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should precede the acquaintance with the literal sign, and that the opposite way leads directly to that world of fog and shadows, and to that early use of the tongue, both of which are so justly hateful to Pestalozzi; nay even, that he who is only concerned to know the word at the earliest possible moment, and who deems his knowledge complete so soon as he knows it, lives precisely in that world of fog, and is only concerned for its extension."

We should have expected from Pestalozzi some directions, first, how to exercise the senses of children, and cultivate in them the power of rapidly arriving at clear conceptions of objects; second, how we should teach them to express in language the impressions of their senses-to translate their mute observations into words.

But Pestalozzi does give some hints, particularly as to the method in which instruction in natural history should be imparted. We must not allow the child to go into the woods and meadows, in order to become acquainted with trees and plants. "Trees and plants, (he says,) do not there stand in the order best adapted to make the character of each class apparent, and to prepare the mind by the first impressions of the objects for a general acquaintance with this department of science. It would make me too far away from my purpose, were I to refute this excessive pedantry of method, (with the best will in the world, I can find no better word for it,) against which every mind that has any degree of freshness, and is alive to the beauties of nature, will at once rise up in condemnation.

But, though nothing further is said, in the work before us, on the education of the senses, and the instruction in language connected therewith, Pestalozzi refers us to his "Book for Mothers," for more on these points. His principle, that the learning of a child must commence with what lies near to it, appears to have led him to the idea, that no natural object lay nearer to a child than its own body, and that therefore it should commence by observing that. The Book for Mothers describes the body, with all its limbs and parts of limbs, down to the minutest joints. Few persons, (I do not speak of surgeons,) are so well acquainted with the structure of the body as the child is to be made. Few people will understand, for instance, the following description: "The middle bones of the index finger are placed outside, on the middle joints of the index finger, between the back and middle members of the index finger," &c. The mother is to go through the book, word for word, with the child, making constant reference to the child's own body.

It was a great mistake on the part of Pestalozzi, to select the child's body as the first object on which it should exercise its faculties

of sight and speech, and, generally, the so-called exercises in observation employed by Pestalozzi and his school, ought properly to be regarded as exercises in reading, in which the object is far more to make the children acquainted with words and sentences than to give them distinct and lasting impressions, and a real knowledge of the thing spoken of. He who yesterday saw a man, with whose image he was so strongly impressed that he can to-day depict it from his inward conception-he who to-day can correctly sing from memory a melody which he heard yesterday-he who yesterday smelt vinegar, and to-day feels the water gather in his mouth at the recollection of the smell-gives proof of his observation by the conception which he has formed, even though he does not translate that conception into words. The generality of the exercises of Pestalozzi and his followers never produced such an imagination of perceptions as this.

Toward the conclusion of the work, Pestalozzi asks himself: "How does the question of religion stand with relation to the principles which I have adopted as true in regard to the development of the human race in general?"

It is difficult to follow him in his answer to this question. Every thing that is lofty in man is founded, according to him, in the relationship which subsists between the infant and its mother. The feelings of gratitude, confidence and love in the child toward the mother gradually unfold themselves, and are, at a later period, transferred by the child, on the admonition of the mother, to God. This, with Pestalozzi, is the only way of training the child in religion. It presupposes a mother pure as an angel, and a child originally quite inThe mother is also, like a saint, to take the child under her wings, when it grows up and is enticed to evil by the world, which is not innocent, "as God first created it." According to this view, motherless orphans must remain entirely without religious training. There is scarcely a word about the father; just once he is mentioned, and then it is said that he is "tied to his workshop," and can not give up his time to the child.

nocent.

In short, the mother is represented as the mediator between God and the child. But not once is it mentioned that she herself needs a mediator; not once in the whole book does the name of Christ occur. It is nowhere said that the mother is a christian mother, a member of the church, and that she teaches the child what she, as a member of the church, has learnt. Holy writ is ignored; the mother draws her theology out of her own heart. There pervades this work therefore a decided alienation from Christ. But we shall afterward see

that it would be unjust to measure Pestalozzi's ideas on religious instruction by the untenable theory brought forward in the last chapters of this work.

