In England the influence of Pestalozzi was large, but the use made of his methods was not altogether happy. The private school opened by Mayo after his return from Yverdon employed object teaching in several subjects, and a popular text-book, entitled Lessons on Objects, was written by his sister. This book of Elizabeth Mayo consisted of encyclopædic lessons on the arts and sciences arranged in a definite series, and much beyond the comprehension of children from six to eight years old, for whom it was intended. Together with several texts of a similar sort, it had a wide influence in formalizing object teaching and spreading it rapidly. The Mayos were also interested in infant schools, and when they helped organize ‘The Home and Colonial School Society’ in 1836, they combined the Pestalozzian methods with those of the infant school (see p. 246). Through the model and training schools of this society, formalized Pestalozzianism was extended through England and America.
Pestalozzianism in the United States.—Pestalozzianism began to appear in the United States as early as the first decade of the nineteenth century. It was introduced not only from the original centers in Switzerland, but indirectly in the form it had assumed in Germany, France, England, and other countries. The instances of its appearance were sporadic and seem to have been but little connected at any time. The earliest presentation was that made from the treatise of Chavannes in 1805 by McClure and Neef. William McClure. By this and other articles, McClure did much to make the new principles known in the United States, and in 1806 he induced Joseph Neef, a former assistant of Pestalozzi, to come to America and become his “master’s apostle in the New World.” Neef maintained an institution at Philadelphia for three years and afterward founded and taught schools in other parts of the country. But his imperfect acquaintance with English and with American character and his frequent migrations prevented his personal influence from being greatly felt, and the two excellent works that he published upon applications of the Pestalozzian methods were given scant attention.
A large variety of literature, describing the new education, and translating the accounts of Chavannes, Jullien, Cousin, and a number of the German educationalists, was also published in educational journals, which were Griscom, just beginning to appear in the United States (see p. 304). Returned travelers, like Professor John Griscom (see p. 305) published accounts of their visits and experiences at Yverdon and Burgdorf, such lecturers as the Reverend Brooks, Charles Brooks began to suggest the new principles as a remedy for our educational deficiencies, and educational the Alcotts, reformers, like the Alcotts, began to show the Pestalozzian spirit in their schools. Pestalozzi’s objective methods and the oral instruction resulting from them were used in various subjects by a number of educators. For example, the methods advocated in arithmetic Colburn, were introduced into America by Warren Colburn. He spread ‘mental arithmetic’ throughout the country, and in his famous First Lessons in Arithmetic on the Plan of Pestalozzi, published first in 1821, he even printed the ‘table of units’ ([Fig. 34]). The Pestalozzi-Ritter method in geography was early presented in the United States through the institute lectures and text-books of Arnold Guyot, Guyot, who had been a pupil of Ritter and came to America from Switzerland in 1848. The promotion of geographic method along the same lines was later more Parker, successfully performed by Francis Wayland Parker, who had studied with Guyot, in his training of teachers and his work on How to Teach Geography. Colonel Parker has also had several successful pupils, who are to-day largely continuing the Pestalozzian tradition. The Pestalozzian method in music was brought into the and Lowell Mason. Boston schools and elsewhere about 1836 by Lowell Mason, who was influenced by the works of Nägeli.
The most influential propaganda of the Pestalozzian doctrines in general, however, came through the account of the German school methods in the Seventh Annual Report (1843) of Horace Mann (see p. 308), and through the inauguration of the ‘Oswego methods’ by Dr. Edward Mann and his Seventh Annual Report; A. Sheldon. Mann spoke most enthusiastically of the success of the Prussian-Pestalozzian system of education and hinted at the need of a radical reform along the same lines in America. The report caused a great sensation, and was bitterly combated by conservative sentiment throughout the country, but the suggested reforms were largely effected. Dr. Sheldon, on the other hand, caught Sheldon and the Oswego ‘object lessons.’ his Pestalozzian inspiration from Toronto, Canada, where he became acquainted with the formalized methods of the Mayos through publications of the Home and Colonial School Society (see p. 291). He resolved to introduce the principles of Pestalozzi into the Oswego schools, of which he was at that time superintendent, and in 1861 secured from the society in London an instructor to train his teachers in these methods. There was some criticism of the Oswego methods on the ground of formalism, but as a whole they were pronounced a success, and in 1865 the Oswego training school was made a state institution. This was the first normal school in the United States where ‘object lessons’ were the chief feature, but a large number of other normal schools upon the same basis sprang up rapidly in many states, and the Oswego methods crept into the training schools and the public systems of numerous cities. As a consequence, during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, Pestalozzianism, though somewhat formalized, had a prevailing influence upon the teachers and courses of the elementary schools in the United States.
Pestalozzi’s Industrial Training Continued by Fellenberg.—Such was the wide influence of Pestalozzi upon education. But while throughout his work he continued to make new applications of his observational methods, his principle of combining industrial training with intellectual education, which he had begun so successfully at Neuhof and Stanz, could not be continued at Burgdorf. His pupils there came chiefly from aristocratic families and were not obliged to support themselves by manual labor. However, Pestalozzi still hoped to save enough of the income from the school payments of the rich to found a small agricultural school for the poor on this plan and connect it with the ‘institute,’ and while this institution was never started, the opportunity for carrying out his aim came through his friend, Emanuel von Fellenberg (1771-1844). Fellenberg belonged to a noble family of Berne, but, like Pestalozzi, he believed that an amelioration of the wretched moral and economic conditions in Switzerland should be accomplished by education. To secure the means for an experiment in this direction, he persuaded his father to purchase for him Estate at Hofwyl to train Pestalozzian teachers. an estate of six hundred acres at Hofwyl, just nine miles from Burgdorf. Here Pestalozzi urged him to undertake his favorite idea of industrial education, and in 1806, with the aid of Zeller (see p. 289), who had been sent him by Pestalozzi, he opened a school to train teachers in the Pestalozzian method.
