Again he says (and I quote at length on the point, as it is indeed the key to Pestalozzianism), “Why have I insisted so strongly on attention to early physical and intellectual education? Because I consider these as merely leading to a higher aim, to qualify the human being for the free and full use of all the faculties implanted by the Creator, and to direct all these faculties towards the perfection of the whole being of man, that he may be enabled to act in his peculiar station as an instrument of that All-wise and Almighty Power that has called him into life” (To Greaves, p. 160).
§ 86. Believing in this high aim of education, Pestalozzi required a proper early training for all alike. “Every human being,” said he, “has a claim to a judicious development of his faculties by those to whom the care of his infancy is confided” (_Ib._ p. 163).
§ 87. Pestalozzi therefore most earnestly addressed himself to mothers, to convince them of the power placed in their hands, and to teach them how to use it. “The mother is qualified, and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child; ... and what is demanded of her is—a _thinking love_.... God has given to thy child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided—how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee.... It is recorded that God opened the heavens to the patriarch of old, and showed him a ladder leading thither. This ladder is let down to every descendant of Adam; it is offered to thy child. But he must be taught to climb it. And let him not attempt it by the cold calculations of the head, or the mere impulse of the heart; but let all these powers combine, and the noble enterprise will be crowned with success. These powers are already bestowed on him, but to thee it is given to assist in calling them forth” (To Greaves, p. 21). “Maternal love is the first agent in education.... Through it the child is led to love and trust his Creator and his Redeemer.”
§ 88. From the theory of development which lay at the root of Pestalozzi’s views of education, it followed that the imparting of knowledge and the training for special pursuits held only a subordinate position in his scheme. “Education, instead of merely considering what is to be imparted to children, ought to consider first what they may be said already to possess, if not as a developed, at least as an involved faculty capable of development. Or if, instead of speaking thus in the abstract, we will but recollect that it is to the great Author of life that man owes the possession, and is responsible for the use, of his innate faculties, education should not simply decide what is to be made of a child, but rather inquire what it was intended that he should become. What is his destiny as a created and responsible being? What are his faculties as a rational and moral being? What are the means for their perfection, and the end held out as the highest object of their efforts by the Almighty Father of all, both in creation and in the page of revelation?”