Georg Franz Hofmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Georg Franz Hofmann (born April 23, 1765 in Burrweiler , Rheinpfalz , † after May 24, 1838 ) was a Swiss-German educator and author . He held one of the most important offices in the Helvetic Republic , chaired the school commission of the newly opened canton school in Aarau , worked at the Johann Heinrich Pestalozzis Educational Institute in Yverdon and founded his own schools in Naples and Budapest .

Life

Prince Bretzenheim, Hofmann's employer
in Mannheim.

Hofmann's biography has hardly been researched. He himself had great difficulty in producing a baptismal certificate. What is certain is that he was a Catholic. His father is said to have been called Peter. He is likely to be identical to "Georgius Franciscus Hoffmann, Burweileranus", who was matriculated at the University of Heidelberg in 1782 "t (itulo) p (aupertatis)" (as poor) and in 1784 asked for "can and purgator money" (scholarships?) . At the time of his enrollment in Heidelberg, the Reformed Church Councilor Johann Friedrich Mieg was promoting the Order of Illuminati . However, nothing is known of Hofmann's membership, who was still very young at the time.

On the title page of one of his later publications he is called Dr., on that of another, more accurate Philos (ophiæ) Mag (ister) . Hofmann himself writes: “The revolution drew me from the teaching post, which I held with joy and blessing in my fatherland, the Rhineland Palatinate, for eight years, to political business in one of the first offices in Switzerland.” In which the teaching activity mentioned existed is not known. We only learn that Hofmann was the librarian of Prince Karl August von Bretzenheim (1768–1823), an illegitimate son of Elector Karl Theodor, in Mannheim, the royal seat of the Palatinate . It is also said that he became a Jacobin and went to France . What is certain is that he married a Reformed girl named Karoline or Charlotte and that the couple's daughters, who were gifted in music, drawing and painting - Karoline, Amalie (1797–1870) and Charlotte (1801–1819) - were raised in the Reformed world. Amalie is said to have been born in Switzerland.

Secretary of the Helvetic Government

1799–1801 Hofmann - an excellent stylist - was the first German editorial secretary of the Executive Board of the Helvetic Republic , based in Bern . The pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827), who worked in the neighboring Burgdorf from 1799–1804 , later reminded him of those days "when we saw each other so often and with real confidence showed each other many participation and many hours of friendship" . Hofmann spread Pestalozzi's teaching in domestic and foreign papers. With his colleague Leonard Meister (1741-1811) - a Reformed pastor - he published a journal by and for Helvetia in 1799 , one of which was Heinrich Zschokke (1771-1848). In 1801 Hofmann planned to launch a Helvetian newspaper with the publisher Johann Georg Albrecht Höpfner (1759–1813) .

Head of the Cantonal School in Aarau

The seat of the canton school in Aarau
was today's office building.

Hofmann writes: "The more my hopes of seeing a reformation of the people being promoted by political revolutions sank through my daily worse experiences, the higher my belief in the improvement of the human race through the educational reorganization of Pestallozzi (sic) (...)" Coup d'état by the federalists (opponents of the unified Swiss state) in October 1801, he was entrusted with the organization of the canton school in Aarau. This institute, which was private until 1813, was founded by Bergdirektor Johann Samuel Gruner (1766–1824) and silk ribbon manufacturer Johann Rudolf Meyer (1768–1825). The school's program published in November bears Hofmann's signature. It says: "(...) Slavic homage to foreign authority is the true death of reason." The pupils should become "useful members of a free state". Every child is allowed to develop as it suits their disposition and inclinations. When it comes to upbringing, one will "follow the beckoning and rules of nature, the wisest and safest legislator" and proceed according to the "steps of nature".

When the school opened in January 1802, Hofmann was the main speaker. The leading Helvetic newspaper called him “the soul of the institute”. He took over the subjects philosophy and rhetoric . As he himself writes, his lessons in "human, moral and duty doctrine (...) were often challenged and suspected". He was friends with his teacher colleague Andreas Moser (1766-1806), a Deist and alleged Illuminati, who was the target of the federalists, who were ousted in April 1802. In the run-up to the counter-revolution of the following September ( Stecklik War ), Moser had to flee Aarau. In October, the professional ethics committee of the canton of Bern unsuccessfully requested Hofmann's expulsion.

