And yet how wrongly
would such observers have judged the true state of my inner life!
The subjects best taught in the school of Stadt-Ilm were reading,
writing, arithmetic, and religion. Latin was miserably taught, and still
worse learnt. Here, as in so many similar schools, the teaching utterly
lacked the elucidation of first principles. The time spent on Latin was
therefore not wasted upon me, in so far that I learnt from it that such
a method of teaching could bear no fruit among the scholars. Arithmetic
was a very favourite study of mine; and as I also received private
tuition in this subject, my progress was so rapid that I came to equal
my teacher both in theory and practice, although his attainments were by
no means despicable. But how astonished was I when, in my twenty-third
year, I first went to Yverdon, and found I could not solve the questions
there being set to the scholars! This was one of the experiences which
prepossessed me so keenly in favour of Pestalozzi's method of teaching,
and decided me to begin arithmetic myself from the very beginning over
again, according to his system. But more of this later.
In physical geography we repeated our tasks parrot-wise, speaking much
and knowing nothing; for the teaching on this subject had not the very
least connection with real life, nor had it any actuality for us,
although at the same time we could rightly name our little specks and
patches of colour on the map.
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