was persuaded that children, before the age of twelve or thirteen, had not an understanding equal to the studies that were required of them, or rather to the method of instruction to which they were subjected. They repeated without comprehending, they labored without gaining instruction, and they frequently gathered nothing from their education but the habit of performing their task without understanding it, and of evading the power of the master by the cunning of the scholar. All that Rousseau has said against this routine education is perfectly true; but, as it often happens, the remedy which he proposes is still worse than the evil.

A child who, according to Rousseau's system, should have learned nothing till he was twelve years old, would have lost six of the most valuable years of his life; his intellectual organs would never acquire that flexibility which early infancy alone could give them. Habits of idleness would be so deeply rooted in him, that he would be rendered much more unhappy by speaking to him of industry, for the first time, at the age of twelve, than by accustoming him, from his earliest existence, to consider it as a necessary condition of life. Besides, that kind of care and attention which Rousseau requires of the tutor, in order to supply instruction and necessary to secure

brated than the one at Burgdorf, and had a still greater number of pupils and of visitors. Unfortunately, dissensions arose among the teachers, in which Pestalozzi himself became implicated, and which embittered the latter years of his life. The number of pupils rapidly diminished, the establishment became a losing concern, and Pestalozzi was again involved in debt, which the proceeds of the complete edition of his works ('Pestaozzi's Sämmtliche Werke,' 15 vols., Stuttgard and Tübingen, 1819-26) nardly sufficed to liquidate. This edition was the result of a subscription got up in 1818 for the publication of his works, the names of the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the King of Bavaria, standing at the head of the list.

"In 1825, Pestalozzi retired from his laborious duties to Neuhof, where his grandson resided. Here he wrote his 'Schwanengesang' ('Song of the [Dying] Swan'), 1826; and 'Meine Lebensschicksale als Vorsteher meiner Erziehungsanstalten in Burgdorf und Iferten' ('My Life's Fortunes as Superintendent of my Educational Establishments at Burgdorf and Yveraun'), 1826. He died February 17, 1827, at Brüg, in the canton of Aargau."-Ed.

it, would oblige every man to devote his whole life to the education of another being, and grandfathers alone would find themselves at liberty to begin their own personal career. Such projects are chimerical; but Pestalozzi's method is real, applicable, and may have a great influence on the future progress of the human mind.

Rousseau says, with much reason, that children do not comprehend what they learn, and thence concludes that they ought to learn nothing. Pestalozzi has profoundly studied the cause of this want of comprehension in children, and by his method, ideas are simplified and graduated so as to be brought within the reach of childhood, and the mind of that age may acquire, without fatiguing itself, the results of the deepest study. In passing with exactness through all the degrees of reasoning, Pestalozzi puts the child in a state to discover himself what we wish to teach him.

There are no half measures in Pestalozzi's method: they either understand well, or not at all; for all the propositions. follow each other so closely, that the second is always the immediate consequence of the first. Rousseau says, that the minds of children are fatigued by the studies which are exacted from them. Pestalozzi always lead them by a road so easy and so determinate, that it costs them no more to be initiated into the most abstract sciences than into the most simple occupations-each step in these sciences is as easy, by relation to the antecedent, as the most natural consequence drawn from the most ordinary circumstances. What wearies children is making them skip over the intermediate steps, and obliging them to get forward without their knowing what they think they have learned. Their heads are then in a state of confusion, which renders all examination formidable, and inspires them with an invincible disgust for learning. There exists no trace of this sort of inconvenience in the method of Pestalozzi The children amuse themselves with their studies, not that they are given to them as a play, which, as I have already said, mixes ennui with pleasure, and frivolity with study, but because they enjoy from their infancy the pleasure of grown

men, which is that of comprehending and finishing what they are set about.

The method of Pestalozzi, like every thing that is truly good, is not entirely a new discovery, but an enlightened and persevering application of truths already known. Patience, observation, and a philosophical study of the proceedings of the human mind, have given him a knowledge of what is elementary in thoughts, and successive in their development; and he has pushed further than any other the theory and the practice of gradation, in the art of instruction. His method has been applied with success to grammar, geography, and music; but it is much to be desired that those distinguished professors, who have adopted his principles, would render them subservient to every other species of knowledge. That of history in particular is not yet well conceived. No one has observed the gradation of impressions in literature, as they have those of problems in the sciences. In short, many things remain to be done, in order to carry education to its highest point, that is, the art of going backward with what one knows, in order to make others comprehend it.

