One of the very prominent tasks of education is civilization of wild human nature. Concepts of education build on the antinomy of person versus nature. Particularly the first topos opens up an arena for discourses on concepts of self-cultivation, formation or liberal education and the like in the era of modernization. Meanwhile, the second topos focuses on adjustment of the body for machinable processes (see Foucault 1976), on castigation, disciplining and domestication (see Adorno, Horkheimer 1969; Elias 1981). The first topos (person) is reflected in 19th and 20th century educational historiography. As a success story of pedagogy, it mainly served the purposes of nation building (e.g. Werler 2004).The self-conception of education as well of medical treatment rests upon the treatment of body, mind and soul (nature). Their utopian "operations" ought to perfect or heal. If modernization of society can be described as a culturally caused quest between established ideology and utopia then this distinction serves as a point of reference.However, the following statement may be made: In the long run a standard pedagogy (see Tröhler 2004, as examples for the Scandinavian standard see Myhre 1998; Richardson 2004; Haue, Skovgaard-Petersen 1991) served the establishment of the topos of "great man" (Casale 2004) and a foucaultian history of education without institutions (Tremel 2005). None of these approaches asks for the meaning of contemporary knowledge for concepts of education. There lacks an approach that attempts to show what happens to educational concepts and their knowledge (and its application, implementation and practice) when educationalists touch upon or cross the borders into other operational areas.The paper will investigate (German & Scandinavian) educational concepts and practice of philanthropic pedagogy (Basedow, Campe) with regard to the question: How were these biased by concepts of the treatment of the body. To resolve this question one has to ask how far is philanthropic pedagogy a reflection of contemporary medical knowledge. This approach proceeds on the assumption that education of the Robinson-like child (see Campe 1779; Hermann 1908) - instructed by medical knowledge (nature) - will appear as a risky endeavor. In the first step a network of contemporary medical knowledge on "treatment" will be compiled by making use of topology as a research method (see Werler 2006). Resulting topoi will be assigned to stocks of knowledge along the distinction ideology / utopia (Bloch 1923; Mannheim 1930; Riceour 1986, 1988). Herein, it touches upon the same range of topics as education. In so doing, these performative activities (= transboundary) are the points of interest (Austin 1975; Skinner 2002). They will show how activities emerge and in which way they are associated with language and imagination. That quality opens up performative knowledge (see Wulf; Göhlich; Zirfas 2001); in mimetic action it will create new social constructions and institutions in corresponding subject areas (Ricoeur 1988; Wulf 2005; Skinner 2002). The second step investigates to what extent medical knowledge of "treatment" was used by philanthropic concepts of breeding of the body and the raising of the child. While observing philanthropic performativity it will be asked if "ideological" or "utopian" knowledge was implemented (ibid.). If education is civilization of the wild human nature of the child, then medical knowledge which should be used to manage the risky endeavor of domestication of the child's wild nature - the perfection of man - will be shown. This paper will supplement current methods of historiography of education and gain new insight in discursive origins of pedagogical practices of philanthropy and possibly explain the change of educational concepts? Adorno, Theodor W.; Horkheimer, Max: Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1969. ? Austin, John Langshaw: How to do things with words. The William James lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1975. ? Bloch, Ernst: Geist der Utopie. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1923. ? Campe, Johann Friedrich: Robinson der Jüngere, zur angenehmen und nützlichen Unterhaltung der Kinder. Karl Ernst Bohn, Hamburg 1779. 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