Classical versus human education

Joseph Maria Christen :
Hofmann's opponent
Ernst August Evers.

Hofmann was elected president of the school commission (teachers' conference) until 1804. He insisted that his colleagues stick to jointly made decisions. There were disputes with Pastor Ludwig Rahn (1770–1836), who had headed his own educational institute in Aarau and the municipal secondary school before the canton school was founded. The system of collective leadership displeased the classical philologist Luzius Hold (1778-1852), who was discontinued after the end of the Helvetic Republic (1803). Accustomed to Prussian authoritarian conditions from studying in Halle , he set up a rector . When one did not want to entrust this office, which was endowed with far-reaching competencies, to him, he obtained the appointment of his 25-year-old friend from university and specialist colleague Ernst August Evers (1779–1823). Like the mathematician Johann Christian Martin Bartels (1769–1836) and the theologian Wilhelm Benjamin Gautzsch (1771–1835), Hofmann also saw in Evers the “limitations of the Low German Masters”, “who mostly had little knowledge other than their Greek and Latin school books ". He suggested in vain that the young man should only be made rector of the small department for future academics ( humanistic school ), but that he himself be made that of the larger department for merchants ( secondary school ).

With Hold and Evers, neo-humanism with its classic educational canon took the place of Pestalozzi's educational system aimed at educating people at the canton school . All previous teachers left the school, the number of students fell by half. When a new school program appeared in 1805, about which Hofmann had not been informed, he too resigned. This was despite the fact that he had only acquired a house on the Laurenzenvorstadt, including the citizenship of Aarau, and opened a boarding school for cantonal students last year . “As a public justification against public insults” he wrote the text on the development and education of human cognitive powers to connect Pestallozzi (sic) elementary teaching with scientific teaching in secondary schools. In this he did not spare his two opponents. Hold then filed an unsuccessful lawsuit for defamation. In the prologue of his fragment of the Aristotelian art of education , however, Evers became even more polemical than Hofmann. So he described it - addressing this - as superfluous, "to present your pair of ears more clearly your pedagogical ignorance, the poor dazzling work of your hollow-sounding phrases and the doll's vanity for trivial advantages".

Pestalozzi employee in Yverdon

Joseph Maria Christians:
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
(terracotta mask, 1809).

Hofmann ran a private educational institute in Aarau for some time. 1806-1810 he worked in Yverdon ( Vaud ), where he opened a boarding school, taught at Pestalozzi's institute and tried to consolidate its finances. His daughters were among the first pupils at the affiliated subsidiary. In 1807 he sold the house in Aarau including the citizenship of the city to the publisher Heinrich Remigius Sauerländer . In the morning paper for educated estates he wrote about the introduction of the Pestalozzian method in Spain and Prussia, about the cult of the master practiced in Yverdon, but also about a patriotic shooting festival in the canton of Léman  - a kind of counterpart to the Unspunnen festival of the aristocrats . Hofmann was a member of the Swiss Society of Education, founded in 1808 , which met in Lenzburg . In 1809/10 he witnessed the feuds that took place at the institute in Yverdon. Pestalozzi biographer Heinrich Morf writes: “Hofmann took no part in the quarrel; his tender-hearted, loving disposition was only looking for mutual love. He found it with Pestalozzi, to whom he hung with childlike devotion and admiration (...) "

From Rome to Naples

Jean-Dominique Ingres:
Queen Carolina of Naples (1814).

