Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi 1746-1827 ON EDUCATION IN THE HOME (1781) A selection from Leonard and Gertrude ON EDUCATION ACCORDING TO NATURE (1800) A selection from How Gertrude Teaches Her Children PESTALOZZI DESCRIBES HIS WORK AT STANTZ (1807)  Letter from Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi to Heinrich Gessner

PESTALOZZI

ON EDUCATION IN THE HOME (1781)

From Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Leonard and Gertrude,
Eva Channing, trans. (Boston, 1896), pp. 116-19, 129-31, 152-59.

Chapter XXII

PLANS OF REGENERATION IN BONNAL

As the Sunday approached when Arrner had decreed that Hummel should be exposed to the view of the whole congregation, while the pastor held up his previous life as a warning to those present, the prisoner expressed the utmost horror of this penalty, declaring that he would rather have his punishment at the gallows repeated, than stand under the pulpit to be the laughing-stock of the town. He represented that such a ceremony could neither dispose him to thoughts of repentance, nor have a beneficial effect upon the spectators. The pastor was finally so moved by his entreaties, as well as convinced of the reasonableness of his plea, that he interceded with Arner, and induced him to remit the sentence. Accordingly, the clergyman merely took Hummel's life as a text, preaching a stirring sermon against the wickedness and corruption which had been fostered so long in their midst, and which were still rife, in almost equal measure, in the hearts of many of his listeners.

This discourse everywhere made a profound impression; the peasants could talk of nothing else on the way home, and Arner, pressing the good pastor's hand, thanked him heartily for his edifying words. He expressed, at the same time, an earnest desire to labor for the improvement of the village, and asked the clergyman if he could recommend an upright, able man from among the people, who could help him in furthering his designs. The parson mentioned at once the spinner known as Cotton Meyer, and proposed they should visit him and his sister that afternoon. They were accompanied by the Lieutenant Glülphi, one of Arner's aids in regulating the economic conditions of his government.

Cotton Meyer was sitting at his door with a child in his lap, when the three gentlemen approached, and had no suspicion that they were seeking him, until they paused before his garden gate. Then he went to meet them with so calm and dignified a bearing that Glülphi did not give him his hand, as he usually did to the peasants, and Arner addressed him less familiarly than was his wont when speaking to his dependants.

The visitors were about to seat themselves on the bench under the apple-tree; but Meyer led them into the parlor, where his sister was sitting by the table, nodding over the open Bible, as was her custom on Sunday afternoons. She started up with a cry as the door opened, and straightening her cap, closed the Bible; then, taking a sponge, she moistened it in a tin hand-basin which shone like silver, and erased the chalk figures with which her brother had covered the table, despite the remonstrance of the strangers, who feared that Meyer might have further use for his reckoning. After wiping the table carefully, she brought a large fine linen tablecloth, and laid new tin plates, with knives, forks and heavy silver spoons upon it. "What are you doing?" inquired her guests; "we have already dined." "I suppose so," answered Maria; "but since you have come into a peasant's house, you must take kindly to our peasant ways." Running into the kitchen, she returned with two plates of little cakes and a fine large ham, and Arner, Glülphi and the pastor seated themselves good-naturedly before the shining dishes.

When the visitors began to praise the house, the garden and the whole establishment, Maria remarked that twenty years ago they had been among the poorest in the village. "I know it," said Arner, "and I wonder at your prosperity the more, as the weavers and spinners have usually turned out the most good-for-nothing people in the country."

Meyer was forced to admit that this was true but denied that the cause lay in the industry itself. The trouble was, he said, that these poor people were not in the habit of laying up anything from their earnings, and led wretched, aimless lives. He felt sure that Arner might find many ways of winning the hearts of the people, so as to lead them into better paths, and suggested, as one expedient, that he should promise to every child, which up to its twentieth year should annually lay aside ten florins from its earnings, a field free from tithes. "But," went on Meyer, "after all, we can do very little with the people, unless the next generation is to have a very different training from that our schools furnish. The school ought really to stand in the closest connection with life of the home, instead of, as now, in strong contradiction to it."

Glülphi joined in the conversation with eagerness, and argued that a true school should develop to the fullest extent all the faculties of the child's nature. The question next arose, how such a school could be established in Bonnal. Cotton Meyer, when appealed to, rejoined: "I know a spinning-woman in the village who understands it far better than I"; and he went on to tell the others such things of Gertrude's little school and its effects upon her children, that they resolved to visit her and examine her method for themselves. They also spoke of the corruption prevailing in the village, and discussed the best method of choosing a good bailiff. Cotton Meyer showed himself through it all a man of such clear judgment and practical common sense, that his guests left him with a feeling of respect almost approaching veneration.

It was quite early in the morning when Arner, Glülphi and the pastor went to the mason’s cottage. The room was not in order when they entered, for the family had just finished breakfast, and the dirty plates and spoons still lay upon the table. Gertrude was at first somewhat disconcerted, but the visitors reassured her, saying kindly: "This is as it should be; it is impossible to clear the table before breakfast is eaten!"

