Jacotot, zhah ko to', JEAN JOSEPH (1770-1840), a French educator, born at Dijon. While serving as lecturer on the French language at Louvain, he was compelled to give lectures in French to students who were wholly unacquainted with the language, and the difficulties which he experienced led him to work out a system of teaching, peculiarly his own. The central idea of his method rests upon the correlation of all knowledge. He believed that a single fact learned thoroughly, first by observation and afterwards by contemplation, becomes the spur and possibly the key to the acquisition of other facts. According to Jacotot's idea, by starting with a single truth one is able to extend his knowledge to nearly all subjects. His method was very successful and has been in use in Europe and America, where it has exerted great influence toward the correlation of subjects.