Chapter XI: Part 11

“Man readily accepts what is good, and the child readily
listens to it; but it is not for you that he wants it, master
and educator, but for himself. The good to which you would lead
him must not depend on your capricious humour or passion; it
must be a good which is good in itself and by the nature of
things, and which the child can recognize as good. He must feel
the necessity of your will in things which concern his comfort
before he can be expected to obey it.

“Whatever he does gladly, whatever gains him credit, whatever
tends to accomplish his great hopes, whatever awakens his
powers and enables him truly to say _I can_, all this he
_wills_.

“But this will is not aroused by words; it is aroused only by a
kind of complete culture which gives feelings and powers. Words
do not give the thing itself, but only an expression, a clear
picture, of the thing which we already have in our minds.

“Before all things I was bound to gain the confidence and the
love of the children. I was sure that if I succeeded in this
all the rest would come of itself. Friend, only think how I
was placed, and how great were the prejudices of the people
and of the children themselves, and you will comprehend what
difficulties I had to overcome.”

After narrating what we already know he goes on:

“Think, my friend, of this temper of the people, of my
weakness, of my poor appearance, of the ill-will to which I
was almost publicly exposed, and then judge how much I had to
endure for the sake of carrying on my work.

“And yet, however painful this want of help and support was to
me, it was favourable to the success of my undertaking, for it
compelled me to be always everything for my children. I was
alone with them from morning till night. It was from me that
they received all that could do them good, soul and body. All
needful help, consolation, and instruction they received direct
from me. Their hands were in mine, my eyes were fixed on theirs.

“We wept and smiled together. They forgot the world and Stanz;
they only knew that they were with me and I with them. We
shared our food and drink. I had about me neither family,
friends, nor servants; nothing but them. I was with them in
sickness, and in health, and when they slept. I was the last
to go to bed, and the first to get up. In the bedroom I prayed
with them, and, at their own request, taught them till they
fell asleep. Their clothes and bodies were intolerably filthy,
but I looked after both myself, and was thus constantly exposed
to the risk of contagion.

“This is how it was that these children gradually became so
attached to me, some indeed so deeply that they contradicted
their parents and friends when they heard evil things said
about me. They felt that I was being treated unfairly, and
loved me, I think, the more for it. But of what avail is it for
the young nestlings to love their mother when the bird of prey
that is bent on destroying them is constantly hovering near?

“However, the first results of these principles and of this
line of action were not always satisfactory, nor, indeed, could
they be so. The children did not always understand my love.
Accustomed to idleness, unbounded liberty, and the fortuitous
and lawless pleasures of an almost wild life, they had come
to the convent in the expectation of being well fed, and of
having nothing to do. Some of them soon discovered that they
had been there long enough, and wanted to go away again; they
talked of the school fever that attacks children when they are
kept employed all day long. This dissatisfaction, which showed
itself during the first months, resulted principally from the
fact that many of them were ill, the consequence either of the
sudden change of diet and habits, or of the severity of the
weather and the dampness of the building in which we lived. We
all coughed a great deal, and several children were seized with
a peculiar sort of fever. This fever, which always began with
sickness, was very general in the district. Cases of sickness,
however, not followed by fever, were not at all rare, and were
an almost natural consequence of the change of food. Many
people attributed the fever to bad food, but the facts soon
showed them to be wrong, for not a single child succumbed.

“On the return of spring it was evident to everybody that the
children were all doing well, growing rapidly, and gaining
colour. Certain magistrates and ecclesiastics, who saw them
some time afterwards, stated that they had improved almost
beyond recognition....

“Months passed before I had the satisfaction of having my hand
grasped by a single grateful parent. But the children were won
over much sooner. They even wept sometimes when their parents
met me or left me without a word of salutation. Many of them
were perfectly happy, and used to say to their mothers: ‘I am
better here than at home.’ At home, indeed, as they readily
told me when we talked alone, they had been ill-used and
beaten, and had often had neither bread to eat nor bed to lie
down upon. And yet these same children would sometimes go off
with their mothers the very next morning.

“A good many others, however, soon saw that by staying with me
they might both learn something and become something, and these
never failed in their zeal and attachment. Before very long
their conduct was imitated by others who had not altogether the
same feelings.

“Those who ran away were the worst in character and the least
capable. But they were not incited to go till they were free of
their vermin and their rags. Several were sent to me with no
other purpose than that of being taken away again as soon as
they were clean and well clothed.

“But after a time their better judgment overcame the defiant
hostility with which they arrived. In 1799[156] I had nearly
eighty children. Most of them were bright and intelligent, some
even remarkably so.

“For most of them study was something entirely new. As soon as
they found that they could learn, their zeal was indefatigable,
and in a few weeks children who had never before opened a
book, and could hardly repeat a _Pater Noster_ or an _Ave_,
would study the whole day long with the keenest interest. Even
after supper, when I used to say to them, ‘Children, will you
go to bed, or learn something?’ they would generally answer,
especially in the first month or two, ‘Learn something.’ It is
true that afterwards, when they had to get up very early, it
was not quite the same.

