509. The Institute at Yverdun (1805-1825).ВЂ” In 1803

Pestalozzi was obliged to leave the castle of Burgdorf . The

Swiss government gave him in exchange the convent of

Miinchen-Buchsee. Pestalozzi transferred his institute to

this place, but only for a little time. In 1805 he established

himself at Yverdun, at the foot of Lake Neufchatel, in French

Switzerland ; and here, with the aid of several of his col-

leagues, he developed his methods anew, with brilliant success

at first, but afterwards through all sorts of vicissitudes, diffi-

culties, and miseries.

The institute at Yverdun was rather a school of secondary

instruction, devoted to the middle classes, than a primary

school proper. Pupils poured in from all sides. The char-

acter of the studies, however, was poorly defined, and Pesta-

lozzi found himself somewhat out of his element in his new

institution, since he excelled only in elementary methods and

in the education of little children.

510. Success of the Institute. — Numerous visitors be-

took themselves to Yverdun, some through simple love of

strolling. The institute of Yverdun made a part, so to speak,

of the curiosities of Switzerland. People visited Pestalozzi

as they went to see a lake or a glacier. As soon as notice

was given of the arrival of a distinguished personage, Pesta-

lozzi summoned one of his best masters, Ramsauer or

Schmid.

PESTALOZZI. 435

" Take your best pupils," he said, " and show the Prince

what we are doing. He has numerous serfs, and when he is

convinced, he will have them instructed."

These frequent exhibitions entailed a great loss of time.

Disorder reigned in the instruction. The young masters

whom Pestalozzi had attached to his fortunes were over-

whelmed with work, and could not give sufficient attention to

the preparation of their lessons. Pestalozzi was growing old,

and did not succeed in completing his methods.

511. The Tentatives of Pestalozzi. — The teaching of

Pestalozzi was in reality but a long groping, an experiment

ceaselessly renewed. Do not require of him articulate ideas,

and methods definitely established. Always on the alert, and

always in quest of something better, his admirable pedagogic

instinct never came to full satisfaction. His merit was that

he was always on the search for truth. His theories almost

always followed, rather than preceded, his experiments. A

man of intuition rather than of reasoning, he acknowledges

that he went forward without considering what he was doing.

He had the merit of making many innovations, but he was

wrong in taking counsel of no one but himself, and of his

personal feelings. "We ought to read nothing," he said;

" we ought to discover everything." Pestalozzi never knew

how to profit by the experience of others.

He never arrived at complete precision in the establish-

ment of his methods. He complained of not being under-

stood, and he was not in fact. One of his pupils at Yverdun,

Vulliemin, thus expresses himself : —

" That which was called, not without pretense, the method

of Pestalozzi was an enigma for us. It was for our teachers

themselves. Each of them interpreted the doctrine of the

master in his own way ; but we were still far from the time

436 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

when these divergencies engendered discord ; when our

principal teachers, after each had given out that he alone

had comprehended Pestalozzi, ended by asserting that Pes-

talozzi himself was not understood ; that he had not been

understood except by Schmicl, said Schmid, and by Niederer,

said Niederer."

512. Methods at Yverdun. — The writer whom we have

just quoted gives us valuable information on the methods

which were in use at Yverdun : —

' ' Instruction was addressed to the intelligence rather than

to the memory. Attempt, said Pestalozzi to his colleagues,

to develop the child, and not to train him as one trains a

dog."

' ' Language was taught us by the aid of intuition ; we

learned to see correctly, and through this very process to

form for ourselves a correct idea of the relations of things.

What we had conceived clearly we had no difficulty in

expressing clearly."

"The first elements of geography were taught us on the

spot. . . . Then we reproduced in relief with clay the valley

of which we had just made a study."

' ' We were made to invent geometry by having marked

out for us the end to reach, and by being put on the route.

The same course was followed in arithmetic ; our computa-

tions were made in the head and viva voce, without the aid

of paper."

