plicity of his own being inspired him with extreme fondness for children, and in frequent intercourse with them, he cultivated that deeper wisdom which schools cannot impart nor books record. But soft and pliable as his character was in some respects, there had grown up in his soul a strong and unbending love of justice, which, combined with his tender sympathy for the weak and suffering, rendered him eminently fit to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the brokenhearted, to comfort the mourning, and to speak a word in season to the weary. In short, he had all those qualities which constitute, not the Priest or the Levite, but the good Samaritan.

With this picture of Henry's character before us, it seems a matter of astonishment that he should have abandoned a calling, for which he seemed in every respect so eminently calculated. Such, however, was the case. His first appearance in the pulpit, as a candidate, was the occasion of his renouncing all his aspirations to holy orders. When it is considered that Pestalozzi gave in after-life abundant proofs of eloquence, it is difficult to attribute to a want of that gift this change of his career. It seems more easy to conceive that he who was ever ready to raise his voice in defending the oppressed, and pleading for the fatherless, should not feel the same springs of inspiration within him, when endeavouring to dash off a probationary sermon; and an instinctive perception of the nature of the impediment might well determine a youth, intimidated by his first failure, not to expose himself to a second.

Having turned his back upon divinity, he now applied himself to the law; but although he had embraced another profession, the tendency of his mind remained the same. Instead, therefore, of reading the Pandects de servitute stillicidii, he embarked in speculations on the best form of government. That these were not of the utilitarian cast, is clear from an essay on the Constitution of Sparta and a translation of some of the Orations of Demosthenes, which he published at that period, and which, while they show the

6

FIRST LITERARY ATTEMPTS.

turn his studies had taken, attest at the same time his assiduity in research, and his proficiency in classical learning. Such indications of a loftier pursuit of knowledge than that which is founded upon the prospect of future fees, well became the pupil of a Bodmer and a Breitinger; and the promising youth could not fail to meet with encouragement in an age, in which he had for contemporaries a Lavater and Iselin, the Eschers, Hirzels, Wattenwyls, Grafenrieds, and others, with whose names the student of Swiss history associates that hopeful dawn of a second Reformation, which, by the effects of the French Revolution upon the Alpine republics, ended in a cloud of bloody red. The further Pestalozzi advanced in his inquiries, and the more he put the state of things, as it then was in his native country, to the test of those principles of justice and freedom which he had learned to admire, the more was he struck with the contrast between the professed purpose of society, and the state into which it was actually brought by false and inappropriate means. He saw that the education of judges and public officers was no more in accordance with the claims of justice and of civil liberty, than that of ministers with the spirit of the gospel; he saw the worship of God and the welfare of mankind prostituted to selfish and unholy purposes; and on the other hand he saw, as the inevitable effect of such corruption on the part of the rulers and teachers, the people at large unfitted for the duties of this world, as well as for the claims of the world to come, by the instruction which they received both at school and in practical life. The results of his meditations on this subject he embodied in an essay on the bearing which education ought to have upon our respective callings, published by him while a student at law.

It was about this time that Rousseau's "Emile" fell into his hands; and certainly, if there had been any doubts left in Pestalozzi's mind as to the correctness of his own views, the misanthropic eloquence of that work was calculated to destroy them all, and to confirm and nourish in him that deep dislike which he had conceived against the present

CRISIS.

condition of society, as utterly inconsistent with the claims and dictates of nature. At the same time, while the evil was presented to his view in the most glaring colours, the philosophy of Jean Jacques, founded in its very essence upon the principle of self, did not by any means supply him with an adequate remedy, nor even point out the source from which it might be derived. It set him right so far, as it strengthened in him the conviction, that the darkness in which he had grown up, was not light; but it left him in that darkness, without one ray to illumine his eyes, or to shed clearness upon his path. The consequence could be no other than that his mind, which had before been agitated and distracted, was brought to the highest degree of ferment. His constitution, already impaired by excessive application, want of exercise, and deprivation of sleep, gave way, at length, under the effect of the mighty struggle in which his soul was engaged, and a dangerous illness put a stop to his ardent researches. But although it prevented him from poring over his volumes, it could not arrest the busy train of his thoughts. Stretched upon the bed of sickness, he continued to indulge himself in his dark musings; and the idea of his own plans and projects in life being closely interwoven with the notions he entertained of the state of society, the future presented to him an aspect which, the longer he viewed it, the more it appeared enveloped in gloom. The fortitude of his soul, however, and the physical energy of youth, bore up against the disease both of mind and body, and his sufferings ended in the resolution, on his part, to abandon himself entirely to the education of Providence, setting aside all human considerations. He vowed he would allow himself no longer to be distracted by a painful clashing between his theory and his practice. By acting up to the full extent of his notions, he hoped to give himself the inestimable opportunity of putting his views to the test of life. He would not be tried by the systems of men, but by the hand of God.