“But this first eagerness did much towards starting the
establishment on the right lines, and making the studies the
success they ultimately were, a success indeed, which far
surpassed my expectations. And yet great beyond expression were
my difficulties. I did not as yet find it possible to organise
the studies properly.

“Neither my trust nor my zeal had been able to overcome either
the intractability of individuals or the want of coherence in
the whole experiment. The general order of the establishment, I
felt, must be based upon order of a higher character. As this
higher order did not yet exist, I had to attempt to create
it; for without this foundation I could not hope to organise
properly either the teaching or the general management of the
place, nor should I have wished to do so. I wanted everything
to result not from a preconceived plan, but from my relations
with the children. The high principles and educating forces I
was seeking, I looked for from the harmonious common life of
my children, from their common attention, activity, and needs.
It was not, then, from any external organisation that I looked
for the regeneration of which they stood so much in need. If I
had employed constraint, regulations, and lectures, I should,
instead of winning and ennobling my children’s hearts, have
repelled them and made them bitter, and thus been farther than
ever from my aim. First of all, I had to arouse in them pure,
moral, and noble feelings, so that afterwards, in external
things, I might be sure of their ready attention, activity, and
obedience. I had, in short, to follow the high precept of Jesus
Christ, ‘Cleanse first that which is within, that the outside
may be clean also; and if ever the truth of this precept was
made manifest, it was made manifest then.

“My one aim was to make their new life in common, and their new
powers, awaken a feeling of brotherhood amongst the children,
and make them affectionate, just, and considerate.

“I was successful in gaining my aims. Amongst these seventy
wild beggar-children there soon existed such peace, friendship,
and cordial relations as are rare even between actual brothers
and sisters.

“The principle to which I endeavoured to conform all my conduct
was as follows: Endeavour, first, to broaden your children’s
sympathies, and, by satisfying their daily needs, to bring love
and kindness into such unceasing contact with their impressions
and their activity, that these sentiments may be engrafted in
their hearts; then try to give them such judgment and tact as
will enable them to make a wise, sure, and abundant use of
these virtues in the circle which surrounds them. In the last
place, do not hesitate to touch on the difficult questions of
good and evil, and the words connected with them. And you must
do this especially in connection with the ordinary events of
every day, upon which your whole teaching in these matters must
be founded, so that the children may be reminded of their own
feelings, and supplied, as it were, with solid facts upon which
to base their conception of the beauty and justice of the moral
life. Even though you should have to spend whole nights in
trying to express in two words what others say in twenty, never
regret the loss of sleep.

“I gave my children very few explanations; I taught them
neither morality nor religion. But sometimes, when they were
perfectly quiet, I used to say to them, ‘Do you not think that
you are better and more reasonable when you are like this than
when you are making a noise?’ When they clung round my neck and
called me their father, I used to say, ‘My children, would it
be right to deceive your father? After kissing me like this,
would you like to do anything behind my back to vex me?’ When
our talk turned on the misery of the country, and they were
feeling glad at the thought of their own happier lot, I would
say, ‘How good God is to have given man a compassionate heart!’
... They perfectly understood that all they did was but a
preparation for their future activity, and they looked forward
to happiness as the certain result of their perseverance. That
is why steady application soon became easy to them, its object
being in perfect accordance with their wishes and their hopes.
Virtue, my friend, is developed by this agreement, just as
the young plant thrives when the soil suits its nature, and
supplies the needs of its tender shoots.

“I witnessed the growth of an inward strength in my children,
which, in its general development, far surpassed my
expectations, and in its particular manifestations not only
often surprised me, but touched me deeply.

“When the neighbouring town of Altdorf was burnt down, I
gathered the children round me, and said, ‘Altdorf has been
burnt down; perhaps, at this very moment, there are a hundred
children there without home, food, or clothes; will you not ask
our good Government to let twenty of them come and live with
us?’ I still seem to see the emotion with which they answered,
‘Oh, yes, yes!’ ‘But, my children,’ I said, ‘think well of what
you are asking! Even now we have scarcely money enough, and it
is not at all certain that if these poor children came to us,
the Government would give us any more than they do at present,
so that you might have to work harder, and share your clothes
with these children, and sometimes perhaps go without food. Do
not say, then, that you would like them to come unless you are
quite prepared for all these consequences.’ After having spoken
to them in this way as seriously as I could, I made them repeat
all I had said, to be quite sure that they had thoroughly
understood what the consequences of their request would be. But
they were not in the least shaken in their decision, and all
repeated, ‘Yes, yes, we are quite ready to work harder, eat
less, and share our clothes, for we want them to come.’

“Some refugees from the Grisons having given me a few crowns
for my poor children, I at once called them and said, ‘These
men are obliged to leave their country; they hardly know
where they will find a home to-morrow, yet, in spite of their
trouble, they have given me this for you. Come and thank them.’
And the emotion of the children brought tears to the eyes of
the refugees.

