peculiar meaning to myself. It brought before me my past life in its
many various stages of development; and especially the chief events
which had formed and influenced it, with their causes and their effects.
And it always seemed to me of particular importance to go back upon the
very earliest occurrences in my life. But of the actual matters of fact
of my earliest years very few traces now remained; for my mother, who
could have kept them in her memory for me, and from whom I could now
have learnt them, had died even before my life had really awakened.
Amongst the few relics remaining to me was a written address from my
godmother (the so-called Baptismal Letter), which she had sent me
immediately after my baptism, according to the Thuringian custom of the
time, as a sort of portion or dowry for my entrance into life. It had
come into my possession after the death of my father. This letter, of a
simple, Christian, tenderly religious, womanly soul, expressed in plain
and affecting terms the true relation of the young Christian to that to
which by his baptism he had become bound. Through these words the inner
life of both mind and soul, of my boyhood and of my youth, was brought
before me with all its peace and blessedness; and I could not help
seeing how much that I then longed for had since come to pass. My soul,
upon this thought, regained that original inspiriting, enlightening, and
quickening unity of which I stood so much in need. But at the same time
all the resolutions of my boyhood and youth also rushed back upon me,
and made it manifest how much more had yet to happen before they, too,
were accomplished; and with them they brought the memory of those types
and ideals with which the feeble boyish imagination had sought to
strengthen itself. But my life had been far too much an inward and
strictly personal life to have been able, or even to have dared to stand
forth in any outwardly definite form, or to take any fixed relation to
other lives, except in matters of feeling and intelligence. Indeed the
power of manifesting myself properly was a very late accomplishment with
me, and was, in fact, not gained until long after the recommencement of
my present educational work.[63] I cannot now remember, during all the
time of this educational work, that my personal life stood out in any
way from the usual ordinary existence of men; but before I can speak
with certainty upon this point I must procure information as to the
circumstances of my earlier life. This much is clear, that my life at
the time I am speaking of has remained in my memory only in its general
ordinary human aspect. It is true, however, that then, as always in my
later life, it was and ever has been very difficult to me to separate in
thought my inner life from my outer, and to give definite form and
outward expression to the inner life, especially as to religious
matters.
I dare not deny, that although the definite religious forms of the
Church reached my heart readily both by way of the emotions and by
sincere conviction, and cleansed and quickened me, yet I have always
felt great reluctance to speak of these definite religious forms with
others, particularly with pupils and students. I could never make them
so clear and living to a simple healthy soul as they were to myself.
From this I conclude that the naturally trained child requires no
definite Church forms, because the lovingly-fostered, and therefore
continuously and powerfully-developed human life, as well as the
untroubled child-life also, is and must be in itself a Christian life. I
further conclude that a child to whom the deeper truths of life or of
religion were given in the dogmatic positive forms of Church creeds
would imperatively need when a young man to be surrounded by pure and
manly lives, whereby those rigid creeds might be illuminated and
quickened into life. Otherwise the child runs great danger of casting
away his whole higher life along with the dogmatic religious forms which
he has been unable to assimilate. There, indeed, is the most elevated
faith to be found, where form and life work towards a whole, shed light
upon each other, and go side by side in a sisterly concord, like the
inward life with the outward life, or the special with the universal.
But I must return from this long digression, and resume the account of
my life and work as an educator.
Bodily exercises were as yet unknown to me in their educational
capacity. I was acquainted only with jumping over a cord and with
walking on stilts through my own boyish practice therein. As they fell
into no relation with our common life, neither with the pursuits and
thoughts of my pupils nor with my own, we regarded them purely as
childish games.
What the year brings to a man in the season when Nature lies clear and
open before him, that it does not bring to him in the season when Nature
is more often locked away from his gaze. And as the two seasons bring
diverse gifts, so do they require diverse things in return. In the
latter part of the year, when man is perforce driven more upon himself,
his occupations should take on more narrowly personal characteristics.
