Why we are required to study deeply and to know more than we teach.
We have been required to look at each gift in its broadest aspect, and to observe it patiently and minutely in all its possibilities, for the larger the amount of knowledge the kindergartner possesses, the more free from error will be her practice.
Unless we know more than we expect to teach, we shall find that our lessons will be stiff, formal affairs, lacking variety, elasticity, and freshness, and marred continually by lack of illustration and spontaneity.
Lack of interest in the teacher is as fatal as lack of interest in the child; in fact, the one follows directly upon the heels of the other. For this reason, continued study is vitally necessary that new phases of truth may continually be seen.
Above all other people the teacher should go through life with eyes and ears open. Unless she is constantly accumulating new information her mind will not only become like a stagnant pool, but she will find out that what she possesses is gradually evaporating. There is no state of equilibrium here; she who does not progress retrogresses.
It should be a comparatively simple matter to gain enough knowledge for teaching,—the difficult thing is the art of imparting it. Said Lord Bacon, "The art of well delivering the knowledge we possess to others is among the secrets left to be discovered by future generations."
Relation between Gifts, and their Relation to the Child's Mental and Moral Growth.
These are a few of the technicalities which have been mastered up to this time by a faithful study of the gifts of Froebel; and yet they are only technicalities, and do not include the half of what has been gained in ways more difficult to describe.
"To clearly comprehend the gifts either individually or collectively we must clearly conceive their relation to and dependence on each other, for it is only in this intimate connection that they gain importance or value."
If the kindergartner does not recognize the relationship which exists between them and their relation to the child's mental and moral growth, she uses them with no power or intelligence. We conceive nothing truly so long as we conceive it by itself; the individual example must be referred to the universal law before we can rightly apprehend its significance, and for a clear insight into anything whatsoever we must view it in relation to the class to which it belongs. We can never really know the part unless we know the whole, neither can we know the whole unless we know the part.