CHAPTER IX.

PESTALOZZI THE THINKER.

STARTING with the fact that Pestalozzi was gifted with a mind which by its native power could pierce more deeply, fully and independently into the inner meaning and significance of things and ideas than the minds of other men-in a word, that he was a genius—we can usefully consider the influences which helped to develop his mind in the direction which it actually took, and the work it did. There is not the least doubt but that the influence of his mother, and the fact that he was entirely under the influence of women during his early years, had a very important and abiding effect upon him. Again, his own wife, and the faithful and devoted Elizabeth Naef, were the only persons who really believed in and supported him in his most terrible time of failure and want at Neuhof. No wonder, therefore, that Elizabeth was immortalised as Gertrude; and that the woman and the mother are regarded by Pestalozzi as the very corner-stone of education and the foundations of society. Education must be based upon the mother's influence and work; and, hence, it must be domestic and industrial in the earliest stages.

His own reading and study at school and college would bring him into touch with at least some of the ideas of the great classical writers on education and

government. In his work On the Idea of Elementary Education he discusses the Greek ideal of education, pointing out that the Greeks based their system on the idea of developing the human faculties by human activities rather than knowledge giving; that they gave general education before special training for work; and that their method of intellectual education is the most perfect model ever given to the world. In How Gertrude Teaches her Children he deals with the Socratic method of teaching, which he considers unsuitable for very young children, because it makes too great demands on the reasoning powers. In his study of law and politics he would deal more especially with principles of government, which would necessarily involve some consideration of systems of education. This was especially likely to be the case under such a man as Professor Bodmer, one of the ablest men of his day and a foremost reformer.

We have already seen his own statement of the influence of Rousseau's works on his mind and heart. His whole conception of education was very largely and deeply influenced, and probably moulded, by Rousseau's views. It is more than likely that in the course of his reading he would become acquainted with the ideas, if not the writings, of Locke and Hobbes. His Inquiry into the Course of Nature in the development of the Human Race seems to suggest this very clearly and strongly. The essays in which he and his fellow collegians shared at the meetings of the Helvetic Society would all help in this direction, for Professor Bodmer was the founder of it, and the subjects dealt with were history, education, politics and ethics. The national work done by this society would, of course, be well known to

Pestalozzi, and would in some measure guide and form his ideas on education.

Pestalozzi was a truly scientific thinker and worker, to a considerable extent; not in a strict, systematic and thorough way, but in that he made a very considerable use of real observation and experiment-as far as his wayward nature would allow. He might almost be said to be the first who began Child-Study, from the educational point of view. His very first attempts at practical teaching were made, as we have seen, in the upbringing of his own son. To further illustrate this we will give one or two more extracts from the diary in which he records his efforts, results and reflections-so extremely interesting and instructive: "When the child knows the signs [names] before learning to know the things they represent, and especially when he connects wrong ideas with them, our daily lessons and conversation only strengthen and increase his mistakes, and force him still further along the path of error without our even suspecting it. . . .

"In the matter of education I am generally very eager to get to know the ideas of those who have been brought up quite naturally and without restraint: who have been taught by life itself and not by lessons.

Do not press your own knowledge too much upon the child, rather let truth itself speak to him: never tire of putting before his eyes whatever is likely to instruct him or help his development." In fact, we find the foundations of most of his principles in these notes.

At Stanz his mind is ever busy watching the effects of his methods upon the children and drawing conclusions therefrom; and these he set down in writing in a letter sent from Gurnigel-where he had gone to re

cruit his health, immediately on leaving Stanz—to his friend Gessner. At Burgdorf he continued this work of observation and reflection. He writes thus about his class-work in school: "I was every moment confronted with facts which threw increasing light on the physical and mechanical laws by which our minds are enabled to receive and retain external impressions. Every day I strove more and more to conform to these laws in my teaching, although I did not thoroughly understand the principle upon which they were based till last summer." Here also he did some individual child-study. He writes: "A mother full of interest for the education of her child, entrusted me with the instruction of her little boy, then hardly three years old. I saw him, for some time, an hour every day; and with him, too, I was merely, as it were, feeling the pulse of the method: I tried to convert letters, figures, and whatever else was at hand, into means of instruction; that is to say, I led him to form, concerning every object, distinct notions, and to express these notions clearly in language. . . . It threw a good deal of light upon the means of enlivening the child's faculties, and inducing him to independent exertion for the preservation and increase of his powers.

"The experiment I made with this boy could not be decisive as to the earliest beginning of instruction; for this reason, that he had already been allowed to pass in comparative inactivity the three first years of his life; a period during which, I am convinced, nature urges upon the child's consciousness an immense variety of objects" (How Gertrude Teaches).

Through these observations and experiments he was led to modify his ideas and methods from time to

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time. Thus in teaching writing at Burgdorf, he says: "Instead of getting the children to form letters with their pencils, as I had done at Stanz, I now gave them angles, squares, straight lines and curves to draw. During these endeavours, the idea of making an alphabet of forms [see p. 218] was gradually developed in me. I had not, however, at first, a very distinct notion of it myself, but in proportion as the subject emerged in my mind from its obscurity, my conviction of its importance for the whole of my proposed method of instruction increased. It was a long time before I saw quite clearly into it; my progress was inconceivably slow. I had for several months, already, been engaged in the attempt to resolve the different means of instruction into their elements, and I had taken great trouble to reduce them to their greatest simplicity. Still I could not see their inter-connection; or at any rate, I had not a clear consciousness of it, though I felt that I was advancing every hour, and that with rapid strides" (How Gertrude Teaches).

M. Tobler has this reference to Pestalozzi's experimenting: "I saw that he attached no value to the details of his experiments, but tried many of them with a view to throw them aside again, as soon as they should have answered their temporary purpose. With many of them he had no other object than to increase the internal power of the children, and to obtain for himself further information concerning the fundamental principles on which all his proceedings rested."

M. Fischer, in a letter to Steinmuller (editor of Swiss Schoolmasters' Library), 20th December, 1799, writes: "It is almost incredible how indefatigably he makes experiments; and inasmuch as he philosophises more