§ 34. Thus we find Pestalozzi at the age of thirty-five turning author, and for the next six or seven years he worked indefatigably with his pen. Most men of genius have some leading purpose which unites their varied activities, and this was specially true of Pestalozzi. He never lost sight of his one object, which was the elevation of the people; and this he held to be attainable only by means of education properly so called. The success of the first part of _Leonard and Gertrude_ he now endeavoured to turn to account in spreading true ideas of education. With this intent he published _Christopher and Eliza: My Second Book for the People_ (1782), which was a kind of commentary on _Leonard and Gertrude_. But the public wished to be amused, not taught; and the book was a failure. He was thus driven into the attempt already mentioned to catch the public ear by continuing _Leonard and Gertrude_, thus endangering his first and, as it proved, his only great success in literature. § 35. To gain circulation for his ideas he also started a weekly paper called the _Swiss Journal_, and issued it regularly throughout the year 1782; but the subscribers were so few that he was then obliged to give it up. I have not the smallest doubt that it was, as Guimps says, full of wisdom, but not the kind of wisdom that readers of periodicals are likely to care for.[154] § 36. In the _Swiss Journal_ we get a hint of the analogy between the development of the plant and of the man. This analogy, often as it had been observed before, was never before so fruitful as it became in the hands of Pestalozzi and Froebel. The passage quoted by Guimps is this: “Teach me, summer day, that man formed from the dust of the earth, grows and ripens like the plant rooted in the soil.”