§ 18. As I have already said, Basedow proved a very unfit person to be at the head of the model Institution. Many of his friends agreed with Herder, that he was not fit to have calves entrusted to him, much less children. He soon resigned his post; and was succeeded by Campe, who had been one of the visitors at the public examination. Campe did not remain long at the Philanthropinum; but left it to set up a school, on like principles, at Hamburg. His fame now rests on his writings for the young; one of which—“Robinson Crusoe the Younger”—is still a general favourite.
Other distinguished men became connected with the Philanthropin—among them Salzmann, and Matthison the poet—and the number of pupils rose to over fifty; gathered we are told, from all parts of Europe between Riga and Lisbon. But this number is by no means a fair measure of the interest, nay, enthusiasm, which the experiment excited. We find Pastor Oberlin raising money on his wife’s earrings to send a donation. We find the philosopher Kant prophesying that quite another race of men would grow up, now that education according to Nature had been introduced.
§ 19. These hopes were disappointed. Kant confesses as much in the following passage in his treatise “On Pædagogy”:—
“One fancies, indeed, that experiments in education would not be necessary; and that we might judge by the understanding whether any plan would turn out well or ill. But this is a great mistake. Experience shows that often in our experiments we get quite opposite results from what we had anticipated. We see, too, that since experiments are necessary, it is not in the power of one generation to form a complete plan of education. The only experimental school which, to some extent, made a beginning in clearing the road, was the Institute at Dessau. This praise at least must be allowed it, notwithstanding the many faults which could be brought up against it—faults which are sure to show themselves when we come to the results of our experiments, and which merely prove that fresh experiments are necessary. It was the only School in which the teachers had liberty to work according to their own methods and schemes, and where they were in free communication both among themselves and with all learned men throughout Germany.”