The Bernese government gave up the monastery of Buchsee to Pestalozzi for his institution, and had the building properly arranged for him. Close by Buchsee lies the estate of Hofwyl, where Fellenberg resided, and to whom the teachers gave the principal direction of the institution, "not without my consent," says Pestalozzi, "but to my profound mortification."

Notwithstanding, Pestalozzi allows Fellenberg to have possessed in a high degree the talent of governing. In Fellenberg the intellect predominated, as in Pestalozzi the feelings; in the institution at Buchsee, therefore, "that love and warmth was missing which, inspiring all who came within its influence, rendered every one at Burgdorf so happy and cheerful: at Buchsee every thing was, in this respect, totally different. Still Buchsee had this advantage, that in it more order prevailed, and more was learned than at Burgdorf."

Pestalozzi perceived that his institution would not become independent of Fellenberg, so long as it should remain at Buchsee, and he gladly accepted, therefore, a highly advantageous proposal on the part of the inhabitants of Yverdun, that he should remove his institution to their town. He repaired thither, with some of his teachers and eight pupils; half a year later, the remaining teachers followed, having, as Pestalozzi remarks, soon found the government of Fellenberg far more distasteful than the want of government, under him, had ever been to them.

We now enter on a period when Pestalozzi and his institution acquired a European reputation, when Pestalozzian teachers had schools in Madrid, Naples, and St. Petersburg, when the emperor of Russia gave the venerable old man a personal proof of his favor and esteem, and when Fichte saw in Pestalozzi and his labors the commencement of a renovation of humanity.

But to write the history of this period is a task of unusual difficulty. On one side stand extravagant admirers of Pestalozzi, on the other bitter censurers; a closer examination shows us that both are right, and both wrong. A fearful dissension arises, in the institution itself, among the teachers; at the head of the two parties stand Niederer and Schmid, who abuse each other in a manner unheard of. With which party shall we side; or shall we side with neither, or with both?

If we ask to which party Pestalozzi inclined, or whether he held himself above the parties, and then go entirely according to his judg ment, our embarrassment will only be increased. He pronounced a very different opinion on the same man at different times: at one time he saw in him a helping angel, before whom he humbled himself

more than was seemly, and from whom he expected every benefit to his institution; at another time, he saw in him an almost fiendish being, who was only bent on ruining the institution.

If any fancy that they have a sure source of information in the account drawn up by Pestalozzi and Nieder, and published in 1807, namely, the "Report on the State of the Pestalozzian Institution, addressed to the Parents of the Pupils and to the Public;" they will be undeceived by some remarks which Pestalozzi himself added to that report at a later period, in the collected edition of his works, but still more so in, “The Fortunes of my Life." This work is altogether at variance with those which give a high degree of praise to the Pestalozzian Institution, in its former condition. From the year in which the dispute between Niederer and Schmid, broke out, (1810,) most of those who give any information on the subject range themselves on Niederer's side; while Pestalozzi himself, from the year 1815 till his death, holds unchangeably with Schmid.

I should despair of ever being able to thread my way in this labyrinth with any degree of certainty, were it not for the fact that I resided some time in the institution, namely, from October, 1809, till May, 1810, and there became more intimately acquainted with persons and circumstances than I could otherwise have been.

A friend, (Rudolph von Przystanowski,) accompanied me to Yverdun, where we arrived toward the end of October. It was in the evening of a cold rainy day that we alighted at the hotel called the Red House. The next morning we went to the old castle, built by Charles the Bold, which with its four great round towers incloses a courtyard. Here we met a multitude of boys; we were conducted to Pestalozzi. He was dressed in the most negligent manner: he had on an old grey overcoat, no waistcoat, a pair of breeches, and stockings hanging down over his slippers; his coarse bushy black hair uncombed and frightful. His brow was deeply furrowed, his dark brown eyes were now soft and mild, now full of fire. You hardly noticed that the old man, so full of geniality, was ugly; you read in his singular features long continued suffering and great hopes.