513. Decadence of the Institute. — Yverdun enjoyed

an extraordinary notoriety for some years. But little by

little the faults of the method became apparent. Internal

discords and the misunderstanding of Pestalozzi's col-

leagues, of Niederer, " the philosopher of the method," and

of Schmid, the mathematician, hastened the decadence of

PESTALOZZI. 437

an establishment in which order and discipline had never

reigned. Pestalozzi was content with being the spur of the

institute. He became more and more unfit for practical

affairs. He allowed all liberty to his assistants, and also to

his pupils. At Yverdun the pupils addressed their teachers

in familiar style. The touching fiction of paternity trans-

ported into the school, which was successful with Pestalozzi

in his first experience in teaching, and with a small number

of pupils, was no longer practicable at Yverdun, with a mass

of pupils of every age and of every disposition.

514. Judgment of Pere Girard. — In 1809 the Pere

Girard 1 was commissioned by the Swiss government to

inspect the institute. The result was not favorable, though

Girard acknowledges that he conceived the idea of his own

method from studying at first hand that of Pestalozzi.

The principal criticism of Girard bears on the abuse of

mathematics, which, under the influence of Schmid, became

in fact more and more the principal occupation of teachers

and pupils.

"I made the remark," he says, " to my old friend Pes-

talozzi, that the mathematics exercised an unjustifiable sway

in his establishment, and that I feared the results of this on

the education that was given. Whereupon he replied to me

with spirit, as was his manner : ' This is because I wish my

children to believe nothing which cannot be demonstrated as

clearly to them as that two and two make four.' My reply

was in the same strain : ' In that case, if I had thirty sons,

I would not entrust one of them to you, for it would be

impossible for you to demonstrate to him, as you can that

two and two make four, that I am his father, and that I

have a right to his obedience.' "

1 See the following chapter.

438 THE HISTOKY OF PEDAGOGY.

It is evident that Pestalozzi was deviating from his own

inclinations. The general character of his pedagogy is in

fact to avoid abstraction, and in all things to aim at concrete

and living intuition. Even in religion, he deliberately

excluded dogmatic teaching, precise and literal form, and

sought only to awaken in the soul a religious sentiment,

sincere and profound. The Pere Girard had remarked to

him that the religious instruction of his pupils was vague

and indeterminate, and that their aspirations lacked the

doctrinal form. "The form," replied Pestalozzi, "I am

still looking- for it ! "

515. The Last Years of Pestalozzi. — Disheartened by

the decadence of his institute, Pestalozzi left Yverdun in

1824, and sought a retreat at Neuhof, on the farm where he

had tried his first experiments in popular education. It is

here that he wrote his last two works, — The Swan's Song and

My Destinies. January 25, 1827, he was taken to Brugg to

consult a physician. He died there February 17; and two

days after he was buried at Birr. It is there that the Canton

of Argovia erected a monument to him in 1846, with the

following inscription : —

" Here lies Henry Pestalozzi, born at Zurich, January 12,

1746, died at Brugg, February 17, 1827, savior of the poor

at Neuhof, preacher of the people in Leonard and Gertrude,

father of orphans at Stanz, founder of the new people's

school at Burgdorf and at Munchen-Buchsee, educator of

humanity at Yverdun, man, Christian, citizen: everything

for others, nothing for himself. Blessed be his name."

516. Essential Principles. — Pestalozzi never took the

trouble to formulate the essential principles of his pedagogy.

Incapable of all labor in abstract reflection, he borrowed

from his friends, on every possible occasion, the logical

PESTALOZZI. 439

exposition of his own methods. In his first letter to Gess-

ner, he is only too happy to reproduce the observations of

the philanthropist Fischer, who distinguished five essential

principles in his system : —

1. To give the mind an intensive culture, and not simply ;

extensive : to form the mind, and not to content one's self:

with furnishing it ;

2. To connect all instruction with the study of language ;

3. To furnish the mind for all its operations with funda-

mental data, mother ideas ;

4. To simplify the mechanism of instruction and study ;

5. To popularize science.

On several points, indeed, Pestalozzi calls in question the

translation which Fischer has given of his thought ; but,

notwithstanding these reservations, powerless to find a more

exact formula, he accepts as a finality this interpretation of

his doctrine.

