Education in The Home, The Kindergarten, and The Primary School Part 1

Education in The Home, The Kindergarten, and The Primary School.

by Elizabeth P. Peabody.

INTRODUCTION.

AMONG those who in the last twenty years have helped to spread a knowledge of the educational principles of Froebel beyond the limits of his native country, Miss Elizabeth Peabody's name deserves to be specially remembered. It is mainly owing to her enthusiastic efforts that the value of the Kindergarten was early recognised in the United States, and that its first American promoters were encouraged to maintain, amid many difficulties, a standard of real efficiency for the teachers of Froebel's system. Miss Peabody had long occupied herself, theoretically and practically, with educational subjects. Not satisfied by merely intellectual methods of instruction, and impatient of the superficiality which was too often approved, she made it her great aim to train character, and, by a simultaneous development of children's mental capacities and of their moral nature, to prepare them for the responsible duties of life. It was not surprising that when Miss Peabody, holding such views of education, came in contact with the ideas and the work of Froebel, she at once experienced the delight always attached to the discovery that the problems exercising our own minds have been successfully solved by some one who has started from principles such as ours, and who has cultivated the same ideal. She found that Froebel had carried into practice that very kind of training of which she had realized the immense importance, and that he had placed in a clear light truths which she had already more dimly perceived.

Eager to inform herself about the new system, Miss Peabody travelled, in 1868, to Europe, on purpose to visit in Germany the Kindergartens established by Froebel, who was no longer living, and by his best pupils. On her return to America, she devoted herself for many years to the introduction and improvement of Kindergartens and of training inst.i.tutions, and to enlightening, by her writings and addresses, mothers and educators respecting the value and simplicity of Froebel's methods. Miss Peabody has the satisfaction of witnessing a good measure of success from her generous exertions, in the increasing number of advocates of the Kindergarten in America, in its adoption as a first department of many State primary schools, and in the numerous private and charity Kindergartens founded from North to South, and from New York to San Francisco. Advanced now in years, this warm-hearted lady is engaged in other lines of philanthropic work, but she retains, and still manifests, her earnest interest in the educational progress which she has laboured so actively to secure.

Ever since Miss Peabody's zeal was kindled for Froebel's ideal as to young children's education, her help and criticism have been sought by the trainers of Kindergarten students in America, and by all who, with serious purpose, have thus worked for the movement. Hence she has often delivered lectures at the opening of the session at Normal Colleges, and on other occasions when she saw an opportunity of exercising influence in favour of rational principles of education. This book, which appeared only lately at Boston, consists of a few of such lectures. It is now, with Miss Peabody's consent, published in England, where many parents and teachers will be glad to profit by the author's wise and loving study of little children, and her sympathetic insight into Froebel's methods for their development. During the last few years various thoughtful writers on education have drawn attention here to the subject of infant management, and it is remarkable how widely the principles of Froebel and Pestalozzi are now recognised and accepted. But books are still greatly needed which, especially addressed to those who have charge of children, urge in a convincing manner how essential it is that the first few years should be rightly guided, and indicate certain defined educational aims. I think that Miss Peabody's lectures are likely to prove very useful in this direction. Though her readers will perhaps contest some of her psychological deductions, they cannot fail to be impressed and benefited by the high tone of her reasoning, by her evidently tender and reverent love of children, and by her excellent suggestions in regard to their harmonious development.

Amongst its other merits, this book tends to correct the still too prevalent notion, that the Kindergarten is a peculiar--an almost magical--inst.i.tution, which provides a sure remedy for children's imperfections, apart from their home conditions. Doubtless, in the case of poor neglected little ones, the contrast between their treatment at the Kindergarten and their ordinary experience, is necessarily striking and decided, because the parents are careless and ignorant. But Froebel's view of the Kindergarten was, that it should be a supplementary help to the loving and judicious mother, who, owing to her many household and other duties, might be unable to give, through the whole day, to her younger children the regular attention which their awakening faculties need. It was to be a portion of the home pattern and web of training, not a patch of a new texture. He saw that a child requires to have about it, as Miss Peabody says, "love and thought in practical operation," and this not now and then, but always. And as the mother may have at times to transfer her children to the charge of others, he organised the Kindergarten--a higher nursery, under refined and motherly influences, for those that have pa.s.sed out of babyhood.

