The efforts of Pestalozzi went down in clouds, and when he died, at the age of eighty-one, in 1827, he had seen the apparent failure of all his toils. He had not, however, failed in reality. And when twenty years later the centenary of his birth was celebrated by school-masters, not only in his native country but throughout Germany, it was found that Pestalozzian ideas had been sown, and were bearing fruit, over the greater part of central Europe. Even to-day school-masters might learn much from Pestalozzi, in aiming more at a plan of education founded on a knowledge of human nature, and its modes of instruction which shall better develop their pupils’ faculties. The true functions of Pestalozzi, it is alleged, were to educate ideas, not children. Even those who are most averse to theoretical views, which they call unpractical, will admit, as practical men, that their methods are probably susceptible of improvement, and that even a theorist might lead them to make many observations which would otherwise have escaped them; might teach them to examine what their aim really was, and then whether they are using the most suitable methods to accomplish it. Such a theorist is Pestalozzi. He points to a high ideal, and bids us measure our modes of education by it. When Switzerland would honor Pestalozzi’s name, the monument she built was more than brass or bronze. It was a school,--a school where the memoirs of the man were carved, not on wood or stone, but in the minds of happy, growing youths, the fortunate beneficiaries of a system whose foundation he laid.[73] Down to 1848 all the public schools in Switzerland had been in the hands of the Cantons; in the federal constitution, adopted at that time, it was provided that the Confederation might establish a university and a polytechnic school. A proposition for a university was soon thereafter submitted and rejected. Subsequently a law was passed, in 1854, establishing a federal polytechnical school. In view of the antagonism existing between the German, French, and Italian Cantons, and the social friction that followed between the adherents of the different creeds, it was found important that the Confederation should be in a position to strengthen and direct the forces which make for unity, and attention was directed to the vital forces which proceed from a wisely-arranged system of public instruction. This resulted in more extensive power being conferred upon the Confederation, in the revised Constitution of 1874, with respect to education. The 27th Article of the Constitution declares: “The Confederation has the right to establish, besides the existing polytechnical school, a federal university and other institutions for higher instruction, or may assist in the support of said institutions. The Cantons shall provide for primary education, which must be adequate, and shall be placed exclusively under the direction of the civil authorities. It is compulsory, and in the public schools free.