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

by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

Frœbel never wrote out, in systematic form, the psychology which underlies and gives the rational ground to all the details of his method. But there are pregnant sentences in all his writings, and in his sayings handed down by tradition, which give such insights, that it can be divined with some completeness.

We propose to give such glimpses as occur to us from time to time—not always in our own words, but as often as we can in Frœbel's, and also in the words of other thinkers, whose guesses at this kind of truth light up their writings on many subjects.

We must, in the first place, attend to one important fact; there is, in the experience of childhood, somewhat pre-existent to all impressions made by the universe, and consequently to all operations of the understanding—perceiving, comparing, judging—for these are intentional acts of the pre-existent soul breathed into his body and bidden to "have dominion."—Genesis 1.

What is this pre-existent soul, this mysterious depth of personality?

Washington Allston, in his posthumous lectures on Art, has finely said: "Man does not live by science; he feels, acts, and judges right in a thousand things, without the consciousness of any rule by which he so feels, acts, and judges. Happily for him, he has a surer guide than human science in that unknown power within him, without which he had been without any knowledge." Again, he speaks of "those intuitive powers, which are above and beyond both the understanding and the senses; which, nevertheless, are so far from precluding knowledge, as, on the contrary, to require—as their effective condition—the widest intimacy with things external, without which their very existence must remain unknown."

He does not, however, merely assert this pre-existence of the soul to the understanding, but speaks of the evidence of it that we all can appreciate. "Suppose," he says, "we analyze a certain combination of sounds and colors, so as to ascertain the exact relative qualities of the one, and the collocation of the other, and then compare them, what possible resemblance can the understanding perceive between these sounds and colors? And yet a something within us responds to both—a similar emotion. And so it is with a thousand things, nay, with myriads of objects, that have no other affinity but with that mysterious harmony, which began with our being, which slept with our infancy, and which their presence only seems to have awakened. If we cannot go back to our own childhood, we may see its illustration in those about us who are now in that unsophisticated state. Look at them in the fields, among the birds and flowers; their happy faces speak the harmony within them; the divine instrument which these objects have touched, gives them a joy, which perhaps only childhood, in its first fresh consciousness, can know, yet what do children understand of the theory of colors, or musical quantities?"

That this mysterious power, this feeling soul, is the human characteristic, is suggested in another paragraph of these lectures. "What, for instance, can we suppose to be the effect of the purple haze of a summer sunset on the cows or sheep, or even on the more delicate inhabitants of the air? From what we know of their habits, we cannot suppose more than the mere physical enjoyment of its genial temperature? But how is it with the man, whom we shall suppose an object in the same scene, stretched on the same bank with the ruminating cattle, and basking in the same light that flickers from the skimming birds? Does he feel nothing more than the genial warmth?"—Vol. I. p. 84.

This feeling of beauty, this power which appreciates harmony, this creative unity, in fine, this æsthetic soul, distinct from and above the understanding (which certain philosophers seem to think is all of man, over and above his body), is not all of the soul,—but the moral and even merely social sentiment has the same pre-existence. Allston bears witness to this also. He says: "With respect to Truth and Goodness, whose pre-existent ideas, being living constituents of an immortal spirit, need but the slightest breath of some outward condition of the true and good—a simple problem or a kind act—to awaken them, as it were, from their unconscious sleep.... We may venture to assert that no philosopher, however ingenious, could communicate to a child the abstract idea of Right, had the child nothing beyond or above the understanding. He might, indeed, be taught, like inferior animals,—a dog, for instance,—that if he took certain forbidden things, he would be punished, and thus do right through fear. Still he would desire the forbidden thing belonging to another, nor could he conceive why he should not appropriate to himself—and thus allay his appetite—what was another's, could he do so undetected; nor attain to any higher notion of Right than that of the strongest. But the child has something higher than the mere power of apprehending consequences (external?). The simplest exposition, whether of right or wrong, is instantly responded to by something within him, which, thus awakened, becomes to him a living voice, and the good and the true must thenceforth answer its call. We do not say that these ideas of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness will, strictly speaking, always act. Though indestructible, they may be banished for a time by the perverted Will, and mockeries of the brain, like the fume-born phantoms from the witches' cauldron in Macbeth, may take their places and assume their functions. We have examples of this in every age, and perhaps in none more startling than the present. But we mean only that they cannot be (absolutely?) forgotten; nay, they are but too often recalled with unwelcome distinctness....

"From the dim present, then, we would appeal to that fresher time, ere the young spirit had shrunk from the overbearing pride of the (vitiated?) understanding, and confidently ask, if the emotions we then felt from the Beautiful, the True, and the Good, did not seem, in some way, to refer to a common origin? And we would also ask, if it was frequent that the influence from one was singly felt? if it did not rather bring with it, however remotely, a sense of something—though widely differing,—yet still akin to it? when we have basked in the beauty of a summer sunset, was there nothing in the sky, that spoke to the soul of Truth and Goodness? And when the opening intellect first received the truth of the great law of gravitation, and felt itself mounting through the profound of space, to travel with the planets in their unerring rounds,—did never then the kindred ideas of Goodness and Beauty chime in, as it were, with the fabled music (not fabled to the soul), which led you on as one entranced? And again, when, in the passive quiet of your moral nature, so predisposed, in youth, to all things genial, you have looked around on this marvellous, ever-teeming earth, ever teeming alike for mind and body, and have felt upon you the flow, as from ten thousand streams of innocent enjoyment, did you not then almost hear them shout in confluence, and almost see them gushing upwards, as if they would prove their unity in one harmonious fountain?"

It is of the last consequence that the kindergartner should take into her mind that this æsthetic soul exists in children as a primary fact; for, unless she believes in it, she will not respect it, and take advantage of it in what she does for them. It is to be respected and brought out into the understanding of children, by means of the beautiful things which she leads them to do and make, and with which she surrounds them; for, as Allston says, this consciousness "requires as its effective condition, the widest intimacy with things external." When children are continually in squalid surroundings, these seem at length to strike in and paralyze the spontaneous action of the æsthetic being, who is pre-existent to consciousness of the power which compares and judges and makes up a theory of colors. And, as has been shown, this feeling of beauty, this power of appreciating harmony and unity, this æsthetic nature, distinct from and above the understanding, which some people idly think to be all of man beside his body, is not all of the soul, for the moral sentiment has the same pre-existence.