KELLNER, LORENZ. — The greatest Catholic pedagogue of Germany in the past century. Born on 29 January 1811 at Kalteneber near Heiligenstadt (Prussian Saxony), died at Trier on 18 August 1892. After his secondary studies at Heiligenstadt and Hildesheim, he attended the Pedagogical Seminary of Magdeburg. From 1831 to 1836 he was a teacher at Erfurt, where he reorganized the Catholic schools. As his father’s assistant at the Pedagogical Seminary of Heiligenstadt (1856–48), he made a name for himself through the reform of mother-tongue instruction, introducing a method based on literary models rather than on abstract exercises. In 1848 he was transferred, with the title and office of «Regierungs- u. Schulrat» (school superintendent), to Marienwerder (West Prussia), and was thus the first Catholic to hold that position in that region. In 1855 he moved, with the same office, to Trier, where he died after retiring from the position in 1886. He was highly honored by the government and by the entire teaching profession, especially by Catholic teachers. Several associations among them took their name from him (Trier, Vienna).
A man of profound religious faith and a Catholic by conviction, K. placed at the foundation of every educational action, both in himself and in others, on the one hand a firm Catholic religious conviction and, on the other, a solid awareness of his own duty as a teacher, instilling in teachers above all the conviction of the importance of their mission before the Church and the State. The teacher must act, teach, and educate «sub specie aeternitatis». K. was called a «Gemütspädagog», that is, a pedagogue who builds in teacher and pupil upon the values of the heart and feeling. For him, the ultimate end of all education is the perfect and Catholic personality. To achieve this purpose, the teacher must first possess a fully developed personality founded upon a solid religious conviction.
In addition to his very extensive activity as an inspector and instructor, K. also engaged in broad literary activity. It is enough to mention his most important works: the most widely disseminated are Aphorismen zur Pädagogik (Essen 1850, which went through many editions) and his memoirs, Lebensblätter, Erinnerungen an die Schulwelt (Freiburg 1891). Fundamental for the teaching of the mother tongue was his Praktischer Lehrgang für den gesamten deutschen Sprachunterricht (4 vols., Erfurt 1837–40; it went through 18 editions).
From 1845 he was also a contributor, and later editor-in-chief, of the Catholic teachers’ journal Der Schulfreund.