There, on the same principles as at home, they may be gently tended for two or three hours of the day, and developed in body, mind, and character. Froebel's object also was to provide companionship for these children, adapted to their age and attainments, which could only be done by including some from outside the family circle. But again, he desired to give the opportunity to inexperienced mothers of observing the patient and resourceful guidance carried out by even young teachers, who had been trained to study children, and had learnt how to occupy them suitably. Here we see another link with the home. Now Miss Peabody entered so much into Froebel's ideas that she helps to remove the Kindergarten out of its supposed exceptional sphere, and to show that the teachers represent temporarily the mother, doing that which the mother also aims, or ought to aim, at doing, for the children's good.

These Lectures are also useful in presenting a high ideal of Kindergarten teaching. Miss Peabody sees that the work of educating requires special qualifications in those who undertake it, and that such as are not fitted for it, had better take up a different career. At the same time placing, as always, character above intellect, she considers that most women, whose religious and moral nature is well cultivated, and who take pains to develop their mental powers, may hope for success in devoting themselves to the training of young children. Her writings are calculated to inspire the teacher with hearty zest for her labour, and yet with an abiding feeling that even years of practice leave her far behind her ever advancing standard. Miss Peabody encourages no exaggerated estimate of Froebel's thoughts and methods. She freely recognises that he gained many truths from fellow-students of children's nature and faculties; but she claims for him the originality which belongs to those who with unselfish aims bestow close attention on a subject of deep human interest. To teachers, therefore, as well as to all who love children, she says--and with this quotation I will close my few introductory remarks--"You will not be wise if you do not look out of Froebel's window."

E. A. MANNING.

LECTURE I.

THE KINDERGARTNER.

WHOEVER proposes to become a kindergartner according to the idea of Frbel, must at once dismiss from her mind the notion that it requires less ability and culture to educate children of three, than those of ten or fifteen years of age. It demands more; for, is it not plain that to superintend and guide accurately the _formation_ of the human understanding itself, requires a finer ability and a profounder insight than to listen to recitations from books ever so learned and scientific?

To form the human understanding is a work of time, demanding a knowledge of the laws of thought, will, and feeling, in their interaction upon the threshold of consciousness, which can be acquired only by the study of children themselves in their every act of life--a study to be pursued in the spirit that reveals what Jesus Christ _meant_, when he said: "He that receiveth a little child in my name, receiveth _me, and Him that sent me_;" "Woe unto him who offends one of these little ones, for their spirits behold the face of my Father who is in heaven."

Not till children who have been themselves educated according to Frbel's principles, grow up, will there be found any adult persons who can keep kindergartens without devoting themselves to a special study of child-nature in the spirit of devout humility. For we are all suffering the ignorance and injury inevitable from having begun our own lives in the confusions of accidental and disorderly impressions, without having had the clue of reason put into our hands by that human providence of education, which, to be true, must reflect point by point the Divine Providence, that according to the revelations of history is educating the whole race, and which may find hints for its procedure in observing the spontaneous play of children fresh from the hands of the Creator.

The education of children by a genial training of their spontaneous playful activities to the production of order and beauty within the humble sphere of childish fancy and affection, was a fresh idea with Frbel; but, like every universal idea, it was not absolutely new in the world. Plato says, in his great book on _Laws_:--

"Play has the mightiest influence on the maintenance and non-maintenance of laws; and if children's plays are conducted according to laws and rules, and they always pursue their amus.e.m.e.nts in conformity with order, while finding pleasure therein, it need not be feared that when they are grown up they will break laws whose objects are more serious."

And again, in his _Republic_, he says:--

"From their earliest years, the plays of children ought to be subject to strict laws. For if their plays, and those who mingle with them, are arbitrary and lawless, how can they become virtuous men, law-abiding and obedient? On the contrary, when children are early trained to submit to laws in their plays, love for these laws enters into their souls with the music accompanying them, and helps their development."

You will observe Plato's a.s.sociation of music with the laws that are to regulate play. Music, with the Greeks, had indeed a broader meaning than attaches to the word with us, who confine it to that subtle expression of the sense of law and harmony which is made in the element of sound, and addressed to the imagination through the ear. All knowledge and art inspired by the sacred Nine, they named _music_. Singing was no more music than dancing, drawing, the harmonizing of colors, plastic art, poetry, and science, which is nothing less than thinking according to the rhythmic laws of nature. To learn to commune with the Muses, daughters of Memory and Jove, who were led by the G.o.d Apollo, symbolizing the moral harmony of the universe, and expressing the mind of the Father of G.o.ds and men, by oracle, was learning _music_ or how to live divinely; a process which may commence before children leave the nursery, if their plays are regulated according to artistic principles.

