Johann Bernhard Basedow

Johann Bernhard Basedow (1724-1790), a German educator, stated a program for total reform of the educational system. His work lent support to the philanthropists who felt that social and political reforms could best be made by first reforming the schools.

Johann Basedow was born in Hamburg on Sept. 11, 1724. He attended the universities of Leipzig and Kiel and upon graduation became a teacher, first as a private tutor in a wealthy home, then in several schools in Denmark and Germany. In each job he was a failure, but these failures inspired his zeal for educational reform.

The Philanthropinum

Influenced by men of the French Enlightenment, Basedow thought that knowledge properly applied could lead to the perfection of man and his institutions. He expressed these ideas in the books Appeal to Friends of Mankind and to Men of Power concerning Schools and Studies and Their Influence on Public Welfare (1768) and The Method Book for Fathers and Mothers of Families and for Nations (1770). Prince Leopold, ruler of Anhalt, was so impressed with the reform potential of Basedow's ideas that in 1771 he hired him to found an experimental school at Dessau. The Philanthropinum opened in 1774, the first school to completely break with tradition. It drew many interested visitors from far and wide, who either praised the school extravagantly, as did Kant, or criticized it bitterly. In 1774 Basedow also published the huge Elementarwerk, an encyclopedic collection of the material that was to be taught to children from birth to age 18.

Philosophy of the System

According to Basedow, the principal goal of education should be to prepare children for a happy, patriotic life of service to the community. As the school functions for the individual, it performs a service also for the state; since the state is but a community of individuals, it will experience good fortune only to the extent that each individual member does. The curriculum should contain only those things that can be shown to be useful. Basedow scorned the stress in the traditional schools on developing verbal skills, especially in Latin. Things that can be touched, seen, heard, and manipulated - to show the child the extent to which he can control his environment - should be substituted for the traditional verbal exercises, which deal with mere symbols.

Teaching methods should include observations by the children of objects and activities of the real world. The teacher should not impose his will but should encourage self-direction on the part of the pupil into purposeful activity. Basedow advised that at play children learn most effectively. Pure intellectualization that ignores the individual psychological makeup of the learner is to be avoided. Games, manual work in the garden and in the shop, physical training, hiking - these were the activities appropriate to youth. The teacher should guide these activities by a nonauthoritarian and humane interaction with the pupils.

At Dessau, Basedow put his ideas to practice. To toughen the body and to foster the ability to withstand hardship, there were several fasting days each month. Competition was encouraged by a system of awards for merit in several activities.

Basedow was a very difficult man to work with. He was emotionally unstable, had disagreeable habits, and would not brook dissent. As a result, he was forced to leave the Philanthropinum 4 years after he had founded it. He spent the remaining 12 years of his life writing articles expanding on his three major works.

Further Reading

There are many books on Basedow in German. No full-length study of him in English exists, although there are numerous articles in educational journals. For background information see Friedrich Paulsen, German Education Past and Present (1912), and R. H. Samuel and R. Hinton Thomas, Education and Society in Modern Germany (1949).

Basedow, Johann Bernhard (Hamburg, 1723-90, Magdeburg), made a name for himself in the second half of the 18th c. with writings on education. He instituted in Dessau under the patronage of Prince Leopold Friedrich von Dessau the Philanthropinum (1774), which incorporated his principles. He is one of the great educational reformers of the Aufklärung, insisting on the teaching of the mother tongue, physical education, and the establishment of links between school work and the world outside.

His works include Praktische Philosophie für alle Stände (1758), Theoretisches System der gesunden Vernunft (1765), Methodischer Unterricht in der überzeugenden Erkenntnis der biblischen Religion (1764), Vorstellung an Menschenfreunde und vermögende Männer (1768), Methodenbuch für Väter und Mütter der Familien und Völker (1770), and Elementarwerk (1774), which last is his fundamental treatise on education.

Goethe records in Bk. 14 of Dichtung und Wahrheit the visit Basedow paid to him in Frankfurt in 1774, quoting the last four lines of the poem Zwischen Lavater und Basedow, which he wrote in that year.

Johann Bernhard Basedow

Johann Bernhard Basedow (September 11, 1724, Hamburg–July 25, 1790, Magdeburg) was a German educational reformer. He was born as the son of a hairdresser.

He was educated at the Johanneum in that town, where he came under the influence of the rationalist H.S. Reimarus (1694-1768), author of the famous Wolfenbütteler Fragmente, published by Lessing. In 1744 he went to Leipzig as a student of theology, but gave himself up entirely to the study of philosophy. This at first induced sceptical notions; a more profound examination of the sacred writings, and of all that relates to them, brought him back to the Christian faith, but, in his retirement, he formed his belief after his own ideas, and it was far from orthodox. He returned to Hamburg, and between 1749 and 1753 was private tutor in a nobleman's family in Holstein.

Basedow now began to exhibit his really remarkable powers as an educator of the young, and acquired so much distinction that, in 1753, he was chosen professor of moral philosophy and belles-lettres at Sorø Academy in Denmark. On account of his theological opinions he was in 1761 removed from this post and transferred to Altona, where some of his published works brought him into great disfavour with the orthodox clergy. He was forbidden to give further instruction, but did not lose his salary; and, towards the end of 1767, he abandoned theology to devote himself with the same ardour to education, of which he conceived the project of a general reform in Germany.

In 1768 appeared his Vorstellung an Menschenfreunde für Schulen, nebst dem Plan eines Elementarbuches der menschlichen Erkenntnisse, which was strongly influenced by Rousseau's Emile. He proposed the reform of schools and of the common methods of instruction, and the establishment of an institute for qualifying teachers, soliciting subscriptions for the printing of his Elementarwerk, where his principles were to be explained at length, and illustrated by plates. The subscriptions for this object amounted to 15,000 thalers, and in 1774 he was able to publish the work in four volumes.

It contains a complete system of primary education, intended to develop the intelligence of the pupils and to bring them, so far as possible, into contact with realities, not with mere words. The work was received with great favor, and Basedow obtained means to establish an institute for education at Dessau, and to apply his principles in training disciples, who might spread them over all Germany. The name of Philanthropin which he gave to the institution appeared to him the most expressive of his views; and he engaged in the new project with all his accustomed ardour. But he had few scholars, and the success by no means answered his hopes.

Nevertheless, so well had his ideas been received that similar institutions sprang up all over the land, and the most prominent writers and thinkers openly advocated the plan. Basedow, unfortunately, was little calculated by nature or habit to succeed in an employment which required the greatest regularity, patience and attention; his temper was intractable, and his management was one long quarrel with his colleagues. He resigned his directorship of the institution in 1778, and it was finally closed in 1793, Basedow having died in 1790.

References

•  "Basedow, Johann Bernhard". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.  which in turn cites:
  • H. Rathmann, Beitrage zies Lebensgeschichte Basedows (Magdeburg, 1791)
  • J. C. Meyer, Leben, Charakter und Schriften Basedows (Hamburg, 1791-1792)
  • G. P. R. Hahn, Basedow und sein Verhaltnis zu Rousseau (Leipzig, 1885)
  • A. Pinloche, Basedow et le philanthropinisme (Paris, 1890)
  • C. Gossgen, Rousseau und Basedow (1891)

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