mmit the dryest details to memory. The most useless
exercises were elevated to great importance, and years were spent in the
study of many branches that could be of no possible benefit in either
the professions or the trades. The primary schools were equally
defective. There was no such thing as the pleasant, developing influence
of the mature over the young mind. The same defect had already
contributed to the spread of Rationalism, but the Rationalists were now
shrewd enough to seize upon this very evil and use it as an instrument
of strength and expansion.

Basedow was the first innovator in education, and, glaring as his faults
were, he succeeded in effecting radical changes in the entire circle of
youthful training. Sprung from a degraded class, addicted to vulgar
habits, and dissipated beyond the countenance of good society, this man
educated himself, and then set himself up as a fit agent for the
reformation of German education.[37] He undertook, by his publication of
the _Philalethy_, and of the _Theoretical System of Sound Reason_, to
infuse new spirit into the university method of instruction. But he had
taken too large a measure of his own powers, and therefore made but
little impression upon the circle to which he had addressed himself.
But, with that restless determination which distinguished him through
life, he began to appeal to the younger mind, and contended boldly for
the freedom of children from their common and long-standing restraints.

From 1763 to 1770 Basedow deluged the whole land with his books on
education; and, uniting his appeals for educational reform with
strictures upon the validity of the Scriptures, he incurred the sore
displeasure of Goetze, Winkler and others of their class. They replied to
him, but he was always ready-witted, and the press groaned under his
repeated and sometimes ribald rejoinders. He told the nation, in an
_Address to the Friends of Humanity_, that the old excesses would soon
be done away with, since he was about to publish a work and commence an
educational institution which would rid the children of the shackles of
customary instruction. He solicited subscriptions for the issue of his
elementary book, as it would require numerous plates, and be attended
with other unusual expenses. His manifesto was freely circulated.
Replies soon came to him, with liberal subscriptions from all parts of
Europe. Princes and people became infatuated with his great plans and
wrote