Otto Schmeil
Otto Schmeil (born February 3, 1860 in Großkugel , Province of Saxony ; † February 3, 1943 in Heidelberg ) was a German biologist , educator and author . He is considered a reformer of the teaching of biology . Its botanical author abbreviation is " Schmeil ".
Life
Schmeil was born the son of a village school teacher and first attended the village school in Großkugel and Gröbers . After his father had a fatal accident on a school trip, Schmeil visited the Latina of the Francke Foundations in Halle (Saale) between the ages of 10 and 14 and was accepted into the orphanage there. Schmeil then, like his father and grandfather, started training as a teacher. In 1874 he attended the Royal Preparatory Institute in Quedlinburg for two and a half years , and then switched to the teachers' college in Eisleben in 1877 , where he passed the final exam in 1880.
Schmeil began his first job as a teacher in the small town of Zörbig in 1880 , where he met his future wife Bertha Denck. In 1883 he went to the elementary schools in Halle (Saale) as a teacher , where he became chairman of the local teachers' association. By passing the secondary school teacher examination in 1887 and the rector examination in 1888, he qualified for future tasks. Since Zörbiger times, his interest was particularly in biology. Schmeil also studied biology at the University of Leipzig . In 1891 he received his doctorate with Rudolf Leuckart with a dissertation on copepods ( Copepoda ) with “summa cum laude”.
On October 12, 1889, Schmeil was accepted into the Masonic lodge to the five towers at the Salzquell in Halle (Saale). During his stay in Marburg, he actively participated as a visiting brother and lecturer in the work of the Marc Aurel Lodge on the Flaming Star . He was also active as a Freemason in Heidelberg, as the list of members of the Ruprecht Lodge reveals.
In 1894 Schmeil took over the post of rector at the large Wilhelmstadt elementary school in Magdeburg . There, 40 teachers taught 1,400 students. Here he began with the reform of the teaching of natural history. B. in the establishment of a school garden or in the publication of educational memoranda such as the work published in 1896 on reform efforts in the field of natural history teaching . Schmeil was also involved in the management of the German Teachers' Association. With Friedrich Junge and Karl August Möbius , he was one of the most important German reformers who tried to combine a biological view of nature with modern school pedagogy.
Schmeil's textbooks for teaching natural history abandoned the previous morphological approach to observing nature and discovering causal relationships. In particular, he modified the taxonomic arrangement and stringing together of important taxonomic characteristics of individual animal species (which he also retained) from university textbooks to include descriptions of behavior, ecology and other biological phenomena suitable for children. For him, nature observation was an indispensable prerequisite. With this in mind, Schmeil created textbooks in zoology and botany from 1898 onwards . From 1900 he published abridged guidelines and floor plans for schoolchildren . In his works he included human studies and health science . His books were characterized by an easily understandable text, tables, drawings and - for the first time for a biology textbook - also photographs . As an example of his unmistakable style, from which his love for nature emerges and which can no longer be found in today's biology books (probably because it is considered unscientific), the following quote about the house cat may serve:
“For many people, she is also a dear housemate. We are happy about her skillful movements, her trustworthiness and cleanliness. How carefully she cleans her soft fur! "
The practical tasks such as B.
"1. Watch the cat care for and play with its young! Determine the size and weight of the kittens every two weeks! […] 3. Touch the whiskers of a sleeping cat! […] 5. Make a model of the cat toe according to the illustration on p. 25: Cut pieces of cardboard that represent the limbs of the toes; attach the claw link to a board so that it can be turned around a nail, and glue the other toe links on! "
He achieved lasting fame with the plant identification book Flora of Germany and its adjacent areas ( Schmeil-Fitschen ), which was created in collaboration with the Magdeburg teacher Jost Fitschen and first appeared in 1903. The book has meanwhile seen 95 editions by the Verlag Quelle & Meyer under changing editors and is still a standard work for botanists. It has been translated into numerous languages and also into Braille . The total circulation is now more than 2.5 million copies.