The children all helped wash the dishes, and then seated themselves in their customary places before their work. The gentlemen begged Gertrude to let everything go on as usual, and after the first half hour, during which she was a little embarrassed, all proceeded as if no stranger were present. First the children sang their morning hymns, and then Gertmde read a chapter of the Bible aloud, which they repeated after her while they were spinning, rehearsing the most instructive passages until they knew them by heart. In the mean time, the oldest girl had been making the children's beds in the adjoining room, and the visitors noticed through the open door that she silently repeated what the others were reciting. When this task was completed, she went into the garden and returned with vegetables for dinner, which she cleaned while repeating Bible-verses with the rest.

It was something new for the children to see three gentlemen in the room, and they often looked up from their spinning toward the corner where the strangers sat. Gertrude noticed this, and said to them: "Seems to me you look more at these gentlemen than at your yam." But Harry answered: "No indeed! We are working hard, and you'll have finer yam to-day than usual."

Whenever Gertrude saw that anything was amiss with the wheels or cotton, she rose from her work, and put it in order. The smallest children, who were not old enough to spin, picked over the cotton for carding, with a skill which excited the admiration of the visitors.

Although Gertrude thus exerted herself to develop very early the manual dexterity of her children, she was in no haste for them to learn to read and write. But she took pains to teach them early how to speak; for, as she said, "of what use is it for a person to be able to read and write, if he cannot speak?--since reading and writing are only an artificial sort of speech." To this end she used to make the children pronounce syllables after her in regular succession, taking them from an old A-B-C book she had. This exercise in correct and distinct articulation was, however, only a subordinate object in her whole scheme of education, which embraced a true comprehension of life itself. Yet she never adopted the tone of instructor toward her children; she did not say to them: "Child, this is your head, your nose, your hand, your finger;" or: "Where is your eye, your ear?"-but instead, she would say: "Come here, child, I will wash your little hands," "T will comb your hair," or: "I will cut your finger-nails." Her verbal instruction seemed to vanish in the spirit of her real activity, in which it always had its source. The result of her system was that each child was skilful, intelligent and active to the full extent that its age and development allowed.

The instruction she gave them in the rudiments of arithmetic was intimately connected with the realties of life. She taught them to count the number of steps from one end of the room to the other, and two of the rows of five panes each, in one of the windows, gave her an opportunity to unfold the decimal relations of numbers. She also made them count their threads while spinning, and the number of turns on the reel, when they wound the yam into skeins. Above all, in every occupation of life she taught them an accurate and intelligent observation of common objects and the forces of nature.

All that Gertrude's children knew, they knew so thoroughly that they were able to teach it to the younger ones; and this they often begged permission to do. On this day, while the visitors were present, Jonas sat with each arm around the neck of a smaller child, and made the little ones pronounce the syllables of the A-B-C book after him; while Lizzie placed herself with her wheel between two of the others, and while all three spun, taught them the words of a hymn with the utmost patience.

When the guests took their departure, they told Gertrude they would come again on the morrow. "Why?" she returned; "You will only see the same thing over again." But Glülphi said: "That is the best praise you could possibly give yourself." Gertrude blushed at this compliment, and stood confused when the gentlemen kindly pressed her hand in taking leave.

The three could not sufficiently admire what they had seen at the mason's house, and Glülphi was so overcome by the powerful impression made upon him, that he longed to be alone and seek counsel of his own thoughts. He hastened to his room, and as he crossed the threshold, the words broke from his lips: "I must be schoolmaster in Bonnall!" All night visions of Gertrude's schoolroom floated through his mind, and he only fell asleep toward morning. Before his eyes were fairly open, he murmured: "I will be schoolmaster!" --and hastened to Arner to acquaint him with his resolution.

Glülphi was full of the idea of his school, and could speak of nothing else with Arner and the pastor. He used all his spare time in visiting Gertrude, in order to talk it over with her; but she seemed quite unable to explain her method in words, and usually deprecated the idea of her advice being necessary. Occasionally, however, she would let drop some significant remark which the lieutenant felt went to the root of the whole matter of education. For example, she said to him one day: "You should do for your children what their parents fail to do for them. The reading, writing and arithmetic are not, after all, what they most need; it is all well and good for them to learn something, but the really important thing is for them to be something,-for them to become what they are meant to be, and in becoming which they so often have no guidance or help at home."

Finally, the day arrived on which the new schoolmaster was to be formally presented to the village. Arner and the pastor led him solemnly between them to the church, which was crowded with the inhabitants of Bonnal. The good clergyman preached a sermon on the ideal function of the school in its relation to the home, and to the moral development of the community; after which Arner led Glülphi forward to the railing of the choir, and introducing him to the people, made a short but earnest plea in his behalf. The lieutenant was much affected, but mastered his emotion sufficiently to express in a few words his sense of the responsibility conferred upon him, and his hope that the parents would cooperate with him in his undertaking.