It is common to speak of the Greeks, as if they were of exceptional organization. I think their organization was only exceptional, because it was more carefully treated in infancy than ours is apt to be. I do not believe that in Greece, or anywhere in the world, there were ever more beautiful little children than there are in America; and the beauty would not be so transient as it unquestionably is with us, if truly cultivated persons took our children in hand from babyhood for the care of their bodies and minds, instead of leaving this work to the most ignorant cla.s.s of the community, such as the general run of the servants who have the education of them during their earliest infancy. Even many parents who take care of their own children do not make it an object to study physiology or psychology, and seem to think that there is nothing in little children which requires special study, except indeed at the very first, when the child is put into the mother's arms more helpless than the lowest form of animal life (for the very insect is endowed by nature, as the child is not, with enough absolute knowledge--we call it instinct--to fulfil its small circle of relations without help of its parents). It seems mysterious, at first sight, that the child, whose duty and whose destiny it is to have dominion over nature, should be endowed least of all creatures with any absolute knowledge of it. But the mystery is solved when we consider that the happiness which is distinctively human, is only to be found in the discovery and enjoyment of ever-widening relations to our kind, with the fulfilment of the duties belonging to them. It is the absolute helplessness of the human infant which challenges the maternal instinct to rush to his rescue, lest he should die at once. And to continue to study his manifestations of pleasure and discontent with obedient respectfulness, is the perfection of the maternal nursing. But when the child has got on so far as to know the simplest uses of its own body, and especially after it has learned enough words to express its simplest wants and sensations, even parents seem to think it can get on by itself, so that children from about two to five years of age are left to self-education, as it were; this virtual abandonment being crossed by a capricious and arbitrary handling of them--mind and body--on the part of those around them, which is even worse than the neglect; for when are children more unable, than between three and five years old, to guide their own thoughts and action? How would a garden of flowers fare, to be planted, and then left to grow with so little scientific care taken by the gardener, as is bestowed upon children between one and five years old?

Frbel, in the very word kindergarten, proclaimed that gospel for children which holds within it the promise of the coming of the kingdom, in which G.o.d's will is to be done on earth as it is in heaven--a consummation which we daily pray for with our lips, but do not do the first thing to bring about, by educating our children in the way of order, which is no less earth's than "heaven's first law," and makes earth heaven so far as it is fulfilled.

A kindergarten means a guarded company of children, who are to be treated as a gardener treats his plants; that is, in the first place, studied to see what they are, and what conditions they require for the fullest and most beautiful growth; in the second place, put into or supplied with these conditions, with as little handling of their individuality as possible, but with an unceasing genial and provident care to remove all obstructions, and favor all the circ.u.mstances of growth. It is because they are living organisms that they are to be _cultivated_--not _drilled_ (which is a process only appropriate to insensate stone).

I think there is perhaps no better way of making apparent what this kindergartning is, which makes such an importunate demand on your consideration, than to tell you how the idea germinated and grew in the mind of Frbel himself; for thus we shall see that it would be unreasonable to expect that it could be improvised by every teacher; but that here, as elsewhere in human life, G.o.d has sent into the world a gifted person to guide his fellows, according to the law enunciated by St. John in the 38th verse of the 4th chapter of his Gospel.

We have the materials of this history on Frbel's own authority, in an autobiographical letter that he wrote to the Duke of Meiningen, whose interest in him was excited by an incident so characteristic of Frbel, that I will relate it. Having heard of a cruel and stupid opposition made to the ardent educator by the unthinking officials of a region where he was making a martyr of himself, the duke made inquiries, which resulted in his offering him the situation of head-tutor to his only son. But Frbel astonished him with a refusal of the place, sending the duke word that it would be impossible to educate, in a perfect manner, a child so isolated by conventional rank and circ.u.mstances that he must inevitably conceive himself to be intrinsically superior to other children. The duke was so much struck that a poor man, struggling with every difficulty, should refuse one of the highest posts in a royal household, with all its emoluments, from a purely conscientious scruple of this kind, that his curiosity was piqued. He sent for Frbel, and they had a conversation upon the principles and spirit of a truly human education, by which Frbel convinced him that a n.o.ble moral development was indispensable to a truly intellectual one, so that the duke was actually persuaded to send his son as an equal with other boys to a neighboring school. One day, some little time after, the boy came home _roaring_, on account of a beating he had received from one of his playmates. The duke, in a transport of rage, asked the name of the offender, and said that he should be immediately expelled from the school. Then was Frbel's advice justified. The young prince dried his tears, refused to tell the boy's name, and declared that "the beating was all fair!" It is quite consistent with these facts, that the duke should ask Frbel how his idea grew in his mind. Frbel's answer is still extant. I have not been able to get the original text, but I can give you the substance of it, as it was given to me.

