§ 52. The check, however, was only temporary. His friends were wiser than the shoemaker, and they procured for him admission into the lowest class of the school for burghers’ children. In this class there were about 25 children, boys and girls between the ages of 5 and 8. Here he proved that he was vastly different from a mere dreamer. After teaching these children in his own way for eight months he received the first official recognition of the merits of his system. The Burgdorf School Commission after the usual examination, wrote a public letter to Pestalozzi, in which they said: “The surprising progress of your little scholars of various capacities shews plainly that every one is good for something, if the teacher knows how to get at his abilities and develop them according to the laws of psychology. By your method of teaching you have proved how to lay the groundwork of instruction in such a way that it may afterwards support what is built on it.... Between the ages of 5 and 8, a period in which according to the system of torture enforced hitherto, children have learnt to know their letters, to spell and read, your scholars have not only accomplished all this with a success as yet unknown, but the best of them have already distinguished themselves by their good writing, drawing, and calculating. In them all you have been able so to arouse and excite a liking for history, natural history, mensuration, geography, &c., that thus future teachers must find their task a far easier one if they only know how to make good use of the preparatory stage the children have gone through with you” (Morf, Pt. I, p. 223).