has been done in England to direct attention to the and from a place of irksome constraint to one of important experiments that have been long in pro- pleasing and beneficial occupations. gress in Switzerland. In our own reading we have As these objects had never been attained, nor scarcely met with anything (in English) about De even attempted, with a direct, specific, and undivided Fellenberg and his institutions, except a short article purpose, Fellenberg's wise and benevolent plans for in the "Penny Magazine," one or two articles in the the improvement of character were looked at as "Quarterly Journal of Education," and a small pam- dangerous innovations in the usual mode of bringing phlet by Mr. Duppa.

up the young, and as connected with some deep, Besides an admirable sketch of what De Fellen- secret plot for the subversion of society. He had, berg has really done, the pages before us contain a therefore, to contend, during many years, with a lucid view of the history of education and society in combination of ignorance, prejudice, and, we fear we Europe at large. Our inclination would lead us to a must add, in some instances, of malignity. Before long essay upon these important topics, but we have his time, almost the only medium of instruction for neither time nor space to indulge it; and, after all, the people was the pulpit; almost the only means we doubt whether we could say anything so good as of discipline, of training and forming character, were what is here said by our auther. We shall, there- domestic; which domestic training consisted in a fore, simply extract a few passages to convey some short intercourse between parent and child at certain notion of a little book, which we most earnestly re- hours of the day, when labour was over; and in commend to the attention of all who have heads permitting the children, during the rest of the day, to capable of thinking, and hearts capable of feeling for wander at large in the streets of towns, or the fields their fellow men-and especially to the study of all of the country, encouraging each other to vice and who are aware of the necessity of reforming educa- impiety. It was this pernicious training which Feltion, of which we may say now, even as Milton said lenberg proposed to supersede by one of order, in his days, that this is "one of the greatest and method, and discipline; to put useful employment noblest designs that can be thought on, and for the in the place of mischievous idleness, and hourly want whereof the nation perishes."* christian instruction and superintendence in the place of total neglect and ignorance. Was such a scheme feasible? and if so, would it not be better and more christian than the former state of things?

In the following passages the merits of De Fellenberg, and the demerits and criminal apathy of governments in general, are not overrated.

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The

"The name of De Fellenberg is familiar to all Fellenberg was led to study this question in conthe civilized nations of Europe and North America, sequence of observing the state of Europe, at that and may now be mentioned without offence. This time convulsed by the French revolution. expression implies that it once was otherwise. Yes; ambition of political power was the moving principle the age in which he has lived having been one of of the few, to which the many were made subservient, political storms, every name which was eminent and the lives of all, instead of being passed in the enough to appear above the surface of the troubled exercise of peaceful virtues, with the hope and waters was claimed or denounced by a party; none expectation of a better world, were exhausted in the could escape. Even those who disclaimed all party, rage and passions of savages. Fellenberg groaned but who, from the highest motives, thought they over this exhibition of human forocity,-over the were not to live for themselves alone, nor to hide social ruin which it occasioned,-over the total their talents in a napkin, but to labour, like the holy absence of christian character which it betrayed. He men of old, according to the light given them, for beheld christian men, as they called themselves, the permanent good of their fellow-creatures, were tearing one another to pieces, and for no ostensible exposed to a moral martyrdom, from the ignorance, good, the mere instruments of the few ringleaders misconception, and hostility of their contemporaries. of the world's misery. Human nature seemed to "Schools and education had certainly been heard have discarded all virtues, and to have become the of from the time of Rome and Greece-had not been receptacle of that assemblage of vices denounced by totally destroyed at the fall of the Empire-and had the apostle-envy, variance, wrath, strife, hatred, in a degree revived with the revival of learning: but sedition, drunkenness, revellings, adultery, murder.' the kind of education which Fellenberg contemplated "Fellenberg at first imagined that something with its application to the lowest as well as the might be done amongst the rulers of mankind, the highest class of society, was so new, that it is still directors of the political storm, to calm this turbulent a novelty in enlightened England, after his forty state, and to introduce harmony into this chaos; but years experimental labours at Hofwyl. The great he found them totally indifferent and apathetic, and object to which he had determined to devote his life blind to all but the scene in which they lived. Every was the practical solution of the question, whether man forins a horizon for himself by his actions, it is possible to influence and form the human cha-thoughts, and reading. The demagogue sees nothing racter by early discipline and instruction; to set but the mob before him; the soldier, nothing but the motives, feeling, and passions in a proper the battle; the politician, often, especially in troucourse; to fix in the mind moral and religious prin- blous times, nothing but the intrigues around him. ciples, giving rise to corresponding habits of action; None but the christian philanthropist can take an to store the mind with just ideas, and the heart with Christian sentiments. He wished to raise the school from a mere technical system to one of intelligence;

* "Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib." Milton's Prose Works.

enlarged view of man in his present and future hopes his social conditions, his capabilities of improvement, the possible extent of happiness or misery for which he may be born. The Bible presents him with the ideal perfectibility of universal man; inspiring those who drink deep into its spirit with high

and noble hopes for the welfare of humanity, and open, and which will, or ought to, call up the most with an ardent desire to promote it; while those who serious thoughts.

are wholly absorbed in the business of life remain "At one time vice was the test of loyalty, as pagans in a christian age, and all their ideas of man piety was of disaffection; and the spread of infidelity are mean, low, and perishing; to them man still was by some cousidered as a sign of national proscontinuesa brute that perishes.' Fellenberg, there- perity. We venture to say that these feelings and fore, found no sympathy from the statesmen of his judgments are not yet extinct. In our own age it day; they were callous to the common social rights has been scarcely creditable to belong to Bible or missionof states and of men, as well as indifferent to all ary societies; and infant-schools were once considered views and projects of moral improvement. In fact, as the nurseries of freethinkers, or as the visionary what does the inere politician, whether demagogue or projects of Utopian philanthropists. It seemed to be tyrant, require of man, but to be a blind instrument absolutely necessary that mankind should experience in his ambitious grasp? He wishes his follower practically the utmost horrors, misery, and anarchy to have enough mind to direct his physical strength of vice and ignorance, and have that experience most effectually according to the command of a reiterated upon them generation after generation, superior, but no more. It is the enlightened poli- before they could be convinced of the inherent and tician-the legislature properly so called-who con- indefeasible malignity of vice, and of the sublime siders man not as a tool with which he is to work, beauty of holiness. The French revolution did but as a ward committed to his charge, and for whose indeed strike terror into the hearts of men, and made character, usefulness, and happiness, he will be held crime at length detestable. Not that it was the first responsible at the day of judgment. or only consequence of vicious principles which "Fellenberg living in such an age of vice, impiety, Europe had witnessed-far from it-for she was and misery, felt keenly the degradation and corrup- bred in war and rapine; but vice appeared in a new tion of man; and also that this was no new state of garb, and less under the direction of its usual leaders. things, though an aggravated one. He saw that Still the horror that was felt was more political than Europe had never been practically christianised; moral. Men feared the miseries of vice as exhibited that she had been converted from paganism little in public convulsions: but they continued blind to more than in name; and that her barbarism had its effects on social and domestic happiness. Pronever been extirpated. He bebeld in history a swarm vided the state were free from change, they cared not of nations issuing from savage forests, conquering a for the tears shed in secret over the degradation of comparatively civilised nation, separating into feudal- private infamy. Another step was necessary in the ities, continuing their war with each other, ignorant moral demonstration; which was, that public prosof letters, studying no art or science but that of the perity and security should be deemed to be utterly sword. The outbreakings of modern revolutions incompatible with private vice." were nothing but a continuance of the history of the race. It was no new or sudden volcano, acting by "We have said that parents, as soon as society new and unknown laws: the causes were deeply passes from the barbarous state to the pursuit of arts, laid in the ignorance and barbarism of the people, are totally incompetent to educate their own children, and in the pugnacious and arbitrary principles of and that the artificial education of the school must the rulers. We are not here questioning the provi- commence. This is true of all classes of society, as dential wisdom of the history of man, as shown in well as of the lowest. Education becomes an art, as the European march from barbarism and paganism well as the manufacture of articles of consumption. to civilisation, Christianity, and rational and con- It becomes subject to the law of the division of lastitutional liberty: but we cannot insist too strongly bour; and they who engage in it will excel in it by upon our pristine barbarism and ignorance, and the the same necessity that a mechanic excels in his petotal want of any general moral means of removing culiar occupation. Upon this principle schools bethem, beyond the formalities of religion; lest it come necessary for all classes, to supply the want of should be imagined that the mass of the people time, attention, and knowledge, in parents of all among our ancestors were in possession of ample and ranks. If mankind had been capable of anticipating efficient means of moral and religious instruction. and foreseeing their own wants before they were "Fellenberg was one of the few who traced the pressed upon them by a painful experience, schools tumults and troubles of his age to the moral depravity and schoolmasters would have been coeval with the of men in their social relations. With the Bible in first transition from a state of barbarian war to one of his hand and an enlightened philosophy in his heart, incipient civilisation and the cultivation of the arts. he considered society and men as they were in fact, But man cannot foresee, and can only learn by pain as they ought to be as Christians, and as they might and sorrow how to obviate the recurrence of similar be under a proper guidance and system of early suffering. The formation of character by means of discipline and instruction. Unlike others who had schools-i. e. by means of systematic discipline and preceded him, but with partial and theoretic views of instruction-is a new thought. Schools were first the subject, he did not propound his ideas to the established for other purposes; and when establishpublic in writing; but, convinced of the truth, power, ed, the formation of character was not an element in and force of the principles he had arrived at, he their system, nor is it so yet. Schools were estadetermined upon submitting them to the test of an blished for the sake of mere knowledge; for cultivatexperiment, to which he pledged his talents, property, ing the intellect, not the heart. The progress of and life, and for so doing was denounced as the society required a certain number of persons who enemy of his race!" could read and write, in order to fill, in church and The next passage contains solemn truths which state, certain offices which had sprung up from the will be recognise d by all who have had their eyes necessities of society; and it was long before these

