1. Precursors: workhouses
The earliest precursors of the Industrieschule (“vocational school”; term first used in the mid-1780s) appeared in the 16th and 17th centuries; they were established to apprehend penniless, vagrant boys and girls around the age of 12 and train them for simple, repetitive “first-hand” preparatory jobs [9. 157]; [16. 62], primarily in the textile industry. The first workhouses for this purpose were established in Amsterdam and o…