§ 174.8. =Popular Education.=--While the poetic national literature for the most part found entrance only among the cultured and adult circles, this age, almost as fond of writing as of reading, produced an enormous quantity of books for the people and for children. But only a few succeeded in catching the proper tone for the masses and the youth, and still fewer supplied their readers with what was genuinely pious. Pestalozzi’s “_Lienhard und Gertrud_,” Hebel’s “_Schatzkästlein_,” and Tschokke’s “_Goldmacherdorf_,” respected at least the Christian feeling of the people, although they did not strengthen or foster it. But, on the other hand, in recent years a number of writers have appeared, thoroughly popular, and at the same time thoroughly Christian, who, as popular poets and novelists, have become apostles of Christian views, morals, and customs to the people. The most distinguished of these are Jeremiah Gotthelf (Albert Bitzius, died 1854), whose “Kate the Grandmother” was translated in the _Sunday Magazine_ for 1865, Von Horn, Carl Stöber, Wildenhahn, Nathusius, Frommel, Weitbrecht, etc. In the Catholic church Albanus Stoltz, died 1883, developed a wonderful power of popular composition, which, however, he subsequently put at the service of a fanatical ultramontanism, and so sacrificed much of its nobility and worth. From the enormous mass of children’s books only extremely few attain their aim. In the front rank stands the brilliant patriarch of Christian tale writing, Von Schubert, died 1860. After him are Barth, the author of “Poor Henry,” Stöber, and the Swiss Spyri, and the Catholic Christian Schmid, author of the “Easter Eggs.”--The =Public Schools=, especially under Dinter (died 1831), member of the consistory and schoolboard of Königsberg, were for a long time nurseries of the tame, flat, and self-satisfied rationalism of the _ancien régime_; but since 1830, and more particularly in consequence of the violent agitations of the seminary director Diesterweg, who died in 1866, put to silence in 1847, but still for his work in connexion with education always highly respected, many of the teachers took a higher flight in the naturalistic-democratic direction. By word and pen Diesterweg carried on a propaganda in favour of a free and liberal education for the people. His disciples, wanting his earnest Christian spirit, carried out recklessly his radical tendencies, and now the Christian faith has no more persistent foes than the teachers of the public schools. In A.D. 1870, a Teachers’ Association in Vienna gave a vote of 6,000 in favour of radicalism. At a Hamburg meeting in A.D. 1872 of 5,100 teachers, progress was shown by individuals raising their voices in defence of Christianity, which, however, were generally drowned in shrieks and hisses. A Teachers’ Evangelical Association held its ninth assembly at Hamburg in A.D. 1881 with 1,500 members. Christian opinions are now ably represented in schools, educational journals, and literature. A burning question at present is whether the national school should be preferred to the denominational school. Liberals in church and state say it should; conservatives say it should not; while both parties think their views supported by the experience of the past. The Prussian minister of education, Falk, A.D. 1872-1879, firmly insisted upon the development of the national system, but his successors Von Puttkamer and Von Gossler reverted to the denominational system. The German Evangelical School Congress of Hamburg in October, 1882, demanded that both elementary and secondary schools should have a confessional character.