establishment. It was generally in the quiet evening hours that
I appealed to their free judgment. When, for instance, it was
reported in the village that they had not enough to eat, I said
to them, ‘Tell me, my children, if you are not better fed than
you were at home? Think, and tell me yourselves, whether it
would be well to keep you here in such a way as would make it
impossible for you afterwards, in spite of all your application
and hard work, to procure what you had become accustomed to. Do
you lack anything that is really necessary? Do you think that I
could reasonably and justly do more for you? Would you have me
spend all the money that is entrusted to me on thirty or forty
children instead of on eighty as at present? Would that be
just?’
“In the same way, when I heard that it was reported that I
punished them too severely, I said to them: ‘You know how I
love you, my children; but tell me would you like me to stop
punishing you? Do you think that in any other way I can free
you from your deeply-rooted bad habits, or make you always mind
what I say?’ You were there, my friend, and saw with your own
eyes the sincere emotion with which they answered, ‘We don’t
complain about your hitting us. We wish we never deserved it.
But we want to be punished when we do wrong.’
“Many things that make no difference in a small household could
not be tolerated where the numbers were so great. I tried to
make my children feel this, always leaving them to decide
what could or could not be allowed. It is true that in my
intercourse with them I never spoke of liberty or equality;
but, at the same time, I encouraged them as far as possible to
be free and unconstrained in my presence, with the result that
every day I marked more and more that clear open look in their
eyes which, in my experience, is the sign of a really liberal
education. I could not bear the thought of betraying the trust
in me which I saw shining in their eyes; I strove constantly to
strengthen it and at the same time their free individuality,
that nothing might happen to trouble those angel-eyes, the
sight of which caused me the most intense delight. But I could
not endure frowns and anxious looks; I myself smoothed away the
frowns; then the children smiled, and even among themselves
they took care not to shew frowning faces.
“By reason of their great number, I had occasion nearly every
day to point out the difference between good and evil, justice
and injustice. Good and evil are equally contagious amongst so
many children, so that, according as the good or bad sentiments
spread, the establishment was likely to become either much
better or much worse than if it had only contained a smaller
number. About this, too, I talked to them frankly. I shall
never forget the impression that my words produced when, in
speaking of a certain disturbance that had taken place among
them, I said, ‘My children, it is the same with us as with
every other household; when the children are numerous, and each
gives way to his bad habits, the disorder becomes such that the
weakest mother is driven to take sensible measures in bringing
up her children, and make them submit to what is just and
right. And that is what I must do now. If you do not willingly
assist in the maintenance of order, our establishment cannot
go on, you will fall back into your former condition, and your
misery—now that you have been accustomed to a good home, clean
clothes, and regular food—will be greater than ever. In this
world, my children, necessity and conviction alone can teach
a man to behave; when both fail him, he is hateful. Think for
a moment what you would become if you were safe from want and
cared nothing for right, justice, or goodness. At home there
was always some one who looked after you, and poverty itself
forced you to many a right action; but with convictions and
reason to guide you, you will rise far higher than by following
necessity alone.’
“I often spoke to them in this way without troubling in the
least whether they each understood every word, feeling quite
sure that they all caught the general sense of what I said....
“Here are a few more thoughts which produced a great impression
on my children: ‘Do you know anything greater or nobler than
to give counsel to the poor, and comfort to the unfortunate?
But if you remain ignorant and incapable, you will be obliged,
in spite of your good heart, to let things take their course;
whereas, if you acquire knowledge and power, you will be able
to give good advice, and save many a man from misery.’
“I have generally found that great, noble, and high thoughts
are indispensable for developing wisdom and firmness of
character.
“Such an instruction must be complete in the sense that it must
take account of all our aptitudes and all our circumstances; it
must be conducted, too, in a truly psychological spirit, that
is to say, simply, lovingly, energetically, and calmly. Then,
by its very nature, it produces an enlightened and delicate
feeling for everything true and good, and brings to light a
number of accessory and dependent truths, which are forthwith
accepted and assimilated by the human soul, even in the case of
those who could not express these truths in words.
