He was thus, in a sense, the combined product of the philosophy of Comenius and the zeal of Pestalozzi, although working along lines carefully marked out by himself. It does not detract from the fame of Fröbel to say that most of the root-ideas of his kindergarten are to be found in the School of infancy. Mr. Bowen, who has given us one of the best expositions[49] of Fröbel’s ideas, pays a just tribute of the obligation of his master to the writings of Pestalozzi and Comenius. He says: “With all his enthusiasm for education and his desire to found it on a scientific basis, Comenius had but little scientific knowledge of child-nature, and troubled himself not at all to acquire it. He constantly insisted, it is true, upon the exercise of the senses, and an education in accordance with nature; but his exercise of the senses soon reduced itself, in the main, to the use of pictures, with a view to a readier and more intelligent acquirement of language; and, even in his ergastula literaria, or literary workshop, the manual and other work introduced was intended to aid poor children in partly getting their own living while at school, rather than to exercise faculty; while his ‘nature’ was as quaint and conventional as that in a pre-Raphaelite picture. None the less, however, Comenius was the true founder of educational method.”
There is entire agreement in a few of the most fundamental aims of the two reformers. Comenius, no less than Fröbel, preached the gospel of self-activity, and demanded that play be given important consideration in the training of the child. What Comenius says on these subjects has already been given in the exposition of the School of infancy. In his Education of man,[50] Fröbel says: “Play is the purest, most spiritual activity of the child at this period; and, at the same time, typical of human life as a whole—of the hidden natural life in man and all things. It gives, therefore, joy, freedom, contentment, inner and outer rest, peace with the world. A child that plays thoroughly, with self-active determination, perseveringly, until physical fatigue forbids, will surely be a thorough, determined man, capable of self-sacrifice for the promotion of the welfare of himself and others. Is not the most beautiful expression of child-life at this time a playing child?—a child wholly absorbed in his play?—a child that has fallen asleep while so absorbed?... The plays of the child contain the germ of the whole life that is to follow; for the man develops and manifests himself in play, and reveals the noblest aptitudes and the deepest elements of his being.”
Fröbel joined with Comenius in demanding that women shall take a responsible part in the education of the child. Mr. James L. Hughes[51] says in this connection: “The greatest step made toward the full recognition of woman’s individuality and responsibility since the time of Christ was made when Fröbel founded his kindergartens and made women educators outside the home—educators by profession. This momentous reform gave the first great impetus to the movement in favor of women’s freedom, and provided for the general advance of humanity to a higher plane by giving childhood more considerate, more sympathetic, and more stimulating teachers.” Fröbel was convinced that women were better adapted than men for the early stages of instruction. He says: “All agree that, compared with the true mother, the formal educator is but a bungler. But she must become conscious of her own aim, and must learn intelligently the means to reach it. She can no longer afford to squander or neglect the earliest years of her child. As the world grows older, we become richer in knowledge and art. But childhood remains short as before.”
In other important particulars Fröbel owed much to Comenius, as well as to Pestalozzi. Compare, for example, the School of infancy with the aims of the kindergarten, and the bequests of the Moravian reformer will at once be apparent. The exaggerated and unpedagogic symbolism, however, with which Fröbel burdened his otherwise excellent kindergarten system, formed no part of his heritage from Comenius.
Herbart
Professor De Garmo,[52] who has given us a most succinct statement of Herbart’s educational views, remarks, “that one of the main results of Comenius, Rousseau, and Pestalozzi is the firmly fixed conviction that observation, or the use of the senses, and, in general, the consideration of simple concrete facts in every field of knowledge, is the sure foundation upon which all right elementary education rests. This truth is now the acknowledged starting-point of all scientific methods of teaching. Yet the fact of importance of observation in instruction does not carry with it any information showing how the knowledge so obtained can be utilized, or what its nature, time, amount, and order of presentation should be. In short, it does not show how mental assimilation can best take place, or how the resulting acquisitions can be made most efficiently to influence the emotional and volitional sides of our nature. Perception is, indeed, the first stage of cognition, but its equally important correlative is apperception and assimilation. It is Herbart and his successors who have made us distinctly conscious of this fact.” There can be no reasonable doubt but that Herbart did give a powerful impulse to the judicious assimilation of acquired sense-experience; and yet even here it is quite possible to underestimate the character and value of the nature studies of Comenius and the object lessons of Pestalozzi.
Herbart, like Comenius, emphasized the necessary effect of all instruction on character. “The circle of thought,” says Herbart, “contains the store of that which by degrees can mount by the steps of interest to desire, and then, by means of action, to volition. Further, it contains the store upon which all the workings of prudence are founded—in it are the knowledge and care, without which man cannot pursue his aims through means. The whole inner activity, indeed, has its abode in the circle of thought. Here is found the initiative life, the primal energy; here all must circulate easily and freely, everything must be in its place, ready to be found and used at any moment; nothing must lie in the way, and nothing like a heavy load impede useful activity.” Indeed, as Kern suggests, in Herbart’s scheme interest is the moral monitor and protector against the servitude that springs from passions and desires.
The doctrine of interest, but vaguely suggested by Comenius, is perhaps the most noteworthy contribution of Herbart to modern pedagogy; but to summarize Herbart’s views on interest would be to summarize his whole theory of education. He recognizes two groups of interests—intellectual and social. Two phases of intellectual interests are distinguished: (1) empirical interests, or the pleasures occasioned by disinterested curiosity; (2) speculative interests occasioned by the impulse to search out causal relations; and (3) æsthetic interests aroused through beauties in nature, art, and character. The social interests are likewise threefold: (1) sympathetic or altruistic; (2) social and fraternal; and (3) religious.
Herbart’s contribution to empirical psychology, although important, was second to his application of direct pedagogic problems to actual school practice—the working out of his doctrine of many-sided interest, the selection and adjustment of materials of instruction, and the reform of school government and discipline.[53]