Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) was a Swiss educational reformer who believed that a “whole-child approach” to education was a vehicle for creating a more just society. The Pestalozzi method has been absorbed into modern elementary education.
Born in Zürich, Pestalozzi studied theology at the University of Zürich and tried law and politics. Influenced by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, settled on a farm called “Neuhof” near Birr, Switzerland, and planned to fight poverty by developing improved methods of agriculture. In 1775, he turned his farm into an orphanage and began to test his ideas on child-rearing.
In 1780, Pestalozzi wrote Die Abendstunde eines Linsiedlers (1780; “The Evening Hour of a Hermit,”) a series of glum maxims reflecting his view of man’s somber plight in the world and the failure of “Neuhof.” He first experienced success with Lienhard und Gertrud (1781–87; Leonard and Gertrude, 1801;) it became famous as a novel but not for its pedagogical ideas.
Pestalozzi took over an orphanage in Stanz in 1798 and ran a boarding school for boys in Burgdorf 1800–04. In 1801, he published Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt (1801; How Gertrude Teaches Her Children,) an expansion of his educational thought. His main philosophical treatise, Meine Nachforschungen über den Gang der Natur in der Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts (1797; “My Inquiries into the Course of Nature in the Development of Mankind,”) emphasized teaching methods designed to strengthen the student’s abilities.
Pestalozzi achieved great success in his role as director of a boarding school for boys at Yverdon 1805–25. He successfully applied and highlighted his principles of education—world leaders and educators discovered his methods. The school closed in the course of disputes and lawsuits, but Pestalozzi’s ideas endured.
Pestalozzi died a bitter, disillusioned man. His last educational prayer, Schwanengesang (1826; “Swan Song,”) concluded with the well-known maxim “Life itself educates.”
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Man must search for what is right, and let happiness come on its own.
—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Topics: Happiness
Our home joys are the most delightful earth affords, and the joy of parents in their children is the most holy joy of humanity. It makes their hearts pure and good, it lifts men up to their Father in heaven.
—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Topics: Home
Faith in God hallows and confirms the union between parents and children, and subjects and rulers.—Infidelity relaxes every band, and nullifies every blessing.
—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Education consists of example and love—nothing else.
—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Topics: Education, Example
Thinking leads man to knowledge. He may see and hear, and read and learn whatever he pleases, and as much as he pleases; he will never know anything of it, except that which he has thought over, that which by thinking he has made the property of his own mind. Is it then saying too much if I say that man, by thinking only, becomes truly man? Take away thought from man’s life, and what remains?
—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Topics: Thought
There is no happiness for him who oppresses and persecutes; there can be no repose for him. For the sighs of the unfortunate cry for vengeance to heaven.
—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Topics: Oppression
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