necessities were really supplied.

Of those who write it. The withering effects of this contracted were thus educated, some turned their attention to system of teaching, this limiting of instruction to literature and general knowledge, and thus opened a Greek and Latin, were not so much felt in the higher new field for the employment of the human mind-a departments of society, for which it was chiefly infield of mere abstract knowledge and speculation, tended, because such instruction occupied only a portotally unconnected with practical purposes. tion of a long period of pupilage, and because no "But by the same condition that the practical po- other knowledge or science was required in some of sition of government and of the church required that the professions; while in others, personal labour and a certain number of persons should receive what was perseverance made up for all deficiencies of elemencalled a learned education, the position of affairs in tary teaching." And we must never forget that the the middle classes of society also began to make innate powers, faculties, and principles of the human some education appear desirable. Persons were not mind, are not to be judged of by the results of any fitted to carry on the common business of life with- teaching which has hitherto prevailed. Teaching out a certain amount of instruction; and as only one cannot create: mind is a creation. Teaching is kind was to be had, men were obliged to send their only moulding that which already exists; and this children to the schools which happened to be in ex-moulding, if not conducted skilfully, and agreeably istence. These schools were all of the same cha- with the original laws and intentions of the Creator, racter: the subjects taught, and the mode of teach- will only deface his work, instead of bringing it to ing, were the same, whatever condition of life the its intended perfection. The mind of original ability pupils were intended for; and this system was a and talent, therefore, made its way amid all difficulnecessary one under the circumstances, because ties, and amid the vices of all teaching, to its proper some of the scholars being intended for the learned station in the world of mind, and was no proof of any professions, as they were called, became the princi- excellence in the system under which it was trained. pal objects of the master's care. He adapted his With the majority of minds it was far different. A system to them; and the others were obliged to fol- contracted and dry system was to them a second nalow it, and to make the best of it, though it might ture, and frustrated the first which they had received not be the best preparation for them and their pro- at birth; and the faults of the teaching were imputed fessions, as it was supposed to be for others. to the original creation. Thus nature became libel

