gulations, it is impossible to preserve order without doing violence to the habits of some, instead of training and winning them gradually to the right course. This, Fellenberg believes, is often the cause of failures. He commenced the execution of his plans by associating two or three boys with his children in his own house, and he would never afterwards receive more than two or three pupils at once, that they might be left to fall insensibly into the habits of the school, without producing any effect upon its general state.

"In 1807, the first building was erected for the Literary Institution. The number of professors, in a few years, gradually increased to 20, and the pupils to 80. After selecting and losing two instructors for the projected School for the indigent, he was entreated by a schoolmaster of another canton, inspired with enthusiasm for this object, to employ his son in the execution of this plan; Fellenberg received the young Vehrli into his family in order to test his character, and before the end of the year was induced by his earnest request to place him with three pupils, gathered from the highways and hedges, in the farm-house of the establishment here. Vehrli partook of their straw beds and vegetable diet, became their fellow-labourer and companion, as well as their teacher, and thus laid the foundation of the Agricultural Institution in 1808. About the same time, a School of Theoretical and Practical Agriculture, for all classes, provided with Professors of the respective sciences connected with it, was formed at Buchsee, at which several hundred students were collected. But experience satisfied Fellenberg that too many contented themselves with theoretical and superficial knowledge; and he has since preferred to train young men, by an experimental course, in his own improved system of cultivation. In the same year he commenced a more important part of his great plan the formation of a Normal School or Seminary of Teachers. The first year, forty-two instructors of the canton of Berne came together, and received gratuitous instruction in the art of teaching: so great was their zeal, that on finding the establishment was not large enough to receive them, they were contented to lodge in tents; but the rulers of Berne forbade the teacher to attend these instructions; and since that period none have been received to prepare for instruction, except those who were employed, at the same time, as labourers. It was visited by deputations from the government of Switzerland, and of foreign countries. It became the resort of pupils from noble families, and a number of young Russians of the highest class were sent thither by the Emperor Alexander to receive education. In a few years after, the political state of Europe led to jealousy in regard to the influence of Hofwyl on its pupils, many states forbade the education of children abroad, and even the patronage of Russia was withdrawn. Of late, about one-third of the pupils have been English and the remainder Swiss. In 1815, a new building was erected to accommodate the increasing number of the Agricultural School, the lower part of which was occupied as a Riding School and Gymnasium. In 1818, another building became necessary, for the residence of the Professors and the reception of the friends of the pupils; and soon after a large building, now the principal one of the establishment, with its two wings, was erected for the Literary Institute, which furnishes every accommodation that could be desired for health and improvement. In 1823, another building was erected in the garden of the mansion, for a School of poor girls; and in 1827, the last building, designed for the intermediate or practical Institution. It is much to be desired that this example, of slow and cautious progress, might be imitated by those who are establishing Institutions in our own country; in place of collecting at once a large mass of discordant materials, without any preparation, which can render them a solid basis for a well-portioned or permanent moral edifice."

Hofwyl is about six miles from Berne, the capital of the canton of

the same name, and the chief town of German Switzerland, situated on a high elevation in the midst of an amphitheatre of hills. The Jura mountains form its northern boundary, and its southern is the Bernese alps; it is surrounded by a valley about eighty feet deep, by which it is separated from the neighbouring villages. The village itself was formerly a private country seat, but being purchased by Fellenberg at the close of the last century, it rapidly rose in importance, and now forms a little village, containing nearly four hundred inhabitants, exclusively his property and under his control. It comprises 1, a farm of about six hundred acres; 2, workshops for the fabrication and the improvement of agricultural implements, and of clothing for the inhabitants; 3, a lithographic establishment, in which music and other things useful to the establishment are printed; 4, a literary institution, for the education of the higher classes; 5, a practical institution for those that are destined for trade; 6, an agricultural institution, for the education of the labouring classes.

On entering the village, an open square, or rather a play ground, presents itself, furnished with instruments for gymnastic exercises, and a hillock of clean sand, on which the younger boys exercise their ingenuity in digging caves and building castles, surrounded on three sides by the building devoted to the literary institutions, and sheltered in the west by a little wood composed of a variety of trees, which serve as a place for botanical observations, and as a retreat during the heat of the summer. In pleasant weather the lessons are not unfrequently given here, in arbours furnished with seats for that purpose. The principal building on the east of this court is inhabited by 80 pupils, under the constant superintendence of Fellenberg and four of his children. The basement story is occupied by the kitchen and store rooms; the first floor is divided into four sections by halls, which traverse the building in its length and breadth. One of these sections is occupied by the superintendents, another by the dininghall and music room, a third and fourth by the chapel, and three large rooms for study. The second floor is devoted to the class rooms, the library, and the collection of casts. The third, and attic stories, contain the dormitories for the pupils, and chambers for the superintendents. Between twenty and thirty instructors are employed in this establishment, most of them professors of considerable eminence, who have no necessary connection with the pupils, except during the hours of instruction.

Beyond the literary institution is a second court, furnished for gymnastic exercises, and on the east side of this are gardens, assigned to the pupils as a means of amusement and exercise; at a little distance on the side of the hill, is a circular cold bath of hewn stone, ninety feet in diameter and ten feet deep, in which they are taught to swim; with a neat bathing-house in the gothic style.

On the west side of this court is the chateau, or family mansion; and in the rear of it are two buildings occupied by twenty or thirty pupils of the practical institution; and still further to the rear is a second cold bath of stone, only two feet in depth, designed for the use of the younger pupils. Adjoining this is a building 150 feet long,

the lower part of which forms a sheltered avenue for riding and gymnastic exercises in unpleasant weather. The upper stories are occupied by the class rooms and the dormitories of the agricultural institution, in which children of the labouring classes are taught the practical uses of agriculture, and receive three or four hours of instruction daily in reading, writing, arithmetic, &c. One of the chambers of this building contains a small collection of minerals, and of wild and cultivated plants from the neighbourhood, together with two models of clay, made by the pupils themselves, representing, in relief, the surface of Switzerland.

A number of the pupils of this school are prepared, by theoretical instruction, and practical essays in the inferior classes, under the direction of the superintendent, to become teachers. No regular course of agricultural instruction is given, but several of those who frequent the institution as boarders, in order to make themselves acquainted with the system of agriculture adopted at Hofwyl, attend a course of lectures which are given by Fellenberg himself, to the elder pupils of all the institutions.

On the north of the buildings which we have described, is an extensive irregular range, containing the farm house, in which the pupils of the agricultural schools take their meals; the various workshops, the laundry, dairy, barns, and stables. The stable contains fifty cows and a number of oxen, in excellent condition.

At a little distance from the principal group of buildings, is the house occupied by the professors, in which the parents of the pupils are lodged during their visits to their children. It contains a reading room, in which some of the principal political and literary journals are received, for the use of the professors. In this building is the chemical laboratory, and a collection of the most necessary philosophical instruments.

An interesting branch of the institution of Hofwyl, is the colony of Meykirk, at the distance of five or six miles. It consists of eight or ten poor boys, who were placed under the direction of a teacher, on a spot of uncultivated ground, from which they were expected to obtain the means of subsistence. It was designed as an experiment on the practicability of providing for the support and education of destitute friendless children, and resembles an establishment for one of our new settlements, except that several hours are devoted daily to intellectual and religious instruction; and thus the children advance in civilization and knowledge, as well as in hardihood and industry.

The following interesting account of this colony is given by Mr. Duppa in his work, "Education in England."

"But I must not quit the boys' school without taking notice of the Little Robinsons, so called from the hero of De Foe. It was a beautiful day in the month of August 1832, that I accompanied M. de Fellenberg on horseback, to see the little colony of which I had heard so much. We quitted Hofwyl, and after passing some rich cultivated land, ascended the Jura ridge of mountains. In an opening of a pine-forest looking down upon perhaps the most superb view I ever beheld, a rich valley beneath, the glaciers of the Bernese Alps in the distance, stands a moderate-sized cottage, built after the Swiss fa

shion, with all the appendages under one roof, surrounded by about seven or eight acres of ground, cultivated with all the neatness of a garden.

