Sauveur des Pauvres à Neuhof
Père des Orphelins à Stanz
Fondateur de l’école
populaire à Burgdorf
Éducateur de l’humanité
à Yverdon
Tout pour les autres, pour lui,—rien!
An older monument erected in 1846 by the Canton of Argovia bears this same inscription, save that it adds, “Preacher to the people in ‘Leonard and Gertrude.’ Man. Christian. Citizen. Blessed be his name!”
On the third side of the Yverdon Monument is Pestalozzi’s noble speech, fine enough indeed, to be cut in stone:—
“J’ai vécu moi-même
comme un mendiant,
pour apprendre à des
mendiants à vivre comme
des hommes.”
We sat a long time on the great marble pedestal, gazing into the benevolent face, and reviewing the simple, self-sacrificing life of the great educator, and then started on a tour of inspection. After wandering through most of the shops, buying photographs and mementoes, Salemina discovered that she had left the expensive tumbler in one of them. After a long discussion as to whether tumbler was masculine or feminine, and as to whether “Ai-je laissé un verre ici?” or “Est-ce que j’ai laissé un verre ici?” was the proper query, we retraced our steps, Salemina asking in one shop, “Excusez-moi, je vous prie, mais ai-je laissé un verre ici?”,—and I in the next, “Je demands pardon, Madame, est-ce que j’ai laissé un verre dans ce magasin-ci?—J’en ai perdu un, somewhere.” Finally we found it, and in response not to mine but to Salemina’s question, so that she was superior and obnoxious for several minutes.
Our next point of interest was the old castle, which is still a public school. Finding the caretaker, we visited first the museum and library—a small collection of curiosities, books, and mementoes, various portraits of Pestalozzi and his wife, manuscripts and so forth. The simple-hearted woman who did the honours was quite overcome by our knowledge of and interest in her pedagogical hero, but she did not return the compliment. I asked her if the townspeople knew about Friedrich Froebel, but she looked blank.
“Froebel? Froebel?” she asked; “qui est-ce?”
“Mais, Madame,” I said eloquently, “c’était un grand homme! Un héros! Le plus grand élève de Pestalozzi! Aussi grand que Pestalozzi soi-même!”
(“Plus grand! Why don’t you say plus grand?” murmured Salemina loyally.)
“Je ne sais!” she returned, with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. “Je ne sais! Il y a des autres, je crois; mais moi, je connais Pestalozzi, c’est assez!”