Arner was anxious to make the occasion of Glülphi ’s installation a festival for the school-children, so after the services at the church, he invited all the little folks to the parsonage, where, with the help of the pastor's wife, preparations had been made to receive them. It was a time-honored custom that every year, at Christmas and Easter, eggs and rolls Should be distributed among the children of Bonnal. On this day, on entering the parsonage, the young people beheld even more beautifully painted eggs than they had seen at Easter; and beside each child's portion lay a bright nosegay.

The lieutenant, who knew nothing of the whole matter, was in an adjoining room, when suddenly the door was thrown open, and the children, at a sign from Theresa, struck up with one accord their prettiest song, and Glülphi found himself surrounded by the lively throng of his future charges. He was much moved, and when the song was concluded, he greeted them kindly, shaking many of them by the hand, and chatting pleasantly with them. Arner ordered some of his own wine to be brought, and the children drank the health of their new schoolmaster.

On the following morning the lieutenant began his school, and Gertrude helped him in the arrangement of it. They examined the children with regard to their previous studies, and seated those together who were equally advanced. First there were those who had not learned their letters, then those who could read separate words, and finally, those who already knew how to read. Beside reading, all were to learn writing and arithmetic, which previously had only been taught to the more wealthy, in private lessons.

At first Glülphi found it harder than he had expected; but every day, as he gained in experience, his task became easier and more delightful. A good and capable woman, named Margaret, who came to take charge of the sewing, spinning etc., proved a most valuable and conscientious helper in the work. Whenever a child's hand or wheel stopped, she would step up and restore things to their former condition. If the children's hair was in disorder, she would braid it up while they studied and worked; if there was a hole in their clothes, she would take a needle and thread, and mend it; and she showed them how to fasten their shoes and stockings properly, beside many other things they did not understand.

The new master was anxious, above all, to accustom his charges to strict order, and thus lead them to the true wisdom of life. He began school punctually on the stroke of the clock, and did not allow any one to come in late. He also laid great stress on good habits and behavior. The children were obliged to come to school clean in person and apparel, and with their hair combed. While standing, sitting, writing and working, they always were taught to keep the body erect as a candle. Glülphi 's schoolroom must be clean as a church, and he would not suffer a pane of glass to be missing from the window, or a nail to be driven crooked in the floor. Still less did he allow the children to throw the smallest thing upon the floor, or to eat while they were studying; and it was even arranged that in getting up and sitting down they should not hit against each other.

Before school began, the children came up to their teacher one by one, and said: "God be with you!" He looked them over from head to foot, so that they knew by his eye if anything was wrong. If this glance was not sufficient, he spoke to them, or sent a message to their parents. A child would not infrequently come home with the word: "The schoolmaster sends greeting, and wants to know whether you have no needles and thread," or "whether water is dear," etc. At the close of school, those who had done well went up to him first, and said: "God be with you!" He held out his hand to each one, replying: "God be with you, my dear child!" Then came those who had only done partly well, and to these he merely said: "God be with you!" without giving them his hand. Finally, those who had not done well at all had to leave the room without even going to him.

The lieutenant's punishments were designed to remedy the faults for which they were inflicted. An idle scholar was made to cut fire-wood, or to carry stones for the wall which some of the older boys were constructing under the master's charge; a forgetful child was made school-messenger, and for several days was obliged to take charge of all the teacher's business in the village. Disobedience and impertinence he punished by not speaking publicly to the child in question for a number of days, talking with him only in private, after school. Wickedness and lying were punished with the rod, and any child thus chastised was not allowed to play with the others for a whole week; his name was registered in a special recordbook of offences, from which it was not erased until plain evidence of improvement was given. The schoolmaster was kind to the children while punishing them, talking with them more then than at any other time, and trying to help them correct their faults.

In his instruction, Glülphi constantly sought to lay the foundation of that equanimity and repose which man can possess in all circumstances of life, provided the hardships of his lot have early become a second nature to him. The success of this attempt soon convinced the pastor that all verbal instruction, in so far as it aims at true human wisdom, and at the highest goal of this wisdom, true religion, ought to be subordinated to a constant training in practical domestic labor. The good man, at the same time, became aware that a single word of the lieutenant's could accomplish more than hours of his preaching. With true humility, he profited by the superior wisdom of the schoolmaster, and remodelled his method of religious instruction. He united his efforts to those of Glülphi and Margaret, striving to lead the children, without many words, to a quiet, industrious life, and thus to lay the foundations of a silent worship of God and love of humanity. To this end, he connected every word of his brief religious teachings with their actual, every-day experience, so that when he spoke of God and eternity, it seemed to them as if he were speaking of father and mother, house and home, in short, of the things with which they were most familiar. He pointed out to them in their books the few wise and pious passages which he still desired them to learn by heart, and completely ignored all questions involving doctrinal differences. He no longer allowed the children to learn any long prayers by rote, saying that this was contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and the express injunctions of their Saviour.

