A student's history of educationGraves, Frank Pierrepont
History
A student's history of education
Graves, Frank Pierrepont
Education -- History
=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.
[Sidenote: Scholastic instruction given while the children were
working.]
=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.
[Sidenote: After the school was closed, he published his views.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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