The present source con­sists of a com­pre­hen­sive trea­tise (15 printed pages, ap­prox­i­mately 3400 words) lay­ing out the phi­los­o­phy of ed­u­ca­tion that first ap­peared in June 1821 as the pro­gram of the Ham­burg Is­raelite Free School Is­raelitis­che Freis­chule. School pro­grams in the 19th cen­tury cus­tom­ar­ily func­tioned as in­vi­ta­tions to the pub­lic on the oc­ca­sion of the open ex­am­i­na­tions given once or twice an­nu­ally to demon­strate the level of stu­dents’ knowl­edge and thereby ad­ver­tise the school’s ca­pac­ity to ed­u­cate. In ad­di­tion to in­for­ma­tion about the num­ber of stu­dents, fac­ulty, and pa­trons of the school, most con­tained a suc­cinct essay stat­ing the school’s con­cep­tion of its pur­pose.

Ed­uard Is­rael Kley, the au­thor of the present trea­tise, led the Ham­burg Is­raelite Free School Is­raelitis­che Freis­chule, founded in 1815, from 1817 until 1848. Pre­vi­ously he had de­liv­ered ser­mons in the pri­vate Re­formed tem­ple of Is­rael Ja­cob­son in Berlin. Kley brought with him to Ham­burg Protestant-​influenced el­e­ments frowned upon by the tra­di­tional syn­a­gogue: ser­mons in the Ger­man lan­guage, chants with organ ac­com­pa­ni­ment, and con­fir­ma­tion cer­e­monies in­stead of the Bar and Bat Mitzva. Thanks to its pub­li­ca­tion in David Fränkel’s pe­ri­od­i­cal Su­lamith, the trea­tise be­came known all over the German-​speaking world.