Dr. Bell's visit. Death of Mrs. Pestalozzi.

$75. On this occasion Pestalozzi took the opportunity of preaching to the Emperor Alexander on the necessity of establishing good schools and of emancipating the serfs. The Emperor took the lecture in good part, and allowed the philanthropist to drive him into a corner and "button-hole"

him.

§ 76. In 1815 Pestalozzi received a visit from an Englishman, or more accurately Scotsman-Dr. Bell, who, however, like most of our compatriots, could find nothing in Pestalozzi. Whatever we may think of Bell as an educationist, he was certainly a poor prophet. On leaving Yverdun he said, " In another twelve years mutual instruction will be adopted by the whole world and Pestalozzi's method will be forgotten."*

§ 77. In December, 1815, Pestalozzi was thrown more completely into the power of Schmid by losing the only companion from whom nothing but death could separate him his wife. At the funeral Pestalozzi, standing by the coffin, and as if heard by her whose earthly remains were in it, ran over the disasters and trials they had passed through together, and the sacrifices she had made for him. "What

in those days of affliction," said he, "gave us strength to bear our troubles and recover hope?” and taking up a Bible he went on," This is the source whence you drew, whence we both drew courage, strength, and peace."

Pestalozzi had from this country some more discerning visitors, e.g., J. P. Greaves, to whom Pestalozzi addressed Letters, which were translated and published in this country; also Dr. Mayo, who was at Yverdun with his pupils for three years from 1818 and afterwards conAucted a celebrated Pestalozzian school at Cheam. Dr. Mayo in 1826 lectured on Pestalozzi's system at the Royal Institution. Sir Jas. KayShuttleworth and Mr. Tufnell also drew attention to it in the "Minutes of Council on Education.”

Works republished. Clindy. Yverdun left.

§ 78. The "death agony of the Institution," as Guimps calls it, lasted for some years, but in this gloomy period there are only two incidents I will mention. The first is the publication of Pestalozzi's writings, for which Schmid and Pestalozzi sought subscriptions; and the appeal was so cordially answered that Pestalozzi received £2,000. This sum he wished to devote to the carrying out of a plan he had always cherished of an orphanage at Neuhof; but the money seems to have melted we do not know how.

§ 79. The other incident is that of Pestalozzi's last success. In spite of Schmid he would open a school for twelve neglected children at Clindy, a hamlet near Yverdun. Here he produced results like those which had crowned his first efforts at Neuhof, Stanz, and Burgdorf. Old, absentminded, and incapable as he seemed in ordinary affairs, he, as though by enchantment, gained the attention and the affection of the children, and bent them entirely to his will. In a few months the number of children had risen to thirty, and wonderful progress had been made. Clindy at once became celebrated. Pestalozzi was induced to admit some children whose friends paid for them, and Schmid then persuaded the old man to remove the school into the Castle.

80. In 1824 the Institution, which had lasted for twenty years, was finally closed, and Pestalozzi went to spend his remaining days (nearly three years as it proved) at Neuhof, which was then in the hands of his grandson. The year before his death he visited an orphanage conducted on his principles by Zeller at Beuggen near Rheinfelden. The children sang a poem of Goethe's quoted in Leonard and Gertrude, and had a crown of oak ready to put on the old man's head; but this he declined. "I am not worthy of it," said he, “leep it for innocence."

Y

Death. New aim; develop organism.

§ 81. On 17th February, 1827, at the age of eighty-one, Pestalozzi fell asleep.

§ 82. "The reform needed," said Pestalozzi," is not that the school-coach should be better horsed, but that it should be turned right round and started on a new track.” This may seem a violent metaphor, but perhaps it is not more violent than the change that was (and in this country still is) necessary. Let us try to ascertain what is the right road according to Pestalozzi, and then see on what road the school-coach is now travelling.

§ 83. The grand change advocated by Pestalozzi was a change of object. The main object of the school should not be to teach but to develop.

§ 84. This change of object naturally brings many changes with it. Measured by their capacity for acquiring school knowledge and skill young children may be considered, as one of H.M. Inspectors considered them, "the fag-end of the school." But if the school exists not to teach but to develop, young children, instead of being the "fag-end," become the most important part of all. In the development of all organisms more depends on the earlier than on the later stages; and there is no reason to doubt that this law holds in the case of human beings. On this account, from the days of Pestalozzi educational science has been greatly, I may say mainly, concerned with young children. For the dominating thought has been that the young human being is an undeveloped organism, and that in education that organism is developed. So the essence of Pestalozzianism lies not so much in its method as in its aim, not more in what it does than in what it endeavours to do.

True dignity of man.

§ 85. And thus it was that Pestalozzi (in Raumer's words) "compelled the scholastic world to revise the whole of their task, to reflect on the nature and destiny of man, and also on the proper way of leading him from his youth towards that destiny." And it was his love of his fellowcreatures that raised him to this standpoint. He was moved by "the enthusiasm of humanity." Consumed with grief for the degradation of the Swiss peasantry, he never lost faith in their true dignity as men, and in the possibility of raising them to a condition worthy of it. He cast about for the best means of thus raising them, and decided that it could be effected, not by any improvement in their outward circumstances, but by an education which should make them what their Creator intended them to be, and should give them the use and the consciousness of all their inborn faculties. "From my youth up," he says, "I felt what a high and indispensable human duty it is to labour for the poor and miserable; that he may attain to a consciousness of his own dignity through his feeling of the universal powers and endowments which he possesses awakened within him; that he may not only learn to gabble over by rote the religious maxim that 'man is created in the image of God, and is bound to live and die as a child of God,' but may himself experience its truth by virtue of the Divine power within him, so that he may be raised, not only above the ploughing oxen, but also above the man in purple and silk who lives unworthily of his high destiny" (Quoted in Barnard, p. 13).

Again he says (and I quote at length on the point, as it is indeed the key to Pestalozzianism), "Why have I insisted so strongly on attention to early physical and intellectual education? Because I consider these as merely leading to

Education for all. Mothers' part. Jacob's Ladder.

a higher aim, to qualify the human being for the free and full use of all the faculties implanted by the Creator, and to direct all these faculties towards the perfection of the whole being of man, that he may be enabled to act in his peculiar station as an instrument of that All-wise and Almighty Power that has called him into life" (To Greaves, p. 160).

§ 86. Believing in this high aim of education, Pestalozzi required a proper early training for all alike. "Every human being," said he, "has a claim to a judicious development of his faculties by those to whom the care of his infancy is confided” (b. p. 163).

§ 87. Pestalozzi therefore most earnestly addressed himself to mothers, to convince them of the power placed in their hands, and to teach them how to use it. "The mother is qualified, and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child; . and what is demanded of her is—a thinking love. God has given to thy child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided—how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee.

. . It is recorded that God

opened the heavens to the patriarch of old, and showed him This ladder is let down to every is offered to thy child.

But he

a ladder leading thither. descendant of Adam; it must be taught to climb it. the cold calculations of the the heart; but let all these powers combine, and the noble

And let him not attempt it by head, or the mere impulse of

enterprise will be crowned with success.

already bestowed on him, but to thee it is

These powers are

given to assist in