Appert, BENJAMIN NICOLAS MARIE, a French philanthropist, born in Paris, September 10, 1797, began about 1816 to introduce into several schools in the Nord department a system of mutual instruction, and in 1820 to teach the prisoners at
Montaigu. Suspected of having aided the escape of two prisoners, he was himself in gaol for three months. In 1825 he travelled through the whole of France, in order to discover means of elevating the criminal classes, and recorded the results of his investigations in a Journal started for this purpose. From 1841 to 1844 he managed a colony for liberated prisoners and the children of prisoners at Némeling, in the Moselle department; and after 1846 he travelled in Belgium, Germany, and Austria, giving the results of his observations on the management of schools and prisons in several works, marked by great fairness and candour. He also wrote a work entitled Dix Ans à la Cour du Roi Louis-Philippe, and, in his Conférences contre le Système Cellulaire, strongly opposed the system of solitary confinement.