Abstract
Systematic adult education in German was generated by social. political, and economic forces in the first half of the nineteenth century. First was the "Enlightenment" view of adult education as a means of self-help, the conviction that "knowledge is power." Ancillary to this was the emergence of science as a powerful force for technological, economic, and social change. In addition, the Industrial Revolution created a new social class, the industrial workers, whose leaders looked to adult education as a substitute for an inadequate system of public education for the young. These factors gave rise to a movement in adult education that became perceptible in the 1820's, seemed to disappear again under govern ment suppression of the 1850's, only to reemerge more dynamic than ever in the 1860's.
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