"The babe, by its mother,
Lies bathed in joy;
Glide its hours uncounted;
The sun is its toy!
Shines the peace of all being,
Without cloud, in its eyes;
And the sum of the world
In soft miniature lies!"
Only by intentional help of those around the child can it grow into individual consciousness of its relations with nature in that order which produces the sound intellect. For the intellect is a growth in time, that carries on the nursery exercises of the limbs and affections by the movement plays, and adds those sedentary plays with the series of gifts, which are symbols of all nature in miniature, that objective revelation of God to which the receptive mind answers by thoughts. Thinking is that reaction of the individual mind upon nature which, when it is put into words, produces progressively an image of God, which is the human mind.
The kindergartner's conversation with the children upon their playthings is therefore her most important and delicate work, and one which she cannot do instinctively, but only if she scientifically understands the child on the one hand, and nature in some department on the other. It is impossible in this lecture, perhaps, to demonstrate my meaning. By following out Frœbel's own method of playing with the gifts, as suggested in Mrs. Kraus-Boelte's guide or in The Florence Handbook, the whole process of the formation of the human understanding by the order of objective nature will become patent, and enable the kindergartner to avoid any great mistakes in her guidance of the children's minds, which guidance should always be tentative, and respectful, to say the least, of their freedom to will. Then we shall have not mechanical work, but orderly, creative work from the children, whose spontaneity is not to be choked; but when it seems to be going in a wrong direction, interrogatively guided. Like Ariel, she must do her spiriting gently, lest she violate the legitimate individuality, and we have Caliban instead of the germ of Prospero.
I here pause to display two kinds of work actually done by children under seven years of age at Frau Marquadt's kindergarten in Dresden. They enable me to show that those sedentary plays, with which Frœbel would have children amused, must needs develop and educate the perceptive faculty and understanding in a substantial manner; for these things were done without patterns, and therefore from thought,—the thought being sometimes suggested by the dictation of the child-gardener, requiring of the child only one single act of reflection. But much of this work was invented by the children themselves, their wildest fancies being controlled to produce symmetry, by following the one rhythmical law of always making an opposite to everything they do. After showing and explaining the modus operandi of the work exhibited, I went on to say:—
I believe nobody disputes, after they see what kindergarten is, that it is the gospel of salvation for children. The exercises put them into complete possession, not only of their limbs, especially the characteristic limb of man, the hand, just when they are the most flexible, and therefore most easily trained; and of their organs of sense (by which they gradually make the universe their instrumentality), but also of accurate speech, enabling them to express their impressions of individual things, as well as of what they do with things and in the order of its doing. Thus they are prepared for entering upon more abstract subjects, by means of books and schools of instruction. A child well "gardened" and exercised in the intelligent use of his mother tongue enters upon the process of learning to read, for instance, with all the more advantage from being accustomed to hear and use language with precision and fluency; and is ready to learn to cipher all the more quickly, because of the concrete arithmetic and geometry he has mastered experimentally with the playthings and in the occupations, all his habits of delicate observation and nice calculation formed by the embroidery and other fanciful work giving the basis for intelligent classifications. Even the few years of experience of some genuine kindergartens in this country has already proved this. I can give an instance in detail of the almost miraculous rapidity with which a class of seven-year-old children learned to read in the primer called After Kindergarten—What? ([Note C], in Appendix.) All the time given to "child-gardening" is therefore more than saved at the next stage, when instruction begins. Other advantages accruing are incalculable, for the children themselves have become intelligent and conscientious co-operators with their elders, instead of passive receivers or antagonists. When Miss Youmans' First Lessons in Botany (a book made to teach botany in nature on Prof. Henslow's method) was introduced into the New York primary schools, with great expectations of a brilliant success, it was found that the children did not take hold as expected of this science of observation. "I see now," said Miss Youmans to me, "the indispensableness of kindergartens to develop the faculties; more than half the children are intellectually demoralized by neglect or injudicious teaching before they are seven years old." Everything, however, depends upon the single-minded self-devotion and affectionate character of the kindergartner, and it is obvious that her education must be as special as that of a teacher of instrumental and vocal music; for as little as music can be taught by the ear, or drawing by the eye, without studying the underlying principles of harmony and symmetry, can kindergartning be taught empirically. Its foundation is in both a scientific and sympathetic study and understanding of the child's perceptive powers and the material world. Not merely what is to be taught, as is the case with a university professor, but the free-willing and deep-feeling beings that are to be taught must be studied generally and individually above all things else. Hence, there must be special schools for teaching child-gardening, or a special department made in the already existing normal schools.
