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School, established by the legislature, was opened in October, 1855, in a building temporarily secured for the purpose, until the completion of the elegant and commodious edifice provided by the citizens of Trenton, and now occupied by the institution. After the Normal School had been in operation for a sufficient length of time to vindicate its utility, and importance to the great scheme of public education, and to turn the strong tide of opposition which was at first brought to bear against it, Mr. Farnum again appeared before the trustees on the occasion of the dedication of the Normal School edifice, and made a proposition still more liberal than that originally laid before that body. He not only offered to place the building which he had erected, and furnished, freely at their disposal, but proposed that, if a preparatory school should be opened therein, auxiliary to the State Normal School, he would defray its entire expenses for at least one year. He also agreed, that the entire property, together with an endowment of twenty thousand dollars, should be left at his decease, in trust for the state, conditional only, that a preparatory school should be maintained therein, under the direction of the state government. Of course there could be but one opinion, and one disposition in regard to proposals so generous in their origin, and so philanthropic in their bearing upon the welfare of future generations. They were promptly accepted, in so far as the trustees felt themselves empowered by the act creating the board to do so, until such time as the requisite authority could be obtained from the legislature to connect the scheme more intimately with the state educational machinery.

The preparatory school was accordingly opened for the reception of pupils on the 8th of October, 1856. The applications for admission. were very numerous, summing up about one hundred and eighty, of which number, about one hundred and forty were, on due examination, admitted. The organization of the school is such as to secure in a high degree the peculiar objects of such an institution, to wit: the preparation of candidates for admission to a Teachers' Seminary, where a strictly professional education and training are to be imparted. To this end it is so graded as to lay the foundations broad and deep, in a thorough and rigorous system of elementary training, for the future teacher-scholar. And not only does it aim to secure this great desideratum, but it also seeks to determine the fitness of a candidate to become a candidate for the office of a teacher of youth. In other words, its forces are so applied as to determine as far as human judgment can determine, the adaptation of its pupils for the profession of teaching. For this purpose, there is an "experimental department," composed of young children to which the candidate is sent to practice

the duties of the teacher under the supervision of a competent master. This practice is continued for a sufficient length of time, and under such circumstances as to make it a decisive test. He is for a portion of the time left to himself, and his ability to impart instruction, to govern children, to influence conduct and character, is thus allowed to have full play. If one trial be insufficient to determine the question of adaptation, another is instituted, and the process is repeated until a decided tendency in one direction or another is developed and confirmed. If this question be settled unfavorably the candidate is not allowed to enter the Normal School where the liberality of the state would be wasted upon him, but is advised and encouraged to seek other means of usefulness and support, more in consonance with his peculiar tastes and his special adaptations.

In order to meet this exigency, there is connected with the preparatory school an academic department, to which the unsuccessful aspirant for pedagogic honors is permitted to go for the purpose of continuing his general education and his preparation for active life. Here he ceases to be a beneficiary, either of the state, or of the founder of the institution, but is required to pay a tuition, adequate to meet the expenses of his pupilage.

It will be at once obvious to those who have studied the working of our normal systems, that this operation of the preparatory school will correct, to a great extent, evils of no little magnitude; for, while it divides the labor of the merely scholastic training of the pupilteacher, it also diminishes the number of those who having been at the public expense trained at the Normal School, are destined at last to fail as teachers in the public schools. These evils have doubtless done more to embarrass, and retard the progress of normal schools in our country than all other causes combined. If, in carrying on the general education of the people, a division and adaptation of labor by means of a gradation of schools is necessary, there is an equal urgency for it, in the great work of the special training of teachers who are to form the moral and intellectual character of our future citizens. If good schools are the product of good teachers, it must be equally obvious that good teachers can be produced only by the operation of such intelligent, judicious, and adequate causes as a graded system of preparatory and normal schools alone can supply.

Such are some of the leading ideas attempted to be embodied in the organization of the institution which forms the subject of these remarks. Time and effort will be required fully to work them out, but that they may in an eminent degree be realized, there can scarcely be a doubt. The legislature, at its late session, having given legal

sanction to the action of the trustees, by recognizing it as a part of its educational system, have at the same time endorsed the propriety of these views, and afforded ample scope for submitting them to a rigorous practical test.

As a crowning act of the comprehensive liberality of the founder of the preparatory school, he submitted directly to the legislature of New Jersey, during the month of February last, another proposition accompanied by an agreement duly verified, not only to bequeath to the commonwealth the property of the school, valued at not less than thirty thousand dollars, including the expenses of its support for the first year, with an endowment of twenty thousand dollars more, but he offered to pay the interest on the proposed endowment for the benefit of the institution until his decease, on condition, that the state should pay an amount equal to this interest, for the support of the same, for all time. A law was promptly, and by an almost unanimous vote of both houses passed, accepting the trust, and placing the institution under the the direction of the trustees of the State Normal School.