Just as the winter's life with nature is more fixed and narrowed, so
also is the winter's life with men; therefore, a boy's life at this time
needs material of some definite fashion, or needs fashionless material
which can be shaped into definite fashion. My pupils soon came to me,
urged by this new necessity. What life requires that life provides,
wherever life is or has been; what youth requires that youth provides,
wherever youth is or has been. And what the later man's life requires
from a man, or from men in general, that also is provided by the boy's
life and the youth's life when these have been genuinely lived through.
The demand of my pupils set me upon the following question: "What did
you do as a boy? What happened to you to satisfy that need of yours for
something to do and to express? By what, at the same period of your
life, was this need most fully met, or what did you then most desire for
this purpose?" Then there came to me a memory from out my earliest
boyhood, which yielded me all I wanted in my emergency. It was the easy
art of impressing figures and forms by properly arranged simple strokes
on smooth paper.[64] I have often made use of this simple art in my
later life, and have never found it fail in its object; and on this
occasion, too, it faithfully served my pupils and me, for our skill, at
first weak both on the part of teacher and pupil, grew rapidly greater
with use.
From these forms impressed upon paper we rose to making forms out of
paper itself, and then to producing forms in paste-board, and finally in
wood. My later experience has taught me much more as to the best shapes
and materials for the study of forms,[65] of which I shall speak in its
proper place.
I must, however, permit myself to dwell a little upon this extremely
simple occupation of impressing forms on paper, because at the proper
age it quite absorbs a boy, and completely fills and contents the
demands of his faculties. Why is this? It gives the boy, easily and
spontaneously, and yet at the same time imperceptibly, precise, clear,
and many-sided results due to his own creative power.
Man is compelled not only to recognise Nature in her manifold forms and
appearances, but also to understand her in the unity of her inner
working, of her effective force. Therefore he himself follows Nature's
methods in the course of his own development and culture, and in his
games he imitates Nature at her work of creation. The earliest natural
formations, the fixed forms of crystals, seem as if driven together by
some secret power external to themselves; and the boy in his first games
gladly imitates these first activities of nature, so that by the one he
may learn to comprehend the other. Does not the boy take pleasure in
building, and what else are the earliest fixed forms of Nature but
built-up forms? However, this indication that a higher meaning underlies
the occupation and games which children choose out for themselves must
for the present suffice. And since these spontaneous activities of
children have not yet been thoroughly thought out from a high point of
view, and have not yet been regarded from what I might almost call their
cosmical and anthropological side, we may from day to day expect some
philosopher to write a comprehensive and important book about them.[66]
From the love, the attention, the continued interest and the
cheerfulness with which these occupations are plied by children other
important considerations also arise, of quite a different character.
A boy's game necessarily brings him into some wider or fuller
relationship, into relationship with some more elevated group of ideas.
Is he building a house?--he builds it so that he may dwell in it like
grown-up people do, and have just such another cupboard, and so forth,
as they have, and be able to give people things out of it just as they
do. And one must always take care of this: that the child who receives a
present shall not have his nature cramped and stunted thereby; according
to the measure of how much he receives, so much must he be able to give
away. In fact, this is a necessity for a simple-hearted child. Happy is
that little one who understands how to satisfy this need of his nature,
to give by producing various gifts of his own creation! As a perfect
child of humanity, a boy ought to desire to enjoy and to bestow to the
very utmost, for he dimly feels already that he belongs to the whole, to
the universal, to the comprehensive in Nature, and it is as part of this
that he lives; therefore, as such would he accordingly be considered and
so treated. When he has felt this, the most important means of
development available for a human being at this stage has been
discovered. With a well-disposed child at such a time nothing has any
value except as it may serve for a common possession, for a bond of
union between him and his beloved ones. This aspect of the child's
character must be carefully noticed by parents and by teachers, and used
by them as a means of awakening and developing the active and
presentative side of his nature; wherefore none, not even the simplest
gifts from a child, should ever be suffered to be neglected.
To sketch my first attempt as an educator in one phrase, I sought with
all my powers to give my pupils the best possible instruction, and the
best possible training and culture, but I was unable to fulfil my
intentions, to attain my end, in the position I then occupied, and with
the degree of culture to which I had myself attained.
