ht years of successful industry at Neuhof, Pestalozzi resolved
to make a fair trial of the plan, which he had long had at heart, of
giving the lower orders such an education as should raise them to a
condition more consistent with the capacities of their nature and with
the spirit of Christianity.

To avoid the interference of others as much as possible, and to place
the beneficial results of his system in a clearer light, he selected the
objects of his experiment from the very dregs of the people. If he found
a child who was left in destitute circumstances from the death of its
parents or from their incompetency and vice, he immediately took him
home, so that, in a short time, his house was converted into an asylum,
in which fifty orphan or pauper children were fed, clothed, and
instructed in the different employments from which they might afterward
be able to gain a livelihood, and for the exercise of which his farm and
the cotton manufactory, in which he was a partner, afforded an ample
opportunity.

But this experiment, so happily conceived by Pestalozzi, was destined to
prove unsuccessful. He possessed few of the means necessary to bring it
to a prosperous issue. His zeal, which led him to undertake the most
magnificent enterprises, was not combined with sufficient patience,
practical knowledge of human nature, and fixed habits of order and
economy to enable him to realize the plans which he proposed; and at
length he was obliged to abandon his experiment in despair. It was not,
however, altogether useless. He had the satisfaction of knowing that he
had rescued more than a hundred children from the degrading influences
under which they were born, and planted the seeds of virtue and religion
in their hearts; and, in addition to this, his qualifications for the
task to which his life was now devoted were greatly increased by this
insight he had acquired into its real nature, and the means of its
accomplishment. The results of his experience at Neuhof, from the time
of opening his asylum in 1775, to its close in 1790, are left on record
in the valuable works which he published during that interval. The first
of these, entitled _Leonard and Gertrude_, is a popular novel, under
which form he chose to convey his ideas respecting the condition of the
lower classes, and the means of their improvement. The success of this
work was not what he expected. Though universally popular as a novel,
there were few who entered into