Obituary of Pastor Franz Pöder of Marling and Algund (Conclusion)

Appendix.

Obituary. 3/3

(Conclusion.)

In the year 1821, he therefore submitted a petition to the Imperial-Royal District Office of Bozen requesting that the Imperial-Royal Deaf-Mute Institute in Vienna provide him with the necessary guidance along with teaching aids, such as copperplates, tables, books, and the like, for the purpose of a proper and better instruction of his deaf-mute pupils. Upon intervention by the district office, this petition was supported with full emphasis by the high provincial authority before the high Court Study Commission; pursuant to the court decree of 11 March 1821, the conveyance of the handbook alongside several aids on the teaching method practiced at the Vienna Deaf-Mute Institute was thus obtained to facilitate as far as possible the petitioner's praiseworthy undertaking, and the subsequent dispatch of the actual methodology book on deaf-mute education, which was then still in preparation, was promised.

In that same year, during the grand congress of the provincial committee of the estates, a motion was made by one of its members regarding the establishment of a domestic deaf-mute institute; with the unanimous approval of this motion, which reflects so high an honour upon humanity, it was recommended to the high provincial authority for effective intervention, requesting that the necessary support be granted to those men who, out of inclination and philanthropy, devote themselves to the education of the deaf-mute (among whom the worthy Pastor Pöder of Marling deserved the most commendable mention).

Around this time, our tireless pedagogue sent an auxiliary booklet for rural school teachers to print. It bears the title: Rechnungs- und andere Aufgaben zur Bildung des Verstandes und Herzens. Innsbruck, on commission at the Wagner Bookshop, 1821.

In these exercises, as he explained in the brief preface, he had kept in view that the art of arithmetic, as it had hitherto commonly been taught, left mind and heart largely empty, contrary to the true purpose of all school instruction. Therefore, he chose exclusively moral, religious, and scientific subjects for his arithmetic problems. Yet no less fervent was his zeal for the pastoral care of souls. This is attested by his Catholic prayer book for all estates, Innsbruck, at the same bookshop, 1822. The episcopal ordinariate approved and recommended to all the faithful the work entitled: “Die christliche Seele im Umgange mit Gott,” as a book “in which a thoroughly religious and unctuous spirit prevails.” Through the death of the priest Count Jos. Wicka on 21 June 1822, the parish of Algund, which was under sovereign patronage, became vacant and was conferred by the high court chancery, following the unanimous recommendation of the Gubernium and the Ordinariate of Trent as stated in the decree of 10 October of the same year, upon the pastor of Marling, Franz Pöder. He had applied for this more lucrative benefice primarily with the intention of acquiring more financial means for his charitable works, and particularly for the education of the deaf-mute. Yet only for a single year did he enjoy this better benefice in good health. Already in the spring of 1824, he began to fall ill. He suffered primarily from hypochondriac ailments; nevertheless, he found such effective relief in the thermal bath of the Ultental that he enjoyed completely undisturbed vitality until the end of August. But the sudden, unfavourable change in temperature that occurred immediately thereafter brought upon him a severe rheumatic fever, which allowed him to leave his bed only after several weeks. From then on, despite all his appetite and good care, he grew increasingly emaciated, and it became only too evident that his body had exchanged the rheumatic fever for a hectic one.

Aside from the most dedicated medical assistance, he owed (humanly speaking) the prolongation of his life solely to the favourable weather of 1825 and the extraordinary efforts of the friend who stood by his side. Due to rapidly mounting exhaustion, he was unable to leave his bed from mid-April of that year onward. Yet even if he never entirely abandoned the hope of his recovery, the thought of death was not in the least able to disturb the peace and serenity of his soul, which was wholly devoted to God. On the evening of 31 May, his dissolution occurred in the 47th year of his age, the same age at which his father had died. Multis ille flebilis occidit. He concluded his life, so meritorious in the realm of schooling and pastoral care, with a last will and testament in which he had already designated his entire estate for pious purposes.

Quiesce in pace mei memor animae Dimidium meae!