RITTER Carl (1779-1859), the greatest geographer of modern times, was born at Quedlinburg on August 7th, 1779, and died in Berlin, September 29th, 1859. His father, a physician of some local eminence, having died, leaving his family in somewhat straitened circumstances, Carl, along with an elder brother and a young man, Johann Gutsmuths, who had been his private tutor, was received into the Schnepfenthal institution then just founded by Salzmann for the purpose of putting his educational theories to the test of experience. Gutsmuths, who had continued to teach his pupils without remuneration after their father’s death, remained their special guardian and instructor at Schnepfenthal, and in his letters to their mother every little detail of their mental development is affectionately recorded. The Salzmann system was practically that of Rousseau: conformity to natural law and enlightenment were its watchwords; great attention was given to practical life; and the modern languages were carefully taught to the complete exclusion of Latin and Greek. In 1787 Gutsmuths reports about Carl that, “while not much of a hand at making money [trading with counters for coin was a regular branch of the Schnepfenthal education], he draws better maps than the biggest boys, and is making great strides towards becoming a professor of geography.” When his school days were drawing to a close his future course was'determined in a curious way by an introduction to Bethmann Hollweg, a banker in Frankfort. It was arranged that Ritter should become tutor to Hollweg’s children, but that in the meantime he should attend the university at his patron’s expense. In October 1796 he accordingly bade adieu to Schnepfenthal, and his next two winters were spent at Halle, where he resided in the ...house of Professor Niemayer, then at the height of his fame, and attended the lectures of Rüdiger on statistics and science, Sprengel on European history, Meinert on scientific agriculture, <tc. His duties as tutor in the Hollweg family began at Frankfort in 1798 and continued for the next fifteen years. In one matter he went directly counter to the Salzmann theory: he gave a large place to the study of the ancient classics, of which he had grown passionately fond. The years 1814-1819, which he spent at Göttingen in order still to watch over the welfare of his pupils, were those in which he began to devote himself exclusively to geographical inquiries. In accordance with a promise exacted by Pestalozzi (with whom he had become acquainted at Yverdun on one of his many tutorial tours) he had several years previously drawn up a manual of physical geography in which many features of his later work are to be traced, but the book was not published. He now brought out his first masterpiece, Die Erdkunde im Verhaltniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte des Menschen (Berlin, 2 vols., 1817-1818). In 1820 he was called to be professor extraordinarius of history at Berlin, where shortly afterwards he began also to lecture on statistics at the military college. He remained in this position till his death.
The service rendered to geography by Ritter was mainly threefold. His personal influence, due largely to the moral character of the man and partly to the skill of the teacher, was unusually potent on those who came within its range during the long years that he acted as a professor. Had he done nothing more than use this influence in disseminating the geographical ideas of his time he would have stood high with his ow r n generation. But, secondly, his investigations and teaching were informed by a fresh conception of his subject which imparted life to what had been its dry bones and dust. Geography w τ as, to use his own expression, a kind of physiology and comparative anatomy of the earth: rivers, mountains, glaciers, &c., were so many distinct kinds of organs, each w τ ith its own appropriate functions; and, as his physical frame is the basis of the man, determinative to a large extent of his life, so the structure of each country is a leading element in the historic progress of the nation. This naturally led him to attach great importance to the vertical as distinguished from the horizontal development of the earth’s surface, and also to give perhaps quite as much attention to the history of civilization and of the individual animals and plants by which civilization has been affected as to questions of purely physical geography. And, thirdly, he was a scientific compiler of the first rank. Such portions of his universal geography as he completed remain each the standard thesaurus for its territory. This is especially the case with the sections devoted to Palestine and to Central Asia. Among Ritter’s minor works may be mentioned Vorhalle europäischer Volkergeschichten vor Herodot (Berlin, 1820); Die Stupas . . . . an der indobaktrisehen Konigsstrasse u. d. Kolosse von Bamiyan (1838); Einleitung zur allgemeinen vergleichenden Geographie (Berlin, 1852); “Bemerkungen über Veranschaulichungsmittel räumlicher Verhältnisse bei graphischen Darstellungen durch Form u. Zahl,” in the Trans, of the Berlin Academy, 1828. After his death Daniel published selections from bis lectures under the titles Geschichte der Erdkunde (1851), Allgemeine Erdkunde (1862), and Europa (1863). Several of his works (e.g., the “Palestine” volumes of his Erdkunde) have been translated into English.
See Kramer, Carl Ritter, ein Lebensbild (18G4 and 1870, 2d ed. 1875); Gage, The Life of Carl Ritter (Edinburgh, 1867); Guyot, Carl Ritter, an address to the American Geogr. and Stat. Soc. (Princeton, 1860); F. Marthe, “was bedeutet Carl Ritter für die Geographie,” in Zeitsch. der Ges. f. Εrdk., Berlin, 1870.
[939 words — estimated reading time: 6 minutes]