§ 2. About this time Basedow, incited by Rousseau’s “Emile,” turned his attention to a fresh field of activity, in which he was to make as many friends as in theology he had found enemies. A very general dissatisfaction was then felt with the condition of the schools. Physical education was not attempted in them. The mother-tongue was neglected. Instruction in Latin and Greek, which was the only instruction given, was carried on in a mechanical way, without any thought of improvement. The education of the poor and of the middle classes received but little attention. “Youth,” says Raumer, “was in those days, for most children, a sadly harassed period. Instruction was hard and heartlessly severe. Grammar was caned into the memory, so were portions of Scripture and poetry. A common school punishment was to learn by heart Psalm cxix. School-rooms were dismally dark. No one conceived it possible that the young could find pleasure in any kind of work, or that they had eyes for aught besides reading and writing. The pernicious age of Louis XIV. had inflicted on the poor children of the upper class, hair curled by the barber and messed with powder and pomade, braided coats, knee breeches, silk stockings, and a dagger by the side—for active, lively children a perfect torture” (_Gesch. d. Pädagogik_, ii. 297). Kant gave expression to a very wide-spread feeling when he said that what was wanted in education was no longer a reform but a revolution. Here, then, was a good scope offered for innovators, and Basedow was a prince of innovators. § 3. Having succeeded in interesting the Danish minister, Bernstorff, in his plans, he was permitted to devote himself entirely to a work on the subject of education whilst retaining his income from the Altona Gymnasium. The result was his “Address to Philanthropists and Men of Property on Schools and Studies and their Influence on the Public Weal” (1766), in which he announces the plan of his “Elementary.”[149] In this address he calls upon princes, governments, town-councils, dignitaries of the Church, freemasons’ lodges, &c., &c., if they loved their fellow-creatures, to come to his assistance in bringing out his book. Nor did he call in vain. When the “Elementary” at length appeared (in 1774), he had to acknowledge contributions from the Emperor Joseph II., from Catherine II. of Russia, from Christian VII. of Denmark, from the Grand Prince Paul, and many other celebrities, the total sum received being over 2,000_l._