United States or Guyana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Our Mother's Club at Solaris, was organized by Gertrude Gerrish, as the fulfillment of a long cherished dream. She has reason to be proud of her work! Like that other Gertrude, made so famous by Pestalozzi's charming story, Gertrude Gerrish is a born teacher, an ideal mother, one of nature's noble women. Much of the success attained by the club, is due to her wonderful power as a leader.
The actual teaching was to be in arithmetic and German. The first was soon arranged. I simply followed Pestalozzi's course. But as to the language I encountered great difficulties. I began by teaching it from the regular school-books then used, and indeed still in use.
Joining this with the suggestions for "a nursery method," set down in his Mother's Manual, in which he makes the names, positions, connections, numbers, properties, and uses of the limbs and body his first lessons, it becomes clear that Pestalozzi's notions on early mental development were too crude to enable him to devise judicious plans. Let us consider the course which Psychology dictates.
When Froebel, in the spring of 1817, resigned his position, his friend Langethal begged him to take his brother Eduard as another pupil, and thus Pestalozzi's enthusiastic disciple and comrade found his dearest wish fulfilled.
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. The fruits of my short stay with Pestalozzi were as follows:
It was at that time, indeed, surprising and inexplicable to me that Pestalozzi's loving character did not win every one's heart as it won mine, and compel the staff of teachers to draw together into a connected whole, penetrated with life and intellectual strength in every part. I left Yverdon in mid-October with a settled resolution to return thither as soon as possible for a longer stay.
Some of Pestalozzi's own pupils became able and devoted assistants; and other young men of the highest qualifications devoted themselves as apostles of his mission. Here and there over Europe establishments arose where boys, and sometimes girls, were trained at once in industry and intellectual progress.
It was only to be expected that each thing and all things I heard of Pestalozzi seized powerfully upon me; and this more especially applies to a sketchy narrative of his life, his aims, and his struggles, which I found in a literary newspaper, where also was stated Pestalozzi's well-known desire and endeavour namely, in some nook or corner of the world, no matter where, to build up an institution for the education of the poor, after his own heart.
Therefore for a long time it was an effort to me to regard man's handiwork, with Pestalozzi's scholars, Tobler and Hopf, as a proper subject for elementary culture, and it broadened my inward and outward glance considerably when I was able to look upon the world of the works of man as also part of the "external world."
As before said, however, agreement with Pestalozzi's theory does not involve agreement with his practice; and here occurs a case in point. Treating of instruction in spelling he says: "The spelling-book ought, therefore, to contain all the sounds of the language, and these ought to be taught in every family from the earliest infancy.
Word Of The Day