amous.

At the age of fifty-three Pestalozzi began his work at Stanz. The
government gave him an empty convent in which to hold his school, and,
before it was ready for occupancy, children flocked to it for admission.
The devastation of the land by the French and the consequent lack of the
necessities of life among the people increased the difficulties of
Pestalozzi's task. His own description of the beginning of his work is
full of eloquence. Speaking of the school, he says, "I was among them
from morning till evening. Everything tending to benefit body and soul I
administered with my own hand. Every assistance, every lesson they
received, came from me. My hand was joined to theirs, and my smile
accompanied theirs. They seemed out of the world and away from Stanz;
they were with me and I with them. We shared food and drink. I had no
household, no friends, no servants around me; I had only them. Was their
health good, I enjoyed it with them; were they sick, I stood at their
side. I slept in their midst. I was the last to go to bed and the first
to rise. I prayed with them, and taught them in bed till they fell
asleep." How true is the saying that, "He lived with beggars in order
that beggars might learn to live like men."

Thus living with them, teaching them, inspiring them to be good,
devoting his whole thought to their welfare, Pestalozzi, who was
described as "either a good-natured fool, or a poor devil, who was
compelled, by indigence, to perform the menial office of schoolmaster,"
began a work that has revolutionized educational method.

But the same discouragements that had met him at Neuhof attended him at
Stanz. Parents brought their children to the asylum only to be clothed,
and then removed them upon the slightest pretexts. Nevertheless, the
work of Pestalozzi at Stanz was not a failure, though the school was
rendered houseless by the French soldiers in 1799, and had to be
abandoned after less than five months' existence. Kruesi comments upon
this period of Pestalozzi's life as follows: "Let those who now witness
the mighty changes that have taken place in education pay grateful
tribute to the man who first took up arms against the hollow systems of
the old school routine, and who showed the path to those delightful
regions of thought, in whose well-tilled soil rich harvests will ever be
reaped by the patient laborer.

"To the philanthropist and friend of education, Stanz will always be a
hallowed spot, e