“It was in this way that I strove to awaken the feeling of each
virtue before talking about it, for I thought it unwise to
talk to children on subjects which would compel them to speak
without thoroughly understanding what they were saying.

“I followed up this awakening of the sentiments by exercises
intended to teach the children self-control, so that all that
was good in them might be applied to the practical questions of
every-day life.

“It will easily be understood that, in this respect, it was
not possible to organise any system of discipline for the
establishment; that could only come slowly, as the general work
developed.

“Silence, as an aid to application, is perhaps the great secret
of such an institution. I found it very useful to insist
on silence when I was teaching, and also to pay particular
attention to the attitude of my children. I succeeded so well
that the moment I asked for silence, I could teach in quite a
low voice. The children repeated my words all together; and as
there was no other sound, I was able to detect the slightest
mistakes of pronunciation. It is true that this was not always
so. Sometimes, whilst they repeated sentences after me, I would
ask them as if in fun to keep their eyes fixed on their middle
fingers. It is hardly credible how useful simple things of this
sort sometimes are as means to the very highest ends.

“One young girl, for instance, who had been little better than
a savage, by keeping her head and body upright, and not looking
about, made more progress in her moral education than any one
would have believed possible.

“These experiences have shown me that the mere habit of
carrying oneself well does much more for the education of the
moral sentiments than any amount of teaching and lectures in
which this simple fact is ignored.

“Thanks to the application of these principles, my children
soon became more open, more contented and more susceptible to
every good and noble influence than any one could possibly
have foreseen when they first came to me, so utterly devoid
were they of ideas, good feelings, and moral principles. As a
matter of fact, this lack of previous instruction was not a
serious obstacle to me; indeed, it hardly troubled me at all.
I am inclined even to say that, in the simple method I was
following, it was often an advantage, for I had incomparably
less trouble to develop those children whose minds were still
blank, than those who had already acquired inaccurate ideas.
The former, too, were much more open than the latter to the
influence of all pure and simple sentiments.

“But when the children were obdurate and churlish, then I was
severe, and made use of corporal punishment.

“My dear friend, the pedagogical principle which says that
we must win the hearts and minds of our children by words
alone without having recourse to corporal punishment, is
certainly good, and applicable under favourable conditions and
circumstances; but with children of such widely different ages
as mine, children for the most part beggars, and all full of
deeply-rooted faults, a certain amount of corporal punishment
was inevitable, especially as I was anxious to arrive surely,
speedily, and by the simplest means, at gaining an influence
over them all, for the sake of putting them all in the right
road. I was compelled to punish them, but it would be a mistake
to suppose that I thereby, in any way, lost the confidence of
my pupils.

“It is not the rare and isolated actions that form the opinions
and feelings of children, but the impressions of every day and
every hour. From such impressions they judge whether we are
kindly disposed towards them or not, and this settles their
general attitude towards us. Their judgment of isolated actions
depends upon this general attitude.

“This is how it is that punishments inflicted by parents
rarely make a bad impression. But it is quite different with
schoolmasters and teachers who are not with their children
night and day, and have none of those relations with them which
result from life in common.

“My punishments never produced obstinacy; the children I
had beaten were quite satisfied if a moment afterwards I
gave them my hand and kissed them, and I could read in their
eyes that the final effect of my blows was really joy. The
following is a striking instance of the effect this sort of
punishment sometimes had. One day one of the children I liked
best, taking advantage of my affection, unjustly threatened
one of his companions. I was very indignant, and my hand did
not spare him. He seemed at first almost broken-hearted, and
cried bitterly for at least a quarter of an hour. When I had
gone out, however, he got up, and going to the boy he had
ill-treated, begged his pardon, and thanked him for having
spoken about his bad conduct. My friend, this was no comedy;
the child had never seen anything like it before.

“It was impossible that this sort of treatment should produce
a bad impression on my children, because all day long I was
giving them proofs of my affection and devotion. They could
not misread my heart, and so they did not misjudge my actions.
It was not the same with the parents, friends, strangers,
and teachers who visited us; but that was natural. But I
cared nothing for the opinion of the whole world, provided my
children understood me.

“I always did my best, therefore, to make them clearly
understand the motives of my actions in all matters likely to
excite their attention and interest. This, my friend, brings
me to the consideration of the moral means to be employed in a
truly domestic education.

“Elementary moral education, considered as a whole, includes
three distinct parts: the children’s moral sense must first
be aroused by their feelings being made active and pure; then
they must be exercised in self-control, so that they may give
themselves to that which is right and good; finally they
must be brought to form for themselves, by reflection and
comparison, a just notion of the moral rights and duties which
are theirs by reason of their position and surroundings.

“So far, I have pointed out some of the means I employed to
reach the first two of these ends. They were just as simple
for the third; for I still made use of the impressions and
experiences of their daily life to give my children a true and
exact idea of right and duty. When, for instance, they made
a noise, I appealed to their own judgment, and asked them if
it was possible to learn under such conditions. I shall never
forget how strong and true I generally found their sense of
justice and reason, and how this sense increased and, as it
were, established their good will.

