Educated for the medical profession at Göttingen, where in 1774, he took
his doctor’s degree. From his youth upwards of a serious and reflective
turn, engaged in philosophical studies, and in brooding over plans for
the amelioration of his kind. He passed some time in England, at the
University of Oxford, and there attracted the notice of George III., to
whom he was appointed Physician in Ordinary. After making a pedestrian
tour through England, he visited Scotland, and closely investigated the
system of agriculture there pursued. Henceforth he belonged to
agricultural science. In 1794, he published his introduction to English
agriculture. Retiring to Celle upon the death of his father, he founded
in his native place an institution for the education of young
agriculturists. Implements instantly improved, and a rational system of
cultivation spread throughout the Communes bordering on that of Celle.
Invited to Berlin, he quitted Hanover in 1804. Obtaining a property at
Mœglin on the Oder, through the generosity of the King of Prussia, he
began a course of oral instruction in agriculture to classes of youth
collected from all parts of Germany. His Institution rapidly rose to the
rank of an Academy, and all its Professors were paid by the Prussian
government. As an agricultural writer, the name of Thaer is worthy of
being placed beside that of our own Arthur Young, and of the meritorious
Frenchman, Olivier de Serres. He is the reformer of husbandry in his own
country, and an enlightened expounder of the great principles upon which
agricultural prosperity in modern times rests.
[By Carl Wichmann. Marble. In the possession of Thaer’s family at
Mœglin.]