to Krüsi to join him in establishing an educational institution: Krüsi willingly agreed, and through him the coöperation of M. Tobler, who had been for the last five years tutor in a family in Basel, was obtained; through Tobler, that of M. Buss, of Tübingen. With these three assistants, Pestalozzi opened the institution in the winter of 1800.

It was in Burgdorf that Pestalozzi commenced a work which, with the "Evening Hour," and "Leonard and Gertrude,” stands out conspicuously amongst his writings. It was commenced on the 1st of January, 1801.

It bears the queer title, "How Gertrude teaches her children: an attempt to give Directions to Mothers how to instruct their own Children." The reader must not be misled by the title; the book contains any thing but directions for mothers."

There are numerous contradictions throughout the book, as well as on the title page; and it is therefore a most difficult task to give a condensed view of it. Almost the only way to accomplish this will be to resolve it into its elements.

Nothing can be more touching than the passage in which the author speaks of the desire of his whole life to alleviate the condition of the suffering people-of his inability to satisfy this desire-of his many blunders-and of his despair of himself; and then humbly thanks God, who had preserved him, when he had cast himself away, and who graciously permitted him, even in old age, to look forward to a brighter future. It is impossible to read any thing more affecting.

The second element of this book is a fierce and fulminating battle against the sins and faults of his time. He advances to the assault at storm-pace, and clears every thing before him with the irresistible force of truth. He directs his attack principally against the hollow education of our time, particularly in the higher ranks of society. He calls the members of the aristocracy "miserable creatures of mere words, who by the artificialities of their mode of life are rendered incapable of feeling that they themselves stand on stilts, and that they must come down off their wretched wooden legs, in order to stand on God's earth with even the same amount of firmness as the people."

In another part of the book, Pestalozzi declaims warmly against all the education of the present age. "It sacrifices, (he says,) the substance of all instruction to the nonsense about particular isolated system of instruction, and by filling the mind with fragments of truth, it quenches the spirit of truth itself, and deprives mankind of the power of independence which is based thereon. I have found, what

was very obvious, that this system of instruction, does not base the use of particular means either on elementary principles or elementary forms. The state of popular instruction rendered it inevitable that Europe should sink into error, or rather madness, and into this it really did sink. On the one hand, it raised itself into a gigantic height in particular arts; on the other, it lost for the whole of its people all the stability and support which are to be obtained by resting on the guidance of nature. On the one side, no quarter of the globe ever stood so high; but on the other, no quarter of the globe has ever sunk so low. With the golden head of its particular arts, it touches the clouds, like the image of the prophet; but popular instruction, which ought to be the basis and support of this golden head, is every where, on the contrary, the most wretched, fragile, good-for-nothing clay, like the feet of that gigantic image."

For this incongruity in our intellectual culture, he blames chiefly the art of printing, through which, he says, the eyes have become book-eyes-men have become book-men.

Throughout the work, he speaks against the senseless use of the tongue against the habit of talking without any real purpose. "The babbling disposition of our time, (he says,) is so much bound up with the struggle of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands for their daily bread, and with their slavish adherence to custom, that it will be long, very long, before this temporizing race shall gladly receive into their hearts truths so much opposed to their sensual depravity. Wherever the fundamental faculties of the human mind are allowed to lie dormant, and on those dormant faculties empty words are propt up, there you are making dreamers, whose visions are all the more visionary because the words that were propt up on their miserable yawning existence, were high-sounding, and full of pretensions. As a matter of course, such pupils will dream any and every thing before they will dream that they are sleeping and dreaming; but all those about them who are awake, perceive their presumption, and, (when it suits,) put them down as somnambulists.

"The meaningless declamation of this superficial knowledge produces men who fancy that they have reached the goal in all branches of study, just because their whole life is a belabored prating about that goal; but they never accomplish so much as to make an effort to reach it, because through their life it never had that alluring charm in their eyes which any object must possess to induce a man to make an effort to attain it. The present age abounds in men of this class, and is diseased by a kind of wisdom which carries us forward pro formâ, as cripples are borne along a race-course, to the goal of knowl

edge, when, at the same time, it could never enable us to advance toward this gaol by our own efforts, before our feet had been healed."

In other parts of the book he attacks governments as indifferent to the welfare of the people. "The lower classes of Europe, (he says,) are neglected and wretched: most of those who stand sufficiently near to be able to help them, have no time for thinking what may be for their welfare-they have always something to do quite different from this."

From this, the second and polemical element of the book, I pass to the third and positive one, namely, the kind of education by which Pestalozzi proposes to replace the false education of our time. This might in some measure be anticipated from the polemical passages which have been cited.

He thus enunciates the problem which he proposed to himself to solve: "In the empirical researches which I made in reference to my subject, I did not start from any positive system; I was not acquainted with any one; I simply put to myself the question, What would you do, if you wanted to give a single child all the theoretical knowledge and practical skill which he requires in order to be able to attend properly to the great concerns of life, and so attain to inward contentment?"