Friedrich Frbel was the son of a laborious pastor of seven villages in Thuringia. He lost his mother before his remembrance, and fell into the care of hard-worked domestic servants, with no light upon his infant life except what came from the love and sympathy of two older brothers, who cherished him when they were at home from boarding-school. The parsonage was in the shadow of the church, and into it no ray of sunshine ever came; and the child was kept drearily in the house. He tells of seeing workmen building a part of the church that had become dilapidated, and how he longed to imitate them; and traces to this desire of employing the time that hung so heavily on his hands, his discovery of the building instinct, so universal in childhood, and which he thought should always have simple materials afforded it with which to express itself. At last his father married again, and at first the stepmother petted the young child of her husband, and awakened in him a hope of a satisfying love, which he reciprocated with all the energies of his long-starved heart. But when the merely instinctive woman had a child of her own, a certain jealousy arose in her, and she repulsed poor little Friedrich, and "no longer"--as he pathetically remarks--"called him _thou_," (du) which is an endearing expression in German, but _he_ (er), which has a rough a.s.sociation. It is plain that the child was endowed with an immense sensibility to, or more than ordinary presentiment of the Divine Order of Nature, and with the extreme tendency to reflection always involved in this gift. As he was so poorly developed physically, he became in his joyless early life perhaps morbidly nervous. Disappointed in his timid efforts to please, all the sweet bells of his nature were jangled, and he was miserable--he knew not why. He says he always found himself doing the wrong thing--the too much, or the too little--and was complained of to his father, who treated him as a naughty boy. But sometimes the pastor took him out of his stepmother's way, to accompany himself in his parochial visits, in which Frbel says he seemed continually to be settling family quarrels.

This made on the child's mind an impression of things that was rather ludicrously expressed, when he one day asked of his oldest brother, who happened to come home from boarding-school, why it was that G.o.d had not made people all men, or all women, so that there should not be so much quarrelling in the world. In order to divert him from such premature consideration of social questions, the posed elder brother undertook to teach him botany according to the s.e.xual system, revealing to him the law of contrasts conciliated with each other for the production of harmony and beauty. The child was delighted with what he was shown; but still his exceptionally moral genius importunately asked, why may not human differences be thus harmonized, to produce happiness and goodness?

The presentiment of the great truth which was felt in his heart, though not yet caught by his mind, was signalized by another anecdote that he tells of himself. There was a rumor among the peasants of North Germany (it was about the year 1792) that the world was coming to an end; but Frbel declares that he could not make himself feel alarmed. He says he was sure it could not be true, because the will of G.o.d had not yet been brought about in human life. This extraordinary reflection of a child of ten years old was preceded, probably, by a happy change that came over him in consequence of the visit of his maternal uncle to his father's house; who, seeing that the child was not happy, invited him to go home with him to live with his grandmother. His uncle's house was bright and sunny, and he was received by his grandmother with joy and tenderness.

Immediately the freedom of the fields was given him, provided only that he should come home punctually to the meals. He soon became so healthy and happy, that his uncle put him into a day school in the neighborhood, to the child's great delight. The school was opened, the first day he went into it, with a little sermon of the master's upon the text: "Seek first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you." It must have been a wise and good discourse, for it left a life-long impression upon the mind of the little Frbel.

There was a law then, for human beings as well as for plants; human beings might consciously realize in happiness and virtue, the harmony and beauty unconsciously manifested by the vegetable world. For G.o.d was the Ever-present Friend and Lawgiver! He tells the duke how happy he felt himself in his new circ.u.mstances and opportunities, and blessed with this inspiring faith. After school, he went out to play with his schoolmates; but, alas! poor starveling of nature as he was, he found he could not play with his athletic companions, and had to sit on one side and look on; and then and there he distinctly came to a conclusion, which is a first principle of the kindergarten, that every child should have free exercise of his limbs in play, in order to get entire command of all the physical strength and agility they are capable of.

After a few years of this happy home and school life, which he continually reflected upon in contrast with what he had suffered for so many years, the good grandmother died, and he was sent back to his stepmother. The question now came up, whether he should study for the university, where his brothers had gone; but the stepmother, in the interest of her younger child, opposed his father's spending the money, and he went to a farmer to learn practical agriculture. But he was physically so incompetent to the labor of a farm life, that it did not pay; and being sent home by the farmer, he was finally apprenticed to a forester, where he found genial occupation in wood-lore, and in studying geometry for the purpose of surveying. Here he became a thorough and ardent mathematician. But his friend the forester died, or was removed, which brought this occupation to a premature close. At that moment, however, a maternal relation died, and left him a little money, so that he went to the University of Jena, where he devoted himself princ.i.p.ally to the physical sciences; and by and by we find him curator of the Mineralogical Museum of Berlin. Here he made a great impression on the mind of a young lady who frequented the museum, by the "sermons" that he found "in stones," for he read them out to her, showing that in inorganic nature, so called, could be traced not only laws of decay, that threw into stronger light those laws of life that he had learned to see in vegetation, but those of crystallization. Everywhere he read G.o.d's revelation of the processes of life and death, which also make human development and happiness, or its deterioration and misery.

