§ 6. There was another person concerned in this decision. In his childhood he had one day ventured into the shop of one of the leading tradesmen, Herr Schulthess, bent on procuring for his farthings some object of delight; but he found there a little shop-keeper, Anna Schulthess, seven years his senior, who discouraged his extravagance and persuaded him to keep his money. Anna and he since those days had become engaged—not at all to the satisfaction of her parents. Their intimacy had been strengthened by their concern for a common friend, a young man named Bluntschli, who died of consumption. This friend, three years older than Pestalozzi, seems to have understood him thoroughly; and in the parting advice he gave him there was a warning which happily for the general good was in after years neglected. “I am going,” said Bluntschli, “and you will be left alone. Avoid any career in which you might become the victim of your own goodness and trust, and choose some quiet life in which you will run no risk. Above all, do not take part in any important undertaking without having at your side a man who by his cool judgment, knowledge of men and things, and unshakable fidelity may be able to protect you from the dangers to which you will be exposed.” § 7. When the friendship with Anna Schulthess had ripened into a betrothal Pestalozzi spent a year in the neighbourhood of Bern learning farming under a man then famous for his innovations. His new ideas Pestalozzi absorbed very readily. “I had come to him,” he says, “a political visionary, though with many profound and correct attainments, views, and anticipations in matters political. I went away from him just as great an agricultural visionary, though with many enlarged and correct ideas and intentions with regard to agriculture.”