BASEDOW, Jorr. BERNrr. (properly, Joh. Berend Bassedau, or Bernh. von Nordal bingen, as he is often called), a remarkable educationist of the 18th c., was b. 8th Sept., 1723, at Hamburg. where his father was a peruke-maker. He attended the Johanneum there from 1741 to 1744. and afterwards studied theology and philosophy at Leipsic, from which he went in 1746 as a private tutor to Holstein. In the year 1753, he was appointed a master in the academy for young noblemen at Sortie. In 1761, he was removed from the gymnasium at Altona on account of heterodox opinions. Rousseau's Eitte'e awakened in him, in 1762, the thought of improving the method of education, and of reducing to practice Rousseau's maxims and those of Comenius. Contributions from princes and private persons. amounting to 15,000 thalers (about £2171 sterling), covered the cost of his Elewntarwerk, which, after the most pompous announcements, ppeared as an orbil pious, with 100 copper-plates by Chodowiecki, and was translated into French and Latin. Therein the young receive a large number of representations of the actual world, whereby B. sought at once to delight the eyes and to awaken a 1 en timent of cosmopolitanism, at which his whole method aimed. As a model school on
this method, he established in 1774 the Philanthropin at Dessau, to which place he had i been called in 1771. His restlessness of disposition, and the quarrels in which he was Involved. especially with his active but capricious coadjutor Wolke, caused him to leave the Philanthropia; but he proceeded with as much eagerness as ever in endeavors to give effect to Its ideas by educational works, which, however, aimed more at popularity than solidity, until, after many changes of residence, he died at Magdeburg, 25th July, 1790. His influence on the public mind of his age, particularly in Germany, was very great. He has been justly reproached with disparaging the ancients, a consequence chiefly of his own want of sound scholarship, and with a multitude of exaggerations, mistakes, and conceits; yet it cannot be disputed that his numerous philosophical and educational works powerfully awakened attention and interest in the much•neglected subject of education, and that he set many excellent ideas and weighty truths in rapid circulation among men.