He wanted professionalization of state teachers and fought for the relative autonomy of schools; he also had an influence on the teachers of that time through his newspaper "Rheinisch Blätter". Diesterweg was a voluminous writer on educational subjects, and was the author of various school text-books. He authored 50 books and published about 400 papers; he has been credited with originated the phrase 'learn to do by doing' by one source. In 1851, he founded the "Pädagogisches Jahrbuch" (Yearbook of pedagogy) in Berlin. Among his publications were: