History: Kurt Hahn and Outward Bound

Born in Berlin, Germany, in 1886, Outward Bound visionary Kurt Hahn was the second of four sons in a prominent Jewish family. His father, Oskar, was an industrialist and Anglophile, and the family enjoyed a privileged position in German society.

In 1904, Hahn graduated from secondary school and enrolled at Oxford University in England. The same year, he suffered a sunstroke that left him permanently disabled. He would later count his pronounced disability as one of his greatest strengths, and he often told students, “Your disability is your opportunity.” While recovering from his debilitating sunstroke, Hahn read numerous books by philosophers and educationalists.

Oxford, England

While at Oxford, Hahn studied classic literature. He left the university in 1906 to attend various German schools but returned in 1910. Except for summer holidays in Moray, Scotland, Hahn spent the next four years absorbed in his studies at Oxford. During this time, he began to formulate his own theories about education and society. He is quoted as saying, “I regard it as the foremost task of education to ensure survival of these qualities: an enterprising curiosity, an undefeatable spirit, tenacity in pursuit, readiness of sensible self-denial and, above all, compassion.”

When World War I started in 1914, Hahn returned to Germany without completing his degree. During the war, he read English-language newspapers and tracked popular opinion abroad for the German Foreign Office. He also allied himself with members of the German government seeking to negotiate peace in Western Europe and, in doing so, earned a reputation as a liberal.

After the war ended, Prince Max Von Baden asked Hahn to be his personal secretary. The two shared similar ideals for society, and they feared many of society’s ethical traditions were endangered by both political extremism and middle-of-the-road complacency. In 1920, they opened the Schloss Salem School to address their concerns. Hahn directed the school from its inception until 1933.

Plato and Aristotle

Hahn incorporated into his own educational philosophy what he considered to be the best of Plato’s philosophies, humanistic educational traditions and the work of English and German educationalists Reddie and Lietz.

At the Schloss Salem School, Hahn strove to create a healthy environment where students could learn habits with which to protect themselves from the declines of modern life. He pinpointed fitness, skill and care, memory and imagination and compassion as the qualities most compromised by modern society. Hahn placed emphasis on noncompetitive physical activities and democratic forms of social cooperation. Prince Max asked that egalitarian aims also be a part of the school’s mission. While the school attracted primarily students from wealthy families, the founders made space for and sought out children from less affluent backgrounds.

The Schloss Salem School embraced the local community in part by performing community service. Students of the school even served as the local fire brigade. The school’s curriculum prepared students for higher education, while addressing issues of moral and civic virtue.

Hahn also believed that education should include opportunities for both failure and success. He regarded failure as an important part of learning how to overcome setbacks, which he believed helped to build confidence. He also maintained that effective learning situations involved both directed activities and time for reflection. To help students balance their mental and physical growth, Hahn introduced a training plan that included increasing levels of physical challenge and personal hygiene and focused on promoting healthy living as opposed to competitive performance.

Hahn spoke out against Hitler and the Nazis.

By the early 1920s, Germany’s political climate had begun to change. Hahn’s liberalism and educational philosophies drew increasing criticism, and in 1923, he survived an assassination attempt. Nevertheless, he continued to promote his ideas about education and society. Hahn became a passionate and outspoken opponent of the Nazi Party––a particularly dangerous and courageous position for a German-born Jew. Hahn attempted to unite the alumni of the Schloss Salem School against Hitler. When Hitler became chief of state in 1933, he imprisoned Hahn.

Fortunately, Hahn had made powerful friends and allies in England during his university years. His desire for peace and friendship between Germany and England had not gone unnoticed, and many people embraced his idealism. Prime Minister Ramsay McDonald and others arranged for Hahn’s release and safe passage to England. Hahn’s work at Salem had sparked a great deal of interest among British educators, and he was invited to start a similar school in England.

Kurt Hahn

Although he was offered the headmastership of Eton School to help establish his new program, Hahn realized the old and well-respected institution would not be the appropriate environment for a new school. After turning down the prestigious position, he returned to the place he had spent many enjoyable summers during his own school days––Moray.

