ABSTRACT
Neef, Francis Joseph Nicholas (1770-1854). French-born American educator. Born in Soultz, Alsace, France, the son of a miller, Joseph Neef studied for the priesthood but left to join the French army under Napoleon in 1792. He fought bravely but after receiving severe wounds at the battle of Areola, Italy, 1796, he resigned his commission. Three years later, Neef became a teacher of languages and gymnastics at Pestalozzi’s school at Burgdof, Berne, Switzerland, 1799, marrying Elois Buss, sister of the drawing and music master. In 1803, Pestalozzi chose Neef to open a school in Paris based on the former’s principles. A wealthy Philadephian, William Maclure, after visiting Pestalozzi at Yverdun, was enthusiastic about opening the first Pestalozzian school in the United States. Once more, Pestalozzi recommended Neef as the most suitable person for this task. After spending two years learning English, in 1806 he established the school at Falls of the Schuykill near Philadelphia. It was a great success and in 1808 Neef set out his educational philosophy and practice in a book, Sketch of a Plan and Method of Education, Founded on an Analysis of the Human Faculties and Natural Reason, Suitable for the Offspring of a Free People and for All Rational Beings, claimed to be the first book on pedagogy to be published in the United States. In the following year, his second book, The Logic of Condillac Translated by Joseph Neef, as an Illustration of the Plan of Education Established at his School near Philadelphia, was published. He was elected corresponding member, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 1812. Neef moved his school to Village Green, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 1813, where he wrote Method of Instructing Children Rationally in the Arts of Writing and Reading. The school proved a failure, so in 1814 he once more moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where the school flourished until 1826. Robert Owen, of New Lanark, Scotland, fame, had recently begun the New Harmony community of Indiana. Neef and his wife were in charge of the education programme from 1826 until the disbanding of the community in 1828. He opened two new schools in Ohio, the first at Cincinnati and the second at Steubenville, both in 1824. Neef retired in 1834, spending the last 20 years of his life at New Harmony. He died in 1854, aged 83. See Monroe, W. S., History of the Pestalozzian Movement in the United States (1907); Bestor, R.E., Backwoods Utopias (1950).
