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Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (January 12, 1746 – February 17, 1827) was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer. He was born on January 12, 1746 in Zürich, Switzerland. During the French invasion of Switzerland in 1798, a number of orphaned children had been left without food or shelter in the Canton Unterwalden. Pestalozzi took some of them under his charge, and he converted a deserted convent into a school for them. In 1801 Pestalozzi gave an exposition of his ideas on education in the book How Gertrude Teaches Her Children. His method is to proceed from the easier to the more difficult. To begin with observation, to pass from observation to consciousness, and then from consciousness to speech.