viding them with more skilful overseers, and more honest and obedient servants; and in giving to the State more dutiful and useful subjects.

To attain these ends, no means were more likely to be successful in the view of Fellenberg, than to establish an institution for both classes, in which they should be so separated as to prevent all confusion, and yet so connected that each might observe the other, and that occasion might be given to establish on a christian basis, the character of each, as well as those relations which must afterwards exist in society. "To this object" he observed ten years since, "I have devoted my life and all that I possess, for twenty years;-to this I still devote them, and am resolved to devote them to my last breath."

He believed that agriculture, which in the order of Providence was the primitive, and must ever be the principal occupation of mankind in the social state, is best adapted to develope physical and intellectual powers in their proper harmony. He was persuaded that an agricultural establishment and the employments necessarily connected with it, should form the basis of the contemplated institution. With these views he purchased Hofwyl, at the close of the last centuryat that time a private country seat, but now forming a little village, containing three hundred inhabitants, exclusively on his property and under his control. It comprises a farm, including recent additions in the neighborhood, of about 600 acres; workshops for the fabrication and improvement of agricultural implements, and of clothing for the inhabitants; a lithographic establishment in which music and other things useful to the institution are printed; a Literary Institution for the education of the higher classes; a Practical Institution for those who are destined to trade, or whose circumstances do not permit a more complete education; and an Agricultural Institution for the education of the laboring classes.

Hofwyl is about six miles from Berne, the capital of the Canton of the same name, and the chief town of German Switzerland; and about a mile from the great road which traverses Switzerland from S. W. to N. E. The approach from Berne is through a wood, which presents no traces of cultivation. In issuing from it, you come almost immediately in view of the large buildings and luxuriant fields of the establishment. It is situated on a gentle elevation in the midst of an ampitheatre of hills. On the north, the view is bounded by the Jura Mountains, and on the south by the Bernese Alps, whose tops are covered with perpetual snow. It is surrounded by a valley about eighty feet in depth, which separates it entirely from

the neighboring farms and villages. In this valley are two small lakes, and the surrounding scenery is still farther diversified by the villages and hamlets on the opposite hills. The isolation of Hofwyl, in the midst of villages and at no great distance from a large town, and the combination in its neighborhood, of some of the grandest with some of the most beautiful objects of Swiss scenery, were circumstances of no small weight in the view of Fellenberg, in reference to his great object.

On entering Hofwyl from Berne, the traveller finds himself in an extensive court or play ground, surrounded on three sides by the buildings devoted to the Literary Institution, and sheltered on the west by a little wood composed of a variety of trees, which serve at once as a place for botanical observations, and as a retreat during the heat of summer. In pleasant weather the lessons are not unfrequently given here, in arbors furnished with seats for this purpose.

The principal building on the east of this court is inhabited by eighty pupils, under the constant superintendance of Fellenberg, and four of his children. The basement story is occupied by the kitchen and store-rooms. The first floor is divided into four sections by halls, which traverse the building in its length and breadth. One of these sections is occupied by the superintendants, another by the dining hall and music room, a third and fourth by the chapel and three large and lofty rooms for study. The second floor is devoted to the class rooms, the library, and the collection of casts. The third and attic stories contain the dormitories for the pupils, and chambers for the superintendants. The size, airiness and neatness of every part of the building are very striking; and a well arranged system of stoves on the Russian plan, maintains a mild and uniform temperature during the winter, which is not to be found in climates far less severe, where the methods of employing fuel are less perfect. In this institution Fellenberg proposes to give a complete education preparatory to professional studies. Between twenty and thirty instructors are employed in this establishment, most of whom reside in another building, and have no connection with the pupils except during the hours of instruction. Two small buildings which shelter the court on the north and south, contain a large warm bath for winter, the store-room for the gardening tools of the pupils, a cabinet-maker's shop, in which those who have the disposition are taught this art, the book bindery of the institution, and several rooms which are devoted to exercises in instrumental music, fencing and dancing,

which would interfere with the tranquillity necessary in the principal building.

Beyond the Literary Institution is a second court, furnished like the first with frames and poles for gymnastic exercises.

On the east side of this court are garden spots, assigned to the pupils as a means of amusement and exercise; and at a little distance on the side of the hill, a circular cold bath of hewn stone ninety feet in diameter and ten feet deep, in which they are taught to swim-with a neat bathing house in the Gothic style.

On the west side of this court is the Chateau or family mansion, in which Mrs. Fellenberg resides with her younger children. It also contains the bureau of the establishment, in which strangers are received, and the business of the institution transacted by a person devoted to this object. It likewise serves as a depot of the little articles which the pupils have need to purchase at a distance from a large town. In the garden of the chateau is the school for peasant girls, under the immediate direction of Mrs. Fellenberg and one of her daugh

ters.

