State school

Wilhelm von Humboldt state school in Nordhausen. This striking red brick building was erected in 1861.

Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (1767-1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named after him in 1949 (and also after his younger brother, Alexander von Humboldt, a naturalist). He was the architect of the Humboldtian education ideal, which was used from the beginning in Prussia as a model for its system of public education, as well as in the United States and Japan.