Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/361

 PESTALOZZI 347 the surrounding country. The exactions of the Sikhs were subsequently so heavy that its res- toration was prevented, but since its occupation by the British in 1849 all restrictions upon it have been removed, and the town has rapidly increased. Peshawer was founded by the em- Fort of Peshawer. peror Akbar. Half of the city was destroyed by fire in May, 1875. PESTALOZZI, Johann Heinrich, a Swiss teacher, born in Zurich, Jan. 12, 1746, died in Brugg, Feb. 17, 1827. He was naturally feeble, and grew up awkward and clumsy, His education was meagre, especially in the common branches, but he was tolerably f amiliar. with the classics. The reading of Rousseau's fimile induced him to abandon legal and historical studies and en- gage in educational reform. With a view to extensive experiments, he purchased a barren tract near Birr in the canton of Aargau, com- menced a madder plantation in 1767, in con- nection with a mercantile firm in Zurich, and erected a villa which he named JSTeuhof. The plantation failed, but he continued his farming operations, and in 1775 opened a school for poor children, and soon had 50 pupils. His plan was to make it a manual labor school, employing the children in summer in field work, in winter in spinning and other handi- crafts. Instruction was to alternate with labor in the summer, and in the winter the teaching, which was chiefly oral, was to be communi- cated while they were at work. The school failed through financial and industrial mis- management, and in 1780 he was compelled to break it up. He was at this time reduced to great extremities, his property and that of his wife being exhausted. Near the close of the year 1780 he published in Iselin's Epfiemerides "The Evening Hour of a Hermit." It con- tained a series of aphorisms on education, and produced a decided effect in Germany and Switzerland. In 1781 appeared the first part of his Lienhard und Gertrud, which at once established his reputation as a writer ; its ob- ject was to enforce the importance of home education and the evils of dissipation, and it. has been translated into most of the languages of Europe. The agricultural society of Bern awarded Pestalozzi their great gold medal and a vote of thanks. In 1782 he published Chris- toph und Ehe, a supplement to his " Leonard and Gertrude," but far less popular. Several other of his works of a philosophical character were published between this period and 1798. He also edited during a part of this time Das Schweizerllatt fur das Yolk. In 1792 he vis- ited Germany. He was about to open an edu- cational institution in the canton of Aargau when, in September, 1798, Stanz in TJnterwal- den was burned by the French, the entire can- ton laid waste, and a multitude of orphan chil- dren were left homeless. Legrand, then at the head of the Swiss directory, called upon Pes- talozzi to go to Stanz and take care of those destitute children, and for ten months he taught, fed, and trained 80 children, under the most difficult and distressing circumstances. He was interrupted by the French, who in their retreat visited Stanz again, and turned the convent where Pestalozzi was teaching into a hospital. After a few months he ob- tained permission to teach in a primary school at Burgdorf, in the canton of Bern. A year later an attack of pulmonary disease compelled him to relinquish his labors, and about the close of 1800, with Kriisi, Tobler, and Buss, he opened an educational institution at Burgdorf, which may be regarded as his first systematic attempt to reduce to practice the principle? of education shadowed forth in his " Leonard and Gertrude" nearly 20 years before. He now gave to the world a full exposition of his educational views in Wie Gertrud inre Kinder lehrt (" How Gertrude teaches her Children," Bern and Zurich, 1801). This work had a wide circulation, and attracted not only private