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$Title{Pestalozzi's Method Of Education}
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$Author{Ripley, George}
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Title:       Pestalozzi's Method Of Education
Author:      Ripley, George

Pestalozzi's Method Of Education

1775

     Modern education began when Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi established his
experimental school at Neuhof in 1775.  Comenius had shown the true path of
teaching.  Pestalozzi was the enthusiast who felt with burning passion the
injustice done to the child in the schoolhouses of his day.  He protested that
the old education was all wrong, and he proved this by his achievements,
establishing a little school in his own home at Neuhof, and then in 1800 a
larger one at Burgdorf.

     The Swiss Government adopted his ideas.  Teachers were sent to learn of
him.  From Burgdorf is sprung the whole school system of today.  As a
practical school-teacher Pestalozzi was nevertheless a failure in the end,
because he relied on no force but that of personal affection to control his
pupils.  This divinest of methods succeeded remarkably while his schools were
so small as to bring him into close paternal contact with every child.  But at
the large institution at Yverdon, of which he was master in his later years,
the method broke down badly.  Hence there were not wanting in his own times
critics who pronounced him a failure.  They did not see that beside his
insistence on love as the "way," the reformer had an even more important
message for the world.  "The grand change advocated by Pestalozzi," says Mr.
Quick, "was a change of object.  The main object of the school should not be
to teach, but to develop." In this sentence we have the key to all modern
education, though not every teacher even to-day has digested fully the idea
that his duty is less that of stuffing a child full of facts than of
developing its character and abilities, encouraging whatever of value exists
within itself.

     The full importance of Pestalozzi's work was recognized by keener
intellects even in his own lifetime.  Queen Louise, the heroine of Prussia,
wished she could fly to Switzerland to grasp Pestalozzi's hand.  His system
was introduced throughout Northern Germany and did wonders for the development
of the German people.  To-day it is the system of the world.

     After completing the usual course of education, Pestalozzi continued his
studies, with a view to engaging in the ministry of the gospel, to which the
wishes of his friends, as well as his own deep religious feelings, had early
destined him.  This course, however, was soon abandoned.  He appeared for the
first and only time in the pulpit as a candidate, and then, discouraged by the
ill-success of the experiment, renounced all aspirations to the sacred office.
Soon after, he applied himself to the law, but with a strong predilection for
political studies.  At this time his inquiries seem to have taken the
direction which ultimately led him to the discoveries that characterize his
name.  He saw clearly the great abuses in society which prevailed in his
native country; and by dwelling on their enormity his active mind suggested
means of relief which could be realized only by a more thorough and judicious
education of the people at large.  His first publication, issued while a
student at law, contained his views on this subject.  It was an essay on the
bearing which education ought to have upon our respective callings.

     It was not for a mind like Pestalozzi's to behold the evils which had
been brought to his notice without deep and painful emotion.  This was
experienced to such a degree that he was thrown into a state of morbid
excitement; and, at length, a dangerous illness broke off his ardent
researches.  Still his mind was not quieted.  His thoughts could not be
prevented from dwelling on the painful subjects to which he had given his
whole soul.  Prostrate on the bed of sickness, he continued to indulge himself
in dark musings; and his fancy represented the prospects of the future, both
for society and for himself, in gloomy colors.  The strength of his
constitution, however, carried him through the disorder; and from the moment
of his recovery he resolved to follow the leadings of Providence, and, setting
aside all human considerations, to act up to the full extent of his
conceptions, and if possible to put his views to the test of experience.

     He now abandoned all his former studies, committed his papers to the
flames, and believing that the evils into which society was plunged were
mainly owing to a departure from the straight and simple path of nature, to
the school of nature he resolved to go.  Accordingly he quitted Zurich and
went to Kirchberg, in the Canton of Bern, where he became an apprentice to a
farmer of the name of Tschiffeli.

