THE PESTALOZZIAN SYSTEM. 55 



THE PESTALOZZIAN SYSTEM. 



BY HON. GEOEGE S. BOUTWELL. 



IN the May number of The Popular Science Monthly is an arti- 

 cle by Prof. W. W. Aber, entitled The Oswego State Normal 

 School, in which the writer claims for that institution the credit 

 of introducing and promulgating over the country the system of 

 teaching known as the Pestalozzian system. 



Upon the statement made the Oswego School was founded in 

 1853, but upon ideas far away from the system of Pestalozzi, and 

 it was not until 1859 that " lessons on form, color, size, weight, 

 animals, plants, the human body, and moral instruction were 

 prominent." 



As to moral instruction it may be said that there was never a 

 time when it was not prominent in the schools of Massachusetts, 

 with object lessons drawn from passing events. In 1859 or even 

 in 1853 nothing could have been gained in Massachusetts from 

 the system of Pestalozzi as to the wisdom or the method of teach- 

 ing morals in the public schools. 



Physiology had been taught in the normal schools of the State 

 and by the aid of the manikin for nearly two decades. It had 

 been introduced and urged by Horace Mann, who disappeared 

 from the Massachusetts schools about the year 1842. 



In the year 1859 there were four State normal schools in Mas- 

 sachusetts, three of which had been in existence for about twenty 

 years, and the junior was established in the year 1854. 



In all these schools the art of teaching was taught according 

 to the system of Pestalozzi and by well-informed teachers and 

 professors, and with the knowledge that it was the system of Pes- 

 talozzi. 



In the year 1856 Prof. Hermann Kriisi, who is credited in the 

 article with aiding in the introduction of the system at Oswego, 

 was employed by me in the Teachers' Institutes and Normal 

 Schools, and he continued in that service for about three months 

 in each year until 1860, inclusive. Of the other teachers and pro- 

 fessors who were employed in the Teachers' Institutes and Nor- 

 mal Schools in the fifties I may mention President Felton, of Har- 

 vard College, Agassiz, Guyot, Alpheus R. Crosby, George B. 

 Emerson, Lowell Mason, and William Russell, all of whom gave 

 lectures and illustrated the art of teaching on the system of Pes- 

 talozzi. 



I recall examples of the art of teaching grammar, through the 

 aid of an object, given by Mr. Emerson, and I can not imagine 

 that he has been surpassed to this day. 



Previous to the year 1859 the art of teaching according to the 



