Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

“ In this, everything depends on the natural sequence, and it is not enough that we should interfere in a blind arbitrary way and introduce any kind of exercise, just in order that it may be said of us that we too, like the Greeks perhaps, have physical education. Now, everything still remains to be done in this matter, for Pestalozzi has supplied no A B C of Art. This must first of all be supplied, and that certainly requires a man who is versed in the anatomy of the human body and also in scientific mechanics, and who combines with this knowledge a high degree of philosophical spirit. ”

“ Urged on by his love for the children, Pestalozzi took in a larger number, and in a very short time found himself bankrupt. In this period of seeming disaster Pestalozzi turned author. The books which he produced were greedily read on the Continent, and aroused the greatest interest. After some work at Stanz and at Burgdorf, Pestalozzi settled to work in the castle of Yverdun on Lake Neuchâtel, which became in the early years of the nineteenth century a place of pilgrimage for European students and lovers of education. Forced to leave Yverdun in 1815, he continued his work at Clindy till 1824. ”

“ Soon after the breaking up of his establishment at Neuhof, the country began to be agitated with the excesses of the French Revolution, and Pestalozzi, disappointed in the sanguine hopes which he had formed at the commencement of that event, and disgusted with the scenes of brutality and lawlessness which it had occasioned, wrote his Inquiry into the Course of Nature in the Developement of the Human Species. ”

“ In this regard his censure of the previous system of instruction, that it has only plunged the pupil in mist and shadow and has never let him reach actual truth and reality, agrees with ours, that this system has never been able to influence life, nor to form the root of life. Pestalozzi’s proposed remedy for this, to lead the pupil to direct perception, is synonymous with ours, to stimulate his mental activity to the creation of images and to let him learn everything just by this free formation; for perception of what has been freely created is the only possible perception. ”

“ The full importance of Pestalozzi's work was recognized by keener intellects even in his own lifetime. Queen Louise, the heroine of Prussia, wished she could fly to Switzerland to grasp Pestalozzi's hand. His system was introduced throughout Northern Germany and did wonders for the development of the German people. To-day it is the system of the world.
After completing the usual course of education, Pestalozzi continued his studies, with a view to engaging in the ministry of the gospel, to which the wishes of his friends, as well as his own deep religious feelings, had early destined him. ”

“ Such was the character of the materials on which Pestalozzi was obliged to commence his great experiments. He was deprived of the ordinary means of instruction and authority; and thus thrown entirely upon his own resources, the inventive genius, for which he was afterward distinguished, was awakened within him, and the spirit of humanity received a fresh impulse. One of the first benefits which he derived from his apparently untoward circumstances was the necessity of resorting to the power of love in the child's heart as the only source of obedience. ”

“ Germany has been foremost in its contributions to educational literature. Foremost in time as in influence is John Henry Pestalozzi (1746–1827) . Although endowed with an “unrivaled incapacity for government,” Pestalozzi has yet become an inspiration to modern pedagogy, because of his love for teaching and the tender sympathy of his nature. After various educational experiments, he opened, in 1805, a school at Yverdun, on the Lake of Neufchatel, which soon won for him a European reputation, and became a centre of interest to educators from all Europe. ”

“ In France the spread of Pestalozzianism was at first prevented by the military spirit of the time and by the apathy in education, and later, when the reaction occurred, the schools came under ecclesiastical control and 291 had little influence upon the people. Nevertheless, there were evidences of interest in the new doctrines. General Jullien came to Yverdon to study the methods, and issued two commendatory reports, which induced some thirty French pupils to go to Pestalozzi’s institute. Chavannes also published a treatise upon the Pestalozzian methods in 1805. ”

“ Pestalozzi could never have become one of the world's most influential teachers if he had not felt that the thing he was trying to do was a big thing, a vital thing in the life of his country, and if he had not had a real love in his heart for his work among the ragged and untrained urchins whom he gathered about him. ”

“ It is the business of that philosophy which proposes a German national education to furnish definite instructions for the art of this education—always, of course, taking into consideration and consultation Pestalozzi’s own art of education. Once the need for such instructions arises, through the first part being fully carried out, that philosophy will not be slow to supply it. Every pupil, even if born in the lowest class—for, in truth, the class into which children are born makes no difference to their talents—will grasp, and indeed grasp easily, the instruction in those subjects. ”

“ Many a one has to thank the fact of having come in contact with him, for the good development of their whole lives. It was in a conversation with Pestalozzi, that C. F. Bitter received the impulse which determined his subsequently noble scientific activity—and which presented to us the earth and different parts of the world, in a plastically visible and conceivable form. In many respects, the spirit of Pestalozzi was obscure, impractical, simple, and even childish, but he had mother-thoughts— (idées Mères) . ”

“ It will be a testimony against our age and a warning to all posterity if the very ones whom it has rejected obtain through this rejection the sole privilege of founding a new race, if they bring the blessing of education to the children of those who would not mix with them, and if they become the ancestors of our future heroes, sages, lawgivers, and saviours of mankind.
177. For the first establishment capable teachers and educators above all are needed. Pestalozzi’s school has trained such people, and is always ready to train more. ”

“ The training of the pupil to make clear to himself first his sensations and then his perceptions, which must be accompanied by a systematic art of training his body, is the first part of the new German national education. In regard to the education of perception, we have a suitable method from Pestalozzi. A method for the education of the power of sensation is still lacking, but he and his collaborators, who have been summoned chiefly to solve this problem, will be able to furnish this easily. A method for the systematic development of physical strength is still lacking. ”