The lieutenant often declared that the pastor was quite unable to make a lasting impression on men, because he spoiled them by his kindness. Glülphi 's own principles in regard to education were very strict, and were founded on an accurate knowledge of the world. He maintained that love was only useful in the education of men when in conjunction with fear; for they must learn to root out thorns and thistles, which they never do of their own accord, but only under compulsion, and in consequence of training.

He knew his children better in eight days than their parents did in eight years, and employed this knowledge to render deception difficult, and to keep their hearts open before his eyes. He cared for their heads as he did for their hearts, demanding that whatever entered them should be plain and clear as the silent moon in the sky. To insure this, he taught them to see and hear with accuracy, and cultivated their powers of attention. Above all, he sought to give them a thorough training in arithmetic; for he was convinced that arithmetic is the natural safeguard against error in the pursuit of truth.

All instruction of man is then only the Art¹ of helping Nature to develop in her own way; and this Art rests essentially on the relation and harmony between the impressions received by the child and the exact degree of his developed powers. It is also necessary in the impressions that are brought to the child by instruction that there should be a sequence, so that beginning and progress should keep pace with the beginning and progress of the powers to be developed in the child. I soon saw that an inquiry into this sequence throughout the whole range of human knowledge, particularly those fundamental points from which the development of the human mind originates, must be the simple and only way ever to attain and to keep satisfactory school and instruction books, of every grade, suitable for our nature and our wants. I saw just as soon that in making these books the constituents of instruction must be separated according to the degree of the growing power of the child; and that in all matters of instruction, it is necessary to determine with the greatest accuracy which of these constituents is fit for each age of the child, in order on the one hand not to hold him back if he is ready; and on the other, not to load him and confuse him with anything for which he is not quite ready.

This was clear to me. The child must be brought to a high degree of knowledge both of things seen and of words before it is reasonable to teach him to spell or read. I was quite convinced that at their earliest age children need psychological training in gaining intelligent sense-impressions of all things. But since such training, without the help of art, is not to be thought of or expected of men as they are, the need of picture-books struck me perforce. These should precede the A-B-C books, in order to make those ideas that men express by words clear to the children (by means of well-chosen real objects, that either in reality, or in the form of well-made models and drawings, can be brought before their minds).

A happy experiment confirmed my then unripe opinion in a striking way (in spite of all the limitations of my means, and the error and one-sidedness in my experiments). An anxious mother entrusted her hardly three-year-old child to my private teaching. I saw him for a time every day for an hour; and for a time felt the pulse of a method with him. I tried to teach him by letters, figures, and anything handy; that is, I aimed at giving him clear ideas and expressions by these means. I made him name correctly what he knew of anything--color, limbs, place, form, and number. I was obliged to put aside that first plague of youth, the miserable letters; he would have nothing but pictures and things.

He soon expressed himself clearly about the objects that lay within the limits of his knowledge. He found common illustrations in the street, the garden, and the room; and soon learned to pronounce the hardest names of plants and animals, and to compare objects quite unknown to him with those known, and to produce a clear sense-impression of them in himself. Although this experiment led to byeways, and worked for the strange and distant to the disadvantage of the present, it threw a many-sided light on the means of quickening the child to his surroundings, and showing him the charm of self-activity in the extension of his powers.

But yet the experiment was not satisfactory for that which I was particularly seeking, because the boy had already three unused years behind him. I am convinced that nature brings the children even at this age to a definite consciousness of innumerable objects. It only needs that we should with psychological art unite speech with this knowledge in order to bring it to a high degree of clearness; and so enable us to connect the foundations of many-sided arts and truths with that which nature herself teaches, and also to use what nature teaches as a means of explaining all the fundamentals of art and truth that can be connected with them. Their power and their experience both are great at this age; but our unpsychological schools are essentially only artificial stifling-machines for destroying all the results of the power and experience that nature herself brings to life in them.

You know it, my friend. But for a moment picture to yourself the horror of this murder. We leave children up to their fifth year in the full enjoyment of nature; we let every impression of nature work upon them; they feel their power; they already know full well the joy of unrestrained liberty and all its charms. The free natural bent which the sensuous happy wild thing takes in his development, has in them already taken its most decided direction. And after they have enjoyed this happiness of sensuous life for five whole years, we make all nature round them vanish from before their eyes; tyrannically stop the delightful course of their unrestrained freedom; pen them up like sheep, whole flocks huddled together, in stinking rooms; pitilessly chain them for hours, days, weeks, months, years, to the contemplation of unattractive and monotonous letters, and (contrasted with their former condition) to a maddening course of life.

I cease describing; else I shall come to the picture of the greater number of schoolmasters, thousands of whom in our days merely on account of their unfitness for any means of finding a respectable livelihood have subjected themselves to the toilsomeness of this position, which they in accordance with their unfitness for anything better look upon as a way that leads little further than to keep them from starvation. How infinitely must the children suffer under these circumstances, or, at least, be spoiled!

The Search for the Laws of Human Development

The mechanism of physical (human) Nature is essentially subject to the same laws as those by which physical Nature generally unfolds her powers. According to these laws, all instruction should engraft the most essential parts of its subject of knowledge firmly into the very being of the human mind; then join on the less essential gradually but uninterruptedly to the most essential, and maintain all the parts of the subject, even to the outermost, in one living proportionate whole.

