Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology

by E. R. Murray

The result of this suggested separation has in past times been disastrous. Failing to recognize that a young child is of necessity exercising his intellectual power in constructing his castle or bridge of blocks, and failing still more to realize that ornament is far from synonymous with beauty, teachers have wearied and stupefied children with mathematical forms for which they were not ready, and have forced upon them symmetrical designs when their souls hungered for “puffer trains.”[46]

It is easy to show that what Froebel wanted was only due attention to what we now call the affective and conative as well as to the intellectual. From the very first he insists on this, and justly, though his way of doing it may seem to us quaint. About the child’s imitation of the clock he writes:

“As soon as the child’s first capacity for speech is somewhat developed, we notice how he tries, in and by the movement, to listen to the tone and to imitate it with the tone of his own voice. Tic tac, we hear him say, imitating the movement of the pendulum; pim paum (ding dong?) he says when the sound is more noticed.… So we must observe that even when he first begins to speak the child expresses and retains the physical part of the movement by tic tac, but by pim paum he perceives the movement more, if one may say so, from the feeling in the mind, and if I may be allowed so to express myself, by the ‘here and there’ which comes later, the child catches hold (festhalten) of the movement more as a thing of comparison, of recognition, and in his dawning thought, more intellectually.… It is most important that the mother should observe the first and slightest traces of the articulation (Gliederung) of the child as an active, emotional and intellectual being, and watch it in his development from existence to experience and thought, so that in his development no side of his nature should be cultivated at the cost of the others, nor should any be repressed or neglected for the sake of the others. It seems important, and we believe that all who quietly observe the child have remarked, or will yet remark, that from the first the child expresses the swinging movement in a singing tone, in a tone which approaches song and so serves the emotional nature. Thus early is it shown that the real foundation, the starting-point for the education of humanity and so of the child, is the heart and the emotions (das Gemüth u. die Gemüthliche), but that training to action and thought (zur That u. zum Denken), the physical and the intellectual goes with it side by side constantly and inseparably. Thought forms itself in action, and action clears itself in thought, but both must have their roots in the emotions.”—P., p. 41.

Two further reasons may be given for Froebel’s belief in his selected series of toys: (a) his delight in the theory of development, and (b) his eagerness to bring the child as soon as possible to that consciousness of self which differentiates man from the lower animals.

Every sign of unity of plan within the universe gave Froebel real joy, and he traces development from the simple to the complex, from the undifferentiated to the differentiated, not only in plant and animal life, but also in the inorganic. Much of what he says on crystals may be fanciful, but much is beautiful and suggestive. “Chemical combination” is to him “the life of the inorganic world,” and he writes:

“We have in this a new confirmation of the law of development in crystals, the passing from special-sidedness to all-sidedness, from imperfection to perfection as the law of all development in nature. Man, then, appears as the most perfect earthly being, in whom all that is corporeal appears in highest equilibrium and in whom the primordial force is fully spiritualized, so that man feels, understands, and knows his own power. But while man externally and corporeally has attained equilibrium and symmetry of form, there heave and surge in him, viewed as a spiritual being, appetites, desires and passions.

“As in the world of crystals we noticed the heaving and surging of simple energy, and in the vegetable and animal worlds, the heaving and surging of living forces, so here the heaving and surging of spiritual forces. Therefore man with reference to spiritual development has returned to a first stage as crystals are in a first stage with reference to the development of life.… For this reason the boy should at an early period be taught to see Nature in all her diversity as a unit, as a great living whole, as a thought of God. The integrity of Nature, as a continually self-developing whole must be shown him at an early period.”—E., p. 198.

Although this particular passage was written in connection with Nature Study for older boys, yet it is from thoughts such as these that Froebel seems to have taken an idea that man-in-infancy ought to meet, if it may be so expressed, matter-in-infancy. Though everything in the surroundings was to help to bring about self-consciousness, “the air blowing about all living creatures, as well as the arousing spiritual language of words,” yet that definite thing-in-itself, which is to help the child to an early dim consciousness of self is to be “the counterpart of himself,” a simple undifferentiated whole “susceptible of a progressive development.”

And now we must come to the question of Froebel’s “Symbolism,” a thorny subject, because one into which the personal equation enters largely. Some writers, notably Miss Susan Blow, author of “Symbolic Education,” regard this symbolism as all-important, Froebel’s glory rather than his weakness. Others consider that it appeals to adults alone and that where it is supposed to affect children it tends towards artificiality and sentimentality. In so far as this is true, it must be regarded as a weak point.

It is, however, not an easy task to settle what ideas are covered by the term “Froebel’s symbolism.” The dictionary meaning for symbol is “a visible sign or representation of an idea; anything which suggests an idea, as by resemblance or convention; an emblem; a representation; a type; a figure; as the lion is the symbol of courage and the lamb of meekness or patience.”