6 Teachers love pile building topics

The Zurich teacher Johannes Staub (1813-1880) wrote in 1864,
only 10 years after the discovery of the first pile dwellings,
a "Volksschrift" with the title "The Lake Dwellings in the Swiss Lakes".
On 80 pages he tried to inform about the current state of knowledge.
He presented a village picture as well as seven plates with archaeological finds.
The booklet with a print run of 6000 copies sold laboriously,
but it was the first step towards the inclusion of pile-dwelling history in school textbooks.

The pile dwellers' appearance in school textbooks
While pile dwellers had already become uninteresting in the fine arts, 
they belatedly found their way into schools.
Years of archaeological research had now progressed to such an extent
that the findings seemed sufficiently secure for teaching.
The first illustrations in schoolbooks were nevertheless based on
on F. Keller's report and J. Staub's first illustrations.
Idyllic and romantic pictures, supplemented with texts,
described the farmers performing various activities.
The most widely read pile-dwelling book in Switzerland is
a booklet of the Swiss Youth Publication with the number 18.
"The Pile Builders at Lake Moos" by the Bernese primary school teacher, 
child psychologist and writer Hans Zulliger (1893-1965). 
They had a total print run of 343,152 copies.

Pile building romanticism in the classroom
Due to cheaper printing technology in the second half of the 19th century
panel paintings also found their way into school classrooms. 
Karl Jausin (1842-1904) supplied the first large-format pile-dwelling picture
for school use with appropriate commentary, but in black and white.
Initially, Swiss schools purchased images from abroad,
because their own production developed hesitantly.
One widely used illustration came from the Leipzig publishing house
by F.E. Wachsmuth around 1900.
From 1936 onwards, school panels were also printed in Switzerland in larger numbers.
In 1946, the Schweizerische Schulwandbilder Werk published Paul Eichenberger's picture
"Pfahlbauer" with the number 51 on the market and in the classrooms.

The growing number of finds has steadily improved the state of research 
on material culture in prehistoric times.
In the interpretation of the social structure, 
for which there are hardly any concrete clues, 
contemporary archaeologists are very cautious. 
In the past the temptation was still very big 
to project one's own images of society into prehistoric times,
this also happened in schoolbooks, readings and panels.