“I appealed to them in all matters that concerned the
establishment. It was generally in the quiet evening hours that
I appealed to their free judgment. When, for instance, it was
reported in the village that they had not enough to eat, I said
to them, ‘Tell me, my children, if you are not better fed than
you were at home? Think, and tell me yourselves, whether it
would be well to keep you here in such a way as would make it
impossible for you afterwards, in spite of all your application
and hard work, to procure what you had become accustomed to. Do
you lack anything that is really necessary? Do you think that I
could reasonably and justly do more for you? Would you have me
spend all the money that is entrusted to me on thirty or forty
children instead of on eighty as at present? Would that be
just?’

“In the same way, when I heard that it was reported that I
punished them too severely, I said to them: ‘You know how I
love you, my children; but tell me would you like me to stop
punishing you? Do you think that in any other way I can free
you from your deeply-rooted bad habits, or make you always mind
what I say?’ You were there, my friend, and saw with your own
eyes the sincere emotion with which they answered, ‘We don’t
complain about your hitting us. We wish we never deserved it.
But we want to be punished when we do wrong.’

“Many things that make no difference in a small household could
not be tolerated where the numbers were so great. I tried to
make my children feel this, always leaving them to decide
what could or could not be allowed. It is true that in my
intercourse with them I never spoke of liberty or equality;
but, at the same time, I encouraged them as far as possible to
be free and unconstrained in my presence, with the result that
every day I marked more and more that clear open look in their
eyes which, in my experience, is the sign of a really liberal
education. I could not bear the thought of betraying the trust
in me which I saw shining in their eyes; I strove constantly to
strengthen it and at the same time their free individuality,
that nothing might happen to trouble those angel-eyes, the
sight of which caused me the most intense delight. But I could
not endure frowns and anxious looks; I myself smoothed away the
frowns; then the children smiled, and even among themselves
they took care not to shew frowning faces.

“By reason of their great number, I had occasion nearly every
day to point out the difference between good and evil, justice
and injustice. Good and evil are equally contagious amongst so
many children, so that, according as the good or bad sentiments
spread, the establishment was likely to become either much
better or much worse than if it had only contained a smaller
number. About this, too, I talked to them frankly. I shall
never forget the impression that my words produced when, in
speaking of a certain disturbance that had taken place among
them, I said, ‘My children, it is the same with us as with
every other household; when the children are numerous, and each
gives way to his bad habits, the disorder becomes such that the
weakest mother is driven to take sensible measures in bringing
up her children, and make them submit to what is just and
right. And that is what I must do now. If you do not willingly
assist in the maintenance of order, our establishment cannot
go on, you will fall back into your former condition, and your
misery—now that you have been accustomed to a good home, clean
clothes, and regular food—will be greater than ever. In this
world, my children, necessity and conviction alone can teach
a man to behave; when both fail him, he is hateful. Think for
a moment what you would become if you were safe from want and
cared nothing for right, justice, or goodness. At home there
was always some one who looked after you, and poverty itself
forced you to many a right action; but with convictions and
reason to guide you, you will rise far higher than by following
necessity alone.’

“I often spoke to them in this way without troubling in the
least whether they each understood every word, feeling quite
sure that they all caught the general sense of what I said....

“Here are a few more thoughts which produced a great impression
on my children: ‘Do you know anything greater or nobler than
to give counsel to the poor, and comfort to the unfortunate?
But if you remain ignorant and incapable, you will be obliged,
in spite of your good heart, to let things take their course;
whereas, if you acquire knowledge and power, you will be able
to give good advice, and save many a man from misery.’

“I have generally found that great, noble, and high thoughts
are indispensable for developing wisdom and firmness of
character.

“Such an instruction must be complete in the sense that it must
take account of all our aptitudes and all our circumstances; it
must be conducted, too, in a truly psychological spirit, that
is to say, simply, lovingly, energetically, and calmly. Then,
by its very nature, it produces an enlightened and delicate
feeling for everything true and good, and brings to light a
number of accessory and dependent truths, which are forthwith
accepted and assimilated by the human soul, even in the case of
those who could not express these truths in words.

“I believe that the first development of thought in the child
is very much disturbed by a wordy system of teaching, which
is not adapted either to his faculties or the circumstances
of his life. According to my experience, success depends upon
whether what is taught to children commends itself to them as
true through being closely connected with their own personal
observation and experience....

“I knew no other order, method, or art, but that which resulted
naturally from my children’s conviction of my love for them,
nor did I care to know any other.

“Thus I subordinated the instruction of my children to a higher
aim, which was to arouse and strengthen their best sentiments
by the relations of every-day life as they existed between
themselves and me....

“As a general rule I attached little importance to the study
of words, even when explanations of the ideas they represented
were given.

