Versational lessons.

But what engrossed Pestalozzi above all else was to

develop the moral sentiments and the interior forces of the

conscience. He wished to make himself loved by his pupils,

to awaken among them, in their daily association, sentiments

of fraternal affection, to excite the conception of each virtue

before formulating its precept, and to give the children moral

lessons through the influence of nature which surrounded

them and through the activity which was imposed on them.

Pestalozzi's chimera, in the organization at Stanz, was to

transport into the school the conditions of domestic life, —

the desire to be a father to a hundred children.

PESTALOZZI. 425

*

" I was convinced that my heart would change the condi-

tion of my children just as promptly as the sun of spring-

would reanimate the earth benumbed by the winter."

" It was necessary that my children should observe, from

dawn to evening, at every moment of the day, upon my brow

and on my lips, that my affections were fixed on them, that

their happiness was my happiness, and that their pleasures

were my pleasures."

" I was everything to my children. I was alone with them

from morning till night. . . . Their hands were in my hands.

Their eyes were fixed on my eyes."

496. Results accomplished. — Without plan, without

apparent order ; merely by the action and incessant com-

munication of his ardent soul with children ignorant and

perverted by misery ; reduced to his own resources in a

house where he was himself " steward, accountant, footman,

and almost servant all in one," Pestalozzi obtained surpris-

ing results.

"I saw at Stauz," he says, "the power of the human

faculties. . . . My pupils developed rapidly ; it was another

race. . . . The children very soon felt that there existed in

them forces which they did not know, and in particular they

acquired a general sentiment of order and beauty. They

were self-conscious, and the impression of weariness which

habitually reigns in schools vanished like a shadow from my

class-room. They willed, they had power, they persevered,

they succeeded, and they were happy. They were not

scholars who were learning, but children who felt unknown

forces awakening within them, and who understood where

these forces could and would lead them, and this feeling

gave elevation to their mind and heart."

"It is out of the folly of Stanz," says Roger de Guimps,

426 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

" that has come the primary school of the nineteenth cen-

tury."

While the pupils prospered, the master fell sick of over-

work. When the events of the war closed the orphan

asylum, it was quite time for the health of Pestalozzi. He

raised blood and was at the limit of his strength.

497. The Schools of Bubgdorp (1799-1802). — As

soon as he had recovered his health, Pestalozzi resumed the

course of his experiments. Not without difficulty he suc-

ceeded in having entrusted to him a small class in a primary

school of Burgdorf. He passed for an ignoramus.

"It was whispered that I could neither write, nor compute,

nor even read decently." Pestalozzi does not defend him-

self against the charge, but acknowledges his incapacity, and

even asserts that it is to his advantage.

"My incapacity in these respects was certainly an indis-

pensable condition for my discovery of the simplest method

of teaching."

What troubled him most in the school at Burgdorf ' ' was

that it was subjected to rules." " Never in my life had I

borne such a burden. I was discouraged. I cringed under

the routine yoke of the school."

Nevertheless, Pestalozzi succeeded admirably in his little

school. Then more advanced pupils were given him, but

here his success was less. He always proceeded without a

plan, and he gave himself great trouble in obtaining results

that he might have attained much more easily with a little

more system. Blunders, irregularities, and whimsicalities

were ever compromising the action of his good will. To be

convinced of this, it suffices to read the books which he pub-

lished at this period, and in particular the most celebrated,

of which we shall proceed to give a brief analysis.

PESTALOZZI. 427