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

by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody

From what has been said of the soul's taking possession of the body and its several organs, by exercising the functions of tasting, hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, grasping, moving the limbs, and at last taking up the whole body into itself in the act of walking, we see that it is all done, even the last, by virtue of the social nature.

Frœbel took his clue from this fact, a primal one, and never let it go, and it is of the greatest importance that it be understood clearly, that conscious individuality, which gives the sense of free personality, the starting point, as it were, of intelligent will, is perfectly consistent with and even dependent on the simultaneous development of the social principle in all its purity and power.

We see a sad negative proof of this, in asylums for infants abandoned by their mothers, or given up by them through stress of poverty. There is one of these in New York city, into which are received poor little things in the first weeks of their existence. Every thing is done for their bodily comfort which the general human kindness can devise. They have clean warm cradles and clothes, good milk, in short everything but that caressing motherly play, which goes from the personal heart to the personal heart. That is one thing general charity cannot supply; it is the personal gift of God to the mother for her child, and none but she can be the sufficient medium of it, and therefore, undoubtedly it is, that almost all new-born children in foundling hospitals die; or, if they survive, are found to be feeble-minded or idiotic. They seem to sink into their animal natures, and belie the legend man written on their brows, showing none of that beautiful fearlessness and courageous affectionateness that characterise the heartily welcomed, healthy, well-cared-for human infant. On the contrary, they show a dreary apathy, morbid fearfulness, or a belligerent self-defence, anticipative of other forms of the cruel neglect which has been their dreary experience.

Taking a hint from observations of this kind, together with the bitter experiences of his own childhood, Frœbel supplied to the mother or nurse some playthings for the baby, which might continue to improve the various organs of its body, by making the exercise of their functions a social delight.

What is called the first gift, he proposes should be used in the nursery first. It consists of six soft balls, not too large to be grasped by a little hand, and the use of which in the nursery, is suggested by a little first book for mothers, that has been translated from Jacob's Le jardin des Enfans.[3] I think it is important for the Kindergartner to know what Frœbel thought could be done for the development of the infant in the nursery, since if it has not been done there, she must contrive to remedy the evil in the Kindergarten. You will bear with me, therefore, if I go quite into the minutiæ of this matter. It will open your eyes to observe delicately, as Frœbel did.

He proposed that the red ball should be first presented. He had observed that a bright light concentrated, as in a candle, first excited the organ of sight and stimulated its action. Hence he inferred that a bright color would do the same, a neutral tint would not be seen at all probably. The red ball is not quite so salient and exciting as the light of a candle, but on that account it can be gazed at longer, without producing a painful re-action. The child will have a pleasure in grasping it, and will probably carry it to his lips; but as it is woolen, it will not be especially agreeable to the delicate organ of taste. It will all the more be looked at therefore, and give the impression of red. Frœbel proposes that it shall be called the red ball, in order that the impression of the word red on the ear, shall blend in memory with the impression of the color on the eye. As long as the child seems amused with the red ball, he would not have another color introduced, because he thought it took time for the eye to get a clear and strong impression of one color, and this should be done before it was tried with a contrasted impression. But by and by the blue ball, as the greatest contrast, may be given and named; and all the little plays suggested in the mother's book be repeated with the blue ball; and then the yellow ball should be given with its name; and then the three be given together, and the baby be asked to choose the blue, or red, or yellow one. By attaching a string to them, and whirling them, or letting the infant do so, it is surprising how long the child will amuse itself with these balls, and what pleasure colors alone give, especially when combined with motion.

The secondary colors may afterwards be added to the treasury for the eye, with the same carefulness to secure completeness and distinctness of impression; and to associate the color with the word that names it; for language, the special organ of social communion, should be addressed to the child from the first, though its complete attainment and use is the crown of all education.

Smiles and sounds, proceeding out of the mouth, are the first languages, and begin to fix the little child's eyes and attention upon the mouth of the mother, from which issue the tones that are sweetest to hear, and especially when in musical cadence. But the child understands the words addressed to him long before he himself begins to articulate; for language is no function of the individual, but only of the consciously social being, yearning to find himself in another.

There is a reciprocal communication between infants and adults that precedes the difficult act of articulation. This we call the natural language, and it is common to all nations, being mutually intelligible, as is proved by deaf mutes from remote countries who understand each other at once. But this natural language has a very narrow scope. It serves to communicate instinctive wants of body and heart, but does not serve the fine purposes of intellectual communication, nor minister any considerable intellectual development. These signs are very general, while every word in its origin has represented a particular object in nature. In analyzing any language, we find that the names given to the body and its members, and to the actions and facts of life, without which no human society can exist, are the nucleus or central words that characterize it, and from which the whole national rhetoric is derived. Hence there is a value for the mind in associating the words and action of even such a little play as "here we go up, up, up, and here we go down, down, down, and here we go backwards and forwards, and here we go round, round, round," with other rhymes and plays of an analogous character that are found wherever there are mothers and children.

We have observed that the moment of first accomplishing the feat of running alone, seemed to be that of the child's beginning to realize himself to be a person, but that even, in this act, he was dependent upon his mother; that his bodily independence was the gift of her faith in that within him, which is essentially superior to the body and can command it as instrumentality. To make it instrumentality is, more and more, a delight to the child, in which his mother sympathises; and by this sympathy aids him. All his plays involve exercise of the power of commanding his body. As soon as a child can move it from place to place, his desire to exercise power on nature outside of himself increases, and he is prompted to measure strength with other children. If children were mere individuals they would merely quarrel, as Hobbes says; but being social beings also, they tend to unite forces and aid one another to compass desired ends. By so doing, they rise to a greater sense of life, and brotherly love is evolved. But in the development of the social life, the more developed and cultivated elder must come in, to keep both parties steady to some object outside of themselves, which it takes their union to reach. Children can be taught to play together, by engaging their powers of imitation, and addressing their fancy. Every mother knows, that in the first opening of children's social life, their bodily energies are stimulated to such a degree, that it is quite as much as she or one nurse can do, to tend two or three children together; and by the time they are three years old, the family nursery becomes too narrow a sphere for them. It is then that they are to be received into a Kindergarten, whose very numbers will check the energy of activity a little, by presenting a greater variety of objects to be contemplated; and because social action must be orderly and rhythmical, in order to be agreeable. This, a properly prepared Kindergartner knows, and by her sympathetic influence and power over the childish imagination, she will bring gradually all the laws of the child's being to the conscious understanding, beginning with this rhythmical one at the center.