Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology

by E. R. Murray

“If his earlier activity was only imitation of what he saw around him, now it is sharing in the business of the house, lifting, pulling, carrying, digging, and wood-splitting. In everything the boy will exercise, measure and compare his strength that his body may grow stronger, that his power may increase, and that he may know its measure.… At this age the healthy boy, brought up simply and naturally, never avoids a difficulty, never goes round a hindrance: no, he seeks it out and overcomes it. ‘Let it lie,’ calls the vigorous youngster to the father, who offers to remove an obstacle; ‘Let it lie: I can get over it.’ … As activity gave pleasure to the child, so work gives pleasure to the boy. Hence the daring feats of boyhood.… Easy is the most difficult, without peril the most adventurous, for the impulse comes from the innermost nature, from his heart and will.”—E., p. 101.

“But it is not only the impulse to use and to measure his power that urges the boy to roam and to climb—it is the need to widen his mental horizon.… The same desire holds him to the plain … he occupies himself with water and with plastic materials. For he seeks now because of the feeling of power over material already gained to master these. Everything must serve his impulse towards construction.… And so each forms for himself his own world, for the feeling of his own power demands his own space and his own material.…”—E., pp. 102-107.

“But all the plays and occupations of boys do not by any means aim at representing objects and things. On the contrary, in many pure exercise of strength and measuring of strength predominate, and many have no further aim than the display of strength. Yet the play of this age has always its peculiar characteristic, namely, as during the period of childhood, the aim of play consisted simply in activity as such, so now its aim is always a definite conscious purpose, which characteristic develops more and more as the boys increase in age. This is observable even with all games of bodily movement, of running, boxing, wrestling, with ball-games, goal, hunting, and war games, etc.”

“It is the sense of sure and reliable power, the sense of its increase both as an individual and as a member of the group that fills the boy with all-pervading jubilant joy during these games.”—E., p. 113.

It is evidently difficult even for practised thinkers to grasp the importance of what we so glibly call play in the case of the young child. Mr. Kirkpatrick, for instance, fully recognizes its importance in regard to children somewhat older, and he makes a suggestive distinction between play and amusement, calling play active, while amusement is passive. Others, he says, work for our amusement. But when he speaks of the infant, he slips into the mistake of saying that the infant, even though active, “amuses” itself. To the ordinary observer the whole life of a young child is play, but it would be as correct to say that it is all work.

Professor Stout, true to what he calls the tendency of the moderns to see in the little child what is writ large in the adult, allows “purely intellectual curiosity” on the part of the infant. We have no right to call an infant passive and therefore amused even when the mother shakes the rattle for his edification. He may be striving hard to accommodate his organs of sight, he may be recalling previous sounds similar and dissimilar, he may be watching and comparing different movements and different positions. He has so much to learn “with the world so new and all,” and, to judge from his seriousness, it is at times a most momentous inquiry. The baby to whom the activity of throwing is new, and who spends full twenty minutes in throwing a tram ticket on the floor of the car—which the patient mother restores each time—throwing, too, with such force and evident purpose, cannot properly be said to be playing. Nor can the infant who stares with such concentration at the lighted lamp and who, when the mother moves out of the direct range of the light, strives with all its feeble strength to readjust its position to that entrancing brightness.

Of the very young child, Froebel writes:

“The first voluntary employments of the child are observation of its surroundings, spontaneous taking in of the outer world, and play, which is independent outward expression … it is evident therefore how important is the training … and also the kind of voluntary playful occupation of the child.… For as the life of man is continuous one can recognize even in the first baby life, though only in the slightest traces and most delicate germs, all the mental activities which in later life become predominant.”—P., p. 29.

When Groos reaches the pedagogical standpoint, he says:

“We have repeatedly found in the course of this inquiry that even the most serious work may include a certain playfulness, especially when enjoyment of being a cause and of conquest are prominent. Between flippant trifling, and conscientious study there is a wide chasm which nothing can bridge, but not all play is such trifling. Who would forbid the teacher’s making the effort to induce in his pupils a psychological condition like that of the adult worker, who is not oppressed by the shall and must in the pursuit of his calling, because the very exertion of his physical and mental powers in work, involving all his capabilities, fills his soul with joy? Since play thus approaches work, when pleasure in the activity as such, as well as its practical aim, becomes a motive power (as in the gymnastic games of adults), so may work become like play, when its real aim is superseded by enjoyment of the activity itself. And it can hardly be doubted that this is the highest and noblest form of work.”[37]