22. Observation and Industrial Training in Education

Outline

• Pestalozzi was the first prominent educator to develop the negative naturalism of Rousseau into positive reforms.
• He desired to elevate the peasantry about him, and, failing in other expedients, undertook to accomplish this through a combination of industrial and intellectual training at Neuhof. This training he continued at Stanz, and began the development of his observational methods. In his work at Burgdorf, he was forced to suspend his industrial training, but he further developed his 'A B C of observation,' and at Yverdon the method reached its culmination.
• Like Rousseau, Pestalozzi conceived of education as a natural development of innate powers, and he extended its application to all children. In his method he held that clear ideas could be formed only by means of sense perceptions, and he undertook to analyze each subject into its simplest elements and develop it by graded exercises.
• While not original, practical, or scientific, Pestalozzi made education the remedy for corruption in society, and started the modern methods in the elementary studies. Pestalozzian schools and methods spread rapidly through Europe and the United States.
• The attempt to combine industrial training with intellectual, which Pestalozzi had to give up, was continued by his friend, Fellenberg, in his institutions at Hofwyl. Similar training wis developed throughout Europe. In the United States it stimulated the 'manual labor' movement, and was later utilized as a solution for racial and other peculiar problems in education.

Pestalozzi as the Successor of Rousseau. - Having outlined the various phases of philanthropic education and surveyed the development of the common school in America, we may now turn again to the more immediate development of the movements that found their roots in Rousseau. It has been noted how Rousseau's 'naturalistic' doctrines logically pointed to a complete demolition of the artificial society and education of the times. A pause at this point would have led to anarchy. If civilization is not to disappear, social destruction must be followed by reconstruction. Of course the negative attitude of the Emile was itself accompanied by considerable positive advance in its suggestions for a natural training, but this advice was often unpractical and extreme and its main emphasis was upon the destruction of existing education. Hence the happiest educational results of Rousseau's work came through Pestalozzi, who especially supplemented that reformer's work upon the constructive side. Pestalozzi became the first prominent educator to develop the negative and somewhat inconsistent 'naturalism' of Rousseau into a more positive attempt to reform corrupt society by proper education and a new method of teaching.

Pestalozzi's Philanthropic and Industrial Ideals. - Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was born at Zurich in 1746. After the death of his father, he was brought up almost altogether by his mother. Through her unselfishness and piety, and the example of his grandfather, pastor in a neighboring village, Pestalozzi was inspired to relieve and elevate the degraded peasantry about him. He first turned to the ministry as being the best way to accomplish this philanthropic purpose, and later took up the study of law, with the idea of defending the rights of his people, but he was not able to succeed in either profession. Then, in 1769, he undertook to demonstrate to the peasants the value of improved methods of agriculture. He took up a strip of waste land at Birr, which he called Neuhof ('new farm'), but within five years this experiment also proved a lamentable failure. Meantime a son had been born to him, whom he had undertaken to rear upon the basis of the Emile, and the results, recorded in a Father's Journal, suggested new ideas and educational principles for the regeneration of the masses. He began to hold that education did not consist merely in books and knowledge, and that the children of the poor could, by proper training, be taught to earn their living and at the same time develop their intelligence and moral nature.

His Industrial School at Neuhof and the Leonard and Gertrude. - Hence the failure of his agricultural venture afforded Pestalozzi the opportunity he craved to experiment with philanthropic and industrial education. Toward the end of 1774 he took into his home some twenty of the most needy children he could find. These he fed, clothed, and treated as his own. He gave the boys practical instruction in farming and gardening on small tracts, and had the girls trained in domestic duties and needlework. In bad weather both sexes gave their time to spinning and weaving cotton. They were also trained in the rudiments, but were practiced in conversing and in memorizing the Bible before learning to read and write. The scholastic instruction was given very largely while they were working, and, although Pestalozzi had not as yet learned to make any direct connection between the occupational and the formal elements, this first attempt at an industrial education made it evident that the two could be combined. Within a few months there was a striking improvement in the physique, minds, and morals of the children, as well as in the use of their hands. But Pestalozzi was so enthusiastic over the success of his experiment that he greatly increased the number of children, and by 1780 was reduced to bankruptcy.