“I believe that the first development of thought in the child
is very much disturbed by a wordy system of teaching, which
is not adapted either to his faculties or the circumstances
of his life. According to my experience, success depends upon
whether what is taught to children commends itself to them as
true through being closely connected with their own personal
observation and experience....
“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....
“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....
“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....
“You will hardly believe that it was the Capuchin friars and
the nuns of the convent that showed the greatest sympathy with
my work. Few people, except Truttman, took any active interest
in it. Those from whom I had hoped most were too deeply
engrossed with their high political affairs to think of our
little institution as having the least degree of importance.
“Such were my dreams; but at the very moment that I seemed to
be on the point of realizing them, I had to leave Stanz.”
§ 50. Heroic efforts rise above the measurement of time. As Byron has
said, “A thought is capable of years,” and it seldom happens that the
nobleness of any human action depends on the time it lasts. Pestalozzi’s
five months’ experiment at Stanz proved one of the most memorable events
in the history of education. He was now completely satisfied that he
saw his way to giving children a right education and “thus raising the
beggar out of the dung-hill”; and seeing the right course he was urged
by his love of the people into taking it. But how was he to set to work?
His notions of school instruction differed entirely from those of the
teaching profession; and even in the revolutionary age they had some
reason for looking askance at this revolutionist. “He had everything
against him,” we read, “thick, indistinct speech, bad writing, ignorance
of drawing, scorn of grammatical learning. He had studied various
branches of natural history, but without any particular attention either
to classification or terminology. He was conversant with the ordinary
operations in arithmetic, but he would have had difficulty in getting
through a really long sum in multiplication or division; and he probably
had never tried to work out a problem in geometry. For years this dreamer
had read no books. But instead of the usual knowledge that any young man
of ordinary talent can acquire in a year or two, he understood thoroughly
what most masters were entirely ignorant of—the mind of man and the
laws of its development, human affections and the art of arousing and
ennobling them. He seemed to have almost an intuitive insight into the
development of human nature, and was never tired of contemplating it.”
(C. Monnard in R.’s Guimps, p. 174.)[157]
§ 51. This man wished to be a schoolmaster, but who would venture to
entrust him with a school? No one seemed willing to do this; and he would
have been at a loss where to turn had he not had influential friends
at Burgdorf, a town not far from Bern. These got for him permission
to teach, not indeed the children of burgesses but the children of
non-burgesses, seventy-three of whom used to assemble under a shoemaker
in his house in the suburbs. With this arrangement, however, the
shoemaker and the parents of the children were by no means satisfied. “If
the burgesses like the new method,” they said very reasonably, “let them
try it on their own children.” Their grumbling was heard, and permission
to teach was withdrawn from Pestalozzi.
§ 52. The check, however, was only temporary. His friends were wiser than
the shoemaker, and they procured for him admission into the lowest class
of the school for burghers’ children. In this class there were about 25
children, boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 8. Here he proved
that he was vastly different from a mere dreamer. After teaching these
children in his own way for eight months he received the first official
recognition of the merits of his system. The Burgdorf School Commission
after the usual examination, wrote a public letter to Pestalozzi, in
which they said: “The surprising progress of your little scholars of
various capacities shews plainly that every one is good for something, if
the teacher knows how to get at his abilities and develop them according
to the laws of psychology. By your method of teaching you have proved how
to lay the groundwork of instruction in such a way that it may afterwards
support what is built on it.... Between the ages of 5 and 8, a period
in which according to the system of torture enforced hitherto, children
have learnt to know their letters, to spell and read, your scholars have
not only accomplished all this with a success as yet unknown, but the
best of them have already distinguished themselves by their good writing,
drawing, and calculating. In them all you have been able so to arouse and
excite a liking for history, natural history, mensuration, geography,
&c., that thus future teachers must find their task a far easier one if
they only know how to make good use of the preparatory stage the children
have gone through with you” (Morf, Pt. I, p. 223).
