German Education: Schulmeister Steines and the Oakfield Academy
Some of the greatest minds of the modern world, have been German. Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, and in 1904, seventy years after Frederick Steines arrived in America, the X-Ray machine was unveiled at the World’s Fair in St. Louis by German mechanical engineer W.C. Röntgen. German educator, Frederick Steines, was no exception to the great minds that came out of Germany.
Born in 1902 in a small northwest village in Germany on the Ruhr River, Frederick Steines excelled in school and began is teaching career at fourteen. After spending thirteen years teaching in Germany, he became fed up with the civil unrest in what is now known as Germany and boarded a boat with his family bound for America in 1834. Steines wrote an extensive collection of letters spanning over many years, across stateliness, and covering many topics, such as life in the new country and starting the first school in Franklin County, Oakfield Academy in 1839.
Steines began his teaching career in St. Louis around 1837 at a German public school after losing his first wife and children to a disease in the first years of his time in America. After teaching for a few years in St. Louis, Steines realized the need for German schools in more rural areas. Franklin County had already established a large German population. According to the Atlas Map of Franklin County, Missouri, 1878, the German population showed that generations of immigrants had been there (The Saint Louis Atlas Publishing Company,1878, p28). The in Patrons’ Directory, many of the citizens in the county had immigrated from Germany or Prussia. In a letter dated December 23, 1837, written in St. Louis, Frederick a convention that took place in Pittsburgh that was “very important for the German population” (F. Steines, personal communication, December 23, 1837). At this conference “the case of the Germans was seriously taken into consideration” including “the German education system, the status of Germans to Americans…” (F. Steines, personal communication, December 23, 1837).
Many German immigrants realized that hostile this new country could be to outsiders and how “cultured Germans are truly in a bed way here” (F. Steines, personal communication, September 18, 1840). Frederick felt like in order to show Americans how important this population of people could be, young pupils needed to receive a quality education that placed importance on learning “American” topics as well as German ones. Many Missourians at this time were also focused with moving education to less populated areas. In Franklin County, a committee was established in 1821 to help divide up land to be used for schools (Goodspeed’s Franklin County History, 1888).
Frederick Steines was chosen as a school headmaster unanimously because the people felt “the conditions under which it wishes to intrust the instruction of the German youth to the care of a capable man” (Bek, 1921, p119). Oakfield Academy was a building that was “25x40 feet and one- and one-half stories high” (Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1888, p826). In this small schoolhouse over 500 students over the course of its time, were educated on topics such as English, German, Mathematics, History and many more (Bek, 1921, p128). Steines taught for over fifty years and taught at Oakfield Academy until it’s closure in 1869. He passed in 1890 having held many positions in his life such as a lieutenant in the German regular army, justice of the peace, (Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1888, p826) but most importantly as the man who was responsible for bringing a proper, quality education to German-Americans in Franklin County. Although Steines may not have come up with the Theory of Relativity or a huge development in modern medicine, he molded the minds of students and instilled a lust for learning in many. With this education, students could thrive in a new country, while still maintain a sense of German “stolz”.
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