Schmeil left the Prussian school service in 1904 in order to be able to devote more time to his writing. In 1904 he was awarded the title of professor by the Ministry of Culture for his services. The rest of his life he worked as a specialist book author. Schmeil first went to Marburg , then to Wiesbaden . In 1908 he moved to Heidelberg, where he had a villa built at Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 29. The university collection was at his disposal.
His eldest son Johannes, who practiced as a doctor in Hamburg, established the Schmeil Foundation with his will. This supports young, already qualified scientists from biology and medicine. In 2016 she awarded the Otto Schmeil Prize, endowed with € 15,000, for the first time, which is awarded by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences .
His younger son Werner (born May 10, 1896 in Magdeburg ; † May 2, 1968 in Heidelberg ) was a publisher and since 1934 has been in the management of the Quelle & Meyer publishing house in Leipzig. Since he was no longer able to continue the company there after the war, he moved the company headquarters to Heidelberg.
Honor
A street in his birthplace Großkugel bears his name, as does a path on the Schlossberg in Heidelberg. The secondary school in Gröbers is called “Prof. Otto Schmeil ”.
Publications
- Contributions to the knowledge of the freshwater copepods in Germany with special consideration of the cyclopids , 1891, dissertation, in Zeitschrift für Naturwissenschaft 64, 1891.
- Germany's free-living freshwater copepods , in Bibliotheca zoologica, 1892, 1893.
- On reform efforts in the field of natural history teaching , 1896.
- Textbook of Zoology , 1898.
- Guide to Zoology , 1900.
- Botany text-book , 1903.
- Der Mensch , 1904 (From the 85th edition 1936 in the sense of National Socialist racial hygiene, edited by Paul Eichler, with the subtitles Human Studies, Health Studies, Heredity, Racial Hygiene, Family Studies, Racial Studies, Population Policy )
- Guide to Botany , 1905.
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Schmeil's biological teaching work: botany
- Botanical Guide. 171th edition. Leipzig 1937
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Schmeil's biological teaching work: Animal Science
- Guide to Animal Science. Leipzig 1937
- Flora of Germany and its adjacent areas , 1903 (with Fitschen); Edition February 2003 as Flora of Germany and neighboring countries , ISBN 3-494-01328-4 .
literature
- Hermann Grünzel: Schmeil, Franz Otto. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 .
- Andreas W. Daum : Science popularization in the 19th century. Civil culture, scientific education and the German public, 1848–1914 . 2nd, supplementary edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-486-56551-5 .
- Martin Wiehle : Magdeburg personalities. Published by the Magistrate of the City of Magdeburg, Department of Culture. imPuls Verlag, Magdeburg 1993, ISBN 3-910146-06-6 .
- Anette Schenk: Otto Schmeil's life and work. 2000, Heidelberg, ISBN 3-932608-17-8 .
- Michael Freyer: From medieval medicine to modern biology lessons. I-II, Passau 1995, Volume II, pp. 634 f., 1109 u. ö.
Web links
- Literature by and about Otto Schmeil in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Otto Schmeil in the German Digital Library
- Author entry and list of the plant names described for Otto Schmeil at the IPNI
Individual evidence
- ^ Website of the city of Zörbig
- ^ Johannis Masonic Lodge To the three lions in the Orient at Marburg an der Lahn
- ^ Michael Buselmeier: Literary tours through Heidelberg: a city history in walking . tape 3 . Wunderhorn, 2007, ISBN 978-3-88423-257-6 , pp. 87 ( Google Books ).
- ^ Andreas W. Daum: Science popularization in the 19th century. Civil culture, scientific education and the German public, 1848–1914 . Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, p. 61-63, 509 .
- ↑ Detlev Franz: Biologism from above. The image of man in biology books. DISS, Duisburg 1993, ISBN 3-927388-38-6 .
- ^ Internet site of the Heidelberger Geschichtsverein eV
- ↑ Werner Schmeil , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 04/1961 of January 16, 1961, in the Munzinger Archive , accessed on December 23, 2010 ( beginning of the article freely available)
- ↑ Secondary school "Prof. Otto Schmeil ”. Retrieved May 11, 2017 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schmeil, Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German biologist, educator and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 3, 1860 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Large sphere near Schkeuditz , Saxony |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 3, 1943 |
| Place of death | Heidelberg |