Jacob Baden

Jacob Baden ( born May 4, 1735 in Vordingborg, † July 5, 1804 in Copenhagen) was a Danish philologist.

His parents were the rector of the Latin school in Vordingborg Jacob Baden and his wife Else Jacobine From, daughter of the Office Manager of Antvorskov. On February 4, 1763 he married his niece Sophie Louise Charlotte Klenow.

Youth and Professional Career

As Baden was two years old, his father died. He went into Vordingborg to the Latin School in 1750 and began his studies in Copenhagen and passed the theological state exam. In 1756 he joined with public support to a foreign trip that took him first to Göttingen where the orientalist Johann David Michaelis made ​​a great impression on him and encouraged him to study ancient languages ​​. From Göttingen he traveled to Leipzig, where he studied with Christian Gellert Fear God, and Johann August Ernesti. After a year in Leipzig he returned in 1760 to Copenhagen back. There he earned a master's degree in philosophy. He lectured at the University of the German language and was a follower of Professor Jens Schielderup Sneedorff (1724-1764), who gave the instruction in the fine arts as more important than the strictly logical-mathematical method. However, this had little inlet; because the students believed that this attitude discourages from normal and thorough university. They distrusted even the home -down from the newfangled Leipzig Baden, who wanted to create a chair for aesthetics. The general flow was not favorable to his professional advancement. In 1762 he became rector of Pedagogium in Altona. The Pädagogium was in decline, and his salary was scarce. Furthermore, Johann Bernhard Basedow interfered in his work and disabled him. In 1766 he moved therefore into the Konrektorat in Elsinore. The office in Helsingor represented no improvement over Altona, but he hoped to succeed the already grown old rector. Since his office gave him a lot of time, began er1767 monthly supplements to Adressekontorets Efterretninger ( News of the address Kontor ) to write the reviews of Danish journals should contain. He also took over from 1768 to 1772 the editor of the Journal Kritisk and 1774 to 1779 of Ny Kritisk Journal. His knowledgeable reviews exerted a great influence.

As 1771 university reform decency, he anonymously published the magazine " Upartisk Undersøgelse, om de akademiske exams ere Videnskaberne above Lærdommen til Gavn eller Skadi " ( Impartial investigation into whether the other academic degrees in the sciences and the doctrine of benefit or harm are ) and suggested therein, the German model of arts abolish the exam and also to transfer the school inspectorate in each province a council of the most learned men of the province, not just clergy. Shortly afterwards another anonymously authored article " reasoning over Kjøbenhavns Universitet ", which was particularly complained about the harmful monopoly of the university. In the same year he received the hoped- Rector place, which he held for nine years. He got several editions of the classics for school use.

In 1780 he became a professor of rhetoric. He began his lectures on the Danish language. During this time he was also secretary of " Selskabet til de skjønne Videnskabers Forfremmelse " ( Society for the Advancement of fine arts ). He was from 1793 to 1801, a quarterly magazine Kjøbenhavns Universitets out -Journal, in which he also continued to write reviews in addition to the concerns of the university. In it, he also opposed the unbridled radicalism of his time. He was so captivated by his science that he lacked any sense of real life. In the middle of the Battle of Copenhagen, he immersed himself in a Latin poet. He found the Bambardement was not his but the state matter.

1794/95 he served as rector of the University of Copenhagen. In recent years he was plagued by gout so that he could travel supported the way from his home to the University only a servant.

Importance

Its importance for classical philology in Denmark is located in the drafting of textbooks for teaching Latin, especially his " Grammatica Latina, det he Anvisning til det latinske Sprog " in 1782. Through royal privilege from April 4, 1782 sparked his grammar until then common Grammaticae Latinae praecepta in compendio by Søren Anchersen in Denmark and Norway from. In Altona, he had Sneedorffs letters into German and the biography of Gnaeus Julius Agricola commander of Tacitus and the Cyropädie of Xenophon translated into Danish, written a Danish grammar with a Chrestomathy, and a Greek grammar. His Latin- Danish lexicon leaned against Novus Linguae Et Eruditionis Romanae Thesaurus of Johann Matthias Gesner, but was very independent. He solved the nucleus latinitatis by Hans Gram and other lexical works, with which one had to make do until then decreases. But it was not easy to use the book; because he sorted the words according to their etymolischen order. Only the evidence of the root word, under which one could find the words were, in alphabetical order. Therefore, we continued to use like the Latin- German dictionary of Scheller. Only his son Torkil Baden led the purely alphabetical order by in a new edition in 1815. In 1788 he wrote a third part of a Danish- Latin dictionary, which had to be completely redesigned, since there such a thing did not exist until then in Denmark. His text editions for school use of the fables of Phaedrus 1777, Virgil ( 1778-1780 ), Horace (1793 ) and others were a step forward in the Latin lessons. In contrast, his Greek grammar ( morphology only ) unsuccessful with the small anthology from the New Testament and Aesop's Fables ( 1764).

Also for the Danish language he was important. It was the time of " language purification ". He took part in it by his " Afhandling om Sprogets Berigelse ved nye Ord og Vendinger " (Treatise on the enrichment of the language with new words and phrases ), printed as an appendix to his Forsøg til en Oversættelse af Tacitus ( attempt at a translation of Tacitus ). Of importance were his lectures on the Danish grammar, which appeared in 1785 as det danske Sprog Forelæsninger over eller ræsonneret dansk grammar. It was built mainly on the work of previous researchers. But they ultimately led to the canonization of the Danish written language.

Comments

The article is mainly based on Dansk biografisk encyclopedia. Any other information is reported separately.

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