him their warm approval. They remitted large contributions for his
assistance. A specimen of his _Child's Book_ appeared, and all classes
were pleased with it. Whatever he promised was accepted with avidity,
because his promises were at once so flattering and exaggerated.
Schlegel and other educators tried in vain to make the multitude believe
that the vulgar mountebank could never fulfill their expectations.
Basedow proposed to parents, that if they would observe his system, all
languages and subjects,--grammar, history, and every other study--could
be learned, not in the tread-mill style, but as an amusement; that
morality and religion, both Jewish and Christian, Catholic as well as
Protestant, could be easily taught; that all the old bonds of education
were henceforth to be broken; and that every great difficulty would
hereafter be a pastime. Finally a part of the elementary work appeared.
But one plan creating the necessity for another, he soon found himself
immersed in the conception of a great philosophical school, in which not
only children but also teachers were to be trained for the application
of his new system to the appalling wants of the people. Every family
became possessor of the elementary book, and all eyes were turned toward
the _Philanthropium_ in Dessau. Compared with Basedow's wishes, this was
but a fragment of an institution. But upon its existence depended the
solution of his lauded problems.

Just at this time Germany was stirred by the reading of Rousseau's works
on popular education. Neither in Switzerland nor France had they
effected the purpose for which they were written, but among the Germans
their success was complete. Many persons, earnestly favoring Rousseau's
doctrine of freedom from all conventional restraints in families,
desired even his _Idyls of Life_ to be introduced into the schools.
Basedow and Rousseau thought in harmony; recommended that nature, not
discipline, should be our guide in education; and that only those
stories should be taught, of the utility of which the children are
themselves conscious. Subscriptions came in profusely, and the
_Philanthropium_ in Dessau commenced its existence. It was opened
without pupils on the twenty-seventh of December, 1774, and in the
following year it was attended by only fifteen. It threatened to
decline, but rallied again; and in 1776 a great public examination was
held. Then Basedow retired from its curatorship; but, returning once
mor