CODE TH VRBILE Bronce, Sizer aad Talys «638 
husband actually mistook a dried branch 
of a tree, turning up over the door of a 
house, for the sign of aninn. At length 
we reached Rheinfelden, situated, as its 
name implies, on the Rhine, where we 
satisfied, the English necessity of eating. 
“fh BASLE, 
The city of Basle is large, and_contains 
many neat and pretty houses, but. it is 
on. the whole ill-built, and offers little to 
attract the admiration of strangers. It 
has a very long wooden bridge over the 
Rhine, which :river constitutes its sole 
ornament; our inn (The Three Kings) 
was situated immediately on it, and we 
enjoyed from hence a delightful view of 
this truly. majestic, river. The female 
head-dress prevailing here among the 
lower orders, is a little black cap covering 
only the crown of the head, with bows of 
black, ribbon sticking up in such a map- 
ner as to resemble a pair of ears, and 
accompanied with the long plait of 
hair hanging down the back, to which 
we were now become quite accustomed. 
. PESTALOZZI. 
October, 28, 1820. This morning we 
visited the celebrated establishment of 
M. Pestalozzi for the instruction of youth, 
We were gratified by being present at 
the tuition of several classes, and by an 
hour's conversation with the Greek mas- 
ter, who is an English clergyman, and 
appears a man of superior talents and in- 
formation, and devotedly attached to the 
institution for which he labours. The 
general idea on which M. Pestalozzi pro- 
ceeds is, the endeavour to promote the 
developement of the youthful faculties, 
>: simplifying the elementary principles 
of knowledge, and rather leading the mind 
to discover useful fruths by the exertions 
of its own powers, than furnishing it with 
positive knowledge which probably in 
many instances it may not comprehend. 
To elucidate his plan by some examples: 
—In one room was a juvenile class learn- 
ing geography. Suspended to the wall 
was a large map of Switzerland, con- 
taining nothing but a delineation of 
the lakes, rivers, and mountains, without 
their names. A boy, who was the in- 
structor of the others, pointed with a 
stick, to these in succession, and all the 
others in concert repeated the name. 
This repetilion is continued until the 
whole class is perfect in the knowledge 
of these three grand natural divisions of 
the earth. From this room we went into 
another, where a class of older boys were 
taking their lesson in geography. Before 
them was suspended a map of France, 
with all its divisions, towns, &c. and the 
MonTHLy Maa. No, 377. 
same process was observed by the boys 
excepting that these held in their hands 
the written description which they re- 
peated. In the Greek class, an unlearned 
observer like me, could only remark, that 
their instructor wrote every word on a 
large slate, and made the: pupils not only 
read what he wrote, but likewise tell him 
the reason why ‘a verb’ was ‘to be so con- 
jugated, or a noun declined, &c.; thus 
making them discover, and, as it were, 
form the rules from the practice. The 
same method is pursued in teaching 
Latin, French, German, English, &e. In 
mathematics, the teacher instead of 
making the pupils repeat the definitions— 
that “a point is that which hath no 
parts ;” a line, “that which has length 
without breadth:’? that “two parallel 
lines are those which will never meet,” 
&c, desires the pupil to mark a point on 
a slate, and endeavour to divide it, and 
so on with the other propositions, and’ 
thus leads the scholar to discover these 
truths for himself. In arithmetic, instead 
of making use of the abstract numbers 1, 
2, 3, &c. the pupils are taught to use so 
many lines, as amount to the numbers 
required, and then add, subtract, multiply, 
or divide them. | 
Struck by the similarity of some of 
these ideas to those thrown out by- Rous- 
seau in his Emilius, £ asked our in- 
formant, if M. Pestalozzi had not adopted 
some of this ingenuous writer's views on 
the subject? He replied, Yes, certainly ; 
but he had reduced them to a practica- 
bility, which Rousseau's plan had not, 
and that in many respects he had “pro- 
ceeded on a different basis, since Rous- 
seau’s scheme was one ‘of artifice, and 
this, when once discovered by the pupil 
would defeat its own object, and entirely 
fail of success. M. Pestalozzi agreed with 
the French philosopher in the propriety 
of not giving positive knowledge until 
near the age ot twelve years; but inthe 
mean time, the mind of the pupil should 
be prepared for the reception of that 
knowledge, by the study of language, 
lines, numbers, &c. He added, that it 
was from our own great philosopher, 
Locke, that M. Pestalozzi had drawn 
most of his principles, which he had re- 
duced to practice. 
J asked him, in what respects the plan 
of the Jatter gentleman differed from that 
of M. Fellenberg (with whom he was 
formerly united)? He said, that Pesta- 
lozzi's grand aim was to develope the facul- 
ties; Fellenberg’s to give positive know- 
ledge. The latter possessed the greatest 
advantages for carrying his scheme into 
4M perfection, 