I now sought for laws to which the development of the human mind must, by its very nature, be subject. I knew they must be the same as those of physical Nature, and trusted to find in them a safe clue to a universal psychological method of instruction. "Man," said I to myself, while dreamily seeking this clue, "as you recognize in every physical ripening of the complete fruit the result of perfection in all its parts, so consider no human judgment ripe that does not appear to you to be the result of a complete sense-impression of all the parts of the object to be judged; but on the contrary, look upon every judgment that seems ripe before a complete observation (Anschauung) has been made as nothing but a worm-eaten and therefore apparently ripe fruit, fallen untimely from the tree."

1. Learn therefore to classify observations and complete the simple before proceeding to the complex. Try to make in every art graduated steps of knowledge, in which every new idea is only a small, almost imperceptible addition to that which has been known before, deeply impressed and not to be forgotten.

2. Again, bring all things essentially related to each other to that connection in your mind which they have in Nature. Subordinate all unessential things to the essential in your idea. Especially subordinate the impression given by the Art to that given by Nature and reality; and give to nothing a greater weight in your idea than it has in relation to your race in Nature.

3. Strengthen and make clear the impressions of important objects by bringing them nearer to you by the Art, and letting them affect you through different senses. Learn for this purpose the first law of physical mechanism, which makes the relative power of all influences of physical Nature depend on the physical nearness or distance of the object in contact with the senses. Never forget that this physical nearness or distance has an immense effect in determining your positive opinions, conduct, duties, and even virtue.

4. Regard all the effects of natural law as absolutely necessary, and recognize in this necessity the result of her power by which Nature unites together the apparently heterogeneous elements of her materials for the achievement of her end. Let the Art with which you work through instruction upon your race, and the results you aim at, be founded upon natural law, so that all your actions may be means to this principal end, although apparently heterogeneous.

5. But the richness of its charm, and the variety of its free play cause physical necessity, or natural law, to bear the impress of freedom and independence.

Let the results of your art and your instruction, while you try to found them upon natural law, by the richness of their charm and the variety of their free play bear the impression of freedom and independence.

All these laws to which the development of human nature is subject converge towards one centre. They converge towards the centre of our whole being, and we ourselves are this centre.

Friend, all that I am, all I wish, all I might be, comes out of myself. Should not my knowledge also come out of myself?

The Elements of Instruction

I long sought for a common psychological origin for all these arts of instruction, because I was convinced that only through this might it be possible to discover the form in which the cultivating of mankind is determined through the very laws of Nature itself. It is evident this form is founded on the general organization of the mind, by means of which our understanding binds together in imagination the impressions which are received by the senses from Nature into a whole, that is into an idea, and gradually unfolds this idea clearly.

"Every line, every measure, every word," said I to myself, "is a result of understanding that is produced by ripened sense-impressions and must be regarded as a means towards the progressive clearing up of our ideas." Again, all instruction is essentially nothing but this. Its principles must therefore be derived from the immutable first form of human mental development.

Everything depends on the exact knowledge of this prototype. I therefore once more began to keep my eye on these beginning-points from which it must be derived.

* * *

I also thought number, form, and language are, together, the elementary means of instruction, because the whole sum of the external properties of any object is comprised in its outline and its number, and is brought home to my consciousness through language.

It must then be an immutable law of the Art to start from and work within this threefold principle:

1. To teach children to look upon every object that is brought before them as a unit: that is, as separated from those with which it seems connected.

2. To teach them the form of every object: that is, its size and proportions.

3. As soon as possible to make them acquainted with all the words and names descriptive of objects known to them.

And as the instruction of children should proceed from these three elementary points, it is evident that the first efforts of the Art should be directed to the primary faculties of counting, measuring, and speaking, which lie at the basis of all accurate knowledge of objects of sense. We should cultivate them with the strictest psychological Art, endeavoring to strengthen and make them strong, and to bring them, as a means of development and culture, to the highest pitch of simplicity, consistency, and harmony.

The only difficulty which struck me in the recognition of these elementary points was the question: Why are all qualities of things that we know through our five senses not just as much elementary points of knowledge as number, form, and names? But I soon found that all possible objects have absolutely number, form, and names; but the other characteristics, known through our five senses, are not common to all objects. I found then such an essential and definite distinction between the number, form, and names of things and their other qualities, that I could not regard other qualities as elementary points of human knowledge. Again, I found that all other qualities can be included under these elementary points; that consequently, in instructing children, all other qualities of objects must be immediately connected with form, number, and names. I saw now that through knowing the unity, form, and name of any object, my knowledge of it becomes precise; by gradually learning its other qualities my knowledge of it becomes clear; through my consciousness of all its characteristics, my knowledge of it becomes distinct.

