Pestalozzi and the foundation of the modern elementary school

Front matter

PESTALOZZI I

1 1 1

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Book II

I. Criticism of the Existing Methods . . . 149 n. J^ature, Aim, and Division of Elementary Education 161

V vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

III. The Elementary Method 179

/\jr0 Sense-perception as the Psychological Foundation of Intellectual Education . . . 197 V. The Method of Sense-perception, or Elementary

Method 210

VI. Moral and Religious Education .... 256

Book III

I. Other Doctrines . 276

II. Pestalozzi on his Own Work .... 280

Part III

I. Pestalozzi's Influence on Germany, especially in

Prussia 289

II. Pestalozzi's Influence in Other Countries . . 301

Index 303 i

INTEODUCTION

Introduction

When we consider the importance that is attached to popular education in all civilised countries at the present time, we experience a certain difficulty in remembering that it was not always thus, and only a study of history convinces us that this anxiety to raise the lower classes intellectually and morally to a higher level does not date farther back than a century. It is a curious thing that, while France realised the political enfranchisement of citizens at the price of the most frightful of revolutions, in a neighbouring country, Switzerland, which was also to profit largely by this revolution, a man of genius, as earnest as he was modest, worked almost single-handed at the intellectual and moral enfranchisement of the lower classes, and, completing the work of France, immortalised himself by creating, at the price of his repose and happiness, what was until then almost unknown, the education of the lower classes. This man was Pestalozzi.

We may indeed declare, without fear of exaggeration, that before Pestalozzi popular education did not exist at all. Even in the country where statesmen paid the greatest attention to the subject, in Germany, it was far from existing in reality. Luther had certainly proclaimed the need of it, but the elementary, school, which he really created, had for a long time

ix

X INTRODUCTION

been a mere class for the teaching of the catechism. It would, however, be unjust to omit the mention of the earnest endeavours of Francke,^ the founder of pietism, and of the philanthropinist Eochow,^ an old Prussian officer turned canon, who, touched by the misery of the rural population, had realised that instruction was the only means of improving their lot, and had founded a school at his own expense, with which the pastor was to have nothing to do. But Francke's schools had retained an essentially religious character, and Eochow's attempt, although supported by the government of Frederick II, was opposed by the clergy, and the reactionary government of Frederick William II did not continue the experiment ; consequently it had no other result than that of once more attracting the attention of Prussian

1 It was in 1695 that Francke one day found four thalers and sixteen groschen (about three dollars and a half) in the poorbox, and determined to found a school for the poor with this sum. Later on he founded a training school for teachers, the first of the celebrated Francke training schools in Halle, to which secondary schools have since been attached. ( Vide Pinloche, La E^/oj^me cle l' Education en Allemagne au XVIII^ siecle, p. 4.)

2 Rochow (1734-1805) published in 1772 his Attempt at a Primer for the Children of the Rural Population or for Use in Village Schools {Versuch eines Schulbuches fiir Kinder der Landleute, Oder zum Gebrauch in Dorfschulen) , in which he demanded free education for the people. The same year he became teacher at the modest school at Reckahn (the cost of which he paid out of his own pocket) , which soon became an object of curiosity and universal admiration. He also published besides The Peasants^ Friend {Der Bauernfreund, 1773) and the Childre)i^s Friend {Der Kinderfreund, 1775), a species of reading book for the use of the lower classes, which had an immense success ; a treatise entitled The Amelioration of the National Character through Elementary Schools { Von Verhesserung des Nationalcharakters durch Volksschulen, 1779). Vide Pinloche, ibid., pp. 420-432.

INTRODUCTION xi

statesmen to the necessity of organising the instruction of the people independently of the Church, and of demonstrating to them the possibility of such organisation.

With these few isolated exceptions, the children of the lower classes only learnt at school reading and writing (and that very indifferently) and in the Protestant countries their catechism before confirmation. And the pastor generally handed even the duty of teaching that over to the clerk. Often again the office of teacher was filled by some zealous workman, some old soldier, or even some servant out of a place, who gathered the children together for an hour or two on Sundays to teach them reading and writing as well as he could. The trade of schoolmaster had become the refuge of all who could not get employment elsewhere. To such educators was the instruction of the people abandoned towards the end of the eighteenth century.

