Abstract
From Pestalozzi's own statement that he was very much interested in law and education, we can judge that in order to understand his pedagogy more deeply, it is necessary to study its basis, i.e. its political and social context. It was the French Revolution which made him study politics and society.
Pestalozzi, realizing that the revolution broke out because the people were deprived of liberty and rights recognized the great meaning of the revolution, but he did not approve of the ensuing power struggle.
Because of the Revolution Pestalozzi abandoned his prerevolutionary patriarchical ideas and supported hence democratic political ideas. Furthermore, the Revolution deepened his understanding of human nature, and as a consequence he worked on a more fundamental theory of education. According to Pestalozzi, man combines a natural and a social level within his nature and his existence is characterized by the contradiction of selfish desires and moral goodwill. The system of his educational theory implies that man must be raised from his natural and social status to the level of morality. Hence Pestalozzi thought that in order to remedy the disorder in state and society and to make the people happy, it was necessary to educate morally each single member of human society and at the same time to educate the people by enlightening them politically. Hence his education is based on the ideal of popular education and closely related to politics, to the state and society. His ideas of popular education were clarified through the French Revolution and issued in a theory of elementary formation.