"In order to understand the history of schools, led by the very persons who ought to have worshipand to make allowance for the defects of the early ped her: the beauties they had defaced were proones, and through this history to improve our own, nounced never to have existed, and the distortions of we must consider that the early schools were con- art were asserted to be natural deformities. fined in the materials they had to work with. These "The incurable and ruinous consequences of this were few and scanty both in kind and degree. Every contracted system were seen and first remedied in science and art had to be discovered before it could the profession of arms. As the art of war became a

be taught: grammar and logic, geography and maps, science, and dependent upon mind more than upon arithmetic, geometry, and natural philosophy, ele- brute force, real knowledge, a knowledge of arithmentary history, the mythology of the classics, illus-metic and geometry, became the only basis upon trations of manners and customs, dictionaries, which it could be erected. Government was thereeverything had to be constructed; so that it is won- fore obliged to establish schools of its own, adapted derful what and how the early schools contrived to to its purpose; not merely schools for completing ⚫ teach. The subjects taught, and the mode of teach- education, analogous to universities, but elementary ing, had to undergo a progress of discovery and im- schools for teaching the simplest properties of numprovement, like all other sciences. It might have bers and space. When other persons demanded that been expected, the teachers should have discovered these elements should be made a part of teaching in what they were most in want of; but we should bear schools, they were pronounced unnecessary and usein mind, that their time and thoughts are occupied, less, except for certain mechanic arts. When adnot in discovering, but in teaching. Many of the mitted, they were taught by permission rather than most important materials of teaching are derived upon principle, and a certain air of contempt was from other professions. The teacher only selects and thrown over them. Elements upon which depended concentrates what he finds useful to his purpose. the perfection of the arts of war and national security The early schools, of necessity exceedingly imper- and independence, and upon which the whole fabric fect, have unfortunately entailed their imperfections of the universe was created, were pronounced to be upon their successors. The objects they contem- contemptible, and are still held in all the higher plated were unfavourable to enlarged views, or to English schools to be of very inferior importance. anything like an educational system. With them "The middling classes of society also at length pereducation was a mere apprenticeship to the learned ceived the imperfect and inadequate teaching of the languages-a mere trade, not a science. They pro- schools. At the age when parents were obliged to refessed to teach one thing, and one thing only, the move their children from school, they found them not grammatical elements of Latin, and perhaps, of only deficient in all knowledge calculated to prove Greek. We say elements, because that degree of practically useful in the employments for which they teaching which consists in writing and speaking were destined, but even in that to which their time those languages with facility, has hardly yet been had been solely devoted. Not to have been taught attained in any school. This leads us to consider a useful practical knowledge, was an evil; but not to wonderful fact, that, though every child learns to have been taught that which alone had been attempttalk his own language while he is a child, yet, after ed, was more serious still. These middling classes, ten years' teaching of the Latin or Greek language, however, had not the power, like government, of the scholar has not learnt to speak, and scarcely to correcting these evils: they could not establish

schools and professorships of their own; neither few, the moral spirit of the day was roused to carry their time nor their funds allowed of it. They were such a system into practice; and the magnificent compelled to accept what the schools offered, and to idea occurred of giving to every Christian child a make the best of it. Fortunately the consequences, Christian education.

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however injurious, were not so fatal as they would The era of popular education had therefore have proved in the other case, had that also been begun-it was the companion of the Bible era. Both without a remedy. Inferior and limited teaching had the same object in view; the moral improvement rendered them a less intelligent class of people, less of all mankind, of the universal race, as far as might skilful in their employments, less capable of im- be permitted by the conditions of this imperfect stage proving their situation and circumstances, less useful of existence. The one was the foundation, the other members of the community, with fewer resources, the super-structure; the one was the light of the fewer means of self-recreation and rational amuse- world, the other the guide by which that light was, ment, and left their moral character much lower than humanly speaking, to be reached and disseminated. it ought to have been; but it did not expose these classes to absolute ruin, as would have been the case with the nation, had government not taken the education of its military servants out of the hands of the have said, more intellectual than moral. They procommon schools."

