It consisted in merely living, lounging, and strolling in the
open air, and going for walks. Although I was disgusted with the methods
of town education, I did not yet venture to convert life amidst Nature
into an educational course. That was taught me by my young pupils
themselves; and as from the circumstances of my own culture I eagerly
fostered to my utmost every budding sense for Nature that showed itself,
there soon developed amongst them a life-encompassing, life-giving, and
life-raising enjoyment of natural objects. In the following year[62]
this way of life was further enhanced by the father giving his sons a
piece of meadowland for a garden, at the cultivation of which we
accordingly worked in common. The greatest delight of my pupils was to
make little presents of the produce of their garden to their parents and
also to me. How their eyes would gleam with pleasure when they were
fortunate enough to be able to accomplish this. Pretty plants and little
shrubs from the fields, the great garden of God, were transplanted by us
to the children's gardens, and there carefully tended. Great was the
joy, especially of the two younger ones, when such a colonist frankly
enrolled himself amongst the citizens of the state.
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