The Philanhropinum

vas soon

closed, but

Then, in 1769, in the hope of demonstrating to the peasants the value of improved methods of agriculture, he took up, after a year of training, a parcel of waste land at Birr. This he called by the name of Neuhof ('new farm'). Within five years the experiment proved a lamentable failure, but even before the final crash Pestalozzi had come to feel that his philanthropy had been abimilar insti- sorbed by a material ambition. A son had meantime been born to him, whom he had undertaken to rear upon the basis of the Emile, and the results, recorded in a Father's Journal, suggested new ideas and educational principles for the regeneration of the masses. He held that education did not consist merely in books and knowledge, and that the children of the poor could, by proper training, be taught to earn their living and at the same time develop their intelligence and moral nature.1

utions

prang up hroughout

Germany, nd many new educaional ideas

rose.

His School at Neuhof and the Leonard and Gertrude : Hence the failure of his agricultural venture afforded Pestalozzi the opportunity he craved to experiment with philanthropic education. Toward the end of 1774 he took into his home some twenty of the most needy children he could find. These he fed, clothed, and treated

as his own. He gave the boys practical instruction in farming and gardening on small tracts, and had the girls

1 For a more complete account of his conclusions, see de Guimps, Pestalozzi, pp. 75-78.

trained in domestic duties and needlework. In bad weather both sexes gave their time to spinning and weaving cotton. They were also trained in the rudiments, but were practiced in conversing and in memorizing the Bible before learning to read and write. The scholastic instruction was given very largely while they were working, and, although Pestalozzi had not as yet learned to make any direct connection between the occupational and the formal elements, this first attempt at an industrial education made it evident that the two couldty-two be combined. Within a few months there was a striking of a improvement in the physique, minds, and morals of theg of orchildren, as well as in the use of their hands. But Pesta Ursulozzi was so enthusiastic over the success of his experinz. ment that he greatly increased the number of children, and by 1780 was reduced to bankruptcy.

k

children

onvent

Nevertheless, his wider purpose of social reform by means of education was not allowed to languish altogether, for a friend 1 shortly persuaded him to publish his views. The Evening Hour of a Hermit,2 a collection of one hundred and eighty aphorisms, was his first production. This work contained, as von Raumer puts it, "the fruit of Pestalozzi's past years and at the same time

1 Iselin, the editor of Ephemerides.

2 Die Abendstunde eines Einsiedlers. A translation of the entire work can be found in Barnard, Vol. VI, pp. 169-179, while its essence is given by de Guimps, Pestalozzi, pp. 75-78.

The Philanhropinum

vas soon

losed, but

utions

the seed corn of the years that were to come, the plan and key to his action in pedagogy," but it could be understood by few of the people and received little attention. Pestalozzi was, therefore, advised to put his thought into more popular form, and in 1781 he wrote his well-known story of Leonard and Gertrude.1 This work, with the subsequent additions,2 gives an account of the degraded imilar insti- social conditions in the Swiss village of 'Bonnal' and the changes wrought in them by one simple peasant woman. Gertrude' reforms her drunkard husband, educates her children, and causes the whole community to feel her nfluence and adopt her methods. When finally a wise schoolmaster comes to the village, he learns from Gertrude the proper conduct of the school and begs for her continued coöperation. Then the government becomes nterested, studies the improvements that have taken place, and concludes that the whole country can be re

prang up hroughout

Germany, nd many new educaional ideas rose.

1 Lienhard und Gertrud: ein Buch für das Volk.

2 To elucidate more fully the teachings of this story, the following year Pestalozzi wrote his Christopher and Eliza, and to show how it could be used as a manual of popular education, he later produced The Instruction of Children in the Home, and Figures to my A B C Book (afterward called Fables), but the public, wishing only to be amused, would not read them, and Pestalozzi was driven by popular taste to add other parts to the Leonard and Gertrude in 1783, 1785, and 1787. A translation of the original first volume, with excerpts from the later parts concerning the village school, is given in Barnard, American Journal of Education, Vol. VII, pp. 525-648. An admirable condensation of the whole work has been made by Eva Channing (Boston, 1892).

b

formed in no better way than by imitating Bonnal. The Leonard and Gertrude appealed especially to the romanticism of the period, and constituted Pestalozzi's one popular success in literature. It was, however, taken simply as an interesting story, and the author's suggestions for social, political, and educational reform were generally passed over.1

His School at Stanz and the Observational Methods

During the last decade of his life at Neuhof, Pestalozzi was too busy warding off poverty and starvation to write or develop his principles. But in 1798 a turn in political fortunes gave him another opportunity to test his theories by actual practice. In that year Switzerland came under the control of the French revolutionists, and the independent cantons were united in a Helvetic Republic under a 'directorate' like that in France. As this movement promised reform, Pestalozzi enthusiastically supported it. He was in turn offered patronage by the new government, but he asked only for a school in which he might carry out his principles. While the authorities were settling upon a site near his home, an unexpected occurrence brought him instead to the village of Stanz. The Catholic community in this place had refused to

1 See footnote 2 on p. 126. His attempt to formulate his views in a thoroughly philosophical way by his Inquiry into the Course of Nature in the Development of the Human Race must have met with very little success.

At fifty-two

he took

charge of a

throng of or

phan children

in the Ursu

line convent

at Stanz.

yield to what they considered a foreign and atheistic invasion, and most of the able-bodied adults had been slaughtered. That left the government with a throng of friendless children for whom they felt bound to provide. Pestalozzi, being asked to take charge of them, started an orphan home and school in the Ursuline convent at Stanz. Here he soon gained the confidence and love of the children, and produced a most noticeable improvement in them physically, morally, and intellectually.

He declined all assistants, books, and materials, as he and observa- felt that none of the conventional methods could be of

tion, rather

than books,

He taught

service in his work, and he sought to instruct the children rather by experience and observation than by abstract morality and statements and words. Religion and morals, for ex

the children

religion,

ample, were never taught by precepts, but through instances that arose in their own lives he showed them the value of self-control, charity, sympathy, and gratitude. To a friend he declared:

Through experience

number, language, geog

raphy, his

tory, and natural history.

"I strove to awaken the feeling of each virtue before talking about it, for I thought it unwise to talk to children on subjects which would compel them to speak without thoroughly understanding what they were saying."

991

In a similarly concrete way the pupils were instructed in number and language work by means of objects, and in geography and history by conversation rather than by 1 See How Gertrude Teaches Her Children, I.