Then I found, further, that all our knowledge flows from three elementary powers:

1. From the power of making sounds, the origin of language.

2. From the indefinite, simple sensuous-power of forming images, out of which arises the consciousness of all forms..

3. From the definite, no longer merely sensuous-power of imagination, from which must be derived consciousness of unity, and with it the power of calculation and arithmetic.

I thought, then, that the art of educating our race must be joined to the first and simplest results of these three primary powers--sound, form, and number; and that instruction in separate parts can never have a satisfactory effect upon our nature as a whole, if these three simple results of our primary powers are not recognized as the common starting-pointing of all instruction, determined by Nature herself. In consequence of this recognition, they must be fitted into forms which flow universally and harmoniously from the results of these three elementary powers; and which tend essentially and surely to make all instruction a steady, unbroken development of these three elementary powers, used together and considered equally important. In this way only is it possible to lead us in all three branches from vague to precise sense-impressions, from precise sense-impressions to clear images, and from clear images to distinct ideas.

Here at last I find the Art in general and essential harmony with Nature; or rather, with the prototype by which Nature makes clear to us the objects of the world in their essence and utmost simplicity. The problem is solved: How to find a common origin of all methods and arts of instruction, and with it a form by which the development of our race might be decided through the essence of our own very nature. The difficulties are removed of applying mechanical laws, which I recognize as the foundation of all human instruction, to the form of instruction which the experience of ages has put into the hands of mankind for the development of the race; that is, to apply them to reading, writing, arithmetic, and so on.

Sense-Impression, the Foundation of All Knowledge

Friend! When I now look back and ask myself: What have I specially done for the very being of education, I find I have fixed the highest supreme principle of instruction in the recognition of sense-impression as the absolute foundation of all knowledge. Apart from all special teaching I have sought to discover the nature of teaching itself; and the prototype, by which Nature herself has determined the instruction of our race. I find I have reduced all instruction to three elementary means; and have sought for special methods which would render the results of all instruction in these three branches absolutely certain.

Lastly, I find I have brought these three elementary means into harmony with each other; I have made instruction in all three branches in many ways harmonious not only each with itself but also with human nature; and I have brought it nearer to the course of Nature in the development of the human race.

My friend, once more I awake from a dream; once more I see my work destroyed, and my failing strength wasted.

But, however weak and unfortunate my attempt may have been; a friend of humanity will not grudge a few moments to consider the reasons which convince me that some day a more fortunate posterity will certainly take up the thread of my hopes at the place where it is now broken.

From its very beginning I looked on the Revolution as a simple consequence of the corruption of human nature, and on the evils which it produced as a necessary means of bringing men back to a sense of the conditions which are essential to their happiness.

Although I was by no means prepared to accept all the political forms that a body of such men as the revolutionists might make for themselves, I was inclined to look upon certain points of their Constitution not only as useful measures protecting important interests, but as suggesting the principles upon which all true progress of humanity must be based.

I once more made known, therefore, as well as I could, my old wishes for the education of the people. In particular, I laid my whole scheme before Legrand (then one of the directors), who not only took a warm interest in it, but agreed with me that the Republic stood in urgent need of a reform of public education. He also agreed with me that much might be done for the regeneration of the people by giving a certain number of the poorest children an education which should be complete, but which, far from lifting them out of their proper sphere, would but attach them the more strongly to it.

I limited my desires to this one point, Legrand helping me in every possible way. He even thought my views so important that he once said to me: 'I shall not willingly give up my present post till you have begun your work.' As I have explained my plan for the public education of the poor in the third and fourth parts of Leonard and Gertrude, I need not repeat it here. I submitted it to the director Stapfer, with all the enthusiasm of a man who felt that his hopes were about to be realized, and he encouraged me with an earnestness which showed how thoroughly he understood the needs of popular education. It was the same with the minister Rengger.

 I opened the establishment with no other helper but a woman-servant. I had not only to teach the children, but to look after their physical needs. I preferred being alone, and, indeed, it was the only way to reach my end. No one in the world would have cared to fall in with my views for the education of children, and at that time I knew scarcely anyone capable even of understanding them. The better the education of the men who might have helped me, the less their power of understanding me and of confining themselves, even in theory, to the simple beginnings to which I sought to return. All their views as to the organization and needs of the enterprise were entirely different from mine. What they especially disagreed with was the idea that such an undertaking could be carried out without the help of any artificial means, but simply by the influence exercised on the children by Nature, and by the activity to which they were aroused by the needs of their daily life.

And yet it was precisely upon this idea that I based my chief hope of success; it was, as it were, a basis for innumerable other points of view.

Experienced teachers, then, could not help me; still less boorish, ignorant men. I had nothing to put into the hands of assistants to guide them, nor any results or apparatus by which I could make my ideas clearer to them.

Thus, whether I would or no, I had first to make my experiment alone, and collect facts to illustrate the essential features of my system before I could venture to look for outside help. Indeed, in my then position, nobody could help me. I knew that I must help myself and shaped my plans accordingly.