Soon after, we saw Niederer,* who gave me the impression of a young Roman Catholic priest; Krüsi,* who was somewhat corpulent, fair, blue-eyed, mild and benevolent; and Schmid,* who was, if possible, more cynical in his dress than Pestalozzi, with sharp features and eyes like those of a bird of prey.

At that time 137 pupils, of ages varying from six to seventeen

• A biographical sketch of Niederer, Krüsi, and Schmid, will be given at the close of the life of Pestalozzi.-ED.

years, lived in the institution; 28 lodged in the town, but dined in the institution. There were in all, therefore, 165 pupils. Among them there were 78 Swiss; the rest were Germans, French, Russians, Italians, Spaniards, and Americans. Fifteen teachers resided in the institution, nine of whom were Swiss teachers, who had been educated there. Besides these, there were 32 persons who were studying the method: seven of them were natives of Switzerland. The interior of the building made a mournful impression on me; but the situation was extremely beautiful. An extensive meadow separates it from the southern end of the glorious lake of Neufchâtel, on the west side of which rises the Jura range of mountains, covered with vineyards. From the heights of the Jura, above the village of Granson, rendered famous by the defeat of Charles the Bold, you survey on the one side the entire chain of the Alps, from Mount Pilatus, near Lucerne, to Mount Blanc; on the other side you see far away into France.

A short time after my arrival, I went to live in the institution, where I took my meals, and slept along with the children. If I wanted to do any work for myself, I had to do it while standing at a writing desk in the midst of the tumult of one of the classes. None of the teachers had a sitting-room to himself. I was fully determined to devote all my energies thenceforth to the institution, and accordingly I had brought with me Freddy Reichardt, the brother of my future wife, a boy of eight years, and now placed him among the other scholars. My position was well suited to enable me to compare the reports on the institution with what I daily saw and experienced. The higher my expectations had been raised by that report, the deeper was my pain, as I was gradually undeceived; I even thought I saw the last hopes of my native land disappear.

It is scarcely necessary for me to particularize the respects in which I was undeceived; they may be learnt from Pestalozzi's notes to the latter copy of his report, but especially from his work, "The Fortunes of my Life." Nevertheless I will advert to one or two principal points.

I will particularly advert to what is said in the report about the spirit of the institution, which is represented as being similar to that which pervades a family.

"We may with a good conscience, declare publicly, that the children in our institution are happy and cheerful; that their innocence is preserved, their religious disposition cherished, their mind formed, ther knowledge increased, their hearts elevated. The arrangements which have been adopted for attaining these objects possess a quiet inward power. They are based principally on the benevolent and amiable character which distinguishes the teachers of our house, and which is supported by a vigorous activity. There reigns throughout the entire institution the spirit of a great domestic union, in which, according to the requirements of such a union, a pure paternal and fraternal feeling every where

shines forth. The children feel themselves free, their activity finds even a powerful charm in their employments; the confidence reposed in them, and the af fection shown toward them, elevate their sentiments." "The life in the house is, to a rare extent, a school for cultivating domestic affection and domestic unity." "All the teachers in common, acting as an organized whole, do for all the children what a careful mother does for the few children of her own family." The body of teachers "attains the most perfect unity of thought and action, and appears to the children as only one person.”

"In general, it is to be remarked that we seek throughout to awaken and to foster the spirit of peace, of love, and of mutual brotherly fellowship. The disposition of the great body of our inmates is good. A spirit of strength, of repose, and of endeavor rests on the whole. There is much in our midst that is eminently good. Some pupils evince an angelic disposition, full of love and of a presentiment of higher thoughts and a higher existence. The bad ones do not feel themselves comfortable in the midst of our life and labor; on the other hand, every spark of good and noble feeling which still glimmers even in the bad ones encouraged and developed. The children are in general neither hardened by punishment, nor rendered vain and superficial by rewards. The mild forbearance of the most amiable household has the most undisturbed play in our midst. The children's feelings are not lightly wounded. The weak are not made to compare themselves with the strong, but with themselves. We never ask a pupil if he can do what another does. We only ask him if he can do a thing. But we always ask him if he can do it perfectly. As little of the struggle of competition takes place between one pupil and another, as between affectionate brothers and sisters who live with a loving mother in a happy condition."

