Abstract
Like many of his educated contemporaries, the German pedagogue,
linguist, theologian, and publisher Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746-1818)
welcomed the French Revolution as the fulfillment of the Enlightenment
ideals of liberty and democracy. As a writer and publisher, Campe molded
these ideals into concrete blueprints for societal reform. As a school
inspector in Braunschweig (1786-1805), he reformed the principality’s
school system and published a series of pedagogical texts,
Allgemeine Revision des gesamten Schul-
und Erziehungswesens [General
Revision of the Entire School and Educational System] (16. vols.,
1785-11). He also published a complete edition of his papers on
educating children and adolescents,
Sämtliche Kinder-und Jugendschriften
[Collected Writings on Children and
Youth] (1806-09), in which he espoused the educational and social
ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. In 1792, the
French government declared Campe an honorary citizen of the French
Revolution.