds 1994 (= Leeds Studies in Continuing Education; Cross-Cultural Studies in the Education of Adults, Number 3), p. 261-387.

[S. 261] In Austria the Volkshochschule (‘folk high school’) is the best known among the numerous agencies for adult education, and for that reason enjoys, in the urban areas at least, considerable popularity. It is also one of the oldest and most interesting of these institutions, having its origins in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

In correspondence with this tradition, the historiography of the Volkshochschule has tended to focus on founding-figures and their institutions, and the narrative has generally been written as a great ‘success story’. A selective tradition persists, in which history becomes a ‘countdown’ of the main events, an insistence on the uniqueness of the leading participants and the organizational pattern. The fact that the Austrian Volkshochschulen were so highly successful provides an excuse for attempts at a special kind of identification, legitimation or celebration of adult education itself. Yet the questions why and how this success was secured have seldom been asked. This is probably because most of the published work has been undertaken ‘from inside outwards’, by individuals or groups directly involved in adult education and therefore concerned to promote their own identity by constructing and reinforcing whatever positive image they can.

The general question

Before turning to specific historical aspects of the Austrian Volkshochschule I would like to consider the title chosen for this paper: it might be thought that the answer to the question ‘How to make popular education known to [S. 262] the public’ is obvious and easily provided. Generally speaking, the ‘folk high schools’, as the name suggests, along with other popular educational institutions which cannot rely entirely on state subsidy, have to address a wide public and to involve as many as possible in order to make their programmes effective and achieve real educational results through the broad dissemination of knowledge. Thus, the answer would seem to be to exploit means of publicity and propaganda so as to present the institution appropriately. But that would imply that institutions with comparatively few resources, and thus small budgets for advertising, would have little chance of addressing and attracting the masses. However, the increasing attractiveness of popular educational institutions from the latter part of the nineteenth century suggests that it is a rather limited interpretation.

The particular question raised in this chapter concerns the relationship between popular education and the public. More specifically, can we account for the successful dissemination of Volkshochschulen and their increasing popularity in the period 1890-1930? Does the intentional or unintentional self-presentation of popular education provide any clue to its effectiveness and status? Here it is useful to highlight the terms ‘image’ and ‘public image’; they are rather confused terms, embracing an obviously complex phenomenon, as can be gauged from everyday language as well as from usage in the social sciences. They can be considered as hypothetical constructs which are not really a part of concrete social reality, but are nevertheless ‘real’. They direct us to the ‘contents of imagination’, which individuals or collectivities associate with other people, institutions or social groups. This chapter will not dwell on processes of ‘attribution’ or ‘signification’, but rather will focus on forms of direct and indirect representation.

The basic characteristic of publicity campaigns seems to be to establish a position and to create a network of personal, organizational and institutional relationships, and correspondingly what Bourdieu calls ‘symbolic capital’. This is the basic clue to ‘how’ and ‘if’ the educational institutions considered here survive and find their own identity. But it should also be noted that the construction of a ‘public image’ is a complex process, in which unintended attributes may emerge and thus result in unforeseeable effects.

The Austrian folk high school has undeniably been a success. From the end of the nineteenth century it has experienced continual expansion, even bearing in mind the dramatic events of the years 1933/34 to 1945. -[S. 263] Socio-economic conditions have turned it into a modern service-sector institution. Although still regarded as voluntary and thus private – and still not on a par with the quaternary sector of the public educational system – the Volkshochschule has become the most widely established and the biggest provider of popular education of its kind in Austria.(1)

The upsurge of professionality within adult education since the mid 1970s has led to a more energetic discussion of aims, methods, though not, with a few exceptions, to more sustained research. Thus, I would stress the need for historical analysis – which is still not considered important because, as the expression goes, of its ‘distance from practice’. The point has often been made that the troubled relationship between adult education and its own history generally results in the history being relegated to serve as a kind of waste-bin, which may be proudly emptied in the course of a jubilee or other celebration, so that a few relics may be exhibited to the public.

In 1993, for the first time ever, a national study was made of the image of the Austrian folk high schools, with the aim of gathering information on public attitudes. In passing it may be noted that the results of this research showed the Volkshochschule to be highly regarded in terms of scientific character, usefulness, usability, modernity and progressivity.(2) The possibility then suggests itself of an historical study of the evolution of this image. However, one immediately faces the problem of sources: such an analysis demands substantial data, and if the information was not recorded in the past there is little chance of obtaining it ex post facto. From the beginning of the twentieth century a succession of enquiries and statistical reporting has been assembled, but this does not say much about the complex phenomenon of ‘image’. This chapter, concerned less with the public’s response to the folk high schools and more with the way they presented themselves, is dependent on rather indirect source material.

Outline of historical background

Although the term Volkshochschule was first officially used at the beginning of the First Republic, to signify a particular urban institution, the term was already in use at the turn of the century. From the founding of the Volksheim Ottakring in Vienna in 1901, the prototype of the ‘people’s university’ and the first to mark itself out as ‘Volkshochschule’, the term was used by the organizers and the public in a rather blurred way; the primary connotation [S. 264] was of the Hochschule, implying a university for the ordinary people, and the designation did not carry the sense of the Danish folkehøjskole. Properly used, the terms Volkshochschule and Volksbildung should have indicated a definite affinity to what was established with the Volksheim Ottakring, that is, extended courses in all fields of modern knowledge, and instruction in basic intellectual methods (‘Kurse vom Rechtschreiben bis zur Kant-Kritik’: courses from Spelling to Kant-Criticism)(3), conducted in purpose-made accommodation and taught by academic experts. However, the evolution of popular education in Austria, from the early liberal and workers’ educational associations of the 1870s, through the introduction of ‘university extension’, and subsequently of folk high schools, led to the terms Volkshochschule and Volksbildung being used inclusively. As a result they appear in the literature as umbrella designations, also covering the earlier forms of popular education which led directly to the Volkshochschule proper. (It should be noted here also that the English translation ‘folk high school’, although customarily used, does not accurately convey the sense of the German word.)(4) Thus this chapter uses the terms ‘liberal educational association’, ‘Volkshochschule/folk high school’, and ‘adult education’, even though they belong to different historical periods, to characterize a coherent historical succession.

In Austria, as elsewhere in Europe, 1870-1930 can be regarded as the formative period in the development of institutions of adult education. Following the Revolution of 1848 and an incubation period during the time of Neo-Absolutism, the closing thirty years of the nineteenth century witnessed the first liberal and workers’ educational organizations, mostly inspired and initiated by the liberal bourgeoisie. This period also saw state sponsorship of industrialization, an attempt by the economically, technologically, scientifically, militarily and of course educationally backward Habsburg Monarchy to catch up with European standards. Many political and social reforms ensued, beginning with the introduction of compulsory eight-year schooling and reforms in the university curriculum (‘freedom of teaching and learning’). Social change also enabled the emergence of associations which by the late 1880s could begin to turn themselves into political parties.

