In his youth, he was harshly treated by his father, but a clergyman of the name of Hauber, pleased with his talents, undertook to give him free instruction, and afterwards enabled him to continue his studies at Halle.

There, by application and good conduct, he acquired numerous friends, and in 1748 he was appointed tutor in the family of the count zu Lynar, who was then going as ambassador to St Petersburg.

[5] Here he superintended the progress of every pupil, and inspected the minutest details connected with the prosperity of the institution, besides giving lectures on the history of the arts and sciences.

[6] Büsching's works on geography, history, education and religion, enumerated by Meusel in his Lexicon of German Authors, amount to more than a hundred.

[5] His magnum opus is the Erdebeschreibung, in seven parts, of which the first four, covering Europe, were published in 1754–1761, and were translated into several languages (e.g. into English with a preface by Murdoch, in six volumes, London, 1762).

In biography he wrote a number of articles for the Magazin, and a valuable collection of Beiträge zur Lebensgeschichte merkwürdiger Personen (6 vols., 1783–1789), including an elaborate life of Frederick the Great.