“ In 1820 he was appointed director of the new school at Mörs, where he put in practice the methods of Pestalozzi. In 1832 he was summoned to Berlin to direct the new state-schools seminary in that city. Here he proved himself a strong supporter of unsectarian religious teaching. In 1846 he established the Pestalozzi institution at Pankow, and the Pestalozzi societies for the support of teachers’ widows and orphans. In 1850 he retired on a pension, but continued vigorously to advocate his educational views. ”

“ He afterwards published 'Beitrag zur Biographie Heinrich Pestalozzi's,' 8vo, St. Gallen, 1827, and 'Henry Pestalozzi and his Plan of Education,' 8vo, London, 1831. In 1826 he accepted the offer of a tutorship in England, and in 1830 he published 'The Christian Minister and Family Friend,' and 'Christian Education,' the substance of lectures delivered in 1828 and 1829. Biber became the head of a flourishing classical school at Hampstead, and afterwards at Coombe Wood. On his arrival in England Biber had 'no settled religious convictions,' but decided to join the church of England. ”

“ He began to hold that education did not consist merely in books and knowledge, and that the children of the poor could, by proper training, be taught to earn their living and at the same time develop their intelligence and moral nature.
His Industrial School at Neuhof and the Leonard and Gertrude.—Hence the failure of his agricultural venture afforded Pestalozzi the opportunity he craved to experiment with philanthropic and industrial education. Toward the end of 1774 he took into his home some twenty of the most needy children he could find. ”

“ The poet Lessing by his books roused the ancient spirit of liberty, long dormant in the German mind. Goethe and Schiller became the foremost of a crowd of younger men whose revolt at first took the form of an extravagant devotion to romance as opposed to the dull workaday world about them. [22] Pestalozzi, a Swiss, conceived the idea of reforming the world through its children, encouraging the little ones by constant, loving example to develop all the strength and goodness that was in them. ”

“ We have seen enough of what will happen if mankind as a whole repeats itself in each successive generation as it was in the previous one. If its complete reformation is intended, it must once for all be entirely separated from itself and cut off altogether from its old life. Not until a generation has passed through the new education can the question be considered, as to what part of the national education shall be entrusted to the home.
139. Setting that aside, and considering Pestalozzi’s book for mothers simply as the first foundation of instruction ”

“ Henceforth we were to develop faculties, and not impose knowledge. It was a great day for us when the conception was formed, and began to spread. Without it, education would never have advanced even as far as it has. But we blundered over it sadly at first; and among our mistakes, it was not the least that we christened our follies after Pestalozzi. Every great step in social progress is taken in the name of some representative man. It is the business of those who come after to absolve those representatives from the disrepute of mistakes which were none of theirs ”

“ It is claimed of him that he was the first teacher to announce convincingly the doctrine that all people should be educated; that, in fact, education is the one good gift to give to all, rich or poor, and, unlike any other giving, it helps and does not hinder self-help. Pestalozzi was no friend to the notion of giving instruction always in the guise of amusement, contending that a child should very early in life be taught the lesson that exertion is indispensable [Pg 257] for the attainment of knowledge. ”

“ He who employs his one talent aright is as much to be honoured as he to whom ten talents have been given. There is really no more personal merit attaching to the possession of superior intellectual powers than there is in the succession to a large estate. How are those powers used—how is that estate employed? The mind may accumulate large stores of knowledge without any useful purpose; but the knowledge must be allied to goodness and wisdom, and embodied in upright character, else it is naught. Pestalozzi even held intellectual training by itself to be pernicious ”

“ It was fundamental with Pestalozzi that the education of the child should commence, as it were, at the first instant of life. "By the cradle must we begin to wrest from the hands of blind Nature the guidance of our race, that we may place it in the hands of that better power which has taught us by the experience of centuries to reflect upon the nature of her eternal laws." ”

“ Pestalozzi was totally unable to cope with the world, but he awoke the minds of men to a sense of their responsibility to childhood and ushered in the 19th century as the educational age par excellence. He first sought to carry out his theories by collecting a number of orphans and outcast children upon a farm in Aargau to educate them by blending industrial, mental and moral training ”

“ In the year 1817 some strong interior visitations came over me, which withdrew me from the world in a considerable degree, and I was enabled to yield myself up to Love's own manner of acting, regardless of all consequences. Soon after this time, I met with an account of the Spirit's work in and by the late venerable Pestalozzi, which so interested me that I proceeded at once to visit him in Switzerland, and remained with him in holy fellowship four [Pg 269] years. ”

“ To all who were in this frame of mind, the first couleur de rose announcements of Pestalozzi's establishment at Yverdun were news indeed! offering as they did—or at least seeming to offer—the complete solution of a problem which could scarcely have been entertained without much painful solicitude and anxiety. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Still more, Pestalozzi possessed a deep and abiding faith, new at the time, in the power of education as a means of regenerating society. He had begun his work by trying to "teach beggars to live like men," and his belief in the potency of education in working this transformation, so touchingly expressed in his Leonard and Gertrude, never left him. He believed that each human being could be raised through the influence of education to the level of an intellectually free and morally independent life, and that every human being was entitled to the right to attain such freedom and independence. ”