At the same time, and despite suffrage reforms, the vast majority of people were unable, until 1907, to participate in political life; access to higher education was limited to a small élite, and women were denied entry to the university until 1897. Austria was undergoing a powerful but uneven [S. 265] industrialization, characterized by economic growth, high immigration of workers into the cities and subsequent change of existing social structures, in the course of which a new stratum was coming into being, struggling to assert its identity alongside the successful middle classes, and first achieving political self-consciousness in the 1880s. The situation of this new working class was however one of poverty and limited opportunity.

The early workers’ educational organizations, like those of the liberals, considered their efforts to be compensatory,(5) essentially a response to the social question dictated by the ban on direct political activity. There may have been other motives: charity, economic aspirations, or even the perceived need for social control.(6) Yet, these private self-help groups, set up by ‘unorganic intellectuals’ in order to teach the vast majority of the population the basics of reading and writing and some general knowledge, were also deeply democratically orientated. Their aim was to enable participants to become mature citizens, to use ‘their own brains’ and express their own ideas and needs. Generally speaking, they provided the liberal bourgeoisie with practicable ‘mobility-outlets’(7) to express the enthusiasm for social reform it was not able to express in overt political form; the associations concentrated therefore on culture, the arts and especially natural science.(8)

At their inception, the workers’ educational associations (Arbeiterbildungsvereine) and the liberal educational associations (Bildungsvereine) operated in the same way for similar kinds of audience. The idea of Volk in the later nineteenth century applied, not to the undefined mass of the population, but rather to the lower strata;(9) the one most important link between workers’ education and Volksbildung remained in the concept of the audience: the Volk. However, with the growing politicization of the working class and eventual formation of the Social Democratic Party in 1888/89 these two movements drew apart, and thereafter the educational aims and offerings of the Labour movement were focused on the class struggle. The widely held view of the folk high schools as a by-product(10) of the developing workers’ educational associations can no longer be maintained: research reveals the differences to be just as important as the acknowledged similarities.(11)

Although the slogan ‘Knowledge is Power’ was also used in the expanding liberal educational movement (Volksbildung), it was understood and applied in a different way. Knowledge was to be disseminated according to the authority of university and school. The instructors, mainly university staff, [S. 266] school teachers and liberal intellectuals, were predisposed to maintain the ‘objective’ discoveries produced and ratified through scholarly research. In addition to its altruism towards the uneducated, popularization functioned as a vehicle for enlarging the influence of ‘science’ (in the German sense of the word) upon society. Sponsorship of popular lectures and literature was therefore not just an Enlightenment-inspired sharing of intellectual goods. It was also an expression of the generally altered, even inverted, balance in the power relations between science and the wider public which had been emerging since the eighteenth century, and from which the greater influence and autonomy of scientific practice derived.(12)

However, the emancipatory aspect of popularization was not restricted to the content of science (as for example in the Labour movement’s view of ‘science as a tool for social-economic change’), but was expressed through the encouragement of open access and freedom of thought. The belief in the independence of learning had a tremendous formative effect on popular education, and allowed a broad coalition to emerge among non-clerical conservatives, liberals favourable to social reform, and a Labour movement increasingly involved in practical educational networks.

lt is interesting to note that the first popular educational associations were founded not in the capital Vienna, but in provincial towns such as Graz (Styria, 1870), Linz (Upper Austria, 1882) and Krems (Lower Austria, 1884), and also Prague (1869). lt was only thanks to the foundation of the Niederösterreichischer Volksbildungsverein (Lower Austrian Popular Educational Association) in 1887 that the movement finally reached Vienna. In 1893 the Wiener Volksbildungsverein emerged as the centre-piece of urban popular education in Austria. The personal commitment of certain founders of the Vienna association then led to the institution of volkstümliche Universitätsvorträge (popular university lectures) at the University in 1895,(13) as an equivalent of the English ‘university extension’. In response to the great success of these lectures and the enthusiasm of their audiences, an association presenting itself as a kind of university open to the public was set up, which in 1901 founded a Volksuniversität in the 16th (Ottakring) District of Vienna. Only four years later the association had erected a building of its own, to accommodate the Volksheim Ottakring, an institution always regarded as the first evening-class ‘folk high school’ (or more accurately ‘popular university’) of the kind in Europe. That was also the first time the ‘extra-mural’ [S. 267] function of university extension was able to take on independent form and secure its ‘own four walls’.

At the same time, Vienna’s other basic popular university, the Urania founded by industrialists in 1897, was concentrating on the presentation of natural science and technical innovation. Thus, with the help of those three popular universities, the Wiener Volksbildungsverein, the Volksheim and the Urania, a wide choice of adult education, ranging from basic instruction to high-quality seminars of a university standard, was available and decisively shaped popular education in the years before the First Republic.

Dissemination of popular education in the public sphere

Returning to the initial preoccupation of this chapter, we need to ask what image of its work popular education conveyed to the public – or how the self-image arising from institutionalization permeated the ‘outer world’. The lack of sources, already noted, can compensated in part by the use of published statements, posters, newspaper articles and surviving statistical information.

There is evidence that all the popular educational associations of the late nineteenth century advertised themselves through announcements and leaflets. Furthermore active ‘platforms’ gradually came into being as a result of the enthusiasm of relatively small, but well-organized communities of interest. The founders and chief supporters tended to be prominent people, local ‘notables’ who owed their success to intelligence and progressive attitudes. They were respected for their involvement in social reform and commitment to democratic values; they were either wealthy or else able to contribute prestige and the social connections which go with prestige. Such people often worked for several educational associations at the same time and their impact was correspondingly great.

A particular point to be made here is that the grammar school teachers were the real mediators and bearers of early Volksbildung. Involvement often provided them with an opportunity to advance professional standing in an occupation which had become stalled in the course of reform of the educational system. Voluntary work for the associations allowed the teachers to deploy their skills and thus provided a route to enhanced reputation through contact with the bourgeoisie or even the liberal nobility. Also, through co-operation with the ‘university class’,(14) they could stay in touch [S. 268] with higher education; and they were able to strengthen this connection when university extension provided a vehicle for the continuation training of grammar- and elementary-school teachers, as at the universities of Vienna and Innsbruck in 1897, and Graz in 1898.(15)

lntense continuity of personal contacts and exchange of experiences through the printed word, the steady growth of branches and networks, all these soon created the image of a dynamic, comprehensive movement. The image does not seem to have been exactly a topic of explicit discussion, but it was clearly present in the use of metaphors in which the principle of ‘Enlightenment’ was contrasted with and dissociated from the appeal to outmoded authority. The enthusiasm and increasing self-confidence of the liberal-democratic movement of educational reform is best illustrated from the fast-growing journalism, the numerous periodicals and leaflets, which facilitated and intensified the exchange of information and experience. Thus, the imagery of the ‘Power of Knowledge’, emphasizing the idea that science can be used as a weapon to expose ‘false leaders and prophets’, appears several times in the first manifesto of the (Styrian) Steiermärkische Volksbildungsverein founded in 1870.

