Karl Ploetz

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Karl Julius Ploetz (born July 8, 1819 in Berlin , † February 6, 1881 in Görlitz ) was a German high school teacher, textbook and textbook author .

Life and professional development

Karl Julius Ploetz 'father was a sergeant in the Guard Uhlans of the Prussian army and later a tax overseer. His mother passed away very early. After graduating from the Joachimsthal Gymnasium in 1839, Ploetz began studying at Berlin University , which he broke off in his first year due to lack of money. From 1840 to 1843 he studied philology at the Sorbonne and lived in Paris. In order to earn a living for studying in Paris, he wrote articles for Berlin newspapers and gave language lessons in German. When he received an offer from Berlin to work as a private tutor in the family of Count Adolf von Königsmarck (1802-1875), he interrupted his studies from 1843 to 1845. He then resumed his studies at the University of Halle and earned his doctorate in 1845 a dissertation on the topic “De primo bello Mithridatico” - on the First Mithridatic War . After the senior teacher examination in 1846, he completed the compulsory year at a grammar school. Then he was initially an assistant teacher at the French grammar school in Berlin.

Taking into account these first experiences as a teacher, Karl Ploetz wrote the first textbooks for learning the French language in 1847. That was in 1847, the book Vocabulaire systématique 1848 Elementarbuch the French language , the school grammar of the French language , Petit vocabulaire francaise and 1851, the French Chrestomathie . The didactic goal of these textbooks was not the formal training of the mind on the language, but rather the "introduction to the innermost essence of language". It was these textbooks and their revolutionary methodology that established Plotz's long-standing reputation as an authoritative representative of modern language teaching in Germany. From 1848 to 1852 he was a French teacher at the Katharineum grammar school in Lübeck , after which he returned to Berlin as a specialist teacher of French and history at the French grammar school. From 1855 onwards, his idea to consolidate factual knowledge in history lessons was similarly radical: compiling and publishing compendia that were designed as pure collections of facts. His first publication in this area was a 32-page brochure Les principales dates de l`histoire universelle - an excerpt of important dates , names and facts from world history. But that was just the beginning. Extensive trips to Athens, London, Paris, Rome and Switzerland followed, which served to collect information and mainly extended over the years from 1857 to 1859. After further intensive work on the material, the collation and weighting of historical facts, the extract from the old, middle and modern history, as a guide and for repetitions , as well as the main dates of world history came out in 1863 . That was the hour of birth of the “ Big Ploetz ” (extract) and the “Little Ploetz” (main data). For his achievements, Karl Ploetz was promoted to the title of "third teacher" in 1858 with the title of professor. However, he resigned from the school service a year later because of a violent argument with a colleague.

Now Karl Ploetz was able to concentrate completely on his specialist publications. He lived in Paris from 1864 to 1879, except for the war period between 1870/1871. In doing so, he continued to improve his textbooks, adding the "Latin Preschool" and a Latin "Cursus for the Lower Class" to the series previously published for French. Above all, however, he worked intensively on the further development of the history compendia with the increasingly concentrated but at the same time broader edition of both complexes, the "extract" and the "main data". For French lessons, he made a significant contribution to the further dissemination of the synthetic learning method developed by Johann Heinrich Philipp Seidenstücker , which seems to have been almost forgotten .

On July 23, 1848, Karl Ploetz married Cäcilie, née Reiss, eldest daughter of the royal court jeweler Johann Ferdinand Reiss, and his wife Auguste née Vignolle. The marriage resulted in three sons and a daughter.

After a stroke in 1879, the Ploetz family moved to Görlitz. Karl Julius Ploetz died on February 6, 1881 in Görlitz.

Two of his sons then carried on the ideas implemented by their father in the AG Ploetz Verlag, founded in 1893, which was transferred to the Herder publishing house in 1972 , but was dissolved in 1995. However, Der Große Ploetz survived ; it was published in 2008 in its 35th and completely revised edition by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht . In today's version it has 2,128 pages and weighs 2.8 kg. In the meantime, the texts are illustrated even more clearly by around 200 maps, around 250 diagrams and overviews.

Fonts

Elementary grammar of the French language
  • Vocabulaire systématique , 1847
  • Elementary book of the French language , 1848
  • School grammar , 1848
  • Petit vocabulaire francaise , 1849
  • French Chrestomathy , 1851
  • Les principales dates de l`histoire universelle , 1855
  • Vocabulaire systematique et quide de conversation française , 1862 ( digitized version )
  • Excerpt from ancient, middle and modern history, as a guide and for repetitions , 1863
  • Main dates in world history , 1863
  • Latin preschool
  • 1st course for the lower class (Latin)
  • Brief systematic grammar of the French language , 1877
  • Methodical reading and exercise book 1878
  • Elementary book of the French language , 1884
  • Extract from the Ancient, Middle and Modern History , 8 A. 1884
  • Main dates of world history , Ploetz, Berlin 1901 ( digitized version ).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Heck, Karl Ploetz, new German biography, Volume 20, 2001, p. 548, In: http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/.html
  2. ^ Gustav von Loeper, Prof. Karl Ploetz, An outline of his life, 1881
  3. ^ "Vossische Zeitung" of July 25, 1848, 2nd supplement, p. 3
personal data
SURNAME Ploetz, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ploetz, Karl Julius; Ploetz, Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German textbook author
DATE OF BIRTH July 8, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1881
Place of death Goerlitz