As soon as this had become fully evident to me, it occurred to my mind
that nothing else could be so serviceable to me as a sojourn for a time
with Pestalozzi. I expressed my views on this head very decidedly, and
accordingly, in the summer of 1808, it was agreed that I should take my
three pupils with me to Yverdon.
So it soon afterwards came about I was teacher and scholar, educator and
pupil, all at the same time.
If I were to attempt to put into one sentence all I expected to find at
Yverdon, I should say it was a vigorous inner life amongst the boys and
youths, quickening, manifesting itself in all kinds of creative
activity, satisfying the manysidedness of man, meeting all his
necessities, and occupying all his powers both mental and bodily.
Pestalozzi, so I imagined, must be the heart, the life-source, the
spiritual guide of this life and work; from his central point he must
watch over the boy's life in all its bearings, see it in all its stages
of development, or at all events sympathise with it and feel with it,
whether as the life of the individual, of the family, of the community,
of the nation, of mankind at large.
With such expectations I arrived at Yverdon. There was no educational
problem whose resolution I did not firmly expect to find there. That my
soul soon faithfully mirrored the life which there flowed around me, my
report for 1809 sufficiently shows.[67]
To throw myself completely into the midst, into the very heart, of
Pestalozzi's work, I wished to live in the main buildings of the
institution, that is to say, in the castle itself.[68] We would have
cheerfully shared the lot of the ordinary scholars, but our wish could
not be granted, some outside jealousies standing in the way. However, I
soon found a lodging, in immediate proximity to the institution, so that
we were able to join the pupils at their dinner, their evening meal, and
their supper, and to take part in the whole courses of their
instruction, so far as the subjects chosen by us were concerned; indeed,
to share in their whole life. I soon saw much that was imperfect; but,
notwithstanding, the activity which pressed forth on all sides, the
vigorous effort, the spiritual endeavour of the life around me, which
carried me away with it as it did all other men who came within its
influence, convinced me that here I should presently be able to resolve
all my difficulties. As far as regarded myself personally, I had
nothing more earnest to do for the time than to watch that my pupils
gained the fullest possible profit from this life which was so rich in
vigour for both body and soul. Accordingly we shared all lessons
together; and I made it my special business to reason out with
Pestalozzi each branch of instruction from its first point of connection
with the rest, and thus to study it from its very root.
The forcible, comprehensive, stimulating life stimulated me too, and
seized upon me with all its comprehensiveness and all its force. It is
true it could not blind me to many imperfections and deficiencies, but
these were retrieved by the general tendency and endeavour of the whole
system; for this, though containing several absolute contradictions,
manifest even at that time, yet vindicated on a general view its inner
connection and hidden unity. The powerful, indefinable, stirring, and
uplifting effect produced by Pestalozzi when he spoke, set one's soul on
fire for a higher, nobler life, although he had not made clear or sure
the exact way towards it, nor indicated the means whereby to attain it.
Thus did the power and manysidedness of the educational effort make up
for deficiency in unity and comprehensiveness; and the love, the warmth,
the stir of the whole, the human kindness and benevolence of it replaced
the want of clearness, depth, thoroughness, extent, perseverance, and
steadiness. In this way each separate branch of education was in such a
condition as to powerfully interest, but never wholly to content the
observer, since it prepared only further division and separation and did
not tend towards unity.
The want of unity of effort, both as to means and aims, I soon felt; I
recognised it in the inadequacy, the incompleteness, and the unlikeness
of the ways in which the various subjects were taught. Therefore I
endeavoured to gain the greatest possible insight into all, and became a
scholar in all subjects--arithmetic, form, singing, reading, drawing,
language, physical geography, the natural sciences, etc.
I could see something higher, and I believed in a higher efficiency, a
closer unity of the whole educational system; in truth, I believed I saw
this clearer, though not with greater conviction, than Pestalozzi
himself. I held that land happy, that man fortunate, by whom the means
of true education should be developed and applied, and the wish to see
this benefit conferred upon my country naturally sprang from the love I
bore my native land.[69] The result was the written record of 1809
already referred to.