§ 53. In consequence of this report, Pestalozzi in June 1800 was made
master of the second school of Burgdorf, a school numbering about
70 boys and girls from 10 to 16 years old. With them Pestalozzi did
not get on so well. Ramsauer, a poor boy of 10 who afterwards helped
Pestalozzi at Yverdun and became one of his best teachers, has left us
his remembrances. Two things seemed clear to the child’s mind: 1st,
that their teacher was very kind but very unhappy; 2nd, that the pupils
did not learn anything and behaved very badly. Many schoolmasters have
smiled in derision at this account of Pestalozzi’s actual teaching; but
in reading it several things should be borne in mind. First Ramsauer
as a child would have a keen eye and good memory for the master’s
eccentricities; but how far the teaching succeeded he could not judge,
for he did not know what it aimed at. Then again he saw that Pestalozzi’s
zeal was for the whole school, not for individual scholars. But the
child who knew of nothing beyond Burgdorf could not tell that Pestalozzi
was thinking not so much of the children of Burgdorf as of the children
of Europe. For Burgdorf—whether it was pleased to honour or to dismiss
Pestalozzi—could not contain him. His aims extended beyond the town,
beyond canton Bern, beyond Switzerland even; and he was consumed with
zeal to bring about a radical change in elementary education throughout
Europe. The truth which was burning within him he has himself expressed
as follows:
“If we desire to aid the poor man, the very lowest among the people, this
can be done in one way only, that is, _by changing his schools into
true places of education, in which the moral, intellectual, and physical
powers which God has put into our nature may be drawn out_, so that the
man may be enabled to live a life such as a man should live, contented
in himself and satisfying other people. Thus and only thus does the man,
whom in God’s wide world nobody helps and nobody can help, learn to help
himself.” “The public common school-coach throughout Europe must not
simply be better horsed, but still more it must be _turned round and be
brought on to an entirely new road_.” (Quoted by Morf, P. I, p. 211.)
§ 54. Pestalozzi was now working heart and soul at the engineering of
this “new road.” His grand successes hitherto had been gained more by
the heart than by the head; but the school course must draw out the
faculties of the head as well as of the heart. Pestalozzi made all
instruction start from what children observed for themselves. “I laid
special stress,” he says, “on just what usually affected their senses.
And as I dwelt much on elementary knowledge, I wanted to know when the
child receives its first lesson, and I soon came to the conviction that
the first hour of learning dates from birth. From the very moment that
the child’s senses open to the impressions of nature, nature teaches
it. Its new life is but the faculty, now come to maturity, of receiving
impressions; it is the awakening of the germs now perfect which will
go on using all their forces and energies to secure the development of
their proper organisation; it is the awakening of the animal now complete
which will and shall become a man. So the sole instruction given to the
human being consists merely in the art of giving a helping hand to this
natural tendency towards its proper development; and this art consists
essentially in the means of putting the child’s impressions in connexion
and harmony with the precise degree of development the child has reached.
There must be then in the impressions to be given him by instruction,
a regular gradation; and the beginning and the progress of his various
knowledges must exactly correspond with the beginning and increase in his
powers as they are developed. From this I soon saw that this gradation
must be ascertained for all the branches of human knowledge, especially
for those fundamental notions from which our thinking power takes its
rise. On such principles and no others is it possible to construct real
school books and books about teaching” (_Wie Gertrud_, &c., Letter I.).