As the method used was on a par with the teachers, one may easily conceive the result. The rod mostly took the place of all pedagogy, and in the most favourable cases the memory was the only faculty exercised. Comenius, certainly, had made considerable progress as early as the seventeenth century, and had indicated to a certain extent the road to follow by pointing out what profit could be gained in teaching by observation, direct or by the help of pictures of actual objects, and by creating the method since called perceptive, or teaching by the help of sense-perception. But these methods, which were of a purely empirical nature, had fallen into oblivion; and Basedow, who went back to them later on, at the end of the eighteenth xii INTRODUCTION

century, without however grasping the full extent of the educational problem which remained to solve, had only applied them to the instruction of the children of the middle classes, so that his attempt had had no result "outside secondary education. Finally, we know that Rousseau himself was of opinion that the poor had no need of education, and went so far as to declare that he would never trouble himself about a puny, sickly child, even if he were to live to be eighty. For Pestalozzi was reserved the undying fame of having not only restored to credit the processes of the method of sense-perception, already known and applied, but, above all, of having realised both the social importance of the education of the people and the most suitable means of determining its method.

Are we to believe Pestalozzi when at the time that he was publishing his first writings on education he tells us that he " had not read a book for thirty years," and that he "knew nothing of what Rousseau and Basedow had done or desired to do," although ever since "half the world had been stirred up in favour of the reform of education " ^ ? His relations with Iselin sufficiently prove that he could not have been completely ignorant of the well-advertised work of the philanthropinists, as we have shown elsewhere.^ As to Emile, at the time when Pestalozzi lived, it was not even necessary to have read it to be affected by its influence, which was indeed universal, and made itself profoundly felt in all parts of the civilised world. He himself aljudes to this influence. But if we cannot deny that Pestalozzi profited, even if only

1 3, 176. 2 pinloche, La Rdforme, etc., p. 533.

INTRODUCTION xiii

unconsciously, by the movement of opinion created by Eousseau and Basedow, and even in particular by some of the pedagogical processes restored to credit by the latter, who had not invented them either,^ we must nevertheless acknowledge that his originality was not less complete and powerful because it was above all in himself, and that his ideas as a whole actually constitute a new doctrine, as is shown in the summary which is the object of this work.

We cannot justly or fully appreciate the work of a man who was at the same time a practical worker as well as a theorist on education unless we know his life and his writings. After the imposing mass of documents patiently collected and published by Mr. Morf,^ the very complete introduction, in spite of some errors, of Mr. Friedrich Mann in his edition of Selected Works,^ and especially the excellent study of Mr. J. Guillaume,* and the most valuable data given in the Pestalozzi BUittey-,^ by Dr. 0. Hunziker, director of the Pestalozzian Museum at Zurich,® not to mention innumerable other works on the subject, there is nothing left to be done for the biography of Pestalozzi, unless indeed new documents be discovered. It has therefore seemed to us sufficient to give the indispensable summary taken from reliable sources. But until now there has not existed a luminous and complete account of the

1 See on this subject the complaints of the philanthropinist Wolke : Morf, Zur Biographie, etc., Ill, pp. 168 et seq.

2 Zur Biographie Pestalozzis, 4 Bde., 1865-1889.

3 Pestalozzis ausgewdhlte Werke, 4 Bde.

4 Pestalozzi, etude biographique, 1890.

5 Pestalozzi Blatter, the special organ of the Pestalozzian Museum since 1880 {vide biography) .

6 Founded in 1879 under the name of Pestalozzi StUhchen.

xiv INTRODUCTION

doctrines of the great pedagogue, which are scattered through the medley of eighteen volumes/ and expressed in a form that is far from being literary, in a language often obscure and even incorrect, and consequently almost inaccessible to the majority of readers. That is especially the work we have undertaken, trying to bring some order and light into the chaos, and confining the author to a fixed plan, which is, we acknowledge, quite incompatible with his character. We know that we lay ourselves open to some reproach in proceeding thus. But if we admit the impossibility and also the uselessness of reproducing in extenso such a vast mass of writings, many of which, even if we confine ourselves strictly to pedagogical works, have lost their interest for us, we must also acknowledge that no other means remained of putting the essential points of this original and powerful pedagogy in the light they deserve, without which it is impossible to conceive and to understand the whole of modern education.