I wanted to prove by my experiment that if public education is to have any real value, it must imitate the methods which make the merit of domestic education; for it is my opinion that if public education does not take into consideration the circumstances of family life, and everything else that bears on a man's general education, it can only lead to an artificial and methodical dwarfing of humanity.

In any good education, the mother must be able to judge daily, nay hourly, from the child's eyes, lips, and face, of the slightest change in his soul. The power of the educator, too, must be that of a father, quickened by the general circumstances of domestic life.

Such was the foundation upon which I built. I determined that there should not be a minute in the day when my children should not be aware from my face and my lips that my heart was theirs, that their happiness was my happiness, and their pleasures my pleasures.

Man readily accepts what is good, and the child readily listens to it; but it is not for you that he wants it, master and educator, but for himself. The good to which you would lead him must not depend on your capricious humour or passion; it must be a good which is good in itself and by the nature of things, and which the child can recognize as good. He must feel the necessity of your will in things which concern his comfort before he can be expected to obey it.

Whenever he does anything gladly, anything that brings him honour, anything that helps to realize any of his great hopes, or stimulates his powers, and enables him to say with truth, I can, then he is exercising his will.

The will, however, cannot be stimulated by mere words; its action must depend upon those feelings and powers which are the result of general culture. Words alone cannot give us a knowledge of things; they are only useful for giving expression to what we have in our mind.

The first thing to be done was to win the confidence and affection of the children. I was sure that if I succeeded in doing that, all the rest would follow of itself. Think for a moment of the prejudices of the people, and even of the children, and you will understand the difficulties with which I had to contend.

 Months passed in this way before I had the satisfaction of having my hand grasped by a single grateful parent. But the children were won over much sooner. They even wept sometimes when their parents met me or left me without a word of salutation. Several of them were perfectly happy, and used to say to their mothers: 'I am more comfortable here than at home.' At home, indeed, as they readily told me when we talked alone, they had been ill-used and beaten, and had often had neither bread to eat nor bed to lie down upon. And yet these same children would sometimes go off with their mothers the very next morning.

A good many others, however, soon saw that by staying with me they might both learn something and become something, and these never failed in their zeal and attachment. Before very long their conduct was imitated by others, though not always from the same considerations.

Those who ran away were the worst in character and the least capable. But they were not incited to go till they were free of their vermin and their rags. Several were sent to me with no other purpose than that of being taken away again as soon as they were clean and well clothed.

But after a time their better judgment overcame the defiant hostility with which they arrived. In 1799 I had nearly eighty children. Most of them were bright and intelligent, some even remarkably so.

For most of them study was something entirely new. As soon as they found that they could learn, their zeal was indefatigable, and in a few weeks children who had never before opened a book, and could hardly repeat a Pater Noster or an Ave, would study the whole day long with the keenest interest. Even after supper, when I used to say to them, 'Children, will you go to bed, or learn something?' they would generally answer, especially in the first month or two, 'learn something.' It is true that afterwards, when they had to get up very early, it was not quite the same.

But this first eagerness did much towards starting the establishment on the right lines, and making the studies the success they ultimately were, a success, indeed, which far surpassed my expectations. And yet the difficulties in the way of introducing a well-ordered system of studies were at that time almost insurmountable.

Neither my trust nor my zeal had as yet been able to overcome either the intractability of individuals or the want of coherence in the whole experiment. The general order of the establishment, I felt, must be based upon order of a higher character. As this higher order did not yet exist, I had to attempt to create it; for without this foundation I could not hope to organize properly either the teaching or the general management of the place, nor should I have wished to do so. I wanted everything to result not from a preconceived plan, but from my relations with the children. The high principles and educating forces I was seeking, I looked for from the harmonious common life of my children, from their attention, activity, and needs. It was not, then, from any external organization that I looked for the regeneration of which they stood so much in need. If I had employed constraint, regulations and lectures, I should instead of winning and ennobling my children's hearts, have repelled them and made them bitter, and thus been farther than ever from my aim. First of all, I had to arouse in them pure, moral, and noble feelings, so that afterwards, in external things, I might be sure of their ready attention, activity, and obedience. I had, in short, to follow the high precept of Jesus Christ, 'Cleanse first that which is within, that the outside may be clean also'; and if ever the truth of this precept was made manifest, it was made manifest then.

My one aim was to make their new life in common, and their new powers, awaken a feeling of brotherhood amongst the children, and make them affectionate, just, and considerate.

I reached this end without much difficulty. Amongst these seventy wild beggar children there soon existed such peace, friendship, and cordial relations as are rare even between actual brothers and sisters.

The principle to which I endeavoured to conform all my conduct was as follows:

Endeavour, first, to broaden your children's sympathies, and, by satisfying their daily needs, to bring love and kindness into such unceasing contact with their impressions and their activity, that these sentiments may be engrafted in their hearts; then try to give them such judgment and tact as will enable them to make a wise, sure, and abundant use of these virtues in the circle which surrounds them. In the last place, do not hesitate to touch on the difficult questions of good and evil, and the words connected with them.