Though there are hints of a somewhat forced optimism, the Volksbildungsbewegung could nevertheless present itself as an open system: it was – as Alphons Petzold, one of the most famous Austrian workers’ poets of the day, later put it when referring to the Volksheim Ottakring – the ‘house with a hundred windows’.(16) The movement thus sought to adopt the enlightened-rationalist position, and so place itself in sharp opposition to metaphysical, conservative-clerical doctrines. The metaphor of the ‘house of a hundred windows’, which gained wide currency, was also intended to characterize the co-operative learning of the different social groups, and the congenial atmosphere they shared within their associations.

The publications of the movement, sometimes enjoying a considerable circulation, always emphasized that the work of the associations was open to all without restriction, and was thus completely a matter of public benefit. The declared aim was to convey knowledge and education to the Volk, and not to a particular class or interest-group; no-one should be excluded. The associations accordingly gave themselves constitutions which supported openness to the outside world and active involvement of learners. To allow audience involvement in the choice of lectures, the Volksheim Ottakring [S. 269] instituted a council, elected by and from the student body, and represented also at meetings of the general management committee.(17)

In contrast to the highly exclusive recruitment and hermetic structure of secondary and university education at that period, the folk high schools were characterized by their compatibility with a wider public. The relationship in popular education can be described as transitive, or open to both sides. The invitation to take part, the voluntary juxtaposition of teachers and learners, created a dynamic arena of experience which was not determined by specific interest or ideology, and was thus accessible to all. As a result the Volkshochschule itself became, if only in a specific sense, part of the ‘public realm’.

Neutrality and objectivity

In trying to live up to a self-imposed ideal of ‘neutrality’, the folk high schools were in marked contrast to the institutions of the workers’ movement. Ludo Hartmann, one of the most important initiators of the Volkshochschulbewegung, spoke insistently of the need for neutral education. A former student of Theodor Mommsen, and an engaged member of the Social Democratic Party, he formulated the aims of neutral adult education quite clearly:

We want to keep at distance from any kind of politics – not because we are opportunists, but because we strongly believe that politics should be a part neither of schools nor of the aims of popular education. We consider politics as belonging to parties and anything we aim at should be limited to the spreading of education and science.[18]

There were certain fundamental theoretical ideas underlying this ‘neutrality’ in popular education, which supported an identifiable though still not very coherent Viennese Style. Yet, Marriott goes too far in representing this early appeal to neutrality as a ‘watchword for education’(19) deriving primarily from Ernst Mach’s ‘empirio-criticism’ or the constellation of ideas later formulated as the Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung (scientific world-conception) of the Wiener Kreis.(20) The neutrality and also the Wertfreiheit (freedom from value judgements) were certainly an expression of a rather ‘lively secular rationalism’(21) of the time, but to a great extent both elements were simply a pragmatic response to political and financial considerations. The avoidance of controversial topics and the stress on objectivity in teaching – which together formed one of the most significant elements of self-presentation – must also be seen from the perspective of a ‘minimization [S. 270] of conflict’. (Only from this angle is it clear why the Volkshochschulen remained ‘neutral’ in the face of the advancing Fascism of the late 1920s, especially when the availability of Logical Empiricism should have offered them tools enough for a critical response to the situation.)

lt is no accident that while a wide choice of popular educational activity was made available – musical entertainments, educational excursions, language courses, handicrafts, theatrical productions, lantern lectures and film screenings – the movement still showed an affinity to the authority, objectivity and reliability of the academic arts and sciences, unmistakably centred on the University of Vienna. The connection was even more significant because of the University’s recent move into its new accommodation (1884), a building in the ‘Ringstraßenstil’ in the Italian-Renaissance manner, which became an architectural exclamation-mark for science, academic culture, technical progress and the rationalistic attitude of the rising middle class.

The ‘symbolic capital’ of the university was personified by those professors and lecturers whose names served as eye-catchers in the advertising put out by the folk high schools. The academic and civil titles of the lecturers were used as guarantees of high qualification, and thus as a kind of trade mark. lt is also worth noting that the architecture and especially the shape and disposition of rooms at the three Vienna Volkshochschulen closely resembled university accommodation. There were lecture rooms, small but well-equipped laboratories (the Urania even having an observatory), reading rooms and libraries – all confirming the idea of a subcutaneous relationship between ‘thought and its social setting’.(22)

Apart from the aspect of scientific objectivity, the insistence on neutrality also reinforced the exclusion of any kind of everyday politics and again minimized the risk of conflict. One practical reason was the need to attract as many benefactors as possible – or, as Emil Reich, a university teacher and one of the founders of the Volksheim Ottakring, once put it in a discussion with German colleagues, to renounce talking ethics for fear of losing subsidy from the state.(23) A number of conflicts arose during the time of the Monarchy, and the situation of popular education could be somewhat delicate. Initially the conservative-clerical faction in Vienna refused to offer the folk high schools meeting-places for their events. However, as time passed even it could no longer stand in the way of successful and non-profit organizations, and finally had to accept them.

[S. 271] Again, the open structure of the folk high schools was a great advantage, as it enabled co-operation with a variety of institutions, and thus secured access to facilities which before the turn of the century they themselves lacked. That was why courses could be held in grammar schools, in workers’ educational centres (by that time already politicized), as well as in premises belonging to the commercial community. In contrast to the Christian-Social city council of the Monarchy, the ‘Red Vienna’ of the First Republic no longer inhibited the work of the Volkshochschulen, and even took the first steps towards a state-organized and subsidized structure of adult education.(24)

Volkshochschulen: a ‘democratic forum’

Political-ideological neutrality, a varied programme of courses and lectures, democratic structures, a marked absence of distinctions between teachers and learners, an attractive institutional basis, offered the masses considerable inducements to form an attachment. The distinctly open structure of the associations produced a forum of communication and social practice, where what I propose to call ‘casual alliances’ could form. To the conclusion that the folk high schools became part of the civic, public realm, it must be added here that the space they occupied was one of intense relations, a democratic forum where heterogeneous elements came together to form a horizontal network of casual alliances. In this way was created within the loose general public a specific inclusive public, something which had not existed previously, and did not exist subsequently between the two world wars.

