ABSTRACT
Wilhelm von Humboldt and his younger brother Alexander, the famous explorer and natural scientist, were educated privately; neither attended school. Wilhelm von Humboldt started his university studies in 1787 at the University of Francfort/Oder near Berlin. Humboldt became part of the Weimar circle, a close friend to both Goethe and Schiller, without publishing anything apart from small fragments. Matthew Arnold mentioned Humboldt's leading role in his Schools and Universities on the Continent at a time when Humboldt was widely forgotten in his own country. Humboldt called it the 'interaction' between the susceptibility and self-acting of man. In one of Humboldt's fragments written before the Sphere and Duties of Government, 14 a short definition is given of what should count as 'education'. In Humboldt's terms, experience means continously transforming man's observations of world and life into the mind's inner form which is the centre of learning.