1 Pestalozzis sammtUche Werke, etc., edited by Seyffarth, 1869- 1873.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

We cannot attempt to give a complete list of the numerous editions and translations of the different works of Pestalozzi and of the countless publications having reference to the great pedagogue. The most important of these are to be found in Raumer's History of Pedagogy (Geschichte der Padagogik), Vol. II, p. 489 ; in J. Guillaume's biographical study (pp. 437 et seq.), quoted hereafter; and in Israel's Versuch einer Zusammenstellung der Schriften von und uber Pestalozzi, Zschopau, 1894.

I. WORKS BY PESTALOZZI

Complete Woi^ks :

Pestalozzis sammtliche Schriften, 15 vols. Cotta. Stuttgart und Tubingen, 1819-1826.

Pestalozzis sammtliche Werke, 18 vols., ed. by Seyffarth. Brandenburg, 1869-1873.

Pestalozzis sammtliche Werke, ed. by Seyffarth. Liegnitz, 1899-1901 (enlarged edition ; the most complete in existence).

Selections from Pestalozzi'' s Works:

Pestalozzis ausgewahlte Werke, ed. by Fr. Mann, 4 vols. (Bibliothek padagogischer Klassiker, H. Beyer. Langensalza), 1871, and later on: How Gertrude teaches her Children, translated by Lucy E. Holland and Frances C. Turner, and edited by E. Cooke. London, 1894.

XV xvi BIBLIOGRAPHY

11. THE LATEST AND MOST IMPOETANT WORKS ON PESTALOZZI

Karl von Raumer, Geschichte der Padagogik (Vol. II, chapter on Pestaiozzi). Stuttgart, 1843-1847.

Henry Barnard, Life, Educational Principles, and Methods of John Henry Pestaiozzi (contains a translation of Raumer's article and of several of Pestaiozzi' s works, and a short account of Pestaiozzi and his co-workers). New York, 1859.

Morikofer, Die schweizerische Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts (chapter on Pestaiozzi). Leipzig, 1861.

H. Morf, Zur Biographic Pestalozzis, 4 vols. Winterthur, 1868- 1889.

O. Hunziker, Geschichte der schweizerischen Volksschule, 3 vols. Zurich, 1881-1882, id. Allgemeine deutsche Biographie (article on Pestaiozzi) and several notices.

F. H^risson, Pestaiozzi ^16ve de J. J. Rousseau. Paris, 1886.

J. Guillaume, Pestaiozzi, 6tude biographique. Paris, 1890.

B. Gebhardt, Die Einfiihrung der Pestalozzischen Methods in Preussen. Berlin, 1896.

Chapter I (1746-1771)

Pestalozzi's earliest youth. — His first education. — His university studies. — Influence of Rousseau's writings. — The Helvetian Society. — Pestalozzi's ideas on social questions. — He turns farmer. — His marriage. — Failure of his attempt at farming.

Heinrich Pestalozzi was born at Ztiricli on the 12thL of January, 1746. He belonged to a family of Italian Protestant refugees which had settled in that town toward the middle of the sixteenth century. His father, Johann Baptist Pestalozzi, who was twentyeight years old when Heinrich was born, had a certain reputation as surgeon and as oculist. His mother, Susanne Hotz, of Richtersweil, was the niece of the General Hotz who perished in 1799 at the battle of Schannis. Johann Baptist Pestalozzi died in 1751, leaving Susanne with three children, the survivors of seven, Heinrich, then scarcely five years old, his brother, aged six, who later on went to sea, never to return, and a younger sister who, in 1777, married Gross, a merchant of Leipzig.

In order to meet the needs of the family with her more than modest resources, Pestalozzi's mother had to practise the most rigid economy and even to endure privations. " My mother," he tells us, " sacrificed herself with the most utter self-devotion to the bringing up of her three children, depriving herself of everything which at her age and in her surroundings could have had attractions for her." She was wonderfully helped in this by a servant for whom Pestalozzi ever cherished a grateful remembrance, the faithful Babeli, who had promised the dying father not to abandon those whom he left behind.

