DIESTERWEG, Friedrich Adolf Wilhelm,. German educator : b. Sieger, Prussia, 1790; d. 1866. In 1806-11 he studied at Herborn and Tubingen. He taught at Mann heim and at Worms for about two years, when he removed to the model school at Frankfort. Later he became rector of the Latin school of Elberfeld, and in 1820 was appointed director of the new Teachers' Seminary at Min. His years in this position enhanced his reputation as a teacher and writer on education and in 1833 he was made director of the Seminary for City School Teachers in Berlin. Because of his disagreement with the authorities regard ing important phases of higher education he was in constant friction and resigned in 1847. He received a government pension in 1850 and thereafter spread his educational ideas solely through the medium of periodicals. In 1858 he was elected to the Prussian Diet. He was a follower of Pestalozzi and aimed at making every subject a means of education, His great est services to education were through his work as a trainer of teachers, but he exerted also a wide and far-reaching influence through his writings. In 1851 he founded in Berlin the
Pddagogisches Jahrburh and published 'Weg weiser zur Bildung fiir deutsche Lehrer) (2 vols., 1834; 6th ed., 1 vol., 1890) 'Das pada gogische Deutschland' ( 1836) ; Streit f ragen auf dem Gebiete der Padagogik) (1837) ; 'Leit faden fiir den Unterricht in der Formlehre) (1845) ; 'Lehrbuch der mathematischen Geo graphie' (1840; 18th ed., as (Populare Himmels kunde,' 1891) ; 'Unterricht in der Kleinkinder schule' (5th ed., 1852). Consult Rebhuhn, Adolf, Adolf Diesterwegs' (Leipzig 1907) and Richter, Karl, 'Adolf Diesterwegs Ansichten fiber padagogische Zeit- und Streit f ragen) (Leipzig 1913).