492 



PERUGIA PESTALOZZI. 



north of Rome ; Ion. 12 17' E. ; lat. 43 6' N. ; 

 population, 30,000 ; a bishop's see. It stands on the 

 summit of a hill, near the Tiber, having one of the 

 most delightful situations in all Italy. It is tolerably 

 well built, and contains forty-five churches and 

 forty-eight convents, which are by no means elegant, 

 several hospitals, and a university on a small scale. 

 It has manufactures of velvet and silk stuffs, and 

 considerable traffic in corn, cattle, wool, silk, oil and 

 brandy. The surrounding country is very rich. 

 The citadel was built by pope Paul III. Perugia 

 was, in the times of the Romans, one of the twelve 

 principal Etruscan cities. It suffered much by the 

 irruptions of the barbarians, and again by the con- 

 tests between the Guelfs and Gibelines. See Gttelfs. 

 PERUGIA, LAKE ; the ancient Thrasymene. 

 (q. v.) 



PERUGINO. Pietro Vanucci, surnamed // Peru- 

 gino, the founder of the Roman school of painting, 

 born atCittadellaPieve, in 1446, received the rights 

 of citizenship in Perugia (whence his surname), and, 

 at an early age, distinguished himself by his works. 

 Bonfigli and Pietro della Francesca were probably 

 his masters. His pictures have much grace, and 

 are particularly successful in female and youthful 

 figures. The turns of his heads are noble, and his 

 colouring is lovely. A certain hardness and dryness 

 in the forms, and poverty in the drapery, were the 

 faults of his age, from which he did not wholly escape. 

 Tranquillity and childish simplicity characterize his 

 works, which are defective in invention. His frescoes 

 are softer and in better keeping than his other pro- 

 ductions, as the 'fine specimens in Perugia, Rome, 

 Bologna and Florence prove. Raphael is his most 

 celebrated disciple. 



PERUKE. See Wig. 



PERUVIAN BARK. See Bark. 



PERVIGILIA ; those feasts of the ancients which 

 were celebrated during the night in honour of certain 

 deities, particularly Ceres, Venus, and Apollo. The 

 same name was given to nocturnal banquets in 

 general. 



PESTALOZZI, JOHN HENRY, one of the most 

 distinguished men of modern times for his efforts in 

 the cause of education, was born, January 12, 1746, 

 at Zurich, in Switzerland, and was educated by pious 

 relations, after the death of his father, who had been 

 a physician. Even when very young, he manifested 

 strong religious feelings, a quick sense of right, 

 compassion towards the poor, and a fondness for 

 young children. He had a great inclination for the 

 study of languages and theology ; but, after an un- 

 successful attempt to preach, he studied law. Some 

 treatises of his on preparation for a profession, and 

 on Spartan legislation, and the translation of some 

 speeches of Demosthenes, which he published, were 

 proofs of his diligence and talents. But Rousseau's 

 Emile filled him with a dislike for the habits of a 

 learned life, and for the general system of education 

 in Europe ; and a dangerous illness, occasioned by 

 excessive study, induced him, immediately after his 

 recovery, to burn the greater part of the extracts 

 and collections which he had made during his study 

 of the history of his country and of Jaw, and to be- 

 come a farmer. He studied agriculture with a 

 farmer near Berne, and then bought a piece f land 

 in the neighbourhood, built a house, which he called 

 Neuhof, and began the life of a farmer when he was 

 twenty-two years old. He soon married, and 

 became concerned, through his wife's relations, in a 

 calico manufactory. In these situations, he became 

 acquainted with the moral wretchedness of the lowest 

 classes, and, in 1775, began his career of instruction 

 by the admission of the children of paupers into his 

 house. He soon saw himself surrounded by more 



than fifty children, to whom he was a teacher and 

 father. He had no aid from others, and, though he 

 worked with the children when he was not employed 

 in teaching them, or in his private affairs, he had 

 not the practical talent necessary to turn the labour 

 of his little workmen to account. His philanthropic 

 and noble self-denial was derided ; his confidence 

 was abused ; his own affairs declined ; and he was 

 generally considered as a well-meaning enthusiast. 

 But he had formed his purpose, and was not to be di- 

 verted from it ; and, amidst straitened circumstances, 

 he collected that knowledge of the state of the lower 

 classes which is set forth so admirably in his novel 

 Lienhardt tmd Gertrud (1781, 4, vols.), a work 

 which has exerted a remarkable influence. The de- 

 scription in this work of the school at Bannal contains 

 many characteristic traits of Pestalozzi's life, at that 

 time, at Neuhof. To illustrate this novel, he wrote, 

 in 1782, Christoph und Else, besides Abendstunden 

 eines Einsiedlers, in Iselin's Ephemeriden, in which 

 he gives the first account of his method ; a Schweizer- 

 blatt fur das Folk (1782 and 1783) ; a Treatise 

 on Legislation and Infanticide, and Inquiries into the 

 Course of Nature in the Development of Man (1797), 

 which are full of thought (all in German). The lat- 

 ter work was written at a time when Pestalozzi had 

 suffered many vexations and misfortunes. The want of 

 all support at last obliged him to give up an undertak- 

 ing which was too great for the means of an individual. 

 In 1798, the directory of Switzerland invited him to es- 

 tablish a house of education at Stanz for poor children. 

 He became here the teacher, father, and, we must 

 add, servant to eighty children, of the lowest classes. 

 But war, and the efforts of a party unfriendly to his 

 scheme, destroyed this establishment after a year. 

 Pestalozzi now took charge of a school at Burgdorf, 

 where he also received pupils, who paid for their 

 instruction, so that he was enabled to employ able 

 assistants. A publication on the application of his 

 method by mothers, which appeared in 1801, under 

 the title How Gertrude teaches her children (in 

 German), and the elementary books, Book of Mothers 

 (in German), and the Anschauungslehre der Zahlen- 

 verhaltnisse (the Doctrine of Numerical Relations 

 conveyed by Perceptions of Form*), found well-dis- 

 posed readers. But Pestalozzi brought new vexa- 

 tions on himself by mingling in politics. He was a 

 decided democrat and man of the people, who, in 

 1802, sent him as their delegate to the first consul ; 

 and, in 1802, he published his Views on Subjects to 

 which the Legislature of Helvetia should chiefly 

 direct its Attention, which made the higher classes 

 unfriendly to him. His institution, in the mean 

 while, flourished. In 1804, he removed, with his 

 school, to Munchen-Buchsee, where he entered into 

 a nearer connexion with Fellenberg, and, in the 

 same year, to Yverdiin, where he occupied the 

 castle given to him by government. 

 , Pestalozzi's method has become the subject of 

 animated discussion since the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century, partly owing to the opposition which 

 new schemes always meet with, and partly to the 

 extravagance of his admirers. Pestalozzi was a man 

 of great genius and depth of feeling, full of the 

 spirit of self-sacrifice, devoted to the noble purpose 

 of aiding mankind in the most effectual way, by the 

 instruction of the poor and abandoned, in which he 

 was warmly engaged until his death. He loved 

 liberty, and believed that its cause would be most 

 promoted by the education of the most neglected. 

 His genius, moreover, enabled him to devise the 

 most effectual plans for obtaining this end. But he 

 was not sufficiently practical properly to direct the 





* Not an exact translation, but as tear as we can give ifc, 

 without a long paraphrase. 



