He had now succeeded in awakening the attention of the Swiss Government to the importance of his plans for national education.
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
“He is no more; thou mayest know him no more; all that remains of him is the decayed remnants of his destroyed existence. He fell as a fruit that falls before it is ripe, whose blossom has been nipped by the northern gale or whose core is eaten out by the gnawing worm.
“Stranger that passest by, refuse not a tear of sympathy; even in falling, this fruit turned itself toward the trunk, on the branches of which it lingered through the summer and it whispered to the tree: ‘Verily, even in my death will I nourish thy roots.’
“Stranger that passest by, spare the perishing fruit and allow the dust of its corruption to nourish the roots of the tree, on whose branches it lived, sickened and died.”
But a brighter day for Pestalozzi was about to dawn. He now became sensible of the great error of his former plans, which made too much account of external circumstances, without exerting sufficient influence on the inward nature, which it was his object to elevate. His mind gradually arrived at the important truth, which is the keystone of the system he afterward matured: “That the amelioration of outward circumstances will be the effect but can never be the means, of mental and moral improvement.”
He had now succeeded in awakening the attention of the Swiss Government to the importance of his plans for national education and was invited to take charge of an asylum for orphans and other destitute children, which should be formed under his own direction and supported at the public expense. The place selected for this experiment was Stanz, the capital of the Canton of Underwalden, which had been recently burned and depopulated by the French Revolutionary troops. A new Ursuline convent, which was then building, was assigned to Pestalozzi as the scene of his future operations. On his arrival there he found only one apartment finished, a room about twenty-four feet square and that unfurnished. The rest of the building was occupied by the carpenters and masons; and even had there been rooms, the want of beds and kitchen furniture would have made them useless. In the meantime, it having been announced that an asylum was to be opened, crowds of children came forward, some of them orphans and others without protection or shelter, whom it was impossible, under such circumstances, to send away. The one room was devoted to all manner of purposes. In the day it served as a schoolroom and at night, furnished with some scanty bedding, was occupied by Pestalozzi with as many of the scholars as it would hold. The remainder were quartered out for the night in some of the neighboring houses and came to the asylum only in the day. Of course, under such circumstances, anything like order or regularity was out of the question. Even personal cleanliness was impossible; and this, added to the dust occasioned by the workmen, the dampness of the new walls and the closeness of the atmosphere in a small and crowded apartment, made the asylum an unhealthy abode.
The character of the children, too, was a great obstacle to Pestalozzi’s success. Many of them were the offspring of beggars and outlaws and had long been inured to wretchedness and vice; others had seen better days, and, oppressed by disappointment and suffering, had lost all disposition to exert themselves; while a few, who were from the higher classes of society, had been spoiled by indulgence and luxury and were now conceited, petulant and full of scornful airs toward their companions.
The whole charge of the establishment thus composed devolved upon Pestalozzi. From motives of economy and from the difficulty of procuring suitable assistants, he employed no one but a housekeeper. The burden of this task was increased by the caprice and folly of many of the parents, whose children had been sent to the asylum. They were prejudiced against him as a Protestant and an agent of the Helvetic Government and spared no complaints which their unreasonableness or ignorance could suggest. Mothers who were in the daily practice of begging from door to door would come on some silly pretext and take away their children because they would be no worse off at home. On Sundays especially the whole family circle, from parents to the remotest cousin, would assemble in a body at the asylum, and, after filling the minds of the children with their idle whims, would either take them home or leave them peevish and unhappy.
Sometimes children were brought to the asylum merely to obtain clothing, which being done they were soon removed and no reasons given. In many instances, parents required payment for leaving their children, to compensate for the loss occasioned by taking them off from their begging. In others, they desired to make an agreement for a certain number of days in the week, in which they could have permission to send them out to beg; and this being refused, they indignantly declared that they would remove them forthwith — a threat which was not unfrequently executed.
Such was the character of the materials on which Pestalozzi was obliged to commence his great experiments. He was deprived of the ordinary means of instruction and authority; and thus thrown entirely upon his own resources, the inventive genius, for which he was afterward distinguished, was awakened within him and the spirit of humanity received a fresh impulse. One of the first benefits which he derived from his apparently untoward circumstances was the necessity of resorting to the power of love in the child’s heart as the only source of obedience.
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