Social reform must begin with the reconstruction of the home life of the people. Not “go back to Nature!” but “go back to the home!” Not to build a new society on the absolutely free, independent, _natural man_, but on the work-loving, man-loving, God-loving, unsophisticatedly developed, social man, or rather _home man_. For Pestalozzi, the only hope for the elevation of all mankind was in the regeneration of the home and perfection of home education. His idea of elementary education started from this view. “Leonard and Gertrude” was written as an appeal to parents, to awaken them to the sense of the most sacred duty intrusted to them and of the grandest privilege given to them. “How Gertrude Taught Her Children” was to be a guide to mothers for instructing their children at home. His method of elementary instruction was to provide the simplest and easiest way of teaching available to every mother. Lastly, in the “Swan Song” he formulated the principles by which home education should follow or assist the course of natural development of the child. In this, one of his last writings, he says: “At first I desired nothing else, but merely sought to render the ordinary means of instruction for the people so simple as to permit of their being employed in every family” (4: p. 375). But while he was experimenting, in the education of those destitute and neglected children, to whom he was a “father” rather than a master, the ardent necessity of school reform at large was impressed upon him. “Everywhere the course pursued was in direct opposition to that of Nature, everywhere the flesh predominated over the spirit, and the divine element was ignored; everywhere selfishness and the passions were made the motives of actions, and everywhere mechanical habits took the place of intelligent spontaneity” (4: p. 377). The basic principle upon which he wanted every educator to work was: “Endeavour, first to broaden your children’s sympathies, and, by satisfying their daily needs, to bring love and kindness into such unceasing contact with their impressions and activity, that these sentiments may be engrafted in their hearts; then try to give them such judgment and tact as will enable them to make a wise, sure, and abundant use of these virtues in the circle which surrounds them” (4: p. 157). This is, according to his insight, the principle of parental education unconsciously going on in the home, and the school must be a copy of the home in its spirit and method, if it is at all to have a real and vital influence upon the child.