parties. The Director appeared for some time to listen with profound attention, and Mr. de Fellenberg ascribed his silence to conviction of the truths he urged, and something like a feeling of compunction,—when, all at once, the worthy republican throwing open a window, called aloud to one of his servants—'Jacques! apportez moi Finette!' A little spaniel was brought accordingly with its litter of young ones in a basket—and there was no chance of his hearing another word about Switzerland or liberty! After this rebuff, he gave up the idea of serving his country as a politician; and, asking for his passport the next day, made the best of his way home, determined to set about the slow work of elementary reformation, by a better mode of education, and to persevere in it for the rest of his life!

It is now upwards of twelve years since Mr. de Fellenberg undertook to systematize domestic education, and to show on a large scale how the children of the poor might be best taught, and their labour at the same time most profitably applied: in short, how the first twenty years of a poor man's life might be so employed as to provide for his support and his education. The peasants in his neighbourhood were at first rather shy of trusting their children for a new experiment; and being thus obliged to take his pupils where he could find them, many of the earliest were the sons of vagrants, and literally picked up on the highways; and this is the case with one or two of the most distinguished. He had very soon, however, the good fortune of finding an excellent co-operator in the person of a young man of the name of Vehrli, the son of a schoolmaster of Thurgovia, who, coming to Hofwyl in 1809, to see the establishment and inform himself of the mode of teaching, was so struck with the plan of the school of industry, that he offered his son, then about 18, as an assistant. This young man devoted himself from that moment to the undertaking.——Although admitted at first to Mr. de Fellenberg's table, he soon left it for that of his pupils, with whom he has ever since lived night and day. Working with them in the fields, their playfellow in their hours of relaxation,—and, learning himself what he is to teach as a master, his zeal has not cooled a moment during a trial of more than ten years' unremitting exertions, under the guidance of his patron, and assisted now by four other masters. The number of his pupils has increased successively to 43: They obey him as well as Mr. de Fellenberg, entirely from love and a sense of duty:—punishment has been inflicted only twice since the beginning; and their treatment is nearly that of children under the paternal roof. They go out every morning to their work soon after sunrise—having first breakfasted and received a lesson of about half an hour. They return at noon. Dinner takes them half an hour,—a lesson of one hour follows; then to work again till six in the evening. On Sunday, the different lessons take six hours instead of two; and they have butcher's meat on that day only. They are divided into three classes, according to age and strength; an entry is made in a book, every night, of the number of hours each class has worked, specifying the sort of labour done, in order that it may be charged to the proper account, each particular crop having an account opened for it, as well as every new building, the live stock, the machines, the schools themselves, &c. &c. In winter, and whenever there is no out-of-doors' work, the boys plait straw for chairs; make baskets; saw logs with the cross saw, and split them; thrash and winnow corn, grind colours, knit stockings, or assist the wheel-wright and other artificers, of whom there are many employed on the establishment. For all which different sorts of labour an adequate salary is credited each boy's class.

Mr. de Fellenberg indeed observes, that the boys being most of them only just come to the age of productive labour, it is presumed the Establishment will not only support itself in future, but repay past expenses; particularly as certain outfits charged to the first years will not recur again.—He observes also, that several grown boys have been suffered to go away, and have been replaced by young children, to the great injury of the Establishment. It may be added, that the pupils have been indulged of late with better clothes than formerly, or than is strictly necessary, as well as a better table; and that, from attention to their feelings, the cast-off clothes of the school of the rich are not turned to their use, but given away to the poor of the neighbourhood, that they may not appear in the light of dependants on any but their adoptive father and their own labour. It is undoubtedly a very striking circumstance, that only one, out of the whole number of boys admitted into this school since the beginning, has been dismissed as irrecoverably vicious; all the others have got rid of their former habits;—and, when final sentence was passed upon the unfortunate boy, the others begged leave to contribute each one batz towards a present to him, that he might remember them with kindness.

The labours of the field, their various sports, their lessons, their choral songs, the necessary rest, fill the whole circle of the twenty-four hours; and judging from their open, cheerful, contented countenances, nothing seems wanting to their happiness.—But it is a great point gained, to have brought young men to the age of 18 or 20, uncontaminated by the general licentiousness which prevails in the country. When their time is out, and they mix with other people, they will no doubt marry; but the probability is, they will be more difficult in their choice than other men of the same rank, and will shrink from vulgarity and abject poverty. Long habits of self-restraint, too, will enable them to look out with comparative patience for a suitable establishment, before they burden themselves with a family. In short, if the only check of the mild kind to an excessive increase of population is self-restraint, from motives of prudence and morality, where may we look for it with better hopes than among the pupils of Mr. de Fellenberg?

We shall now proceed, however, to lay before our readers a more detailed account of the internal management of the school of industry. The lessons are given mostly viva voce, and various questions continually interposed, respecting measures of capacity, length and weight, and their fractional parts; the cubic contents of a piece of timber, or a stack of hay; the time necessary to perform any particular task, under such or such circumstances; the effects of gravitation; the laws of mechanics; rules of grammar and different parts of speech, &c. &c. The boys endeavour to find the solution of arithmetical and mathematical problems without writing, and at the same time to proceed with the mechanical processes in which they may happen to be engaged. Aware of the difficulties with which they are thus made to grapple, as it were, without assistance, they are the more sensible of the value of those scientific short cuts, which carry you in the dark indeed, but safely and speedily, to your journey's end, and the more delighted with their beauty as well as their use. They acquire the rationale of the thing, together with the practice; their understandings are exercised, and their attention kept awake. None of them are ever seen to look inattentive or tired, although just returned from their day's labour in the fields. Contrivance, and some degree of difficulty to overcome, is a necessary condition, it would seem, of our enjoyments.

The pupils are not always questioned, but, in their turn, propose questions to the masters, and difficulties to be solved, which they do sometimes with considerable ingenuity.—They draw outlines of maps, from memory, exhibiting the principal towns, rivers, and chains of mountains; they draw