Karl Mager was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 educator.

Mager was born in Gräfrath

Grafrath

Grafrath is a municipality in the district of Fürstenfeldbruck in Bavaria in Germany. It takes its name from Saint Rasso , who was a count who founded a Benedictine abbey here in the 10th century.- References :...

. He studied philology

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

 in Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, and stayed in Paris for some years, during which time he wrote Versuch einer Geschichte und Charakteristik der französischen Nationallitteratur ("Attempt at a history and characterization of the French national literature", 1834–39, 5 vols.). Upon his return to Germany, he studied the philosophy of Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...

 and Johann Friedrich Herbart

Johann Friedrich Herbart

Johann Friedrich Herbart was a German philosopher, psychologist, and founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline....

, and the pedagogy

Pedagogy

Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....

 of Adolph Diesterweg

Adolph Diesterweg

Friedrich Adolph Wilhelm Diesterweg was a German educator and thinker who, also a progressive liberal politician, campaigned for the secularization of schools, and is said to be precursory to the reform of pedagogy.-Biography:Educated at Herborn and Tübingen universities 1808-1811, he took to the...

 and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach....

. He wrote articles on the teaching of foreign languages for a journal edited by Diesterweg in 1835 and 1838, which gained him a job as professor at a cantonal school in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

. However, he quickly moved to Bad Cannstatt due to poor health.

In 1840, he published Die deutsche Bürgerschule, and founded the journal Pädagogische Revue, both of which would be influential on German and Swiss public education. He edited the Pädagogische Revue until 1849, taught foreign languages in the cantonal schools of Aarau

Aarau

Aarau is the capital of the northern Swiss canton of Aargau. The city is also the capital of the district of Aarau. It is German-speaking and predominantly Protestant. Aarau is situated on the Swiss plateau, in the valley of the Aar, on the river's right bank, and at the southern foot of the Jura...

 to test his theories in a practical setting, and published Die genetische Methode des Unterrichts in fremden Sprachen ("The genetic method of instruction in foreign languages", 1846). From 1848 to 1852 he directed the Realschule

Realschule

The Realschule is a type of secondary school in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia , Denmark , Sweden , Hungary and in the Russian Empire .-History:The Realschule was an outgrowth of the rationalism and empiricism of the seventeenth and...

in Eisenach

Eisenach

Eisenach is a city in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated between the northern foothills of the Thuringian Forest and the Hainich National Park. Its population in 2006 was 43,626.-History:...

 according to his theories, but he retired in 1852 due to poor health, and died in 1858 in Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...

.

An 1844 pamphlet of his coined the term "social pedagogy

Social pedagogy

Social Pedagogy is an academic discipline concerned with theory and practice of holistic education and care. The term 'pedagogy' originates from the Greek pais and agein , with the prefix 'social' emphasising that upbringing is not only the responsibility of parents but a shared responsibility of...

", a broad concept of education

Holistic education

Holistic education is a philosophy of education based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to humanitarian values such as compassion and peace. Holistic education aims to call forth from people...

, particularly influential in German pedagogy, that focuses on the acquisition of culture by society (rather than the acquisition of knowledge by individuals) as its key element.