Vocational and Liberal Education in Pestalozzi’s Educational Theory

Abstract

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s most popular catchphrase “head, heart, and hand” implies the concept of a holistic combination of all human capabilities as a well-balanced development of intellectual, religious-emotional and physical forces enabled by education. This paper aims to examine Pestalozzi’s notion of vocational and liberal education as a means to secure a sustained and decent life of a fully developed person. This meaning needs to be contextualized, in order to understand Pestalozzi’s concern about his educational theory being reduced to mere education of the poor. Pestalozzi’s attempts to combine vocational education with a psychological understanding of the human development can also be read as a strategy to bridge the gap which stands for the dominant divide within German (educational) tradition: a notion of utilitarian education versus the aesthetic concept of inward Bildung.