CHAPTER V.

STANZ AND BURGDORF-"I WILL TURN SCHOOLMASTER."

ONE of the five Swiss Directors was Le Grand, who had been the friend and helper of Pastor Oberlin in his great educational work in the Ban de la Roche, and he was only too pleased to take Pestalozzi at his word. Arrangements were being made for Pestalozzi to open a school in the canton of Argovie when war put an end to the project. But though the war closed one opening it created another. On the 9th of September, 1798, the town of Stanz was burnt by the French, and the people put to the sword with the greatest ferocity. Crowds of fatherless and motherless children wandered about destitute and homeless. Le Grand called upon Pestalozzi to go to the rescue of the orphans at Stanz. He gladly went.

The regulations and aim of the institution-a poorhouse-to be established are set forth in the decree issued by the Directory on the 5th of December, 1798. They are: "(1) The immediate control of the poorhouse at Stanz is entrusted to Citizen Pestalozzi. (2) Children of both sexes, taken from among the poorest, and specially from the orphans in the Stanz district, will be received in it and brought up free of charge. (3) Children will not be received under the age of five

years; they will remain till they are fit to go into service, or to learn such a trade as cannot be taught to them in the institution.

"(4) The poor-house will be conducted with all the care and economy that befits such an institution. It will be the rule that children shall be gradually led to take part in all the work necessary for the carrying on and support of the establishment. The time of the pupils will be divided between work in the fields, the house and the schoolroom. An endeavour will be made to develop in the pupils as much skill, and as many useful powers, as the funds of the institution will permit. So far as it is possible to do so without endangering the industrial ends which are to be aimed at, a few lessons will be given during the manual work.

"(5) All the out-buildings of the women's convent at Stanz are to be given up to the work of the institution, and also a sufficient portion of the adjoining meadowland. The buildings will at once be repaired and fitted up for the accommodation of eighty pupils, in accordance with the plans drawn up by Citizen Schmid, of Lucerne. (6) For the founding of the asylum the Minister of the Interior will, once for all, place a sum of two hundred and forty pounds at the disposal of the Committee of the Poor" [Pestalozzi; Truttman, the sub-prefect of Arth; and Businger, the parish-priest of Stanz]. This decree was based upon a plan drawn up by Pestalozzi, and warmly approved by Stapfer, Rengger and Le Grand.

The actual plan of work is given by Pestalozzi in a letter to Rengger: "The hours of work and study are now fixed as follows: from six to eight, lessons; then

manual work till four in the afternoon; then lessons again till eight ". This letter was written on the 19th April, 1799.

A very real interest was taken by Government in the institution, as is shown by the frequent reports concerning it, and by the fact that on the 24th of May, 1799, Pestalozzi took all his children to Lucerne, where they were welcomed by the members of the Executive Directory. On this occasion each child received a silver coin as a present.

While the convent was being built and as soon as a single room could be made use of, Pestalozzi received forty children-very soon after increased to eightyand began his work. This was in January, 1799, in a time of severe cold. Here, in this one room in which master and pupils had to live both by day and night, was made an experiment in practical education the history of which will, probably, never die. For five months Pestalozzi worked like any slave and nearly killed himself by overwork. He was almost without help: "I opened the establishment with no other helper than a woman-servant ". Nothing was prepared for the children: "Neither kitchen, rooms, nor beds were ready to receive them. At first this was a source of incredible trouble. For the first few weeks I was shut up in a very small room; the weather was bad, and the alterations, which made a great dust and filled the corridors with rubbish, rendered the air very unhealthy. The want of beds compelled me at first to send some of the poor children home at night; and they came back next day covered with vermin.

"Most of them on their arrival were very degenerated specimens of humanity. Many of them had a sort of

chronic skin-disease, which almost prevented their walking; or sores on their heads, or rags full of vermin; many were almost skeletons with haggard, careworn faces and foreheads wrinkled with distrust and dread; some brazen, accustomed to begging, hypocrisy, and all sorts of deceit; others broken by misfortune, patient, but suspicious, timid, and entirely devoid of affection. There were some spoilt children amongst them who had known the sweets of comfort; these were full of pretensions. They kept to themselves, regarding with disdain the little beggars who had become their comrades; tolerating this equality; and quite unable to adapt themselves to the ways of the house, which differed too much from their old habits.

"But what was common to them all was a persistent idleness, resulting from the want of any exercise of their bodily powers and the faculties of their intelligence. Out of every ten children there was hardly one who knew his A B C; as for any other knowledge, it was, of course, out of the question....

"I was alone with them from morning till night. It was from my hand that they received all that could do good to their souls and bodies. All needful help, consolation and instruction they received directly from me. . . . We shared our food and drink. . . . I was with them when they were strong and by their side when they were ill. I slept in their midst. I was the last to go to bed and the first to get up. bed I prayed with them, and, at taught them till they fell asleep. bodies were intolerably filthy, but myself, and was thus constantly exposed to the risk of contagion."

When we retired to
their own request,
Their clothes and
I looked after both

Although sickness broke out amongst them, “on the return of spring it was evident to everybody that the children were 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." But, better still: "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. . . . 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 devoid were they of ideas, good feelings and moral principles. . . . I had incomparably less trouble to develop those children whose minds were still blank, than those who had already acquired inaccurate ideas. . . . My pupils developed rapidly; it was another race. The children very soon felt that there existed in them forces which they did not know, and in particular they acquired a general sentiment of order and beauty. They were self-conscious, and the impression of weariness which habitually reigns in schools vanished like a shadow from my classroom. They willed, they had power, they persevered, they succeeded, and they were happy."

The kind of children with which Pestalozzi had to deal is shown in his report on them to the Directory; e.g., "Jacob Baggenstoss, fifteen, of Stanzstad: father dead, mother living: good health, small capacity; can do nothing more than spin cotton: accustomed to begging.. Gaspard Joseph Waser, eleven, of Stanzstad: father living, mother dead: healthy, and of good