SKETCH OF FRANCIS LIEBER. 407 



he gave this training a permanent place in the German system of 

 education. His personal influence was great, and the desire of his 

 life seemed to be to establish German unity. 



Lieber remained under the instruction of Dr. Jahn until the age 

 of fifteen years, when his school career was interrupted by the trum- 

 pet tones of war, calling the youth to the defense of their country. 

 When Napoleon escaped fron Elba schoolboys were welcomed in 

 the Prussian army, and Lieber served as a volunteer in the Waterloo 

 campaign. He received two wounds at Waterloo, and after recover- 

 ing in the hospital at Aix-la-Chapelle he returned to his home in 

 Berlin. He at once resumed his studies under the guidance of Dr. 

 Jahn. In 1819 the schools for physical exercise in Prussia were 

 closed. The same year Dr. Jahn and Lieber were arrested as enemies 

 of the state. Upon his discharge without a trial, Lieber was refused 

 permission to study in the Prussian universities, but was finally ad- 

 mitted to Jena, where in 1820 he took his degree. Being under the 

 constant guard of the police, he decided to leave his native country, 

 and, as the Greek Revolution had just broken out, he made his way 

 to Greece and took part in the struggle. He became disgusted at the 

 miserable condition of things there, and, returning from Greece, he 

 spent some time in Rome with ISTiebuhr, the Prussian minister. He 

 then proceeded to his native land, but was again placed under arrest 

 for entertaining liberal sentiments. On his release he decided to 

 make his home in America, and in 1827 he arrived in this country. 



Lieber was recommended by Dr. Jahn as a suitable person to 

 introduce the Prussian system of physical culture into the Tremont 

 Gymnasium in Boston. Here he taught scientifically Prussian gym- 

 nastics; and he was one of the first exponents in America of the 

 physical basis of education. The liberality of his views on education 

 is well illustrated in his plan for the organization of Girard College, 

 which attracted widespread attention. It reveals the fact that he 

 had a wonderful grasp of pedagogic questions, and but few recent 

 writers have made any advance beyond his liberal ideas. At that 

 time there were no polytechnic schools in America, and Lieber's 

 plan included the various branches of polytechnic instruction, as well 

 as provision for the education of teachers. In commenting on the 

 plan, Edward Livingston wrote from Paris in 1834: "You have 

 written three lines which ought forever to be impressed on the minds 

 of all teachers, whether of science, politics, or religion. I know of 

 no truth more happily expressed than that ' there is a religion under 

 all the variety of sects; there is a patriotism under all the variety of 

 parties; there is a love of knowledge and a true science under all the 

 variety of theories.' " As early as 1858 Lieber strongly urged the 

 establishment of a real university in this country, as a cultural means 