In 1810 Hofmann took a trip to Mulhouse , where several students in Yverdon came from. In the same year he moved to Rome with his family and the Pestalozzi student Joseph Alphons Pfyffer (1791–1812) . His daughters were supposed to continue their artistic education in the Eternal City. But instead of staying for several years as planned, he opened a Pestalozzi school in Naples in 1811 at the invitation of the doctor Johann Mayer (1777-1812) and the tutor of the king's daughters, Carolina Filangieri (1750-1828) . There, the wife of Joachim Murats (1767-1815), Napoleon's youngest sister Carolina (1782-1839), took care of the education system. The Archbishop of Taranto , Giuseppe Capecelatro (1744-1836), the tutor of the king's sons, Amable de Baudus (1761-1822), and the Secretary General of the Council of State, Tito Manzi (1769-1836), supported Hofmann.

His institute was attended by 253 French, German, English and Neapolitans over the course of six years. The teaching staff was also international. Hofmann and Pfyffer translated Pestalozzi's elementary teaching into French and Italian. Hofmann published the idea generali sulla educazione (principles of education). In it he writes: “Le vere basi dell'educazione sono i sentimenti religiosi e morali. "(The real foundations of education are religious and moral feelings. ) The aim of his institute is" nel formar uomini cari a Dio ed alla Società "(in the formation of men who are dear to God and society). After Pfyffer's early death, the Pestalozzians Fridolin Baumgartner (1791–1814) and Johannes Schneider (1792–1858) joined the teaching team. The scientifically disguised struggle of the Enlightenmentists against self-defilement ( masturbation ) proved to be particularly difficult in Naples .

As the school flourished, Hofmann bought two houses from secularized church property and had a hall built between them. He writes about everyday life in this new domicile: “Everywhere there was lively, happy and creative life, from the earliest morning that called over to work with wonderful cheers from Vesuvius , to the late evening, which poured its refreshments over St. Elmo cheerful association of young and old, with joint games or confidential conversations in the cooling green of heavenly-scented arbours. ”Baumgartner's death then dealt the institute a hard blow. With the fall of the Napoleonic state system it lost its French students, and in 1816 the mind-numbing clericalism under the restored rule of the Bourbons made it impossible to survive .

In the Austrian Empire

Hofmann's daughter Amalie, wife of the first president of the Assicurazioni Generali.

In 1817 we find Hofmann in Vienna , where he was the tutor of two counts brought with him from Naples. Because of the poor health of the youngest daughter, he moved to Pest (now part of Budapest) in 1818 . There he ran a k. k. privileged educational and teaching institution for daughters from the educated classes. On the occasion of the opening, the editor of the United Ofner and Pester Zeitung, Johann Christoph Rösler (1773–1837), wrote about Hofmann: “(...) the noble humanity and maturity of his intellectual character lives on in his entire exterior; his wife and two adult daughters manage the educational business with him and under his direction (...) “The Hungarian Pestalozzian János Szabó von Várad (1783–1864) praised the institute in a report. Hofmann himself published at that time on education and instruction. In a review of this book he was accused of "anti-Christian deism" by his competitor Johann Ludwig Folnesics (1780–1823). Hofmann's real attitude to religion is evident from his following statement to a representative of the Bible Society : "(...) without belief in humanity, belief in Christ and belief in God is a spin-off (...)"

The dissolution of the institute in Pest was probably connected with the marriage of the daughters. From then on, Karoline lived with her family in Rome, Amalie in Trieste and Gorizia (Gorizia). The latter's husband, Johann Christoph Ritter, Edler von Záhony (1782–1838), was president of the newly founded insurance company Assicurazioni Generali from 1832–1835 . Hofmann edited his most extensive work Contributions to the Cultural History of Naples on Lake Como in 1822 . Parts of it appeared in advance in Zschokke's traditions on the history of our time. In 1823 the teacher is said to have retired on an estate (dairy farm) near Vienna.

