“ His earliest years were spent in schemes for improving the condition of the people. The death of his friend Bluntschli turned him however from politics, and induced him to devote himself to education. He married at twenty-three and bought a piece of waste land at Neuhof in Aargau, where he attempted the cultivation of madder. Pestalozzi knew nothing of business, and the plan failed. ”

“ This was followed by his masterpiece, Leonard and Gertrude (1781) , an account of the gradual reformation, first of a household, and then of a whole village, by the efforts of a good and devoted woman. ”