Silent Years 227cist by training, he had translated Strabo; and before the unfortunate inci¬
dent in Würzburg he had been well on his way to pursuing a literary career.
Many people in Königsberg felt sorry for him, and some worked toward
having him excused from military service, but after some initial success,
this attempt failed. Frederick II himself decreed that Penzel was to remain
a soldier because of his "immoral life style."^145 Kant disliked Penzel, ap¬
parently for the same reason, and Hamann reported to Herder on Octo¬
ber 14, 1776, that Kant "had always been against him [Penzel], and con¬
sidered him to have a base character because he was able to endure his
status as a soldier so well.. ,"^146
Kant was always interested in education. This was not just because of
his reading of Rousseau's Emile during the early sixties; it was something
that he had worried about at least from his time as a Hofmeister. His lec¬
ture given at the occasion of becoming Magister was, after all, "Of the
Easier and More Thorough Presentation of Philosophy." In 1774, this
interest in education received a new impulse through Johann Bernhard
Basedow's (1723—90) founding of a progressive school, the Philanthro-
pinum in Dessau. The Philanthropinum was conceived in a very "progres¬
sive" spirit. It almost immediately provoked extensive discussions in the
German journals. Basedow aimed at educating his students to become
"philanthropists," who would lead a "patriotic and happy life of con¬
tributing to the common good." Basedow aimed at the education of the
human being as a whole. He emphasized practical knowledge over mere
intellectual training. His school week included not just drill, but "Wan¬
dertage" or day-long "outings" into nature. He emphasized athletics, and
he attacked the rigid distinction between "work" and "play," insisting on
frequent breaks and on teaching languages not by rote memorization but
as a kind of game. Students were to be taught physics and other subjects
by experimenting themselves and by looking at objects {Realien) that they
might never have seen. They were to be educated to become independent
citizens who could take care of themselves in their future lives. Religious
education was to recede into the background. Indeed, Basedow felt that
no prayers should be taught to children until they were ten years old.^147
In other words, Basedow's approach was radically different from the Pietis-
tic education Kant himself had suffered through.
Many of the practices advocated by Basedow are now part of the main¬
stream of pedagogic thinking, but when he first proposed and practiced
them, they were controversial. Thus J. G. Schlosser (1739—99), who