conversation had touched on one thing and another, he frankly told me things about several of his teachers which put me into a state of astonishment, and which stood in direct contradiction with what I had read in the report, but not with what I had myself already observed or expected. Pestalozzi followed up these disclosures with the proposal, that I and my friend, in company with Schmid, whom he highly praised, especially for his practical ability and his activity, should set to work to renovate the institution.

The proposal came upon me so unexpectedly, that I begged for time to think of it, and discussed the matter with my friend, who was just as much surprised as I was. We were both naturally brought by this means into a closer relation with Schmid, became in a short time acquainted with the arcana imperii, and honestly considered what obstacles stood in the way of the prosperity of the institution, and what could be done to remove them.

Foremost of these was the intermixture of German and French boys, which doubly pained me, as I had come from Paris. The parents thought otherwise: they perceived in this very intermixture a fortunate means of training their children in the easiest way to speak both languages: whereas the result was, that the children could speak neither. With such a medley of children, the institution was devoid of a predominant mother-tongue, and assumed the mongrel character of border-provinces. Pestalozzi read the prayers every morning and evening, first in German, then in French! At the lessons in the German language, intended for German children, I found French children who did not understand the most common German word. This, and much more that was to be said against this intermixture, was now discussed with Pestalozzi, and the proposal was made to him, to separate the institution into two departments, one for German, the other for French children. Only in this way, it was represented to him, could the education of each class of children be successfully conducted.

The proposal was not accepted, chiefly on account of external obstacles, which might however have been overcome. A passage in Pestalozzi's "Fortunes" shows that he afterward thoroughly agreed with us. In this passage he calls it an unnatural circumstance, that the institution was transplanted from Burgdorf to Yverdun, "from German to French soil." "When we first come here," he continues, แ our pupils were nearly all Germans; but there was very soon added to them an almost equal number of French children. Most of the German children were now intrusted to us, not with any particular reference to any elementary or other education, but simply in order

that they might learn to speak French in a German house, and this was the very thing that we were least able to teach them; so also most of the French parents intrusted their children to us, in order that they might learn German in our German house: and here we stood between these two claims, equally unable to satisfy either the one or the other. At the same time, the persons on either side, who committed their children to our care, saw with as little distinctness what they really wished of us, as we did the extent of our inability to satisfy their real wishes. But it had now become the fashion to send us children from all sides; and so, in respect to pecuniary resources and eulogistic prattle, things went on for a considerable time in their old glittering but deceptive path."

The second evil was this. Much as is said in the report about the life in the institution having quite the character of that in a family, and even excelling it in many respects, still nothing could be less domestic than this life was. Leaving out of consideration Pestalozzi's residence, there were indeed in the old castle class rooms, dining rooms, and bed rooms, but the parlor, so justly esteemed by Pestalozzi, was altogether wanting. Older boys who, as the expression is, had arrived at years of indiscretion, may have felt this want less; but so much the more was it felt by the youngest-by children of six to ten years. I felt deeply on this account for my little Freddy, who, until he came to the institution, had grown up under the care of a tender mother in a lovely family circle. His present uncomfortable and even desolate existence grieved me much, and troubled my conscience. For his sake, and at the same time, for the sake of the rest of the little boys, we begged Pestalozzi to rent a beautiful dwelling house, in the vicinity of Yverdun, where the children might find a friendly compensation for the life of the family circle which they had lost. We offered to take up our abode with them.

This proposal also was declined. It may easily be supposed that in the consultation upon it, the weak side of the institution, the want of a parlor, and the impossibility even of supplying the place of the family life, was very fully discussed.*

Many of the conversations I had with Pestalozzi I shall never forget. One of them concerned the teachers of the institution, in particular the under-teachers. I saw that many of them labored with the greatest fidelity and conscientiousness, even sacrificing themselves

We made a third proposal, because it appeared to us to be impossible that Pestalozzi's ideas could be realized in Yverdun under the then existing circumstances. We asked him to establish in the canton of Argovia the long promised poor school, and offered to engage in the work ourselves to the best of our ability. As he declined this proposal also, I thought it my duty, especially on account of the boy confided to me, to leave the institution.

for the good of the institution. I need only refer the reader to the autobiography of honest, manful Ramsauer, for evidence of this fact. But still there was something wanting in most of the teachers; this Pestalozzi himself could not help feeling. In his new year's address of 1811, he said to them: "Do not attach a higher value to the ability to teach well, than that which it really has in relation to education as a whole. You have, perhaps, too early in your lives had to bear burdens which may have diminished somewhat the lovely bloom of your youth; but to you as educators, that bloom is indispensable. You must seek to restore it. I am not ignorant of your ability, your worth; but just because I know them, I would wish to set upon them the crown of an amiable disposition, which will increase your worth and make even your ability a blessing."

