Ernst Friedrich Eberhard

Ernst Friedrich Eberhard (born March 18, 1809 in Coburg ; † September 9, 1868 ibid) was a German teacher (later school councilor in Coburg), classical philologist and naturalist (biologist).

Eberhard studied classical philology and philosophy from 1827 to 1832 at the universities of Jena (with Karl Christian Reisig , Jakob Friedrich Fries ), Halle and Berlin (with August Boeckh , Karl Lachmann , Friedrich Schleiermacher ), where he was mainly influenced by Boeckh and Reisig. He graduated from the senior teacher exam in Berlin and was in Jena with a dissertation on the Homeric Hymns doctorate . He was briefly at the Joachimsthalschen Gymnasium in Berlin and from 1834 professor at the Gymnasium in Coburg, where he also headed the ducal library. As a scientist, he turned more and more away from classical philology, after he had started at the invitation of Gottfried Bernhardy with the edition of the philosophical writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero , but through the simultaneous work of Johan Nicolai Madvig (edition of Cicero's De Finibus Bonorum Et Malorum 1839) outdated. Instead, he turned to the natural sciences, initially because the teacher in charge had been dismissed for political reasons and he was taking over his lessons. He dealt with physics, meteorology and microscopy . In 1848 he also took over the construction of the secondary school in Coburg and later that of the building trade school. In 1861 he became a school councilor and thus responsible for the entire school system in the Duchy of Coburg (at the same time he was already head of all municipal schools). He turned down calls for a professorship in Jena, as a ministerial advisor to Weimar or as a school director in Saint Petersburg .

As a classical philologist, he dealt with Aristotle and Plato in addition to Cicero , albeit less from a philological point of view than with their philosophy and scientific achievement. In addition, he published a lot on pedagogy, anthropology (especially his writing on human races attracted attention) and biology (for example on the reproduction of trichinae , infusoria and snail tongues), often in the school programs in Coburg. He edited Reisig's lectures on the satires of Horace and published on Aristotle (Das Licht nach Aristoteles 1836, Der Traum nach Aristoteles 1838).

He was on the city council of Coburg, was the main representative of the constitutional party in Coburg in 1848/1849 and also worked as a political journalist, for example for the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung .

On August 1, 1859 he was nicknamed Pliny XII. Member of the Leopoldina learned society .

Fonts (selection)

• The human races. Coburg 1842 ( digitized version ).
• About the snail tongues. Program of the Ducal Realschule Coburg, 1865 ( digitized ).
• Climatography of Coburg. 1846, 1856.

literature

• Alfred Eberhard:  Eberhard, Ernst Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 567 f.
• Johann Daniel Ferdinand Neigebaur : History of the imperial Leopoldino-Carolinische German academy of natural scientists during the second century of its existence. Friedrich Frommann, Jena 1860, p. 287 ( digitized version ).
• Willi Ule : History of the Imperial Leopoldine-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists during the years 1852–1887 . With a look back at the earlier times of its existence. In commission at Wilh. Engelmann in Leipzig, Halle 1889, supplements and additions to Neigebaur's history, p. 191 ( archive.org ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Member entry by Ernst Friedrich Eberhard at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 25, 2017.