Conference: "Between school, university and private education. Gotha's Gymnasium illustre in the context of early modern cultures of learned knowledge."

On 21 December 1524, a Latin school was founded in the Augustinian monastery in the Ernestine royal seat of Gotha as part of the Reformation. It quickly rose to become an institution of regional and supra-regional importance and became a vital part of the Central German educational landscape. Thanks to financial support, the school soon took on a university-like character. With the foundation of the Duchy of Saxony-Gotha in 1640, the Gymnasium illustre was placed under the direct control of the consistory and took on a pioneering educational role in the empire through reforms under the rector Andreas Reyher. The ducal collections at Friedenstein Castle were also used for practice-orientated education. As at universities, private tuition formed an essential part of education on site. The historical development of Gotha's grammar school is extremely well documented and shows that in the early modern period there was often no strict distinction between school and university. The opportunities for higher education were also very diverse and sometimes lay outside of an institutional framework.

New research shows that the Gotha grammar school is a particularly suitable starting point for a more precise examination of the plurality of early modern cultures of erudite knowledge, curricular overlaps and the idiosyncrasies of various educational institutions and opportunities, the tension between their complementarity and competition, and the establishment process of new scientific disciplines and innovative methods before the far-reaching regulation of the education system by the state in the 19th century.

• The Gotha Grammar School was by no means only of local importance. Since the 16th century, it had enjoyed a transregional reputation. Throughout the early modern period, its catchment area included the historical landscape of Thuringia and also individual cities in other parts of the empire and Europe.
• Because of its outstanding importance, the Gotha Grammar School has also been co-financed by the provincial diets since 1605. Thus, it is considered the first provincial school in Thuringia.
• As a result of the educational reforms introduced by the influential pedagogue and headmaster Andreas Reyher (1601–1673), the Gotha grammar school was, by the second half of the 17th century at the latest, a polymorphic institution, the like of which is no longer found in the German language today. It combined essential elements of school, grammar school and university education. While the three lower classes could be characterised as a middle-class school, the curriculum in the upper classes overlapped considerably with that of the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Theology at the Protestant universities. Thus, the gymnasium not only prepared future teachers and priests for university study, but to a large extent replaced it. Accordingly, the 15- to 25-year-olds in the upper classes were of a university age, which was common for the early modern period.
• As at the universities, private tuition and self-study played a significant role in the higher education provided at the grammar schools. The particularly dense record of this at the Gotha grammar school is excellent evidence for this often overlooked fact. For example, the study of oriental languages can be traced back to the school in question, and to public and private tuition, long before the relevant university chairs were established.

After a conference organised at the Gotha Research Library in 2014 was dedicated to the inter-confessional comparison of early modern education systems, the upcoming conference now aims to focus on the plurality of early modern cultures of learned knowledge, curricular overlaps and peculiarities of different educational institutions and opportunities, the tension between their complementarity and competition as well as the establishment process of new knowledge disciplines and innovative methods on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Gotha Gymnasium.

The conference is headed by Dr Daniel Gehrt from the Gotha Research Library and Professor Martin Mulsow, Director of the Gotha Research Centre. There will be 16 speakers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The event is supported by the Freundeskreis der Forschungsbibliothek Gotha e.V. and the "Verein der Freunde und Förderer des Gymnasium Ernestinum e.V.".