A few lines further we read how the gardener may even destroy the vine “if he fail in his work passively and attentively to follow the nature of the plant.” He cannot surely “work” and be inactively passive at the same time.
A more correct translation of “leidend” here would perhaps be “tolerant” or “suffering” in its old sense of “permitting,” “bearing with,” or having patience with.
As to immediate context, Froebel has just stated that education ought “to lift man to a knowledge of himself and mankind, to a knowledge of God and Nature, and to the pure and consecrated life conditioned thereby.” “But,” he goes on, “education must be founded on what is essential or innermost, and though the real nature of things can only be known by outer manifestations, yet it behoves the educator to be very careful how he judges, for the child that appears good outwardly, is often not really good, i.e. does not will the good from his own determination, or from love, respect for or recognition of it,” while “the outwardly rough self-willed child often has within him a vigorous struggle to do what seems to him right.” Judging from outer manifestations furnishes constant occasion for false judgments concerning the motives of children, for endless misunderstanding between parent and child, and for unreasonable demands made upon children.
And here comes the force of the conjunction: “Therefore,” says Froebel, “education, instruction and training in their fundamental principles must necessarily be tolerant, following, not dictating, not limiting or defining, not interfering.”
What is it, then, that Froebel is telling us to follow almost passively, interfering, in our ignorance, as little as possible? Simply the natural order of development, the natural instincts of childhood, which in this very passage he is arguing are as trustworthy as those of other young animals. Here, as everywhere, man can only control Nature by following, by obeying her laws.
“As the duckling hastens to the pond and the chicken scratches the ground, so will the human being, still young, still, as it were, in the process of creation, though as unconsciously as any Nature product, yet definitely and surely desire what is best for him. We give plants and animals time and space and freedom to develop, but the young human being is to man a piece of wax, a lump of clay, from which he can mould what he will. O man, who roamest through garden and field, through meadow and grove, why dost thou close thy mind to the silent teaching of Nature?”—E., p. 8.
Surely we have here a plea to “suffer (leiden) little children,” to bear with the little one, still, as Froebel describes him, “still, as it were, in the process of creation,” nay, more, a plea for the actual recognition and fostering of these instinctive tendencies which Professor Dewey calls “the foundation-stones of educational method,” rather than a recommendation to “gratify every youthful impulse,” or to stand aside altogether. For the context, the whole, is not yet complete.
Froebel goes on to say that if we are certain of any tendency to unhealthy development we are to interfere with full severity (so tritt geradezubestimmende, fordernde Erziehungsweise in ihrer ganzen Strenge ein).
And now comes a sentence apparently quite overlooked by Mr. Graham Wallas, who blames Froebel for underestimating the environment. In the mean-time, until we are sure that our interference is justifiable, “nothing is left for us to do but to bring the child into relations and surroundings in all respects adapted to him.”[52]—E., p. 11.