The traditional nexus between ownership of property and education which was characteristic of the exclusive culture-consuming public of the eighteenth century(25) was cancelled by the liberal educational associations of this time. Following the schemata of Lottes and Habermas, I would like to present the kind of inclusive(26) public created by the early liberal associations and the succeeding Volkshochschulen as ‘plebeian public’, in contrast to the more oppositional and highly politicized social-democratic ‘proletarian public’(27) formed by the agencies of the Labour movement.(28) The ‘plebeian public’, treated categorically rather than historically, could be defined as avariant of civil-bourgeois public, because orientated on its pattern. On the other hand it is more than that, because it develops the emancipatory potential of the civil-bourgeois public in a new social context. The plebeian public is to a certain extent a civil public, whose social requirements have been cancelled.(29)

[S. 272] In this sense one may describe the sites occupied by an inclusive public as Heterotopias, ‘counter places’ sharpening their contrast with the traditional ensemble of cultural or political sites by implicitly calling that ensemble into question. Heterotopia would therefore be a place in which a Utopia is partly realized – or in Foucault’s words: ‘A realized utopia, in which the real places within society are at the same time represented, contested and turned, so to speak places outside of all places, although they can actually be located.’(30)

The inclusive character of those ‘educational’ places made it possible that various unusual alliances could come into being: an ‘alliance between university professors and “simple” workers’ existed alongside an ‘alliance between the liberal bourgeoisie and the working class’, an ‘alliance between the social-democratic intellectuals and the conservative notabilities’, an ‘alliance between the “big names” in science and art and the “no names”’ or more abstractly, to use a phrase recently coined by Harbers, an alliance between ‘Olympus and Agora’.(31)

The places where those alliances could happen were basically the Wiener Volksbildungsverein, the Volksheim Ottakring, and to some extent the Urania. One of the most productive, an exemplary model of co-operation between lay people and experts, formed within the Volksheim Ottakring. Between 1905 and 1932 over sixteen so-called Fachgruppen(32) were established. These ‘specialist groups’ supported an intensive form of education in the fields of natural science and philosophy, but also in music, English, photography, and tourism; they were organized by experts, and their advanced students sometimes made so much progress that the results of their work could be published and eventually cited in scientific journals.

Apart from multiple ‘dual’ alliances of this kind, the folk high schools also functioned indirectly as a kind of catalyst to produce interdisciplinary studies out of the mutual stimulus and influence of lecturers coming from different research fields. Along with Karl Bühler and Paul Lazarsfeld, Carl Grünberg was among the first to lecture in the Wiener Volksbildungsverein of the 1890s; he went on to found the Marxist periodical Archiv für Geschichte des Sozialismus und der Arbeiterbewegung in 1910 and to assume the direction of the Institut für Sozialforschung established in 1923.(33)

Volksheim Ottakring can be described as a kind of intellectual laboratory where established scientists lectured, alongside the less established who were trying to popularize independent lines of research which were still not [S. 273] recognized at university level. I refer here to members of the Wiener Kreis, psychologists, sociologists and Marxian theorists. Volksheim Ottakring was also the place where ‘experimental psychology’ found its first laboratory.(34) As well as providing a meeting place for those already mentioned, the Volkshochschulen offered authors and artists the chance to popularize their work.

In the period 1903-04 two surveys of adult education were undertaken. A study of the ‘volkstümliche Universitätskurse’ (university extension) questioned 1,635 participants (40 per cent female);(35) the other at the Wiener Volksbildungsverein questioning 627 participants (23 per cent female).(36) The aim was to find out why these people actually attended courses. Most replied that they wanted to ‘enlarge their knowledge and widen their horizon with the help of primary sources’. Regarding recruitment, it is worth noting that among the various channels of publicity, word-of-mouth propaganda was found to be notably significant. The course members were often not directly contacted by the folk high schools, but found their own ways to these institutions. Participants also stated that they wanted to use the courses to mix with ‘different, higher social classes’.(37) ‘Vocational usefulness’ was not surprisingly another significant motive in that context.

The representation of different occupations was also recorded. Participants in university extension included a high percentage of workers (printers, metalworkers, assistant carpenters, shoemakers and bookbinders) which rose from 25 per cent to 34 per cent in the period 1895-1914. In the Volksheim Ottakring the proportion of manual workers rose from 23 per cent to 44 per cent between 1919 and 1932,(38) years which saw a drastic decline in the organizations of the workers’ movements and the trade unions.

The folk high schools succeeded much better than the politicized workers’ educational organizations in addressing the mass, and they also managed to bring ordinary people to accept them as their own. As can be seen from a few surviving comments by former students, this was especially true for the Volksheim Ottakring, which participants often referred to as ‘theirs’. In her brilliant study of 1911 Hertha Siemering used subjective impressions to suggest how the Volksheim was integral to the workers’ everyday life:

In the middle of the most elegant Vienna, on the ‘Ring’ we board the tramcar which brings us to the 16th District. Still we are surrounded by the bright light of the arc-lamps, but little by little it gives way for the more modest light of the gaslight. Also the outward appearance of the passengers changes; from stop to [S. 274] stop the number of the well-dressed declines and that of the modest-looking increases. As a view through the window shows we are now in a workers’ district. Shortly before the stop where we have to leave the carriage we ask the conductor for the way to the Volksheim. Immediately some of the passengers listen attentively and join in the conversation, showing us the direction we have to take. A pleasing indication of the popularity of the Volksheim.(39)

Reporting in the press

Evidence for the popularity of the Volkshochschulen is – beyond the scattered reminiscences of participants – most clearly found in newspaper articles. The question is, which factors, apart from the populace’s general eagerness to learn, can be held to explain the great and growing popularity of the folk high schools during a relatively short period? Admittedly this chapter cannot provide a definitive answer to the question, but certain striking illustrations taken from the Vienna press and from advertisements can be offered.

At the beginning of the 1920s the distinguished sociologist Leopold von Wiese, in the book which he edited, Soziologie des Volksbildungswesens, dealt with the relationship between press and popular education. In his essay he concentrates on the ‘products of the press as possible tools of Volksbildung’.(40) He sees the press as the most significant means of education, capable of creating an ‘outstanding connection with the wide, wide world’,(41) as a result of its unsystematic and indiscriminate approach to the transmission of knowledge operating as a ‘universal means of transportation’. The implication for popular education is that it should on the one hand develop its own publishing activity and on the other seek to find links with the press. Wiese expresses the idea so: ‘The more the daily press incorporates news, stories, lectures, etc from the Volkshochschule, but especially the ethical spirit of the true institutions of Volksbildung, the better for the press and the people.’ He concludes his argument by saying, ‘Any kind of institution of Volksbildung, but especially the Volkshochschulen, should adopt the newspapers as its tool and then use them for its own ideas of continual progress.’(42)

In this light it is interesting to take a closer view of the contemporary relations of the daily press and the folk high schools. A number of tentative considerations can be offered. In general the daily press at the time of the Habsburg Monarchy and the First Republic can be divided into several major segments of varying scope: the political papers, the ‘big press’, the local papers, the boulevard press and the official journals.(43) For present purposes [S. 275] the contemporary press can also be divided into the conservative-clerical papers, the liberal papers and those allied to the Labour movement. News coverage reflected ideological stances, which were marked by a tendency to exclude notices of particular kinds of events. Generally speaking, the newspapers were either supporters of Volksbildung, or else they tended to exclude it. Numerous papers did promote adult education, though without being completely ‘overpowered’ by it as von Wiese demanded.