But the schools established upon this principle could imitate at first none but those which preceded them in their immediate object, which was, as we

posed to improve the methods of attaining the elements of knowledge; and though the Bible was "The last half century has seen such changes,in introduced as a class-book, yet the mode in which it European society, manners, habits, education, arts, was read partook more of an intellectual than of a and sciences, as cannot be paralleled in the history moral exercise. Spelling-lessons were made from it, of mankind. One of its grandest features has been and detached parts were extracted for reading-lessons, a moral one it has been the era of Bibles. In all which lost much of their force by being separated ages of the Christian dispensation, missionaries have from their context; and sometimes sentences were been sent forth, more or less, to announce the glad associated for the mere purpose of learning to read, tidings of salvation to all lands; but in none has the having no connexion in sense with each other. BeBible itself been sent forth to be its own herald, with sides, it is very possible to learn to spell and read, or without the accompanying missionary, with the without having any comprehension of the sense. At same zeal or to the same extent. In no former age this day, the children of those who speak the Gaelic had it been felt, that nations of professing Christians language in Scotland are taught to read English might be enveloped in pagan darkness as much as fluently, without understanding it. The effects of those who never heard the name of Christ; and that these schools, therefore, were less perfect than had the possession, and therefore the spirit of the Bible, been anticipated, though as good as, under all the was in many Christian places as rare as in pagan circumstances, could be expected by those who had land. This was a great moral discovery, however a practical knowledge of early education, and of the strong the term may appear to be; and the men who intricacies of the human mind, and of the numerous could make and feel the value of that discovery pos- difficulties to be overcome, before the results of edusessed no ordinary mind and heart, and were an cation can be reduced to anything like certainty. An earnest of the moral spirit which was awakening opinion is now very generally gaining ground, that from its slumbers. This spirit could not fail to dif- these schools have not attained all that was desirable, fuse itself into all those subjects which concern the and that their methods require and are susceptible of character, happiness, and improvement of man. It improvement-that they have been too exclusively should have been watched, appreciated, and directed, intellectual and mechanical-that they do not suffiinstead of being confounded with a mere revolutionary ciently influence the moral habits, and therefore the mania. If, indeed, this spirit had not sprung up, all religious principles of the children. The term educaEurope would probably have run the same course of tion is beginning to be understood in its full and legi'decline and fall' as did the empires of old. The timate sense, as affecting the whole character of the Bible stood between us and the precipice, and saved man, moral as well as intellectual, but principally the world politically, as the divine Author of Chris- the former; that its great end and aim should be to tianity had saved it morally. form good practical principles and habits, and not

"It was this moral spirit which prompted the great readers and arithmeticians: and these ideas education of the people at large-of the lowest order have spread from the lower to the higher schools. of society, as they have been called. Education had Man may be useful and happy with literary attainbegun to spread among this class beyond the mere ments, but not with inferior moral principles and habits, demand for it of which we have spoken; but it was The miseries of the world in past ages have been expensive, and extremely imperfect, even in impart- occasioned by its vices, not by its ignorance of lan ing the trifling elements of reading, writing, and guages, arts, and sciences, any farther than as the arithmetic. The importance, however, of this degree latter may influence the former. There is a growing of education, as the handmaid of religion and morality, conviction that the great antidote to vice and crime, and was beginning to be perceived; and though the therefore to political disturbances, is to be found in an ostensible object was principally the acquisition of improved moral education in the mass of the people." the elements of knowledge, the real object was an In relating what De Fellenberg has done, our ulterior one-namely, the improvement of character, author does not forget the ground-work laid by Pesand the acquisition of Christian instruction. When tolozzi-that man who was in truth the great friend it was discovered that, by proper arrangement, one of humanity and practical religion, and who became master might teach the elements to three hundred, a martyr to the grand cause for which men were or even five hundred children, as perfectly as to a created. Passing over the agricultural establish

ment Hofwyl, which has been described by Mr. Duppa, we come to the following account of Meykirch:

sal love to his creatures, and the inexpressible glories of his works. In the prayers which the master and pupils offer up morning and evening, they never "When Fellenberg had proved experimentally the omit to refer to the advantages and blessings which truth of his ideas by the success of his agricultural they enjoy in this asylum, nor to pray that all orschool, he proceeded to prove it still more decidedly phans and destitute children, in all the world, may by the colony of Meykirch, six miles from Hofwyl. everywhere find kind protectors who may establish In the year 1816 he purchased fifteen acres of wood- similar asylums for instructing and educating them, land. Thither he sent a master with about twelve so that they may become good Christians and useful children. They were to build themselves a house, members of society.

