Samuel Heinicke (10 April 1727 – 30 April 1790), the originator in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

of systematic education for the deaf, was born in Nautschutz, Germany. Entering the electoral bodyguard at

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

, he subsequently supported himself by teaching. Around 1754, he took his first deaf pupil. His success in teaching this pupil was so great that he determined to devote himself entirely to this work. Heinicke promoted a chiefly oral/aural method of instruction, though he did use some form of a

manual alphabet Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets (also known as finger alphabets or hand alphabets) have often been used in deaf ...

. He believed a spoken language to be indispensable to a proper education, and that it formed the basis for reasoning and intellectual thought. He died before his contributions to Deaf education became widespread, but John Baptist Graser (1766–1841) and (1805–1874) continued to espouse the oral method.Moores, Donald F. ''Educating the Deaf: Psychology, Principles, and Practices.'' Third ed. Boston: Houghton, 1987. The outbreak of the

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upset his plans for a time. Taken prisoner at

Pirna Pirna (; hsb, Pěrno; ) is a town in Saxony, Germany and capital of the administrative district Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge. The town's population is over 37,000. Pirna is located near Dresden and is an important district town as well as ...

, he was brought to Dresden, but soon made his escape. In 1768, when living in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

, he successfully taught a deaf boy to talk, following the methods prescribed by Amman in his book ''Surdus loquens'', but improving on them. Recalled to his own country by the

elector of Saxony The Electorate of Saxony, also known as Electoral Saxony (German: or ), was a territory of the Holy Roman Empire from 1356–1806. It was centered around the cities of Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz. In the Golden Bull of 1356, Emperor Charles ...

, he opened the first deaf institution in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, Germany, in 1778. He directed this school until his death. He was the author of various books on the instruction of the deaf.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heinicke German educational theorists 18th-century German educators 1727 births 1790 deaths