It was probably because of the previously described neutrality of Volksbildung, which involved the co-operation of different political groups and a perceived public usefulness, that folk high schools were only infrequently attacked in the press. Yet, the activities of popular education did have a social-reformist tendency, which was usually regarded positively by the social-democratic press and negatively by the conservative-clerical. The social democrats appreciated that there was a division of functions between Volksbildung and workers’ education – the one being responsible for the encouragement of general knowledge and the other for fostering class-consciousness –, whereas the conservatives regarded the Volksbildungsverein and especially the Volksheim Ottakring as the ‘Red Plague’. The Urania, however, which was always closely connected with industrial circles and the social élite (its original committee consisting almost entirely of industrialists), was usually favourably treated in the clerical-conservative paper the Reichspost, but was ignored by the Arbeiter Zeitung. It might be thought a mere coincidence, but it is interesting to note that only the Urania was (and still is) located close to the political-administrative centre of the city, in what was then a new building on the Ring Straße in the First District, among the office buildings, whereas the other folk high schools were placed on the periphery of the upper- and middle-class world.

lt is not surprising that generally speaking the activities of Volksbildung were especially well received by the liberal press, and even more so by the left-wing press, when many social-democratic intellectuals co-operated with the associations and Social Democrat politicians might even be found on their management committees. The greater part of the positive response was to be found in the Arbeiter Zeitung. However, this paper could not refrain from attacking the associations occasionally, on account, as it was said, of their ‘naive pseudo-neutrality’.(44) Yet, it also drew readers’ attention directly to the activities of the folk high schools, and not without pride. The items it [S. 276] published were usually on the openings of new buildings, various celebrities, meetings, and even the details of committee meetings and annual reports; interestingly, the language used was close to that that of the associations’ own publications. Also many articles were written by leading Volksbildnern, ‘galvanic indivudals’(45) such as Hartmann, Reich and Leisching.(46) Thus one can speak of a close link between liberal/social-democratic journalists on the one hand and popular educators on the other. For instance, in 1901 the highly regarded editor of the liberal Neues Wiener Tagblatt, Moritz Szeps, also founded the Wissen für alle: Volkstümliche Vorträge und popular-wissenschaftliche Rundschau, the organ of university extension in Austria.

In 1895 the Arbeiter Zeitung proudly informed its readers of the introduction of university extension to Vienna: ’It will certainly guarantee fame to the Vienna University that its scholars and leaders make it the first German university to embrace the same choice as their English counterparts.’(47) The Arbeiter Zeitung also supported the formation of the Volksheim Ottakring, by steadily reporting the meetings of its advocates und publicizing the foundation appeal. Readers learned the names of the university teachers who supported the project, were told how the projected ‘Volksuniversität’ would follow the examples of Toynbee Hall und the Peoples’ Palace in London, and the Universités populaires in Paris, all of which underlined the international quality of the initiative. The Arbeiter Zeitung, reporting the inaugural meeting of 24 February 1901, emphasized the presence of ‘numerous, outstanding representatives of the sciences’(48) as well as representatives of the Reichsrat (Austrian House of Deputies); it also reported the messages of congratulations sent by leading university teachers and by a famous Liberal member of the House if Deputies. The commentary in the liberal Neue Freie Presse even included details of the main address given that day.(49)

A month after the inaugural meeting an appeal by the association was published, listing plans for courses in philosophy, history and physics, as well as for setting up a laboratory for physics and chemistry. It declared that

Any trader as well as any worker, any civil servant as well as any teacher or sales assistant is offered an institution of common endeavour – in a way Vienna has never before encountered. We would explicitly like to invite members of the working class to join our association. Everyone is given the opportunity to breach the monopoly of higher education and this is why the working class in particular must not miss its opportunity.(50)

[S. 277] It was pointed out at the same time, however, that ‘any kind of political activity would be banned from the Volksheim, since only the striving for pure knowledge should unite the participants. Everything having to do with parties would be banned from the Volksheim completely.’(51)

In addition to this ideological positioning the offer of courses in the natural sciences was especially appreciated by the organs of the trade-unions like the Österreichische Metallarbeiter,(52) which emphasized the practical use of basic knowledge, for instance in chemistry. From the other side the Österreichische Chemiker Zeitung, the official organ of the Austrian association of chemical engineers, printed appeals for assistance in equipping the chemical laboratory at the Volksheim Otrakring.(53)

lt is evident, even in the official organ of the Social Democratic Party, that the emphasis on neutrality was significant. The Arbeiter Zeitung was also prepared to print detailed reports of various meetings, such as the Erster Deutscher Volkshochschultag (first German folk high school conference) at Vienna University in 1904, where representatives of university extension in Innsbruck, Graz, Freiburg, Munich, Berlin, Prague and Budapest were present and to which the universities of Cambridge and London sent their compliments and congratulations.(54)

The liberal-bourgeois press also wrote enthusiastically about the activities of these folk high schools, which promised to unite the different social classes. The Neue Freie Presse proudly claimed that its coverage of their activities had provided strong support for the Volkshochschulen. Its readers were informed about the extensive co-operation of scholars, artists, universities, trade unions, and the Austrian Chamber of Labour as well as the Chamber of Commerce. They were also given news of the generous donations made by the liberal nobility, for example the families Rothschild and Pallavicini. It is interesting that the ‘amateur’ status of the educational associations was positively reported, and that emphasis was given to the fact that several functionaries were acting in a voluntary capacity. The journalists never wearied of pointing out that everyone working for the Volkshochschule did so as an act of self-sacrifice, and thus of registering the unselfish and serious character of such associations.

In contrast to the papers mentioned above, the Vaterland and the Deutsche Volksblatt, both conservative-clerical and strongly anti-semitic journals, fiercely attacked the setting-up of the Volkshochschule. The writers either [S. 278] polemicized against freethinking-Masonic-positivist scientific tendencies, or else invited their readers to join the crusade against Jewish-social-democratic influences,(55) pointing out the incompatibility of such activities with the Christian-Catholic conception of the world.

Overall, then, the liberal and the left-wing press applauded the ‘Volksbildungsarbeit’, and thus greatly helped to legitimize and popularize it. Even the clerical-monarchist voice of the government, the Reichspost, which only thought the more conservative-bourgeois Urania worth favourable mention,(56) implicitly helped to legitimize the movement by not writing about the Volkshochschulen too negatively or – even more important – too often. The main reproach of the ultra-conservative Reichspost was not directed against the simple fact of the popularization of knowledge belonging to an academic élite, but against the suspicion of liberal/social-democratic agitation for an ‘overthrow’.(57) The general idea of popular education was expressis verbis affirmed but at the same time rejected on aesthetic-political grounds:

Equality – the pretended motive of the Volkshochschulen – is a very splendid idea, but can never be realized as between the highly educated and the less educated. The latter will be dominated by the educated classes whether this is justifiable or not. As a matter of fact, nowhere are Combes’s politics and fashionable science treated more explicitly than in the courses mentioned above. However we in Austria are now also blessed with such educational establishments. Liberal noblemen and industrialists have given financial support to the building in Ottakring. […] As cultural warfare cannot be sufficiently practised in public life, the ‘Volk’ will at least be able to float in this atmosphere in the theatres or during lectures – cleaning our religion and massacring the priests.(58)

(Émile Combes, prime minister of the French Republic since 1902, was noted for his secular-radical policy on the separation of State and Church.)

