Johann Ernst Plamann

A growing interest in education received an impulse when he made the acquaintance of the poet Christoph August Tiedge, who advised him to read the works of Pestalozzi.

Plamann was so deeply impressed by what he read that, in May 1803, he set out for Switzerland with borrowed money, and was cordially received by Pestalozzi.

Plamann returned to Berlin, and at once applied for royal permission to establish an institution where the new Swiss system could be introduced.

By this time “Leonard and Gertrude” had made its author known in the Prussian capital, and great hopes were founded on Pestalozzi's reformation: the requisite warrant was issued to the applicant before the end of 1803.

The public authorities gave Plamann's enterprise material support, paying him to train students and teachers in the methods that he practised.

An ardent Pestalozzian, Plamann was sometimes in conflict with subordinates who attached more weight to the fundamental ideas of the new education than to a minute observance of its method, but he would give a free hand to those who showed capacity and life.

The situation was chosen because it was from this quarter that the pupils, children of the higher and richer classes, were expected to be drawn, and, for the most part, actually came.