“I tried to connect study with manual labour, the school with
the workshop, and make one thing of them. But I was the less
able to do this as staff, material, and tools were all wanting.
A short time only before the close of the establishment, a few
children had begun to spin; and I saw clearly that, before
any fusion could be effected, the two parts must be firmly
established separately—study, that is, on the one hand, and
labour on the other.

“But in the work of the children I was already inclined to care
less for the immediate gain than for the physical training
which, by developing their strength and skill, was bound to
supply them later with a means of livelihood. In the same way
I considered that what is generally called the instruction of
children should be merely an exercise of the faculties, and
I felt it important to exercise the attention, observation,
and memory first, so as to strengthen these faculties before
calling into play the art of judging and reasoning; this, in
my opinion, was the best way to avoid turning out that sort of
superficial and presumptuous talker, whose false judgments are
often more fatal to the happiness and progress of humanity than
the ignorance of simple people of good sense.

“Guided by these principles, I sought less at first to teach my
children to spell, read, and write than to make use of these
exercises for the purpose of giving their minds as full and as
varied a development as possible....

“In natural history they were very quick in corroborating what
I taught them by their own personal observations on plants and
animals. I am quite sure that, by continuing in this way, I
should soon have been able not only to give them such a general
acquaintance with the subject as would have been useful in any
vocation, but also to put them in a position to carry on their
education themselves by means of their daily observations and
experiences; and I should have been able to do all this without
going outside the very restricted sphere to which they were
confined by the actual circumstances of their lives. I hold
it to be extremely important that men should be encouraged
to learn by themselves and allowed to develop freely. It is
in this way alone that the diversity of individual talent is
produced and made evident.

“I always made the children learn perfectly even the least
important things, and I never allowed them to lose ground; a
word once learnt, for instance, was never to be forgotten, and
a letter once well written never to be written badly again.
I was very patient with all who were weak or slow, but very
severe with those who did anything less well than they had done
it before.

“The number and inequality of my children rendered my task
easier. Just as in a family the eldest and cleverest child
readily shows what he knows to his younger brothers and
sisters, and feels proud and happy to be able to take his
mother’s place for a moment, so my children were delighted when
they knew something that they could teach others. A sentiment
of honour awoke in them, and they learned twice as well by
making the younger ones repeat their words. In this way I soon
had helpers and collaborators amongst the children themselves.
When I was teaching them to spell difficult words by heart, I
used to allow any child who succeeded in saying one properly to
teach it to the others. These child-helpers, whom I had formed
from the very outset, and who had followed my method step by
step, were certainly much more useful to me than any regular
schoolmasters could have been.

“I myself learned with the children. Our whole system was so
simple and so natural that I should have had difficulty in
finding a master who would not have thought it undignified to
learn and teach as I was doing....

“You will hardly believe that it was the Capuchin friars and
the nuns of the convent that showed the greatest sympathy with
my work. Few people, except Truttman, took any active interest
in it. Those from whom I had hoped most were too deeply
engrossed with their high political affairs to think of our
little institution as having the least degree of importance.

“Such were my dreams; but at the very moment that I seemed to
be on the point of realizing them, I had to leave Stanz.”

§ 50. Heroic efforts rise above the measurement of time. As Byron has said, “A thought is capable of years,” and it seldom happens that the nobleness of any human action depends on the time it lasts. Pestalozzi’s five months’ experiment at Stanz proved one of the most memorable events in the history of education. He was now completely satisfied that he saw his way to giving children a right education and “thus raising the beggar out of the dung-hill”; and seeing the right course he was urged by his love of the people into taking it. But how was he to set to work? His notions of school instruction differed entirely from those of the teaching profession; and even in the revolutionary age they had some reason for looking askance at this revolutionist. “He had everything against him,” we read, “thick, indistinct speech, bad writing, ignorance of drawing, scorn of grammatical learning. He had studied various branches of natural history, but without any particular attention either to classification or terminology. He was conversant with the ordinary operations in arithmetic, but he would have had difficulty in getting through a really long sum in multiplication or division; and he probably had never tried to work out a problem in geometry. For years this dreamer had read no books. But instead of the usual knowledge that any young man of ordinary talent can acquire in a year or two, he understood thoroughly what most masters were entirely ignorant of—the mind of man and the laws of its development, human affections and the art of arousing and ennobling them. He seemed to have almost an intuitive insight into the development of human nature, and was never tired of contemplating it.” (C. Monnard in R.’s Guimps, p. 174.)[157]

§ 51. This man wished to be a schoolmaster, but who would venture to entrust him with a school? No one seemed willing to do this; and he would have been at a loss where to turn had he not had influential friends at Burgdorf, a town not far from Bern. These got for him permission to teach, not indeed the children of burgesses but the children of non-burgesses, seventy-three of whom used to assemble under a shoemaker in his house in the suburbs. With this arrangement, however, the shoemaker and the parents of the children were by no means satisfied. “If the burgesses like the new method,” they said very reasonably, “let them try it on their own children.” Their grumbling was heard, and permission to teach was withdrawn from Pestalozzi.

