And nurses ought always to be instructed. When Froebel was in Hamburg, he received nurses into normal training. Both mothers and nurses brought their infants of six months old to his house, and he taught them how to play with—without fatiguing—them, by carefully respecting those indications of pleasure and pain which are the child's only means of communication.
And as lectures on child-nature are a part of the Kindergarten training, those preparing to be children's nurses, even to this day, are admitted to the Hamburg training-school, which was not relinquished when Froebel died, but is now instructed by the best teachers of the Volks-Kindergartens, who go into it by turns. It has its sessions in the evenings; and the normal pupils pay for their instruction, at least in part, by assisting in the morning in the Volks-Kindergarten, which forms also an important part of their training.
But at all events, there can be no adequate Kindergarten culture anywhere, unless a specific normal training is constantly kept up to supply the ever-increasing demand which tends to outgo the supply, especially when nurses are admitted, as at Hamburg.
Having thus indicated the source whence must be drawn the Kindergarten culture, it is not our purpose to attempt the impossible, by stating it abstractly; for a series of abstractions is more apt to conceal than to reveal a living science. No book can train a Kindergartner, but only at best serve as a convenient reminder to educated experts, and instruct parents that there is one necessary condition of their children's receiving the benefit of Kindergarten culture; viz., a thoroughly educated Kindergartner.
And this may be obtained even in America, from a lady of the apostolic succession; a pupil of the training-school of the Baroness Marienholtz, of Berlin, who has devoted her talents, her fortune, the prestige of her rank, and her personal services, to spread the art of her revered master on the continent of Europe. Miss Kriege not only has studied a year in this training-school, but all the while frequented the Kindergarten of Madame Vogler, as observer and assistant; and,—together with her mother, a lady who is the equal of the Baroness Marienholtz in every thing but the fortune which enables the latter to teach without price,—combines every qualification, with enthusiasm, for the spread of a method of education that unquestionably has a great future in this country, inasmuch as it makes a true base to the grand harmonies of our national constitution.
As one feature of the normal class is a series of lectures on the being of the child, which are given on one day of the week, it would be desirable that Madame Kriege should admit mothers and sisters who have no intention of making teaching their vocation, but who may thus understand and be able to co-operate in spirit with the Kindergartner, in the education of the children; for it is a great hindrance to the Kindergarten when it is not understood at home. All the educators of the child should understand each other, and co-operate, if the highest results are to be attained.
CHAPTER VI.
KINDERGARTEN OCCUPATIONS.