Nevertheless, his wider purpose of social reform by means of education was not allowed to languish altogether, for a friend shortly persuaded him to publish his views. His first production, The Evening Hour of a Hermit, embodied most of the educational principles he afterward made famous, but he was advised to put his thought into more popular form, and soon wrote his highly successful story of Leonard and Gertrude (1781). This work, with subsequent additions, gives an account of the degraded social conditions in the Swiss village of 'Bonnal' and the changes wrought in them by one simple peasant woman. 'Gertrude' reforms her drunkard husband, educates her children, and causes the whole community to feel her influence and adopt her methods. When finally a wise schoolmaster comes to the village, he learns from Gertrude the proper conduct of the school and begs for her continued cooperation. Then the government becomes interested, studies the improvements that have taken place, and concludes that the whole country can be reformed in no better way than by imitating Bonnal.

His School at Stanz and Beginning of His Observational Methods. - In 1798 he was given an opportunity to carry on his philanthropic and industrial ideals in education through the orphan home and school at Stanz, of which he was put in charge. Here he found it impossible to obtain any assistants, books, and materials, but he felt that none of these conventional aids could be of service in the work he desired to do. Hence he sought to instruct the children rather by experience and observation than by abstract statements and words (Fig. 33). This was the real beginning of his teaching through 'observation,' and, while at Stanz he further developed his correlation of intellectual with manual training, his observational methods were thereafter destined to be more stressed. Religion and morals, for example, were never taught by precepts, but through instances that arose in the lives of the children he showed them the value of self-control, charity, sympathy, and gratitude. In a similarly concrete way the pupils were instructed in number and language work by means of objects, and in geography and history by conversation rather than by books. While they did not learn their natural history primarily from nature, they were taught to corroborate what they had learned by their own observation. About this method he said: "According to my experience, success depends upon whether what is taught to children commends itself to them as true through being closely connected with their own observation. As a general rule, I attached little importance to the study of words, even when explanations of the ideas they represented were given."

In connection with his observational method, Pestalozzi at this time began his attempt to reduce all perception to its lowest terms, 'the A B C of observation, as he afterward called it. It was while at Stanz, for example, that he first adopted his well-known plan of teaching children to read by means of exercises known as 'syllabaries.' These joined the five vowels in succession to the different consonants, - 'ab, eb, ib, ob, ub,' and so on through all the consonants. From the phonetic nature of German spelling, he was able to make the exercises very simple, and thus to furnish a necessary practice in basal syllables. In a similar way he hoped to simplify all education to such an extent that schools would eventually become unnecessary, and that each mother would be able to teach her children and continue her own education at the same time.

Continuation of His Methods at Burgdorf, and How Gertrude Teaches Her Children. - From these experiments and concrete methods that Pestalozzi started at Stanz gradually developed all his educational contributions. But before the close of a year he was forced by circumstances to remove to Burgdorf. Here, on account of the social position of many of his pupils, he had to suspend his experiment of combining industrial with intellectual training, although, as will later be seen, his special efforts in this direction were greatly enlarged and perpetuated by Fellenberg. He now devoted himself to his 'A B C of observation,' and further worked out and graduated his 'syllabaries.' Language exercises were also given his pupils by means of examining the number, form, position, and color of the designs, holes, and rents in the wall paper of the school, and expressing their observations in longer and longer sentences, which they repeated after him. For arithmetic he devised charts upon which were placed dots or lines concretely representing each unit up to one hundred. By means of this 'table of units' (Fig. 34), the pupil obtained a clear idea of the meaning of the digits and the fundamental processes in arithmetic. The children were also taught the elements of geometry by drawing angles, lines, and curves, and the development of teaching history, geography, and natural history by this method of observation was likewise continued.

Despite a want of system and errors in carrying out his method, Pestalozzi seems to have produced remarkable results from the start. Pupils poured in; a number of progressive teachers came to assist him; many persons of prominence visited the school and made most favorable reports upon its methods; and during the following three years and a half the Pestalozzian views on education were systematically developed and applied. While at Burgdorf also, he undertook a detailed statement of his method by the publication of his How Gertrude Teaches Her Children (1801). This work does not mention Gertrude, but consists of fifteen letters to his friend, Gessner. Like all of Pestalozzi's works, it is quite lack ing in both plan and proportion, and is filled with repetitions and digressions, but the following portion of the summary of its principles, made by a biographer of Pestalozzi, may serve to give an idea of his educational creed:

"1. Observation is the foundation of instruction."

"2. Language must be connected with observation."

"3. The time for learning is not the time for judgment and criticism."

"4. In each branch, instruction must begin with the simplest elements, and proceed gradually by following the child's development; that is, by a series of steps which are psychologically connected."

"5. A pause must be made at each stage of the instruction sufficiently long for the child to get the new matter thoroughly into his grasp and under his control."

"6. Teaching must follow the path of development, and not that of dogmatic exposition."