§ 52. The check, however, was only temporary. His friends were wiser than the shoemaker, and they procured for him admission into the lowest class of the school for burghers’ children. In this class there were about 25 children, boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 8. Here he proved that he was vastly different from a mere dreamer. After teaching these children in his own way for eight months he received the first official recognition of the merits of his system. The Burgdorf School Commission after the usual examination, wrote a public letter to Pestalozzi, in which they said: “The surprising progress of your little scholars of various capacities shews plainly that every one is good for something, if the teacher knows how to get at his abilities and develop them according to the laws of psychology. By your method of teaching you have proved how to lay the groundwork of instruction in such a way that it may afterwards support what is built on it.... Between the ages of 5 and 8, a period in which according to the system of torture enforced hitherto, children have learnt to know their letters, to spell and read, your scholars have not only accomplished all this with a success as yet unknown, but the best of them have already distinguished themselves by their good writing, drawing, and calculating. In them all you have been able so to arouse and excite a liking for history, natural history, mensuration, geography, &c., that thus future teachers must find their task a far easier one if they only know how to make good use of the preparatory stage the children have gone through with you” (Morf, Pt. I, p. 223).

§ 53. In consequence of this report, Pestalozzi in June 1800 was made master of the second school of Burgdorf, a school numbering about 70 boys and girls from 10 to 16 years old. With them Pestalozzi did not get on so well. Ramsauer, a poor boy of 10 who afterwards helped Pestalozzi at Yverdun and became one of his best teachers, has left us his remembrances. Two things seemed clear to the child’s mind: 1st, that their teacher was very kind but very unhappy; 2nd, that the pupils did not learn anything and behaved very badly. Many schoolmasters have smiled in derision at this account of Pestalozzi’s actual teaching; but in reading it several things should be borne in mind. First Ramsauer as a child would have a keen eye and good memory for the master’s eccentricities; but how far the teaching succeeded he could not judge, for he did not know what it aimed at. Then again he saw that Pestalozzi’s zeal was for the whole school, not for individual scholars. But the child who knew of nothing beyond Burgdorf could not tell that Pestalozzi was thinking not so much of the children of Burgdorf as of the children of Europe. For Burgdorf—whether it was pleased to honour or to dismiss Pestalozzi—could not contain him. His aims extended beyond the town, beyond canton Bern, beyond Switzerland even; and he was consumed with zeal to bring about a radical change in elementary education throughout Europe. The truth which was burning within him he has himself expressed as follows:

“If we desire to aid the poor man, the very lowest among the people, this can be done in one way only, that is, _by changing his schools into true places of education, in which the moral, intellectual, and physical powers which God has put into our nature may be drawn out_, so that the man may be enabled to live a life such as a man should live, contented in himself and satisfying other people. Thus and only thus does the man, whom in God’s wide world nobody helps and nobody can help, learn to help himself.” “The public common school-coach throughout Europe must not simply be better horsed, but still more it must be _turned round and be brought on to an entirely new road_.” (Quoted by Morf, P. I, p. 211.)

§ 54. Pestalozzi was now working heart and soul at the engineering of this “new road.” His grand successes hitherto had been gained more by the heart than by the head; but the school course must draw out the faculties of the head as well as of the heart. Pestalozzi made all instruction start from what children observed for themselves. “I laid special stress,” he says, “on just what usually affected their senses. And as I dwelt much on elementary knowledge, I wanted to know when the child receives its first lesson, and I soon came to the conviction that the first hour of learning dates from birth. From the very moment that the child’s senses open to the impressions of nature, nature teaches it. Its new life is but the faculty, now come to maturity, of receiving impressions; it is the awakening of the germs now perfect which will go on using all their forces and energies to secure the development of their proper organisation; it is the awakening of the animal now complete which will and shall become a man. So the sole instruction given to the human being consists merely in the art of giving a helping hand to this natural tendency towards its proper development; and this art consists essentially in the means of putting the child’s impressions in connexion and harmony with the precise degree of development the child has reached. There must be then in the impressions to be given him by instruction, a regular gradation; and the beginning and the progress of his various knowledges must exactly correspond with the beginning and increase in his powers as they are developed. From this I soon saw that this gradation must be ascertained for all the branches of human knowledge, especially for those fundamental notions from which our thinking power takes its rise. On such principles and no others is it possible to construct real school books and books about teaching” (_Wie Gertrud_, &c., Letter I.).

§ 55. In endeavouring to put teaching, as he said, “on a psychological basis,” Pestalozzi compared it to a mechanism. On one occasion when expounding his views, he was interrupted by the exclamation, “Vous voulez mécaniser l’éducation!” Pestalozzi was weak in French, and he took these words to mean, “You wish to get at the mechanism of education.” He accordingly assented, and was in his turn misunderstood. Soon afterwards he endeavoured to express the new thing by a new word and said, “Ich will den menschlichen Unterricht psychologisieren; I wish to psychologise instruction,” and this he explains to mean that he sought to make instruction fall in with the eternal laws which govern the development of the human intellect (Morf, I, p. 227). But this was a task which no one man could accomplish, not even Pestalozzi. The eternal laws which govern the development of mind have not been completely ascertained even after investigations carried on during thousands of years; and Pestalozzi did not know what had been established by previous thinkers. He made a gigantic effort to find both the laws and their application, but if he had continued to stand alone he could have done but little. Happily he attracted to him some young and vigorous assistants, who caught his enthusiasm and worked in his spirit. They did much, but there was one thing the Master could not communicate—his genius.

