Once arrived there, and having met with the
friendliest reception by Pestalozzi and his teachers, because of my
introductions from Gruner and his colleagues, I was taken, like every
other visitor, to the class-rooms, and there left more or less to my own
devices. I was still very inexperienced, both in the theory and practice
of teaching, relying chiefly in such things upon my memory of my own
school-time, and I was therefore very little fitted for a rigorous
examination into details of method and into the way they were connected
to form a whole system. The latter point, indeed, was neither clearly
thought out, nor was it worked out in practice. What I saw was to me at
once elevating and depressing, arousing and also bewildering. My visit
lasted only a fortnight. I worked away and tried to take in as much as I
could; especially as, to help me in the duties I had undertaken, I felt
impelled to give a faithful account in writing of my views on the whole
system, and the effect it had produced upon me. With this idea I tried
to hold fast in my memory all I heard. Nevertheless I soon felt that
heart and mind would alike come to grief in a man of my disposition if I
were to stay longer with Pestalozzi, much as I desired to do so.
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