Latin. As he honoured the writer of this article with his friendship and confidence, he came to him one day and explained at some length what he had already accomplished. This was in July, 1822. Shortly afterwards I had to take a journey which kept me away from Pestalozzi for more than eighteen months; but I was no sooner back than he came to me again, and after asking for my family and health, at once took up our conversation on the teaching of Latin where we had dropped it in July, 1822, exclaiming: us begin at once, and lose no time. " 'Let It is now our painful duty to turn to the deplorable quarrels between Pestalozzi and Schmidt, and their old collaborators. In the first place, Niederer, to excuse himself for having left the institute, attacked Schmidt; and then Schmidt, to justify himself, attacked Niederer. The controversy became more and more bitter and violent. Pestalozzi was not really concerned in it, but as he was unwilling to leave Schmidt in the breach, he accepted the responsibility of all his acts. Niederer, out of respect for his former master, did what he could to spare him, but unfortunately the severe blows he aimed at Schmidt all fell on the old man. The better to satisfy his animosity, Schmidt had invented two ways of attacking his adversaries, both in the ostensible interests of Pestalozzi and his institute. The first was in connection with the girls' school which Pestalozzi had founded and made over to the Niederers. Schmidt maintained that the transaction had never been closed, and that there was still money owing to Pestalozzi, an allegation which Niederer entirely denied. After the dispute had lasted some years, Pestalozzi and Schmidt withdrew their claim. The other method was to induce the Government of the canton of Vaud to forbid those of Pestalozzi's collaborators who had left the institute to open private educational establishments in Yverdun; and with this object Pestalozzi addressed a memorial to the Government, a copy of which he sent, on the 23rd of October, 1818, to the Yverdun Municipality, with the request that they would support his demand. But the Municipality refused, saying that as perfect liberty of action in such matters was guaranteed in the canton, the Council of State itself would not have the right to do as he wished. On the 30th of the same month, Niederer, Krusi and Naef asked the Municipality to acquaint them with the tenor of Pestalozzi's memorial, a request that was also refused. We do not know what precise answer the Government made Pestalozzi, but it was bound to be in the negative. Niederer continued therefore to direct his institute for girls, and Naef his for deaf mutes, while Krusi and Knusert together founded a boarding-school for boys, the sole direction of which, however, soon devolved upon Knusert, Krusi being called away to direct the cantonal school of Trogen in his native canton. Meanwhile Niederer had commenced proceedings against Schmidt for libel. After a long trial, however, Schmidt was acquitted. But this state of things, which had already deprived the institute of the support it most needed, and was now fast bringing about its final ruin, made Pestalozzi exceedingly unhappy, so that he was ready to do anything for the sake of peace, except indeed the one thing necessary, which was to dismiss Schmidt. Since the death of his wife he had been without the advice and affectionate sympathy that for forty-five years had supported and cheered him through the hardest trials; and though his belief in his work, his devotion, vivid imagination, and persevering activity were still the same, they not infrequently gave way to periods of grief and despondency. In February, 1823, during one of these sad times, he wrote to the Niederers, begging them to put an end to the proceedings they had instituted against Schmidt, and in which the old man, anxious to answer for his friend, had found himself involved. This letter, which Pestalozzi afterwards printed in the Experiences, runs as follows: "I implore you, in the name of God, deliver me from the martyrdom that I am suffering in this guilty war, which for nearly six years has been raging between our two socalled Christian institutions with wicked and arti-Christian obstinacy. Think, my dear Niederer, of all we have hoped together, and of what we have been for each other; become, so far as possible, my old friend again, as I would fain be • once more yours. Oh, Niederer, would that our former love might so strengthen and sanctify us that we might go and take the sacrament together without fearing to cause surprise and scandal amongst our neighbours! Dear friends, I am standing on the brink of the grave; will you not let me go down to it in tranquillity? But there is also something left for me to do on earth; I implore you, therefore, free me from the tortures that these miserable quarrellings inflict upon me, that henceforth I may go on with my work in peace. Grant me this help, and I promise you my love and gratitude till my life's end." One wonders how Niederer can have resisted such an appeal, and whether he had completely lost the admiration and respect he had once felt for Pestalozzi. This was certainly not the case, but the fact is that he dared not trust the feeble old man so long as he remained such a mere tool in Schmidt's hands. Meanwhile the Vaudese Government, enlightened either by Pestalozzi's request as to the collaborators who had left the