§ 56. Just at this time, before Pestalozzi found associates in his work, he drew up for a “Society of Friends of Education” an account of his method; and this begins with the words I have already quoted, “I want to psychologise education.” Basing all instruction on _Anschauung_ (which is nearly equivalent to the child’s own observation), he explains how this may be used for a series of exercises, and he takes as the general elements of culture the following: language, drawing, writing, arithmetic, and the art of measuring. In the education of the poor he would lay special stress on the importance of two things, then and since much neglected, viz., singing and the sense of the beautiful. The mother’s cradle song should begin a series leading up to hymns of praise to God. Education should develop in all a sense of the beauties of Nature. “Nature is full of lovely sights, yet Europe has done nothing either to awaken in the poor a sense for these beauties, or to arrange them in such a way as to produce a series of impressions capable of developing this sense.... If ever popular education should cease to be the barbarous absurdity it now is, and put itself into harmony with the real needs of our nature, this want will be supplied.” (R.’s Guimps, 186.)

§ 57. In the last year of the eighteenth century (1800) Pestalozzi was toiling away, constant to his purpose but not clearly seeing the road before him. In March, 1800, he wrote to Zschokke: “For thirty years my life has been a well-nigh hopeless struggle against the most frightful poverty.... For thirty years I have had to forego many of the barest necessaries of life, and have had to shun the society of my fellow-men from sheer lack of decent clothes. Many and many a time have I gone without a dinner and eaten in bitterness a dry crust of bread on the road at a time when even the poorest were seated round a table. All this I have suffered and am still suffering to-day, and with no other object than the realization of my plans for helping the poor” (R.’s Guimps, 189). It was clear that he could not help others till he himself got help; and he now did get just the help he wanted, an assistant who though a schoolmaster was, strange to say, perfectly ready to learn, and to throw himself into carrying out another man’s ideas. This was Hermann Kruesi, a man twenty-five years old, who from the age of 18 had been master of the village school at Gais in Appenzell. In consequence of the war between the French and Austrians, Appenzell was now reduced to a state of famine, and bands of children were sent off to other cantons to escape starvation. Fischer, a friend of Pestalozzi’s, and himself an educationist taught by Salzmann (_supra_ 289), wrote from Burgdorf to the pastor of Gais, offering to get thirty children taken in by the people of Burgdorf, and asking that they might be sent with some one who would look after them in the day-time and teach them. In answer to this invitation Kruesi, after a week’s march, entered Burgdorf with a troop of little ones. The children were drawn up in an open place, and benevolent people chose which they would adopt. Kruesi was taken into the Castle which the Government had made over partly to Fischer, partly to Pestalozzi. In it Kruesi opened a day-school. Fischer soon afterwards died; and Pestalozzi proposed to Kruesi, who had become entirely converted to his views, that they should unite and together carry on the school in the Castle. By a decree of 23rd July, 1800, the Executive Council granted to Pestalozzi the gratuitous use of as much of the Castle and garden as he needed, and thus was established Pestalozzi’s celebrated Institute at Burgdorf.

§ 58. Very soon Kruesi enlisted other helpers who had read _Leonard and Gertrude_, viz., Tobler and Buss, and this is his account of the party: “Our society thus consisted of four very different men ... the founder, whose chief reputation was that of a dreamy writer, incapable in practical life, and three young men, one [Tobler] a private tutor whose youth had been much neglected, who had begun to study late, and whose pedagogic efforts had never produced the results his character and talents seemed to promise; another [Buss], a bookbinder, who devoted his leisure to singing and drawing; and a third [Kruesi himself], a village schoolmaster who carried out the duties of his office as best he could without having been in any way prepared for them. Those who looked on this group of men, scarce one of them with a home of his own, naturally formed but a small opinion of their capabilities. And yet our work succeeded, and won the public confidence beyond the expectations of those who knew us, and even beyond our own” (R.’s Guimps, 304).

