August Zeune

Johann August Zeune (12 May 1778 –14 November 1853) was a German teacher of geography and Germanic languages, as well as the founder of the Berlin Foundation for the Blind.

Zeune was born on 12 May 1778 in Lutherstadt Wittenberg as the son of Johann Karl Zeune, professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg. In his parents' house, he was educated by his father and tutor. In 1798 Zeune started studying at the Wittenberg University enrolled. He graduated with his thesis on the history of geography, and was awarded for a short time the dignity of an academic faculty, as a Quasi-professor of Geography. His novel „Höhenschichten-Karte” "Topological map" of the earth, had made him famous in academic circles.

In 1803, he moved to Berlin and became a teacher at the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster (gray convent school). In Berlin, where he lived as a scholar, he was on friendly terms with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and the historian Johannes von Müller. He applied unsuccessfully for an expedition into the interior of Africa, and shortly thereafter went into the "inner world of the blind". In the field of ophthalmology Zeune expanded his knowledge to the founder of the first European foundation for the Blind, Valentin Haüy in Paris. King Frederick William III decreed on 11 August 1806 to create a foundation for the blind in Berlin . Zeune was offered that job. On 13 October the same year he was able to start classes. It was the first blind school in Germany.

With money from friends and his own fortune, he saved the school by the time of distress. Johann August Zeune was a professor of geography in 1810 in Berlin. From 1811 to 1821 he lectured at the University of Berlin also about German language and literature. Educational skills were presented in his Manual of Education of the Blind "Belisarius" (1808) and the work "Gea. Attempt at a scientific geography" (1808).

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