§ 1. One of the most famous movements ever made in educational reform was started in the last century by John Bernard Basedow. Basedow was born at Hamburg in 1723, the son of a wigmaker. His early years were not spent in the ordinary happiness of childhood. His mother he describes as melancholy, almost to madness, and his father was severe almost to brutality. It was the father’s intention to bring up his son to his own business, but the lad ran away, and engaged himself as servant to a gentleman in Holstein. The master soon perceived what had never occurred to the father, viz., that the youth had very extraordinary abilities. Sent home with a letter from his master pointing out this notable discovery, Basedow was allowed to renounce the paternal calling, and to go to the Hamburg Grammar School (Gymnasium), where he was under Reimarus, the author of the “WolfenbÜttel Fragment.” In due course his friends managed to send him to the University of Leipzig to prepare himself for the least expensive of the learned professions—the clerical. Basedow, however, was not a man to follow the beaten tracks. After an irregular life he left the university too unorthodox to think of being ordained, and in 1749 became private tutor to the children of Herr von Quaalen in Holstein. In this situation his talent for inventing new methods of teaching first showed itself. He knew how to adapt himself to the capacity of the children, and he taught them much by conversation, and in the way of play, connecting his instruction with surrounding objects in the house, garden, and fields. Through Quaalen’s influence, he next obtained a professorship at Soroe, in Denmark, where he lectured for eight years, but his unorthodox writings raised a storm of opposition, and the Government finally removed him to the Gymnasium at Altona. Here he still continued his efforts to change the prevailing opinions in religious matters; and so great a stir was made by the publication of his “Philalethia,” and his “Methodical Instruction in both Natural and Biblical Religion,” that he and his family were refused the Communion at Altona, and his books were excluded, under a heavy penalty, from LÜbeck.

§ 2. About this time Basedow, incited by Rousseau’s “Emile,” turned his attention to a fresh field of activity, in which he was to make as many friends as in theology he had found enemies. A very general dissatisfaction was then felt with the condition of the schools. Physical education was not attempted in them. The mother-tongue was neglected. Instruction in Latin and Greek, which was the only instruction given, was carried on in a mechanical way, without any thought of improvement. The education of the poor and of the middle classes received but little attention. “Youth,” says Raumer, “was in those days, for most children, a sadly harassed period. Instruction was hard and heartlessly severe. Grammar was caned into the memory, so were portions of Scripture and poetry. A common school punishment was to learn by heart Psalm cxix. School-rooms were dismally dark. No one conceived it possible that the young could find pleasure in any kind of work, or that they had eyes for aught besides reading and writing. The pernicious age of Louis XIV. had inflicted on the poor children of the upper class, hair curled by the barber and messed with powder and pomade, braided coats, knee breeches, silk stockings, and a dagger by the side—for active, lively children a perfect torture” (Gesch. d. PÄdagogik, ii. 297). Kant gave expression to a very wide-spread feeling when he said that what was wanted in education was no longer a reform but a revolution. Here, then, was a good scope offered for innovators, and Basedow was a prince of innovators.

§ 3. Having succeeded in interesting the Danish minister, Bernstorff, in his plans, he was permitted to devote himself entirely to a work on the subject of education whilst retaining his income from the Altona Gymnasium. The result was his “Address to Philanthropists and Men of Property on Schools and Studies and their Influence on the Public Weal” (1766), in which he announces the plan of his “Elementary.”[149] In this address he calls upon princes, governments, town-councils, dignitaries of the Church, freemasons’ lodges, &c., &c., if they loved their fellow-creatures, to come to his assistance in bringing out his book. Nor did he call in vain. When the “Elementary” at length appeared (in 1774), he had to acknowledge contributions from the Emperor Joseph II., from Catherine II. of Russia, from Christian VII. of Denmark, from the Grand Prince Paul, and many other celebrities, the total sum received being over 2,000l.

§ 4. While Basedow was travelling about (in 1774) to get subscriptions, he spent some time in Frankfurt, and thence made an excursion to Ems with two distinguished companions, one of them Lavater, and the other a young man of five-and-twenty, already celebrated as the author of “GÖtz von Berlichingen,” and the “Sorrows of Werther.” Of Basedow’s personal peculiarities at this time Goethe has left us an amusing description in the “Wahrheit und Dichtung;” but we must accept the portrait with caution: the sketch was thrown in as an artistic contrast with that of Lavater, and no doubt exaggerates those features in which the antithesis could be brought out with best effect.

