The want of unity of effort, both as to means and aims, I soon felt; I
recognised it in the inadequacy, the incompleteness, and the unlikeness
of the ways in which the various subjects were taught. Therefore I
endeavoured to gain the greatest possible insight into all, and became a
scholar in all subjects--arithmetic, form, singing, reading, drawing,
language, physical geography, the natural sciences, etc.

I could see something higher, and I believed in a higher efficiency, a
closer unity of the whole educational system; in truth, I believed I saw
this clearer, though not with greater conviction, than Pestalozzi
himself. I held that land happy, that man fortunate, by whom the means
of true education should be developed and applied, and the wish to see
this benefit conferred upon my country naturally sprang from the love I
bore my native land.[69] The result was the written record of 1809
already referred to.

Where there is the germ of disunion, where the whole is split up, even
sometimes into contradictory parts, and where an absolute reconciling
unity is wanting, where what connection there may be is derived rather
from casual outward ties than from inner necessary union, the whole
system must of necessity dig its own grave, and become its own murderer.
Now it was exactly at such a time of supreme crisis that I had the good
or the evil fortune to be at Yverdon. All that was good and all that was
bad, all that was profitable and all that was unprofitable, all that was
strong and all that was weak, all that was empty and all that was full,
all that was selfish and all that was unselfish amongst Pestalozzi and
his friends, was displayed openly before me.

I happened to be there precisely at the time of the great Commission of