Jacotot, JEAN JOSEPH

Jacotot, JEAN JOSEPH, the inventor of the 'universal method' of education, was born at Dijon, in France, on 4th March 1770. In the course of his chequered career he was successively soldier, deputy-director of the Polytechnic School, military secretary, and the holder of various professorial chairs, as of Mathematics, Roman Law, &c. He retired to Belgium in 1815, and three years later was appointed lecturer on the French language in the university of Louvain, and afterwards director of the military Normal School. He died at Paris, 30th July 1840. The fundamental principles upon which his system of education rests are that the mental capacities of all men are equal; the unequal results of education depend almost exclusively upon will; every person is able to educate himself, provided he is once started in the right way; knowledge should be acquired in the first place through instinctive experience, or by the memory. For example, in imparting a knowledge of a language, he began by making the pupil commit to memory a single passage; then he encouraged him to study for himself, first the separate words, then the letters, then the grammar, and lastly the full meaning and import. Jacotot's system has some points of resemblance to Hamilton's (see HAMILTON, JAMES). He expounded his views in Enseignement Universel (1823). See Life by A. Guillard (Paris, 1860).