The trumpet call of patriotism, to rescue Germany from French despotism, made by the good Queen Louise of Prussia, called him from these peaceful studies to partake in the great national act of delivering his country; and he obeyed it by volunteering his service. Though his regiment was never called into battle, he always rejoiced in the effects upon himself of learning the military drill, as well as in the life-long friendships he made in camp. After the war was over, a legacy received at the death of his uncle Hoffman gave him the means to enter an architect's office, to which he had a great attraction. He was boarding at Frankfort-on-the-Main, where Middendorf and other of his late military friends were boarding, who had just engaged themselves as teachers in the city, waiting to perfect this arrangement. It was a moment when there was a great uprising of education in Germany, and that system was beginning to germinate, which has turned out to make Prussia the effective power in Europe that she has lately proved herself to be; and whose first principle is, that the primary is the most important stage of education.

In connection with this general movement, there was about to be established a new school in Frankfort; and Gruner, its princ.i.p.al, who was one of the boarders, talked over with Frbel and the others the new plan. Whatever Frbel said was so striking and vital, that Gruner at last exclaimed: "Plainly this is your vocation! Give up the architecture, and come in with us, and help to build men." Strange to say, though Frbel had all his life been meditating upon the secret of human education, this was the first time it occurred to him to make it his own business. The more he thought of Gruner's suggestion, the more he liked it; and the issue was, that he took one of the younger cla.s.ses in the new school. Immediately afterwards he wrote to his brother that at last he had found his element--he "felt like a bird in air, a fish in water." But the teachers were hampered in their action by the proprietors of the school; and after a season Gruner said to Frbel, "You should lead; not be led. I release you from your engagement. Set up independently, and carry out your own ideas unhindered."

When his purpose of leaving was known, one of the parents who patronized the school, gave him his two sons to educate, just as he should think best; and because he now heard of Pestalozzi, he took them to Yverdun, where he remained as pupil with them, for a season. But he was not quite satisfied with Pestalozzi's methods. He saw there was a process to be attended to, anterior to the observation of objects; namely, to employ and discipline the activity of children yet too young to attend except to what they are themselves doing. Education was to begin, as he saw, in doing, and thence proceed to knowing. In returning from Yverdun, his elder brother, and his younger brother's widow, offered him their children to add to the two young Frankforters; and the widow offered, besides, a small house that she owned in Keilhau, if he would fit it up.

He and Middendorf and another friend united together and accepted this offer; and, with their own hands repaired the house, living in the outbuildings meanwhile and subsisting on rations most carefully economized. They then, for one thing, went to work on the land, which they taught the children to cultivate, and deduced their lessons out of the objects into which they were putting their life and labor. To these six children three cultivated men devoted themselves; and Frbel also wrote to the lady that used to study with him in the Mineralogical Museum of Berlin, and she took her fortune, and left her rank, to help the poor schoolmaster in his life work, as the most devoted of wives.

Working on the land was not all that they did. They began with it, because the children of the city had been rather starved of the gratification of that instinct to work in the earth, which very soon appears in all children--though, as Frbel says, it will die out by being left uncultivated. He found that his pupils had been already injured by their artificial city life, and in many ways they had things to unlearn. It was not a perfectly easy thing to determine how much liberty to give to individual tendencies that had been exaggerated by the reactions of disorder, or of an artificial order. Frbel thought the educator should give full play to all that is universal in human nature without pampering human idiosyncrasy, to do which was the vicious point of Rousseau's system that Frbel has happily avoided. It was natural that he should first bring before his pupils the processes of vegetable growth, because it was in observing them that he had himself first found the laws of G.o.d. But he was older than any child in the kindergarten when he learned that lesson. Observation of anything outward is not the first thing in human development, but exertion of powers from within, which provokes the reaction of the outward and makes it known.