     After qualifying himself under the direction of Tschiffeli for the charge
of a farm, he purchased a tract of waste land in the neighborhood of Lensburg,
in the Canton of Bern, on which he erected a dwelling-house, with suitable
buildings, and gave it the name of Neuhof.  The work of his hands here was
prospered.  He soon brought himself into comfortable circumstances, and saw
his prospects as bright and happy as could be wished.  At this time he formed
a connection in marriage with Ann Schulthess, the daughter of one of the
wealthiest merchants in Zurich, a young lady of a refined education and great
dignity of character.  This marriage, while it increased the happiness of his
domestic circle, offered him a new sphere of useful exertion, by giving him an
interest in a flourishing cotton manufactory.

     After eight years of successful industry at Neuhof, Pestalozzi resolved
to make a fair trial of the plan, which he had long had at heart, of giving
the lower orders such an education as should raise them to a condition more
consistent with the capacities of their nature and with the spirit of
Christianity.

     To avoid the interference of others as much as possible, and to place the
beneficial results of his system in a clearer light, he selected the objects
of his experiment from the very dregs of the people.  If he found a child who
was left in destitute circumstances from the death of its parents or from
their incompetency and vice, he immediately took him home, so that, in a short
time, his house was converted into an asylum, in which fifty orphan or pauper
children were fed, clothed, and instructed in the different employments from
which they might afterward be able to gain a livelihood, and for the exercise
of which his farm and the cotton manufactory, in which he was a partner,
afforded an ample opportunity.

     But this experiment, so happily conceived by Pestalozzi, was destined to
prove unsuccessful.  He possessed few of the means necessary to bring it to a
prosperous issue.  His zeal, which led him to undertake the most magnificent
enterprises, was not combined with sufficient patience, practical knowledge of
human nature, and fixed habits of order and economy to enable him to realize
the plans which he proposed; and at length he was obliged to abandon his
experiment in despair.  It was not, however, altogether useless.  He had the
satisfaction of knowing that he had rescued more than a hundred children from
the degrading influences under which they were born, and planted the seeds of
virtue and religion in their hearts; and, in addition to this, his
qualifications for the task to which his life was now devoted were greatly
increased by this insight he had acquired into its real nature, and the means
of its accomplishment.  The results of his experience at Neuhof, from the time
of opening his asylum in 1775, to its close in 1790, are left on record in the
valuable works which he published during that interval.  The first of these,
entitled Leonard and Gertrude, is a popular novel, under which form he chose
to convey his ideas respecting the condition of the lower classes, and the
means of their improvement.  The success of this work was not what he
expected.  Though universally popular as a novel, there were few who entered
into the spirit of the deep wisdom which it contained.  This was published in
1781, and, in order to draw the attention of its readers to the great object
which he had in view, he published another work in the following year,
entitled Christopher and Eliza.  But this also failed of the purpose for which
it was principally intended.  Still Pestalozzi was not discouraged in his
attempts to make the public acquainted with his new ideas.  He now addressed
himself to the literary world, as he had before written expressly for the
common people.  In a journal published at Basel, under the direction of
Iselin, a distinguished philanthropist, he inserted a series of essays,
entitled Evening Hours of a Hermit, which contained a more systematic account
of his mode of instruction and his plans for national improvement.  But the
current of public thought was in an opposite direction, and little attention
could be gained to the plans which he labored to introduce.  His success was
somewhat better in a weekly publication, which he undertook at the beginning
of 1782, under the title of the Swiss Journal.  This was continued for one
year, and forms two octavo volumes in which a great variety of subjects is
discussed, connected with his favorite purpose of national improvement.

     Soon after the breaking up of his establishment at Neuhof, the country
began to be agitated with the excesses of the French Revolution, and
Pestalozzi, disappointed in the sanguine hopes which he had formed at the
commencement of that event, and disgusted with the scenes of brutality and
lawlessness which it had occasioned, wrote his Inquiry into the Course of
Nature in the Development of the Human Species.  This work, published in 1797,
marks a new epoch in the development of his views.  It was written at a moment
when his mind was covered with the deepest gloom, and he was almost ready to
sink under the struggle between the bright conceptions of improvement which he
had formed and the darkness which hung over the existing institutions of
society.  The following questions, which he proposes to himself at the
commencement of the work, will give some idea of its plan and of the spirit in
which it was composed:

     "What am I?  What is the human species?  What have I done?  What is the
human species doing?