“One could not see,” writes Goethe, “a more marked contrast than between Lavater and Basedow. As the lines of Lavater’s countenance were free and open to the beholder, so were Basedow’s contracted, and as it were drawn inwards, Lavater’s eye, clear and benign, under a very wide eye-lid; Basedow’s, on the other hand, deep in his head, small, black, sharp, gleaming out from under shaggy eyebrows, whilst Lavater’s frontal bone seemed bounded by two arches of the softest brown hair. Basedow’s impetuous rough voice, his rapid and sharp utterances, a certain derisive laugh, an abrupt changing of the topic of conversation, and whatever else distinguished him, all were opposed to the peculiarities and the behaviour by which Lavater had been making us over-fastidious.”

§ 5. Goethe approved of Basedow’s desire to make all instruction lively and natural, and thought that his system would promote mental activity and give the young a fresher view of the world: but he finds fault with the “Elementary,” and prefers the “Orbis Pictus” of Comenius, in which subjects are presented in their natural connection. Basedow himself, says Goethe, was not a man either to edify or to lead other people. Although the object of his journey was to interest the public in his philanthropic enterprise, and to open not only hearts but purses, and he was able to speak eloquently and convincingly on the subject of education, he spoilt everything by his tirades against prevalent religious belief, especially on the subject of the Trinity.

§ 6. Goethe found in Basedow’s society an opportunity of “exercising, if not enlightening,” his mind, so he bore with his personal peculiarities, though apparently with great difficulty. Basedow seems to have delighted in worrying his associates. “He would never see anyone quiet but he provoked him with mocking irony, in a hoarse voice, or put him to confusion by an unexpected question, and laughed bitterly when he had gained his end; yet he was pleased when the object of his jests was quick enough to collect himself, and answer in the same strain.” So far Goethe was his match; but he was nearly routed by Basedow’s use of bad tobacco, and of some tinder still worse with which he was constantly lighting his pipe and poisoning the air insufferably. He soon discovered Goethe’s dislike to this preparation of his, so he took a malicious pleasure in using it and dilating upon its merits.

§ 7. Here is an odd account of their intercourse. During their stay at Ems Goethe went a great deal into fashionable society. “To make up for these dissipations,” he writes, “I always passed a part of the night with Basedow. He never went to bed, but dictated without cessation. Occasionally he cast himself on the couch and slumbered, while his amanuensis sat quietly, pen in hand, ready to continue his work when the half-awakened author should once more give free course to his thoughts. All this took place in a close confined chamber, filled with the fumes of tobacco and the odious tinder. As often as I was disengaged from a dance I hastened up to Basedow, who was ready at once to speak and dispute on any question; and when after a time I hurried again to the ball-room, before I had closed the door behind me he would resume the thread of his essay as composedly as if he had been engaged with nothing else.”

§ 8. It was through a friend of Goethe’s, Behrisch, whose acquaintance we make in the “Wahrheit und Dichtung,” that Basedow became connected with Prince Leopold of Dessau. Behrisch was tutor to the Prince’s son, and by him the Prince was so interested in Basedow’s plans that he determined to found an Institute in which they should be realised. Basedow was therefore called to Dessau, and under his direction was opened the famous Philanthropinum. Then for the first, and probably for the last time, a school was started in which use and wont were entirely set aside, and everything done on “improved principles.” Such a bold enterprise attracted the attention of all interested in education, far and near: but it would seem that few parents considered their own children vilia corpora on whom experiments might be made for the public good. When, in May 1776, a number of schoolmasters and others collected from different parts of Germany, and even from beyond Germany, to be present by Basedow’s invitation at an examination of the children, they found only thirteen pupils in the Philanthropinum, including Basedow’s own son and daughter.