Since the idea of the Volkshochschule was so widely appreciated, and because the notion of ‘neutral’ educational work was so obviously successful, there seemed to be no need for a specific attempt to win over the press. In fact, most newspaper reports promoted an image of a very self-confident movement, which on the one hand was still struggling to gain ground, but on the other hand had broad aims deeply rooted in the humanistic Enlightenment, presented nothing obviously subversive and could therefore be easily characterized as of positive public benefit. Neutrality thus functioned as a kind of variable, which could be interpreted according to circumstances: whilst enabling workers to attribute something ‘subversive’ [S. 279] to the ‘fraternization of science and labour’, it allowed liberal circles to talk about democratization, and persuaded conservative groups to see a mainly charitable function in the popular dissemination of knowledge.

The ‘ideal-type’ interpretation (in the Weberian sense) of neutrality offered here usually appeared in less pure form in the real world of newspaper journalism. It is interesting to read about the task of ‘democratic’, ‘sozialpädagogische’ popular education in the Labour press. The following, from the social-democratic Vorwärts, appeared in 1922 under the title ‘Von der Halbbildung zur Volksbildung’ (‘From half-education to popular education’):

If it is true that attending school facilitates life, the democratic state that actually aims at being democratic needs different kinds of schools from those of an authoritarian state. It is the task of the latter to train only the privileged classes to exercise power over the rest, whereas – as far as the education of the disadvantaged is concerned – the privileged are only interested in the following: to make them efficient in their occupations, to fulfil their duties towards the ruling class. Education in the cultural sense is seen solely as a luxury, which only the upper class can afford, and which might make the lower classes fight against the privileged. The authentic democratic state should be seen as the complete opposite of that described above: it requires a populace in which every single individual feels responsible for the whole and thus co-operates actively in order to make it successful – according to ability and capacity. The individual is not only seen as an economic cell in the narrow confines of an occupation, but – in addition – as a politically thinking and acting member of the unity. This is why the democratic state urgently requires a kind of higher education institution whose task it is to make educable members of all classes, who are thirsting for education and culture, to bring them to encounter the values which are the foundations of our cultural life. These ‘high schools’ would operate in addition to the vocational schools and the technical colleges and their socio-educational function would be that of the modern Volkshochschule.(59)

The central argument of that passage is to some extent still valid in our days.

Advertising through posters

Apart from propaganda by word of mouth, press reports and announcements, the posters put out by the folk high schools were another element of direct public-relations work, by which contact with the potential audience was sought in the streets. In Vienna the first posters were produced by the Wiener Volksbildungsverein on the occasion of the introduction of the ‘volkstümliche Sonntagsvorträge’ (popular Sunday lectures). These posters [S. 280] were large, composed of text without illustrations, and listing the choice of topics covered by the lectures – from hygiene, through natural science, art and history, to commercial bookkeeping and accounts. From 1895 when the ‘volkstümliche Universitätsvorträge’ (popular university lectures) enlarged the supply of scientific instruction the Wiener Volksbildungsverein also added concert and theatre events, recitations and educational excursions.(60)

The early posters, directed at all classes of society, were simple print without pictures of any kind – a very interesting fact given the high incidence of illiteracy in the population of that time. This style of publicity, which remained unchanged up to 1918, closely resembled that by which university lectures were announced, or government decrees notified to the public. It contrasted strongly with that adopted by the Labour Movement, which exploited all available contemporary technical devices using distinctive symbols and graphic illustration. Thus, these posters exhibit a specific aesthetic quality, whereas the ones produced by the Volksbildungsvereine were – aesthetically speaking – neutral. Their communication value was limited to pure information-giving.

Nevertheless, the voluntary associations, which received little support from public funds and relied heavily on the subscriptions and fees of members and students, could not risk using visually aggressive publicity for reasons of political acceptability and social respectability. Those responsible were convinced that the wide choice of lectures and courses as well as the rapidly increasing membership were doing a convincing job anyway.

Generally speaking, ‘marketing’ was not though to be required. In none of the associations covered in this chapter was there a committee responsible solely for publicity or public relations. Examination of the publicity produced by these associations fails to reveal any conscious concept of advertising layout. The few statements available on this matter show that in practice design and distribution of posters was managed in ignorance and without any professional contribution. Usually, in place of conceptual appreciation, there was spontaneous improvisation. It was only after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy that the publicity of the Volkshochschulen began to change.

Although the urban Volksbildungsvereine were founded entirely by the liberal bourgeoisie of the ‘Late-Enlightenment’ and derived their sense of mission from it,(61) and although they shared a formal ‘neutrality’, there were [S. 281] nevertheless differences in their programmes, educational policies, and their audiences. All this is reflected in the advertising of the 1920s. In contrast to the Wiener Volksbildungsverein and the Volksheim Ottakring, which were both closely linked to the Labour movement, the rather conservative Urania started to advertise its events through expensive illustrated posters, and made increasing use of them from the mid 1920s. Again, in opposition to the other two folk high schools, the Urania concept of education had little affinity with the ‘scientific concept of the world’, the ‘Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung’ of the Wiener Kreis, but was much more inspired by Grundtvig’s ideas favouring personal development rather than the formal elaboration of knowledge. Accordingly, popular and vivid lecturing occupied a bigger and more significant place in the programmes sponsored by the Urania society. And in addition to the observatory, its film-shows, introduced in 1911, attracted more people than any purely scientific-artistic activities.

However, it should be said that the expansion of the Volkshochschulen does not seem to have been achieved through expensive publicity. The predominance of neutral letterpress advertising, without illustrations and probably not very attractive to the public, cannot be overlooked. It seems that the folk high schools could be sure of a large recruitment even in the absence of elaborate propaganda. Although the students were of varied class origins, there was still a kind of homogeneity resulting from an eagerness for education and knowledge that could be easily stimulated and satisfied by folk high schools offering a very varied diet and charging only small fees. In the absence of alternatives and given the rather depressing conditions of everyday life(62) – at least as far as working-class people were concerned – it is obvious how attractive such activities, housed in pleasant and roomy accommodation, must have been. The collective identity of the educational organizations, including the committee members as much as the students, was founded on the eagerness to disseminate and will to learn evident among several classes of society. But it was also rooted in a co-operative and stimulating atmosphere inside the Volkshochschulen, which was in complete contrast to the everyday situation and did not need to be suggested by the devices of publicity.

