hopeless languishing and complete crippling of the mind.

"I saw in this combination of ignorance and unschooled faculties a power of understanding, and a firm conception of the known and the seen of which our A B C puppets have no notion.

"I learned from them-I must have been blind not to have learned-to know the natural relation which real knowledge bears to book-knowledge. I learnt from them what a handicap this one-sided letter-knowledge and entire reliance on words (which are only sound and noise when there is not something behind them) must be. I saw what a hindrance this may be to the real power of observation, and the firm conception of the objects which surround us.

"Thus far I got at Stanz. I felt that my experiment proved the possibility of founding popular instruction on psychological grounds: of laying true knowledge, gained by sense-impression at the foundation of instruction; and of tearing away the mask of its shallow bombast. I felt that I could solve the problem to unprejudiced and intelligent men: though, as I well knew, I could never enlighten the prejudiced crowd, who are like geese which, ever since they cracked the shell, have been confined in coop and shed, and have lost all power of flying and swimming" (How Gertrude Teaches).

When he was sufficiently recovered from his illness he again began schoolwork. This time it was at Burgdorf. Again he was beset with jealousy and misunderstanding; so much so that it was only through the help of influential friends that he was allowed to work in a small school the master of which was a shoemaker. From this school the parents of the scholars and the

shoemaker soon got him removed, and he was sent to a dame school where only children between four and eight years of age were admitted-an infants' schooland where they were taught only reading and writing. It was thought that, at any rate, he could do very little harm there. Says Pestalozzi: "It was whispered that I myself could not write, nor work accounts, nor even read decently. Popular reports are not always entirely destitute of truth; it is true I could not write, nor read, nor work accounts well." No: he could only think like a genius and work like a hero!

It is interesting, in this connection, to remember that when he wrote his Leonard and Gertrude it was “insufferably incorrect and unpolished," and "the want of orthographical accuracy" had to "be rectified". At Neuhof he taught the children to work so well and quickly in arithmetic that he himself had to use a slate and pencil to check their answers. He had vowed to have done with books when he left college, and to learn through things and work. To this resolution he had firmly kept. He writes: "For these last thirty years I have read no book, nor have I been able to read any; I had no language left for abstract notions; in my mind there was nothing but living truths, brought to my consciousness in an intuitive manner, in the course of my experience; but I was no more able to analyse those truths, than to bring to my recollection the details of the observations by which I had been led to their discovery". These passages must, of course, be interpreted by what we know of his education and training, and his life-work thus far.

In this small infants' school of twenty-five children, where the amiable indifference of the good old dame

left him a free hand, Pestalozzi was thoroughly at home. His genius and his fatherly methods were in suitable surroundings, and his work was a triumphant success. After eight months' work the Burgdorf School Commission examined the children, and then wrote this public letter to Pestalozzi: "The surprising progress of your little scholars of various capacities shows plainly that every one is good for something, if the teacher knows how to get at his abilities and develop them according to the laws of psychology. By your method of teaching you have proved how to lay the groundwork of instruction in such a way that it may afterwards support what is built on it. . . . Between the ages of five and eight, a period in which according to the system of torture enforced hitherto, children have learnt to know their letters, to spell and read, your scholars have not only accomplished all this with a success as yet unknown, but the best of them have already distinguished themselves by their good writing, drawing and calculating. In them all you have been able so to arouse and excite a liking for history, natural history, mensuration, geography, etc., that thus future teachers must find their task a far easier one if they only know how to make good use of the preparatory stage the children have gone through with you." Further, his plan of instruction "could be applied during the earliest years at which instruction could be given in the family circle : by a mother, by a child who was a little older than the beginner, or by an intelligent servant whilst doing her household work ". All of which was doubtless the report of the School Commission, but the voice is the voice of Pestalozzi and the words are his words-the commissioners doubtless saw enough to believe in Pestalozzi,

and then, like wise men, were content to let him speak through them.

Soon after the issue of this report Pestalozzi was appointed master of the second boys' school of Burgdorf. Here he did not succeed so well; and soon had to resign owing to a pulmonary attack. When well enough to resume work he obtained such effectual help from some of his friends in office that the Helvetic Government granted him the use of the castle at Burgdorf for a school-M. Fischer having died. He managed-thanks to the help of the "Society of the Friends of Education," which had been founded, on the initiative of Stapfer, for the purpose of promoting Pestalozzi's work-to raise a loan for preparing and furnishing the building and, towards the end of 1799, opened an educational establishment. In this he was assisted by M. Krüsi, a village schoolmaster-then twenty-five years of age-who had shortly before come to Burgdorf with twenty-eight orphans, whose parents were the victims of the Austro-Russian and French war. Krüsi had continued to teach these children in a day-school in the castle at Burgdorf, under the superintendence of M. Fischer, Secretary to the Helvetian Minister of Public Instruction, who had been sent by the Government to open a training college for teachers in the castle, but, owing to the necessary funds not being supplied, had been unable to do so. M. Fischer became greatly interested in Pestalozzi's theories and work; had many talks with him; and was the means of bringing him and Krüsi together.

Pestalozzi was to conduct a boarding-school for the children of the well-to-do people, and Krüsi was to continue his day-school. In a letter (February, 1801) to the central Government at Bern he declares his aims to be :

(1) To pursue the development, as experience should suggest, of his methods in the different branches of public and private education;

(2) To publish the results of his researches and experiments, and to write, for the guidance of wellmeaning parents and teachers, such manuals as would enable them to carry out his plans of instruction; and

(3) To train teachers in the theory and practice of his work so that they should be wise and skilful therein. The means by which he proposed to carry out these objects were:

(1) The day-school at Burgdorf, of which Krüsi's orphans were the nucleus;

(2) The boarding-school just started, which was designed for children of the middle and higher classes;

(3) A teachers' training college (normal school) such as had been proposed under M. Fischer; and

(4) An orphan asylum-to be supported by private subscriptions, and the profits, if any, from the boardingschool, and the sale of books.

Assisted by two other teachers, Pestalozzi and Krüsi soon began successfully to realise these aims and ends. On the first day of the year 1801, at the request of his friend Gessner, a bookseller of Zurich, he wrote an account of his experiments and work up to this point under the title: How Gertrude Teaches her Children; an Attempt to give Directions to Mothers how to Instruct their own Children. This is really an autobiography and exposition of his theories. There is no Gertrude, other than Pestalozzi himself; and there are no children, other than all children. With the contents of this book we shall deal later. It was published in October,