I cannot follow out, in this introductory lecture, all his studies of the nature of man in these children, and all his experiments of cultivation. But I hope to do so in those which follow. The school founded in Keilhau exists to this day; but Frbel ever found himself going back till at last he came to the infant in the mother's arms. Then he went into the huts of the peasantry to observe the mother's instinctive ways, reason upon them, purify them of her individual caprices and selfishness, and eliminate everything inconsistent with the divine idea and method of procedure, indicated by the instinct to the intelligence. He did not confine himself to Keilhau, where Middendorf steadily lived, though always keeping in relation with it; but went at times to other places, and once, for a year or two, left all, to go to the University of Gottingen to study philology. There he made himself acquainted with Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, studying out those laws of mind exemplified in the formation and decay of languages. For it was the secret of a perfect development that he sought, and how to keep his pupils at the height they "were competent to gain." After half a century of the study of childhood in the living subject, and elaboration of the means of discipline, he settled in his old age into the conviction, that the most important period of human education was before the child was seven years old. And his last years were spent in preparing teachers for kindergartens at Rudolstadt and at Hamburg--which he did by teaching before them as well as by lecturing to them. Now it is what he discovered and elaborated, and has left, not in logical formulas, though he has certainly stated principles in words and embodied them in songs, but in processes of work and play, that is to be taught in our training schools. It took a Newton to discover gravitation and other principles of nature, but men without genius can comprehend and apply these principles, which they could not, like him, discover. So it took a Frbel's genius to discover the first principles of education, and his sensibility to apply them without mistake; but intelligent and heartful young women can learn them and apply them, if--and only if--they will study devoutly and faithfully what he has taught; and in doing so they will find themselves--_not_ becoming artificial, but more profoundly natural than ever; for the true educational process is but the mother's instinct and method, clearly understood in all its bearings, and acted out. To be a kindergartner is the perfect development of womanliness--a working with G.o.d at the very fountain of artistic and intellectual power and moral character. It is therefore the highest finish that can be given to a woman's education, to be educated for a kindergartner; and it is from the most advanced cla.s.ses of high and normal schools, public and private, that the pupils of our training schools should come, and from the most refined circles of private life--remembering that these are not identical with wealthy and fashionable ones, for in the latter we often find the vulgar and coa.r.s.e. The refinement of feeling and thought which is always attended with gentle and courteous manners is a religious quality, that not seldom glorifies humble homes whose inmates escape the sometimes hardening effect of poverty by "seeing Him who is invisible,"

while those "the imagination of whose hearts are evil continually," and even the merely frivolous, betray that they have "faculties that they have never used" though they dwell in palaces.

Ever since the normal teaching of kindergartners was begun in America, in 1868, letters have been received from teachers, already at work in the old routine of primary instruction, asking for knowledge of the plays and occupations invented by Frbel; in order that, by means of them, they may give such prestige to their infant schools as the name of kindergarten may. But this superficial, inappreciative use of Frbel's processes, is as fatal to his reform as was _judaizing_ to the primitive Christian Church. Frbel's method is a radical change of direction. It changes the educator's point of view. Instead of looking down upon the child, the kindergartner must clear her mind of all foregone arbitrary conclusions, and humbly look up to the innocent soul, which in its turn sees nothing but the face of the Father in heaven--(for thus Christ explains children's being "of the kingdom of heaven"). This is difficult for her to do, because--not seldom--a shadow has fallen on the original innocence of the children confided to her care, from those human beings in relation to them, who have not done for them what every human being needs by reason of the essential dependence of individuals upon their race.

The child is doubtless an embryo angel; but no less certainly a possible devil. If the immortal will, impa.s.sioned by the heart, which never rests permanently satisfied till the mind recognizes G.o.d, be puzzled, it may be turned in a wrong direction by what it meets, and then the manifestation will be ugly and more or less hateful. Evil is the inevitable effect of an ignorant, disorderly action of the will; of its not adopting the laws of order, by which G.o.d creates the universe, and of which the universe is the unconscious exponent. But knowledge of the laws of order must come to guide the will, from outside the child's conscious individuality, _through the human providence of education_, in which the heavenly Father veils His infinite power, in order that the child may be free to make the choice of good, that shall lift him from the state, of merely instinctive being, into that union of Love and Thought, which characterizes a spirit _creative_, _i.e._, causing effects.

Perhaps you will say that if human influence must embody Divine Providence, in order to educate, then children never will be educated.

Well! Except in one instance I admit that children never have been educated up to the ideal standard. But the one instance of the perfectly Divine Son of the perfectly holy Mother; and the partial successes of such fitful good education as history and tradition report, forbid us to despair of making human education a worthy image of Divine Providence.

_To despair of this_ is want of the proper action of human free will,--Faith.

The first qualification of the true kindergartner, then, is Faith, which can be based only on the abiding conviction that G.o.d is with us "_to will and to do_," if we will only have the courage to take for granted that if _we are willing_, He will make of us divine guides to others.