The burden of thinking out the steps of procedure in the schoolroom is too great a one to be laid on the teacher who has to exercise the general care. It must all be at the tongue's tip and fingers' ends beforehand. It took Frœbel a lifetime, with all his genius and wisdom, to discover all the steps of this order of exercises, in correspondence with the true evolution of the faculties; but "one man dies, and other men enter into the fruits of his labors." Besides, it is as cruel to study the philosophy of education at the expense of the living children's minds, as it would be to study anatomy and medicine at the expense of their living bodies. All kindergartners should observe and practise for awhile under the direction and criticism of those who are already experts and adepts; and the latter should be careful that their assistants try no rash experiments, but at first reverently observe successful work. It is the highest interest of all teachers to learn this method, because it develops themselves. It not only makes the best mothers, but the most perfectly accomplished women. It is entering into the secret of creation and redemption, which is the flower and fruit of human culture.[8]
When people ask me if kindergartning is not a method especially adapted to German children, I reply that it seems to me to encounter as great obstacles in that nationality as in any other. It is not a national method, but the human method; and I would remark in this place that it strikes me as especially desirable for Irish children. The natural predominance in them of fancy needs the check of accurate perception, associated with accurate expression; accurate perception, first, of the individuality of objects, their form, size, color, direction, their mutual resemblances and contrasts, and the no less accurate perception of their relations to each other and to the child. These things can only be made objects of perception by children's being accustomed to make things, which employ the activities that otherwise will play at random and divert their attention from the matter in hand. In my observations of Irish servants, I am struck with their never seeming to see what is before their eyes, or to hear what is said to them, on account of the predominance of their creative faculties. Accurate perception of the things children play with, and successful manipulation of them to produce effects, would also help them to moral integrity; for order moralizes just in proportion as disorder demoralizes. Successful action cures idle dissipation, while unsuccessful efforts discourage and paralyze industry. Frœbel wishes the child to be started at something he can certainly accomplish, though perhaps not without direction in words. When the child sees an effect produced by himself, he will repeat it until he can produce the effect without direction, and, if asked, will be delighted to show another child how he has done it. It is a necessary step to put his action into words, and raises it from mere mechanical into intellectual work; from Chinese imitation into European and American invention. By and by, when he has learned a little steadiness of attention by doing successfully what pleases his fancy, he will make some motion of his own, and proceed according to the law of symmetry (whose virtue he has learned) to discover and make new forms of beauty and use; but he should still be carefully overlooked, and saved, by timely suggestions, from making mistakes. These suggestions he will crave and not resist, if they are not peremptory, but are put in the form of a question, which seems to respect his power to choose, which is his personality, the image of God within him. In proceeding in this way, both teacher and child are led more and more to realize that there is a mysterious third Being present, who is neither the teacher nor the child, but in whom they meet, through whom they communicate, and who gives the law they both must respect; that there is, in short, One "in whom they live and move and have their being"; that is the God who "worketh in them to will and to do"; that He enables them to create beauty, not at random, but with a certain freedom which is not lawlessness. He is the Creator of the Beauty they do not make, and of the Good they love, and gives the Laws which they obey, and in obeying become powers of good and inventors of beauty; for the laws of order are truly God's thought revealed to their thought. To be active powers of good and beauty is to be religious, and also to be free from superstition; to love God instead of being afraid of Him; to make their lives a reasonable service, and thus become free from priestcraft and spiritual tyranny. Inefficiency, still more than ignorance, is the mother of fetich worship, and reduces man to slavery; and to be surrounded by natural and artistic beauty does not cultivate the mind, unless it is already an active power. Reverie is not thinking. But the mind can only become active by the electric touch of a sympathetic mind which is already in motion. It is the destiny of men to become one in that same sense that the Divine Father and Son are one. God has made human communion a moral necessity, and does nothing for man, except by the instrumentality of man. "By man came death, by man also cometh the resurrection from the dead." In short, education, that "mysterious communion of wisdom and innocence," is presupposed in reasonable religion. I once heard an eloquent man, who was speaking of education, say, "The Archangel is born upon earth; we may know him by the many difficulties that he has found and surmounted, and his consequent power to educate; for education is the highest function of humanity in earth and heaven, cementing the links of the chain of love which binds us all to one another and to God." We are always either educating or hindering the development of our fellow-creatures; we are always being uplifted or being dragged down by our fellow-creatures. Education is always mutual. The child teaches his parents (as Gœthe has said) what his parents omitted to teach him. Every child is a new thought of God, whose individuality is significant and interesting to others, though it is his own limitation; and to appreciate a child's individuality is the advantage the teacher gets in exchange for the general laws which he leads the child to appreciate. It is this variety of individuals that makes the work of education fascinating, and takes from it all wearisome monotony. Those persons who feel that education is wearisome work have not learned the secret of it. I have never seen a good kindergartner who was not as fond of the work as a painter of his painting, a sculptor of his modelling. Teachers who are not conscious of learning from their pupils, may be pretty sure they teach them very little.
It is because kindergartning is this true education, which is mutual delight to the adult and the child, that I have faith it will prevail, and its prevalence is my hope for humanity. By the infinite mercy of God, no human being is hopeless of redemption into God's perfect image at last; but humanity will not be redeemed as a whole,—will not become the image of God, or live the life of God,—until little children are suffered to go unto Christ while they are yet of the kingdom of heaven, and are blessed from the first and continually, by those who shall take them in their arms to bless them. Those are only perfect kindergartners who are "hidden in Christ," receiving every child in his name, and humbly learning of them the secrets of greatness in the kingdom of heaven, which is to be established on earth. Kindergartning is not a craft, it is a religion; not an avocation, but a vocation from on High.