No. 9. 



FeUenherg School at Hofwyl. 



285 



thorouc:li-brP(l gfentleman, upon a pToiind- 

 work of well-balanced mind and christian 

 principle. 



lie had been made acquainted with my 

 purposes by the English acquaintance of 

 last eveniui;-, and took me, without proposi- 

 tion^ at once away upon a walk of a mile 

 and throe quarters, to the Agricultural 

 school. On our way, he occupied my time 

 with tlie subject of education, his futiier's 

 peculiarities, Pestolozzi's great ideas, and 

 all matters relating 'thereto, in a style of 

 great clearness and simplicity, and with all 

 the sincerity of expression that might be 

 expected I'rom an honest man, who knew 

 the truth of what he was stating, and felt 

 its importance, lie does not pursue pre- 

 cisely the course of his father in instruction, 

 because, he says, " I have not precisely the 

 same constitution of mind ; yet I arrive at 

 the same result, though following another 

 plan." 



At length wo came upon the farm-grounds, 

 in the midst of which are erected two enor- 

 mous stone edifices; one appropriated to the 

 purposes of a barn, and consisting of mows, 

 granaries, stalls fijr cattle, horses, swine, &.c., 

 and the other a boarding-house or farm-house 

 with study-rooms, work-shops, store-rooms, 

 ^uid apartments for all purposes that could 

 be connected with the domestic economy 

 of the fiirm. Before us were the young 

 men from sixteen to eighteen years of age, 

 dig-ging potatoes. They numbered eleven — 

 three of the whole number were absent, or 

 employed upon other duty. Many of them 

 were bare-headed, and all of them in the 

 peasant's kitlrl, (blue over-frock.) The po- 

 tatoes were assorted as dug — the lesser from 

 the larger, and the sound from the decaying. 

 The little crop had been planted, hoed, and 

 now harvested, throughout, by the scholars. 

 In these labours, and in all the others of the 

 farm, carried forward almost exclusively by 

 the pupils, there is no play- work. M. Fel- 

 lenberg intends they shall have a deep- 

 seated conviction of what perspiration and 

 fatigue are, and of how much ought to be 

 expected from a day-labourer. Leaving 

 them, we went to the meadow where they 

 had been mowing — and to the garden where 

 each had a little sub-division for himself, de- 

 voted to growing what he pleased. The 

 larger kitchen garden was appropriated to 

 cabbages, cauliflowers, beets, turnips, &c. 



The barn being situated upon an inclina- 

 tion, was entered by wagons upon a bridge 

 above, and the hay and grain discharged 

 with little labour into the mows and bays 

 below. On the first floor were the stalls ; 

 one series for calves, — fine looking creatures 

 ^—another or two others for cows — all spot- 



ted, well-bred cattle, not large, but finely 

 formed, in good condition, sleek, and good 

 milkers — another series for swine, in wiiich 

 I recognized some Berksiiiros. 'JMie stalls 

 were paved with small coMilc-sfones, and so 

 inclined that the urine could be conducted 

 to a reservoir without. Each cow was se- 

 cured before a little trough and rack above, 

 by a chain. No partitions of any description 

 between them. On the same floor were 

 broad apartments, for threshing, drying po- 

 tatoes and beets, beside all the usual conve- 

 niences of a stock and grain barn. 



In the cellar, which extends under a large 

 portion of the barn, I was shown a quantity 

 of potatoes — some two thousand busiiels I 

 should judge — which were all threatened 

 with destruction from the almost every 

 where prevailing potatoe sickness. All 

 were orderecj to be taken up again and 

 dried. At my suggestion we took some 

 specimens of the diseased roots to be ex- 

 amined with the microscope; but its power 

 was too feeble to reveal anything satisfac- 

 tory. The theories of this fearful malady, 

 seem none of them suited to all the facts of 

 the case. It has fallen upon the plant in 

 dry soils and wet — and in other soils equally 

 dry and wet it has not appeared. It has oc- 

 curred in the shade, and again has left such 

 a location unvisited. Soils highly manured 

 have escaped, and have not escaped. It is 

 not in Switzerland alone, nor in Germany — 

 but in France and Austria, and England, and 

 in America. Not this year only, but in pre- 

 vious years. To particular soils, degrees of 

 moisture, exposure to sun, peculiar situa- 

 tions, or presence of unusual quantities of 

 manure — to each and all it cannot be attri- 

 buted. But I have almost forgotten Kutti 

 and the farm-school. 



From the barn we went to a room in the 

 farm-house, where the register is kept. This 

 apartment is furnished with a double row of 

 inclined desks, back to back — all in a single 

 frame- work, a few chairs, some shelves, and 

 a board for some forty keys. Here the scho- 

 lars write in their day-books all that has 

 been accomplished, and all they have learned 

 during the day, between seven and nine 

 o'clock in the evening. M. Fellcnberg 

 showed me the day-book, journal, and in- 

 ventory of the farm. The detail seemed 

 almost immeasurable, but the system is so 

 perfect that there is nothing like confusion 

 in any of the accounts, or like difficulty in 

 learning from them the exact condition of 

 outlay and income. The milk-book, for ex- 

 ample, had a record of all the cows' names, 

 their ages, the amount and what kinds of 

 food they eat, and the average amount of 

 railk given daily, determined by admeasure- 



