The success of the method was specially conspicuous in arithmetic. A Nürnberg merchant who came prejudiced against Pestalozzi was much impressed and has acknowledged: “I was amazed when I saw these children treating the most complicated calculations of fractions as the simplest thing in the world.”
§ 60. Up to this point Pestalozzi may be said to have gained by the disposition to “reform” or revolutionise everything, which had prevailed in Switzerland since 1798. But from the reaction which now set in he suffered more than he had gained. Switzerland sent deputies to Paris to discuss under the direction of the First Consul Bonaparte what should be their future form of Government. Among these deputies Pestalozzi was elected, and he set off thinking more of the future of the schools than of the future of the Government. At Paris he asked for an interview with Bonaparte, but destruction being in his opinion a much higher art than instruction, the First Consul said he could not be bothered about questions of A, B, C. He, however, deputed Monge to hear what Pestalozzi had to say, but the mathematician seems to have agreed with some English authorities that “there was nothing in Pestalozzi.”[158] On his return to Switzerland Pestalozzi was asked by Buss, “Did you see Bonaparte?” “No,” replied Pestalozzi, “I did not see Bonaparte and Bonaparte did not see me.” His presumption in thus putting himself on an equality with the great conqueror seems to have taken away the breath of his contemporaries: but “the whirligig of time brings in his revenges,” and before the close of the century Europe already thinks more in amount, and immeasurably more in respect, of Pestalozzi than of Bonaparte.
§ 61. As a result of the reaction the Government of United Switzerland ceased to exist, and the Cantons were restored. This destroyed Pestalozzi’s hopes of Government support, and even turned his Institute out of doors. The Castle of Burgdorf was at once demanded for the Prefect of the District; but Pestalozzi was offered an old convent at Münchenbuchsee near Bern, and thither he was forced to migrate.
§ 62. Close to Münchenbuchsee was Hofwyl where was the agricultural institution of Emmanuel Fellenberg. Fellenberg and Pestalozzi were old friends and correspondents, and as they had much regard for each other and Fellenberg was as great in administration as Pestalozzi in ideas, there seemed a chance of their benefiting by co-operation; but this could not be. The teachers desired that the administration should be put into the hands of Fellenberg, and this was done accordingly, “not without my consent,” says Pestalozzi, “but to my profound mortification.” He could not work with this “man of iron,” as he calls Fellenberg; so he left Münchenbuchsee and accepting one of several invitations he settled in the Castle of Yverdun near the lake of Neuchatel. Within a twelvemonth he was followed by his old assistants, who had found government by Fellenberg less to their taste than no-government by Pestalozzi.