§ 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.
Those who read German and care about either Basedow or Comenius should get Die Didaktik Basedows im Vergleiche zur Didaktik des Comenius von Dr. Petru Garbovicianu (Bucarest, C. Gobl), 1887. This is a very good piece of work; it is printed in roman type, and the price is only 1s. 6d.
Since the above was in type I have got an important book, L’Education en Allemagne au Dix-huitième Siècle: Basedow et le Philanthropinisme, by A. Pinloche (Paris, A. Colin, 1889.)