JACOTOT, JOSEPH (I770-1840), French educationist, author of the method of "emancipation intellectuelle," was born at Dijon on March 4, He was educated at the university of Dijon, where in his nineteenth year he was chosen professor of Latin. In 1788 he organized a federation of the youth of Dijon for the defence of the principles of the Revolution; and in 1792 served in the Belgian campaign. On the institution of the central schools at Dijon he was appointed to the chair of the "method of sciences," where he made his first experiments in educational method. On the central schools being replaced by other educa tional institutions, Jacotot occupied successively the chairs of mathematics and of Roman law until the overthrow of the empire. After the second restoration he had to leave France. He went to Brussels, and in 1818 he was nominated by the Govern ment teacher of the French language at the university of Louvain, where he perfected into a system the educational principles which he had already practised with success in France. His method was based on three principles : (1) all men have equal intelligence ; (2) every man has received from God the faculty of being able to instruct himself ; (3) everything is in everything. As regards
(I) he maintained that it is only in the will to use their intelligence that men differ; and his own process, depending on (3), was to give any one learning a language for the first time a short passage of a few lines, and to encourage the pupil to study, first the words, then the letters, then the grammar, then the meaning, until a single paragraph became the occasion for learning an entire literature. After the revolution of 1830 Jacotot returned to France. He died at Paris on July 3o, 184o.
His system was described by him in Enseignement universel, langue maternelle (Louvain and Dijon, 1823)—which passed through several editions—and in various other works ; and he also advocated his views in the Journal de l'emancipation intellectuelle. For a complete list of his works and fuller details regarding his career, see A. Guillard, Biographie de J. Jacotot (186o).