Pestalozzi’s Method of Education – 5

Today’s installment concludes Pestalozzi’s Method of Education,
our selection by George Ripley.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed a selection from the great works of five thousand words. Congratulations!

Previously in Pestalozzi’s Method of Education.

Time: 1775
Place: Swiss Countryside

In the autumn of 1799, by the advice of his friends, Pestalozzi removed to Burgdorf, an ancient Swiss city, in the Canton of Bern, where after several unsatisfactory attempts, on a small scale, to carry his plans into execution, he at last succeeded by the end of the year in opening an establishment which in 1800 numbered twenty-six pupils and in 1801 thirty-seven. About one-third of these were sons of representatives of different cantons in Switzerland and a part belonged to wealthy tradesmen and agriculturists and the rest were children of respectable families reduced in their circumstances, who were placed by their friends under the care of Pestalozzi. The expenses of this undertaking were defrayed, at first, by a loan, which he was afterward enabled but with great difficulty, to repay. But it would have been impossible to continue the institution had not the Helvetic Government voted him, in addition to the grant before mentioned, an annual supply of fuel and a salary of twenty-five pounds each to two of his assistants, Kruesi and Buss, who, however, generously declined receiving it themselves but devoted it to the general funds of the institution, from which they received nothing but their board and lodging.

At this time Pestalozzi published a work at the request of his friend Gessner, of Zurich, under the title of How Gertrude Teaches her Children, in which he gave a historical account of his experiments up to that period and a general outline of his principles of education. This book made a very favorable impression upon the public; it excited a greater attention to his plans, confirmed the hopes of his friends and convinced many of the soundness of his ideas who had heretofore regarded them as wild speculations.

The current of popularity now set so strong in his favor that he was chosen in 1802 as one of the deputies to Paris, pursuant to a proclamation of the French Consul, to frame a new constitution for Switzerland. He now made his appearance again as a political writer and presented his views on the state of the country and the means of improving it, in a pamphlet entitled View of the Objects to which the Legislature of Switzerland has chiefly to direct its Attention. The moderate and liberal opinions expressed in this publication and the wisdom of the proposals which it suggested, conciliated the best men of all parties and offended none but the few who cherished an extravagant and bigoted attachment to the ancient order of things.

In all his labors Pestalozzi had a most efficient assistant in his wife, who interested herself especially in cultivating the affections of the younger pupils; while the different branches of domestic economy fell upon his daughter-in-law and an old housekeeper who had been in his family for more than thirty years and lived in it rather as a friend than a servant. The domestic arrangements had for their object to form habits of order and to insure the enjoyment of good health to the children. In the morning, half an hour before six, the signal was given for getting up: six o’clock found the pupils ready for their first lesson, after which they were assembled for morning prayer. Between this and breakfast, the children had time left them for preparing themselves for the day; and at eight o’clock they were again called to their lessons, which continued, with the interruption of from five to seven minutes’ recreation between every two hours, till twelve o’clock. Half an hour later, dinner was served up; and afterward the children were allowed to take moderate exercise till half-past two, when the afternoon lessons began and were continued till half-past four. From half-past four till five there was another interval of recreation, during which the children had fruit and bread distributed to them. At five, the lessons were resumed till the time of supper at eight o’clock, after which, the evening prayer having been held, they were conducted to bed about nine. The hours of recreation were mostly spent in innocent games on a fine common situated between the castle and the lake and crossed in different directions by beautiful avenues of chestnut and poplar trees.

On Wednesday and Sunday afternoons, if the weather permitted, excursions of several miles were made through the beautiful scenery of the surrounding country. In summer the children went frequently to bathe in the lake, the borders of which offered, in winter, fine opportunities for skating. In bad weather they resorted to gymnastic exercises in a large hall expressly fitted up for that purpose. This constant attention to regular bodily exercise, together with the excellent climate of Yverdon and the simplicity of their mode of living, proved so effectual in preserving the health of the children that illness of any kind made its appearance but very rarely, notwithstanding that the number of pupils amounted at one time to upward of one hundred eighty. Such was the care bestowed upon physical education in Pestalozzi’s establishment; and an equal degree of solicitude was evinced for the intellectual and moral well-being of the children.

Successful, however, as the purposes of Pestalozzi were at Yverdon, the scene which is most intimately associated with his name and which was the theatre of his brightest and most useful achievements, he was destined again to meet with bitter disappointment and finally to go down to his grave in sorrow. After a series of embarrassments, occasioned principally by the artifices of an unprincipled and intriguing adventurer among his teachers and having suffered in his property, his happiness and to a certain extent in his character and witnessed the gradual destruction of his establishment, he died at Brugg, in the Canton of Basel, on February 17, 1827, at the advanced age of eighty-two years.

This ends our series of passages on Pestalozzi’s Method of Education by George Ripley. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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