The 'Institute' at Yverdon and the Culmination of the Pestalozzian Methods. - As a result of political changes, Pestalozzi was obliged in 1805 to transfer his school to Yverdon. The 'institute' here sprang into fame almost immediately, and increased in numbers and prosperity for several years. Children were sent from great distances, and teachers and visitors thronged there to learn and apply the new principles at home. The work of the institute formed a continuation and culmination of the observational methods started at Stanz and Burgdorf. The simplification introduced through the 'syllabaries' and 'table of units' was further elaborated. A 'table of fractions' was also devised for teaching that subject concretely. It consisted of a series of squares, which could be divided indefinitely and in different ways. Some of the squares were whole, while others were divided horizontally into two, three, or even ten equal parts. There was further developed a 'table of fractions of fractions,' or compound fractions, in which the squares were divided, not only horizontally, but vertically, so that the method of reducing two fractions to the same denominator might be self-evident.

Further, in order to draw and write, the pupil was first taught the simple elements of form. Objects, such as sticks or pencils, were placed in different directions, and lines representing them were drawn on the board or slate until all elementary forms, straight or curved, were mastered. The pupils combined these elements, instead of copying models, and were encouraged to design symmetrical and graceful figures. This also paved the way for writing. The children wrote on their slates, beginning with the easiest letters and gradually forming words from them, but soon learned to write on paper with a pen. Writing was, however, taught in connection with reading, although begun somewhat later than that study. Constructive geometry was also learned through drawing. The pupils were taught to distinguish, first vertical, horizontal, oblique, and parallel lines; then they learned right, acute, and obtuse angles, different kinds of triangles, quadrilaterals, and other figures; and finally discovered at how many points a certain number of straight lines may be made to cut one another, and how many angles, triangles, and quadrilaterals can be formed. To make the matter concrete, the figures were often cut out of cardboard or made into models.

In nature study, geography, and history the concrete observational work was likewise continued. Trees, flowers, and birds were viewed, drawn, and discussed. The pupils began in geography by acquiring the points of the compass and relative positions, and from this knowledge observed and described some familiar place. The valley of the Buron near at hand was observed in detail and modeled upon long tables in clay brought from its sides. Then the pupils were shown the map for the first time and easily grasped the meaning of its symbols. His ideas on geography, however, were more fully worked out by the scientist, Karl Ritter, who had already been trained in principles similar to Pestalozzi's in Salzmann's school at Schnepfenthal (see p. 228). Instead of the "arbitrary and unmethodical collection of all facts ascertained to exist throughout the earth," which constituted the old 'encyclopaedic' type of geography, Ritter presented a work based on principles indicated by the title, - The Science of the Earth in Relation to Nature and the History of Man. Similarly, Pestalozzi's method was applied to music by his friend, Nageli, a noted Swiss composer, who began with the simplest tone elements and then combined and developed these progressively into more complex and connected wholes.

Pestalozzi's Educational Aim and Organization. - From the beginning of his work, Pestalozzi held that "all the beneficent powers of man are due to neither art nor chance, but to nature," and that education should follow "the course laid down by nature." So in all his works he constantly returns to the analogy of the child's development with that of the natural growth of the plant or tree. He even holds that "the whole tree is an uninterrupted chain of organic parts, the plan of which existed in its seed and root," and that "man is similar to the tree." Consequently, he defines education as "the natural, progressive, and harmonious development of all the powers and capacities of the human being." This belief in the observance of development from within is in keeping with the naturalism of Rousseau, but that reformer viewed it chiefly from the negative side, and failed to make his educational doctrine concrete and explicit and to apply it to the school. Pestalozzi further modified and extended the Rousselian doctrine by recommending its application to all children, whatever their circumstances and abilities. Where Rousseau evidently had only the young aristocrat in mind in the education of Emile, Pestalozzi held that poverty could be relieved and society reformed only through ridding each and every one of his degradation by means of mental and moral development. Accordingly, he was the stanch advocate of universal education.

His General Method. - Pestalozzi's general method of giving free play to this natural development of the powers of all and so for reforming social conditions was to train his pupils through 'observation.' He felt that clear ideas could be formed only by means of careful sense perceptions, and he was thoroughly opposed to the mechanical memorizing with little understanding that was current in the schools of the day. His method in general consisted in analyzing each subject into its simplest elements, or 'A B C,' and developing it by graded exercises based as far as possible upon the study of objects rather than words. Yet Pestalozzi felt that "experiences must be clearly expressed in words, or otherwise there arises the same danger that characterizes the dominant word teaching, - that of attributing entirely erroneous ideas to words." Accordingly, as shown in the summary of How Gertrude Teaches Her Children (see p. 282), in all instruction he would connect language with 'observation.' The special applications of this general method that were worked out by him and his followers in the most common subjects of the curriculum have been described in detail in the account of his work at Stanz, Burgdorf, and Yverdon, and do not require repetition here.

The Permanent Influence of Pestalozzi. - It is easy to exaggerate the achievements of this almost sainted reformer of Switzerland. Pestalozzi's methods were neither very original nor well carried out. His chief merit lay in developing and making positive the suggestions offered by Rousseau, and in utilizing them in the work of the schools. Even in this he failed somewhat in practicality and consistency. Moreover, Pestalozzi was groping and never possessed full vision. He did not grasp definite educational principles in a scientific way, but, like Rousseau, obtained his ideas of teaching from sympathetic insight into the minds of children. His writings for the most part record his empirical efforts at an effective training, and are revelations of methods of teaching in the concrete rather than the abstract. His works are also poorly arranged and inaccurate, and there was little organization or order in his schools.

But all these deficiencies are of small import when compared with Pestalozzi's influence upon society and education. In the eighteenth century caste ruled through wealth and education, while the masses, who supported the owners of the land in idleness and luxury, were sunk in ignorance, poverty, and vice. The schools for the common people were exceedingly few, the content of education was largely limited by ecclesiastical authority, and the methods were traditional and verbal. The teachers generally had received little training, and were selected at random. Ordinarily the pay was wretched, no lodgings were provided for the teacher, and he had often to add domestic service to his duties, in order to secure food and clothing. In the midst of such conditions appeared this most famous of modern educators, who never ceased to work for the reformation of society. As Voltaire, Rousseau, and others had held that the panacea for the corrupt times was rationalism, atheism, deism, socialism, anarchy, or individualism, Pestalozzi found his remedy in education. Like Rousseau, he keenly felt the injustice, unnaturalness, and degradation of the existing society, but he was not content to stop with mere destruction and negations. He saw what education might do to purify social conditions and to elevate the people by intellectual, moral, and industrial training, and he longed to apply it universally and to develop methods in keeping with nature.

Pestalozzi's achievements contained the germ of modern pedagogy, as well as of educational reform. It was he that stimulated educational theorists, instead of accepting formal principles and traditional processes, to work out carefully and patiently the development of the child mind and to embody the results in practice. From him have come the prevailing reforms in the present teaching of language lessons, arithmetic, drawing, writing, reading, geography, elementary science, and music. In harmony with his improved methods, Pestalozzi also started a different type of discipline. His work made clear the new spirit in the school by which it has approached the atmosphere of the home. He found the proper relation of pupil and teacher to exist in sympathy and friendship, or, as he states it, in 'love.' This attitude, which appears so fully in his kindly treatment of the poor children at Neuhof and Stanz (Fig. 33), constituted the greatest contrast to that of the brutal schools of the times, and introduced a new conception into education.

The Spread of Pestalozzian Schools and Methods through Europe. - The 'observational' methods of Pestalozzi and institutions similar to his were soon spread by his assistants and others throughout Europe. Strange to say, as a result of their familiarity with his weaknesses and the conservatism resulting from isolation, the Swiss were, as a whole, rather slow to incorporate the Pestalozzian improvements. In Zurich, however, Zeller of Wurtemberg, who had visited Burgdorf and had helped conduct a Pestalozzian training school, was early invited to give three courses of lectures in aid of the establishment of a teachers' seminary based upon the principles of Pestalozzi. Kriisi, after leaving the institute at Yverdon, also founded a number of schools and carried Pestalozzianism into various parts of Switzerland. And other disciples eventually started or reorganized schools in various parts of Switzerland.

But the Pestalozzian reforms in method secured their best hold upon Germany. The innovations were most remarkable in Prussia, and the elementary education there has come to be referred to as the 'Prussian-Pestalozzian school system.' By the opening of the nineteenth century Pestalozzianism began to find its way into that state. In 1801 the appeal of Pestalozzi for a public subscription in behalf of his project at Burgdorf was warmly supported. In 1802 Herbart's account of Pestalozzi's Idea of an A B C of Observation (see p. 337) attracted much attention. A representative was sent from Prussia to Burgdorf to report upon the new system in 1803. Meanwhile the Pestalozzian missionaries were fast converting the land. Plamann, who had visited Burgdorf, in 1805 established a Pestalozzian school in Berlin, and published several books applying the new methods to language, geography, and natural history. Zeller lectured to large audiences at Konigsberg, and organized a Pestalozzian orphanage there. A similar institution for educating orphans was opened at Potsdam by Turck. In 1808, two of Pestalozzi's pupils, Nicolovius and Silvern, were made directors of public instruction in Prussia, and sent seventeen brilliant young men to Yverdon to study for three years. Upon their return these vigorous youthful educators zealously advanced the cause. The greatest impulse, however, was given the movement by the philosopher, Fichte, who was ardently supported by King Frederick William III, and even more by the noble queen, Louise. They held that only through these advanced educational principles could a restoration of the territory and prestige lost to Napoleon at Jena be effected.

