WOLF. Friedrich August, German classi cal scholar : b. Has-nrode, near Nordhausen, Prussia. 13 Feb. 1759; d. Marseilles. France. P Aug 1824. He was educated at the gym •asiurn of Nordhausen and the University of Gottingen, and in 1782 was appointed rector of the Iltirgerschule at Osterode in the Harz. The next year he was called as professor of philos ophy and paideutics to Halle, where he labored fi r many years with the highest enthusiasm for the cause of education. In 1795 appeared his 'Prolegomena llomerum' (3d and 4th eds., 1872 and 1870. In this he contended that the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' Were not the work of one man, hut of several Homeric rhapsodists (r and-bearing minstrels). The work in which he tried to maintain this statement created a profound sensation and has had the effect of permanently modifying the opinions of Homeric scholars as to the manner of the composition of the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey.' (Sec HoMut). From a literary point of view his labor has been of immense service. The University of Halle was suppressed in 1807, in the storm of the French invasion, and Wolf then removed to Berlin, where he entered the Ministry of Public Instruction, but soon resigned that he might give himself to the work of academic teaching. which disappointment and ill-health compelled him to give up in 1824 when be went south on a voyage for the sake of his health, but did not long survive his arrival at Mar seilles. Wolf's k was the invention,
or at least the nto prominence, of a new instrument cm, namely, iatilolop, which he defines as nu meagre study of the forms of language but 'a knowledge of human nature as exhibited in antiquity.' Locke and Rousseau had founded a school of educational theory which they considered to be more in accordance with common sense and modern needs than the classical culture of the Renais sance. Wolf revived the mental discipline and scientific aim implied in the prosecution of classical studies. Consult Arnoldt, 'Friedrich August Wolf in seinem Verhiltnisse zum Schnlwesen und zur Padagogik) (Brunswick Pattison, Mark, 'Essays' (Oxford lsn) ; Wolf, 'Prolegomena ad Hotncrum' (Halle 1795); Huller, 'Homerische Vorschule' (1836); Lachmann, 'Betrachtungcn fiber Ho mers Bias' (1865) ; Sandys. J. E. 'A History of Classical Scholarship' (Vol. Ili, Cambridge 1908) • Volkmann, 'Creschichte und Kritik der Wolfichen Prolegomena' (1874): also the Ho meric writings of Gladstone, Blackie, Paley, Heyman and Geddes.