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    Writers * from 1750 to 1800 , and a farther account of his life in SchlichtegrolTs Necrology for 179 O . Goethe tells an anecdote of going a journey in company with him and Lavater , who fell into a violent dispute about the Trinity- Basedow consoled himself

    with the hope of getting some beer and a pipe of tobacco at an inn which he saw before them on the road . When they came to it , Goethe made the coachman drive on , to the great chagrin of Basedow , to whom he excused himself by saying , that the sign of the

    inn was two triangles , and as he had such an aversion to one triangle ( the scholastic emblem of the Trinity ) , he was afraid the sight of two might overcome him . This conceit , according to Goethe , pacified our Anti-trinitarian divine .

    Basedow , in his general writings , endeavoured to apply philosophy to practical purposes , and to give a more popular air to his reasonings than had been usual with his countrymen before his time . He held truth to be of

    little value without practice , and , indeed , he held its essence to depend chiefly on its utility . He considered external or speculative truth to be a very vague and doubtful thing ; and

    that it is principally the consequences of things to the mind itself , that is , a moral necessity , which determines it to believe strongly and consistently on any point , so that that is true to each individual which makes the most

    lasting impression on his mind , and which he feels to be necessary to his happiness . Thus he regarded practical good as the test of speculative truth . He gave great weight to the principle of analogy , and founded the doctrine of a Providence on this principle . He considered common sense as one

    ingredient in philosophical reasoning , and rejected all systems which appeared to him to exclude it ; such as idealism , the doctrine of monads , and a pre-established harmony . His favourite adage in his system of education , was to follow Nature . He wished

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    the mind to be led to knowledge , virtue and religion , by gentle means , instead of those of constraint and terror . Indeed , his principles on this subject are very nearly the same as those of Locke and Rousseau : and he

    seems to have done little else than to have given currency in Germany to the same reasonings which those philosophers had taught before him in England and France . He insisted on the disuse of the preposterous and unhealthy dresses used by children

    and their parents , such as stays , swaddling-clothes , tight bandages round the neck , the knees , &c . He recommended exercise and hardy sports as necessary to the health and activity of the body . He proposed to exercise the judgment by teachiug a knowledge of things , and not merely to

    load the memory with words . He preferred the practical sciences to the speculative , the living to the dead languages , modern to ancient history , things which are more near -to those which are more remote . In fine , most of his principles were in themselves sound and good , and have in fact exerted their influence on the actual

    progress of civilization : they were only erroneous from the excess to which he sometimes appears to have carried them ; partly from the natural vehemence of his mind , partly from the natural tendency to paradox on the side of new opinions . Paradox , by excitiwg attention , and enlisting

    the passions , is perhaps necessary to contend against prejudice ; common sense and reason are lost sight of by both parties during the combat ; but in the end they prevail , if they have fair play allowed them . Thus , in the present instance , it is now generally admitted , that something besides the classics is necessary to a liberal

    education ; nor is it thought requisite to arrive at this conclusion through the antithesis to the vulgar opinion of his day set up by Basedow , viz . that the classics are of no use at all in a rational system of education .

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    5 l 6 Memoir of John Bernard Batsedotv .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1817, page 516, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2468/page/4/