This judgment is severe, but it is only just. Pestalozzi had an intuition of truth, but he was incapable of giving a theoretical demonstration of it. His thought all aglow, and his language all imagery, did not submit to the concise and methodical exposition of abstract truths.
494. The Orphan Asylum at Stanz (1798-1799).—Up to 1798 Pestalozzi had scarcely found the occasion to put in practice his principles and his dreams. The Helvetic Revolution, which he hailed with enthusiasm as the signal of a social regeneration for his country, finally gave him the means of making a trial of his theories, which, by a strange destiny, had been applied by other hands before having been applied by his own.
The Helvetic government, whose sentiments were in harmony with the democratic sentiments of Pestalozzi, offered him the direction of a normal school. But he declined, in order that he might remain a teacher. He was about to take charge of a school, the plan of which he had organized, when events called him to direct an orphan asylum at Stanz.
495. Methods followed at Stanz.—From six to eight o’clock in the morning, and from four to eight in the afternoon, Pestalozzi heard the lessons of his pupils. The rest of the time was devoted to manual labor. Even during the lesson, the child at Stanz “drew, wrote, and worked.” To establish order in a school which contained eighty pupils, Pestalozzi had the idea of resorting to rhythm; “and it was found,” he says, “that the rhythmical pronunciation increased the impression produced by the lesson.” Having to do with pupils absolutely ignorant, he kept them for a long time on the elements; he practised them on the first elements till they had mastered them. He simplified the methods, and sought in each branch of instruction a point of departure adapted to the nascent faculties of the child. The mode of teaching was simultaneous. All the pupils repeated in a high tone of voice the words of the teacher; but the instruction was also mutual:—
“Children instructed children; they themselves tried the experiment; all I did was to suggest it. Here again I obeyed necessity. Not having a single assistant, I had the idea of putting one of the most advanced pupils between two others who were less advanced.”
Reading was combined with writing. Natural history and geography were taught to children under the form of conversational lessons.
But what engrossed Pestalozzi above all else was to develop the moral sentiments and the interior forces of the conscience. He wished to make himself loved by his pupils, to awaken among them, in their daily association, sentiments of fraternal affection, to excite the conception of each virtue before formulating its precept, and to give the children moral lessons through the influence of nature which surrounded them and through the activity which was imposed on them.
Pestalozzi’s chimera, in the organization at Stanz, was to transport into the school the conditions of domestic life—the desire to be a father to a hundred children.
“I was convinced that my heart would change the condition of my children just as promptly as the sun of spring would reanimate the earth benumbed by the winter.”