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years with incredible toil, and which, when it did appear, was doomed to the most complete neglect, was his 'Researches into the Course of Nature in the Development of the Human Race.'

The consequences of the French Revolution called Pestalozzi from his philosophical speculations. French troops poured into Switzerland. Everything was remodelled after the French pattern. The government was placed in the hands of five Directors, according to the phase which the supreme power had then (1798) taken in the model country. Pestalozzi avowed himself the champion of the new order of things, and his pen was at once employed by the Directors. These men had not, however, the discernment of Lavater, who once told Madam Pestalozzi, 'I would consult your husband in everything connected with the condition of the people, though I would never entrust him with a farthing of money.' By the Directors, Pestalozzi was not consulted at all. 'I wished for nothing,' he said, 'but that the sources of the savage and degraded state of the people might be stopped, and the evils flowing from them arrested. The Novi Homines of Helvetia, whose wishes went further, and who had no knowledge of the condition of the people, found, of course, that I was not the man for them. They took every straw for a mast, by which they might sail the Republic to a safe shore; but me, me alone, they took for a straw not fit for a fly to cling to. They did me good, however -more good than any men have ever done me--they restored me to myself.' It was thought that he had espoused their cause to secure for himself some

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Government appointment, and the Directors asked him what he would be. His answer was, 'I will be a schoolmaster'-an answer which probably confirmed his friends in the opinion they had before expressed, that he would end his days either in the poorhouse or the madhouse.

Among the directors was Le Grand, who entered into Pestalozzi's views, and at once placed at his disposal the means of opening a school in Aargau : but events occurred which led him to another sphere of labour, and caused him to undertake a much more difficult task. The Catholic and democratic canton of Unterwalden did not accept the changes which the French introduced. It was consequently invaded by a French army, many of the inhabitants were killed, and Stanz, the capital, was pillaged and burnt. These strong measures of their allies were in secret disapproved of by the Swiss Directors, who were therefore anxious to do what they could to relieve the sufferings of their fellow-countrymen. Le Grand proposed to Pestalozzi to give up his other plans for the present, and to go to Stanz and take charge of the orphan and destitute children there. Pestalozzi was not the man to refuse such a task as this. 'I went,' he writes. 'I would have gone into the remotest clefts of the mountains, to come nearer my aim, and now I really did come nearer.'

He established himself with no assistants, and with only one servant, in a convent which was building for the Ursulines. There was but one room fit for occupation when he arrived. Children came flocking in, many of whom were orphans, and could

not be otherwise provided for. The one room became a school-room and a dormitory for Pestalozzi and as many children as it would hold. There were soon eighty under Pestalozzi's charge during the day, some of the neighbours taking in children to sleep. Of the eighty, many were beggar children, not accustomed to any control, vicious in their habits, and afflicted with loathsome diseases. Those who had been better off were helpless and exacting. And for all these Pestalozzi, then over fifty years of age, undertook the management, the clothing, feeding, teaching, and even the performance of the most menial offices. The parents, who looked upon him as the paid official of a hated Government, and, moreover, distrusted him as a Protestant, annoyed him in every way they could, and encouraged the children in disorder and discontent. And yet the Protestant was giving an example of love and self-sacrifice worthy of the noblest saint in the Calendar. This love did not lose its reward. By degrees it gained him the affection of the children, and introduced harmony and order into the chaos which at first surrounded him.

The very disadvantages in which he was placed drove him to discoveries he would never otherwise have made. His whole school apparatus consisted of himself and his pupils; so he studied the children themselves, their wants and capacities. I stood in the midst of them,' he says, ' pronouncing various sounds, and asking the children to imitate them. Whoever saw it was struck with the effect. It is true it was like a meteor which vanishes in the air as soon as it appears. No one understood its nature. I did not understand

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it myself. It was the result of a simple idea, or rather, of a fact of human nature, which was revealed to my feelings, but of which I was far from having a clear consciousness.' Again he says, 'Being obliged to instruct the children by myself, without any assistance, I learnt the art of teaching a great number together; and as I had no other means of bringing the instruction before them than that of pronouncing everything to them loudly and distinctly, I was naturally led to the idea of making them draw, write, or work all at the same time.

The confusion of so many voices repeating my words suggested the necessity of keeping time in our exercises, and I soon found that this contributed materially to make their impressions stronger and more distinct. Their total ignorance forced me to dwell a long time on the simplest elements, and I was thus led to perceive how much higher a degree of interest and power is obtained by a persevering attention to the elementary parts until they be perfectly familiar to the mind; and what confidence and interest the child is inspired with by the consciousness of complete and perfect attainment, even in the lowest stage of instruction. Never before had I so deeply felt the important bearing which the first elements of every branch of knowledge have upon its complete outline, and what immense deficiencies in the final result of it must arise from the confusion and imperfection of the simplest beginnings. To bring these to maturity and perfection in the child's mind became now a main object of my attention; and the success far surpassed my expectations. The

consciousness of energies hitherto unknown to themselves was rapidly developed in the children, and a general sense of order and harmony began to prevail among them. They felt their own powers, and the tediousness of the common school tone vanished like a spectre from the room. They were determined to try, they succeeded; they persevered, they accomplished and were delighted. Their mood was not that of laborious learning, it was the joy of unknown powers aroused from sleep; their hearts and minds were elevated by the anticipation of what their powers would enable them to attempt and to effect.'

Of course his first difficulty was to arrest the attention of a great number of children. This he overcame by appealing to their senses. Combining this experience with the ideas he had received many years before from Rousseau, he invented his system of object-lessons. He was also driven by his needs to something like a system of monitors, though in an informal way. If a child was found to know anything he was put between two others to whom he might teach it.

Thus, during the short period, not more than a year, which Pestalozzi spent among the children at Stanz, he settled the main features of the Pestalozzian system.

Sickness broke out among the children, and the wear and tear was too great even for Pestalozzi. He would probably have sunk under his efforts if the French, pressed by the Austrians, had not entered Stanz, in January 1799, and taken part of the

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