to clear and cultivate the land, and to employ their "This colony is one of the most affecting sights leisure time in learning to read and write, and the in the world. To behold the happy results of youthelements of knowledge. They were supplied with ful labour, the intelligence of the children, and their tools and materials from Hofwyl, and with food till contented and grateful dispositions, living upon a they could raise enough for subsistence. In seven fare which most people would despise, and eating years they repaid all the expenses of their outlay. nothing but the produce of their own exertions, which was about 150%., and maintained themselves having converted a wilderness into a garden, and upon their little territory. Fellenberg calculates made the desert to blossom as a rose. that fifteen acres of land would support a colony of "When Meykirch was first established, they thirty children upon this plan, which is the greatest wanted water. To attain it, they were obliged, unnumber suited to such a system; and that it might der the direction of a skilful workman, to excavate a be established upon land not available for the gene- passage into a sandstone rock five feet in height and ral purposes of cultivation. The only difficulty is, two hundred and eighty in length. to obtain a superintendent properly qualified by temper, character, religious principles, and a complete knowledge of details.

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On Sundays, they attend the service at the chapel of Meykirch, and very frequently at Hofwyl."

"This colony was compared very naturally to the "We may take this opportunity of observing, that story of Crusoe upon the desert island. It drew all an industrial education in these days is totally difits supplies at first from Hofwyl, as Crusoe did his ferent from what it was, or could have been, a cenfrom the ship. The children were delighted at the tury ago. It would then have been mere labour comparison, and worked at their enterprise with the without mental exertion, and without principles either greatest alacrity and zeal, and became naturally moral or religious: that seems to have been the strongly attached to the cottage reared by their own character of many of the old charity-schools; the hands, and the land converted from a waste to a gar- children were kept to constant labour, like animals, den by their own labour. When these little emi- in unwholesome apartments, and upon a bad diet, grants arrived at the spot which was to be their without any mental instruction whatever; they were future home, they found nothing but a shed on the consequently cramped in mind and body; the masside of a precipitous mountain, under which they ters frequently abused their office, and over-worked slept upon straw covered with sail-cloth. They had and ill-treated the children. The present day-schools, to level the ground, and with the earth and rock to which attend merely to mental instruction, however form a terrace in front, which soon became a garden. imperfect in forming character, are still far superior The cottage they built was of one story, with a to the old charity-schools. But the enlightened labasement which became the kitchen and dairy, bour-schools of Fellenberg gives to labour a moral which occupied together twenty-five feet in front. character; and the instruction with which the labour Above this was one room, about twelve feet wide, is accompanied, and the intelligence and kindness of for the day-room, behind which was a dormitory of the superintendent, give to the same name a totally the same size, and behind this a stable of the same different meaning. In this school the children, even length, and about nine feet wide. An open gallery if they were never to learn to read, would become was in front of the day-room. At each end of the more intelligent, and better qualified for service, than building was a shed about fifteen feet wide, and run- most of those who are now educated in our best naning back upon a level with the stable. So that the tional schools; they would have a practical knowwhole front of the building was fifty feet, and the ledge of an extensive kind. Agriculture taught in depth thirty-three; and it was finished in about two this way comprises in itself a vast fund of knowyears. The colony subsists upon milk, potatoes, and ledge, and all of it of importance: soils, geology, bread. Three hours a day are devoted to instruction, mineralogy, drainage, land-measuring, manuring, the rest to labour accompanied by explanations. chemistry; plants, vegetables, forest trees, fruit The same system is pursued as at Hofwyl-reading, trees, botany; implements, machines; animals, for writing, drawing, singing, natural history, the his- labour or for food-their habits, food, managementtory and geography of their country, cominon arith- are but a few of the particulars. metic, mental arithmetic, geometry, land-measuring;

"In Fellenberg's school the knowledge is chiefly

a portion of botany, so far as relates to agriculture; communicated to the children by word of mouth, not the nature of soils and manures, and the rotation of from books. crops; planting, sewing, spinning, weaving; social "The secret of the system lies with the educator." prayer night and morning, religious conversations, There is one little facs in the history of De FellenBible lessons; the feelings and affections aroused berg, with which we were not before acquainted. into action in the midst of their tasks; the duties of His mother, it appears, was the grand-daughter of life pointed out, as depending upon their relation to the celebrated Dutch Admiral Von Tromp. The one another and to their heavenly Father, his univer-noble-minded educator has devoted forty years of his