That He is calling them to be so, whoever feels a strong love of children, sympathy with their life, and sensibility to their beauty, may have a reasonable a.s.surance; and that such as shall faithfully qualify themselves for the work will not fail of the divine help. But observe my proviso. Their love must not be a pa.s.sing emotion, grounded on the children's superficial beauty. It must be a love that involves patience, that can stand the manifestation of ugly temper, and perverse will, and never lose sight of the embryo angel that wears for the moment the devilish mask. In children, evil is actual, but always superficial and temporary, if the educator does not become party to it by losing her own temper and idea. Also she must have resources by means of a cultivated understanding and imagination, to command the child's imagination and heart.

It may be said that everybody cannot have, at will, imagination and culture. This is true; but such persons should not undertake to keep a kindergarten. Let them do something else; keep shop, cultivate vegetables, work the sewing machine; even keep those schools for older children, in which books are the main teachers. There are mult.i.tudes of things to be done; the greatest variety of functions to be performed in human life. But of all things to do, the cultivation of human beings at that period of life when they are utterly at the mercy of those who teach them, is the most sacred. Why rush into that, impelled by any motive below the highest?

On the other hand, I do not wish to produce any artificial sentimentality on this subject. It is my belief that the average woman is sufficiently gifted by nature to make a good kindergartner, if she will give her nature fair play, by cultivating religious and moral sentiment; and will take pains to develop her intellect by the study of nature's laws in at least one department of science--that of vegetable physiology for instance, the materials of which are everywhere. One who _could not_ be educated to become a kindergartner, should never dare to become a mother; for she would not know even how to choose the a.s.sistance necessary to her for the work that ought to be done for every child by somebody. While I would discourage, and if possible effectually frighten every one from professing kindergartning who is morally disqualified by sordid aims, or by making it a means to another end than itself, I welcome the young and ardent to this beautiful womanly work, which, to do well, requires of them to do the very best thing for their own intellect and heart, and which, more certainly than anything else, will give them the secret of Power and Beauty.

It was my privilege, a year or two since, to pa.s.s a week in one of the schools of the feeble-minded; and I there saw six women, some of them quite young girls, devoted to the terrible work of waking up Will and Perception in those poor prisoners of mal-organization, so many of them frightful to look upon. They were doing their work under the strongest sense of humanity and religion. It would have been impossible to do it at all, as they were doing it, had they had no other inspiration than the pay they were receiving. The main reward was in their having some success in waking up the mind. In their countenances something angelic was dawning; and this was not my fancy merely, for I heard the same remark made again and again, by persons who went there as I did. I do not think one of these women wished to leave the good work; and if acting on a mind-cherishing principle was so interesting, and productive of such reactive effects, in such sad circ.u.mstances, how much more may be expected from working upon children fairly gifted! The charm of the sadder work was, that, like kindergartning, it stimulated to profound study of the laws of mental nature, in order to work reverently among them, instead of arbitrarily, in defiance or irreverence of them. To do this made these women feel that they were working with G.o.d; and this made them practical saints. But why cannot we believe that G.o.d is present, and acting with us, and wooing us to act with Himself, in the joyous paradise of life, as well as in chambers of disease, and among the wretched? Is He not the G.o.d of the living and joyful, as well as of the dying and sad? Why is the church-yard only a grave-yard? Why should it not always be a kindergarten?

One of the pleasantest observations that I made of the kindergartens of Germany--and I went to the very best ones, those kept by the kindergartners whom Frbel had trained--was the happy absorption of the teachers in the children; their sympathy with them; the utter companionship between them. I never saw a punishment; I never heard a Don't (or its German equivalent); but when anything went wrong, there was always a pause, and sometimes questions were asked; and all seemed to wait till the inward guide had been brought out into consciousness (whether the thing in hand was social action or artistic work). Perhaps it might be harder work to govern American children. Their vivacious temperament, their lively energies, need "conscious law" as a curb, rather than as a spur. But all the more is it necessary for the American kindergartner to vivify the invisible guide; she should present order to the mind, by her genial questioning and conversation over the work in hand, rather than exert an arbitrary power which might stimulate the reaction of obstinacy or the subterfuges of cunning. To _govern_ is not the whole thing. The question is _how_ we govern; whether we so govern as to make a cringing slave, a cunning hypocrite, or an intelligent, law-abiding, self-respecting, _willing_ servant of G.o.d. I have seen a magnetic teacher produce a marvellous obedience, and apparent order, by his imposing presence and keen satire. He imagined that he governed by moral power; but as soon as he was out of the schoolroom, the children were the victims of their own impulses, to which seemed given a stronger spring by the enforced repression. There is no order which is more than skin deep, unless it be the free, glad obedience of the child to a law, which he perceives to be creative because it enables him to do something real. Nothing short of the union of love and thought can produce spiritual power, _i.e._, creativeness. It is only spiritual power that inaugurates order--the Eternal Beauty may be inaugurated in childhood and among childish toys.

