ABSTRACT
At the Waisenhaus in Halle, an educational cosmos containing several schools for orphans and the poor, the concepts “Christian intelligence” and “true Godliness” were central to their attempts at reforming the world through improving humankind. Here, Johann Martin Boltzius was the vice-inspector before receiving an appointment to Ebenezer, Georgia. Together with his colleague, he attempted to model communal life in Ebenezer after the structures of the Waisenhaus. The SPCK and Pietist benefactors supported this transatlantic endeavor of establishing a community for religious emigrants. Therefore, the pastors had to conform to their visionary standards in organizing Ebenezer and report to their benefactors regularly. Their official diaries offer insight into the adoption and adaptation of the Halle model. Two key questions are central for these processes of transfer: Which pedagogical implications stand behind the pastors’ attempts and in how far did these follow Halle’s pattern? How did the pastors describe the orphanage and how do they explain its closure in transatlantic communication? Following these questions, this chapter will investigate the orphanage in the following ways: how it functioned as a communal center, who were its inhabitants and their daily structure, and what were the subjects, educational methods, and teachers in Ebenezer.