With the help of his friends Lord Malcolm Douglas-Hamilton and the Cumming family, Hahn founded a school at Gordonstoun within a year’s time. The school opened with two students and, three years later, boasted an enrollment of 150 pupils. In time, it became one of the most distinguished and progressive schools in the United Kingdom. Hahn kept community service at the heart of his education program. His first students actually helped construct the school, and later students could be found serving the local community in a variety of capacities, including perching on the tops of sea cliffs to watch for ships in bad weather.

In an effort to bring his educational philosophies to a wider audience than simply the students who could afford to attend Gordonstoun, Hahn started the Moray Badge. To earn the badge, participants had to undertake a set of physical activities and then produce a training plan. They were also required to master and demonstrate a specific skill, as well as to complete a self-reliant journey. The badge represented the elements of fitness, skill and care and self-discipline that Hahn revered as integral to a good education and good citizenship.

Soon, many local youths were participating in the badge-earning process, which typically required a year to complete. Inspired by its success, Hahn set out to promote a badge for each county.

Overwhelmed by the enormity of his task, Hahn hired educator Jim Hogan to help with the badge promotion. Hogan traveled throughout the country introducing the concept of the badge. While popular, many people felt it lacked the element of community service crucial to Hahn’s school programs. Hahn had omitted service because he believed that people should volunteer their time without the promise of reward (i.e. a badge). Eventually, he gave in to public demand and added service to the badge requirements.

Hahn required his students to perform service like protecting boats from sea cliffs during storms.

As part of the badge promotion campaign from 1937 through 1940, Hahn and Hogan offered several short, residential-style courses that introduced people to the elements of the badge, including a popular 28-day course. Hahn believed these courses left people with unforgettable memories, as well as turned them on to training. In 1942, the publication of the booklet The County Badge or the Fourfold Achievement gave greater credence and publicity to the badge.

Hahn used his social skills and connections to generate donors for his work at Gordonstoun and with the county badges. He gave frequent lectures about what he considered the social ills of the day. Eventually, World War II erupted in Europe, and, in 1940, the British Army commandeered Gordonstoun. Hahn moved his school to Wales, which was considerably safer. He rented buildings at Plas Dinam to house the school’s academic programs and a house on the Dyfy Estuary, just outside the small town of Aberdovey, for its sailing program. Hahn had started the school’s sailing component in Moray as a means of incorporating adventure into the school’s curriculum. School life continued in Wales much as it had in Scotland.

Transatlantic sailing during WWII required skill and courage.

As World War II raged on, funding for the badge program dwindled. A serendipitous connection both saved the badge and led to the foundation of Outward Bound. One of Hahn’s students was the son of Laurence Holt––a partner in the Blue Funnel Shipping Company and a supporter of Hahn’s work. Holt’s shipping line transported goods across the Atlantic and was a prime target for German U-boats. To Holt’s dismay, many of the company’s younger sailors fared poorly under the duress and rigors of ship life, war and lifeboat rescues. He noted that youth and technical training were no match for experience.

OB trained sailors.

Holt asked Hahn for a solution. Hahn suggested that the sailors needed to gain life skills, as well as a sense of compassion and support. After several months with no further correspondence from Holt and running desperately short of money, Hahn sent Hogan to the board of the Blue Funnel Shipping Company with a proposal for a training program for the company’s inexperienced sailors. Hogan pitched a training course modeled on the 28-day badge courses. The board accepted, sent Hahn 1,000 pounds, purchased the school’s property at Aberdovey as a base for the training program and provided captains and ships. Five weeks later, the first group of seamen arrived.

Hahn put Hogan in charge of designing and implementing the seafaring training. Hogan drew on Hahn’s philosophy of education, his work and the 28-day badge courses. Captain Zimmerman took charge of the program’s athletic activities, and Holt provided its name––Outward Bound.

Blue Peter

Holt took the name from the blue peter flag that seamen fly on the start of a journey across the Atlantic. The blue and white flag communicates that the ship is “outward bound.” Although Hahn did not like the name at first, he later counted it among the organization’s greatest assets. Hahn was always quick to credit Hogan with creating Outward Bound, which opened on October 14, 1941.

Hahn and a small committee ran the new school, and they modified a line from Alfred Tennyson’s epic poem Ulysses to serve as the school’s motto. “To serve, to strive and not to yield” remains the motto of Outward Bound today.

Outward Bound’s early students came from the Blue Funnel Shipping Company, as well as from other shipping lines, the government, industry apprentices and boys on leave from school or waiting to go into the armed services. Hahn soon resigned from the school’s governing committee to continue developing his county badge program and his school at Plas Dinam.