"Difficult as the conscientious fulfilment of this promise might be, the thought never came into her mind, that she could ever cease, or want to cease, to keep it. The position of my widowed mother demanded the utmost economy, but the trouble our Babeli took to perform impossibilities in this respect is almost incredible. In order to buy a basket of vegetables or fruit a few kreuzers cheaper, she would go back three or four times to the market and watch for the moment when the market-women wanted to go home. ... If we children only wanted to set foot in the street, or go somewhere where we had no business, Babeli stopped us with the words : ' What do you want to go and ruin your clothes and your shoes all for nothing for ? Look how your mother deprives herself of everything in order to bring you up properly ; how she goes nowhere for weeks and months, and saves every kreuzer she possibly can for your education.' . . . My brother and sister and I always had very grand Sunday clothes ; but we were only permitted to wear them a short time, and we had to change as soon as we came home, so that they might last a long time as Sunday clothes."

Pestalozzi attributes to this exclusively maternal bringing up, firstly, his exaggerated sensibility, and secondly, that lack of manly qualities which a paternal guidance is alone capable of developing. Weak and delicate from his birth, never having, as he says, " come out from behind the stove," he remained the most awkward and clumsy child of his age ; he was the laughing-stock of his fellows, and, what is more important, he gained no knowledge of life or of men.

"My character as a child was determined by my feelings ; I was carried away completely by the impressions of the moment; I acted hastily and without reflection. I only saw life in the narrow confines of my mother's sitting room, and in the no less narrow trammels of my school life ; real life was almost as strange to me as if I did not dwell in the world in which I lived. I thought everybody was at least as goodnatured and confiding as I was myself. Consequently, I was as a matter of course, from my youth up, the victim of every one who wanted to make game of me. It was not in my nature to think evil of any one, until I actually saw the evil done or suffered from it myself." The schoolmaster, too, declared that "one would never get anything out of that child," and his schoolfellows made fun of him on account of his unpleasing countenance and his extraordinary untidiness and dirtiness.

Pestalozzi's grandfather was pastor at Hongg, in the canton of Zurich, and took a great interest in the village school there. He superintended the teaching of the children, visited their families, and assumed, in short, the functions of educator of the people whose spiritual direction was confided to his care. "His school, however defective it might be in point of method, was in living connection with the moral life and the home education of the people, and this combined education cultivated effectively and energetically

6 PESTALOZZPS LIFE

the practice of habits of attention, obedience, industry, and effort, in short, laid the essential foundations of education."^ Young Pestalozzi, who often went to Hongg, had before him, then, at an early age, the model of a good man, who, although he followed the errors of the old systems of education, nevertheless attached the greatest importance to the education of the lower classes ; and there is no doubt that this example, joined to the sight of the misery of the rural population, which he there had the opportunity of seeing closely, must have struck him and influenced him in the choice of a vocation.

Pestalozzi was first sent to the elementary school, and although Zurich then possessed an educational organisation superior to that of other Swiss and even German towns, he retained an impression of his school life, which we can easily picture to ourselves, if we remember what was then the condition of the education of the people. From the elementary school he passed to the preparatory school .and then to the Zurich Latin school (collegium humanitatis), and finally to the Carolinum, also called collegiunn publicum^ a kind of higher public school, where among his teachers were two men, celebrated in the history of German literature, Bodmer and Breitinger, who were to have the greatest influence on him.

We may easily believe him when he tells us that the instruction given in this establishment, excellent as it was as regards its intrinsic value, contributed nothing toward developing his practical sense. But is he right when he makes this same instruction responsible for the evils which he afterward had to

1 Schwanengesang . § IGO.

endure ? He recognises himself, that he did not always profit by it as much as might have been desirable. "Although I was one of the best pupils, I nevertheless, with an incomprehensible thoughtlessness, made mistakes, of which not one of the worst was guilty. While, as a rule, the essence of the subjects taught appealed strongly to my interest, the form in which they were presented left me mostly indifferent and without ideas. Although I was behind my schoolfellows in some parts of certain subjects, in other parts I excelled them to an unusual degree." ^

