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Joachim Heinrich Campe (1779)

Like many of his educated contemporaries, the German pedagogue, linguist, theologian, and publisher Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746-1818) welcomed the French Revolution as the fulfillment of the Enlightenment ideals of liberty and democracy. As a writer and publisher, Campe molded these ideals into concrete blueprints for societal reform. As a school inspector in Braunschweig (1786-1805), he reformed the principality’s school system and published a series of pedagogical texts, Allgemeine Revision des gesamten Schul- und Erziehungswesens [General Revision of the Entire School and Educational System] (16. vols., 1785-11). He also published a complete edition of his papers on educating children and adolescents, Sämtliche Kinder-und Jugendschriften [Collected Writings on Children and Youth] (1806-09), in which he espoused the educational and social ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. In 1792, the French government declared Campe an honorary citizen of the French Revolution. Black chalk drawing by Christoph Heinrich Kniep (1755-1825), 1779.

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Joachim Heinrich Campe (1779)

© Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz / Hamburger Kunsthalle / Christoph Irrgang
Original: Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle