lent zeal for the promotion of their welfare, which enabled him to continue his establishment at Neuhof for the space of fifteen years, in spite of all the difficulties with which he had to struggle, and the extreme distress to which he was at last reduced, in consequence of the disproportion between the extent of his undertaking and the limited pecuniary means that were at his command.

When Pestalozzi first ventured upon the experiment, he was not aware of its ruinous tendency. His knowledge of economical concerns was founded chiefly upon the experience which he had acquired in bringing his farm into a state of cultivation, and which was of the most encouraging nature. His acquaintance with the manufacturing department was more superficial, yet, apparently, sufficient to enable him to include that line of industry in his plan. He calculated that the expense incurred by the support of so large a number would, in a great measure, be covered by the produce of their own labour; but experience taught him, that the waste of material in manufacture, and the diminution of harvest, occasioned by an inferior cultivation of the soil, swallowed up nearly the whole amount of that produce, so that the weight of the increased consumption fell almost entirely upon the original resources of the establishment. A variety of other obstacles, arising out of the nature of the undertaking, and the peculiar turn of his own mind, concurred to impede his success and, ultimately, to defeat his plan. The mixture of agricultural and manufacturing labour, of domestic economy and commercial operations, had the effect of bringing confusion into every part, and concealing from his view the real state of his circumstances. His thoughts were, of course, chiefly directed towards the moral object of his institution; the inquiry into the best method of communicating instruction and developing the mental powers as well as the affections, necessarily diverted his mind from mere matters of business, and prevented him from acquiring those habits of strict attention to the minute details of economy, in the full possession of which the conduct of so

complicated an undertaking as his, would still have proved an arduous and perhaps unsuccessful task. To combine in one and the same person the offices of manager, schoolmaster, farmer, manufacturer, and merchant, was beyond the reach of a man, whose energy of feeling carried him on with irresistible power in the pursuit of one great object, and would not allow him to stoop and measure every inch of ground over which he had to go.

On the other hand the prospect of a failure, which presented itself at a distance almost from the very beginning, and which became with every year nearer and more certain, deprived Pestalozzi of that calmness and serenity of temper, which was so essentially necessary, not only to the financial, but also to the moral success of his institution. The agitation of his mind was consequently kept up by a variety of vexatious and distressing incidents, till, at last, his disposition grew turbulent and restless. The losses entailed upon him by the inexperience of those whom he employed, and by the neglect prevailing in all parts of his establishment, affected him deeply, because they involved, as a necessary consequence, the total failure of his benevolent plans; and the consciousness which he had of the disinterestedness of his motives, rendered him unjust towards those that surrounded him, and prone to blame them for the existence of evils, which were, after all, but the inevitable result of the nature of the undertaking, and of his own inability to superintend and direct its complicated machinery. This inability, of course, increased in proportion as he abandoned himself to the violence and injustice of his feelings; and, in the same proportion, its ruinous effects became more and more visible in the state of his affairs. The more his circumstances required maturity of judgment and steadiness of action, the more inconsiderate and rash was his conduct; and vice versâ, the more comfort and freedom from anxiety the state of his mind rendered necessary, the more painful and distressing became his situation. The concurrence of such a number of evils, constantly reproducing each other,

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compelled Pestalozzi at last, however unwillingly, to give up an experiment which had required, from the beginning, ampler means and a firmer hand than his, to conduct it to a successful issue.

But as no good seed remains without its harvest, though it should not be as rich as the sower anticipated, so likewise Pestalozzi's persevering exertions for the education of the poor were not quite fruitless. His house, it is true, was now no longer an asylum for the houseless and the fatherless: the objects of his long-continued care and attention were disbanded, and left to provide for their own support in a world in which another Neuhof was not to be found; but the sting of this disappointment was much softened by the reflection, that upwards of an hundred children had been rescued from the destitution and the corrupting influences, of which they would otherwise have become the victims. Let those who are tempted to sneer at Pestalozzi's views, or to call their practicability in question, look at this result of the first abortive attempt of his benevolence; let them look around for another instance, in which the persevering labours of one individual, entirely unsupported by public or private assistance, have been productive of the same amount of good; and if they feel at a loss where to find it, let them respect the man who bestowed greater benefits upon mankind by his failures, than others do by their success.

The consciousness of having saved such a number of human beings from almost certain destruction, and awakened in their hearts the seeds of virtue and religion, was no small reward; and yet it was, perhaps, the least that Pestalozzi reaped from his first experiment. He had gained, what was of infinitely greater value to him, a rich store of experience, and a deeper insight than he had before possessed, into the nature of his task, as well as of the means by which it might be accomplished. In the works published during the period which elapsed from the opening of his asylum on the Neuhof, in 1775, to its close in 1790, he has left a permanent and highly instructive record of the discoveries which he

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LEONARD AND GERTRUDE.

made in the progress of his arduous undertaking. The first of them, "Leonard and Gertrude," a popular novel, though it appeared as early as 1781, was even then the result of his apprehensions for the durability of his orphan school. It was written with a view to deposit in it the knowledge he had acquired of the condition of the lower classes, and the experience he had gained in attempting their improvement; and the vivid colouring of the picture sufficiently bespeaks his familiarity with the scenes of poverty, and the warmth of his benevolent sympathy. In the hope, however, with which he had flattered himself, that it would attract the public attention to the subject of popular education, and thereby procure assistance sufficient to render his institution permanent, he was bitterly disappointed. As a novel, the book was liked universally; those who entered most into the author's meaning, said: "Indeed, if there were many mothers like Gertrude, many schoolmasters like Gluelphi, and many magistrates like Arner, the world would be in far better case!" And there the matter ended.

But Pestalozzi would not let it end there. He published in the following year, 1782, his "Second Book for the People," under the title "Christopher and Eliza." By this work which never came into the hands of the lower classes, for whom it was chiefly intended, he hoped to draw the attention of the readers of "Leonard and Gertrude" to the great object which he had there had in view, and, by familiar illustration of some of the most important topics upon which he had touched in it, to show how a variety of useful lessons might be drawn from a book, which was generally considered in no other light than that of an amusing tale. At the same time, while he thus endeavoured to bring the results of his experience home to the hearts and minds of the cottager, he made an attempt, likewise, to interest the literary world in his views on education. In a journal, published in Basel, under the direction of the celebrated philanthropist Iselin, he inserted a series of essays under the title "Evening Hours of an Hermit," which contained a more systematic account of his mode of

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instruction and his plans for national improvement. But it was not, then, a time when men sought for such information as had a tendency to cure them of their vices and prejudices. The popular tendency of education ran quite in another direction. The general diffusion of reading, writing, and a sort of encyclopædic scrap-knowledge, was then the fashion, and Pestalozzi's voice, which told no wonders of electricity, no secrets of chemistry, but was ever loud on the subject of mental and moral improvement, continued, in spite of all his efforts, to be "as the voice of one crying in the wilderness."

He was somewhat more successful in giving currency to his ideas by a weekly journal, which he undertook at the beginning of 1782, under the title "Schweizer Blatt," i. e. "Swiss Journal." This curious publication, which was continued till 1783, and forms two octavo volumes, touches in a popular and interesting style upon an endless variety of topics, all, however, connected with Pestalozzi's one great object, national improvement. Some of the papers contained in it, on the punishment of infanticide, were embodied afterwards in a pamphlet which treats that question more extensively, and which went through several editions, owing to the interest excited at the time by the execution of two sisters, who were guilty of the murder of their two children, under circumstances of the most appalling nature. The public attention was aroused, and Pestalozzi was foremost among the advocates of humanity, to urge upon the legislative assemblies of Switzerland the necessity of revising the law on that subject; and he had the satisfaction of witnessing, as an effect of the measures subsequently adopted, the diminution of a crime, like which no other so strikingly exhibits the criminal in the light of one that is to be pitied rather than persecuted.

The period between 1783 and 1790, which was one of increasing difficulties and embarrassments, could not be favorable to literary composition; yet it was not wholly left without a record of the state of Pestalozzi's mind. Preoccupied as he was by his private affairs, and the menacing