Froebel's Gifts Part 6

Treatment of Previous Gifts when pa.s.sed over.

The preceding gift need not entirely disappear, but be used occasionally for a pleasing review as a bond of friendly intercourse between older and younger pupils.[29] This will convey an indirect hint, perhaps, to the little ones that it is not well to neglect old friends for new ones, but that they should still love and value the playthings and playmates of former days.

[29] "The giving of a new play by no means precludes the further use of the preceding and earlier plays. But, on the contrary, the use of the preceding play for some time longer with the new play, and alternating with it, makes the application of the new play so much the easier and more widely significant."--Froebel's _Pedagogics_, page 145.

Second Gift Forms in Architecture and Cube in Ancient Times.

These three objects, the sphere, cylinder, and cube, const.i.tute a triad of forms united in architecture and sculpture producing the column, which is made up of the pedestal or base (the cube), the shaft (the cylinder), and the capital (the sphere).

In a book on Egyptian antiquities we find that, in the beginning of the culture of that country, the three Graces, or G.o.ddesses of beauty, were represented by three cubes leaning upon each other. The Egyptians did not, of course, know that it was the first regular form of solid bodies in nature or crystallization; but the significant fact again brings us to the thought expressed in the first lecture: "It would seem, indeed, as though Froebel, in selecting his gifts, looked far back into the past of humanity, and there sought the thread which from the beginning connects all times and leads to the farthest future."

Froebel's Monument.

And here we leave the second gift, that trinity of forms which, wrought in marble, marks the place dear and sacred to all kindergartners, the grave of Froebel,--a simple monument to one so great, yet so connected with our study and the child's experience that with all its simplicity it is strangely effective. A still more enduring monument he has in the millions of happy children who have found their way to knowledge through the door which he opened to them; indeed, if half the children he has benefited could build a tower of these tiny blocks to commemorate his life and death, its point would reach higher than St. Peter's dome and draw the thoughts of men to heaven.

Suggestions of the Gift.

This gift can hardly be studied but that an inner unity, born of these reconciled contrasts, suggests itself to the imagination.

The cube seems to stand as the symbol of the inorganic, the mineral kingdom, with its wonderful crystals; the cylinder as the type of vegetable life, suggesting the roots, stems, and branches, with their rounded sides, and forming a beautiful connection between the cube, that emblem of "things in the earth beneath," and the sphere which completes the trinity and speaks to us of a never-ending and perfect whole having "Unity for its centre, Diversity for its circ.u.mference."

The cube seems to suggest rest, immobility; the cylinder, in this connection, growth; and the sphere, perfection, completeness,--so delicately poised it is,--only kept in its proper place by the most exquisite adjustment. And so to us, sometimes, the things that are visible become luminous with suggestions of greater realities which are yet unseen; and in the least we discern a faint radiance of the greatest.

Things that are small mirror things that are mighty. The tiny sphere is an emblem of the "big round world" and the planetary systems. The cube recalls the wonderful crystals, and shows the form that men reflect in architecture and sculpture. As for the cylinder it is Nature's special form, and G.o.d has taught man through Nature to use it in a thousand ways, and indeed has himself fashioned man more or less in its shape.

Mr. Hailmann says: "The second gift presents types of the princ.i.p.al phases of human development; from the easy mobility of infancy and childhood,--the ball,--we pa.s.s through the half-steady stages of boyhood and girlhood, represented in the cylinder, to the firm character of manhood and womanhood for which the cube furnishes the formula."

Bishop Brooks, speaking from the words, "The length and the breadth of it are equal," in his sermon on Symmetry of Life, uses the cube as a symbol of perfect character: The personal push of a life forward, its outreach laterally or the going out in sympathy to others, the upward reach toward G.o.d,--these he considers the three life dimensions. But such building must be done without nervous haste; the foundation must hint solidly of the threefold purpose; length, breadth, and thickness must be kept in proportion, if the perfect cube of life is ever to be found.

NOTE ON SECOND GIFT. [30] "The second gift, even in the nursery, calls for modifications from the form in which it comes to us from Froebel.

It is incomparable in its rich symbolism for ill.u.s.trating Froebel's thought to mature minds, and answers quite a useful purpose in the nursery, where it may help mamma tell her stories. But in the kindergarten the child wants to build with blocks. Hence, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth gifts are indicated; the second gift, as such, is, to say the least, an anachronism. Only in the form of the beads, or some similar expedient which gives many of these things for control, will it satisfy the kindergarten child. When he is expected to _study_ the cube, as an object lesson, to count the squares and corners and tell where they are, it is wholly unpalatable to him and entirely foreign to his plans."

[30] W. N. Hailmann.

THOUGHTS ON THE DISCRIMINATIVE POWER.

"Mind starts from Discrimination. The consciousness of difference is the beginning of every intellectual exercise."

"Our intelligence is, therefore, absolutely limited by our power of discrimination; the other functions of intellect, the retentive power, for instance, are not called into play until we have first discriminated a number of things."

"The minuteness or delicacy of the feeling of difference is the measure of the variety and mult.i.tude of our primary impressions and therefore of our stored-up recollections."

"Bear in mind the fact that until a difference is felt between two things, intelligence has not yet made the first step."

"The higher arts of comparison to impress difference are best ill.u.s.trated when both differences and agreements have to be noted, i. e., similarities and dissimilarities."

"Discrimination is the necessary prelude of every intellectual impression as the basis of our stored-up knowledge or memory."

Definition of the state of mind significantly named _Indifference_,--"the state where differing impressions fail to be recognized as distinct."

"The retentive power works up to the height of the discriminative power; it can do no more."

ALEX. BAIN.

"The most delightful and fruitful of all the intellectual energies is the perception of similarity and agreement, by which we rise from the individual to the general, trace sameness in diversity, and master instead of being mastered by the multiplicity of nature."

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL.

"It is by comparisons that we ascertain the difference which exists between things, and it is by comparisons, also, that we ascertain the general features of things, and it is by comparisons that we reach general propositions. In fact, comparisons are at the bottom of all philosophy."

LOUIS AGa.s.sIZ.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

From Cradle to School. _Bertha Meyer_. Pages 132, 133.

The Kindergarten. _Emily Shirreff_. 11, 12.

Lectures on Child-Culture. _W. N. Hailmann_. 26, 27.

Froebel and Education by Self-Activity. _H. Courthope Bowen_.

138-40.

Kindergarten Guide. _J_. and _B. Ronge_. 3-5.

Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by _Mary Gurney_. 47-49.

Kindergarten at Home. _Emily Shirreff_. 47-49.

Kindergarten Culture. _W. N. Hailmann_. 46, 51, 54.

Childhood's Poetry and Studies. _E. Marwedel_. Part II. 16-42.

Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. _Fr. Froebel_. 69-107.

Paradise of Childhood. _Edward Wiebe_. 9-11.

Law of Childhood. _W. N. Hailmann_. 33-35.

Kindergarten Guide. _Kraus-Boelte_. 15-27.

Education of Man. _Fr. Froebel_. 107-10.

Kindergarten Toys. _H. Hoffmann_. 12-17.

Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth. _W. K. Lethaby_. 50, 65.

Stories of Industry. Vols. i. and ii. _A. Chase_ and _E. Clow_.

Ethics of the Dust. _John Ruskin_.

Mme. A. de Portugall's Synoptical Table, as given in "Essays on the Kindergarten."

THE BUILDING GIFTS

The Building Gifts meet two very strongly marked tendencies in the child. _a._ The tendency to investigate. _b._ The tendency to transform.

The first and second gifts consist of undivided units, each one of which stands in relation to a larger whole, or to a cla.s.s of objects.