Pestalozzi and His Influence on British Education
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Bangor University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY British Pestalozzianism in the nineteenth century : Pestalozzi and his influence on British education. Brown, J. A. Award date: 1986 Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 05. Oct. 2021 BRITISH PESTALOZZIANISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: PESTALOZZI AND HIS INFLUENCE ON BRITISH EDUCATION by J. A. Brown Thesis submitted in Candidature for the Degree of Philosophiae Doctor of the University of Wales 1986 SUMMARY The study examines the contribution of Pestalozzianism to British nineteenth century education. It begins by detailing the life of Pestalozzi and the importance of his ideas on education. The emergence of British Pestalozzianism through the efforts of Irish pioneers and those having been in residence in Yverdon is assessed. The work and influence of Pestalozzian supporters in Britain is considered and emphasis is placed on Cheam School and object lessons. The study evaluates the Pestalozzian contribution to particular subject areas and the influence of the Home and Colonial School Society to improvements in infant teacher training and early childhood education in England and Wales. The study concludes with an appraisal of the development of Pestalozzian ideals and the associated controversy and subsequent respectability that surrounded the efforts of the British Pestalozzians. CONTENTS Page ; PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I HEINRICH PESTALOZZI - HIS LIFE AND THEORY 1. Educational Practice 1 2. Pestalozzian Principles 10 II THE EMERGENCE OF BRITISH PESTALOZZIANISM 1. Pioneers in Ireland 33 2. The Yverdon Experience 43 III PESTALOZZIAN INFLUENCE IN ENGLAND 1. Cheam School 54 2. Object Lessons 78 3. Specific Applications 88 IV THE HOME AND COLONIAL SCHOOL SOCIETY 1. Progress in Infant Education 110 2. A Pestalozzian School Society 125 3. Influence in Teacher Training 153 V PESTALOZZIAN-TRAINED TEACHERS IN WALES 1. Educational Progress in Wales 167 2. Developments in Swansea 174 3. Contribution to Infant Education 187 VI THE DEVELOPMENT OF PESTALOZZIAN IDEALS 194 1. Child-Centred Education 216 2. The Female Teacher 3. Controversy and Rdspectability 241 CONCLUSION 257 Page APPENDIX A Letters and extracts from Dr. C. Mayo in Yverdon, 1819-1822 261 APPENDIX B An Account of Cheam School in the Rev. Dr. Mayo's Time, undated 27 4 SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 281 PREFACE In the history of British education the advancement of Pestalozzian ideas might be given a minor place. The developments associated with the British Pestalozzians, however, are important, for they represent one of the earliest Continental influences on British nineteenth century education. Their contribution to progress in early childhood education and infant teacher training offers an interesting account, highlighting the Pestalozzians' involvement in British educational innovations in the nineteenth century. Despite this, the British Pestalozzians' influence is only mentioned in the appendix to Kate Silber's Pestalozzi,The Man and his Work, the accepted leading account on Pestalozzi, and only receives relatively brief attention elsewhere, as in Stewart and McCann's The Educational Innovators and Pollard's Pioneers of Popular Education. The study is, therefore, an attempt to overcome the conspicuous absence of a detailed evaluation of the contribution and influence of Pestalozzi and the British Pestalozzians on British nineteenth century education. In particular, the study has benefited from the examination of a large collection of manuscript material including various manuscripts passed on to me by the late Dr. Silber and now deposited with the Silber u papers in Zurich central library. Due to the complexities surrounding a study of Pestalozzianism the opening chapter provides an introduction to the ideas and methods of Pestalozzi, which allows for a greater appreciation of the distinctive direction and form that British Pestalozzianism was to take during the nineteenth century. The principles and aims of these Pestalozzian supporters need to be re-examined and an assessment made of their con- tribution and importance to nineteenth century British educational developments. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should firstly like to acknowledge my debt to my director of studies, Dr. B. R. Bradbrook, for her constructive observations, stimulating comments and continued enthusiasm. I am indebted to the inspiration and co-operation of the late Dr. Kate Silber, whose death during the preparation of this thesis was a great loss to all students of Pestalozzi. I wish to record my gratitude to the various individuals who allowed me access to private family manuscripts, in particular to the help given me by Lord and Lady Waldegrave and by Mrs. H. T. Mayo. I should also like to express my gratitude to Mr. A. J. Banham for his considerable support and to thank Mr. M. Wheeler, headmaster of Cheam School, for his assistance and for that given by all those involved at the Whitehall Museum in Cheam. I am most grateful for the help afforded me by Dr. Germann and the staff of the Zi!irich Central Library during my research visit to Switzerland. I am also indebted to the French and German departments of the University College of North Wales, Bangor, for their assistance in the translation of various documents. My thanks are due to the British and Foreign School Society Archives Centre, the Incorporated Froebel Educational Institute and the Froebel Institute College all of which provided useful manuscript material. Among the large number of departments and libraries which have assisted me, I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to the county record offices of Buckinghamshire, Glamorgan, Hampshire, Surrey and West Sussex, to the library staff of Pembroke Dock Public Library, Sutton Public Library, the British Library, and to the staff at the libraries of Cambridge, Hamburg, Keele, London, Oxford and Swansea Universities. In particular I owe considerable debt to the staff of the School of Education Library in Bangor and to those at the Public Record Office in Kew. Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to Mrs. M. M. Bolger for her conscientious typing of the manuscript. J. A. B. School of Education, University College of North Wales', Bangor. June 1986. I. HEINRICH PESTALOZZI - HIS LIFE AND THEORY 1. Educational Practice The birth of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi in edrich on 12th January 1746 represents the beginning of a life that was to be dedicated towards the education of the young and the improved welfare of the poorer classes. His early life was dominated by financial problems that beset his family. The anxious need to care for clothes and shoes prevented him from playing and mixing with other children. Pestalozzi writes of this period: I was guarded like a sheep that was not allowed to leave the barn. I never contacted boys of my own age on the street. I knew none of their games, their exercises, their secrets; naturally I was awkward in their midst and the object of their ridicule.2 This sheltered and isolated childhood was to shape Pestalozzi's Future ideas on the importance of the home and the relationship developed between mother and child. Having progressed through school and the Collegium CarOlinum,Pestalozzi had a brief involvement with agriculture before turning his attention to education through home industry. His first experiments in home industry, initiated towards the close of 1773, attempted to give the local children of the poor an education whilst they were actively engaged on manual 3 tasks, such as spinning and weaving. The experiments were conducted in Pestalozzi's own house, the Neuhof, and the children ranged in age 1. For an account of Pestalozzi's early life see Silber, K., Pestalozzi, The Man and his Work, 1960, pp. 3-18. 2. Quoted in Walch, Sr., M. R., Pestalozzi and the Pestalozzian Theory of Education, 1952, p.4. 3. See letters from Pestalozzi to Tscharner, in Pestalozzi,Samtliche Werke, (ed.),Seyffarth, L. W., 1899, Vol. III, pp.237-241. 2. 4 from six to eighteen years. Despite his confidence in the possibility of the venture being financially self-supporting, it failed to attract 5 sufficient funds and was forced to close in 1779. To Pestalozzi it represented a personal failure, but the experiences gained in attempt- ing to educate pauper children provided important lessons from which he was to develop his educational principles. During the period 1780-1798 Pestalozzi was given no further opportunity to continue educational experiments. Nevertheless, these years represent his greatest period of literary activity and enabled him to secure the wider audience that was necessary for the promotion of his educational ideas. It was during this period that he wrote the aphorisms entitled The Evening Hours of a Hermit published in the Ephemerides of Mankind in 1780, 6 which contain many of the ideas that were later to be associated with his name. These were followed in 1781 by the important work Leonard and Gertrude, A Book for the People. In this book Pestalozzi set his educational ideas in the context of a story based on village life in eighteenth century Switzerland. The popular appeal of this book helped establish Pestalozzi as a respected educational thinker. 7 Pestalozzi's written works were influential in allowing him to 4.