This is a thesis about Lutherans and their schools in Australia. There have been Lutheran schools in Australia for more than 170 years. The first three schools were established in 1839. Currently there are eighty-three Lutheran schools with total enrolments of approximately 37 000 students. In the intervening period there have been two great waves of development. The first began with the first schools in 1839 and reached its climax at the end of the nineteenth century before the advent of state schools and the anti-German sentiment of the Great War caused a period of decline. The second wave, fuelled by government funding and some disillusionment with state schools, gathered its momentum in the last half of the twentieth century and is still in full flow. This thesis deals with the first wave, the eighty years of Lutheran schooling history from 1839 to 1919. It is an exercise in educational historiography and takes a biographical approach. According to its title it focuses on the lives and roles of the male leaders who dominated the church’s educational endeavours during this period. The subjects of the eight biographies are chosen to be representative of regions, eras and issues. They are: August Kavel, the founder of Australian Lutheranism and its schooling system; Daniel Fritzsche, the first Lutheran tertiary educator; Wilhelm Boehm, founder of the Hahndorf Academy in South Australia; Rudolph Ey, a Lutheran pastor and teacher in South Australia; Theodor Langebecker, a Queensland Lutheran pastor and educator; Carl Krichauff, a Lutheran teacher and journalist; Wilhelm Peters, the founder of Concordia College in Adelaide; Georg Leidig, the founder of Immanuel College in Adelaide. The main themes pertaining to Lutheran schooling which the thesis explores are: relations between church and state; relations between schools and the church; schools adjusting to mainstream educational realities; preservation of distinctive traits; regional contrasts; teacher formation and educational standards; American influences; German roots. As a thesis this history attempts to establish, by means of a number of biographies and the exploration of various themes, the answer to a basic question: what were the main events, issues, personalities and forces which impinged on Lutheran schooling in its first eighty years in Australia and how did they contribute to its unique character?
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/279386 |
| Creators | Richard Hauser |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
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