     "I want to know what the course of my life, such as it has been, has made
of me? and I want to know what the course of life, such as it has been, has
made of the human species?

     "I want to know on what ground the volition of the human species and its
opinions rest under the circumstances in which it is placed?"

     The following portrait of himself, which he draws at the close of the
volume, is highly characteristic of his feelings at this time:

     "Thousands pass away, as nature gave them birth, in the conception of
sensual gratification, and they seek no more.  Tens of thousands are
overwhelmed by the burdens of craft and trade; by the weight of the hammer,
the ell, or the crane, and they are no more.  But I know a man, who did seek
more; the joy of simplicity dwelt in his heart, and he had faith in mankind
such as few men have; his soul was made for friendship; love was his element,
and fidelity his strongest tie.  But he was not made by this world nor for it;
and wherever he was placed in it he was found unfit.

     "And the world that found him thus, asked not whether it was his fault or
the fault of another; but it bruised him with an iron hammer, as the
bricklayers break an old brick to fill up crevices.  But though bruised, he
yet trusted in mankind more than in himself; and he proposed to himself a
great purpose, which to attain he suffered agonies and learned lessons such as
few mortals had learned before.

     "He could not, nor would he, become generally useful, but for his purpose
he was more useful than most men are for theirs; and he expected justice at
the hands of mankind, whom he still loved with an innocent love. But he found
none.  Those that made themselves his judges, without further examination
confirmed the former sentence, that he was generally and absolutely useless.
This was the grain of sand which decided the doubtful balance of his wretched
destinies.

     "He is no more; thou mayest know him no more; all that remains of him is
the decayed remnants of his destroyed existence.  He fell as a fruit that
falls before it is ripe, whose blossom has been nipped by the northern gale,
or whose core is eaten out by the gnawing worm.

     "Stranger that passest by, refuse not a tear of sympathy; even in
falling, this fruit turned itself toward the trunk, on the branches of which
it lingered through the summer, and it whispered to the tree: 'Verily, even in
my death will I nourish thy roots.'

     "Stranger that passest by, spare the perishing fruit, and allow the dust
of its corruption to nourish the roots of the tree, on whose branches it
lived, sickened, and died."

     But a brighter day for Pestalozzi was about to dawn.  He now became
sensible of the great error of his former plans, which made too much account
of external circumstances, without exerting sufficient influence on the inward
nature, which it was his object to elevate.  His mind gradually arrived at the
important truth, which is the keystone of the system he afterward matured:
"That the amelioration of outward circumstances will be the effect, but can
never be the means, of mental and moral improvement."

     He had now succeeded in awakening the attention of the Swiss Government
to the importance of his plans for national education, was invited to take
charge of an asylum for orphans and other destitute children, which should be
formed under his own direction and supported at the public expense.  The place
selected for this experiment was Stanz, the capital of the Canton of
Underwalden, which had been recently burned and depopulated by the French
Revolutionary troops.  A new Ursuline convent, which was then building, was
assigned to Pestalozzi as the scene of his future operations.  On his arrival
there he found only one apartment finished, a room about twenty-four feet
square, and that unfurnished.  The rest of the building was occupied by the
carpenters and masons; and even had there been rooms, the want of beds and
kitchen furniture would have made them useless.  In the mean time, it having
been announced that an asylum was to be opened, crowds of children came
forward, some of them orphans, and others without protection or shelter, whom
it was impossible, under such circumstances, to send away.  The one room was
devoted to all manner of purposes.  In the day it served as a schoolroom, and
at night, furnished with some scanty bedding, was occupied by Pestalozzi with
as many of the scholars as it would hold.  The remainder were quartered out
for the night in some of the neighboring houses and came to the asylum only in
the day.  Of course, under such circumstances, anything like order or
regularity was out of the question.  Even personal cleanliness was impossible;
and this, added to the dust occasioned by the workmen, the dampness of the new
walls, and the closeness of the atmosphere in a small and crowded apartment,
made the asylum an unhealthy abode.

