Bengt Gottfried Forselius

Bengt Gottfried Forselius (* around 1660 in Madise , (today: Estonia ); † November 16, 1688 in a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea ) was a law student and school teacher.

education

Bengt Gottfried Forselius was born as the son of the Finnish-Swedish pastor of Madis and Kreuz in Harrien , Johann Forselius. He attended secondary school in Tallinn before 1679 he attended the University of Wittenberg jurisprudence studied. After his return to Estonia he taught at the farming school in Kreuz in Harrien (today: Harju-Risti). Influenced by the educational work of Johann Amos Comenius , he taught the rural Estonian population to read using new teaching methods.

Popular education

In 1684 Forselius founded a school in the episcopal estate near Dorpat , which was supposed to train the Estonian population to be sextons and teachers. In addition to reading and writing, German , religion, arithmetic and bookbinding were on the curriculum. Approx. 160 students were trained within four years. The company received support from the Swedish state, but found resistance from the Baltic German nobility.

Forselius distinguished himself in his successful work through great pedagogical skills. He used a textbook he wrote himself in 1684 and improved in 1685/86, the first of its kind in Estonia (probably printed in Riga ). It has not survived today, but two reprints are probably from 1694 (North Estonian language) and 1698 (South Estonian language).

In 1686 Forselius stayed at court in Stockholm at the invitation of the Swedish king to demonstrate his modern teaching methods. His two students, Ignati Jaak and Pakri Hansu Jüri, who had traveled with them, impressed King Karl XI. On his return voyage in 1688, Forselius drowned in a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea.

Appreciation

Bengt Gottfried Forselius is considered to be the founder of the Estonian popular education system. He did his best to promote reading and writing skills in the rural population. Forselius himself founded a total of 41 rural schools. By the end of the 17th century, around 70% of the adult rural Estonian population was literate.

His simplified spelling, which was strongly based on the spoken language and tried to avoid German elements, was groundbreaking for the further development of the Estonian written language . Forselius' teaching method of active, syllable-based reading achieved rapid success. Forselius, however, experienced particular resistance to the Estonian spelling of biblical names. But also in general, numerous resentments against the literacy of the peasant population had to be overcome in the nobility, the upper classes and the clergy.

literature

L. Aarma: Popular education and book production in Swedish Livonia: Johann Fischer and Bengt Gottfried Forselius. In: Journal for East Central Europe Research . 50, (3), 2001, pp. 389-414.