Friedrich Adolf Sauer

Friedrich Adolf Sauer

Tombstone

Memorial plaque in barge

Friedrich Adolf Sauer , also Friedrich Adolph Sauer (born January 1, 1765 in Barge , † February 14, 1839 in Arnsberg ) was a German Roman Catholic pastor , educator and school reformer .

Live and act

After studying in Bonn, Sauer became a pastor in Rüthen in what was then the Duchy of Westphalia at the age of 25 . Here he met the active pastor and school reformer Melchior Ludolf Herold von Hoinkhausen, who soon became his fatherly friend. For years, Elector Maximilian Franz of Austria and Minister Franz Wilhelm von Spiegel, who was influenced by the Enlightenment , made considerable efforts to improve the school system in the Duchy of the Electorate of Cologne . Sauer's work fell within this framework, and he primarily focused on the training of the previously insufficiently trained teachers at elementary schools. While there was already a " normal teacher training institution " in Bonn, the capital of the Electorate of Cologne , there was no such institution in the distant duchy. Sauer was given the task of setting up an appropriate teacher training institute by the elector after he had been suggested to the elector by the incumbent school inspector Max von Weichs as the "only capable man" for this task. In preparation for his new task, Sauer traveled to the model schools at the time - including the so-called industrial schools near Würzburg, which imparted theoretical knowledge as well as practical skills - in order to develop the most modern school concept possible for the new facility.

Without a salary or a school fund, he founded the first normal school for teachers in the Duchy of Westphalia in Rüthen in 1795 . "In his method he relied on the natural thirst for knowledge that is innate in every human being. He saw the most fatal error in the mechanical learning of things that were not understood," states Ulrich Grun. Following the example of the Würzburg schools, the girls were taught to read and write as well as sewing, knitting and spinning. The boys learned the skills of the “ local industries ” (e.g. manufacture of wood products) and in the school garden horticulture, fruit growing and beekeeping.

The school concept was therefore not only geared towards education, but was an attempt at a kind of economic development in a largely economically backward and poor region. The principle of the school program was: "Preventing poverty is more meritorious than alleviating it with alms." In addition, Sauer was concerned with "sharpening the senses for the correct relationship between things, for balance and beauty." Numerous schools were created according to this concept in the parishes of the duchy. In 1802 there were a total of 255 elementary schools and 38 industrial schools for boys and 18 for girls. The sale of the products made in the schools between 1797 and 1810 was worth 100,000 Reichstalers.

After the end of the electoral state, Sauer relocated his teacher training institute to Arnsberg in 1803, in the now vacant house of the Jesuits. He also became prefect of the secularized grammar school Laurentianum and in 1804 Hessian and after the change of sovereign in 1816 Prussian school and consistorial councilor.

Sauer is buried in the Eichholzfriedhof in Arnsberg.

The Adolf Sauer School in Arnsberg has been named after Friedrich Adolf Sauer since January 8, 1929 .

literature

• Hans-Günther Bracht: Rüthen as a location for teacher training . In: Wolfgang Bockhorst (Hrsg.): History of the city of Rüthen . Bonifatius, Paderborn 2000. pp. 741–762 (Studies and sources on Westphalian history, 37).
• Josef Freusberg (District Administrator of the Arnsberg District): Eulogy at the funeral of Hochw. Mr. Friedrich Adolf Sauer . Arnsberg, 1839.
• Grun, Ulrich: The "only capable man: The pastor of Rüthen" , in: Soest district (ed.): Calendar of the Soest district , Soest 1990, ZDB -ID 619151-4 , pp. 109–110
• Wilhelm Schulte: Westphalian heads . Münster 1977. pp. 245f. ISBN 3-402-05700-X
• Steffen, Franz: The normal school in Rüthen , Düsseldorf 1913
• City of Menden (ed.): The reformer of the Sauerland school system: Friedrich Adolf Sauer (1765–1839) . Menden, 1990.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ulrich Grun: The "only capable man: The pastor of Rüthen" . In: District of Soest (ed.): Calendar of the district of Soest . Soest 1990, p. 109 .
2. ↑ Ulrich Grun: The "only capable man: The pastor of Rüthen" . In: District of Soest (ed.): Calendar of the district of Soest . Soest 1990, p. 109 .
3. ↑ Ulrich Grun: The "only capable man: The pastor of Rüthen" . In: District of Soest (ed.): Calendar of the district of Soest . Soest 1990, p. 110 .