The Fellenberg School at Hofwyl, sited on a 200-acre property close to Berne, was established to educate students from poor families and the sons of the nobility, with different curricula for each. It included a model farm and classes in scientific agriculture and some classes in the arts and history. Poor students worked on the farm as part of their learning experience, as well as to help sustain themselves and the school. By the time Hitchcocks visited, it had been closed for a few years, although a few students remained. In Edward Hitchcock's opinion, the school had expanded too much, and its fatal mistake was to try to put peasantry and aristocracy together.
A school on the Fellenberg model was established in Greenfield, Massachusetts, but it lasted only a few years before closing down in 1836.