The professors of the Carolinum were eminently men of high culture, but they were not sufficiently in touch with the necessities of practical life. " ^ Freedom, independence, beneficence, self-sacrifice, and patriotism,' was the motto of our public education. But the means of attaining all this which was especially recommended to us, intellectual preeminence, was left without a sufficient and thorough development of those practical qualities which essentially lead to the desired end. They taught us to dreamily seek for independence in the verbal recognition of truth, without making us feel keenly the need of what would have been essentially necessary, if we were to attain both inward and outward independence, domestic and civic." This idealism went so far " that we boys imagined we could prepare ourselves thoroughly for the petty civic life in one of the Swiss cantons, by a superficial school knowledge of the great Greek and Koman civic life." ^ In everything men had got

1 Schivanengesang, § 163.

2 In an article entitled Agis, which appeared in the Lindauer Nachrichten, Pestalozzi depicts a king of this name reforming the farther and farther away from nature. All the books of the time, however much good they might contain, were the products of an utter artificialness, and no longer had that good sense, that simplicity, that natural force, characteristic of the pristine national spirit, which was exactly what the youth contemporary with Pestalozzi wished to reconstitute. The appearance of Emile came just at the right moment to rouse these ideal aspirations. " As soon as Emile appeared, my visionary nature, already unpractical to the highest degree, was enthusiastically taken possession of by this likewise most unpractical book of dreams." Like so many others, Pestalozzi thought he had found in Eousseau's doctrines the "universal panacea" which was to give a new life to education, and consequently to the human race. The Contrat Social also made a deep impression on him, with the result that he gave up the ecclesiastical career to which, with the majority of the pupils of the Carolinum, he had intended to devote himself. The non-success of his first sermon also contributed to confirm this decision, and to make him resolve to enter the legal career, which seemed to him more likely to give him the means of attaining, sooner or later, an active influence over his fellow-citizens and his country. But he was dissuaded from this project by the friend on whose counsels he most relied, Bluntschli. Bluntschli, at that time very ill and hopeless of recovery, on his death-bed adjured him not to embrace a career which his good nature and confiding disposition made most dangerous for him. " Seek a calm and peaceful career," he said, " and never begin

manners of the Lacedfemonians according to the ideas of Rousseau. (Ed. Seyffarth, vol. 8.)

any important undertaking, the failure of which might in any way be dangerous to you, without having a man at your side who, with reliable fidelity, will help you with his cool, dispassionate knowledge of men and of business." ^

Pestalozzi had joined the Helvetiayi Society, founded by Bodmer in order to propagate liberal ideas among young men. The weekly meetings of this society were devoted chiefly to debates, in which Rousseau's political ideas had the chief share. These meetings naturally came to be regarded with suspicion by the authorities, for the "patriots," as they called themselves, did not hesitate to denounce the abuses of power of which many officials had been guilty.

In a journal founded by the society in 1765, for the discussion of moral questions, Der Erinnerer, to which Pestalozzi, then hardly twenty years of age, contributed, we find the first traces of his vocation for an educational career. " A young man," he says, " who plays such a small part in his country as I do, has no right to criticise, or to suggest improvements ; people tell me so nearly every day of my life. But surely I may be permitted to express my wishes ? . . ." And among these wishes the chief is, "that no eminent man may deem it beneath him to work with untiring courage for the general good, that no one may look down with disdain on his fellow-creatures of an inferior rank, if they are among the most faithful and industrious of men." Later on he expresses the wish " that some one might publish a little collection of the principles of education, excellent and simple, so that the average citizen, or the average country- 1 Schioanengesang , § 163.

man, might understand them, and that some generous 2)ersons might distribute this little book free of charge, or for the sum of a schilling (a half-penny), that all the clergy, both in the towns and in the country, might distribute and recommend it, and finally that all the parents who read it might conform to these wise rules of Christian education. . . ." But he adds, " it is a good deal to wish at a time ! "

The relations of Pestalozzi with the Helvetian Society had most unpleasant consequences for him. One member of the society, Miiller, a young theologian, had fled, to escape the actions which the Mayor of Zurich had decided to take against him on account of the publication of a political article. Pestalozzi was accused of having advised him to flee, and was arrested together with several others. As his guilt was not actually proved, he was only condemned to pay the costs of the action. His hatred of tyranny was naturally only increased by this, and from that moment he was considered as a demagogue by the authorities. As to the journal of society, they took the opportunity of suppressing it.

