CHAPTER IX
Weak Points Considered
An honest attempt to show what credit is due to Froebel, for the remarkable anticipations of modern theories on which he based his pedagogy, seems to involve the opposite process of inquiring whether or not any of his practices can be shown to have an unsound basis.
The modern boys’ school, with a few, and a very few exceptions, does not even approach the school at Keilhau as a place of real education, as any one may see who reads the account given of it by Georg Ebers. On the other hand, the modern Kindergarten is probably in many ways an advance upon the original attempts. Many practices of which Froebel approved are now discarded, some no doubt because of progress in physiological discovery; we know now that a child is not fitted as regards nervous development and muscular control to deal with fine pricking or drawing in chequers.
But a better knowledge of physiology does not account for all the changes that have taken place. Important as they undoubtedly were in Froebel’s eyes, the modern Kindergartener is inclined to smile over her predecessors’ “worship of the ‘Gifts’”; and, though we are agreed as to the importance of games, the modern teacher chooses from a wide, perhaps too wide a range, and no longer reposes blind faith in certain circle-games with their supposed “symbolic” virtue.
To some, the word symbolic will at once suggest Froebel’s weakest point, others will resent any such idea, for symbolism appeals strongly to one and repels another. For Froebel himself, undoubtedly the whole world was symbolic, in so far as he regarded the universe as one expression of the Divine. To him, as to Browning:
“The earth has speech of God’s writ down, no matter if
In cursive script or hieroglyph.”
But this has not affected his educational practice to the extent generally supposed.