Pestalozzi’s Method of Education – 4

His mode of instruction partook of the character of his discipline. Both were marked with the simplicity of nature.

Continuing Pestalozzi’s Method of Education,
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Previously in Pestalozzi’s Method of Education.

Time: 1775
Place: Swiss Countryside

There was nothing either in the disposition of the parents or the children to aid him in his efforts; on the contrary, a spirit of contempt on the one side and of open hostility on the other placed those obstacles in his way which a less original and energetic mind than his would not have been able to surmount. The usual methods of punishment could not be applied with any success; accordingly, he discarded them all. He made no attempt to frighten his refractory troop into order and obedience but used only the instrument of an all-forbearing kindness. Even when obliged to apply coercive measures, he employed them with such a spirit as showed the children that he did not have recourse to them through anger but that their use occasioned no less distress to him than to themselves.

His mode of instruction partook of the character of his discipline. Both were marked with the simplicity of nature. He had none of the ordinary apparatus of teaching, not even books. Himself and his pupils were all. The result was that he abandoned the common artificial systems of instruction and gave his whole attention to the original elements of knowledge which exist in every mind. He taught numbers instead of ciphers, living sounds instead of dead characters, deeds of faith and love instead of abstruse creeds, substances instead of shadows, realities instead of signs. He led the intellect of his children to the discovery of truths which, in the nature of things, they could never understand.

In the midst of his children he forgot that there was any world beside his asylum. And as their circle was a universe to him, so was he to them all in all. From morning till night he was the centre of their existence. To him they owed every comfort and every enjoyment; and, whatever hardships they had to endure, he was their fellow-sufferer. He partook of their meals and slept among them. In the evening he prayed with them before they went to bed; and from his conversation they dropped into the arms of slumber. At the first dawn of day it was his voice that called them to the light of the rising sun and to the praise of their heavenly Father. All day he stood among them, teaching the ignorant and assisting the helpless; encouraging the weak and admonishing the transgressor. His hand was daily with them, joined in theirs; his eye, beaming with benevolence, rested on theirs. He wept when they wept and rejoiced when they rejoiced. He was to them a father and they were to him as children. Seventy or eighty children, whose dispositions were of the most unpromising character, were converted, in a short time, into a peaceful and happy family circle. Their tempers were meliorated, their manners softened, their health improved and their whole appearance so changed that it was almost impossible to recognize them as the same persons whose haggard and stupid faces had formerly been noticed by every visitor at the asylum.

He wished to give to his establishment the character of a family, rather than of a public school. He often related to his pupils narratives of a happy and well-regulated household; and endeavored to awaken their hearts to a sense of the blessings which men may bestow upon each other by the exercise of Christian love. He taught this, whenever he could, by examples taken from real life. Thus when Altorf, the capital of the Canton of Uri, was laid in ashes, having informed them of the event he suggested the idea of receiving some of the sufferers into the asylum. “Hundreds of children,” said he, “are at this moment wandering about as you were last year, without a home, perhaps without food or clothing. What would you say of applying to the Government, which has so kindly provided for you, for leave to receive about twenty of these poor children among you?”

“Oh, yes,” exclaimed his pupils; “yes, dear Mr. Pestalozzi, do apply if you please.”

“Nay, my children,” replied he, “consider it well first. You must know I cannot get as much money as I please for our house-keeping; and if you invite twenty children among us, I shall, very likely, not get any more for that. You must, therefore, make up your minds to share your bedding and clothing with them and to eat less and work more than before; and if you think you cannot do that readily and cheerfully, you had better not invite them!”

“Never mind,” said the children; “though we should not be so well off ourselves, we should be very glad to have these poor children among us.”

But the prosperity which Pestalozzi here enjoyed proved to be of short duration. Before the expiration of a year from the commencement of his undertaking, Stanz was taken by the Austrians and he was obliged to abandon his experiment at the very moment of its greatest success. This took place in the summer of 1799. He was now exposed to the ridicule of many, who had always derided his plan as visionary and enthusiastic and to whom he was prevented, by this untimely removal, from giving the evidence of facts in demonstration of its excellence. His disappointment and sufferings on this account were severe. Depressed and unhappy, he retired into the solitude of the Alps and amid the rocks and the steeps of the Gurnigal sought rest for his weary soul and health for his exhausted nerves. But he could not long remain inactive. The enjoyment of the majestic scenes of nature among which he was placed and the kindness and sympathy of a friend named Zehender, soon restored him to a cheerful state of mind; and he descended from the mountains, determined to resume his experiment from the point where it had been cut short at Stanz.

The Helvetic Government at this time made him a grant of about thirty pounds a year, which in 1801 was raised to one hundred but was stopped entirely in 1803, by the dissolution of the Government. This was barely sufficient for his own subsistence and the small remains of his private fortune were absorbed in the maintenance of his family.

Continued.

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