"We live together united in brotherly love, free and cheerful, and are, in respect to that which we acknowledge as the one thing needful, one heart and one soul. We may also say that our pupils are one heart and one soul with us. They feel that we treat them in a fatherly manner; they feel that we serve them, and that we are glad to serve them; they feel that we do not merely instruct them; they feel that for their education we give life and motion to every thing in them that belongs to the character of man. They also hang with their whole hearts on our actions. They live in the constant consciousness of their own strength."

Must not even a sober reader of these passages be led to believe that a spirit of the most cordial love and concord reigned in a rare manner in the Pestalozzian institution. How much more did I believe so, who, deeply distressed by the calamities of those days, and inspired with hope by the eloquence of Fichte, perceived in Yverdun the commencement of a better time, and ardently longed to hasten its approach. Those who did not themselves live through those years of anguish, in which injustice increased and love waxed cold in the hearts of many, may perhaps smile at the enthusiasm of despair.

Pestalozzi himself says of the institution that, as early as the time when it was removed from Buchsee to Yverdun, it bare within itself "the seeds of its own internal decay, (these are his own words,) in the unequal and contradictory character of the abilities, opinions, inclinations, and claims of its members; although as yet this dissension had done any thing but declare itself general, unrestrained, and fierce." He says, that nevertheless many of the members were still desirous for peace, and that others were moderate in their views and feelings. "But the seeds of our decay had been sown, and though they were still invisible in many places, had taken deep root. Led aside by

worldly temptations and apparent good fortune from the purity, simplicity, and innocence of our first endeavors, divided among ourselves in our inmost feelings, and from the first made incapable, by the heterogeneous nature of our peculiarities of ever becoming of one mind and one heart in spirit and in truth for the attainment of our objects, we stood there outwardly united, even deceiving ourselves with respect to the real truth of our inclination to this union, and unfortunately we advanced, each one in his own manner, with firm and at one time with rapid steps along a path which, without our being really conscious of it, separated us every day further from the possibility of our ever being united.

What Ramsauer says entirely agrees with this. In Burgdorf, he says, there reigned a kindly spirit. "This ceased when the family life was transformed in the institution into a constitutional state existence. Now the individual was more easily lost in the crowd: thus there arose a desire on his part to make himself felt and noticed. Egotism made its appearance every day in more offensive forms. Envy and jealousy rankled in the breasts of many." "Much indeed was said about a domestic life,' which ought to prevail in an educational establishment, just as a very great deal was said and written about an harmonious development of all the faculties of the pupil;' but both existed more in theory than in practice. It is true, that a good deal of common interest was evinced in the general working of the institution, but the details were allowed to go on or stand still very much as they might, and the tone of the whole house was more a tone of pushing and driving than one of domestic quietude." In the report is this passage: "In respect to the execution of the design, we may say decidedly, that the institution has stood the fiery ordeal of eight severe years."

On this passage Pestalozzi remarks as follows in 1823: "What is here said in confirmation of this view is altogether a consequence of the great delusion under which we lay at that period, namely, that all those things in regard to which we had strong intentions and some clear ideas, were really as they ought to have been, and as we should have liked to make them. But the consequences of the partial truth which in this instance had hold of our minds were, from want of sufficient knowledge, ability, and skill for carrying it out, fixed in our midst, confused, and made the seed of countless weeds, by which the good seed that lay in the ground was on all sides crowded, and here and there choked. Neither did we perceive the weeds at that time; indeed, as we then lived, thought, acted, and dreamt, it was impossible that we should perceive them."