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Rh attempt to preach. After a pastorate even shorter than those of modern times he applied himself to the study of law. Over-work compelled him to seek rest in the country. Here he soon entertained the purpose of becoming a farmer, because he believed that in this way he could best work for the culture of the farmers. The aim of his life seems justly set forth in these words: "To bring about a better destiny for the poor in the country, by a firm establishment and simplification of their means of education and instruction." His agricultural undertaking at Neuhof was a failure from the beginning. Meanwhile he opened an orphan asylum, and undertook the care of fifty parentless children. The time came when there was neither bread nor wood. Then eighteen years of waiting—of worse than waiting, of reproach and increasing self-distrust, verging close upon despair. In 1780 Pestalozzi published "The Evening Hours of a Hermit," setting forth his educational doctrine in most suggestive phrase. A year later came "Lienhard and Gertrude"—a book for the people. This was written in a few weeks, and, as Pestalozzi says, "without my knowing how I came to it. I felt its worth, but only as a man in a dream feels the value of a blessing. I saw the degradation of the people, and 'Lienhard and Gertrude' was a sigh over this degradation." It was fundamental with Pestalozzi that the education of the child should commence, as it were, at the first instant of life. "By the cradle must we begin to wrest from the hands of blind Nature the guidance of our race, that we may place it in the hands of that better power which has taught us by the experience of centuries to reflect upon the nature of her eternal laws."

During the winter of 1793-'94 Fichte gave lectures or discussions in Lavater's house. Pestalozzi was led by these interviews to write his second great work, entitled "Inquiries concerning the Course of Nature in the Development of the Race." Events soon called the reformer from writing to practical work. War, with its orphans, came into the valleys of Switzerland. An orphan asylum was opened near Stanz. Pestalozzi, already fifty-one years of age, took charge of this asylum. Very touching are his words: "I had gone to the most secret clefts of the mountains to find my work, and truly I found it. But think of my condition! I, alone—deprived of all appliances for education—I alone overseer, keeper of accounts, house-servant, in an unfinished house, among evils of all kinds. The children numbered about eighty, all of different ages, some in open beggary, all entirely ignorant. I stood in their midst. I repeated sounds to them, made them give the sounds after me. All who saw it were astonished at the result. It was really the pulse-beat of the art which I sought. I did not know what I was doing. I knew upon what I had resolved—death, or the accomplishment of my purpose."

Pestalozzi found a more permanent resting-place at Yverdun. The institution which was established here continued from 1805 to 1825,