BASEDOW, JOHANN BEERNHARD, a celebrated German writer, born at Hamburg, the 11th September 1723, was the son of a hairdresser. Ill treatment made him abandon his father's house. A physician in a neighbouring village took him into his service, and shortly after persuaded him to return home to his father. Being placed in one of the lower classes of the college of St John, the severity of his masters rendered him harsh and violent himself. Forced to submit to a slow and rigorous method of study, he contracted a dislike to patience and regularity, which exercised a marked influence over the whole course of his life. Poor but intelligent, he often performed their tasks for schoolfellows who could afford to pay for it; and they, in return, invited him to their parties of pleasure, which contributed to those habits of irregularity by which his health and reputation often suffered. In 1744 Basedow went to Leipzig to study theology. He gave himself up entirely to the instructions of Crusius the professor, and to the study of philosophy. This at first made him sceptical in theology; 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. Having returned to Hamburg, he lived there without any employment till 1749, when M. de Quialen, privy-councillor of Holstein,
appointed him preceptor to his son. Basedow now began to apply himself to the subject of education. At first he would not teach his pupil Latin otherwise than by talking with him in Latin; and he wrote a dissertation on this subject, published at Kiel in 1751, Inusitata et optima honestioris Juventutis erudiendi Methodus. In 1753 he was chosen professor of moral philosophy and belles-lettres in the academy of Soroe in Denmark. Here, between the years 1758 and 1764, he published several works of a heterodox character, which exposed him to the opposition of the magistrates and the odium of the people. Constantly persecuted in his theological career, he would have fallen the victim of his incautious zeal, if the Count de Bernstoff, minister of state, and J. A. Cramer, another officer of the court of Copenhagen, had not taken him under their protection. He left off giving lessons without losing 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. He began by publishing An Address to the Friends of Humanity, and to Persons in Power, on Schools, on Education, and its Influence on Public Happiness, with the Plan of an Elementary Treatise on Human Knowledge; Hamburg, 1768. 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 elementary work, where his principles were to be explained at length, and accompanied with plates. For this object he required 5050 crowns. The subscriptions presently amounted to 15,000 crowns: the Empress of Russia, Catherine II., sent a thousand crowns, the King of Denmark nine hundred. In 1770 appeared at Altona the first volume of his Method for Fathers and Mothers of Families, and for the Chiefs of the People, which was followed by other treatises on education. In his travels he had been well received by the Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, who promised him his protection. From that time he had resolved to establish an institute for education at Dessau, and to apply his principles himself in forming disciples, who might spread them over all Germany. Little calculated by nature or habit to succeed in an employment which requires the greatest regularity, patience, and attention, he, however, engaged in this new project with all his accustomed ardour. The name of Philanthropinon appeared to him the most expressive of his views; and he published at Leipzig in 1774 a pamphlet entitled The Philanthropinon founded at Dessau, containing the details of his plan. He immediately set about carrying it into execution; but he had few scholars, and the success by no means answered his hopes. The institution, badly managed, became a theatre of quarrels between Basedow and the masters who taught in it under his direction. The assistance of the celebrated Campe, a journal which they both composed together, under the title of School Dialogues, from 1777 to 1779, and a public examination which went off with eclat, gave a transient splendour to the Philanthropinon; but in a short time Basedow quarrelled with Campe, made complaints against his prince, quitted, and again returned to the care of the institution, exemplifying in all his conduct the effects of coarse manners and bad temper. He was at length drawn into the most scandalous disputes with Professor Wolke, his former coadjutor. The institution was finally shut up in 1793. Basedow died at Magdeburg on the 25th July 1790. His work On the Education of Princes destined to the Throne has been translated into French by Bourjoing. A list of his writings may be seen in Meusel's Lexicon of German Writers from 1750 to 1800, and an account of his life in Schlichtegroll's Necrology for 1790. (w. H-z-t.)