PESTALOZZI, prss'ta-lrestt, .TonANN HEIN RICH ( 1 740-1827 ) . A Swiss edneatioual reformer. and the chief founder of modern pedagogy. horn at Zurich, January 112. 174(1. As a student in the University of Zurich he allied himself with the young reformers of whom Lasater was the leader, and in a contribution to the Memorial, the organ of that faction, he expressed a wish that intelligible principles of education might be among lei= countrymen. Ile ,tudied theology, then law•, then, undo• the influence of the current naturalistic philosophy, and particu larly llousseau. turned to agriculture, With the avowed purpose of improving the condition of countrymen by setting for them a good example in seientific agriculture, and, finally, when past middle life. began work as a teacher. He under took to put in constructive form the ideas cast by Rousseau in a destructive and critical form. lie it was who tested the value of 'edu cation accordimr to nature.' Pestalozzi himself was unpractical and a bail organizer and manager, yet through leis writings he aroused the Germanic peoples to the importance of social reform through education, and through his personal efforts he Mspired a number of disciples who developed and carried out the principles of his practice until they be came the basis of the educational movement of the nineteenth century. In 1707 he bought a hundred acres of poor land and erected a house thereon, naming the place Neuhof. Here he brought, two years later, his bride, and here for seven he sought to dentonstrate Rousseau's ideal life in a return to Nature. Though the experiment was a failure. yet in his attempt to educate his one child after the manner of the Emitr he discovered the defich.och-s of Honsseau's teachings, and later rejected the extravagances, and accepted the essential truths of the teachings of his master. Here also he wrote a 'Father's Journal,' which laid the basis of modern child study as an approach to the solution of educa tional problems. Undaunted by poverty and fail ure, and moved by the wretched state of the chil dren of the poor. in 1775 he turned the farm into an asylum, where he housed, boarded, and clothed the children, in return for such work as they could give. thus hoping to regenerate his people by striking at the root of the evil through the industrial education of the young. The failure of this enterprise in 1780. due in a measure to the unsympathetic attitude of the parents of his wards, revealed to him tile doubtful nature of the principle upon which it bad been based, namely, that the reform of the individual and of the race could come through an improvement of the environment. Then followed a period of eighteen years of financial distress, and a eovre eiqding period of great literary activity. Dur ing this time he gave up all practical efforts and devoted his energies to thinking out social and educational problems. The solution reached was that individual and social reform can come only through the moral :111(1 intellectual improvement of 111c individual by means of educational effort. In his t, (-mist unde eines Einsiedlcrs (published 1780) and his Lien)ardt and (Irrtrud, the..first volume of which was issued in 17S1, lie first pre sented this doctrine. The latter work, soon ex panded into several volumes, was a novel deserip tive (4 peasant life, which had an enormous popu larity, since it fell in with the idealistic and revolutionary tendencies of the times.
The fundamental ideas 14 Licnbardt cu d Gent nal were that the condition of the people was to be bettered by education, not by revolu tion; that education was to centre in the home, and not in a separate institution; that this edu cation was to begin at the cradle, and that the first few years were of the greatest importance; that an ignorant mother. by following the method
given in his hook, could educate her children as as a teacher in possession of all science; that if homes were thus reformed, misery would dis appear. and society would be revolutionized. From 1787 to 1797 Pestalozzi was again en gaged in agricultural experiments. During this period lie formed the acquaintance of Fellenherg and Fichte. and in 1792 was proclaimed French citizen with Klopstock and \Vashimdon. After the long period of literary work, during which Pestalozzi wrote 20 volnmes, the exigencies of war forced him again into active life, and in 1798 lie became director of an orphan asylum at Stanz, where he attempted to work out the ideas of Leonard and Gertrude (as the work is known in English), of combining learn ing with hand work, and centring it upon the objects of the child's immediate environment. It Was along this line that Pestalozzi thereafter worked, and hail his permanent influence. In 1799 lie entered upon active schoolroom work at Burgdorf, and later at several other places. In 1802 Pestalozzi went to Paris as a member of the consulta summoned by Bonaparte to settle the fate of Switzerland, and while there me morialized the First Consul upon the educational needs of his country, but received the curt reply that there was no time to bother about A B C matters. He established the Institute at Yver dun in 1805, from which emanated the influence that was to give inspiration to all modern edu cation. Here gathered not only the children of the schools, but great numbers of teachers from most of the leading States in Europe in a sort of normal school ; here were sent by the Prussian Government the teachers that were to assist in introducing his ideas into the German Volksselinlen. Even here his work as a practical teacher was unsuccessful, and in 1825 he was forced to withdraw- as a broken-down and disappointed old man. He died at Brugg, February 17. 1827.
Pestalozzi never systematized his or his method. In 1801 he published Wie Gcrtruni are Kinder lchrt, which purports to give a summary of his work, hut it contains no definite formula tion of either principle or method. His great effort, on the purely educational side, was, to use his own expression, to 'psychologize education.' To this effort is due the great attention that has been given to the study of method, both practical and theoretical, from that day to this. In Pestalozzi's passionate love, however, for his people, and particularly for children, and his readiness to sacrifice all personal interests for them, lies the secret of his powerful influence. This trait in his personality is what made him honored and loyed by Ids contemporaries. The inspiration he affords to the struggling peda gogues is not the least of the benefits he con ferred upon posterity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. In addition to ninny editions Bibliography. In addition to ninny editions of single works, there is a emnplete edition in IS volumes by Seyffarth (Berlin, 1881) ; Lien hardt nod acrtrud has numerous translations or abridgments, as also Wie Gcrtrad ihre Kinder 10111. Consult : De Guimps, Pest4/ozzi, his Life and Works (New York, 1889) ; Barnard, Pesta lozzi and Pcstaloz ianism (ib., 1S62) ; Kriisi, Pcstalozzi, Ilis Life and Works (ib., 1875) ; Pin loche, Pestolozxi 1901).