He gives certain facts which are generally wanting in the Swiss and German biographers, and which we have made use of in the present work. He draws, too, a very true and lively picture of the man and his life of devotion; but the account of the fall of the Yverdun Institute is so full of strange errors and mistaken views, that it would seem that the author must have drawn from a source which was not entirely trustworthy. It is this, undoubtedly, that has made him unfair to many of Pestalozzi's friends and fellowworkers. Before finishing this work, on which we have been long engaged, we were fortunately able to profit by the many German publications which, for some years past, have been throwing new light on the life and work of Pestalozzi. Two in particular have been very useful to us : First, that of Mr. Morf, at one time head of the Training College in Canton Berne, and then Director of the Orphanage at Winterthur, entitled, Documents for the Biography of Henry Pestalozzi. Mr. Morf has gone through public records, private letters, family papers, and indeed anything that was likely to throw light on the life of his hero, with indefatigable zeal, and judges the work of the educational reformer with much pedagogical penetration.1 The second is that of Mr. Seyffarth, of Luckenwalde, near Brandenburg, who, between 1870 and 1873, published in eighteen volumes the first really complete edition of Pestalozzi's works. Cotta's edition, in 1826, included many books which were not written by the master, but by his assistants, whilst several of Pestalozzi's most important works were wanting. Mr. Seyffarth has further enriched his collection by the addition of several interesting and characteristic smaller works which had remained unpublished, and by prefacing each of the bigger works with a well-written introduction. How is it that so much has been talked and written about Pestalozzi in Germany lately? Because she knows her present greatness is owing, in a large measure, to him. After Jena, when Napoleon persisted in rejecting the principles of the Swiss Reformer, Germany, on the contrary, adopted them, and, reorganizing her public education in this spirit, produced a generation of men who were not only instructed but educated. Afterwards, however, she gradually neglected Pestalozzi's doctrine, especially from the moral point of view, and the Prussian schools degenerated. To-day, for instance, they would be incapable of forming men like those the country still possesses in the flower of their age. All the best minds are well aware of 1 He has lately published a second book, entitled, Leaves from the Story of Pestalozzi's Life and Sorrows. this, and an effort is being made to restore to his old honourable position the man whose educational doctrine was one of the chief means of raising Prussia when she had fallen so low. At Easter, 1872, there was a Congress in Berlin of delegates from the Societies of Elementary Teachers in Brandenburg, Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse-Nassau. The Congress represented more than ten thousand teachers, and decided upon the creation of a National Society of German Elementary Teachers, the headquarters of which should be in Berlin. On the 4th of April, Dr. Falk, the Minister of Religion and Education, received a deputation of delegates, who made three requests in the name of the Congress. According to the Hanover Courier the third request ran thus: "The extension of the programme of study for elementary teachers, and the organization of training schools in accordance with the pedagogic principles of Pestalozzi, which, thanks to the protection of Queen Louisa, Stein, William Humboldt, Fichte, etc., formerly enjoyed so much favour in Prussia and so visibly contributed to the regeneration of the country." In France, the first attempts at educational reform in the spirit of Pestalozzi were owing to the efforts of men like Cochin and Pompée; not however that the full value of the labours of the Swiss pedagogue was not recognized at the outset by a large number of distinguished men of all shades of opinion. It will be enough to mention Maine de Biran, de Vailly, Georges Cuvier, de Gérando, de Lasteyrie, Madame de Staël, de ClermontTonnerre, de Dreux-Brézé, Bourbon-Busset, Biot, Geoffroi-SaintHilaire, Sébastiani, de Laborde, Gaultier, Jomard, Choron, Ordinaire, Matter, Delessert, de Broglie, Casimir Perrier, and Victor Cousin. But it is since the labours of Madame PapeCarpentier, and especially since the conferences on sense-impressing' teaching in the Exhibition of 1878, that we may say that every intelligent teacher in France has sought to reduce elementary education to the principles laid down by Pestalozzi. pedagogical works published during the last ten or fifteen years are all animated by the same spirit; and if they do not all explicitly recommend the Pestalozzian method, they at least obey the tendency. May the book we are now publishing contribute to the success of their efforts! The 1 This word or sense-impressed-I have used throughout for intuitif (anschaulich). For intuition (Anschaulichkeit) I have said sense-impression. [Translator.] |