Pestalozzi makes use of geometry to teach children arithmetical calculation; this was also the method of the ancients. Geometry speaks more to the imagination than the abstract mathematics. To become completely master of the human mind, it is well to unite, as much as possible, precision of instruction with vivacity of impression, for it is not even the depth of science, but obscurity in the manner of presenting it, which alone hinders children from attaining it: they comprehend every thing by degrees, and the essential point is to measure the steps by the progress of reason in infancy; this progress, slow but sure, will lead as far as possible, if we ab stain from hastening its course.

It is very singular and pleasing to see at Pestalozzi's the countenances of children, whose round, unmeaning, and delicate features naturally assume an expression of reflection: they are attentive of themselves, and consider their studies as a man of ripened age would consider his business. One remarkable

circumstance is, that punishments and rewards are never necessary to excite them to industry. It is perhaps the first time that a school of a hundred and fifty children has been conducted without the stimulus of emulation and fear. How many evil sentiments are spared to the heart of man, when we drive far from him jealousy and humiliation, when he sees no rivals in his comrades, no judges in his masters! Rousseau wished to subject the child to the law of destiny; Pestalozzi himself creates that destiny during the course of the child's education, and directs its decrees towards his happiness and his improvement. The child feels himself free, because he enjoys. himself amid the general order which surrounds him, the perfect equality of which is not deranged even by the talents of the children, whether more or less distinguished. Success is not the object of pursuit, but merely progress towards a certain point, which all endeavor to reach with the same sincerity. The scholars become masters when they know more than their comrades; the masters again become scholars when they perceive any imperfections in their method, and begin their own education again, in order to become better judges of the diffi culties attending the art of instruction.

It is pretty generally apprehended that Pestalozzi's method tends to stifle the imagination, and is unfavorable to originality of mind. An education for genius would indeed be a difficult matter; there is scarcely any thing but nature and government which can either inspire or excite it; but the first principles of knowledge, rendered perfectly clear and certain, cannot be an obstacle to genius; they give the mind a sort of firmness which afterwards renders the highest studies easy to it. We must view the school of Pestalozzi as hitherto confined to childhood. The education he gives should be considered as final only for the lower classes, but for that very reason it may diffuse a very salutary influence over the national character. The education of the rich ought to be divided into two different periods in the first, the children are guided by their masters; in the second, they voluntarily instruct themselves; and this sort of education, by choice, is that which should be adopt

ed in great universities. The instruction which is acquired at Pestalozzi's gives every man, of what class soever he may be, a foundation on which he may erect, as he chooses, either the cottage of the poor man or the palaces of kings.

We should be mistaken in France, if we thought there was nothing good to be taken from the school of Pestalozzi, except his rapid method of teaching calculation. Pestalozzi is not himself a mathematician; he is not well acquainted with the languages; he has only that sort of genius and instinct, which enables him to develop the understandings of children; he sees the direction which their thought takes in order to attain its object. That openness of character which sheds so noble a calm over the affections of the heart, Pestalozzi has judged necessary in the operations of the mind. He thinks there is a moral pleasure in completing our studies. Indeed we contin ually see that superficial knowledge inspires a sort of disdainful arrogance, which makes us reject as useless, dangerous, or ridiculous, all that we do not know. We also see that this kind of superficial knowledge obliges us artfully to hide what we are ignorant of. Candor suffers from all those defects of education, which we are ashamed of in spite of ourselves. To know perfectly what we do know, gives a quietness to the mind, which resembles the satisfaction of conscience. The epen honesty of Pestalozzi, that honesty carried into the sphere of the understanding, and which deals with ideas as scrupulously as with men, is the principal merit of his school. It is by that means he assembles round him, men devoted to the welfare of the children, in a manner perfectly disinterested, When, in a public establishment, none of the selfish calculations of the principals are answered, we must seek the spring which sets that establishment in motion, in their love of virtue : the enjoyments which it affords are alone sufficient, without either riches or power.

We should not imitate the institution of Pestalozzi, merely by carrying his method of instruction to other places; it would be necessary also to establish with it the same perseverance in the masters, the same simplicity in the scholars, the same