Deeply affected by the death of his friend Bluntschli, — indeed he himself was made seriously ill by his grief, — Pestalozzi suddenly renounced literature, or, as he says, bookish things (BUchersachen), and resolved to devote himself to agriculture. Love of nature was then the order of the day, and Rousseau, not content with converting his contemporaries by his writings, was exerting himself, as occasion offered, to carry them away by his eloquence. Bodmer tells us that one day, on his way to Geneva, the author of Emile received the visit of one of the Swiss "patriots,"

Schulthess, and praised to him the condition of the tiller of the soil as the happiest of all. " In the country of slavery," he said, " one should be an artisan ; in the country of liberty, one should become a farmer. A farmer can lead a peaceful life at home and cultivate the tender sentiments of the heart." And he told him how "there was in Italy an association of peasants whose statutes contained as their first article that not one of them should be able to read." ^ Such inducements were not even necessary to convince young men already influenced by the writings of physiocrats (notably by the Peasant Philosopher of Hirzel),^ and to bring this passion for nature to the point of manifesting itself in action. "It is astonishing," writes Bodmer, "how several of our best students have taken it into their heads to become farmers. They have already begun their apprenticeship by helping peasants reap, in order to see if they could endure heat, perspiration, rain. . . ."

Not less enthusiastic, Pestalozzi went, on Lavater's recommendation, to study agriculture under Tschiffeli, a rural proprietor of Kirchberg, in the Bernese Emmenthal. Tschiffeli had a most prosperous farm, the success of which had gained for him a great reputation. He arrived there in the course of the autumn of 1767, and was delighted from the very beginning. " Here I am," he writes at once, " and my happiness exceeds all expectation. Tschiffeli is the best of fathers, the greatest of farmers. I am going to learn farming in all its branches, and shall certainly become independent of the whole world." And a little later :

1 Letter to Sulzer, 1765. (Morf, vol. 1, p. 84.)

" I have now a lucrative career. Tschiffeli is really growing rich with his farm. I am learning the business thoroughly, and am sure I shall be able to set up for myself."

These letters, so full of promise, were written to the sister of one of his friends, Anna Schulthess, the daughter of a respected Zurich merchant. He had made her acquaintance and come to honour her noble sentiments on the occasion of the death of Bluntschli, who was a great friend of hers. From this time Pestalozzi had carried on a regular correspondence with her ; and although she was seven years older than he was, he resolved to unite his existence to hers. She was no less desirous of this, for Pestalozzi's exterior, which was rather unpleasant than otherwise, had not prevented her from appreciating the greatness of his soul. " Be sure," she wrote, " that you would owe little gratitude to Nature, if she had not given you your great black eyes, through which shine the goodness of your heart, the greatness of your mind, and the depth of your love." ^

However, Anna's parents were far from sharing her enthusiasm, for young Pestalozzi's agricultural projects inspired them with but small confidence, and they had not the smallest intention of giving him their daughter on the strength of such shadowy hopes for the future. Nevertheless, the young farmer filled his letters to overflowing with details of the organisation he was planning and the profits which he hoped to make. He took the greatest pains to prove to his future helpmate that this farm would bring in sufficient " to support a family willing to live in a humble way in the country." He was even convinced, as was Tschiffeli his master, that he had found the means, " not only of assuring the existence of his family, but also of attaining a happy lot by his own exertions." And he added, " If only my plan please you, if only it can reassure you and your worthy parents, how happy I should then be ! " ^ After having spent a year at Kirchberg, he returned to Zurich, and bought, with what remained to him of his paternal inheritance, a piece of uncultivated land in the plain of Birrfeld, in the canton of Argovie, where he intended raising madder and vegetables on a large scale. He had succeeded in interesting the father of one of his friends, banker Schulthess, in his enterprise, and induced him to put fifteen hundred florins into the concern. Then, until he should be able to build a house on his land, he took up his abode at Miilingen, a little village on the Reuss, three-quarters of an hour's walk from his farm.