     The character of the children, too, was a great obstacle to Pestalozzi's
success.  Many of them were the offspring of beggars and outlaws and had long
been inured to wretchedness and vice; others had seen better days, and,
oppressed by disappointment and suffering, had lost all disposition to exert
themselves; while a few, who were from the higher classes of society, had been
spoiled by indulgence and luxury, and were now conceited, petulant, and full
of scornful airs toward their companions.

     The whole charge of the establishment thus composed devolved upon
Pestalozzi.  From motives of economy and from the difficulty of procuring
suitable assistants, he employed no one but a housekeeper.  The burden of this
task was increased by the caprice and folly of many of the parents, whose
children had been sent to the asylum.  They were prejudiced against him as a
Protestant and an agent of the Helvetic Government, and spared no complaints
which their unreasonableness or ignorance could suggest.  Mothers who were in
the daily practice of begging from door to door would come on some silly
pretext and take away their children because they would be no worse off at
home.  On Sundays especially the whole family circle, from parents to the
remotest cousin, would assemble in a body at the asylum, and, after filling
the minds of the children with their idle whims, would either take them home
or leave them peevish and unhappy.

     Sometimes children were brought to the asylum merely to obtain clothing,
which being done they were soon removed and no reasons given.  In many
instances, parents required payment for leaving their children, to compensate
for the loss occasioned by taking them off from their begging.  In others,
they desired to make an agreement for a certain number of days in the week, in
which they could have permission to send them out to beg; and this being
refused, they indignantly declared that they would remove them forthwith - a
threat which was not unfrequently executed.

     Such was the character of the materials on which Pestalozzi was obliged
to commence his great experiments.  He was deprived of the ordinary means of
instruction and authority; and thus thrown entirely upon his own resources,
the inventive genius, for which he was afterward distinguished, was awakened
within him, and the spirit of humanity received a fresh impulse.  One of the
first benefits which he derived from his apparently untoward circumstances was
the necessity of resorting to the power of love in the child's heart as the
only source of obedience.  There was nothing either in the disposition of the
parents or the children to aid him in his efforts; on the contrary, a spirit
of contempt on the one side and of open hostility on the other placed those
obstacles in his way which a less original and energetic mind than his would
not have been able to surmount.  The usual methods of punishment could not be
applied with any success; accordingly, he discarded them all.  He made no
attempt to frighten his refractory troop into order and obedience, but used
only the instrument of an all-forbearing kindness.  Even when obliged to apply
coercive measures, he employed them with such a spirit as showed the children
that he did not have recourse to them through anger, but that their use
occasioned no less distress to him than to themselves.

     His mode of instruction partook of the character of his discipline. Both
were marked with the simplicity of nature.  He had none of the ordinary
apparatus of teaching, not even books.  Himself and his pupils were all.  The
result was that he abandoned the common artificial systems of instruction and
gave his whole attention to the original elements of knowledge which exist in
every mind.  He taught numbers instead of ciphers, living sounds instead of
dead characters, deeds of faith and love instead of abstruse creeds,
substances instead of shadows, realities instead of signs.  He led the
intellect of his children to the discovery of truths which, in the nature of
things, they could never understand.

