Comenius was the first of the educational reformers to recognize the importance of geography as a subject of school study; and although he had it taught in the schools he conducted, and gave it important consideration in his educational schemes, the study received no fresh recognition until the time of Pestalozzi. At Stanz, at Burgdorf, and at Yverdon, geography ranked as one of the foremost elementary school studies. And not only was geography taught in the schoolrooms, but better than that, it was taught in the open air. Vulliemin, who was two years a student under Pestalozzi at Yverdon, writes: “The first elements of geography were taught us on the ground. We began the study by taking a walk along a narrow valley on the outskirts of Yverdon. We were led to observe all its details, and then to help ourselves to some clay we found there. This we carried back in our baskets, and, on our return home, we had to make a model of the ground walked over, and of the surrounding country; this we did on long tables. Our walks were extended, from time to time, and, on our return, we added new features as we learned them.” Pestalozzi was fortunate in having with him at Yverdon two eminently successful German teachers, who comprehended his aims, and who subsequently applied his methods in the fatherland. One was Hennig, the author of a popular pedagogic work on home geography, and the other was Karl Ritter, the deservedly renowned German geographer. Ritter brought with him to Yverdon two young men from Frankfort whom he was tutoring, and he served Pestalozzi in the capacity of a pupil-teacher; and, while a developed man when he entered the institution, in 1807, he came to Yverdon, as so many other enthusiastic Germans had done, to study pedagogy with the most distinguished master of the century. Years later, when Ritter had become the best-known geographer of his age, he wrote: “Pestalozzi knew less geography than a child in one of our primary schools, yet it was from him that I gained my chief knowledge of this science; for it was in listening to him that I first conceived the idea of the natural method. It was he who opened the way to me, and I take pleasure in attributing whatever value my work may have entirely to him.” Comenius and Pestalozzi had much in common in their aims as educational reformers; and they together share, as Dr. Hoffmeister[47] points out, the honor of having originated and carefully elaborated one of the most efficient elementary school systems in Europe—the Volksschule in Germany. Pestalozzi gave himself to education, or, to use his own significant characterization, “I have lived all my days like a beggar, that I might teach beggars how to live like men.” Comenius gave himself, also, and he gave besides a half-dozen books, which take classic rank in the permanent literature of education. _Fröbel_