Silent Years 229Accordingly, there was many an appeal to its supporters to enlist students
and to donate money. Kant rose to the occasion. He not only saw to it that
Motherby's son went to the school, but also wrote an article for the Königs¬
berger gelehrten und politischen Zeitungen, recommending the school's prin¬
ciples with great ardor.^151 He wanted not only students to be sent to the
Philanthropinum, but also future teachers, so that they could spread the good
message. His student Kraus was to be the "Prussian apostle." If this was
not enough, Kant also collected money for the Philanthropinum, and then
wrote another article advertising both the school and its magazine. Since
"governments these days do not seem to have money for the improvement
of the school," he appealed again to private citizens of means to support
the new school, saying at the end of the article that those who wanted to
subscribe to the magazine of the Philanthropinum could do so between
10:00 A.M. and 1:00 P.M.^152 Though the school continued to suffer financial
problems, Kant did not give up. He continued to support it in a variety of
ways, getting a former student of his to collect subscriptions and to be¬
come a teacher there, writing encouraging letters to the leaders of the school,
and even offering one of its former directors, Campe, the highest position
in the Prussian Church that goes with a full professorship in theology
(altogether, a salary 1200 Thalers). Just a hint from Campe's (and Kant's)
friends in Berlin would be sufficient to get him the position. Campe de¬
clined.^153 Kant, on the other hand, continued to follow the developments
at Dessau with great sympathy and interest. It was just the kind of thing
that could lead to a quick "revolution" in the schools. Only a revolution
could succeed where slow reforms had failed.^154
Vorländer thought it was "touching" ^rührend") how Kant supported the
Philanthropinum in even the smallest details. Yet "touching" is hardly the
right word. Apart from belittling Kant's engagement in this cause, it sug¬
gested that ultimately small details are not for "great thinkers." In fact, there
was little that was small or unimportant about Kant's campaign for the re¬
form of practical education. Kant was committed to this great democratic
ideal of the Enlightenment. Like his membership in the short-lived "learned
society" during the sixties, Kant's engagement in the cause of education
shows that he cared about his fellow citizens who were deprived of the knowl¬
edge of "higher things." He was not just a theoretician as far as Enlighten¬
ment was concerned, he was actively engaged in spreading it in Königsberg.
What the Pietists and his colleagues close to his old school, the Collegium
Fridericianum, thought about this is not difficult to imagine. His active sup¬
port of the Philanthropinum must have seemed like a slap in the face.