Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich

PESTALOZZI, JOHANN HEINRICH. - Pedagogue and one of the pioneers of modern education, b. in Zurich on 12 Jan. 1746, to a family originally from Chiavenna, which had gone over to the "Reformation" and emigrated to Switzerland in the 16th century, d. on 17 Feb. 1827 at Neuhof.

I. LIFE

At first the vocation of "pastor" smiled upon him; but, having come to grief over his first sermon and being moreover wholly inflamed with social reforms by the reading of Rousseau's Émile and Social Contract, he passed over to the "Helvetic Society of Patriots," revolutionary in character with humanitarian aims. When the society was dissolved by the authorities and a more considered conception of social renewal had taken hold in him, he moved with his wife, his faithful collaborator, to Neuhof (1769), bought a farm there and opened a school for poor and abandoned children, in which these should learn not only to read, write and do the most elementary arithmetic, but also agricultural work, household crafts and cotton spinning (1774). When the school was closed owing to financial disasters (1779), there followed for P. a period of recollection, during which he wrote Abendstunde eines Einsiedlers (1780), a series of 180 aphorisms, in which there often recurs the fundamental motive of his whole life: to extend instruction and education to all, even the poorest and most forsaken, to derive its type from the education of the family, to aim at making each person happy within its sphere and in every respect. Indeed, from the family he derives his conception of religion itself: "God, father of humanity, man, son of the divinity; this is the pure substance of faith... Feeling of a father, feeling of a son; this blessing of the home, O man, is the consequence of your faith." These fundamental thoughts take clearer development in the domestic novel: Lienhart und Gertrud (4 vols., 1781-87; new reworking [2 vols., 1790-92]), which made him famous and esteemed, procured him patrons and wide and lofty acquaintances, even of princes and sovereigns. In it P. intends to show how a village gone astray can be regenerated by the united and converging efforts of a good "pastor," a capable magistrate, a zealous teacher and above all by the work of Gertrude, a model spouse, a perfect mother of a family and the soul of every undertaking. Especially in Book III, P. sets out as it were a manual of social pedagogy on the theme: the child must be educated rather than instructed, prepared for economic life rather than stuffed with words and grammatical constructions. To give greater prominence to his pedagogical aims P. added the popular work: Das Volksbuch Christoph und Else (1781), in which two spouses, reading Lienhart und Gertrud, comment on the various chapters, bringing out their high educational value; and, spurred by the outbreak of the French Revolution, the speculative work: Nachforschungen über den Gang der Natur in der Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechtes (1797), a rather obscure, arid book, at times contradictory owing to the author's scant speculative and philosophical mentality, in which the passage of humanity from the innocent state of nature to the legalistic state of society is outlined and the demand of human nature to perfect itself is emphasized, so as not to be hindered and perverted by external influences, by developing within itself natural religion, entrusting itself to the moral feeling that flows naturally from it. The book Figuren zu meinem ABC-Buch (1797) has the purpose of expounding these theories in a series of concise fables.

In 1798, P. returned, but better armed, to his mission as a teacher and agreed to open a school for orphans at Stanz, where he would prove "by his experiment that public education must imitate domestic education." And domestically P. lived among his eighty pupils, like a vigilant and loving father among his children. But after eight months the new Austro-Russian invasion converted the orphanage into a military hospital and the school was closed. P. opened a new one in the castle of Burgdorf, which, however, was no longer to be merely a boarding school, but also a teacher-training school, in which the best would practice teaching under the master's guidance and in the light of his principles. There he had the opportunity to grasp the first intuitions of his didactics and to elaborate fully his methodological doctrine, which he sought to express in Die Methode (1800), Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt (1801), ABC der Anschauung (1803), Buch der Mutter (1803). The school, although it gathered applause and aroused wonder, had to be closed, after three years, owing to discord among the teachers. Then P. agreed to cooperate with E. Fellenberg at the school that the latter had opened at Münchenbuchsee, and he brought there many of his pupils from Burgdorf; but the characters of the two educators were not made to understand each other; therefore P. withdrew and agreed to open a new school at Yverdun (Iferten) in the castle offered him by the Regency (1805). For twenty years Yverdun became the best and most highly regarded educational institute in Europe; the Pestalozzian methods and the new principles were fully applied there, with wonderful developments and fruits, which spread its fame: able teachers, various kinds of school, from elementary to university-type ones, a family spirit, the bond of love. Persons of note appeared there (F. Fichte, J. F. Herbart, Fr. Fröbel, G. Capponi), the Prussian government sent a group of young men there to study; other governments commissioned special committees to go there to learn the new method of teaching.

