Monroe/Salzmann

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From A Cyclopedia of Education, edited by Paul Monroe, Ph.D. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913, vol. V, p.243-4)

A prominent German educator of the Philanthropinist school, was born as the son of a Protestant pastor at Sömmerda, near Erfurt, Thüringen. He received his first education from his father and then attended for two years the gymnasium in Langensalza. From 1761 to 1764 he studied theology in Jena; in 1768 he became pastor in a little village near Erfurt, and later in Erfurt itself. From there he was called as preacher to the Dessau Philanthropinum, where for three years he directed the devotional exercises and gave religious instruction. In 1784 he founded the educational institution of Schnepfenthal, near Gotha, the only one of the Philanthropinist institutions which has existed to our times. This school he directed until his death. Among his first teachers was Guts Muths (q.v.), the founder of the German system of gymnastic instruction; one of his first pupils was Karl Ritter (q.v.), the famous geographer. Salzmann's educational ideas were based on those of Basedow (q.v.), but he was saner, less sensational, and more practical than Basedow, and for this reason his direct results were more lasting. His school emphasized physical education, manual training, nature study, observation of familiar objects, and incitement of the pupils to self-activity. In the teaching of the foreign languages, he discarded the old grammatical method and relied on speaking the language and on careful and extended reading. The ambition of the pupils was stimulated by an elaborate system of rewards, and the chief aim of the school was to reproduce as much as possible the conditions of a happy and busy family life in order to educate its pupils to become, as Salzmann says, "healthy, rational, good and cheerful human beings."

Among the many writings of Salzman, most of which aim to convey his thoughts on education under the form of fiction, two are especially noteworthy, his Krebsbüchlein (Little Crab Book), 1780, and Amiensbüchlein (Little Ant Book), 1806, both of which were very widely read and frequently reprinted. The former is a biting satire on the prevalent home education of his time; its subtitle is Direction towards an Irrational Education of Children. The plan of the book may be sufficiently indicated by the titles of some of the chapters, as How to teach children to lie, How to make them stupid, vain, etc. The Amiensbüchlein contains Salzmann's maturest thoughts on education; it calls upon the educator to educate himself. In it he proclaims as a "confession of faith" for a teacher the maxim that "the causes of all the faults and vices of his pupils an educator must try to find in himself."