The Agricultural School and Other Institutions at Hofwyl.—Fellenberg especially desired, however, to Combination of observational work and industrial training in the ‘agricultural institute;’ combine Pestalozzi’s observational work and his older principle of industrial training in an ‘agricultural institute’ for poor boys. This plan was not fully realized until 1808, when he secured the enthusiastic Jacob Wehrli as an assistant. The work was so arranged that each old pupil, as fast as he was trained, took charge of a newer one as an apprentice, and the school from the first became a sort of family. The chief feature of the institute was agricultural occupations, including drainage and irrigation, but, from the requirements of farm life, it was natural to train also cartmakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, locksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, mechanics, and workers in wood, iron, and leather. Workshops for these industries were established upon the estate, and the pupils in the agricultural institute were enabled to select a training in a wide range of employments, without neglecting book instruction ([Fig. 35]). By this means, too, they could support themselves by their labor while being educated. Through the institute also, a considerable number of the pupils were trained to be directors of similar institutions, or to become rural school-teachers. Fellenberg thought it important that all who were to teach in the common schools should have a thorough acquaintance with the practical labor of a farm, the means of self-support, and the life and habits of the majority of their pupils.
But the work of Fellenberg did not stop there. From the beginning he had felt that the wealthy should understand and be more in sympathy with the laboring classes, and learn how to direct their work more intelligently. Hence he began very early an agricultural course for landowners, and many young men of the wealthy classes came to show a striking interest in his deep-soil ploughing, draining, irrigation, and other means of educating the poor. But these wealthier youths remained at the institute so short a time that he could not extend his ideals very widely. To retain them longer at Hofwyl, the ‘literary institute’ for the wealthy; in 1809 he opened a ‘literary institute,’ which, besides the usual academic studies, used Pestalozzi’s object lessons and strove to develop physical activities. Moreover, the pupils in the literary institute had to cultivate gardens, work on the farm, engage in carpentering, turning, and other mechanical occupations, and in many ways come into touch and mutual understanding with the poorer boys in the agricultural institute. The wealthy learned to dignify labor, and the poor, instead of envying those in the higher stations of life, became friendly and desirous of coöperating with them. Eventually there arose an independent community of youth, managing its own affairs outside of school, arranging its own occupations, games, and tours, choosing its own officers, and making its own laws. Within this little world was provided a training for society at large, with its various classes, associations, and corporations, which Fellenberg seems to have regarded as divinely ordained. school for poor girls, and ‘real school’ for the middle classes. Likewise, in 1823, a school for poor girls was opened by his wife, and four years later he started a ‘real,’ or practical, school for the middle classes, which was intermediate between the two ‘institutes.’
Industrial Training in the Schools of Europe.—The educational institutions of Fellenberg ([Fig. 36]) were well managed and proved very successful, and the idea of education through industrial training spread rapidly. While, after the death of Fellenberg in 1844, the schools at Hofwyl gradually declined, various types of industrial education everywhere came to supplement academic courses, and extend the work of the school to a larger number of pupils. Thus the tendency of modern civilization to care for the education of the poor, the defective, and the delinquent through industrial training has sprung from the philanthropic spirit of Pestalozzi and his practical collaborator, Fellenberg, and has become apparent in all advanced countries. Industrial institutions rapidly increased Switzerland, in Switzerland, beginning in 1816 with the school in the neighboring district of Meykirch. In 1832 a cantonal teachers’ association was formed at Berne, with Fellenberg as president and Wehrli as vice president, and every canton soon had its ‘farm school.’ Industrial training was also introduced into most of the Swiss normal schools. In Germany the industrial work suggested by Germany, Pestalozzi and Fellenberg came into successful operation in many of the orphanages and most of the reform schools. Later, industrial education was taken up by the Fortbildungsschulen (‘continuation schools’) of the regular system (see p. 420). At the reform and continuation schools of France, and England. France industrial training has long formed the distinctive element in the course. Educators and statesmen of England likewise early commended the work of Fellenberg, and industrial training shortly found a foot-hold in various technical and reform schools of that country.
Industrial Institutions in the United States.—The industrial work of the Pestalozzi-Fellenberg system also began to appear in the United States about the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. After that, for twenty years or so, there sprang up a large number of ‘Manual labor’ institutions. institutions of secondary or higher grade with ‘manual labor’ features in addition to the literary work. The primary object of the industrial work in these institutions was to enable students to earn their way through school or college and at the same time secure physical exercise. It was the first serious academic recognition of the need of a ‘sound mind in a sound body,’ and did much to overcome the prevailing tendency of students toward tuberculosis and to furnish a sane substitute for the escapades and pranks in which college life abounded. The first of these manual labor institutions were established in the New England and Middle states between 1820 and 1830, but within a dozen years the manual labor system was adopted in theological schools, colleges, and academies from Maine to Tennessee. The success of this feature at Andover Theological Seminary, where it was begun in 1826 for ‘invigorating and preserving health, without any reference to pecuniary profit,’ was especially influential in causing it to be extended. The ‘Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institutions,’ founded in 1831, appointed a general agent to visit the chief colleges in the Middle West and South, call attention to the value of manual labor, and issue a report upon the subject. Little attention, however, was given to the pedagogical principles underlying this work. As material conditions improved and formal social life developed, the impracticability of the scheme was realized, and the industrial side of these institutions was given up. The physical exercise phase was then replaced by college athletics. By 1840-1850 most of the schools and colleges that began as ‘manual labor institutes’ had become purely literary.