 I have now put before you my views as to the family spirit which ought to prevail in an educational establishment, and I have told you of my attempts to carry them out. I have still to explain the essential principles upon which all my teaching was based.

I knew no other order, method, or art, but that which resulted naturally from my children's conviction of my love for them, nor did I care to know any other.

Thus I subordinated the instruction of my children to a higher aim, which was to arouse and strengthen their best sentiments by the relations of every-day life as they existed between themselves and me.

I had Gedicke's reading-book, but it was of no more use to me than any other school-book; for I felt that, with all these children of such different ages, I had an admirable opportunity for carrying out my own views on early education. I was well aware, too, how impossible it would be to organize my teaching according to the ordinary system in use in the best schools.

As a general rule I attached little importance to the study of words, even when explanations of the ideas they represented were given.

I tried to connect study with manual labour, the school with the workshop, and make one thing of them. But I was the less able to do this as staff, material, and tools were all wanting. A short time only before the close of the establishment, a few children had begun to spin; and I saw clearly that, before any fusion could be effected, the two parts must be firmly established separately--study, that is, on the one hand, and labour on the other.

But in the work of the children I was already inclined to care less for the immediate gain than for the physical training which, by developing their strength and skill, was bound to supply them later with a means of livelihood. In the same way I considered that what is generally called the instruction of children should be merely an exercise of the faculties, and I felt it important to exercise the attention, observation, and memory first, so as to strengthen these faculties before calling into play the art of judging and reasoning; this, in my opinion, was the best way to avoid turning out that sort of superficial and presumptuous talker, whose false judgments are often more fatal to the happiness and progress of humanity than the ignorance of simple people of good sense.

Guided by these principles, I sought less at first to teach my children to spell, read, and write than to make use of these exercises for the purpose of giving their minds as full and as varied a development as possible.

I made them spell by heart before teaching them their A B C, and the whole class could thus spell the hardest words without knowing their letters. It will be evident to everybody how great a call this made on their attention. I followed at first the order of words in Gedicke's book, but I soon found it more useful to join the five vowels successively to the different consonants, and so form a well graduated series of syllables leading from simple to compound.

I had gone rapidly through the scraps of geography and natural history in Gedicke's book. Before knowing their letters even, they could say properly the names of the different countries. In natural history they were very quick in corroborating what I taught them by their own personal observations on plants and animals. I am quite sure that, by continuing in this way, I should soon have been able not only to give them such a general acquaintance with the subject as would have been useful in any vocation, but also to put them in a position to carry on their education themselves by means of their daily observations and experiences; and I should have been able to do all this without going outside the very restricted sphere to which they were confined by the actual circumstances of their lives. I hold it to be extremely important that men should be encouraged to learn by themselves and allowed to develop freely. It is in this way alone that the diversity of individual talent is produced and made evident.

I always made the children learn perfectly even the least important things, and I never allowed them to lose ground; a word once learnt, for instance, was never to be forgotten, and a letter once well written never to be written badly again. I was very patient with all who were weak or slow, but very severe with those who did anything less well than they had done it before.

The number and inequality of my children rendered my task easier. Just as in a family the eldest and cleverest child readily shows what he knows to his younger brothers and sisters, and feels proud and happy to be able to take his mother's place for a moment, so my children were delighted when they knew something that they could teach others. A sentiment of honour awoke in them, and they learned twice as well by making the younger ones repeat their words. In this way I soon had helpers and collaborators amongst the children themselves. When I was teaching them to spell difficult words by heart, I used to allow any child who succeeded in saying one properly to teach it to the others. These child-helpers, whom I had formed from the very outset, and who had followed my method step by step, were certainly much more useful to me than any regular schoolmasters could have been.

I myself learned with the children. Our whole system was so simple and so natural that I should have had difficulty in finding a master who would not have thought it undignified to learn and teach as I was doing.

My aim was so to simplify the means of instruction that it should be quite possible for even the most ordinary man to teach his children himself; thus schools would gradually almost cease to be necessary, so far as the first elements are concerned. Just as the mother gives her child its first material food, so is she ordained by God to give it its first spiritual food, and I consider that very great harm is done to the child by taking it away from home too soon and submitting it to artificial school methods. The time is drawing near when methods of teaching will be so simplified that each mother will be able not only to teach her children without help, but continue her own education at the same time. And this opinion is justified by my experience, for I found that some of my children developed so well as to be able to follow in my footsteps. And I am more than ever convinced that as soon as we have educational establishments combined with workshops, and conducted on a truly psychological basis, a generation will necessarily be formed which, on the one hand, will show us by experience that our present studies do not require one tenth part of the time or trouble we now give to them, and on the other, that the time and strength this instruction demands, as well as the means of acquiring it, may be made to fit in so perfectly with the conditions of domestic life, that every parent will easily be able to supply it by a member or friend of the family, a result which will daily become easier, according as the method of instruction is simplified, and the number of educated people increased.

¹"The Art," frequently referred to hereafter, is distinguished by a capital A from art generally; it is our "Science and Art of Education," which is here put on a psychological and scientific basis.