The preparatory school, is therefore, in possession of an elegant and commodious brick edifice, two and a half stories in height, liberally, and tastefully furnished, and surrounded by ample grounds, which will soon be handsomely laid out and adorned with ornamental shrubbery. It has also, an annual income of two thousand four hundred dollars, one half of this sum, being the interest of Mr. Farnum's endowment, and the remainder, being the amount of the annual appropriation fixed by the legislature of 1857.

A more particular elucidation of the plan of organization, and mode of management, will hereafter be given, in an article upon the legal provision for the training and improvement of teachers in New Jersey, including the Teachers' Institutes, and State Normal School, to appear in a future number of the Journal. In conclusion it may not be inappropriate to remark, that in the establishment of this institution, Mr. Farnum, has not only thus rendered "material aid," to the common schools of his adopted state, but he has rendered it in such a manner as will secure to them the greatest possible amount of perpetual and ever increasing good. By thus contributing to the thorough training of an endless succession of teachers, qualified to guide the susceptible minds and hearts of youth, his far reaching benevolence is destined to affect for good, either directly or remotely, every household in the commonwealth, and, indeed, throughout our widely extended country. Surely the hand of whole-souled benevolence will never be able to find a broader or nobler field in which to exercise its activity than this.

IX. THE LIFE AND EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF PESTALOZZI.

BY CARL VON RAUMER,*

Minister of Public Worship and Instruction in Prussia.

JOHN HENRY PESTALOZZI was born at Zurich on the 12th of January, 1746. His father was a medical practitioner; his mother, whose maiden name was Hotze, was a native of Wädenschwyl on the Lake of Zurich, and first cousin to the Austrian general Hotze, who fell at Schännis in 1799.

The father died prematurely, when Pestalozzi was only six years old; from this time forward, therefore, "every thing was wanting, in the influences around him, which a manly education of the faculties so urgently requires at that age." "I was brought up," he relates, "by the hand of the best of mothers like a spoilt darling, such that you will not easily find a greater. From one year to another I never left the domestic hearth; in short, all the essential means and inducements to the development of manly vigor, manly experience, manly ways of thinking, and manly exercises, were just as much wanting to me, as, from the peculiarity and weakness of my temperament, I especially needed them."

This peculiarity, according to Pestalozzi's own statement, was, that with the most sensitive feelings and the liveliest imagination, he was deficient in the power of sustained attention, in reflection, circumspection, and foresight.

His mother devoted herself wholly to the education of her three children, in which she was assisted by a faithful servant girl from the country, of the name of Babeli. Pestalozzi's father, on his deathbed, sent for this girl. "Babeli," said he, "for the sake of God and mercy, do not leave my wife; when I am dead, she will be forlorn, and my children will fall into strange and cruel hands." "I will not leave your wife when you die," replied Babeli; "I will remain with her till death, if she has need of me." Her words pacified the dying father; she kept her promise, and remained till her death with the

* In this article we follow literally, but with occasional abridgments, the translation of Prof. J. Tilleard, originally published in the Educational Expositor for 1853-1, and afterward collected in a volume of 80 pages, by Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, London: 1855.

No. 9-[Vol. III, No. 2.]—26.

mother. "Her great fidelity," Pestalozzi says, "was the result of her strong, simple, and pious faith." As the mother was in very straitened circumstances, Babeli economized wherever she could; she even restrained the children when they wanted to go into the street, or to any place where they had no business to go, with the words, "why will you needlessly wear out your shoes and clothes? See how much your mother denies herself, in order to be able to give you an education; how for weeks and months together she never goes out any where, but saves every farthing for your schooling." Nevertheless, the mother was liberal in those expenses which respectability requires, nor did she let the children be without handsome Sunday clothes. These, however, they were allowed to wear but seldom, and they had to take them off again as soon as they came home.

"I saw the world,” says Pestalozzi, "only within the narrow limits of my mother's parlor, and within the equally narrow limits of my school-room; to real human life I was almost as great a stranger, as if I did not live in the world in which I dwelt."

Pestalozzi's grandfather on the mother's side was minister at Höngg, a village three miles from Zurich. With him Pestalozzi spent several months every year, from the time when he was nine years old. The old man conscientiously cared for the souls of his flock, and thereby exercised a great influence upon the village school; his piety made a deep and lasting impression on his grandson.

Of his early school days, Pestalozzi relates the following:

"In all boys' games, I was the most clumsy and helpless among all my school fellows, and nevertheless, in a certain way, I always wanted to excel the others. This caused some of them very frequently to pass their jokes upon me. One of them gave me the nickname 'Harry Whimsical of Foolstown.' Most of them, however, liked my good natured and obliging disposition; though they knew my general clumsiness and awkwardness, as well as my carelessness and thoughtlessness in everything that did not particularly interest

me.

"Accordingly, although one of the best pupils, I nevertheless committed, with incomprehensible thoughtlessness, faults of which not even the worst of them was ever guilty. While I generally seized with quickness and accuracy upon the essential matter of the subjects of instruction, I was generally very indifferent and thoughtless as to the forms in which it was given. At the same time that I was far behind my fellow scholars in some parts of a subject, in other parts of the same subject I often surpassed them in an unusual

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