Wilhelm Von Humboldt

1 The following text was originally published in Prospects:the quarterly review of comparative education (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol. XXIII, no. 3/4, 1993, p. 613–23. ©UNESCO:International Bureau of Education, 2000 This document may be reproduced free of charge as long as acknowledgement is made of the source WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT (1767-1835) With his brother, Alexander, who was two years younger, Wilhelm von Humboldt belonged to a generation which witnessed the collapse of absolute monarchies in the wake of the French Revolution and helped to shape the construction of a new Europe. The two brothers were both educated in the spirit of Rousseau and of the philanthropic school; in their youth, they adopted the ideas of the enlightenment, lived through the Sturm und drang (Storm and stress) period and went on to join the Weimar circle of poets where they enjoyed the friendship of Schiller and Goethe. While Alexander travelled the world and guided natural science into new paths, Wilhelm paved the way for the development of the modern moral sciences. Wilhelm von Humboldt joined the circle of reformers who took the destiny of the Prussian State into their own hands after the Napoleonic occupation. The administrative reform is associated with the names of Stein and Hardenberg and the reform of the armed forces with those of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Wilhelm von Humboldt’s appointed task was to lay the foundations of a new education system in Prussia. Although he only served for sixteen months at the head of the Prussian educational administration, his actions gave a fresh impetus to educational policy whose effects have been felt right down to the present day; his ideas on a modern educational theory have been attracting increasing attention of late. Educational influences Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt were the sons of the Prussian gentleman-in-waiting, Alexander Georg von Humboldt, by his second marriage. Their father had served at the court of Friedrich II in Potsdam and his second marriage was with the widowed Baroness von Holwede, whose son by a first marriage had been tutored by Johann Heinrich Campe. Campe, who was later to become a representative of the German philanthropic school, was now appointed tutor to the two brothers, first in Potsdam and, after their father had resigned from his official duties, in Tegel near Berlin. In a letter to Mrs Campe, Wilhelm von Humboldt later wrote (on 12 September 1801) that he owed a debt of gratitude to Campe for much of his own education (Letters, p. 403). He was not referring solely to his Tegel years, but also to the journey made by Campe, accompanied by his former pupil, to Paris immediately after the storming of the Bastille. The fact that the brothers must have enjoyed a very liberal education emerges from the judgement that the private tutors who took over from Campe are reported to have voiced: they expressed the view that something might perhaps still be made of 12-year-old Wilhelm, but that Alexander was a lost cause. Mistaken verdicts by educators are not uncommon, but a conclusion that was so manifestly wrong as the opinion on Alexander, who later became Grand Master of the Society of Natural Scientists, does seem curiously wide of the mark. 2 The fact that the two brothers were very different emerges from a letter written by a lady friend of their mother after a visit in 1785: ‘As to your sons, I can only say that Wilhelm is anything but a pedant, despite his erudition. On the contrary, he always has le mot pour rire [...] Alexander on the other hand is a shrewd little fellow—un petit esprit malin. What is more, he is extraordinarily talented [...]’ (Letters, p. 33/34). Wilhelm himself explained their differences in a letter written to his wife on 9 October 1804: ‘Since our childhood, we have moved poles apart although we have always remained fond of each other [...] From an early age, his inclination has been to the outside world, while I preferred the inner life, even when I was very young’ (Letters, p. 531). Wilhelm von Humboldt must surely have had Campe’s personality in mind when he described the qualities of a good tutor in the letter to Campe’s wife referred to earlier, written in 1801 at the time when he was on the lookout for a teacher for his own children: the tutor must be a man ‘who takes pleasure in contacts with young children and has the necessary skills, who not only manages to find the right teaching methods but at the same time makes sure to take them out walking, to organize and familiarize the children with concepts that are right and appropriate’. He need not be an ‘accomplished scholar’, but he must have ‘a thorough knowledge of all that he teaches and insist on the same thoroughness in his pupils’. The remark which followed implies criticism of the philanthropic method of education: ‘Without this desire for thoroughness, everything remains