Pestalozzi’s Method of Education – 2

But this experiment, so happily conceived by Pestalozzi, was destined to prove unsuccessful.

Continuing Pestalozzi’s Method of Education,
our selection from George Ripley. The selection is presented in five easy 5 minute installments.

Previously in Pestalozzi’s Method of Education.

Time: 1775
Place: Swiss Countryside

But this experiment, so happily conceived by Pestalozzi, was destined to prove unsuccessful. He possessed few of the means necessary to bring it to a prosperous issue. His zeal, which led him to undertake the most magnificent enterprises, was not combined with sufficient patience, practical knowledge of human nature and fixed habits of order and economy to enable him to realize the plans which he proposed; and at length he was obliged to abandon his experiment in despair. It was not, however, altogether useless. He had the satisfaction of knowing that he had rescued more than a hundred children from the degrading influences under which they were born and planted the seeds of virtue and religion in their hearts; and, in addition to this, his qualifications for the task to which his life was now devoted were greatly increased by this insight he had acquired into its real nature and the means of its accomplishment. The results of his experience at Neuhof, from the time of opening his asylum in 1775, to its close in 1790, are left on record in the valuable works which he published during that interval. The first of these, entitled Leonard and Gertrude, is a popular novel, under which form he chose to convey his ideas respecting the condition of the lower classes and the means of their improvement. The success of this work was not what he expected. Though universally popular as a novel, there were few who entered into the spirit of the deep wisdom which it contained. This was published in 1781, and, in order to draw the attention of its readers to the great object which he had in view, he published another work in the following year, entitled Christopher and Eliza. But this also failed of the purpose for which it was principally intended. Still Pestalozzi was not discouraged in his attempts to make the public acquainted with his new ideas. He now addressed himself to the literary world, as he had before written expressly for the common people. In a journal published at Basel, under the direction of Iselin, a distinguished philanthropist, he inserted a series of essays, entitled Evening Hours of a Hermit, which contained a more systematic account of his mode of instruction and his plans for national improvement. But the current of public thought was in an opposite direction and little attention could be gained to the plans which he labored to introduce. His success was somewhat better in a weekly publication, which he undertook at the beginning of 1782, under the title of the Swiss Journal. This was continued for one year and forms two octavo volumes in which a great variety of subjects is discussed, connected with his favorite purpose of national improvement.

Soon after the breaking up of his establishment at Neuhof, the country began to be agitated with the excesses of the French Revolution and Pestalozzi, disappointed in the sanguine hopes which he had formed at the commencement of that event and disgusted with the scenes of brutality and lawlessness which it had occasioned, wrote his Inquiry into the Course of Nature in the Developement of the Human Species. This work, published in 1797, marks a new epoch in the development of his views. It was written at a moment when his mind was covered with the deepest gloom and he was almost ready to sink under the struggle between the bright conceptions of improvement which he had formed and the darkness which hung over the existing institutions of society. The following questions, which he proposes to himself at the commencement of the work, will give some idea of its plan and of the spirit in which it was composed:

“What am I? What is the human species? What have I done? What is the human species doing?

“I want to know what the course of my life, such as it has been, has made of me? and I want to know what the course of life, such as it has been, has made of the human species?

“I want to know on what ground the volition of the human species and its opinions rest under the circumstances in which it is placed?”

The following portrait of himself, which he draws at the close of the volume, is highly characteristic of his feelings at this time:

“Thousands pass away, as nature gave them birth, in the conception of sensual gratification and they seek no more. Tens of thousands are overwhelmed by the burdens of craft and trade; by the weight of the hammer, the ell or the crane and they are no more. But I know a man, who did seek more; the joy of simplicity dwelt in his heart and he had faith in mankind such as few men have; his soul was made for friendship; love was his element and fidelity his strongest tie. But he was not made by this world nor for it; and wherever he was placed in it he was found unfit.

“And the world that found him thus, asked not whether it was his fault or the fault of another; but it bruised him with an iron hammer, as the bricklayers break an old brick to fill up crevices. But though bruised, he yet trusted in mankind more than in himself; and he proposed to himself a great purpose, which to attain he suffered agonies and learned lessons such as few mortals had learned before.

“He could not, nor would he, become generally useful but for his purpose he was more useful than most men are for theirs; and he expected justice at the hands of mankind, whom he still loved with an innocent love. But he found none. Those that made themselves his judges, without further examination confirmed the former sentence, that he was generally and absolutely useless. This was the grain of sand which decided the doubtful balance of his wretched destinies.

Continued.

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