Oberlin, JOHANN FRIEDRICH, a pastor distinguished for his active benevolence and usefulness, was born at Strasburg, 31st August 1740, and in 1767 became Protestant pastor of Waldbach, in the Ban de la Roche or Steinthal, a wild mountainous district of Alsace. Here he spent the remainder of his life, combining an affectionate diligence in the ordinary duties of the pastorate with wise and earnest endeavours to promote the education and general prosperity of the people.
The district had suffered terribly in the Thirty Years' War, and the scanty population which remained was sunk in poverty and ignorance. Oberlin introduced better methods of cultivating the soil, and various branches of manufacture, and made roads and bridges where required. He founded an itinerating library, began the first infant schools, and introduced ordinary schools in the district. Pastor Oberlin was latterly consulted in all that concerned the temporal and spiritual welfare of the people. The population, which was scarcely 500 when he entered on his labours, had increased to 3000 at the close of the century. The district still continues prosperous, and the population in 1890 was 6000. Oberlin was ably assisted in his reformatory labours by his pious housekeeper, Louise Scheppler, who survived her master eleven years. He died 1st June 1826. Notwithstanding the humble sphere in which his days were spent, his fame as a philanthropist has extended over the world, and his example has stimulated and guided many. The Royal Agricultural Society of France bestowed a gold medal upon him in 1818. A collected edition of his writings appeared at Stuttgart (4 vols. 1843).
See Sims's Brief Memorials of Oberlin (1830); the Memoirs of Oberlin (1852); and the biographies by Bode-mann (1868), Spach (Paris, 1866), and Butler (1882).