institute, or by the reports of the Yverdun municipality on the proceedings that had been instituted against them, had become aware of this unhappy state of things; and, fearful lest these painful disputes should result in the ruin of a useful and celebrated institution, determined to put an end to them. It accordingly instructed its representative at Yverdun to interpose and make an effort to bring about a reconciliation, which, after much trouble, he succeeded in doing, the contending parties consenting to sign a sort of treaty of peace, which was drawn up in French by Niederer himself. It will be observed that in the preamble of this document, which we give below, Pestalozzi occupied a place apart, as if he were not really concerned in the matter: "The undersigned, Doctor Henry Pestalozzi, founder and head of an educational institute in Yverdun, together with Hermann Krusi, director of the cantonal school of Appenzell at Trogen, Conrad Naef, head of an institute for deaf-mutes, and Doctor Jean Niederer, minister of the Gospel and head of an institute for girls, of the one part, and Joseph Schmidt of the other part, having resolved to terminate their differences amicably, and in a manner consistent with the personal character, dignity, and civil and social position of those concerned, have agreed on the following points: "I. They declare to be contrary to truth, their better knowledge, and their real convictions, all the slanderous statements and imputations that have, as the result of certain misunderstandings, been spoken, written, or printed since the return of the above-named Joseph Schmidt to the institute of Pestalozzi in 1815, whoever may have been the subject of the said statements and wherever they may have originated They particularly make a formal retraction of the charges and counter-charges made in connection with certain financial disputes, as being without foundation, and, so far as they affect the honour and uprightness of the persons concerned, as being the result of a misapprehension and of the heat of passion. "II. The law-suits now pending to be withdrawn by the proper party, each side paying its own costs. "III. The still unsettled financial question to be referred to four arbitrators, who, in the event of equal votes, shall choose a further arbitrator to decide the matter. Each side to choose its own arbitrators, and to have absolute freedom of choice. The decision to be made public, if so desired. "IV. As it is essential, on the one hand, that the internal harmony of the establishments and the free action of those who direct them be undisturbed, and, on the other, that the means at present existing for Pestalozzi's undertaking be made the best possible use of, Messrs. Naef and Niederer offer to do what they can to further his efforts, provided, that is, that they can be useful to him and that he makes them a personal request, and on the understanding, of course, that they will as carefully avoid all interference with the internal relations and management of Pestalozzi's institute as Pestalozzi would avoid interference with theirs. "V. In the event of new misunderstandings and dissensions arising in connection with Pestalozzi's wishes concerning the before-mentioned persons and their establishments, a contingency of which we are not at all afraid, the differences to be settled in a frank and generous spirit by arbitrators appointed in Yverdun itself. "VI. In the event of Pestalozzi's unwillingness to make the whole of this agreement public, Messrs. Krusi, Naef and Niederer will be satisfied with the publication of the brst three points or the first alone. "Yverdun, the 31st December, 1823. "PESTALOZZI, J. C. NAEF, J. NIEDERER, in my own name and in that of MR. HERMANN KRUSI.' This document was published in 1824 in the ninth volume of Cotta's edition of Pestalozzi's works, where it is accompanied by a declaration, dated the 17th March, 1824, which begins thus: "I am grieved beyond measure to be obliged to insert here this memorial of a most unhappy time; but I cannot do otherwise, for these hostilities, which from their first causes to their final consequences lasted no less than ten years, have crushed all my hopes by slowly destroying every means I possessed of reaching the end to which I had devoted my life. I hope the public will share the sorrow I feel in thus being compelled to declare that these circumstances have rendered the foundation from which I expected such good results entirely impossible, and have made me absolutely incapable of fulfilling the engagements I contracted with so much ardour." Pestalozzi then goes on to explain how these dissensions brought trouble into his establishment, robbed him of the confidence of the public, and so ruined his institute, upon which he counted as a fundamental and indispensable part of his projected enterprise. He adds, that he has spent his last farthing, that he has even had to use some of his grandson's money, that his pen is the only resource left him for carrying on the work of his life, that he already has several manuscripts almost completed, and that he is going to work with redoubled zeal. Few of Pestalozzi's friends read this declaration without a feeling of burning shame. They accused Schmidt of having excited illusory hopes in the old man so long as there was a chance of increasing the subscription to his writings, of having caused him to waste the proceeds of this subscrip |