Kelly Joan Whitmer. The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment.

Abstract

In this lucid and engaging book, Kelly Joan Whitmer describes the Halle Orphanage (das hallesche Waisenhaus)—an orphanage founded around 1700 by German Lutheran Pietists in the Prussian city of Halle—as a pathbreaking scientific institution. Composed of an orphanage for the care of young boys, primary schools together serving over one thousand pupils, an elite boarding school (Pädagogium), a seminar for teachers, an oriental studies seminar (Collegium orientale), and several other institutions, the orphanage was also a scientific society that trained young men in mathematics, natural history, and physics. And, above all, argues Whitmer, the orphanage was a scientific community devoted to piety and the formation of good observers. Coursing through The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community is a concern with the epistemic ideals and persona of a good observer. To be a good observer required a commitment to knowledge as a social good, as something created and shared in a community devoted to common epistemic ideals and the cultivation of particular virtues. In contrast to other early modern institutions such as scientific academies or the famed Ritter academies, the Halle Orphanage opened its doors and collections to the public and educated the children not just of the elite but also of craftsmen, preachers, teachers, and doctors.