§ 55. In endeavouring to put teaching, as he said, “on a psychological
basis,” Pestalozzi compared it to a mechanism. On one occasion when
expounding his views, he was interrupted by the exclamation, “Vous voulez
mécaniser l’éducation!” Pestalozzi was weak in French, and he took these
words to mean, “You wish to get at the mechanism of education.” He
accordingly assented, and was in his turn misunderstood. Soon afterwards
he endeavoured to express the new thing by a new word and said, “Ich will
den menschlichen Unterricht psychologisieren; I wish to psychologise
instruction,” and this he explains to mean that he sought to make
instruction fall in with the eternal laws which govern the development
of the human intellect (Morf, I, p. 227). But this was a task which no
one man could accomplish, not even Pestalozzi. The eternal laws which
govern the development of mind have not been completely ascertained even
after investigations carried on during thousands of years; and Pestalozzi
did not know what had been established by previous thinkers. He made a
gigantic effort to find both the laws and their application, but if
he had continued to stand alone he could have done but little. Happily
he attracted to him some young and vigorous assistants, who caught his
enthusiasm and worked in his spirit. They did much, but there was one
thing the Master could not communicate—his genius.
§ 56. Just at this time, before Pestalozzi found associates in his
work, he drew up for a “Society of Friends of Education” an account of
his method; and this begins with the words I have already quoted, “I
want to psychologise education.” Basing all instruction on _Anschauung_
(which is nearly equivalent to the child’s own observation), he explains
how this may be used for a series of exercises, and he takes as the
general elements of culture the following: language, drawing, writing,
arithmetic, and the art of measuring. In the education of the poor he
would lay special stress on the importance of two things, then and
since much neglected, viz., singing and the sense of the beautiful.
The mother’s cradle song should begin a series leading up to hymns of
praise to God. Education should develop in all a sense of the beauties
of Nature. “Nature is full of lovely sights, yet Europe has done nothing
either to awaken in the poor a sense for these beauties, or to arrange
them in such a way as to produce a series of impressions capable of
developing this sense.... If ever popular education should cease to be
the barbarous absurdity it now is, and put itself into harmony with the
real needs of our nature, this want will be supplied.” (R.’s Guimps, 186.)
§ 57. In the last year of the eighteenth century (1800) Pestalozzi was
toiling away, constant to his purpose but not clearly seeing the road
before him. In March, 1800, he wrote to Zschokke: “For thirty years my
life has been a well-nigh hopeless struggle against the most frightful
poverty.... For thirty years I have had to forego many of the barest
necessaries of life, and have had to shun the society of my fellow-men
from sheer lack of decent clothes. Many and many a time have I gone
without a dinner and eaten in bitterness a dry crust of bread on the
road at a time when even the poorest were seated round a table. All this
I have suffered and am still suffering to-day, and with no other object
than the realization of my plans for helping the poor” (R.’s Guimps,
189). It was clear that he could not help others till he himself got
help; and he now did get just the help he wanted, an assistant who though
a schoolmaster was, strange to say, perfectly ready to learn, and to
throw himself into carrying out another man’s ideas. This was Hermann
Kruesi, a man twenty-five years old, who from the age of 18 had been
master of the village school at Gais in Appenzell. In consequence of
the war between the French and Austrians, Appenzell was now reduced to
a state of famine, and bands of children were sent off to other cantons
to escape starvation. Fischer, a friend of Pestalozzi’s, and himself an
educationist taught by Salzmann (_supra_ 289), wrote from Burgdorf to the
pastor of Gais, offering to get thirty children taken in by the people of
Burgdorf, and asking that they might be sent with some one who would look
after them in the day-time and teach them. In answer to this invitation
Kruesi, after a week’s march, entered Burgdorf with a troop of little
ones. The children were drawn up in an open place, and benevolent people
chose which they would adopt. Kruesi was taken into the Castle which the
Government had made over partly to Fischer, partly to Pestalozzi. In it
Kruesi opened a day-school. Fischer soon afterwards died; and Pestalozzi
proposed to Kruesi, who had become entirely converted to his views, that
they should unite and together carry on the school in the Castle. By a
decree of 23rd July, 1800, the Executive Council granted to Pestalozzi
the gratuitous use of as much of the Castle and garden as he needed, and
thus was established Pestalozzi’s celebrated Institute at Burgdorf.