The first result of this determination was, that immedi

APPRENTICESHIP IN FARMING.

ately after his convalescence he committed all his papers to the flames. A number of scraps on various topics connected with the study of law and politics, and extensive extracts on the history of Switzerland, compiled with reference to the same subject, perished in this auto de fé upon labours which had led him to so unsatisfactory a conclusion. The bewildering influence of books he shunned, henceforth, as the Nazarite did wine and strong drink; and although this antipathy was somewhat softened in after-life, yet he could never quite reconcile his mind to the records of history and the stores of literature. He had felt, that most of the ills into which society was plunged, had their origin in a strange departure from what appeared to him the straight and simple path of nature; and to the school of nature, therefore, he resolved to go.

Abandoning all his former prospects and pursuits, he left Zurich, and went to Kirchberg, in the canton of Berne, where he apprenticed himself to a farmer of the name of Tschiffeli, who enjoyed a great reputation at that time, not only for his superiority in rural economy, but also for the warm interest he took in the improvement of the agricultural classes. Here a new sphere was opened to him; instead of the lecture room he now frequented the stable; the sedentary engagements of the study were exchanged for constant exercise in the open air. Occasionally he set his hand to the plough and the spade; and whilst he had returned to the primitive employment of man, "to till the ground from which he is taken," he was meditating on the best manner of making this simplest of all callings the means of mental and moral improvement. The health and bodily strength which he acquired in this new mode of living, braced his weak and irritated nerves; and his removal from the scene of artificial life enabled him to regain that peace of mind, of which his first conflict with the world had deprived him. That harmless tranquillity, that unconscious security of feeling, which characterizes childhood, increases in proportion as man approaches a patriarchal state of society, and diminishes in pro

portion as he is more involved in the complicated workings of the social machine. Pestalozzi had, as a boy, possessed that childlike simplicity in an eminent degree, and now, in the intercourse with nature and with men of primitive habits, he recovered it so fully, that whenever in after-life he alludea to the studies of his earlier years, he spoke of them in a manner, as if they were so many recollections of a previous state, altogether unconnected with his present existence.

After he had, under the direction of Tschiffeli, qualified himself for the conduct of a rural establishment, he employed the small patrimony which his father had left him, in the purchase of a tract of waste land in the neighbourhood of Lenzburg, in the canton of Berne, on which he erected a dwelling-house with the necessary outbuildings, and gave it the name of Neuhof, that is, the New farm. With all the energy and the sanguine anticipations of a young man of twenty-two years, he now applied himself to the cultivation of his estate, which indeed, to deserve that name, required years of persevering labour. But his courage, borne out by the vigor of youth, conquered all difficulties; the work of his hands prospered, and he soon saw his new creation in a flourishing condition, and his prospects as easy and cheerful as he could well have wished. At this bright epoch of his life, when all his good stars seemed to have met in a happy constellation, he sought and obtained the hand of Anne Schulthess, a young woman on whom nature and education ad vied in bestowing their accomplishments. Greater praise, however, than to the gifts which adorned her, is due to the elevation of character which she evinced in uniting herself to a man, in whom there was, indeed, nothing to love but the kindness of his disposition and his warm zeal in the cause of humanity. His eccentricity had at that time already gained him the shoulder-shrugging compassion of the wiseacres among his fellow-citizens; his personal appearance was far from attractive, and his establishment at Neuhof, whatever value it might have had for himself, could never be worth the consideration of the daughter of one of