Education in the Home, the Kindergarten, and the Primary School

by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

For such genuine conversation the necessary prerequisite on the part of the teacher is a real faith in children's being the breath of God in their Essence.

Then she will not have any will-work of her own, but listen to hear what the child is attending to, be it nothing but a bit of string, which, of course, must have a certain length that can be measured, and with which other things may be measured, and which is made of material that has passed perhaps through the hands of many manufacturers, and which in its elements at least was a growth of nature, all whose works bear witness to the being of God; for God's throne may be reached from the ground of childish play as certainly and readily as from many a pulpit and cathedral, if not more so.

A child whose affection for his companions and for the personages of a story told by the kindergartner, and who sees the connection of some little playful or other experience that he tells as his story for the morning, is engaged in a service of God, more vitally bearing on his growth in grace than any mere repetition of prayers. A play bringing out little kindnesses, sweet courtesies, gentle self-adjustments to his companions, the asking and giving of forgiveness for little discourtesies or grave wrong-doings, brings the child nearer God than any spoken words of worship can, the joy attending such innocent sweetness being the proof of the vital union of his soul with a very present God.

So the work of the good Samaritan, though he was doubtless thinking only of the individual he was comforting, and not at all of God, was recognized by Christ as a real act of worship; for it was the fulfilment of the second commandment like unto the first.

The time will come, I confidently believe, when all religionists of whatever denomination will recognize that the favorite doctrines and formalities which distinguish them from each other are a mere superficial crust of that true spiritual life which is to be lived when the grown-up shall all become as little children, who feel that,

"In their work and in their play,
God is with them all the day."

In speaking of the ceremonies of the Temple worship, which Moses made symbolical of all the virtues of life, moral and religious, but which in Paul's day had fallen into such a mere ritual that this great Apostle said that the Holy Ghost was not bodily exercise, but a hopeful, faithful charity of thought, feeling, and deed; and this is what children can be guided into from the beginning, provided the kindergartner knows how to converse and play with them instead of talking to them and coercing them ever so kindly into acting out her will. The play of childhood is the most genuine and intense life that is lived, body, heart, and will conspiring entirely; and it is by respecting the child's will and heart that you really help instead of hindering this unification of his threefold nature, which corresponds to the Trinity of the Supreme Being and prevents that from becoming a bewildering tritheism in his conception.

A child cannot be just unless he is loving, nor attain the freedom of moral dignity unless he asserts himself; and there is no way to nurture this self-respect except to express respect to him, by being as courteous to him as you are to any adult, always asking him to explain himself and his own motives, when he seems to be in the wrong, before you condemn him.

I think I have gained some of the deepest insights I have ever had into Divine Truth, by discovering what was the motive thought of some child, who did what seemed inexplicable, till he told me, or I had divined, his secret reason.

It is not mothers alone who can charm out of children their secret, as those know who have seen some maiden kindergartners talk with their pupils in the opening exercises; but those who are not mothers will always do well to observe carefully those who are. On the other hand, mothers have to guard themselves against exaggerating their own children's natures comparatively. I have known some of the best mothers in the world do that, so as to be practically of bad influence over children not their own.