     In the midst of his children he forgot that there was any world beside
his asylum.  And as their circle was a universe to him, so was he to them all
in all.  From morning till night he was the centre of their existence.  To him
they owed every comfort and every enjoyment; and, whatever hardships they had
to endure, he was their fellow-sufferer.  He partook of their meals and slept
among them.  In the evening he prayed with them before they went to bed; and
from his conversation they dropped into the arms of slumber.  At the first
dawn of day it was his voice that called them to the light of the rising sun
and to the praise of their heavenly Father.  All day he stood among them,
teaching the ignorant and assisting the helpless; encouraging the weak and
admonishing the transgressor.  His hand was daily with them, joined in theirs;
his eye, beaming with benevolence, rested on theirs.  He wept when they wept,
and rejoiced when they rejoiced.  He was to them a father, and they were to
him as children.  Seventy or eighty children, whose dispositions were of the
most unpromising character, were converted, in a short time, into a peaceful
and happy family circle.  Their tempers were meliorated, their manners
softened, their health improved, and their whole appearance so changed that it
was almost impossible to recognize them as the same persons whose haggard and
stupid faces had formerly been noticed by every visitor at the asylum.

     He wished to give to his establishment the character of a family, rather
than of a public school.  He often related to his pupils narratives of a happy
and well-regulated household; and endeavored to awaken their hearts to a sense
of the blessings which men may bestow upon each other by the exercise of
Christian love.  He taught this, whenever he could, by examples taken from
real life.  Thus when Altorf, the capital of the Canton of Uri, was laid in
ashes, having informed them of the event he suggested the idea of receiving
some of the sufferers into the asylum.  "Hundreds of children," said he, "are
at this moment wandering about as you were last year, without a home, perhaps
without food or clothing.  What would you say of applying to the Government,
which has so kindly provided for you, for leave to receive about twenty of
these poor children among you?"

     "Oh, yes," exclaimed his pupils; "yes, dear Mr. Pestalozzi, do apply if
you please."

     "Nay, my children," replied he, "consider it well first.  You must know I
cannot get as much money as I please for our housekeeping; and if you invite
twenty children among us, I shall, very likely, not get any more for that.
You must, therefore, make up your minds to share your bedding and clothing
with them, and to eat less and work more than before; and if you think you
cannot do that readily and cheerfully, you had better not invite them!"

     "Never mind," said the children; "though we should not be so well off
ourselves, we should be very glad to have these poor children among us."

     But the prosperity which Pestalozzi here enjoyed proved to be of short
duration.  Before the expiration of a year from the commencement of his
undertaking, Stanz was taken by the Austrians, and he was obliged to abandon
his experiment at the very moment of its greatest success.  This took place in
the summer of 1799.  He was now exposed to the ridicule of many, who had
always derided his plan as visionary and enthusiastic, and to whom he was
prevented, by this untimely removal, from giving the evidence of facts in
demonstration of its excellence.  His disappointment and sufferings on this
account were severe.  Depressed and unhappy, he retired into the solitude of
the Alps, and amid the rocks and the steeps of the Gurnigal sought rest for
his weary soul, and health for his exhausted nerves.  But he could not long
remain inactive.  The enjoyment of the majestic scenes of nature among which
he was placed, and the kindness and sympathy of a friend named Zehender, soon
restored him to a cheerful state of mind; and he descended from the mountains,
determined to resume his experiment from the point where it had been cut short
at Stanz.

     The Helvetic Government at this time made him a grant of about thirty
pounds a year, which in 1801 was raised to one hundred, but was stopped
entirely in 1803, by the dissolution of the Government.  This was barely
sufficient for his own subsistence, and the small remains of his private
fortune were absorbed in the maintenance of his family.

     In the autumn of 1799, by the advice of his friends, Pestalozzi removed
to Burgdorf, an ancient Swiss city, in the Canton of Bern, where after several
unsatisfactory attempts, on a small scale, to carry his plans into execution,
he at last succeeded by the end of the year in opening an establishment which
in 1800 numbered twenty-six pupils, and in 1801 thirty-seven.  About one-third
of these were sons of representatives of different cantons in Switzerland, and
a part belonged to wealthy tradesmen and agriculturists, and the rest were
children of respectable families reduced in their circumstances, who were
placed by their friends under the care of Pestalozzi.  The expenses of this
undertaking were defrayed, at first, by a loan, which he was afterward
enabled, but with great difficulty, to repay.  But it would have been
impossible to continue the institution had not the Helvetic Government voted
him, in addition to the grant before mentioned, an annual supply of fuel, and
a salary of twenty-five pounds each to two of his assistants, Kruesi and Buss,
who, however, generously declined receiving it themselves, but devoted it to
the general funds of the institution, from which they received nothing but
their board and lodging.

