Swiss revolution inaugurated by French; Pestalozzi's opportunity. In 1798 the French invaded Switzerland and set up, in place of the loose confederation of cantons with their semifeudal organization, the Swiss Republic with a strong central government modeled after that of France. This Swiss revolution of 1798 marked the turning point in Pestalozzi's career. Before it he had labored almost unaided for the regeneration of the poor through industrial education. After it he was mainly engaged in conducting experimental schools in which his main interest was not industrial education for the poor, but a new psychological basis for teaching the ordinary elementary-school subjects. His work with a group of orphan children at Stanz marks the transition. Although at first Pestalozzi had feared the interference of the French, when he saw how the new government swept away oligarchy, family and local privileges, and numerous customs which had interfered with the equality and liberty of the Swiss people, he became enthusiastic for the new régime and offered his services in connection with education. But the new government was not so cordially received by all the Swiss, the opposition being particularly strong in the secluded, rough forest cantons of Schwyz, Uri, and Unterwalden, where the simple life, popular assemblies, and the patriotic spirit of William Tell still prevailed. These cantons refused to take the oath of allegiance to the new government and offered such stubborn resistance to the French troops that the latter, infuriated, instituted a general massacre (September 9, 1798) of men, women, and children — of even the old and infirm who had assembled in the church at Stanz, the chief town of the district. The report to the French minister showed : Dead, 259 men, 102 women, 25 children. Buildings burned, 240 dwelling houses, 288 barns, 144 Approximate value of buildings and furniture destroyed, There were 169 orphans and 237 other children unprovided for because of the utter destitution of their families. Stanz (1799), transition from interest in industrial education to elementary-school methods. To provide for these children the government established an orphan asylum in a convent building in Stanz and put Pestalozzi in charge. Here he labored for five months (January-June, 1799) with some eighty children, until the buildings were taken by the French troops as a hospital. Pestalozzi planned to carry out his scheme of developing the children by manual labor, with a few hours of study each day; but owing to the uncompleted condition of the buildings, the lack of equipment, and the hard winter, the manual labor was tardily developed and Pestalozzi devoted considerable time to oral instruction in spelling and arithmetic. By the middle of April, however, he wrote: "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. The difficulty of combining work and instruction grows less every day." Though neither labor nor learning made much progress at Stanz, the experiment was remarkable for the moral development made by the children under the strict but loving care of Pestalozzi, who lived in their midst and worked so incessantly that his health broke down. The Stanz incident is the finest example of the Pestalozzian method of regeneration through a thinking love." It was his last significant attempt to carry out his scheme of industrial training. Henceforth his time was spent in connection with the work of the ordinary elementary school (see 5: 149 for Pestalozzi's letter describing the Stanz situation). ९९ Burgdorf (1799-1804); best period of experimentation with school subjects.—The next five years of Pestalozzi's life were spent in Burgdorf, where he did the most original and best work in developing elementary education. At first he secured a position teaching in the school kept by a shoemaker for TWO PICTURES OF PESTALOZZI'S SCHOOL AT STANZ Showing conceptions of different artists. The lower picture probably represents the real conditions better. Reproduced by courtesy of the publisher from Barnard's "Pestalozzi and his Educational System." (C. W. Bardeen, Syracuse) the instruction of the poorer children in the town. Here Pestalozzi taught without pay, so anxious was he to have a chance to experiment. He had half of the seventy-three children in the school under his direction, but as his instruction was largely oral and he neglected to teach the catechism, he aroused the suspicions of the parents and lost his position. Then he was allowed to teach in the A B C dame school maintained for the burgesses' children. The School Commission of Burgdorf reported in high praise of the results of his oral method, in which he used reading and arithmetic charts. His success secured him a place to teach in a class of older children (six to fifteen years) with whom he did not succeed so well. Meanwhile Pestalozzi had kept in touch with the government, and in July, 1800, the Executive Council granted him the gratuitous use of part of the old Burgdorf castle and its garden for school purposes. Here he was joined by his first helper, Kruesi, who had come to Burgdorf in charge of some thirty destitute children from the eastern part of Switzerland, which had been devastated by the war of the French against the Austrians and Prussians. The people of Burgdorf, like those of other towns removed from the scene of war, agreed to provide homes for some of these children, and Kruesi had brought them over the mountains. The school in the castle prospered, and Pestalozzi added assistant teachers - Tobler for geography and history, Buss for drawing and singing, Neef, an old Napoleonic soldier, for gymnastics, Kruesi teaching language and arithmetic. Pestalozzi announced that he would take boarding pupils and would maintain an institute for training teachers, which he did successfully for about three and a half years. This success led to donations of money and firewood from the government and some subscriptions from private sources. Various commissions investigated the work of the school and reported favorably, and scores of visitors flocked to Burgdorf from many countries. In 1802 there were 102 persons in the institute, including 72 pupils, 10 masters, and a number of foreigners who were studying the method. Pestalozzi published here "How Gertrude teaches her Children," his most important pedagogical treatise; a "Guide for teaching Spelling and Reading," accompanied by large movable letters; a "Book for Mothers," describing methods of object teaching. Yverdon (1805-1825); famous but unhappy experiment.In 1803, under the influence of Napoleon, the unitary centralized government was abolished in Switzerland and a somewhat closer federation of cantons than had existed before 1798 reëstablished. The local government of the canton in which Burgdorf was located needed the castle, and Pestalozzi had to move. For a few months he formed a partnership with Fellenberg, who was as efficient in practical affairs as Pestalozzi was inefficient. Pestalozzi and his school, however, could not endure the business-like régime which Fellenberg established and they soon separated, Pestalozzi accepting the invitation extended by the town of Yverdon to locate his school there, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In Yverdon, Pestalozzi continued his institute for twenty years (1805-1825), where it enjoyed even greater fame than it did in Burgdorf. Visitors, serious and curious, came by hundreds, many making a point of seeing Pestalozzi, just as they would of seeing a lake or a glacier. At the same time the institute was involved in considerable controversy with critics, who were stimulated by the unfavorable report of a committee appointed by the Swiss Diet in 1809 to investigate the actual efficiency of the teaching rather than the validity of Pestalozzi's theories. He had many assistant teachers, some of whom stayed only a few years and then left to establish Pestalozzian institutes in all parts of Europe. Several of these assistants were permanent, however, and they specialized in experimenting with Pestalozzi's principles in application to various subjects. Jealousies developed among them as a result of their ambitions |