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Having thus considered the contents of this book, which was written and had its origin in Burgdorf, which contains fundamental educational principles of the highest value and importance, side by side with the most glaring educational blunders and absurdities, it will be of the greatest interest to hear how Pestalozzi performed his work as a teacher, and as the director of his institution, in Burgdorf. We shall obtain information on this point from a small but in many respects highly interesting and valuable pamphlet, entitled "A Short Sketch of my Educational Life, by John Ramsauer." The writer, who was the son of a tradesman, and was born in 1790 at Herissu in the Swiss canton of Appenzell, migrated thence in 1800, along with forty-four other children from ten to fourteen years of age, at a time when several cantons, Appenzell among the rest, had been totally desolated in consequence of the French revolution; and he came thus to Schleumen, not far from Burgdorf. While at Schleumen, he attended the lower burgh school of Burgdorf, in which, as already stated, Pestalozzi taught. He gives the following account of Pestalozzi's teaching:

"I got about as much regular schooling as the other scholars, namely, none at all; but his, (Pestalozzi's,) sacred zeal, his devoted love, which caused him to be entirely unmindful of himself, his serious and depressed state of mind, which struck even the children, made the deepest impression on me, and knit my childlike and grateful heart to his forever.

It is impossible to give a clear picture of this school as a whole; all that I can do is to sketch a few partial views.

Pestalozzi's intention was that all the instruction given in this school should start from form, number, and language, and should have a constant reference to these elements. There was no regular plan in existence, neither was there a time-table, for which reason Pestalozzi did not tie himself down to any particular hours, but generally went on with the same subject for two or three hours together. There were about sixty of us, boys and girls, of ages varying from eight to fifteen years; the school-hours were from 8 till 11 in the morning, and from 2 to 4 in the afternoon. The instruction which we received was entirely limited to drawing, ciphering, and exercises in language. We neither read nor wrote, and accordingly we had neither reading nor writing books; nor were we required to commit to memory any thing secular or sacred.

For the drawing, we had neither copies to draw from nor directions what to draw, but only crayons and boards; and we were told to draw "what we liked" during the time that Pestalozzi was reading aloud sentences about natural history, (as exercises in language.) But we did not know what to draw, and so it happened that some drew men and women, some houses, and others strings, knots, arabesques, or whatever else came into their heads. Pestalozzi never looked to see what we had drawn, or rather scribbled; but the clothes of all the scholars, especially the sleeves and elbows, gave unmistakable evidence that they had been making due use of their crayons.

For the ciphering, we had between every two scholars a small table

⚫ When Pestalozzi himself speaks of his teaching, he is too apt to mix up what he intended with what he really effected.

pasted on mill-board, on which in quadrangular fields were marked dots, which we had to count, to add together, to subtract, to multiply, and divide by one another. It was out of these exercises that Krüsi and Buss constructed, first, the Unity Table, and afterward the Fraction Tables. But, as Pestalozzi only allowed the scholars to go over and to repeat the exercises in their turns, and never questioned them nor set them tasks, these exercises, which were otherwise very good, remained without any great utility. He had not sufficient patience to allow things to be gone over again, or to put questions; and in his enormous zeal for the instruction of the whole school, he seemed not to concern himself in the slightest degree for the individual scholar.

The best things we had with him were the exercises in language, at least those which he gave us on the paper-hangings of the school-room, and which were real exercises in observation. These hangings were very old and a good deal torn, and before these we had frequently to stand for two or three hours together, and say what we observed in respect to the form, number, position and color of the figures painted on them, and the holes torn in them, and to express what we observed in sentences gradually increasing in length. On such occasions, he would say: "Boys, what do you see?" (He never named the girls.)

Answer. A hole, (or rent,) in the wainscoat.

Pestalozzi. Very good. Now repeat after me:

I see a hole in the wainscoat.

I see a long hole in the wainscoat.

Through the hole I see the wall.

Through the long narrow hole I see the wall.

Pestalozzi. Repeat after me:

I see figures on the paper-hangings.

I see black figures on the paper-hangings.

I see round black figures on the paper-hangings.

I see a square yellow figure on the paper-hangings.

Besides the square yellow figure, I see a black round figure.

The square figure is joined to the round one by a thick black stroke.

And so on.

Of less utility were those exercises in language which he took from natural history, and in which we had to repeat after him, and at the same time to draw, as I have already mentioned. He would say:

Amphibious animals.

Monkeys.

And so on.

