[Sidenote: Example of mother and grandfather,]
[Sidenote: and early attempts to elevate the peasantry.]
=Pestalozzi’s Philanthropic and Industrial Ideals.=--Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was born at Zurich in 1746. After the death of his father, he was brought up almost altogether by his mother. Through her unselfishness and piety, and the example of his grandfather, pastor in a neighboring village, Pestalozzi was inspired to relieve and elevate the degraded peasantry about him. He first turned to the ministry as being the best way to accomplish this philanthropic purpose, and later took up the study of law, with the idea of defending the rights of his people, but he was not able to succeed in either profession. Then, in 1769, he undertook to demonstrate to the peasants the value of improved methods of agriculture. He took up a strip of waste land at Birr, which he called _Neuhof_ (‘new farm’), but within five years this experiment also proved a lamentable failure. Meantime a son had been born to him, whom he had undertaken to rear upon the basis of the _Emile_, and the results, recorded in a _Father’s Journal_, suggested new ideas and educational principles for the regeneration of the masses. He began to hold that education did not consist merely in books and knowledge, and that the children of the poor could, by proper training, be taught to earn their living and at the same time develop their intelligence and moral nature.
[Sidenote: Scholastic instruction given while the children were working.]
=His Industrial School at Neuhof and the _Leonard and Gertrude_.=--Hence the failure of his agricultural venture afforded Pestalozzi the opportunity he craved to experiment with philanthropic and industrial education. Toward the end of 1774 he took into his home some twenty of the most needy children he could find. These he fed, clothed, and treated as his own. He gave the boys practical instruction in farming and gardening on small tracts, and had the girls trained in domestic duties and needlework. In bad weather both sexes gave their time to spinning and weaving cotton. They were also trained in the rudiments, but were practiced in conversing and in memorizing the Bible before learning to read and write. The scholastic instruction was given very largely while they were working, and, although Pestalozzi had not as yet learned to make any direct connection between the occupational and the formal elements, this first attempt at an industrial education made it evident that the two could be combined. Within a few months there was a striking improvement in the physique, minds, and morals of the children, as well as in the use of their hands. But Pestalozzi was so enthusiastic over the success of his experiment that he greatly increased the number of children, and by 1780 was reduced to bankruptcy.