Francis Joseph Nicholas Neef

Francis Joseph Nicholas Neef also Franz Joseph Nikolaus Näef known mainly as Joseph Neef (6 December 1770 – 8 April 1854) was an educational reformer and pedagogue, who founded the first Pestalozzian school in the United States and published the first book in English, Sketch of a Plan and Method of Education, on the teaching method there. He began schools in Philadelphia, Delaware (1813), Kentucky (until 1826) and then at New Harmony, Indiana, along with Robert Owen.

Life Neef was born in 1770 in Alsace, and grew up speaking both French and German. spending two years learning English before opening his school outside Philadelphia.

In 1812, Neef was elected to the Academy of Natural Sciences. In 1826, Owen invited Neef to New Harmony to run the school there, which he accepted. After the failure of the New Harmony experiment, Neef established a school in Cincinnati, returning to New Harmony in 1834.

From around 1830, Luise and Neef lived with their daughter Wilhelmina. Their only son Victor died in 1837. Another daughter Zulima died in 1842. Luise died in 1845. Neef then moved to live with his daughter Carolina who was married to David Dale Owen and died in 1854. Owen painted the only known portrait of Neef.