existences of real men always wrought upon my soul, as it were, by a fruitful rain and the genial warmth of sunshine; while the isolated truths these lives enshrined, the principles those who lived them had thought out and embodied in some phrase or another, fell as precious seed-corn, as it were, or as solvent salt crystals upon my thirsty spirit.  And while on this head I cannot help especially calling to mind how deep and lasting was the impression made upon me in my last year at school by the accounts in the Holy Scriptures of the lives of earnestly striving youths and men.  I mention it here, but I shall have to return to the subject later on.[41]

Now to return to the new life which I had begun.  It was only to be expected that each thing and all things I heard of Pestalozzi seized powerfully upon me; and this more especially applies to a sketchy narrative of his life, his aims, and his struggles, which I found in a literary newspaper, where also was stated Pestalozzi’s well-known desire and endeavour—­namely, in some nook or corner of the world, no matter where, to build up an institution for the education of the poor, after his own heart.  This narrative, especially the last point of it, was to my heart like oil poured on fire.  There and then the resolution was taken to go and look upon this man who could so think and so endeavour to act, and to study his life and its work.

Three days afterwards (it was towards the end of August 1805) I was already on the road to Yverdon,[42] where Pestalozzi had not long before established himself.  Once arrived there, and having met with the friendliest reception by Pestalozzi and his teachers, because of my introductions from Gruner and his colleagues, I was taken, like every other visitor, to the class-rooms, and there left more or less to my own devices.  I was still very inexperienced, both in the theory and practice of teaching, relying chiefly in such things upon my memory of my own school-time, and I was therefore very little fitted for a rigorous examination into details of method and into the way they were connected to form a whole system.  The latter point, indeed, was neither clearly thought out, nor was it worked out in practice.  What I saw was to me at once elevating and depressing, arousing and also bewildering.  My visit lasted only a fortnight.  I worked away and tried to take in as much as I could; especially as, to help me in the duties I had undertaken, I felt impelled to give a faithful account in writing of my views on the whole system, and the effect it had produced upon me.  With this idea I tried to hold fast in my memory all I heard.  Nevertheless I soon felt that heart and mind would alike come to grief in a man of my disposition if I were to stay longer with Pestalozzi, much as I desired to do so.  At that time the life there was especially vigorous; internally and externally it was a living, moving, stirring existence, for Prince Hardenberg, commissioned by the Austrian Government, had come to examine thoroughly into Pestalozzi’s work.[43]