4. Reading and Work for Children and Mothers (1873). Here Madame Pape-Carpentier is especially intent on popularizing the methods of Frœbel; she suggests ingenious exercises which can be applied to children to give them skill in the use of their fingers, and to inspire them with a taste for order and symmetry.
5. Complete Course of Education (1874). This book, which would have been the general statement of the pedagogical principles of the author, was left incomplete. Only three volumes have appeared. A few quotations will make known their spirit.
“To co-operate with nature in her work, to extend it, to correct her when she goes wrong,—such is the task of the educator. In all grades of education, nature must be respected.
“The child should live in the midst of fresh and soothing impressions; the objects which surround him in the school should be graceful and cheerful.
“Socrates has admirably said, ‘The duty of education is to give the idea birth rather than to communicate it.’”
6. Note on the Education of the Senses, and some Pedagogical Appliances (1878). Madame Pape-Carpentier is very much interested in the education of the senses, because, she says, “every child born into the world is a workman in prospect, a future apprentice to an occupation still unknown.” It is then necessary to perfect at an early hour the natural tools he will need in order to fulfill his task. The education of the senses will have its place some day or other in the official programmes, and, for this sense-training, instruments are just as necessary as books are for the culture of the intellect.
593. Lessons on Objects.—“The object-lesson is the new continent on which Madame Pape-Carpentier has planted her standard.” She herself wrote a number of works which contain models of object-lessons; she has stated the theory of them, notably in her discussions of 1867. It is even permissible to think that she has made a wrong use of them. With her, the object-lesson becomes a universal process which she applies to all subjects, to chemistry, to physics, to grammar, to geography, and to ethics.
However it may be, this is the course to follow according to her: it is necessary to conform to the order in which the perceptions of the intelligence succeed each other. The child’s attention is first struck by color. Then he will distinguish the form of the object, and would know its use, its material, and mode of production. It is according to this natural development of the child’s curiosity that the object-lesson should proceed.