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 _vivâ
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.”
Basedow has a posthumous connexion with this country as the
great-grandfather of Professor Max Müller. Basedow’s son became
“Regierungs Präsident,” in Dessau. The President’s daughter,
born in 1800, became the wife of the poet Wilhelm Müller, and
the mother of Max Müller. Max Müller has contributed a life of
his great-grandfather to the _Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie_.