a game and nothing good can come of it in theoretical or practical life’ (Letters, p. 422). This already makes it abundantly clear that Humboldt’s idea of general education has nothing in common with a mere superficial knowledge of a great many subjects. The premature death of their father in 1779—he was described as ‘a man of understanding and good taste’, a ‘great friend to other men, sociable and a benefactor’—proved a traumatic experience for the boys; Wilhelm in particular found it particularly hard to come to terms with his loss. Responsibility for the further intellectual development of the brothers now lay with Christian Kunth who was employed as a house tutor to the Humboldts between 1777 and 1778, and remained a friend to the family afterwards when he was appointed to a civil service position in Berlin. (Wilhelm von Humboldt granted his wish to be buried in the grounds of Tegel Castle in 1829.) He also proved to be an outstanding educational organizer and knew how to impart a constant desire for learning in his pupils. Prominent representatives of Berlin intellectual life were also called upon to give tuition in some subjects. The scholars who were invited to give lectures in Tegel included Johann Jakob Engel, a teacher at the Joachimsthal Grammar School and who enjoyed a high reputation at the time as a philosophical author (Der philosoph für die Welt, 2 vols., Leipzig 1775–77). ‘Engel gave me my first education of real quality. He has a very astute and lucid mind; he may not be particularly profound, but he has a quicker grasp of facts and a better ability to put them across than I have encountered in anyone else [...]’, he wrote from Berlin on 12 November 1790 to Karoline who was later to become his wife (Letters, p. 143). From an early age, the brothers took part in the cultural life of the nearby Prussian metropolis; they attended the Berlin salons in which the spirit of enlightenment prevailed. The Tugendbund or Virtuous Circle, used to meet in the house of the Jewish doctor, Dr. Herz; the focal point of the circle was his wife, Henriette, whom Wilhelm referred to by the endearing diminutive of ‘Jettchen’ in many of his letters. She did much to shape Wilhelm von Humboldt’s emancipatory view of women which was apparent in his later work. His unprejudiced attitude to Jewish members of society was also influenced by these ties with the Herz family. In the family tradition, the brothers were destined for a civil service career. Wilhelm was expected to study law and Alexander the art of finance, known at the time as ‘cameralistics’. Kunth accompanied the brothers to the University of Brandenburg in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder in the autumn of 3 1787. However, this university was already in a state of decline and was soon to be wound up after the foundation of the University of Berlin. (A new university is being built today in Frankfurt-an-der-Oder and is intended to resume the old tradition as a centre for European education.) The Humboldts only stayed in Frankfurt for one semester; they moved to Göttingen University that was locked in a struggle for preeminence with the alma mater in Halle in this era of neo-humanist renewal of university education. Immediately after his arrival in May 1788, Alexander called Göttingen ‘Our German Athens! My brother is quite at home here because he has found ample nourishment for his mind [...]’ (Letters, p. 46). In his Bruchstück einer selbsbiographie (Fragment of an autobiography, 1816), Wilhelm von Humboldt stated his intention to ‘study on my own and in the greatest detail and depth everything that can broaden my view of the world and of man’ (GS, XV, p. 452 ff.). The French revolution In the course of the journey mentioned earlier, Johann Heinrich Campe and his young friend reached Paris in July 1789. The news of the storming of the Bastille had reached them in Aachen. This journey, which had been planned as an educational visit, turned into a personal experience of world-shaking events. Humboldt did not share the unbridled enthusiasm of his tutor, but he was well aware of the historical importance of this revolution. In a letter dated 17 August, he complained that he was ‘rather tired of Paris and France’, but said that ‘the political situation [is] now vitally important and had created a state of ferment among the people and in men’s minds’ (Letters, p. 93). Just how durable the ideas of the French Revolution were to prove is apparent from a letter written years later to his wife Karoline (20 August 1814) in which he expressed his conviction that ‘all the dynamism, all the life, all the vigour and freshness of the nation [...] can only reside in the people’ (Letters, p. 734). A letter written to a friend in August 1791—known under the title of ‘Ideas on the Organization of the State Brought about by the New French Constitution’—later reflected the experience and changed political views acquired in Paris: ‘The nobility joined forces with the Regent in an endeavour to repress the people; that was the beginning of the end for the nobility [...]’ (GS, I, p. 82). ‘Mankind had suffered from an extreme and was obliged to seek salvation in another extreme.’ Admittedly, Humboldt doubted whether the new constitution would last, but he did believe that it would ‘throw a new light on ideas, help to foster every active virtue again and so spread its blessings far beyond the frontiers of France’ (GS, I, p. 84). On the limits of state action In January 1789, Wilhelm von Humboldt joined the Prussian civil service as a law clerk to the Supreme Court of Berlin, but left this post after only a year. His impending marriage to Karoline von Dacheröden, the daughter of the President of the Prussian Council in Erfurt, was certainly not the only motive for his departure; in fact, the reason lay much deeper and can be traced to Humboldt’s sceptical view of the exercise of State power in general and not merely of rule by an absolute monarch. Since 1790 he had been working on a publication entitled ‘Ideas for an endeavour to define the limits of state action’ which was completed in 1792, but not published in full until long after his death. The section dealing with education was already published in the December 1792 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift under the title ‘On public state education’. Humboldt thus took part in the discussion on the shaping of national education which was in progress in Germany, as elsewhere after the French Revolution. 4 In this publication, tight limits are placed on the State; its action should be confined to protection of the citizen within its frontiers and against attacks from outside. Humboldt advocated the greatest possible freedom for the individual in an environment in which ‘each individual, depending on his own needs and inclinations and bounded only by the limits of his own energy’ must be allowed to develop according to his own innate personality (GS, I, p. 111). He was afraid that State influence on education would ‘always favour one particular form’; this was particularly deleterious if it ‘relates to man as a moral being [...] and ceases altogether to have any beneficial action if the individual is sacrificed to the citizen’ (GS, I, p. 143). ‘Without regard to certain civic forms which must be imparted to men, the sole purpose of education must be to shape man himself’ (GS I, p. 145). Humboldt reversed the role of the State: ‘Education of the individual must everywhere be as free as possible, taking the least possible account of civic circumstances. Man educated in that way must then join the State and, as it were, test the Constitution of the State against his individuality’ (GS, I, p. 144). In Humboldt’s view, man is not the object of the State but must be a subject who himself helps to shape conditions within society. Humboldt subscribed to the educational policy notions of Count Mirabeau in calling for public education to ‘take place entirely outside the limits [...] within which the State must confine its own activities’ (GS, I, p. 146). He made repeated reference to Mirabeau’s ‘Discourse on National Education’ and quoted him in a footnote: ‘Education will be good to the extent that it suffers no outside intervention; it will be all the more effective, the greater the latitude left to the diligence of the teachers and the emulation of their pupils’ (GS, I, p. 146). Elsewhere in this treatise on constitutional theory, Humboldt expressed his views on the duties of parents and on their responsibility ‘to raise children [...] to complete maturity’ (GS, I, p. 225). He even called upon the State to ‘safeguard the rights of children against their parents’ so that ‘parental authority does not exceed normal bounds’ (GS, I, p. 226). This emphasis on the rights of the child reveals the influence of Rousseau and the expressly formulated goal of the harmonious general education of each individual. The ‘true purpose of man’ can only be ‘the highest and best proportioned development of his abilities into a harmonious entity’ To attain that goal, human development requires freedom but also a confrontation with ‘manifold situations’ since ‘however free and independent a man may be, he will develop less satisfactorily if his only experience is of monotonous situations’ (GS, I, p. 106). Humboldt adhered to this educational goal in his own lifetime, but his views on the influence of the State on education underwent a fundamental change during the period in which he headed the Prussian educational administration. After his resignation from the civil service, Wilhelm von Humboldt resided mostly on estates in Thuringia which belonged to his parents-in-law and also in Erfurt or Jena. Both the Humboldts established close contacts with the Weimar circle of poets. Wilhelm became a particular friend of Friedrich von Schiller. This friendship found its literary reflection in an active correspondence. After the death of their mother in 1796, Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt were left with substantial properties that provided them with the resources to undertake extensive travel for educational research. Many scientific works were the outcome of these journeys. Alexander was always bent on acquiring a better knowledge of the world, while Wilhelm sought a deeper understanding of man and his inner nature. In the last decade of the eighteenth century Wilhelm von Humboldt wrote several of his most important publications. He made ‘the search for the laws governing the development of human energies on earth’ (GS, I, p. 93) the focal point of his scientific endeavours. He constantly enquired into the purpose of human life and asked which type of education was necessary to attain that purpose. In his study of classical antiquity, he debated the ‘indispensable need for knowledge’ in classical antiquity 5 because ‘it is a precondition for focussing individual endeavour on a more general purpose, namely the unity of the most noble purpose which is to shape man within the finest possible proportions’ (GS, I, p. 261). The educational administrator In 1802, Wilhelm von Humboldt rejoined the Prussian civil service and became envoy to the Vatican in Rome. This appointment enabled him to become even more familiar with the history and culture of classical Greece and Rome. But when ‘Germany suffered its deep humiliation’—in the words of a contemporary publication—after the battle at Jena-Auerstadt, Humboldt obeyed a call from Baron von und zum Stein to return to Berlin and play a leading role in the regeneration of the Prussian State. In 1807, Stein had issued an edict that abolished hereditary subjection, put an end to villeinage and was intended to terminate the whole caste system within society. A regulation permitting self-administration of the towns followed in November 1808. But the reformers often proved unsuccessful, not simply because of resistance from conservative elements but also because of the inadequate level of education of the citizens. The men around Stein saw Wilhelm von Humboldt as a figure who was capable of bringing about a complete reform of the Prussian education system. ‘Their idea was to strengthen and elevate the nation by removing the burdens weighing on it and also through education. They endorsed a proposal made by the great Swiss thinker and, after regaining their freedom, took action by setting up teacher training establishments [...]’ (Diesterweg, 1979, p. 41). Two colleagues in the Prussian educational administration had already worked on a reform of the education system based on Pestalozzi’s ideas in 1808: Johann Heinrich Ludwig Nicolovius and Johann Wilhelm Süvern. They granted scholarships to young teachers and sent them to study Pestalozzi’s methods in Yverdon. In a letter, Süvern urged these ‘Prussian pupils’ not just to acquire the mechanical forms of the method but to penetrate to its ‘innermost heart’ and to ‘warm themselves at the sacred fire’ which was spread by Pestalozzi (see Diesterweg, 1961, p. 155). Following their return, the intention was that they should help to disseminate Pestalozzi’s pedagogical ideas as the heads of teacher training seminaries or members of their teaching staff. To begin with, Humboldt felt some reservations over Pestalozzi’s teaching methods, but these were probably dispersed under the influence of Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s ‘Addresses to the German Nation’. In two of these addresses, Fichte had taken Pestalozzi’s ideas as the foundation of his plan for German national education. Even before Humboldt met Nicolovius, he wrote to him on 25 March 1809 that ‘the introduction of Pestalozzi’s method has my undivided support [...] provided that it is put into effect correctly’ (Letters, p. 593). In Nicolovius and Süvern, Humboldt had particularly able colleagues who were bent on reform of the Prussian education system. On 28 February 1809, Wilhelm von Humboldt became head of the culture and education section at the Ministry of the Interior, but Stein had left office by then. Napoleon had called for his dismissal and the King of Prussia had acceded to that request. This section was answerable to the Minister of the Interior, Count von Dohna, with whom Humboldt did not enjoy particularly good relations. To underline the importance of the education system for the Prussian reform programme, Humboldt advocated from the outset its separation from the Ministry of the Interior; he urged both the Minister of the Interior and also the King to set up a Ministry of Education in its own right. But this only came about many years later under Altenstein in 1817. Humboldt’s view on the way in which government business should be transacted differed greatly from those of von Dohna and Finance Minister von Bülow. Humboldt wanted to see more collegiality, but was unable to persuade either the Minister or the King of the need for a State Council. 6 As head of his own section, he adopted a distinctly collegial style of management. In a letter to the famous neo-hum