In the rear of the chateau are two buildings occupied by twenty or thirty pupils of the Practical Institution. These are lodged and fed in a more simple manner than the pupils in the Literary Institution; and are permitted to avail themselves of its lessons and to partake of the labors of the farm or the bureau, according to their necessities and destination.

In the rear of these buildings is a second cold bath of hewn stone, only two feet in depth, designed for the use of the younger pupils. Adjoining this is a building 150 feet long, the lower part of which forms a large sheltered arena for riding and gymnastic exercises in unpleasant weather. The upper stories are occupied by the class rooms, and dormitories of the Agricultural Institution; in which children of the laboring classes are taught the practical part of agriculture, and receive three or four hours of instruction daily in reading, writing, arithmetic, and other useful branches. One of the chambers in this building contains a small collection of minerals, and of wild and cultivated plants from the neighborhood, together with two models in clay, made by the pupils themselves, representing in relief the surface of Switzerland.

A number of the pupils of this school are prepared by theoretical instruction and practical essays in the inferior classes, under the direction of the superintendant, to become teachers. No regular course of agricultural instruction is given; but several of those who frequent the institution as boarders, in order to make themselves acquainted with the system of agri

culture adopted at Hofwyl, attend a course of lectures, which are given by Fellenberg himself to the older pupils of all the institutions.

On the north of the buildings which we have described, is an extensive irregular range, containing the farm house in which the pupils of the agricultural school take their mels, the various workshops, the laundry, dairy, barns, and stables. The stables contain fifty cows, and a number of oxen, which excite the admiration of strangers by their size, and the neatness with which they are kept.

At a little distance from the principal group of buildings, 'on the eastern descent of the hill, is the house occupied by the professors, in which the parents of the pupils are also lodged during their visits to their children. It contains a reading room in which some of the principal political and literary journals are received for the use of the professors. In this building is the chemical laboratory, and a collection of the most necessary philosophical instruments.

An interesting branch of the Institution of Hofwyl, is the colony of Meykirk at the distance of five or six miles. It consists of eight or ten poor boys, who were placed under the direction of a teacher on a spot of uncultivated ground, from which they were expected to obtain the means of subsistence. It is designed as an experiment on the practicability of providing for the support and education of friendless children, without any farther expense than that of the soil which they cultivate. It resembles in effect, an establishment in one of our new settlements, except that several hours are devoted daily to intellectual and religious instruction, and thus the children advance in cultivation and knowledge as well as in hardihood and industry.

You will perhaps think these local detals too minute, yet I believe you will perceive in them the key to many of the principles adopted by Fellenberg, and will be better prepared to understand the mode in which they are applied. In a visit of a few hours, such as is usually paid by the stranger, he can learn little more concerning Hofwyl. Should he pass the day he will be struck with the unceasing activity, combined with the greatest regularity, which reigns in every part of the establishment; and with the good order and harmony prevalent among the pupils, in the midst of the greatest freedom and gaiety. He cannot but admire the benevolence and perseverance which have led a single man, on the basis of his own private fortune, and in the face of the prejudices of those of his own rank, to create a set of institutions which furnish ample means for the thorough education of the higher classes,

and at the same time provide for the gratuitous support and education of one hundred and thirty children. It is only after a long continued residence, that he will be able to appreciate that unwearied devotedness of a large family, by which all this is accomplished,-a devotedness which not only excludes them from the pleasures and amusements usually enjoyed by rank and fortune,-but also obliges them to live for others, and to sacrifice in a great measure those social and domestic enjoyments, which are of far greater value.

I am, etc.

ART. V.-REVIEW OF DWIGHT'S TRAVELS IN THE NORTH OF GERMANY.

Travels in the North of Germany in the years 1825 and 1826. By HENRY E. DWIGHT, A. M. New-York, G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1829. pp. 453.

8vo.

THE accounts of foreign nations published by our own coun- . trymen, we always take up with peculiar interest. Not that in diligence and exactness of observation and description, or in freedom from prepossessions and prejudices, our native travellers so far surpass the tourists of the old world, as in these respects, to have an undisputed preeminence; but as we know more of their habits of thinking and judging, and are familiar with their standards of comparison, it is much easier to make the necessary allowances for any undue bias, under which they may labor.

The travels of Mr. Dwight, besides the attraction of coming from one of our own countrymen, possess a strong additional claim upon our attention from the circumstance, that they introduce us to a country, which, at the present time, is more perhaps than any other in Europe, fertile in topics of political, literary and religious speculation. Mr. Dwight likewise, before his residence abroad, had passed through the usual collegiate course of education, and had partially completed his professional studies at one of our theological institutions. Before visiting Germany, he had spent two years in France and Italy, and in the latter country especially, had become intimately acquainted with its language and literature. With some knowledge of the German language derived from books, he soon found himself, on entering the countries north of the Rhine, to be entirely at home in his intercourse with the inhabitants; and so easily did he become Germanized, that, if we are correctly informed, he was sometimes not readily dis