[Controversy and compromise concerning the introduction of the 1907 Prussian nursing examination in Catholic orders and Protestant deaconess motherhouses].
Following a decision by the German Federal Parliament's Upper House (Bundesrat) in 1906, Prussia introduced a voluntary state examination for nurses in 1907, which meant that nursing became state-recognized. The Prussian Ministry of Culture aimed at implementing the state examination also for nurses trained in Catholic orders and Protestant deaconess motherhouses. To this end, it entered into negotiations with Georg Cardinal Kopp (1837-1914), the representative of the Prussian Catholic episcopate. On the one hand, calls for the modernisation of Catholic nursing by priests and physicians from the 1890s onwards had already set the stage for the introduction of the state examination. On the other hand, Kopp's main concern was to defend Catholic nursing against tendencies towards secularisation. The Prussian Ministry of Culture and Kopp arrived at a compromise: The state was content with an examination at the end of the one-year training period without imposing state standards for the training year Grudgingly, the Kaiserswerth General Conference's headquarters (Präsidium der Kaiserswerther Generalkonferenz) as the deaconess motherhouses' representative also accepted the compromise. The representatives of Catholic orders and deaconess motherhouses attached high importance to the religious world view of denominational nurses during a process of state standardisation. Thus nurse training institutions, which remained aloof from state's direct influence, retained ample autonomy and became state-approved.
Schweikardt
Christoph
C
Abteilung für Medizinische Ethik und Geschichte der Medizin, Ruhr-Universität Bochum. christoph.schweikardt@rub.de
D002410:Catholicism; D004506:Education, Nursing / Q000592:standards*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D033303:Protestantism; D012579:Schools, Nursing / Q000592:standards*