the aims and principles of the work, and confined themselves wholly to the results produced. After their inspection they wrote a report which was presented to the Diet in 1810: a vote of thanks, on behalf of the nation, was accorded to Pestalozzi; and the report ordered to be printed. Whilst recognising many merits in the work of the institution, the commissioners pointed out many things which they thought might be improved; and, on the whole, it may be said that the work was damned with faint praise. A long and heated controversy between the opponents and friends (including the staff) of the school took place in the public journals, and by pamphlets and books, the result of which was anything but favourable to the success of the work or harmony amongst the workers.

Much light is thrown upon what we may call the domestic affairs of the institution by Ramsauer, himself a member of it. He writes: "In Burgdorf [where Ramsauer was one of the pupils] an active and entirely new life opened to me; there reigned so much love and simplicity in the institution, the life was so genial-I could almost say patriarchal; not much was learned, it is true, but Pestalozzi was the father, and the teachers were the friends of the pupils. . . . At Yverdon . . . we all felt that more must be learned than at Burgdorf; but we all fell, in consequence, into a restless pushing and driving, and the individual teachers into a scramble after distinction. Pestalozzi, indeed, remained the same noble-hearted old man, wholly forgetting himself, and living only for the welfare of others, and infusing his own spirit into the entire household. . . . So long as the institution was small, Pestalozzi could, by his thoroughly amiable personal character, adjust at once

...

every slight discordance, he stood in much closer relation with every individual member of the circle, and could thus observe every peculiarity of disposition, and influence it according to necessity.

"This ceased when the family life was transformed in the institution into a constitutional state existence. Now the individual was more easily lost in the crowd: thus there arose a desire, on the part of each, to make himself felt and noticed. Egotism made its appearance every day in more pointed forms. Envy and jealousy rankled in the breasts of many."

Of these things Pestalozzi himself was not unaware. When the institution was removed from Munchen Buchsee to Yverdon, he recognised that it contained “the seeds of its own internal decay in the unequal and contradictory character of the abilities, opinions, inclinations and claims of its members; although as yet this dissension had not done anything but declare itself general, unrestrained and fierce. . . . But the seeds of our decay had been sown, and though they were still invisible in many places, had taken deep root...

"Led aside by worldly temptations and apparent good fortune from the purity, simplicity and innocence of our first endeavours, divided among ourselves in our inmost feelings, and from the first made incapable, by the heterogeneous nature of our peculiarities, of ever becoming of one mind and one heart in spirit and in truth for the attainment of our objects, we stood there outwardly united, even deceiving ourselves with respect to the real truth of our inclination to this union. And unfortunately we advanced, each one in his own manner, with firm, and at one time with rapid steps along a path which, without our being really conscious of it, separ

ated us every day further from the possibility of our ever becoming united."

During the year 1810 these personal differences between members of the staff, which had been growing for some time, became so acute that one of the most important of them-Schmid, the mathematical teacher and business manager-left the institute. This caused

very great grief to Pestalozzi. Again also his extravagant generosity and unbusiness-like habits brought him into serious financial difficulties. By 1815 matters were so bad that the staff, in despair, invited Schmid to return. This was the beginning of the end. The domestic quarrels were soon revived, with increased bitterness; lawsuits arose, one of which lasted seven years. Krüsi, the most loyal and loving of his admirers and helpers, left the institute in 1816-writing this tender note of farewell: "Father, my time of enjoying your presence is past. I must leave your institution, as it is now conducted, if I am not for ever to lose my courage and strength to live for you and your work. For all that you were to me and all that I was able to be to you, I thank God; for all my shortcomings, I pray God and yourself to forgive me." Niederer, the ablest of all the exponents of Pestalozzi's views, left him in 1817. Krüsi afterwards established a private school for boys in Yverdon. Five years later a reconciliation was brought about; but the greatest possible mischief had been done to the fair fame of the institution, and public opinion and confidence had received a severe shock, in consequence of the newspaper and controversial writings connected with these quarrels.

Though such things were happening at home still Pestalozzi's name and fame stood high in other countries.

When the allied army, violating the country's neutrality, passed through Switzerland to attack Napoleon, the castle and other buildings at Yverdon were requisitioned for military purposes. To escape this infliction two town's deputies, accompanied by Pestalozzi, were sent to ask that the town might be excused. Thanks to Pestalozzi's influence-he was "received with most extraordinary favour"-they were successful. Pupils still came to the institute from other countries.

In 1816, M. Jullien took with him twenty-four students from France; though he stayed only a year, owing, it is said, to the conduct of Schmid. Dr. Mayo took several pupils from England to Yverdon in 1819. Mr. Greaves, an Englishman who did much for the founding of infants' schools in England, joined the institute and took part in its work. It is said that about half a dozen poor children were sent from England to the school.

Neither was Pestalozzi's ever-youthful energy quenched or his hopeful spirit damped, and in 1818 he established a Poor School at Clindy, a hamlet near Yverdon. This had twelve pupils-neglected children—and was conducted on the lines of the original Poor School at Neuhof. "They were to be brought up as poor boys," he says, "and receive that kind of instruction which is suitable for the poor, including, amongst other things, chopping wood and carting manure.' Here Pestalozzi was himself again. In a little world where he himself could be all and everything, he, though an old man of seventy-two, repeated his greatest personal success. "Old, absentminded, and incapable as he seemed in ordinary affairs, he, as though by enchantment, gained the attention and the affection of the children, and

bent them entirely to his will" (Quick, Educational Reformers).

The Clindy Poor School soon became famous; and in a few months there were thirty pupils. But unfortunately, as it turned out, Pestalozzi, with what he calls his "unrivalled incapacity to govern," allowed the curriculum to be more and more brought into line with that at the institute; other teachers took part in the work; paying pupils were admitted; and finally the whole character of the school changed. Schmid then persuaded him to transfer the school to the Yverdon institute.

Pestalozzi had hoped, a little later on, to take the children to Neuhof, and there re-establish for his declining years the undertaking with which he had begun his life's work. Each of the poor children had been bound over to stay in the school for five years. When this time expired not one remained. Of this he writes: "The illusion in my mind, as to the possibility of transplanting to Neuhof an establishment in Yverdon of which not an inch was in reality any longer mine, was now entirely dispelled. To resign myself to this conviction, required me to do no less than abandon all my hopes and aims in regard to this project, as for me completely unattainable. I did so at last, and on 17th March, 1824, I announced my total inability further to fulfil the expectations and hopes which I had excited, by my projected Poor School, in the hearts of so many philanthropists and friends of education."

Within a year came the last sad blow: broken by internal dissensions, and crushed by debt, the institute at Yverdon had to be closed; after having stood as the beacon light of education for more than twenty years.