Apart from those attractions, the programmes of the Volkshochschulen enjoyed an identifiably scientific-artistic-literary character which was consolidated over a period of years. Authors and artists, and well-known [S. 282] scientists worked as lecturers and course-leaders, in a setting where there was open access to lecture-rooms and libraries, and to scientific laboratories which were in some cases better equipped than those of the university. All this was publicity enough.(63)

Conclusion

In summary it may be said that the process by which the folk high schools were disseminated and became socially ‘embedded’ proved successful for a number of reasons. On the one hand, the social-ideological diversity of the activists and the quality of their enthusiasm were major factors conducive to stability. Furthermore, the movement was characterized by its numerous opportunities for co-operation, and a dynamism which enabled it to cope with adversity. The initiators benefited from what one might call a ‘multiplier effect’, as in the case of the secondary-school teachers mentioned previously, who found an opportunity to enhance their own professionalism through involvement in the associations. On top of that, a relatively fast-growing body of journalism covered the activities of the folk high schools and supported a high degree of informal exchange of experience, something which was also reinforced by the dense network of personal connections among the initiators.

On the other hand, the Volkshochschulen became increasingly popular because of their distinctive ‘scientific objectivity’ and ideological ‘neutrality’, which prevented the politicization of the movement and kept the risk of authoritarian police interference and censorship within reasonable bounds. Indeed, the Volksbildungsbewegung surrounded itself with the insignia of state-approved, normative authorities, such as the University and the Hochkultur (high culture), making use of their symbolic capital in order to legitimize its own educational work. By avoiding political and religious issues, any kind of contamination by what could be seen as a culture of subversion was avoided. On the contrary, additional integrative and inclusive factors, such as the broad scope of what was on offer and the open structure of the associations, with all the consequent opportunities for participation and identification, created the specific open space which I have referred to as a ‘plebeian public’. ln that space numerous productive alliances could come into being. All this was possible because the populace demonstrated its eagerness to learn.

[S. 283] These factors, as well as the considerable promotion through the press, which documented their good relationships with the now quite influential workers’ movement, meant that the folk high schools were widely represented in the media and gained a positive public image. The image encouraged the spread of the Volkshochschul-movement and probably (though this is only a hypothesis) also strongly promoted the emergence of a corporate identity within this field of educational association.

References

(1) See Wilhelm Filla, Volkshochschularbeit in Österreich – Zweite Republik. Eine Spurensuche (Graz, Leykam Verlag, 1991), 19.

(2) Wilhelm Filla, Image und Teilnehmerpotential der Volkshochschulen in Österreich (Wien, Forschungsbericht der Pädagogischen Arbeits- und Forschungsstelle des Verbandes Österreichischer Volkshochschulen, 1993), 31-36.

(3) Emil Reich, 25 Jahre Volksheim: Eine Wiener Volkshochschulchronik (Wien, Verlag des Vereines Volksheim, 1926), 8.

(4) Stuart Marriott, The popular universities in Europe, 1890 to 1920: What was being popularized?, in Barry J. Hake and Stuart Marriott (eds), Adult Education between Cultures: Encounters and identities in European adult education since 1890, Cross-Cultural Studies in the Education of Adults No. 2 (University of Leeds, Leeds Studies in Continuing Education, 1992), 93.

(5) Josef Weidenholzer, Auf dem Weg zum Neuen Menschen. Bildungs- und Kulturarbeit der österreichischen Sozialdemokratie in der Ersten Republik (Wien, Europaverlag, 1981), 40.

(6) See Horst Dräger, Die Erwachsenenbildung der ‚Neuen Richtung’ in ordnungspolitischer Perspektive: Ein Interpretationsvorschlag, Literatur- und Forschungsreport Weiterbildung (Frankfurt am Main) 31 (1993), 47-52.

(7) Karl H. Müller, Hochzeit der Sozialwissenschaften 1871-1938, in Josef Langer (ed), Geschichte der österreichischen Soziologie: Konstituierung, Entwicklung und europäische Züge (Wien, Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, 1988), 58.

(8) Kurt Bayertz, Naturwissenschaft und Sozialismus: Tendenzen der Naturwissenschafts-Rezeption in der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung des 19. Jahrhunderts, Social Studies of Science (London) 13 (1983), 355-394.

[S. 284] (9) Etymological aspects of the term ‘Volk’ are discussed in Mathilde Bachmann-Di Michele, Die Volks- und Erwachsenenbildung in der deutschen Schweiz im 19. Jahrhundert (Bern/Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, 1992), 25.

(10) So for instance in Felix Czeike (ed), Historisches Lexikon Wien (Wien, Kremayr und Scheriau, 1992), Vol I, 141.

(11) See Helmut Engelbrecht, Geschichte des österreichischen Bildungswesens: Erziehung und Unterricht auf dem Boden Österreichs, Vol. 4: Von 1848 bis zum Ende der Monarchie (Wien, Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1986), 335-337; Josef Weidenholzer, Historische Betrachtungen zum Verhältnis von Wissenschaft und Arbeiterbewegung in Österreich, in Helmut Konrad (ed), Geschichte als demokratischer Auftrag: Karl Stadler zum 70. Geburtstag (Wien, Europaverlag, 1983), 159-204; further Wilhelm Filla, Ludo Moritz Hartmann: Wissenschaftler in der Volksbildung, in Wilhelm Filla, Michael Judy, Ursula Knittler-Lux (eds), Aufklärer und Organisator: Der Wissenschaftler, Volksbildner und Politiker Ludo Moritz Hartmann (Wien, Picus Verlag, 1992), 79.

(12) Steven Shapin, Science and the public, in R. C. Olby, G. N. Cantor, J. R. R. Christie and M. J. S. Hodge (eds), Companion to the History of Science (London/New York, Routledge, 1989), 992.

(13) Martin Keilhacker, Das Universitäts-Ausdehnungs-Problem in Deutschland und Deutsch-Österreich, dargestellt aufgrund der bisherigen Entwicklung (Stuttgart, Verlag Silberburg, 1929), 31-32; further Hans Altenhuber, Entstehung und Entwicklung der Universitärsausdehnung in Österreich, in Volkshochschule und Universität vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Bericht der 10. Konferenz des Arbeitskreises zur Aufarbeitung historischer Quellen der Erwachsenenbildung (Münchenwiler/Murten, Schweiz) 16.-20. Oktober 1990], 97-109.

(14) Marriott (1992), 87.

(15) Engelbrecht (1986), 348.

(16) See Hans Fellinger, Entwicklungsgeschichte der Wiener Volksbildung, in Norbert Kutalek and Hans Fellinger (eds), Zur Wiener Volksbildung (Wien, Jugend und Volk, 1969), 146-147.

(17) Ludo M. Hartmann, Das Volkshochschulwesen, Dürer-Bund 66. Flugschriften zur Ausdruckskultur (1910), reprinted in Hans Altenhuber and Aladar Pfniß (eds), Bildung, Freiheit, Fortschritt: Gedanken Österreichischer Volksbildner (Wien, Verband österreichischer Volkshochschulen, 1965), 118-120.

(18) Quoted by Fellinger (1969), 133.

(19) Marriott (1992), 94.

(20) Friedrich Stadler, Vom Positivismus zur Wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung. Am [S. 285] Beispiel der Wirkungsgeschichte von Ernst Mach in Österreich von 1895 bis 1934. Veröffentlichungen des Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institutes für Geschichte der Gesellschaftswissenschaften 8/9 (Wien, Löcker Verlag, 1982), 175-179.