Works

  • (With Leonard Meister :) Journal by and for Helvetia. 12 numbers, Bern, from July 1799.
  • Cantonal school in Aarau. (November 18) 1801.
  • New arrangements and improved facilities in the Aarau Cantonal School. (November 12) 1802.
  • Arrangement and division of the subjects and teaching hours for the summer course at the Cantonal School in Aarau. (May 20) 1803.
  • Latest arrangement and division of subjects and teaching hours in the canton school in Aarau. (September 15) 1804.
  • About the development and education of the human powers of knowledge to connect the Pestallozzi (sic) elementary lessons with the scientific lessons in secondary schools by Dr. Georg Franz Hofmann. Basel / Aarau, (August) 1805.
  • New educational institutions in Spain. In: Morgenblatt für educated estates, February 9, 1807, p. 136.
  • New Year's Feyer in the Pestalozzian Institute in Iferten (Yverdon). In: Morgenblatt für educated estates, February 26, 1807, p. 194 f.
  • The royal festival in Montcharant ( Montcherand ), near Orbe in the canton of Leman, on June 13, 1807. In: Morgenblatt für educated estates, July 11, 1807, p. 659 f.
  • Feyer of Pestalozzi’s birthday in Iferten, on January 12, 1808. In: Morgenblatt für educated estates, January 29, 1808, pp. 98-100.
  • About the preparations of the Prussian government for the introduction of the new elementary method. In: Morgenblatt für educated estates, May 10, 1809, p. 443 f.
  • Idea generali sulla educazione per servir di base all'organizzazione dell'istituto di Giorgio Francesco Hofmann. Napoli, (Settembre) 1812. ( digitized version )
  • Stato scientifico e morale dell'istituto di GF Hofmann. Napoli 1814.
  • About education and instruction. A word to announce a k. k. privileged educational and teaching institute for daughters from the educated classes. By Georg Franz Hofmann, Philos (ophiæ) Mag (ister), member of the Pedagogical Society in Lenzburg, formerly professor at the Canton School of Aargau in Switzerland. Pesth 1818.
  • Last word to the parents of the pupils and the friends of GF Hofmann's educational institution. Pesth 1821.
  • History of a Pestalozzian educational institute in Naples. (As a contribution to the moral history of today's Naples.) In: Heinrich Zschokke (editor), Traditions for the history of our time (Aarau), year 1822, pp. 451–486.
  • Contributions to the cultural history of Naples. In stories of the fate of the educational institution of Georg Franz Hofmann. Aarau 1823. ( digitized version )

Sources and representations

  • Solemn opening of the canton school in Aarau. Promoted to print by the new literary society in Aarau. (January 6) 1802.
  • Ernst August Evers: Organization of the Aarau Cantonal School. 1805.
  • The same: Prologus galeatus. In: Fragment of Aristotelian Waldorf Education, as an introduction to an examining comparison of ancient and modern pedagogy. In addition to a contribution to the history of the canton school in Aarau, Aarau 1806, pp. III – XXVI.
  • Morning paper for educated stands. Tübingen 1807 ff.
  • Franz Xaver Bronner: The Cantonal School in Aarau. In: The Canton of Aargau. 2nd volume, St. Gallen / Bern 1844, pp. 11-17.
  • Heinrich Morf: A Pestalozzi'sche institution in Naples. 1811-1816. In: Paedagogium, monthly for upbringing and teaching, 11th year, Leipzig 1889, pp. 712–732; also slightly changed as a separate impression from the "Landbote" and Tagblatt der Stadt Winterthur, Winterthur 1897.
  • Gustav Toepke (editor): The register of the University of Heidelberg. 4. Theil, Heidelberg 1903.
  • Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi: Complete Letters. Critical edition. 14 volumes, Zurich 1946–1995.
  • Leonhard Friedrich / Sylvia Springer: Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. All works and letters. Critical edition. Register volume 1. Zurich 1994.
  • Rebekka Horlacher / Daniel Tröhler (editors): All letters to Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Critical edition. 6 volumes, Zurich 2009–2015.
  • Andreas Steigmeier: Hofmann, Georg Franz. In: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz .

References and comments

  1. ^ The festive name day of St. George in 1815, which Hofmann (1823), pp. 198–201, describes, was probably also his 50th birthday.
  2. ^ Rule of the Barons von der Leyen near the French fortress Landau , occupied by France in 1792 , French from 1798–1814.
  3. ↑ Steigmeier.
  4. ↑ Hofmann (1823), pp. 97 f., 277, 292, 297.
  5. ↑ Steigmeier.
  6. ↑ Toepke, p. 327. 1782 he was logicus, 1784 physicus.
  7. ↑ Richard van Dülmen: The secret society of the Illuminati, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1975, p. 269 f. Mieg won Pestalozzi for the secret society. In 1797 he represented the project of a southern German republic. The same theologian dynasty belonged to Johann Elias Mieg (1770–1842), who worked in Yverdon from 1807–1810 and supported Hofmann in 1811 with the establishment in Naples.
  8. ^ Hofmann (1805).
  9. ^ Hofmann (1818).
  10. ↑ In the album promotorum in facultate philosophica ex parte catholicorum 1705–1805 of the University of Heidelberg there is a gap in the period 1771–1789. (Toepke, p. 519 / note 1.)
  11. ↑ Hofmann (1805), p. IV.
  12. ↑ The secular priest Georg Franz Hofmann, who published a teaching on Latin in Mannheim in 1791, is likely to be identical to the later pastor of Feudenheim († 1816).
  13. ^ Augsburgische Ordinari Postzeitung, July 22, 1799.
  14. ^ To Hofmann (towards the end of 1805), in: Pestalozzi, Volume 5 (1961), p. 98.
  15. ^ Hofmann (1805), p. V.
  16. ↑ The Executive Board of the Helvetic Republic took over the printing and shipping fees for twelve weeks.
  17. ^ Hofmann (1805), p. V f.
  18. ↑ Morf (1889), p. 712 / note; Morf (1897), p. 1.
  19. ↑ Gruner married the widowed sister of Hofmann's compatriot Philipp Franz von Walther in 1817 .
  20. ↑ Canton school in Aarau, p. 1.
  21. ^ Canton school in Aarau, p. 2 f.
  22. ^ Feyerliche opening of the canton school in Aarau, pp. 14–29.
  23. ↑ Der Republikaner ( Lucerne ), January 16, 1802, p. 17, compare February 4, 1802, p. 45 / note. 1.
  24. ↑ Hofmann (1805), p. XVII including note.
  25. ^ Christian Roedel: Pestalozzi and Graubünden. Winterthur 1960, p. 143.
  26. ^ Berne ethics commission to governor David Rudolf Bay, October 1, 1802. In Johannes Strickler (editor): Official collection of the acts from the time of the Helvetic Republic, 9th volume, Berne 1903, p. 71; by Ernst Jörin: Der Aargau 1798–1803 ( Argovia 42), Aarau 1929, p. 227 / note. 66, misinterpreted.
  27. ↑ Franz Xaver Bronner (1758–1850), from 1804 teacher of mathematics and natural sciences: "(...) the often renewed bickering in the house corridors annoyed teachers and students." (Bronner, p. 13.) Compare Evers (1806), S. V, XV, XVI including note
  28. ^ Bronner, p. 14.
  29. ↑ Evers (1806), p. XIX.
  30. ↑ Evers (1805).
  31. ↑ Hofmann (1805), p. III.
  32. ↑ Imperial and Royal Bavarian privileged Allgemeine Zeitung (Ulm), March 28, 1806, p. 347.
  33. ↑ Evers (1806), p. XXIV. Compare by the same author: About school education for bestiality. Aarau 1807.
  34. ↑ Evers (1806), p. VII / note.
  35. ^ Bernhard Fischer (editor): Morgenblatt für educated stands (...) Register of fee recipients / authors and collation protocols. Munich 2000, p. 304.
  36. ^ Hofmann (February 9, 1807).
  37. ^ Hofmann (May 10, 1809).
  38. ^ Hofmann (February 26, 1807), Hofmann (January 29, 1808).
  39. ^ Hofmann (July 11, 1807).
  40. ^ Hofmann (1818), title.
  41. ↑ Morf (1889), p. 712; Morf (1897), p. 2.
  42. ↑ Vicki Müller-Lüneschloß: About the relationship between nature and the world of spirits. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2012, p. 77.
