HUMANISM AND REALISM. 547 
people, by offering the rising generation a better education 
according to their views, in most instances directly opposite to 
each other. After the clergy and philosophers had been at 
work for a number of years, Jean Jaques Rousseau, as before 
observed, appeared on the scene, and produced in his “ Emile” 
a pedagagic work of singular merit, but also abounding with 
singular faults. However, it was equally free from the one-sided 
views of his immediate successors and contemporaries, the 
scepticism and atheism of the philosophic school, and the bigotry 
of the Jesuits and their partisans. It advocated that the education 
of the body and that of the mind should gohand in hand; that the 
pupil should not be taught according to certain established rules 
and systems, but according to his talents ana individual character. 
It taught by experiment and by exercising his reasoning power. 
In one word, it insisted upon an inductive method, coupled with 
the education of the mind and its ethical perceptions. Thus 
Rousseau has shown us the right way that modern teaching 
should follow. As before observed, there are many and grave 
faults in his system, but they are easily accounted for by the 
stirring times in which he lived, and by the peculiar mode of 
life the author led, into which the “Confessions” gives us a 
painful insight. There is, however, not the least doubt that 
Rousseau’s writings had a marked influence upon the attempted 
remodelling of the educational system on the continent of 
Europe ; but at the same time we must not forget that Rousseau 
had some notable experiments before him in the realistic work 
attempted in Germany for more than 30 years before his 
“Emile” appeared ; so that in some respects he only continued 
the work of his German predecessors, but with the remarkable 
power and earnestness this apostle of freedom was possessed of. 
One of the men instigated, partly by theologicalintolerance, partly 
by Rousseau’s “ Emile,” who made a further step in advance, 
was Johann Bernard Basedow, who for years had also studied 
the works of Comenius. By his work published in 1768, 
“Vorstellung an Menschenfreunde and vermoegende Manner 
iiber Schulen, Studien und ihren Einflas auf die offentliche 
Wohlfahrt” (Appeal to Philanthropists and Wealthy Men on 
Schools, Studies, and their Influence upon the Public Welfare), 
Basedow made the greatest impression upon princes, nobles, and 
professional men, and the great majority of the people, who all 
suffered alike under religious and political tyranny. Amongst 
the warmest advocates of his theories were the Freemasons, who 
were at that time acquiring great influence in Germany, and 
they assisted most energetically in the propagation of his ideas. 
This earnest appeal (as Friedrich Kreissig, an eminent German 
writer on realism, to whom I am indebted for a number of 
valuable facts and suggestions, forcibly says) to liberate the 
German youth from the scholastic theological prisons, misnamed 
learned schools, found many warm hearts ready to receive it. 
The appeal from the pedantic cram of the memory to observa- 
tion and thought, from severe monastic compulsion to free will 
