Wilhelm von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (/ˈhʌmboʊlt/,[3] also US: /ˈhʊmboʊlt/,[4] UK: /ˈhʌmbɒlt/;[5] German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm fɔn ˈhʊmbɔlt];[6][7][8] 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named after him in 1949 (and also after his younger brother, Alexander von Humboldt, a naturalist).
Wilhelm von Humboldt
8 April 1835 (aged 67)
Language as a rule-governed system ("the inner form of language")
Humboldtian model of higher education
He is especially remembered as a linguist who made important contributions to the philosophy of language, ethnolinguistics and to the theory and practice of education. He made a major contribution to the development of liberalism by envisioning education as a means of realizing individual possibility rather than a way of drilling traditional ideas into youth to suit them for an already established occupation or social role.[9] In particular, he was the architect of the Humboldtian education ideal, which was used from the beginning in Prussia as a model for its system of public education, as well as in the United States and Japan. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1822.[10]
Biography[edit]
Humboldt was born in Potsdam, Margraviate of Brandenburg, and died in Tegel, Province of Brandenburg.
His father, Alexander Georg von Humboldt (1720-1779), belonged to a prominent German noble family from Pomerania. Although not one of the titled gentry, he was a major in the Prussian Army, who had served with the Duke of Brunswick.[11] At age 42, Alexander Georg was rewarded for his services in the Seven Years' War with the post of royal chamberlain.[12] He profited from the contract to lease state lotteries and tobacco sales.[13]
Wilhelm's grandfather was Johann Paul von Humboldt (1684-1740), who married Sophia Dorothea von Schweder (1688-1749), daughter of Prussian General Adjutant Michael von Schweder (1663-1729).[14][15] In 1766, his father, Alexander Georg married Maria Elisabeth Colomb, a well-educated woman and widow of Baron Friedrich Ernst von Holwede (1723-1765), with whom she had a son Heinrich Friedrich Ludwig Ferdinand (1762-1817). Alexander Georg and Maria Elisabeth had four children: two daughters, Karoline and Gabriele, who died young, and then two sons, Wilhelm and Alexander. Her first-born son Heinrich, Wilhelm and Alexander's half-brother, Rittmaster in the Gendarme regiment was something of a ne'er do well, not often mentioned in the family history.[16]
In June 1791, Humboldt married Caroline von Dacheröden. They had eight children, of whom five (amongst them Gabriele von Humboldt) survived to adulthood.[17]
Diplomat[edit]
As a successful diplomat between 1802 and 1819, Humboldt was plenipotentiary Prussian minister at Rome from 1802, ambassador at Vienna from 1812 during the closing struggles of the Napoleonic Wars, at the congress of Prague (1813) where he was instrumental in drawing Austria to ally with Prussia and Russia against Napoleon; a signer of the peace treaty at Paris and the treaty between Prussia and defeated Saxony (1815), and at the congress at Aachen in 1818. However, the increasingly reactionary policy of the Prussian government made him give up political life in 1819; and from that time forward he devoted himself solely to literature and study.[23]