(21) Adi Ophir and Steven Shapin, The place of knowledge: The spatial setting and its relation to the production of knowledge, Science in Context (Cambridge) 4/1 (1991), 9.

(22) Marriott (1992), 94.

(23) Bericht über die Verhandlungen der Tagung von Hochschullehrern zur Beratung über volkstümliche Hochschulvorträge im deutschen Sprachgebiete. Zweiter Deutscher Volkshochschultag, Universität Wien (1906), 55.

(24) See Gerhard Bisovsky, Conditions, aims and functions of state policy for adult education, contribution to this volume.

(25) Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1990), 98-99.

(26) Habermas (1990), 28.

(27) See Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung: Zur Organisationsanalyse von bürgerlicher und proletarischer Öffentlichkeit (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1972), 108.

(28) Rudolf G. Ardelt, Sozialdemokratie und bürgerliche Öffentlichkeit: Überlegungen zum Hainfelder Parteitag, in Isabella Ackerl, Walter Hummelberger and Hans Mommsen (eds), Politik und Gesellschaft im Alten und Neuen Österreich. Festschrift für Rudolf Neck zum 60. Geburtstag (Wien, Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1981), 217-218.

(29) Günther Lottes, Politische Aufklärung und plebejisches Publikum: Zur Theorie und Praxis des englischen Radikalismus im späten 18. Jahrhundert (München/Wien, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1979), 110.

(30) Michel Foucault, Andere Räume, in Karlheinz Barck (ed), Aisthesis: Wahrnehmung heute oder Perspektiven einer anderen Ästhetik (Leipzig, Reclam-Verlag, 1990), 39.

(31) Hans Harbers, From Olympus to Agora and Beyond: Differentiation revisited, paper presented at the ERASMUS/EASST Workshop, Science Meets the Public: A new look at an old problem, Wien, 20-24 April 1993, 2-4.

(32) Wilhelm Filla, Wissenschaft für und mit Laien: Fachgruppenarbeit an Wiener Volkshochschulen, Die Österreichische Volkshochschule 150 (1988), 27-42.

(33) Martin Jay, Dialektische Phantasie: Die Geschichte der Frankfurter Schule und des Instituts für Sozialforschung 1923-1950 (Frankfurt am Main, Fischer 1981), 27.

[S. 286] (34) Gerhard Benetka, Volksbildung und ‘Akademische Psychologie’. Oder: Wie ein relativ unbedeutendes Fach ‘populär’ zu werden versuchte, Mitteilungen des Vereins zur Geschichte der Volkshochschulen (Wien) 3/4 (1993), 14-19.

(35) Antworten auf die von dem Wiener Ausschusse für volkstümliche Universitäts-Vorträge veranstaltete Umfrage über den Nutzen der Universitätskurse, Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen (Wien) 6/7 (1904), 81-101.

(36) Die Vortragstätigkeit des Wiener Volksbildungsvereines während seines siebenzehnjährigen Bestandes und die zu Ende der Vortragssaison 1903/04 mit den Hörern des Volksbildungsvereines veranstaltete Enquete. (Reprint of report by Anton Lampa), Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen (Wien) 9/10 (1904), 137.

(37) Zentralblatt für Volksbildungswesen (Wien) 6/7 (1904), 95.

(38) Wilhelm Filla, Arbeiter als Teilnehmer in den Wiener Volkshochschulen der zwanziger Jahre, Erwachsenenbildung in Österreich 1 (1993), 22.

(39) Hertha Siemering, Arbeiterbildungswesen in Wien und Berlin: Eine kritische Untersuchung (Karlsruhe im Breisgau, Braunsche Hofdruckerei, 1911), 33.

(40) Leopold von Wiese, Die Werkzeuge der Volksbildung: Die Presse, in Wiese (ed), Soziologie des Volksbildungswesens (München/Leipzig, Duncker und Humblot, 1921), 428.

(41) Wiese (1921), 433.

(42) Wiese (1921), 438.

(43) Kurt Paupié, Handbuch der Österreichischen Pressegeschichte 1848-1959. Bd 1: Wien (Wien, Braumüller, 1960), 83.

(44) Arbeiterzeitung (Wien), 4 June 1930.

(45) Tom Steele, Metropolitan extensions: Comparison of two moments in the export of British university adult education, Europe 1890-1910 and Africa 1945-1955, in Martha Friedenthal-Haase, Barry J. Hake and Stuart Marriott (eds), British-Dutch-German Relationships in Adult Education 1880-1930 Cross-Cultural Studies in the Education of Adults No. 1 (University of Leeds, Leeds Studies in Continuing Education, 1992), 84.

(46) See Günter Fellner, Ludo Moritz Hartmann und die österreichische Geschichtswissenschaft: Grundzüge eines paradigmatischen Konflikts (Wien/Salzburg, Geyer-Edition, 1985); Christian Stifter, Soziale Kunst und wissenschaftliche Volksbildung: Emil Reich 1864-1940, Mitteilungen des Vereins zur Geschichte der Volkshochschulen (Wien) 3 (1992), 16-19; Robert A. Kann and Peter Leisching (eds), Ein Leben für Kunst und Volksbildung: Eduard Leisching 1858-1938. Erinnerungen (Wien, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1978).

[S. 287] (47) Arbeiterzeitung (Wien) Nr. 292, 24 October 1895.

(48) Arbeiterzeitung Nr 55, 25 February 1901.

(49) Neue Freie Presse (Wien), 26 April 1901.

(50) Arbeiterzeitung Nr 88, 31 March 1901.

(51) As note 50.

(52) Österreichischer Metallarbeiter (Wien), 25 September 1902.

(53) Österreichische Chemiker Zeitung (Wien), 15 April 1905.

(54) Arbeiterzeitung Nr 80, 20 March 1904.

(55) Das Vaterland (Wien), 20 December 1904.

(56) Reichspost (Wien), 16 April 1927.

(57) Reichspost, 7 November 1905.

(58) Reichspost, 15 November 1905.

(59) Vorwärts (Wien) Nr 292, 23 June 1922.

(60) Christian Stifter, Die historischen Plakate der Volkshochschulen: Repräsentationsgeschichtliche Überlegungen zur Plakatproduktion der Wiener Volkshochschulen, in Kurt Aufderklamm, Wilhelm Filla and Erich Leichtenmüller (eds), No Sex, No Crime: Volkshochschule und Medien (Wien, ProMedia, 1993), 129.

(61) Friedrich Stadler, Spätaufklärung und Sozialdemokratie in Wien 1918-1938, in Franz Kadrnoska (ed), Aufbruch und Untergang: Österreichische Kultur zwischen 1918 und 1938 (Wien, Europaverlag, 1981), 441-443.

(62) Michael John, Wohnverhältnisse sozialer Unterschichten im Wien Kaiser Franz Josephs (Wien, Europaverlag, 1984), 151-154.

(63) Stifter (1993), 139.

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