§ 59. With assistance from the Government there was added to the united schools of Pestalozzi and Kruesi a training class for teachers; and elementary teachers were sent to spend a month at Burgdorf and learn of Pestalozzi, as years afterwards they were sent to the same town to learn of Froebel. This Institute opened in January, 1801, and had nearly three years of complete success. In it was carried out Pestalozzi’s notion that there should be “no gulf between the home and the school.” On one occasion a parent visiting the establishment exclaimed, “Why, this is not a school but a family!” and Pestalozzi declared that this was the highest praise he could give it. The bond which united them all, both teachers and scholars, was love of “Father Pestalozzi.” Want of space kept the number of children below a hundred, and these enjoyed great freedom and worked away without rewards and almost without punishments. Both public reports and private speak very highly of the results. In June, 1802, the President of the Council of Public Education in Bern declares: “Pestalozzi has discovered the real and universal laws of all elementary teaching.” A visitor, Charles Victor von Bonstetten, writes: “The children know little, but what they know, they know well.... They are very happy and evidently take great pleasure in their lessons, which says a great deal for the method.... As it will be long before there is another Pestalozzi, I fear that the rich harvest his discovery seems to promise will be reserved for future ages.”

The success of the method was specially conspicuous in arithmetic. A Nürnberg merchant who came prejudiced against Pestalozzi was much impressed and has acknowledged: “I was amazed when I saw these children treating the most complicated calculations of fractions as the simplest thing in the world.”

§ 60. Up to this point Pestalozzi may be said to have gained by the disposition to “reform” or revolutionise everything, which had prevailed in Switzerland since 1798. But from the reaction which now set in he suffered more than he had gained. Switzerland sent deputies to Paris to discuss under the direction of the First Consul Bonaparte what should be their future form of Government. Among these deputies Pestalozzi was elected, and he set off thinking more of the future of the schools than of the future of the Government. At Paris he asked for an interview with Bonaparte, but destruction being in his opinion a much higher art than instruction, the First Consul said he could not be bothered about questions of A, B, C. He, however, deputed Monge to hear what Pestalozzi had to say, but the mathematician seems to have agreed with some English authorities that “there was nothing in Pestalozzi.”[158] On his return to Switzerland Pestalozzi was asked by Buss, “Did you see Bonaparte?” “No,” replied Pestalozzi, “I did not see Bonaparte and Bonaparte did not see me.” His presumption in thus putting himself on an equality with the great conqueror seems to have taken away the breath of his contemporaries: but “the whirligig of time brings in his revenges,” and before the close of the century Europe already thinks more in amount, and immeasurably more in respect, of Pestalozzi than of Bonaparte.

§ 61. As a result of the reaction the Government of United Switzerland ceased to exist, and the Cantons were restored. This destroyed Pestalozzi’s hopes of Government support, and even turned his Institute out of doors. The Castle of Burgdorf was at once demanded for the Prefect of the District; but Pestalozzi was offered an old convent at Münchenbuchsee near Bern, and thither he was forced to migrate.

§ 62. Close to Münchenbuchsee was Hofwyl where was the agricultural institution of Emmanuel Fellenberg. Fellenberg and Pestalozzi were old friends and correspondents, and as they had much regard for each other and Fellenberg was as great in administration as Pestalozzi in ideas, there seemed a chance of their benefiting by co-operation; but this could not be. The teachers desired that the administration should be put into the hands of Fellenberg, and this was done accordingly, “not without my consent,” says Pestalozzi, “but to my profound mortification.” He could not work with this “man of iron,” as he calls Fellenberg; so he left Münchenbuchsee and accepting one of several invitations he settled in the Castle of Yverdun near the lake of Neuchatel. Within a twelvemonth he was followed by his old assistants, who had found government by Fellenberg less to their taste than no-government by Pestalozzi.

§ 63. Thus arose the most celebrated Institute of which we read in the history of education. For some years its success seemed prodigious. Teachers came from all quarters, many of them sent by the Governments of the countries to which they belonged, that they might get initiated into the Pestalozzian system. Children too were sent from great distances, some of them being intrusted to Pestalozzi, some of them living with their own tutor in Yverdun and only attending the Institute during the day. The wave of enthusiasm for the new ideas seemed to carry everything before it; but there is nothing stable in a wave, and when the enthusiasm has subsided disappointment follows. This was the case at Yverdun, and Pestalozzi outlived his Institute. But the principles on which he worked and the spirit in which he worked could not pass away; and, at least in Germany, all elementary schoolmasters acknowledge how much they are indebted to his teaching.

§ 64. Of the state of things in the early days of the Institute we have a very lively account written for his own children by Professor Vuillemin, who entered it in 1805 as a child of eight, and was in it for two years. From this I extract the following portrait of Pestalozzi: “Imagine, my children, a very ugly man with rough bristling hair, his face scarred with small-pox and covered with freckles, an untidy beard, no neck-tie, his breeches not properly buttoned and coming down to his stockings, which in their turn descended on to his great thick shoes; fancy him panting and jerking as he walked; then his eyes which at one time opened wide to send a flash of lightning, at another were half closed as if engaged on what was going on within; his features now expressing a profound sadness and now again the most peaceful happiness; his speech either slow or hurried, either soft and melodious or bursting forth like thunder; imagine the man and you have him whom we used to call our Father Pestalozzi. Such as I have sketched him for you we loved him; we all loved him, for he loved us all; we loved him so warmly that when some time passed without our seeing him, we were quite troubled about it, and when he again appeared we could not take our eyes off him” (Guimps, 315).