In what then were the teachers deficient? Pestalozzi points out one thing many who had grown up in the institution had too early borne burdens, and had been kept in uninterrupted exertion. "Those teachers who had been pupils of Pestalozzi," says Ramsauer, “were particularly hard worked, for he at all times required much more from them, than he did from the other teachers; he expected them to live entirely for the house,-to be day and night concerned for the welfare of the house and the pupils. They were to help to bear every burden, every unpleasantness, every domestic care, and to be responsible for every thing. Thus, for example, in their leisure hours, (that is when they had no lessons to give,) they were required at one time to work some hours every day in the garden, at another to chop wood for the fires, and, for some time, even to light them early in the morning, or transcribe, &c. There were some years in which no one of us were found in bed after three o'clock in the morning; and we had to work summer and winter, from three in the morning till six in the evening."* Nearly all the work consisted in the direct performance of school duties; the teachers had no time to think of their own improvement.

There was another thing. Most of the teachers of the institution might be regarded as so many separate and independent teachers, who had indeed received their first instruction there, but who had passed much too soon from learning to teaching, and wished to see how they could fight their way through. There was never any such thing as a real pedagogical lecture. Under such a course of training, it could not happen otherwise than that some of the teachers should strike into peculiar paths of this Schmid gave an example. But it was an

* Ramsauer's time-table shows that, from two or three o'clock in the morning till nine in the evening, he was almost constantly occupied with official duties.

equally necessary consequence, that the usual characteristic of such teachers should make itself apparent namely, a great want of selfknowledge and of a proper modest estimate of their own labors. "Man only learns to know himself in man."

I must know what others have done in my department of science, in order that I may assign the proper place and rank to my own labors. It is incredible, how many of the mistaken views and practices of Pestalozzi and his teachers sprang from this source.

But there was a third thing that I brought against Pestalozzi: his view of the teachers, and their relation to the methods and the methodical compendiums. As already mentioned, the compendiums were to render all peculiar talent and skill in teaching as good as unnecessary. These methodical compendiums were like dressing machines, which did not, unfortunately, quite supply the place of the teachers, but still left the services of a man necessary; just as in the most perfect printing presses, a man must always be appointed, though indeed he scarcely requires the most ordinary degree of intelligence.

Pestalozzi's idea of a teacher was not much better than this; according to his views, such a one had nothing to do, but to take his scholars through the compendium, with pedantic accuracy, according to the directions how to use it, without adding thereto, or diminishing therefrom. He was never required to be more than just a step in advance of the scholars. Just as if a guide with a lantern were to be given to a man traveling in the night, and the guide had not only to light the traveler, but first to find out the way himself with the aid of the lantern. The real teacher must have the destination and the road to it so clear before his mind, that he shall be able to guide the scholars without a lantern-without a book of method. He must be able to say, La méthode c'est moi.*

But can any one imagine a more miserable piece of slave-work than that of a teacher who is strictly tied to a Pestalozzian compendium? Is not all peculiar teaching power thereby fettered, all disposition to sprightliness and decision in teaching and acting kept down,-all affectionate relation between teacher and scholar rendered impossible ?† At that time the institution appeared to me, in moments of sadness, as a great noisy education factory; many mistook the dull noise "Every teacher," says Herder," must have his own method; he must have created it with intelligence for himself, otherwise he will not be successful."

↑ On leaving Yverdun in 1810 and going to Berlin, I attended an examination at Plamann's institution. How the free, independent, and untrammeled teaching of Friesen and Harnisch contrasted with the cold, methodical, and constrained teaching of many Pestalozzian teachers!

of the machines for an expression of youthful joyousness on the part of the pupils, while engaged in learning.

Pestalozzi's view of the task of the teachers was too intimately connected with his general views on education, and had been too much realized in the institution to allow me to entertain the idea of his changing it, although the good old man bitterly felt that my observation was not without foundation.

At a later period, when the brilliancy of the reputation of the institution was decreasing more and more, Pestalozzi saw his underteachers in the year 1817, as he relates, "suddenly combine, like English factory work-people, desist by common consent from the performance of their duties, and declare in a body that they would give no more lessons, but would remain in a state of complete strikeidleness, until the salary of every one of them should be doubled.”

Pestalozzi pressed me to teach mineralogy, and in doing so to make use of a small collection of minerals which the institution possessed. I replied that, if I did do so, I must entirely depart from the methods of instruction pursued in the institution. How so? asked Pestalozzi. According to that method, I replied, I should have to do nothing but to hold up before the boys one specimen of the collection after another, to give the name of each, for example, "that is chalk," and thereupon to make the class repeat in unison three times, "that is chalk." It was thought that in this way the observation of actual objects and instruction in language were provided for at the same time.

I endeavored to explain that such a mode of instruction made a mere show, giving the children words before they had formed an idea of the images of the minerals; that moreover this process of perception and conception was only disturbed by the talking of the teacher and the repetition of the scholars, and was therefore best done in silence. On Pestalozzi's opposing this view, I asked him why children are born speechless, and do not begin to learn to speak until they are about three years old; why we should in vain hold a light before a child eight days old, and say "light" three times, or even a hundred times, as the child would certainly not try to repeat the word; whether this was not an indication to us from a higher hand, that time is necessary for the external perception of the senses to become internally appropriated, so that the word shall only come forth as the matured fruit of the inward conception now fully formed. What I said about the silence of children struck Pestalozzi.

As far as my recollection extends, I have now related the most important matters that were discussed between Pestalozzi, Schmid, and