§ 9. Before we investigate how Basedow’s principles were embodied in the Philanthropinum, let us see the form in which he had already announced them. The great work from which all children were to be taught was the “Elementary.” As a companion to this was published the “Book of Method” (Methodenbuch) for parents and teachers. The “Elementary” is a work in which a great deal of information about things in general is given in the form of dialogue, interspersed with tales and easy poetry. Except in bulk, it does not seem to me to differ very materially from many of the reading-books, which, in late years, have been published in this country. It had the advantage, however, of being accompanied by a set of engravings to which the text referred, though they were too large to be bound up with it. The root-ideas of Basedow put forth in his “Book of Method,” and other writings, are those of Rousseau. For example, “You should attend to nature in your children far more than to art. The elegant manners and usages of the world are for the most part unnatural (Unnatur). These come of themselves in later years. Treat children like children, that they may remain the longer uncorrupted. A boy whose acutest faculties are his senses, and who has no perception of anything abstract, must first of all be made acquainted with the world as it presents itself to the senses. Let this be shown him in nature herself, or where this is impossible, in faithful drawings or models. Thereby can he, even in play, learn how the various objects are to be named. Comenius alone has pointed out the right road in this matter. By all means reduce the wretched exercises of the memory.” Elsewhere he gives instances of the sort of things to which this method should be applied. 1st. Man. Here he would use pictures of foreigners and wild men, also a skeleton, a hand in spirits, and other objects still more appropriate to a surgical museum. 2nd. Animals. Only such animals are to be depicted as it is useful to know about, because there is much that ought to be known, and a good method of instruction must shorten rather than increase the hours of study. Articles of commerce made from the animals may also be exhibited. 3rd. Trees and plants. Only the most important are to be selected. Of these the seeds also must be shown, and cubes formed of the different woods. Gardeners’ and farmers’ implements are to be explained. 4th. Minerals and chemical substances. 5th. Mathematical instruments for weighing and measuring; also the air-pump, siphon, and the like. The form and motion of the earth are to be explained with globes and maps. 6th. Trades. The use of various tools is to be taught. 7th. History. This is to be illustrated by engravings of historical events. 8th. Commerce. Samples of commodities may be produced. 9th. The younger children should be shown pictures of familiar objects about the house and its surroundings.

§ 10. We see from this list that Basedow contemplated giving his educational course the charm of variety. Indeed, with that candour in acknowledging mistakes which partly makes amends for the effrontery too common in the trumpetings of his own performances, past, present, and to come, he confesses that when he began the “Elementary” he had exaggerated notions of the amount boys were capable of learning, and that he had subsequently very much contracted his proposed curriculum. And even “the Revolution,” which was to introduce so much new learning into the schools, could not afford entirely to neglect the old. However pleased parents might be with the novel acquirements of their children, they were not likely to be satisfied without the usual knowledge of Latin, and still less would they tolerate the neglect of French, which in German polite society of the eighteenth century was the recognised substitute for the vulgar tongue. These, then, must be taught. But the old methods might be abandoned, if not the old subjects. Basedow proposed to teach both French and Latin by conversation. Let a cabinet of models, or something of the kind, be shown the children; let them learn the names of the different objects in Latin or French; then let questions be asked in those languages, and the right answers at first put into the children’s mouths. When they have in this way acquired some knowledge of the language, they may apply it to the translating of an easy book. Basedow does not claim originality for the conversational method. He appeals to the success with which it had been already used in teaching French. “Are the French governesses,” he asks, “who, without vocabularies and grammars, first by conversation, then by reading, teach their language very successfully and very rapidly in schools of from thirty to forty children, better teachers than most masters in our Latin schools?”

§ 11. On the subject of religion the instruction was to be quite as original as in matters of less importance. The teachers were to give an impartial account of all religions, and nothing but “natural religion” was to be inculcated.

§ 12. The key-note of the whole system was to be—everything according to nature. The natural desires and inclinations of the children were to be educated and directed aright, but in no case to be suppressed.

§ 13. These, then, were the principles and the methods which, as Basedow believed, were to revolutionise education through the success of the Philanthropinum. Basedow himself, as we might infer from Goethe’s description of him, was by no means a model director for the model Institution, but he was fortunate in his assistants. Of these he had three at the time of the public examination, of whom Wolke is said to have been the ablest.

§ 14. A lively description of the examination was afterwards published by Herr Schummel of Magdeburg, under the title of “Fred’s Journey to Dessau.” It purports to be written by a boy of twelve years old, and to describe what took place without attempting criticism. A few extracts will give us a notion of the instruction carried on in the Philanthropin.