Nevertheless the seeds of discord gradually undermined the existence of the institution and Yverdun too was closed (1815). P. then withdrew to a solitary life at Neuhof and resumed writing, both to clarify his thought ever better and to defend himself against the accusations and calumnies of his adversaries. Thus there are two further works, which form a kind of autobiography: Schwanengesang (1826) and Meine Lebensschicksale (1826).

II. FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS

Pestalozzi's work and doctrine is very complex in its development, unsystematic, not always clear; nevertheless it is rich in precious intuitions. P. indeed sought to discover the constant directives of human psychic nature, in order to succeed in "psychologizing" instruction and education, replacing traditional artificial pedantry with other rules founded on the psychology of the pupil. The foundation, therefore, of all pedagogical art is human nature, furnished with three kinds of forces: moral, intellectual and physical, or, as P. expresses it, heart, spirit, art. These three forces are present in man from the very beginning, in the state of germs, or dispositions, which the educator must therefore help to develop and to progress in perfect harmony. Moral education is carried out by various means: a) the formation of moral feeling through love, trust, gratitude, obedience toward the mother, the teacher, God; b) moral exercises or practices, because example is the best stimulus for making the good understood; c) the formation of moral ideas, taking advantage of the various circumstances of the environment and of the events that unfold before the pupil's eyes. Intellectual education must be founded on these principles: a) intuition, placing the child before things, taking as a starting point those most familiar to him and accustoming him to observe and to grasp immediate impressions; b) the trilogy: name, form and number, because in order to know an object the intelligence asks itself: how many are the objects I have before me? (number); how do they present themselves? (form); what are they called? (word or name); hence the practical intuitive rules for learning arithmetic, geometry, drawing, calligraphy, the formation and varied combination of words. Physical education or art (and P. includes in it also the industrial element) has the purpose of making the child and the man capable of outwardly expressing the products of his own intelligence and of carrying out the impulses of the heart; capable, in short, of super fare: hence recreations, gymnastics, swimming and manual work, which also gives the children of the people the means to choose a useful, profitable trade in keeping with their own inclination. As for religious education (and this is the weakest point of the Pestalozzian system) P. proclaims, it is true, religion and faith as the foundations of education; but it is a matter of a vague deism: God is, in fact, for him, universal love, which manifests itself in the rising sun, in the murmur of the brook, etc. He speaks of Jesus Christ as redeemer and mediator, but considers him a simple man, the best of men, and keeps himself outside Revelation and the Christian dogmas; indeed at Yverdun he even suppressed prayers. Hence his disciples divided into two schools: the one rationalist (led by F. A. W. Diesterweg), the other Christian, which adopted the master's methods without adopting his religious ideas (e.g., B. Overberg).

P.'s principal and undisputed merit is, first of all, his full and absolute dedication to childhood and the enthusiastic ardor, beyond every adversity and failure, with which he devoted himself to the school. He aspired to nothing but to be a schoolmaster and lived only for the school, casting into the field of pedagogy germs and ideas which later, better studied and systematized, e.g., by Herbart and by Fröbel, formed the modern current of the school. He further advocated the popularization of the school, emphasizing its human and national value, especially with respect to the poorest classes, forming the schemes suitable for organizing elementary popular instruction and vocational education. Indeed the Pestalozzian institutes served as a model for all the states of Europe and formed ranks of exceedingly efficient teachers. Moreover he insisted on demonstrating that the school can be an effective means of social and spiritual renewal only when it knows how to continue the work of the family, which is the first educator, cultivating the fruits of the mother's presence, which are love, understanding, trust and benevolence. Some of his writings, furthermore, cooperated effectively in transforming pedagogy into a science. It remains only to observe that P. had an exaggerated esteem for method (which gave rise to a veritable host of "method-hunters"), believing he had found the only one suited to the psychological mechanism of man, and therefore efficient in itself, whatever the particular personality of the pupil and of the educator may be. Whence a mechanism which in Yverdun itself marked the beginning of the decline.

Celestino Testore