     At this time Pestalozzi published a work at the request of his friend
Gessner, of Zurich, under the title of How Gertrude Teaches her Children, in
which he gave a historical account of his experiments up to that period, and a
general outline of his principles of education.  This book made a very
favorable impression upon the public; it excited a greater attention to his
plans, confirmed the hopes of his friends, and convinced many of the soundness
of his ideas who had heretofore regarded them as wild speculations.

     The current of popularity now set so strong in his favor that he was
chosen in 1802 as one of the deputies to Paris, pursuant to a proclamation of
the French Consul, to frame a new constitution for Switzerland.  He now made
his appearance again as a political writer, and presented his views on the
state of the country and the means of improving it, in a pamphlet entitled
View of the Objects to which the Legislature of Switzerland has chiefly to
direct its Attention.  The moderate and liberal opinions expressed in this
publication, and the wisdom of the proposals which it suggested, conciliated
the best men of all parties, and offended none but the few who cherished an
extravagant and bigoted attachment to the ancient order of things.

     In all his labors Pestalozzi had a most efficient assistant in his wife,
who interested herself especially in cultivating the affections of the younger
pupils; while the different branches of domestic economy fell upon his
daughter-in-law and an old housekeeper who had been in his family for more
than thirty years and lived in it rather as a friend than a servant. The
domestic arrangements had for their object to form habits of order, and to
insure the enjoyment of good health to the children.  In the morning, half an
hour before six, the signal was given for getting up: six o'clock found the
pupils ready for their first lesson, after which they were assembled for
morning prayer.  Between this and breakfast, the children had time left them
for preparing themselves for the day; and at eight o'clock they were again
called to their lessons, which continued, with the interruption of from five
to seven minutes' recreation between every two hours, till twelve o'clock.
Half an hour later, dinner was served up; and afterward the children were
allowed to take moderate exercise till half-past two, when the afternoon
lessons began, and were continued till half-past four.  From half-past four
till five there was another interval of recreation, during which the children
had fruit and bread distributed to them.  At five, the lessons were resumed
till the time of supper at eight o'clock, after which, the evening prayer
having been held, they were conducted to bed about nine.  The hours of
recreation were mostly spent in innocent games on a fine common situated
between the castle and the lake and crossed in different directions by
beautiful avenues of chestnut and poplar trees.

     On Wednesday and Sunday afternoons, if the weather permitted, excursions
of several miles were made through the beautiful scenery of the surrounding
country.  In summer the children went frequently to bathe in the lake, the
borders of which offered, in winter, fine opportunities for skating.  In bad
weather they resorted to gymnastic exercises in a large hall expressly fitted
up for that purpose.  This constant attention to regular bodily exercise,
together with the excellent climate of Yverdon, and the simplicity of their
mode of living, proved so effectual in preserving the health of the children
that illness of any kind made its appearance but very rarely, notwithstanding
that the number of pupils amounted at one time to upward of one hundred
eighty.  Such was the care bestowed upon physical education in Pestalozzi's
establishment; and an equal degree of solicitude was evinced for the
intellectual and moral well-being of the children.

     Successful, however, as the purposes of Pestalozzi were at Yverdon, the
scene which is most intimately associated with his name, and which was the
theatre of his brightest and most useful achievements, he was destined again
to meet with bitter disappointment, and finally to go down to his grave in
sorrow.  After a series of embarrassments, occasioned principally by the
artifices of an unprincipled and intriguing adventurer among his teachers, and
having suffered in his property, his happiness, and to a certain extent in his
character, and witnessed the gradual destruction of his establishment, he died
at Brugg, in the Canton of Basel, on February 17, 1827, at the advanced age of
eighty-two years.