“I have just come from a visit with my father to the Philanthropinum, where I saw Herr Basedow, Herr Wolke, Herr Simon, Herr SchweighÄuser, and the little Philanthropinists. I am delighted with all that I have seen, and hardly know where to begin my description of it. There are two large white houses, and near them a field with trees. A pupil—not one of the regular scholars, but of those they call Famulants (a poorer class, who were servitors)—received us at the door, and asked if we wished to see Herr Basedow. We said ‘Yes,’ and he took us into the other house, where we found Herr Basedow in a dressing-gown, writing at a desk. We came at an inconvenient time, and Herr Basedow said he was very busy. He was very friendly, however, and promised to visit us in the evening. We then went into the other house, and enquired for Herr Wolke.” By him they were taken to the scholars. “They have,” says Fred, “their hair cut very short, and no wig-maker is employed. Their throats are quite open, and their shirt-collars fall back over their coats.” Further on he describes the examination. “The little ones have gone through the oddest performances. They play at ‘word of command.’ Eight or ten stand in a line like soldiers, and Herr Wolke is officer. He gives the word in Latin, and they must do whatever he says. For instance, when he says Claudite oculos, they all shut their eyes; when he says Circumspicite, they look about them; Imitamini sartorem, they all sew like tailors; Imitamini sutorem, they draw the waxed thread like the cobblers. Herr Wolke gives a thousand different commands in the drollest fashion. Another game, ‘the hiding game,’ I will also teach you. Some one writes a name, and hides it from the children—the name of some part of the body, or of a plant, or animal, or metal—and the children guess what it is. Whoever guesses right gets an apple or a piece of cake. One of the visitors wrote Intestina, and told the children it was a part of the body. Then the guessing began. One guessed caput, another nasus, another os, another manus, pes, digiti, pectus, and so forth, for a long time; but one of them hit it at last. Next Herr Wolke wrote the name of a beast, a quadruped. Then came the guesses: leo, ursus, camelus, elephas, and so on, till one guessed right—it was mus. Then a town was written, and they guessed Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, London, till a child won with St. Petersburg. They had another game, which was this: Herr Wolke gave the command in Latin, and they imitated the noises of different animals, and made us laugh till we were tired. They roared like lions, crowed like cocks, mewed like cats, just as they were bid.”

§ 15. The subject that was next handled had also the effect of making the strangers laugh, till a severe reproof from Herr Wolke restored their gravity. A picture was brought, in which was represented a sad-looking woman, whose person indicated the approaching arrival of another subject for education. From one part of the picture it also appeared that the prospective mother, with a prodigality of forethought, had got ready clothing for both a boy and a girl. After a warning from Herr Wolke, that this was a most serious and important subject, the children were questioned on the topics the picture suggested. They were further taught the debt of gratitude they owed to their mothers, and the German fiction about the stork was dismissed with due contempt.

§ 16. Next came the examination in arithmetic. Here there seems to have been nothing remarkable, except that all the rules were worked viv voce. From the arithmetic Herr Wolke went on to an “Attempt at various small drawings.” He asked the children what he should draw. Some one answered leonem. He then pretended he was drawing a lion, but put a beak to it; whereupon the children shouted Non est Leo—leones non habent rostrum! He went on to other subjects, as the children directed him, sometimes going wrong that the children might put him right. In the next exercise dice were introduced, and the children threw to see who should give an account of an engraving. The engravings represented workmen at their different trades, and the child had to explain the process, the tools, &c. A lesson on ploughing and harrowing was given in French, and another, on Alexander’s expedition to India, in Latin. Four of the pupils translated passages from Curtius and from Castalio’s Bible, which were read to them. “These children,” said the teacher, “knew not a word of Latin a year ago.” “The listeners were well pleased with the Latin,” writes Fred, “except two or three, whom I heard grumbling that this was all child’s play, and that if Cicero, Livy, and Horace were introduced, it would soon be seen what was the value of Philanthropinist Latin.” After the examination, two comedies were acted by the children, one in French, the other in German.

Most of the strangers seem to have left Dessau with a favourable impression of the Philanthropin. They were especially struck with the brightness and animation of the children.

