Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi - Legacy

Legacy

As Pestalozzi said himself, the real work of his life did not lie in Burgdorf or in Yverdon. It lay in the principles of education which he practised, the development of his observation, the training of the whole person, and the sympathetic way of dealing with students, of which he left an example in his six months' labors at Stans. He had the deepest effect on all branches of education, and his influence is far from being exhausted.

Schools that are named after Pestalozzi include Kinderdorf Pestalozzi and Pestalozzi-Gymnasium Biberach in Germany, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (Macedonian: Јохан Хајнрих Песталоци) Elementary School in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia and Colegio Pestalozzi in Argentina. In fact, when the Swiss government joined the international rebuilding effort after the devastating 1963 Skopje earthquake by donating funds for the construction of a school in Skopje, it enrolled the famous Swiss architect Alfred Roth to design the new school, equipped it with the first modern application of seismic isolation, and named it after the great Swiss pedagogue.

Pestalozzi's method was used by the cantonal school in Aarau that Albert Einstein attended, and which has been credited with fostering Einstein's process of visualizing problems and his use of "thought experiments." Einstein said of his education at Aarau: "it made me clearly realize how much superior an education based on free action and personal responsibility is to one relying on outward authority."

The British charity Pestalozzi International Village sponsors students from developing countries to study in the UK; it also sponsors other overseas programs.