Where there is the germ of disunion, where the whole is split up, even
sometimes into contradictory parts, and where an absolute reconciling
unity is wanting, where what connection there may be is derived rather
from casual outward ties than from inner necessary union, the whole
system must of necessity dig its own grave, and become its own murderer.
Now it was exactly at such a time of supreme crisis that I had the good
or the evil fortune to be at Yverdon. All that was good and all that was
bad, all that was profitable and all that was unprofitable, all that was
strong and all that was weak, all that was empty and all that was full,
all that was selfish and all that was unselfish amongst Pestalozzi and
his friends, was displayed openly before me.
I happened to be there precisely at the time of the great Commission of
1810. Neither Pestalozzi nor his so-called friends, neither any
individuals nor the whole community, could give me, or would give me,
what I wanted. In the methods laid down by them for teaching boys, for
the thorough education of boys as part of one great human family,--that
is, for their higher instruction,--I failed to find that
comprehensiveness which is alone sufficient to satisfy the human being.
Thus it was with natural history, natural science, German, and language
generally, with history, and above all, with religious instruction.
Pestalozzi's devotional addresses were very vague, and, as experience
showed, were only serviceable to those already in the right way.[70] I
spoke of all these things very earnestly and decidedly with Pestalozzi,
and at last I made up my mind, in 1810, to quit Yverdon along with my
pupils.
But before I continue further here, it is my duty to consider my life
and work from yet another point of view.
Amongst the various branches of education, the teaching of languages
struck me with especial force as defective, on account of its great
imperfection, its capriciousness and lifelessness. The search for a
satisfactory method for our native language occupied me in preference to
anything else. I proceeded on the following basis:--
Language is an image, a representation of our separate (subject) world,
and becomes manifest to the (object) world outside ourselves principally
through combined and ordered sounds. If, therefore, I would image forth
anything correctly, I must know the real nature of the original object.
The theme of our imagery and representation, the outside world, contains
objects, therefore I must have a definite form, a definite succession of
sounds, a definite word to express each object. The objects have
qualities, therefore our language must contain adjectives expressing
these qualities. The qualities of objects are fundamental or relative;
express what they are, what they possess, and what they become.
Passing now to singing and music, it happened very luckily for me that
just at this time Nägeli and Pfeifer brought out their "Treatise on the
Construction of a Musical Course according to the Principles of
Pestalozzi." Nägeli's knowledge of music generally, and especially of
church music, made a powerful impression upon me, and brought music and
singing before me as a means for human culture; setting the cultivation
of music, and especially of singing, in a higher light than I had ever
conceived possible. Nägeli was very capable in teaching music and
singing, and in representing their function as inspiring aids to pure
human life; and although nearly twenty years have elapsed since I heard
those lessons of his, the fire of the love for music which they kindled
burns yet, active for good, within my breast. And further, I was taught
and convinced by these two super-excellent music teachers, who
instructed my pupils, that purely instrumental music, such as that of
the violin or of the pianoforte, is also in its essence based upon and
derived from vocal music, though developed through the independent
discovery of a few simple sound-producing instruments. Not only have I
never since left the path thus opened to me at its origin, but I have
consistently traced it onwards in all care and love, and continue to
rejoice in the excellent results obtained. This course of
music-teaching, as extended and applied later on, has always enjoyed the
approbation of the thoughtful and experienced amongst music teachers.
I also studied the boys' play, the whole series of games in the open
air, and learned to recognise their mighty power to awake and to
strengthen the intelligence and the soul as well as the body. In these
games and what was connected with them I detected the mainspring of the
moral strength which animated the pupils and the young people in the
institution. The games, as I am now fervently assured, formed a mental
bath of extraordinary strengthening-power;[71] and although the sense of
the higher symbolic meaning of games had not yet dawned upon me, I was
nevertheless able to perceive in each boy genuinely at play a moral
strength governing both mind and body which won my highest esteem.
Closely akin to the games in their morally strengthening aspect were the
walks, especially those of the general walking parties, more
particularly when conducted by Pestalozzi himself. These walks were by
no means always meant to be opportunities for drawing close to Nature,
but Nature herself, though unsought, always drew the walkers close to
her. Every contact with her elevates, strengthens, purifies. It is from
this cause that Nature, like noble great-souled men, wins us to her; and
whenever school or teaching duties gave me respite, my life at this time
was always passed amidst natural scenes and in communion with Nature.