Theoretical knowledge and practical skill constitute, accordingly, the most important subjects of the work. They are treated with a special relation to the two questions,-What knowledge and skill do children require? and, How are these best imparted to them? The aim is to point out the proper object of education, and the way to attain that object.

Of practical skill, however, there is comparatively very little said, notwithstanding that Pestalozzi sets so high a value upon it. "Knowledge without skill, (he says,) is perhaps the most fatal gift which an evil genius has bestowed upon the present age." But Pestalozzi's ideas in relation to practical skill, and the method of attaining it, seem to have been still indistinct.

On the other hand, he is quite at home in the region of theoretical knowledge: to show the starting-point, the road, and the destination, in the journey through this region, is the main design of his work.

His polemic against senseless talking shows that he had sought and found the real root of the tree of which words are the spiritual blossoms.

The beginning of all knowledge, according to Pestalozzi, is observation; the last point to be attained, a clear notion. He says: "If I look back and ask myself what I really have done toward the

improvement of the methods of elementary instruction, I find that, in recognizing observation as the absolute basis of all knowledge, I have established the first and most important principle of instruction, and that, setting aside all particular systems of instructions, I have endeavored to discover what ought to be the character of the instruction itself, and what are the fundamental laws according to which the education of the human race must be determined by nature." In another place, he requires it to be acknowledged, "that observation is the absolute basis of all knowledge, in other words, that all knowledge must proceed from observation and must admit of being retraced to that source."

But what does Pestalozzi understand by observation? "It is, (he says,) simply directing the senses to outward objects, and exciting consciousness of the impression produced on them by those objects." He refers, of course, principally to the sense of sight. But the ear is not to be neglected. "When sounds are produced so as to be heard by the child, and its consciousness of the impression which these sounds make on its mind through the sense of hearing is aroused, this, to the child, is just as much observation, as when objects are placed before its eyes, and consciousness is awakened by the impression which the objects make on the sense of sight. By the aid of his spelling book, therefore, the child's ear is to be familiarized with the series of elementary sounds which constitutes the foundation of a knowledge of language, just as it is to be made acquainted with visible objects by the aid of his Book for Mothers.

According to this, observation would mean every impression which the mind receives through the eye and the ear.

Does Pestalozzi exclude the remaining senses? No; for he frequently speaks of the impressions of the five senses, and he says that the understanding collects the impressions which the senses receive from external nature into a whole, or into a, notion, and then develops this idea until it attains clearness. And elsewhere he says that the mechanical form of all instruction should be regulated by the eternal laws according to which the human mind rises from the perceptions of sense to clear notions.

Pestalozzi repeatedly dwells upon this process of intellectual development.

Above every thing, he will have attention given to the first step in the process, namely observation. Care is to be taken that the objects are seen separately by the children, not dimly at a distance, but close at hand and distinctly; then also that there shall be placed before the children, not abnormal, but characteristic specimens of any class

of objects—such as will convey a correct idea of the thing and of its most important properties. Thus, for example, a lame, one-eyed, or six-fingered man, he says, would not be proper to convey the idea of the human form.

Out of the observation of an object, the first thing that arises, he says, is the necessity of naming it; from naming it, we pass on to determining its properties, that is to description; out of a clear description is finally developed the definition-the distinct idea of the object. The full maturity of this, the last fruit of all instruction, de.pends materially on the vigorous germination of the seed sown in the first instance on the amount of wisdom exercised in guiding the children to habits of observation. Definitions not founded on observations, he says, produce a superficial and unprofitable kind of knowledge.

Just when we begin to think that we understand Pestalozzi's views, he again leads us into uncertainty as to the idea which he attaches to observation.

He says the idea had only lately struck him, "that all our knowledge arises out of number, form, and words." On this triple basis, says, education must proceed; and

he

"1. It must teach the children to look attentively at every object which they are made to perceive as unity, that is, as separated from those other objects with which it appears in connection.

2. It must make them acquainted with the form of every object, that is, its size and proportion.

3. It must teach them as early as possible the names and words applicable to all the objects with which they are acquainted."

Pestalozzi found it difficult, however, to answer the question, "Why are not all the other properties which the five senses enable us to perceive in objects, just as much elements of our knowledge, as number, form, and name?" His answer is, "All possible objects have necessarily number, form, and name; but the remaining properties which the senses enable us to perceive are not possessed by any object in common with all others, but this property is shared with one object, and that with another."

When Pestalozzi made form a category to embrace all and every thing, he only thought of the visible, as is evidenced by the further development of his instruction in form, which deals chiefly with the measuring of visible objects.

But there are innumerable observations which have nothing whatever to do with form and number; for example, tasting honey, smelling roses, &c.