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of Edinburgh, Session 1870-71. 
A trace of such teaching reached this country in the shape of the 
so-called “object lessons,” which, without much fruit, were once in 
vogue in England. 
But the Pestalozzian method had in reality far greater results. 
A swarm of enthusiastic assistants, perhaps more clear-headed 
than their master, came to serve under him ; and by them there 
was worked out — 
(1.) All sorts of methods for conveying in an easy manner to the 
child the arts of spelling, reading, ciphering, and so on. 
(2.) The practice of a sort of Socratic dialogue, for developing 
the intelligence of the class upon the subject of the lesson, what- 
ever it might be. 
(3.) The idea of pedagogy as a science, based upon psychological 
data. 
(4.) The idea that religion, which with Pestalozzi was made the 
basis of all, must not be taught dogmatically and confessionally, 
but rather universally ; in short, that the first teachings must be 
of natural religion, and not of the religion of any Church. 
All this was new, and it had a peculiar fascination for several 
of the greatest minds of the age. When, in 1806, Prussia was 
crushed by Napoleon, and went through afflictions strikingly 
analogous to those that have now befallen France, Stein and 
Fichte, the statesman and the philosopher, both earnestly pro- 
claimed that the moral energies of the nation must be regenerated 
by the universal adoption of the Pestalozzian ideas. Pestalozzian 
schools were established over the country, and in subsequent years 
the system was thoroughly exploited ; all its strength and weak- 
ness were brought to the full light of trial and experience. 
The result of fifty years’ exhibition and discussion of the Pesta- 
lozzian system has been as follows : — 
(1.) There is a considerable residuum in the shape of excellent 
technical methods for teaching the elements of knowledge. Thus 
each child is taught to read easily, alone, within twelve months. 
The old plan of first learning the names of the letters, and then 
spelling, is abandoned. In arithmetic, the child is taken through 
the operations of the four rules, both in integers and fractions in 
the tens, before he reaches the hundreds. The magnitudes to be 
dealt with form the only distinction between the classes in arith- 
