d also bewildering. My visit
lasted only a fortnight. I worked away and tried to take in as much as I
could; especially as, to help me in the duties I had undertaken, I felt
impelled to give a faithful account in writing of my views on the whole
system, and the effect it had produced upon me. With this idea I tried
to hold fast in my memory all I heard. Nevertheless I soon felt that
heart and mind would alike come to grief in a man of my disposition if I
were to stay longer with Pestalozzi, much as I desired to do so. At that
time the life there was especially vigorous; internally and externally
it was a living, moving, stirring existence, for Prince Hardenberg,
commissioned by the Austrian Government, had come to examine thoroughly
into Pestalozzi's work.[43]

The fruits of my short stay with Pestalozzi were as follows:--

In the first place, I saw the whole training of a great educational
institution, worked upon a clear and firmly-settled plan of teaching. I
still possess the "teaching-plan" of Pestalozzi's institution in use at
that time. This teaching-plan contains, in my opinion, much that is
excellent, somewhat also that is prejudicial. Excellent, I thought, was
the contrivance of the so-called "exchange classes."[44] In each subject
the instruction was always given through the entire establishment at the
same time. Thus the subjects for teaching were settled for every class,
but the pupils were distributed amongst the various classes according to
their proficiency in the subject in hand, so that the whole body of
pupils was redistributed in quite a distinct division for each subject.
The advantage of this contrivance struck me as so undeniable and so
forcible that I have never since relinquished it in my educational work,
nor could I now bring myself to do so. The prejudicial side of the
teaching-plan, against which I intuitively rebelled, although my own
tendencies on the subject were as yet so vague and dim, lay, in my
opinion, in its incompleteness and its onesidedness. Several subjects of
teaching and education highly important to the all-round harmonious
development of a man seemed to me thrust far too much into the
background, treated in step-motherly fashion, and superficially worked
out.

The results of the arithmetical teaching astounded me, yet I could not
follow it into its larger applications and wider extent. The mechanical
rules of this branch of instruction seemed to whirl me round and round
as