not sure whether some
sluggards did not, because of it, lag behind. Yet the general
proficiency in learning was satisfactory; and the student, when he
entered the world, missed no college excitants, but bore with him a love
and a habit of study needing no spur, and which insured the continuance
of education far beyond the term of his college years. For he had
learned to seek knowledge for itself, for the pleasing occupation it
brings, for the power it gives, for the satisfaction it leaves behind;
and he required no more highly seasoned inducements to continue the
search through life.

Yet it was not the peculiar mode of imparting instruction, nor yet the
variety, the extent, and the utility of the knowledge acquired, that
chiefly characterized the institution of the Swiss patriot. It was the
noble spirit of freedom, the purity of motive, the independence of
purpose, the honesty of conduct, the kindness of intercourse, the union
and forbearance and high-spirited republicanism, pervading alike our
hours of study, of amusement, and of social converse. These it was that
distinguished Hofwyl; and these it is that still cause its former pupils
to look back on the years spent within its peaceful precincts as the
best and the happiest of their lives.

To such results there mainly contributed a remarkable feature in the
economy of the institution I have been describing,--a feature, so far as
I know, not adopted in any similar institution, at least to the extent
to which it was carried by us.

I have said that reward and punishment by the college authorities, or by
M. de Fellenberg, their head, were virtually excluded from this system.
Considering the heterogeneous materials that were collected together
from half the nations of the world, some having been nursed and petted
in the lap of aristocracy, and others, probably, sent thither because
their parents could not manage them at home,--considering, too, the
comparatively late age at which students enter such a college, many of
them just from schools where severity was the rule and artificial reward
the stimulant,--considering all this, I doubt whether the mild,
uncoercing, paternal government of Hofwyl would have been a success, but
for the peculiarity here referred to coming in aid of our teachers, and
supplying motives and restraints to ourselves. It was in this wise.

Hofwyl was not only an institution for education, it was also an
independent, self-governing community.