Friedrich Wilhelm Hagen

Friedrich Wilhelm Hagen (born March 31, 1767 in Mistelbach near Bayreuth , † April 27, 1837 in Windsheim ) was a German author , pastor , dean and district school inspector. Hagen was jointly responsible for the introduction of the school reform based on the ideas of Pestalozzi in Franconia .

Life

Hagen attended the Bayreuth grammar school from 1785 to 1791. He discovered his inclination for education during his student years in Erlangen (1791–1795). After taking his master's degree and habilitation , he taught as an associate professor until 1799 and published a number of theological and philological writings.

From 1799 he worked in Bayreuth as a professor at the grammar school and as a castle preacher. In Selb , where he had taken over a pastor's post in 1802 for health reasons, he gained his first practical experience with school reforms.

Hagen was an avowed opponent of Napoleon . In 1809 he was transferred to Dottenheim for this reason after a stay in prison and a death sentence averted by influential friends . In September 1816 he moved to Windsheim as dean, first pastor and district school inspector.

Hagen's great role model was Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi , whose educational principles he sought to be the first to implement in Franconia . With the help of the school teacher Müller, he introduced pedagogy suitable for children. Dottenheim became a small center for reform pedagogy. Hagen supplemented the curriculum with practical subjects such as tree care and field fairs . The instruction was intended to prepare for a newly introduced class in which “guidance on the agricultural industry” was given. Hagen also tried to win over other teachers for his ideas. To do this, he ran the advanced training institute for school teachers in Dottenheim, which the reform-minded Ansbach district school councilor Heinrich Stephani reported in his magazine Der baierische Schulfreund .

Friedrich Wilhelm Hagen was married to Maria Christina Elisabeth Schmauß (1771–1858) and had four sons and two daughters. His son Karl Heinrich Wilhelm Hagen (1810–1868) became a historian and was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly, his son Friedrich Wilhelm Hagen junior (1814–1888) became a psychiatrist and was one of the people responsible for the incapacitation of the Bavarian King Ludwig II. His grandson was the classical philologist Hermann Hagen (1844–1898).

Works

• Commentar on Ciceros mixed letters especially with regard to aesthetics and the mechanism of language for high schools and schools. Nuremberg 1798/99.
• About the essentials of Pestalozzi’s way of educating people and the introduction of elementary instruction in the same in the school in Dottenheim. Palm, Erlangen 1810.