A rich Zurich firm was persuaded by Pestalozzi that the cultivation of madder would succeed on some poor land which was to be sold near the village of Birr at a very small price. With money advanced by them, he bought the land, built a house, which he called Neuhof (New Farm), and set to work. This was in 1767, when he was only just of age. He was, of course, in love, and the lady belonged to a rich family. The following letter, which he addressed to her, has a double interest; it gives us an insight into the noble character, as well as the weaknesses, of the writer, and is, moreover, one of the most singular love-letters in existence.

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After telling her that he felt it his duty to limit his visits to her, as he had not the slightest ability to conceal his feelings, he proposes a correspondence, in which we shall make our undisguised thoughts known to each other with all the freedom of oral conversation. Yes,' he continues, 'I will open myself fully and freely to you; I will even now, with the greatest candour, let you look as deep into my heart as I am myself able to penetrate; I will show you my views in the light of my present and future condition, as clearly as I see them myself. Dearest Schultheiss, those of my faults which appear to me most important in relation to the situation in which I may be placed in after-life are, improvidence, incautiousness, and a want of presence of mind to meet unexpected changes in my prospects. I know not how far these failings may be diminished by my efforts to counteract them by calm judgment and experience. At present, I have them still in such a degree that I

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dare not conceal them from the maiden I love; they are faults, my dear, which deserve your fullest consideration. I have other faults, arising from my irritability and sensitiveness, which oftentimes will not submit to my judgment. I very frequently allow myself to run into excesses in praising and blaming, in my liking and disliking; I cleave so strongly to many things which I possess that the force with which I feel myself attached to them often exceeds the bounds of reason. Whenever my country or my friend is unhappy, I am myself unhappy. Direct your attention to this weakness. There will be times when the cheerfulness and tranquillity of my soul will suffer under it. If even it does not hinder me in the discharge of my duties, yet I shall scarcely ever be great enough to fulfil them in such adverse circumstances with the cheerfulness and tranquillity of a wise man who is ever true to himself. Of my great, and indeed very reprehensible, negligence in all matters of etiquette, and generally in all matters which are not in themselves of importance, I need not speak; anyone may see them at first sight of I also owe you the open confession, my dear, that I shall always consider my duties toward my beloved partner subordinate to my duties towards my country; and that, although I shall be the tenderest husband, nevertheless I hold myself bound to be inexorable to the tears of my wife if she should ever attempt to restrain me by them from the direct performance of my duties as a citizen, whatever this must lead to. My wife shall be the confidante of my heart, the partner of all my most secret counsels. A

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great and honest simplicity shall reign in my house. And one thing more. My life will not pass without important and very critical undertakings. I shall not forget the precepts of Menalk, and my first resolutions to devote myself wholly to my country. I shall never, from fear of man, refrain from speaking when I see that the good of my country calls upon me to speak. My whole heart is my country's: I will risk all to alleviate the need and misery of my fellowcountrymen. What consequences may the undertakings to which I feel myself urged on draw after them! how unequal to them am I! and how imperative is my duty to show you the possibility of the great dangers which they may bring upon me!

My dear, my beloved friend, I have now spoken candidly of my character and my aspirations. Reflect upon everything. If the traits which it was my duty to mention diminish your respect for me, you will still esteem my sincerity, and you will not think less highly of me, that I did not take advantage of your want of acquaintance with my character for the attainment of my inmost wishes.'

The young lady addressed was worthy of the letter and of its writer. In 1769, two years after Pestalozzi had established himself at Neuhof, the marriage took place an unequal match, as it then seemed, the bride having money and personal attractions, and the bridegroom being notably deficient in both respects. Their married life extended over fifty years, and during that period the forebodings of the letter were amply realised. Pestalozzi sacrificed the comfort and worldly prospects of his family

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equally with his own to the public good, and yet we may well believe that Madame Pestalozzi never repented of her choice.

The new married couple were soon in difficulties. The Zurich firm, not satisfied with the rumours which reached them of the management of the madder plantation, sent two competent judges to examine into the state of affairs, and so unfavourable was their report, that the firm preferred getting back what money they could to leaving it any longer in Pestalozzi's hands. The cause of the failure of my undertaking,' says Pestalozzi, 'lay essentially and exclusively in myself, and in my pronounced incapacity for every kind of undertaking which requires practical ability.' By means of his wife's property, however, he was enabled to go on with his farming.

Pestalozzi now resolved on an experiment such as Bluntschli had warned him against, and such as he himself must have had in his mind when he wrote his love-letter. Some years before this, he had had his attention drawn to the subject of education by the publication of Rousseau's Emile.' Feeling deeply the degradation of the surrounding peasantry, he looked for some means of raising them out of it, and it seemed to him that the most hopeful way was to begin with the young, and to train them to capacity and intelligence. He therefore, in 1775, started a poor school. He soon had fifty children sent him, whom he housed, boarded, and clothed, without payment from the parents. The children were to work for their maintenance, during summer in the fields, in winter at spinning and other handicrafts.

Pestalozzi himself was the schoolmaster, Neuhof was the school-house.

In this new enterprise Pestalozzi was still more unsuccessful than he had been in growing the madder. He was very badly treated both by parents and children, the latter often running away directly they got new clothes; and his industrial experiments were so carried on that they were a source of expense rather than profit. He says himself, that, contrary to his own principles, which should have led him to begin at the beginning and lay a good foundation in teaching, he put the children to work that was too difficult for them, wanted them to spin fine thread before their hands got steadiness and skill by exercise on the coarser kind, and to manufacture muslin before they could turn out well-made cotton goods. Before I was aware of it,' he adds, 'I was deeply involved in debt, and the greater part of my dear wife's property and expectations had, as it were, in an instant gone up in smoke.'

We have now come to the most gloomy period in Pestalozzi's history, a period of eighteen years, and those the best years in a man's life, which Pestalozzi spent in great distress, from poverty without, and doubt and despondency within. When he got into difficulties, his friends, he tells us, loved him without hope: 'in the whole surrounding district it was everywhere said that I was a lost man, that nothing more could be done for me.' 'In his only too elegant country-house,' we are told,' he often wanted money, bread, fuel, to protect himself against hunger and