The German educator, statesman, political theorist, and philologist Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) reformed the Prussian school system and founded the University of Berlin. He was influential in developing the science of comparative philology.

Wilhelm von Humboldt was born in Potsdam on June 22, 1767. He studied law in Berlin and Göttingen. In his essay Über das Studium des Klassischen Altertums (1793) he summarized his program for educational reform, which was basically the program of German neohumanism. In Jena (1794-1797) he was a member of Friedrich von Schiller's circle. After traveling through Spain and France, during which Humboldt became interested in philology, he was appointed Prussian resident minister in Rome (1802-1808).

Humboldt was influenced by the educational principles of Johann Pestalozzi. As Prussian minister of education (1809-1810), he sent teachers to Switzerland to study Pestalozzi's methods, and he founded the University of Berlin (1809). Humboldt's ideas profoundly influenced European...