Wilhelm von Humboldt

An educational theorist

Humboldt’s school plans were not published until long after his death, together with his fragment of a

treatise on the ‘Theory of Human Education’ which had been written in about 1793. Here Humboldt

states that ‘the ultimate task of our existence is to give the fullest possible content to the concept of

humanity in our own person [...] through the impact of actions in our own lives’. This task ‘can only be

implemented through the links established between ourselves as individuals and the world around us’

(GS, I, p. 283). Humboldt’s concept of education does not lend itself solely to individualistic

interpretation. It is true that he always recognized the importance of the organization of individual life

and the ‘development of a wealth of individual forms’ (GS, III, p. 358), but he stressed the fact that

‘self-education can only be continued [...] in the wider context of development of the world’ (GS, VII,

p. 33). In other words, the individual is not only entitled, but also obliged, to play his part in shaping

the world around him.

Humboldt’s educational ideal is entirely coloured by social considerations. He never believed

that the ‘human race could culminate in the attainment of a general perfection conceived in abstract

terms’. In 1789, he already wrote in his diary that ‘the education of the individual requires his

incorporation into society and involves his links with society at large’ (GS, XIV, p. 155).

In his essay on the ‘Theory of Human Education’, he answered the question as to the ‘demands

which must be made of a nation, of an age and of the human race’. ‘Education, truth and virtue’ must

be disseminated to such an extent that the ‘concept of mankind’ takes on a great and dignified form in

each individual (GS, I, p. 284). However, this shall be achieved personally by each individual who must

‘absorb the great mass of material offered to him by the world around him and by his inner existence,

using all the possibilities of his receptiveness; he must then reshape that material with all the energies of

his own activity and appropriate it to himself so as to create an interaction between his own personality

and nature in a most general, active and harmonious form’ (GS, II, p. 117).

Close attention was not paid to the work of Humboldt from the angle of educational policy and

educational theory until this century. In two books, Eduard Spranger was the first to ‘recognize the

true value of Humboldt’s contribution to educational development at the transition from the nineteenth

to twentieth century’ (Benner, 1990, p. 5 ff.). In recent decades, the one-sided concentration on

intellectual history has given way to an emancipatory interpretation of his pedagogical thinking in a

series of works, most recently by Dietrich Benner who sees the possibility that ‘the study of

Humboldt’s work [...] will help to clarify the central problems and questions of recent

educational theory as matters concerning all of us, and also help to resolve issues which require further

theoretical and practical analysis’ (Benner, 1990, p. 210).

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Notes

1. 

Gerd Hohendorf (Germany) Professor emeritus at Dresden University. Member of the Commission on the

History of Education and the School of the German Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. Co-editor of the

publication Geschichte de erziehung [History of education], the complete works of Diesterweg, and of the

works of W.Ratke, K.F.W. Wander and C. Zetkin. Author of monographs on reform and training policies

for the workers’ movement.