Karl Heinrich Gottfried Witte (1767-1845) is a pastor of a German village, an influential and highly-regarded scholar in Austria and Germany, who encouraged a fairly intense program of early learning. His account of the early home training of his son Johann Heinrich Friedrich Karl Witte (1800 – 1883), over 200 years ago, is now regarded as one of the most inspiring and helpful contributions ever made to the literature of education.
Pastor Witte believed that the intelligence of children is not hereditary, a specific type of education can transform any child into a genius. He emphasized the early education should begin between birth and the age of 6. So he carefully mapped out a program for his son Karl, and began to teach him by naming to him different parts of the human body, the objects in his bedroom, etc. when Karl was just a few months old. Pastor Witte gradually widened the horizon of little Karl’s knowledge, giving him ever more information about matters of practical utility or aesthetic worth. He encouraged the child to ask questions, and answers as fully as he could, yet avoid giving any superficial answers. It was Pastor Witte’s chief aim, to direct and develop his son’s reasoning powers in the plastic, formative years of childhood – to “start him thinking right”, and to train him to reason logically from cause to effect.
Pastor Witte wrote a book on the teaching methods he used to teach his son, which was published in 1818 in Germany, was translated to English by Professor Leo Wiener of Harvard University, and then published in 1914 with the English title “The Education of Karl Witte, or the training of the child”. The book focused on the innovative teaching methods, a combination of teaching by curiosity, intrigue, humor/sarcasm and incorporating fun learning games into everyday activities, that little Karl Witte received from his parents. The book, however, attracted sharp criticism due to its direct collision with the accepted pedagogical policy of refraining from anything in the way of formal education until the child reached ‘school age’. Pastor Witte was accused of fanatically endeavoring to convert the child into a weird thinking machine, and of endangering his health and sanity. But the facts rather show the contrary. Little Karl grew up as a happy, joyous youngster, strong of body and mind. He could read and write German and Latin at age 6. He spoke five languages by 9 years old, started university at age 10, and by age 12, he received a PhD in philosophy, which led him to being listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as the “youngest doctorate”. He further received a doctorate degree in law at age 16, and was appointed to a full professorship at the age of 23. Just as Addington Bruce, editor of the English version, pointed out in his introduction, that notwithstanding the orthodox pedagogical dread of infantile overstrain; scientific studies of nature and characteristics of man are beginning boldly to assert that the sooner a child’s education is begun the better it will be for that child.
Pastor Witte emphasized on his book the fact that his son was just a normal boy at the birth, and that the methods employed on him can be applied by any parents in the teaching of their children at home. He hoped they may be applied to all children so that those of lesser means could rise to the capability of those of higher means, and those of higher means and good morals could use these methods to advance the human race as a whole through the reaching of entirely new levels of accomplishment. His book of Karl Witte Education has become a classic and bestseller in China and Japan at beginning of the 21st century, and many families hope that their children using Karl Witte Education Method to be a genius.