صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

It was this at which Illuminism aimed ; as Schiller says, in reference to Rousseau, it enlisted Christians, for the purpose of transforming them into men. In the room of the authorities in Church and State, Illuminism put common sense; in the room of the positive forms of life, a general disposition of mind, becoming man as such, which is termed Humanism. This Humanism levels all family traditions, all differences of rank, all nationality, all positive moral law, all positive religion,—all of them being only accidental numerators for the denominator of mankind: what man wants in the first and last place, that is, to be a man. What is thereby to be understood we shall

now see in detail.

At the head of his Emile, Rousseau put the confession, that he was to represent the education of a man. In Germany, this principle called forth the philanthropic education, the master of which is Basedow, and the chief representatives of which are Wolke, Trapp, Salzmann, Campe, and others. That it was connected with Illuminism, is sufficiently evident from the character of the master. He was a disciple of the Wolfenbüttel Fragmentist (Raimarus), whom the school of Wolff had likewise led to Naturalism, and who was filled with such an instinctive love of controversy against the doctrine of the Church,— especially against the Trinity-that, in his zeal for it, he could forget what otherwise he did not readily forget, viz., his own advantage. Rousseau's Emile had given rise to a great stir. Even Kant, who otherwise was not very easily excited, gave up his regular walks, in order to study Emile. But now the application was concerned, and Basedow was just the man to raise expectations, and both to claim and to gain good will and able men. Thus the first Philanthropinum arose at Dessau (1774). After the foundation had been laid, Basedow did not fail to

address, in a pompous manner, the guardians of mankind, for this cause of mankind. As Philanthropism agreed no less with the Absolutism of Russia than with the liberty of Switzerland, so, in the general private devotional exercises nothing should be done which would not be approved of by every worshipper of God, whether he were a Christian, Jew, Mahomedan, or Deist. "In the temple of the Father of All, crowds of dissenting fellow-citizens will worship as brethren, and afterwards they will, with the same fraternal disposition, go, one to hear the holy mass, the other to pray with real brethren Our Father,' the third to pray with real brethren Father of us'" (see Raumer, 1. c. S. 271, ff.).— While the former education had viewed the minds of children as vessels into which a certain amount of knowledge and faith was to be infused, whether it was easy or difficult, Philanthropism viewed these vessels as the chief thing, and the amount of knowledge as only secondary. In other words, knowledge was viewed merely as a means of training the human mind ; and the aim was the natural development of all man's powers and faculties. While the former education had required all which it was in the power of youths to do, whether it gave them pleasure or pain, the philanthropic education asked, in the first place, What is in accordance with the nature of the child? What affords him enjoyment? How do all the inclinations and dispositions of childhood find their suitable sphere? The delight of children in bodily exercise is made use of as bodily gymnastics; the inclination for play, as mental gymnastics; walks, as opportunities for educating and teaching; ambi

One of the outward distinctions betwixt the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in Germany is that, in the latter, the Lord's Prayer begins "Unser Vater" (Our Father); while, in the former, it begins with "Vater unser" (Father of us).-TR.

tion, as a moral engine. But although the Philanthropina at first promised to teach every thing better and more quickly than the ordinary school did, yet it soon appeared that linguistic knowledge, and all matters of memory, would not thrive. Because they would not teach any thing from without, and mechanically, but would develop every thing according to nature, rational knowledge, such as logic, mathematics, arithmetic, natural religion, and morals, as well as those sciences based upon perception, experience, and advantage, were there chiefly cultivated. The fresh youth, grown up under fine bodily training, simply and easily dressed in an age of wigs and pigtails, walked about the fields and forests to acquire a knowledge of nature; went into the workshops of tradesmen to acquire a knowledge of common life, with its arts and wants; exercised themselves in the labour of the husbandman, in the art of the citizen, in order to stand a future like that of Robinson Crusoe, better than the hero of that book himself. It may be that, in Schnepfenthal, especially at first, there prevailed a simple patriarchal spirit; and pupils, such as the Humboldts, no doubt, speak in favour of Campe's talent. And yet there very soon arose a coldness towards these institutions. Kant, who had at one time welcomed with enthusiasm the Philanthropinum at Dessau, soon gave a very hesitating opinion. Hamann, despairing of his own talent for educating, wrote to Herder: "I took on one Sunday the desperate whim of packing him (viz., his son John Michael) up precipitately, and sending him to the Pontifex Maximus (Basedow), in Dessau. Herder answered: "As regards the education of your John Michael, don't fret yourself; nothing is gained by that. Have yet a little patience; I myself come nearer the Pontifex Maximus in Dessau, and my boy, too, is growing up; but, if it please God, he shall never see

22

or have him. Every thing there appears to me to be horrible, just like a hot-house, or rather like a stable full of human geese. When lately my brother-in-law, the forester, was here, he told me of a new method of rearing oak forests in ten years, to such a state as they would, by other means, reach only in fifty or a hundred years, viz., by cutting off from the young oaks the principal root under ground; that then every thing above the ground shot out into stem and branches. I think that the whole of Basedow's secret consists in this; and to him, whom I know personally, I would not intrust any calves, far less men, with a view to their being educated." Indeed, Basedow, who considered every one to be uneducated, was a man without any education. And even Frederick II., the king of Illuminism, who knew men better than Rousseau did, had no confidence in the gospel of the goodness of human nature, on which this whole education was based. When Sulzer once praised to him the fruits which this conviction was bearing in the schools of Silesia, he said: "O my dear Sulzer, you don't know that d-d race."

But

To form useful members of human society was the aim and object of the philanthropic education, and it thus tended essentially towards Utilitarianism. The utilitarian view has, in substance, and as a matter of course, always been welcomed in common society; and while the single individual there seeks his own advantage, he promotes at the same time the advantage of the whole. the spirit of the Gospel, which teaches to seek first of all the kingdom of God; and the Germanic spirit, which, by its corporative ties, had morally elevated the industrial life, formed a counterpoise to the tendency and aspiration of the single individual to material advantage. But in an age which was breaking loose from all tradition, that counterpoise was vanishing. To the single individual,

D

who, with his individual reason, measured every thing in heaven and on earth, his own individual interest was, of course, the most natural; and to one who views things with his understanding only, selfish design and advantage is one of the most current notions. Ever since Descartes, philosophy had laid the mechanical measure to all moral organisms of life; but to mechanism, design is the first and last. If the State was viewed as a mechanism,—as a machine (as it was very often said), it is easily seen how the public advantage, the common wealth (le bien public) came to be looked upon as the measure of all political forms. Becker, in his "Noth-und Hilfsbüchlein” (i.e., book for help in distress), told the husbandman, that he in his vocation had essentially to seek the great object of mankind, of becoming ever wiser and better, by his being an enemy to all beaten tracks, and an attentive observer of all inventions for the improvement of agriculture, and in his striving to make the soil more and more productive. The model-farmer, William Thinker, understands his favourite text, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God," in such a manner that all his thoughts and aspirations are directed to the consideration of how he might arrange every thing in the best and most rational manner; and as a reward he receives on his gravestone this praise

:

"William Thinker is here entombed.

While on earth,

his endeavour was to improve himself and every thing. He now receives his reward before God's throne."

Among the educated classes, still greater success had attended Campe's Robinson, of which the moral is, after all, only this:-Learn in thy youth as many useful things as possible; you don't know how and where you may require them. Nor did the leaders of Illuminism forget

« السابقةمتابعة »