LITERARY NOTICES. 



701 



ter is devoted to certain pyro-electric prop- 

 erties of the alloys of platinum, and the 

 pyrometric use of the principle of viscosity 

 is set forth at length. The monograph is 

 copiously illustrated with cuts of apparatus, 

 charts, and diagrams. 



No. 55 is a Report of Work done in the 

 Division of Chemistry and Physics, by Frank 

 W. Clarke, Chief Chemist. It embraces pa- 

 pers recording examinations of a number of 

 minerals, and miscellaneous analyses of va- 

 rious minerals and waters. 



No. 56 is a paper on Fossil Wood and 

 Lignite of the Potomac Formation, by Frank 

 H. Knowlton, giving a history of the study 

 of the internal structure of lignites, and sys- 

 tematic descriptions of silicified species. 



No. 57 is a A Geological Reconnaissance 

 in Southwestern Kansas, by Robert Hay. It 

 gives an outline of the geological features of 

 the region, incidentally touching upon points 

 that have an economic bearing. The paper 

 Is accompanied by a geologic map of south- 

 western Kansas, and by diagrams of sections 

 and buttes. 



Pestalozzi, his Life and Work. By Roger 

 de Guimps. Authorized Translation by 

 J. Russell, with an Introduction by the 

 Rev. R. H. Quick. New York : D. Ap- 

 pleton & Co. Pp. 488. Price, $1.50. 



It is very proper that the Life of Pesta- 

 lozzi should be the first biographical work 

 to be incorporated in the International Ed- 

 ucation Series. No one, perhaps, of the 

 devoted men who have labored for the ad- 

 vancement of education has singly contrib- 

 uted more to its improvement or left a 

 broader mark upon its after-course than he. 

 It is to him, says the author of this work, 

 that we owe the reform of elementary edu- 

 cation — a reform, however, which, notwith- 

 standing the progress already made, is far 

 from complete ; and his history must, above 

 all, be a history of the great idea which, in 

 its successive stages, he sought to put into 

 practice. This idea was the education of all 

 the people, and that by drawing out their 

 faculties. The conception of a learned edu- 

 cation had already been worked out before 

 his time, but this could only be for the few. 

 Pestalozzi's life was an effort to realize his 

 idea of the extension of the privileges of 

 education. It was, Dr. Harris remarks, " a 

 succession of experiments, each ending in a 



failure of some sort. These failures are 

 followed by a period of depressive reflection, 

 in the course of which Pestalozzi seems to 

 become conscious of the personal weakness 

 or unwisdom that had caused his plans to go 

 wrong. He puts the fruits of his experience 

 into a treatise, and is inspired to begin again 

 a new experiment." These experiments and 

 reflections are set forth in detail in Baron 

 de Guimps's vivid memoir, which is prepared 

 very largely from Pestalozzi's letters. His 

 first experiments were made with his son, 

 upon whom he intended to apply Rousseau's 

 ideas. But he was compelled at every step 

 to stop and fall back upon his own observa- 

 tions and the memory of the teachings of 

 his mother, who had devoted herself with 

 complete abnegation to the education of her 

 children. " Struck by the child's natural 

 need of continual activity, and by the abun- 

 dance and versatility of its physical, moral, 

 and intellectual faculties, it occurred to him 

 that by guiding all these powers aright, and 

 by varying work in such a way as to prevent 

 fatigue, it would be possible to teach chil- 

 dren not only to earn their bread, but to 

 cultivate their intellectual and moral nature 

 at the same time." So he projected his ag- 

 ricultural and manual labor institution at 

 Neuhof, the close of which, after five years, 

 was followed by the publication of a series 

 of works in which his ideas were presented 

 free from all foreign alloy. The results 

 of his succeeding experiment at Stanz, as 

 summed up by Morf , show forth the essential 

 principles upon which the general reform of 

 elementary education in the present century 

 has been conducted. His career at Burgdorf 

 is chiefly remarkable for the illustrations it 

 afforded, in his method and in the books he 

 made there, of the doctrine of sense-impres- 

 sions as the foundation of instruction. The 

 lamentable failure at Iverdun left Pestalozzi 

 at eighty years of age with his hopes disap- 

 pointed and his illusions dispelled. But it 

 did not break his courage or stop his ac- 

 tivity. He immediately set himself to work, 

 and wrote the Song of the Swan, one of his 

 most remarkable books ; the Experiences of 

 my Life, in which he blamed himself for all 

 his misfortunes ; a fifth part of his Leonard 

 and Gertrude, and a supplement to his Book 

 for Mothers. The story of his life, the tell- 

 ing of which is invested with a great deal of 



