Volksschule

A Volksschule or Volkschule was an 18th century system of state-supported primary schools established in the Habsburg Austrian Empire (in 1840) and Prussia (in 1717). Attendance was supposedly compulsory, but a 1781 census reveals that only one fourth of school-age children attended. At the time, this was one of the few examples of state-supported schooling. Sending one's children to school was binding by law only from 1840 in Austria.