There is reason, on their own account, why we want our pupils, in this art of kindergartning, to be in their disposition and circ.u.mstances above merely pecuniary motive for entering on the work; and that is, because it will be long before the work will pay much in money. I need not adduce any other proof of this than our experience in Boston; where, for four years, the rarely gifted, thoroughly educated, religiously devoted Alma Kriege poured out her young energies on cla.s.ses of less than a score of children; bringing her a pittance so small that she had to fill up the rest of her hours, which ought to have been given to recreation and culture, with other work, in order to pay for rent and necessary bread. Our rich and cultivated people will not forego a little more upholstery than is necessary, or a style of dress that makes the laundry bill--to say nothing of the mantua-maker's and milliner's--larger than the school bill, in order to give the required remuneration to the kindergartner for spending herself on their children in exhausting study and labor. But the truth is, people do not really believe that anything better can be done for children than to kill the time between the mother's arms and the season when they are to be taught to read; and so this precious interval, when the habits of thought and affection are forming, is given up to be filled by chance, risking life-long difficulties for the child.

Now, what is to reform this state of things? Nothing but the self-sacrificing work of kindergartners, who, for the sake of enlightening these benighted parents, will do their work faithfully, steadily refusing to undertake the care of those whom their parents will not trust to Frbel's system. The refusal will not seldom force the truth on the parents--who, when they know it, will be glad to know it. I do not say to any particular person, it is your duty to wear yourself out and half starve, for the sake of keeping a kindergarten. It is only you who are sufficiently free from other obligations, to give yourselves the privilege and luxury of working with G.o.d, on the paradisaical ground of childhood, who should enter this field. If you can make it your object to study how to avoid offending those who are beholding the face of the Father in heaven, by not hindering, but bringing them to Christ, which means helping them to grow as He did, in grace as in stature, and in favor with G.o.d and man, till like Him they become redeemers of their brethren from bondage, and can help to make earth the kingdom of heaven; then you may hope, in your day and generation, to initiate kindergartning, and make the way smooth for those that follow. When the true thing is initiated, it will pay even in money; for parents will see that it is invaluable.

It is twenty-two years since Frbel died. He had made a band of kindergartners, and set them at work. They all began with small pecuniary reward. It was at first a starving business. In Europe it is more difficult than it is here, to induce women of culture and position to undertake any work which is paid for with money. Frbel's genius had overcome this prejudice in a few instances. The ladies of one wealthy family in Hamburg became his pupils, one of whom introduced it into England, though under some great disadvantages. The Baroness Marenholtz-Bulow is the most important person inspired by Frbel; and the circ.u.mstances of her introduction to him are even picturesque. Being in feeble health, she went into an obscure village for rest and retirement; and one day asked the woman with whom she boarded, if anything interesting was going on among the villagers. The woman replied that there was "one queer thing, a natural fool who played about among the children, who followed him, and were very much taken up with him."

The Baroness hardly heeded this singular a.s.sertion; but some time after, being abroad for exercise, she saw a white-haired man under a tree, with a group of children around him; and, thinking this might be the "natural fool," she drew near, and was soon arrested by what she heard, and joined the little throng herself. Subsequent interviews with Frbel--for it was he--made a new era in her life, and she corresponded with him closely till his death. She has since been his chief apostle. After years of earnest work, with tongue and pen, she succeeded in getting rid of the injunction against his schools, made by the Prussian Government, which was jealous of what claimed to be an improvement on their world-renowned Reform. Since this injunction was taken off, she has worked, by means of a normal school which she helped to found in Berlin, in which she lectured gratuitously many years, fighting earnestly against just such deteriorations of the system as have already begun to appear in this country. Some of the pseudo-kindergartens use the plays and occupations there, as here, in the most superficial way. When children work by patterns, or are shown--instead of being told in words--how to do things, they merely imitate, with as little accompaniment of intellectual action as a monkey; and neither the mind nor the character will be developed, but rather dissipated and weakened.

Others, especially in this country, use the plays in the intervals between lessons or reading,--which, being taught before the mind has been regularly developed by success in doing things, and before the meaning of words has been learned in an adequate manner, are confused with a chaos of unrelated particulars, that it will take years of self-education, by and by, to grow out of; and, in short, only a few vigorous natures fortunately situated ever surmount the difficulty.