  For the 150th anniversary of the birthday of Pestalozzi, celebrated in Cincinnati, January 13, 1896. THROUGH vasty shades of savage Occident The Ohio groped what time the man I sing Took first quick draught of that free element That thrills Swiss life, and felt the quivering Of Alpine light which welcomed him to earth. In Zurich then was born—sublime event— A man-child in whose soul new gospels waited birth. The world is ever plastic in the hand Of humble saviours fearless of the cross: One self-forgetting hero may command And mould the future, scorning present loss: Meek Pestalozzi, herding in his mind Helvetia’s strayling little children, planned By their salvation surely to redeem mankind. Much hope, more love possessed him, but most grief; His heart, a mourner, sobbed o’er common woe: Did the Almighty slumber or seem deaf To wails ascending from His poor below? Nay, Heaven remembers every bitter tear, Yet mundane ills must seek on earth relief; Lo, the Divine hath found a human volunteer. By sad Lucern arose the children’s cry, The shelterless, the poor, the innocent; The man of Zurich spake: “They must not die: War cast them out, but I by Peace am sent To father them and mother them and feed Their bodies and their spirits; need have I None other than to share their utmost dolorous need. “Oh, better never to be born at all Than live forlorn, the victim of neglect! To fall from brotherhood is lowest fall. Lift up the low! bid man’s soul stand erect! On Education found the Church and State. I send through Europe my imploring call: Millennial blessings round the Kindergarten wait! “Unfold what is within! Develop! Make Full, fragrant efflorescence of the soul! Let bloom the brain and call the heart awake! Nothing repress; expand the being, whole, Complete and perfect under nature’s awe, Our dear Schoolmistress.” Thus prophetic spake A voice of faith, forecharged with evolution’s law. Thus the reformer’s zealous wisdom taught: Thus, sometime, plead with Bonaparte austere, Who, scorning prophecy in soaring thought Of self, flung answer with a royal sneer: “We can’t be troubled with the A-B-C!” Vain Emperor! the sword with which he fought Made slaves which battling alphabets set free. The culture-captain had his marshals, too, Ritter and Froebel and a legion more; They proselyted nations, old and new, They set their banners fair on every shore; A million teachers follow in the way The martyr opened to the good and true; Our children bask in beam of Pestalozzi’s day. He deemed his lavish life of no avail, Dim was his prospect of the Promised Land; But even then when faith and hope did fail, The seed, wide scattered from his weary hand, Was springing, waving, bursting into flower; For grain of truth is waft on every gale And sinks in every soil its root of deathless power. He fell in conflict, but the field was won; First Democrat of Culture! Thinker brave! Hail, Switzerland, proud mother of such son, Heap laurel garlands on his honored grave! In flowers hide its consecrated sod! Time writes his shining epitaph: “Well done!” And Science vindicates his confidence in God. |
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