A similar spirit animated the other states of Germany, and Bavaria, Detmold, and other states early undertook to introduce the new principles. Everywhere in Germany the greatest enthusiasm prevailed among teachers, state officials, and princes. Thus in place of the reading, singing, and memorizing of texts, songs, and catechism, under the direction of incompetent choristers and sextons, with unsanitary buildings and brutal punishment, all Germany has come to have in each village an institution for training real men and women. Each school is under the guidance of a devoted, humane, and trained teacher, and the methods in religion, reading, arithmetic, history, geography, and elementary science are vitalized and interesting.

In France the spread of Pestalozzianism was at first prevented by the military spirit of the time and by the apathy in education, and later, when the reaction occurred, the schools came under ecclesiastical control and had little influence upon the people. Nevertheless, there were evidences of interest in the new doctrines. General Jullien came to Yverdon to study the methods, and issued two commendatory reports, which induced some thirty French pupils to go to Pestalozzi's institute. Chavannes also published a treatise upon the Pestalozzian methods in 1805. These efforts, however, had little effect upon education, and the Pestalozzian principles did not make much headway in France up to the revolution of 1830. After that time they rapidly became popular, especially through Victor Cousin. This famous professor, who was later minister of public instruction, issued in 1835 a Report on the State of Public Instruction in Prussia, which showed the great merit of Pestalozzianism in the elementary schools of that country.

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 encyclopaedic 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 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 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 Charles Brooks began to suggest the new principles as a remedy for our educational deficiencies, and educational 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 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, 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 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 Boston schools and elsewhere about 1836 by Lowell Mason. 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 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 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 (17 71-1844). 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 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 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, 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 cooperating 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. 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 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 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 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 foothold 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 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.

A further movement in industrial education has been found in the establishment of such schools as Carlisle, Hampton, and Tuskegee, which adopted this training as a solution for peculiar racial problems. But the original idea of Pestalozzi, to secure redemption through manual labor, has been embodied in American institutions since 1873, when Miss Mary Carpenter, the English prison reformer, visited the United States. Contract labor and factory work in the reformatories then began to be replaced by farming, gardening, and kindred domestic industries. At the present time, moreover, the schools for delinquents and defectives in the New England, Middle Atlantic, Middle West, and most of the Southern states, have the Fellenberg training, though without much grasp of the educational principles involved. Finally, there has also been a growing tendency in the twentieth century to employ industrial training or trade education for the sake of holding pupils longer in school and increasing the efficiency of the public system. In so far as it has tended to replace the more general values of manual training, once so popular, with skill in some particular industrial process, this modern movement represents a return from the occupational work started by Froebel to the philanthropic practice of Fellenberg and Pestalozzi.

Supplementary Reading

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. V; and Great Educators (Macmillan, 1912), chap. IX; Monroe, Textbook (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 597-622; Parker, Modern Elementary Education (Ginn, 1912), chaps. XIII-XVI. The Leonard and Gertrude has been well arranged for English readers in the edition of Eva Channing (Heath, 1896) and How Gertrude Teaches Her Children has been translated by Lucy E. Holland and Frances C. Turner (Bardeen, 1898). The standard English treatises on Pestalozzi are Guimps, R. de, Pestalozzi, His Aim and Work (Appleton, 1890); Holman, H., Pestalozzi (Longmans, 1908); Kriisi, H., Pestalozzi, His Life, Work, and Influence (American Book Co., 1875); Pinloche, A., Pestalozzi and the Foundation of the Modern Elementary School (Scribner, 1901), and, more recently, Green, J. A., Life and Work of Pestalozzi (Clive, London, 1913) and Pestalozzi's Educational Writings (Longmans, Green, 1912). Monroe, W. S., has furnished an interesting History of the Pestalozzian Movement in the United Slates (Bardeen, 1907). The Institutions of De Fettenberg were fully described by King, W. (London, 1842); and by Barnard, H., in his American Journal of Education, vol. Ill, pp. 591-596; XIII, 323-331; and XXVI, 359-368.