§ 17. How far did the Philanthropinum really deserve their good opinion? The conclusion to which we are driven by Fred’s narrative is, that Basedow carried to excess his principle—“Treat children as children, that they may remain the longer uncorrupted;” and that the Philanthropinum was, in fact, nothing but a good infant-school. Surely none of the thirteen children who were the subjects of Basedow’s experiments could have been more than ten years old. But if we consider Basedow’s system to have been intended for children, say between the ages of six and ten, we must allow that it possessed great merits. At the very beginning of a boy’s learning, it has always been too much the custom to make him hate the sight of a book, and escape at every opportunity from school-work, by giving him difficult tasks, and neglecting his acutest faculties. “Children love motion and noise,” says Basedow: “here is a hint from nature.” Yet the youngest children in most schools are expected to keep quiet and to sit at their books for as many hours as the youths of seventeen or eighteen. Their vivacity is repressed with the cane. Their delight in exercising their hands and eyes and ears is taken no notice of; and they are required to keep their attention fixed on subjects often beyond their comprehension, and almost always beyond the range of their interests. Everyone who has had experience in teaching boys knows how hard it is to get them to throw themselves heartily into any task whatever; and probably this difficulty arises in many cases, from the habits of inattention and of shirking school-work, which the boys have acquired almost necessarily from the dreariness of their earliest lessons.[150] Basedow determined to change all this; and in the Philanthropin no doubt he succeeded. We have already seen some of the expedients by which he sought to render school-work pleasurable. He appealed, wherever it was possible, to the children’s senses; and these, especially the sight, were trained with great care by exercises, such as drawing, shooting at a mark, &c. One of these exercises, intended to give quick perception, bears a curious likeness to what has since been practised in a very different educational system. A picture, with a somewhat varied subject, was exhibited for a short time and removed. The boys had then, either verbally or on paper, to give an account of it, naming the different objects in proper order. Houdin, if I rightly remember, tells us that the young thieves of Paris are required by their masters to make a mental inventory of the contents of a shop window, which they see only as they walk rapidly by. Other exercises of the Philanthropinum connected the pupils with more honourable callings. They became acquainted with both skilled and unskilled manual labour. Every boy was taught a handicraft, such as carpentering and turning, and was put to such tasks as threshing corn. Basedow’s division of the twenty-four hours was the following: Eight hours for sleep, eight for food and amusement, and, for the children of the rich, six hours of school-work, and two of manual labour. In the case of the children of the poor, he would have the division of the last eight hours inverted, and would give for school-work two, and for manual labour six. The development of the body was specially cared for in the Philanthropinum. Gymnastics were now first introduced into modern schools; and the boys were taken long expeditions on foot—the commencement, I believe, of a practice now common throughout Germany.

§ 18. As I have already said, Basedow proved a very unfit person to be at the head of the model Institution. Many of his friends agreed with Herder, that he was not fit to have calves entrusted to him, much less children. He soon resigned his post; and was succeeded by Campe, who had been one of the visitors at the public examination. Campe did not remain long at the Philanthropinum; but left it to set up a school, on like principles, at Hamburg. His fame now rests on his writings for the young; one of which—“Robinson Crusoe the Younger”—is still a general favourite.

Other distinguished men became connected with the Philanthropin—among them Salzmann, and Matthison the poet—and the number of pupils rose to over fifty; gathered we are told, from all parts of Europe between Riga and Lisbon. But this number is by no means a fair measure of the interest, nay, enthusiasm, which the experiment excited. We find Pastor Oberlin raising money on his wife’s earrings to send a donation. We find the philosopher Kant prophesying that quite another race of men would grow up, now that education according to Nature had been introduced.

§ 19. These hopes were disappointed. Kant confesses as much in the following passage in his treatise “On PÆdagogy”:—

“One fancies, indeed, that experiments in education would not be necessary; and that we might judge by the understanding whether any plan would turn out well or ill. But this is a great mistake. Experience shows that often in our experiments we get quite opposite results from what we had anticipated. We see, too, that since experiments are necessary, it is not in the power of one generation to form a complete plan of education. The only experimental school which, to some extent, made a beginning in clearing the road, was the Institute at Dessau. This praise at least must be allowed it, notwithstanding the many faults which could be brought up against it—faults which are sure to show themselves when we come to the results of our experiments, and which merely prove that fresh experiments are necessary. It was the only School in which the teachers had liberty to work according to their own methods and schemes, and where they were in free communication both among themselves and with all learned men throughout Germany.”

§ 20. We observe here, that Kant speaks of the Philanthropinum as a thing of the past. It was finally closed in 1793. But even from Kant we learn that the experiment had been by no means a useless one. The conservatives, of course, did not neglect to point out that young Philanthropinists, when they left school, were not in all respects the superiors of their fellow-creatures. But, although no one could pretend that the Philanthropinum had effected a tithe of what Basedow promised, and the “friends of humanity” throughout Europe expected, it had introduced many new ideas, which in time had their influence, even in the schools of the opposite party. Moreover, teachers who had been connected with the Philanthropinum founded schools on similar principles in different parts of Germany and Switzerland, as Bahrd’s at Heidesheim, and Salzmann’s celebrated school at Schnepfenthal, which is, I believe, still thriving. Their doctrines, too, made converts among other masters, the most celebrated of whom was Meierotto of Berlin.

§ 21. Little remains to be said of Basedow. He lived chiefly at Dessau, earning his subsistence by private tuition, but giving offence by his irregularities. In 1790, when visiting Magdeburg, he died, after a short illness, in his sixty-seventh year. His last words were, “I wish my body to be dissected for the good of my fellow-creatures.”