A historical stance will be taken in the approaches of the brothers Humboldt to bildung and curricula, for which especially Wilhelm von Humboldt stands for. In 1804, his brother Alexander on his way back to Europa from Latin America and Mexico visited Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd North-American president from 1801 to 1809 and one of the most influential political theorists of the United States, the main author of the ‘Declaration of Independence’. This meeting led to a letter correspondence (cp. Jefferson 1817, online). While Jefferson in his well-known dictum “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” sums up his nation-idea that is based on individual freedom (calling slavery an “abominable crime,” however, without insisting to abolish it), Wilhelm von Humboldt (1792, online) sees freedom as the “grand and indispensable condition” for individual development, as well as the flourishing of State affairs. In a US-American context, the pursuit of happiness is mainly about rights and citizenship rooting in the fundamental idea that “all men are created equal and independent” (Boyd 1950). Von Humboldt connects liberty and freedom foremost to academic freedom. In this paper, it will be explained how Thomas Jefferson and Wilhelm von Humboldt laid the ground for later discourses on curriculum and bildung.

Boyd, J. P. (ed.) (1950): The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 1: 1760-1776. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Humboldt, Wilhelm. The Sphere and Duties of Government (1792, 1854). John Chapman, 1792. https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/coulthard-the-sphere-and-duties-of-government-1792-1854. [retrieved, January 11, 2024]