The county badge flourished and soon gained the patronage of one of Hahn’s first Gordonstoun students––the Prince of Greece. The prince eventually married the Queen of England and assumed the title of Duke of Edinburgh. The county badge exists today as the Duke of Edinburgh Award and was the inspiration for the United States’ congressional award.

With the help of Lawrence Darvall, Hahn went on to establish Atlantic College, which later became known as United World College of the Atlantic. He influenced numerous schools, as well as a forum for educational institutions called the Round Square Conference. His visionary approach to education became the foundation for schools the world over.

After World War II, Outward Bound had a new niche to fill. Many young soldiers had spent their apprenticeship years fighting the war and did not have job skills. Outward Bound helped prepare returning soldiers for the workplace and leadership roles. Around the same time, the school began running open enrollment courses as part of the preparation for a new badge called the Mountain Leader Award. The award courses inspired the school to offer a greater number of open courses based on personal development objectives.

Interest in Outward Bound grew in the United States, as well. During World War I, Hahn had made friends with such influential Americans as Christian Herter (eventual secretary of state), John McCloy (high commissioner for occupied Germany), and Thomas McKittrick. To introduce Hahn’s work in the United States, the trio started the American-British Foundation for European Education.

Another prominent Yank, John Stevens Jr. was also fascinated by Hahn’s approach to education. In 1950, he sent his son-in-law Josh Miner to England and Germany to visit Hahn’s schools. When he returned to the United States, Miner gave an enthusiastic endorsement of Hahn’s vision. He then went to work at Gordonstoun, where he served as director of activities.

Support in the United States for Hahn’s methodology increased dramatically in the 1960s. The headmaster of Colorado Academy, F. Charles Froelicher, was interested in both opening an Outward Bound base in Colorado and in using it to train Peace Corps volunteers. Hogan’s successor, Freddie Fuller, along with Miner, Froelicher and Jack Snobble, selected a piece of property near the town of Marble, Colorado. However, the director of the Peace Corps opted to hold the program’s training at an old forestry camp in Puerto Rico and recruited Rev. William Coffin to spearhead the exercise. Coffin enlisted Snobble, Miner and Reagh Wetmore to assist as a result of their Outward Bound experience.

The first Peace Corps trainees arrived in 1961. Wetmore had designed a ropes course and circuit training, and the program offered a mix of survival training, orienteering and outdoor education. Fuller encouraged the use of canoeing, solo, rock climbing, morning runs and dips and extended expeditions.

Despite the Peace Corps setback, Froelicher was still determined to establish the first United States Outward Bound School in Colorado and gathered sufficient funds from W. Coors, C. Gates and R. Brown. Former forest ranger and mountain trooper Tap Tapley began constructing the camp and offering mini Outward Bound courses on the side. Colorado Outward Bound School (COBS) opened in the summer of 1962 with writer and educator William Chapman as the director, Tapley as the chief instructor, Teton guide Paul Petzoldt as a mountain specialist and Joe Nold as an instructor. (Nold would go on to head up the school.) Due to conflict over delivery of Outward Bound’s mission, Petzoldt and Tapley resigned and eventually founded the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).

In 1964, Robert Pieh opened an Outward Bound School in Northern Minnesota (now called Voyageur Outward Bound School). Shortly afterwards, Miner established a central office known as Outward Bound USA (OBUSA) to oversee all Outward Bound schools in the United States. Hurricane Island Outward Bound School (HIOBS) opened in Maine in 1965, the Pacific Crest Outward Bound School (PCOBS) started operations in Oregon in 1966 and the North Carolina Outward Bound School (NCOBS) opened the following year.

Outward Bound USA provided guidance for each of the fledgling schools and insisted that half of each school’s enrollment consist of scholarship students. The central office also encouraged schools to award scholarships to economically disadvantaged inner city teens, including “at risk” youth and even adjudicated youth. Several of the schools developed specific adjudicated youth programs. The schools also introduced courses for young women, followed by adult courses.

Outward Bound remains a dynamic organization that continues to evolve to meet modern educational and social needs. Hahn’s philosophies and vision are still at the heart of Outward Bound schools the world over and remains the cornerstone of all Outward Bound courses.