Crawling amphibious animals.
Creeping amphibious animals.
Long-tailed monkeys.
Short-tailed monkeys.

We did not understand a word of this, for not a word was explained, and it was all spoken in such a sing-song tone, and so rapidly and indistinctly, that it would have been a wonder if any one had understood any thing of it, and had learnt any thing from it; besides, Pestalozzi cried out so dreadfully loud and so continuously, that he could not hear us repeat after him, the less so as he never waited for us when he had read out a sentence, but went on without intermission and read off a whole page at once. What he thus read out was drawn up on a half-sheet of large-sized mill-board, and our repetition consisted for the most part in saying the last word or syllable of each phrase, thus "monkeys-monkeys," or "keys-keys." There was never any questioning or recapitulation.

As Pestalozzi in his zeal, did not tie himself to any particular time, we generally went on till eleven o'clock with whatever he had commenced at eight, and by ten o'clock he was always tired and hoarse. We knew when it was eleven by the noise of other school children in the street, and then usually we all ran out without bidding good-bye.

Although Pestalozzi had at all times strictly prohibited his assistants from using any kind of corporal punishment, yet he by no means dispensed with it himself, but very often dealt out boxes on the ears right and left. But most of the scholars rendered his life very unhappy, so much so that I felt a real sympathy for him, and kept myself all the more quiet. This he soon observed, and many a time he took me for a walk at eleven o'clock, for in fine weather he went every day to the banks of the river Emme, and for recreation and amusement looked for different kinds of stones. I had to take part in this occupation

myself, although it appeared to me a strange one, seeing that millions of stones lay there, and I did not know which to search for. He himself was acquainted with only a few kinds, but nevertheless he dragged along home from this place every day with his pocket and his pocket handkerchief full of stones, though He reafter they were deposited at home, they were never looked at again. tained this fancy throughout his life. It was not an easy thing to find a single entire pocket handkerchief in the whole of the institution at Burgdorf, for all of them had been torn with carrying stones.

There is one thing which, though indeed unimportant, I must not forget to mention. The first time that I was taken in to Pestalozzi's school he cordially welcomed and kissed me, then he quickly assigned me a place, and the whole morning did not speak another word to me, but kept on reading out sentences without halting for a moment. As I did not understand a bit of what was going on, when I heard the word "monkey, monkey," come every time at the end of a sentence, and as Pestalozzi, who was very ugly, ran about the room as though he was wild, without a coat and without a neck-cloth, his long shirtsleeves hanging down over his arms and hands, which swung negligently about, I was seized with real terror, and might soon have believed that he himself was a monkey. During the first few days too, I was all the more afraid of him, as he had, on my arrival, given me a kiss with his strong, prickly beard, the first kiss which I remembered having received in my life.

Ramsauer does not relate so much about the instruction given by the other teachers. Among the fruits of their instruction were two of the three elementary works which appeared in 1803, under Pestalozzi's name: (1.) "The ABC of Observation, or Lessons on the Relations of Size," (2.) "Lessons on the Relations of Number." (3.) The third elementary work alone was written by Pestalozzi himself; it is the one already mentioned, the "Book for Mothers, or Guide for Mothers in teaching their children to observe and speak."

The institution at Burgdorf attracted more and more notice; people came from a distance to visit it, induced particularly by Pestalozzi's work, "How Gertrude teaches her children." M. Decan Ith, who was sent by the Helvetian government in 1802, to examine the institution, made a very favorable report on it, in consequence of which the government recognized it as a public institution, and granted small salaries to the teachers out of the public funds.

But that government was dissolved by Napoleon the very next year, and the constitution of the cantons restored. The Bernese government now fixed on the castle of Burgdorf, as the seat of one of the chief magistrates of the canton; and Pestalozzi had to clear out of it, on the 22d of August, 1804.

In 1802, during Pestalozzi's stay at Burgdorf, Napoleon required the Swiss people to send a deputation to him at Paris. Two districts chose Pestalozzi as a deputy. Before his departure, he published a pamphlet, entitled "Views on the Objects to which the Legislature of Helvetia has to direct its attention." He put a memorandum on the wants of Switzerland into the hands of the First Consul, who paid as little attention to it as he did to Pestalozzi's educational efforts, declaring that he could not mix himself up with the teaching

of the ABC.

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