Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/390

374 of Education founded on an Analysis of the Human Faculties and Natural Reason, Suitable for the Offspring of a Free People, and for all Rational Beings. By Joseph Neef (formerly a Coadjutor of Pestalozzi, at his School near Berne, in Switzerland). Philadelphia, 1808.

This work is faultless as to grammatical construction, and was the first strictly pedagogical work published in the English language in this country. It would interest any modern teacher who has read the numerous pedagogical works of to-day to give this quaint little volume a careful perusal. There are now but half a dozen known copies in existence, one being in the State Library at Indianapolis. Another work. Method of Teaching Children to Read and Write, was published by him in 1813.

Neef had in the school established at the Falls of the Schuylkill about one hundred pupils, most of them boarders, who were taught physiology, botany, geology, natural history, languages, mathematics, and other branches, without the aid of a single textbook, a purely natural method being followed. "Neef 's boys from the Falls," as they were known to Philadelphians, could, without exception, after being in the school for a short time, work mentally the most difficult examples in arithmetic, converse with equal ease in several languages, and many who were his pupils have said in after years that the amount of scientific information and practical knowledge gained while under Neef's care had always been of incalculable benefit to them.

In 1813 he removed to Village Green, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. David Glasgow Farragut was one of his pupils at this place. From here the school was moved to Louisville at the earnest solicitation of several Kentucky patrons. In 1826, when Robert Owen, of New Lanark, Scotland, began his famous socialistic experiment at New Harmony, Indiana, Mr. Neef took charge of the educational department of his community. In 1828 the community ceased to exist, and Mr. Neef removed to Cincinnati, and later to Steubenville, Ohio, where he engaged in his last school. He died at New Harmony in 1853.

The following extract is taken from his book published in 1808: "The man of refined morality feels it to be his duty not only to be good, but also to inquire in what situation and through what means he may be able to produce the greatest sum of good to his fellow-creatures. It is my ambition and duty to become a useful member of society. The education of children and the rearing of vegetables are the only occupations for which I feel any aptitude. I have, therefore, seriously inquired in which of these two spheres I should produce the greatest advantage to the society of which I may become a member, whether by clearing and tilling some secluded spot of land, or by cultivating the