Educated at the University of Frankfurt and the University of Gottingen, Humboldt was primarily home-schooled and never received a degree. He served as a plenipotentiary Prussian minister at Rome from 1802, ambassador at Vienna from 1812, at the Congress of Prague in 1813, a signer of the Paris peace treaty and at the Congress of Aachen. However, Prussia's increasingly reactionary policy made him give up government in 1819. Thereafter, he concentrated on literature and study. He did many translations and was an accomplished linguist. He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1820. He was a prominent representative of the 18th and early 19th century humanistic school of thought. He introduced far-reaching reforms into schools and universities and gave students far greater freedom in their studies and movement. His views greatly influenced 19th century liberalism. His works include Socrates and Plato on the Divine (1787-90), Outline of a Comparative Anthropology (1787), On the Limits of State Action (1792), Latium und Hellas (1806), Upon Writing and Its Relation to Speech, (1824), On the Language of the South Seas (1828) and The Heterogeneity of Language and Its Influence On the Intellectual Development of Mankind (1836 Posthumous). |