From the tops of the high mountains near by I used to rejoice in the
clear and still sunset, in the pine-forests, the glaciers, the mountain
meadows, all bathed in rosy light. Such an evening walk came indeed to
be an almost irresistible necessity to me after each actively-spent day.
As I wandered on the sunlit, far-stretching hills, or along the still
shore of the lake, clear as crystal, smooth as a mirror, or in the shady
groves, under the tall forest trees, my spirit grew full with ideas of
the truly god-like nature and priceless value of a man's soul, and I
gladdened myself with the consideration of mankind as the beloved
children of God. There is no question but that Pestalozzi's general
addresses, especially those delivered in the evening, when he used to
delight in evoking a picture of noble manliness and true love of mankind
and developing it in all its details, very powerfully contributed
towards arousing such an inner life as that just described.
Yet I did not lose myself in empty fancies; on the contrary, I kept my
practical work constantly before my eyes. From thinking about my dead
parents my thoughts would wander back over the rest of my family,
turning most often to that dear eldest brother of mine, who has now not
been referred to for some time in these pages. He had become the
faithful watchful father of several children. I shared in his unaffected
fatherly cares, and my soul was penetrated with the desire that he might
be able to give his sons such an education as I should feel obliged to
point out to him as being the best. Already, ever since I was at
Frankfurt, I had communicated to him my thoughts on education and
methods of teaching. What now occurred to me out of my new knowledge as
applicable to his case, I extracted, collected together, and classified,
so as to be able to impart it to him for his use at the first
opportunity.
One thing which greatly contributed to the better consideration and
elucidation of the Pestalozzian mode of teaching was the presence of a
large number of young men sent from various governments as students to
Yverdon. With some of these I was on terms of intimacy, and to the
exchange of ideas which went on amongst us I owe at least as much as to
my own observation.
On the whole I passed a glorious time at Yverdon, elevated in tone, and
critically decisive for my after life. At its close, however, I felt
more clearly than ever the deficiency of inner unity and
interdependence, as well as of outward comprehensiveness and
thoroughness in the teaching there.
To obtain the means of a satisfactory judgment upon the best method of
teaching the classical tongues, I took Greek and Latin under a young
German, who was staying there at that time; but I was constructing a
method of my own all the while, by observing all the points which seemed
valuable, as they occurred in actual teaching. But the want of a
satisfactory presentation of the classical tongues as part of the
general means of education and culture of mankind, especially when added
to the want of a consideration of natural history as a comprehensive and
necessary means of education, and above all the uncertain wavering of
the ground-principles on which the whole education and teaching rested
at Yverdon, decided me not only to take my pupils back to their parents'
house, but to abandon altogether my present educational work, in order
to equip myself, by renewed study at some German university, with that
due knowledge of natural science which now seemed to me quite
indispensable for an educator.
In the year 1810 I returned from Yverdon by Bern, Schaffhausen, and
Stuttgart to Frankfurt.
I should have prepared to go to the university at once, but found myself
obliged to remain at my post till the July of the following year. The
piece-meal condition of the methods of teaching and of education which
surrounded me hung heavy on my mind, so that I was extremely glad when
at last I was able to shake myself free from my position.
In the beginning of July 1811 I went to Göttingen. I went up at once,
although it was in the middle of the session, because I felt that I
should require several months to see my way towards harmonising my
inward with my outward life, and reconciling my thoughts with my
actions. And it was in truth several months before I gained peace within
myself, and before I arrived at that unity which was so necessary to me,
between my inward and my outward life, and at the equally necessary
harmony between aim, career, and method.
Mankind as a whole, as one great unity, had now become my quickening
thought. I kept this conception continually before my mind. I sought
after proofs of it in my little world within, and in the great world
without me; I desired by many a struggle to win it, and then to set it
worthily forth. And thus I was led back to the first appearance of man
upon our earth, to the land which first saw man, and to the first
manifestation of mankind, his speech.