Later, another witness of the life of Pestalozzi, Morf, also

condensed into a few maxims the pedagogy of the great

teacher : —

1. Intuition is the basis of instruction ;

2. Language ought to be associated with intuition ;

3. The time to learn is not that of judging and of criti-

cising ;

4. In each branch, instruction ought to begin with the

simplest elements, and to progress by degrees while follow-

ing the development of the child, that is to say, through a

series of steps psychologically connected ;

5. We should dwell long enough on each part of the in-

struction for the pupil to gain a complete mastery of it;

G. Instruction ought to follow the order of natural

development, and not that of synthetic exposition ;

7. The individuality of the child is sacred ;

440 THE HISTOltY OF PEDAGOGY.

8. The principal end of elementary instruction is not tc

cause the child to acquire knowledge and talents, but to

develop and increase the forces of his intelligence ;

9. To wisdom there must be joined power; to theoretical

knowledge, practical skill ;

10. The relations between master and pupil ought to be

based on love ;

11. Instruction proper ought to be made subordinate to

the higher purpose of education.

Each one of these aphorisms would need a long com-

mentary. It is sufficient, however, to study them in the aggre-

gate, in order to form an almost exact idea of that truly

humane pedagogy which reposes on psychological principles.

Kriisi could say of his master: "With respect to the

ordinary knowledge and practices of the school, Pestalozzi

was far below a good village magister; but he possessed

something infinitely superior to that which can be given by a

course of instruction, whatever it may be. He knew that

which remains concealed from a great number of teachers, —

the human spirit and the laws of its development and culture,

the human heart and the means of vivifying it and ennobling

it."

517. Pedagogical Processes. — The pedagogy of Pesta-

lozzi is no less valid in its processes than in its principles.

Without presuming to enumerate everything, we will indicate

succinctly some of the scholastic practices which he employed

and recommended : —

The child should know how to speak before learning to

read.

For reading, use should be made of movable letters glued

on pasteboard. Before writing, the pupil should draw.

The first exercises in writing should be upon slates.

PESTALOZZI. 441

In the study of language, the evolution of nature should

be followed, first stiKlying nouns, then qualificatives, and

finally propositions.

The elements of computation shall be taught by the aid of

material objects taken as units, or at least by means of strokes

drawn on a board. Oral computation shall be the most

employed.

The pupil ought, in order to form an accurate and exact

idea of numbers, to conceive them always as a collection of

strokes or of concrete things, and not as abstract figures.

A small table divided into squares in which points are rep-

resented, serves to teach addition, subtraction, multiplica-

tion, and division.

There was neither book nor copy-book in the schools ot

Burgdorf.

The children had nothing to learn b} r heart. They had to

repeat all at once and in accord the instructions of the

master. Each lesson lasted but an hour, and was followed

by a short interval devoted to recreation.

Manual labor, making paper boxes, working in the garden,

gymnastics, were associated with mental labor. The last

hour of each day was devoted to optional labor. The pupils

said, " We are working for ourselves."

A few hours a week were devoted to military exercises.

Surely everything is not to be commended in the processes

which we have just indicated. It is not necessary, for ex-

ample, that the child conceive, when he computes, the con-

tent of numbers, and Pestalozzi sometimes makes an abuse

of sense intuition. He introduces analysis, and an analysis

too subtile and too minute, into studies where nature alone

does her work. " My method," he said, " is but a refinement

of the processes of nature." He refines too much.

442 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

518,. Pestalozzi and Rousseau. вЂ