,
Philanthropism found itself compelled to presuppose an abstract notion,
and often manifested a not unjustifiable pleasure in recognizing in the
Indians of North America, or of Otaheite, the genuine man of nature.
Philosophy first raised these conceptions to the idea of the State,
which fashioned the cognition of Reason and of the reform which follows
from its idea, into an organic element in itself.

--The course which the developing of the philanthropic ideal has taken
is as follows: (1) Rousseau in his writings, _Emile_ and the _Nouvelle
Heloise_, first preached the evangel of Natural Education, the
abstraction from History, the negation of existing culture, and the
return to the simplicity and innocence of nature. Although he often
himself testified in his experience his own proneness to evil in a very
discouraging way, he fixed as an almost unlimited axiom in French and
German Pedagogics his principal maxim, that man is by nature good. (2)
The reformatory ideas of Rousseau met with only a very infrequent and
sporadic introduction among the Romanic nations, because among them
education was too dependent on the church, and retained its
cloister-like seclusion in seminaries, colleges, &c. In Germany, on the
contrary, it was actualized, and the _Philanthropia_, established by
Basedow in Dessau, Brunswick, and Schnepfenthal, made experiments, which
nevertheless very soon departed somewhat from the ultraism of Basedow
and had very excellent results. (3) Humanity existed _in concreto_ only
in the form of nations. The French nation, in their revolution, tried
the experiment of abstracting from their history, of levelling all
distinctions of culture, of enthroning a despotism of Reason, and of
organizing itself as humanity, pure and simple. The event showed the
impossibility of such a beginning. The national energy, the historical
impulse, the love of art and science, came forth from the midst of the
revolutionary abstraction, which was opposed to them, only the more
vigorously. The _grande nation_, their _grande armee_, and
_gloire_--that is to say, for France--absorbed all the humanitarian
phases. In Germany the philanthropic circle of education was limited to
the higher ranks. There was no exclusiveness in the _Philanthropia_, for
there nobles and citizens, Catholics and Protestants, Russians and
Swiss, were mingled; but these were always the children of wealthy
families, and to these the plan of education was adapted.