  43. ↑ Four Köchlin, three Dollfuss and two Heilmann.
  44. ^ Son of the former member of the Executive Board of the Helvetic Republic and editor of Alphons Pfyffer (1753–1822), a friend of freedom .
  45. ↑ In Rome, his friends Carl Grass (1767–1814) and Ludwig Vogel (1788–1879) awaited him , the latter a former pupil ( Feyerliche opening of the canton school in Aarau, p. 11.) Hofmann also got to know other artists, so the painter Gottlob Friedrich Steinkopf (1778-1860) and the church musician Giuseppe Sirletti (1775-1834), who taught his daughters. Pietro Giuntotardi (1764–1842) taught the tour group Italian.
  46. ^ Obituary in: Süd-Deutsche Miscellen for Life, Literature and Art, Karlsruhe, October 24, 1812, p. 347 f.
  47. ↑ The native Hungarian countess Carolina Frendel, widow of the lawyer and philosopher Gaetano Filangieri (1752-1788).
  48. ↑ King of Naples since 1808.
  49. ↑ One of the few surviving exponents of the Parthenopean Republic from 1799, 1808/09 Minister of the Interior, first almsman of the Queen. In 1811 a commission chaired by Capecelatro had published a project to improve public schools, but in view of the prevailing political tensions it had no chance of being realized.
  50. ↑ Hofmann (1823), pp. 40, 309.
  51. ↑ Hofmann (1812), p. VIII.
  52. ↑ Hofmann (1812), p. 62.
  53. ↑ Left Naples in 1815. Later Bernese government councilor and national councilor.
  54. ↑ Compare Simon-Auguste Tissot : L'Onanisme; ou dissertation physique, sur les maladies produites par la masturbation. Lausanne 1755 (correct: 1760).
  55. ↑ See Hofmann (1823), pp. 59–64, 87–89.
  56. ↑ Hofmann (1823), p. 155 f.
  57. ↑ Naples was initially occupied by the Austrians , which gave Hofmann a reprieve.
  58. ^ Samuel Flick to Pestalozzi, Vienna, October 4, 1817. In: Horlacher / Tröhler, Volume 5, p. 132.
  59. ↑ Hofmann (1823), p. 27 / note, 312 / note.
  60. ↑ The sick Charlotte was not counted. A poem on the death of the 18-year-old can be found in: Non-profit papers for instruction and entertainment as a simultaneous companion to the combined Ofner and Pester Zeitung, Ofen (Buda), September 30, 1819, p. 620
  61. ^ Non-profit papers for instruction and entertainment as a simultaneous companion of the combined Ofner and Pester Zeitung, Ofen (Buda), August 27, 1818, pp. 549–551.
  62. ↑ Nevelést illető Intézet (An educational institution). In: Tudományos Gyűjtemény (Collection of Sciences), Buda, 1818, IX. Volume, pp. 115-122.
  63. ^ Hofmann (1818).
  64. ↑ Zeitschriften für Freunde true human education, Ofen (Buda), 11. – 25. December 1818, pp. 374 f., 381-383, 397-399, 407, quotation: p. 375.
  65. ↑ Hofmann (1823), p. 246 f.
  66. ↑ Hofmann (1823), p. 312 / note.
  67. ↑ Eugen Ritter Freiherr von Záhony: Chronicle and family tree of the Ritter family from Frankfurt a.s. who were ennobled in Austria in 1829 with the predicate "Von Záhony". M. Brünn (Brno) 1915, pp. 1, 6-12, family tree.
  68. ↑ Hofmann (1823), p. 20.
  69. ^ Hofmann (1822).
  70. ^ Compare Adolphe Joanne: Itinéraire descriptif et historique de la Suisse, Paris 1841, p. 185.
  71. ↑ Hofmann (1823), p. 191 f .; Morf (1889), p. 727; Morf (1897), p. 25.
  72. ↑ Tudományos Gyűjtemény, above, in 1821, XI. Volume, p. 121.
personal data
SURNAME Hofmann, Georg Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-German educator and author
DATE OF BIRTH around 1765
PLACE OF BIRTH Burrweiler , Rhine Palatinate
DATE OF DEATH after May 24, 1838