"With a joyous, yet anxious look, my venerable companion seized the rein of my horse, bade me be silent, and go in;-I did so, and found twenty little boys at their lessons round a table. I had not been in an instant before M. de Fellenberg followed. All the faces beamed again with joy, and every little hand was stretched forth to catch that of its benefactor. No father returning from a voyage could have been welcomed with greater joy, and no children could have had their welcome returned with more parental affection. It was one of the most pleasing and touching scenes I ever witnessed. Twenty-five boys, the eldest not above thirteen years of age, were inhabiting together a cottage which had been entirely constructed by themselves and their comrades who had preceded them. It was a neat, comfortable dwelling, at a distance from any other habitations of man. In the room first entered was the fuel for the winter, neatly piled; hard by lived the cow; and close to the cow-house was the kitchen, where a large marmot bespoke that well-directed industry, even in this spot so little favoured by the riches of nature, could earn its wages, subsistence, and that of no despicable description. Above the kitchen was the dormitory, with the agricultural implements, spades, hoes, and rakes, neatly arranged around the wall, while the beds were constructed of the rude unpolished timbers of the forest. The boys, as I before said, were in the school-room, where they went through many of their exercises before me. The library did not contain many books, but one of them was a German translation of Robinson Crusoe, a book that M. de Fellenberg, as well as Rousseau, considers as one most instructive, and, at the same time, most interesting for children. The boys had sunk a well, and after conveying the water in a running stream through the house, directed its course in such a manner as to irrigate a portion of their meadow. The garden was a terrace of earth thrown up by the dint of labour. When I considered that but a short time back the whole of this was occupied by forest, and that no hands had been engaged in clearing it but the little ones I saw, and those of their fellows who had preceded them ;-when I considered the barrenness of the ground in the immediate neighbourhood, and beheld the productiveness of theirs, and when I considered the beautiful scene I had witnessed between the little workmen and their master, I felt convinced that nothing but a benevolence and intelligence such as M. de Fellenberg's were necessary to reclaim both the inhabitants and the waste soil in our own country. This school is made preparatory to the admission of the boys into Hofwyl.

These local details are necessarily minute, as they are the key to many of the most important principles and operations which will be hereafter detailed, and will serve to illustrate the mode in which they are applied.

The fundamental principles of education laid down at Hofwyl, have been already mentioned in the words of Pestalozzi. In a few words, It is to develop all the faculties of our nature, physical, intellectual, and moral; and to endeavour to train and unite them into one harmonious system, which shall form the most perfect character of which the individual is susceptible, and thus prepare him for every period and every sphere of action to which he may be called.

These principles differ considerably from those common to educators of the present day, the object of their efforts being rather to communicate as much knowledge as possible, than to bring that knowledge into action; living encyclopædias are thus often produced, rather than beings formed for action and for usefulness; others indeed

perceive how little this accumulation of abstract knowledge avails in preparation for active life, and direct their attention almost exclusively to matters of a practical nature. On this plan there is no small danger of producing mere instruments for others, men almost incapable of thinking for themselves. But in England, perhaps, the great defect is the too great attention paid to those exterior habits which may attract admiration, and to those personal accomplishments which may render the individual agreeable to others. These systems are obviously imperfect, from their not comprehending moral culture, and those who feel the force of this error, often run into another equally baneful in its influence. They do not exercise sufficient care in adapting the nature and amount of moral nutriment to the age and capacity of the child. The intellect is occupied, his memory is loaded with moral maxims and technical theology, instead of simple living truth,—that truth which will make him wise unto salvation. His mind is often wearied, and his habits of sincerity endangered by being called upon to perform or participate in protracted devotional exercises, to which neither his state of mind nor of body allow him to attend with profit. By some, and not a few, the treasures of science, and the beauties of nature and art are neglected, and even treated as dangerous instruments of fostering pride, and cherishing an undue attachment to earthly things. All that thirst for general knowledge, all that love of beauty in the objects of taste which the Creator himself has implanted, is extinguished, or left to expire; and the intellect is suffered to languish for want of that variety of objects necessary to the exercise and development of its noble, its wonderful faculties.

In each of these systems, some portion of the compound nature of man, and of the various relations he sustains to this world and another, is neglected. In all of them it seems to be entirely forgotten, that the body also requires an education, which shall render it capable of fulfilling its important destination as an instrument of the soul, and the medium of its influence on others; instead of impeding its development, or restraining its activity by its weakness, or degrading it by the predominance of its sensations and its passions. The jewel is carefully polished, but the casket in which it is preserved, is treated with neglect or contempt. The moving power is accumulated to the highest point; but the wheels and levers, by which it is to act, are left to arrange themselves almost by chance; and it is not the fault of the educator if explosion and ruin do not follow.

The Founder of Hofwyl proposes, therefore, a nobler and more extended view-it is the gradual development of all the powers and faculties of man, for the happiness of the individual and the good of society; and it is a fundamental principle of the Fellenberg Institution, "that a child should never be employed in exercises which are beyond his power, whether physical, intellectual, or moral.”

In accordance with this principle, the pupils are classified, not according to their age, or the period of their arrival, or the amount of their acquisitions, but according to their maturity of mind and capacity for improvement. To pursue another course is to produce disVOL. I.-May, 1835.

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