Part 1 (1/2)

Guide to the Kindergarten and Intermediate Cla.s.s and Moral Culture of Infancy.

by Elizabeth P. Peabody and Mary Mann.

PREFACE.

CAMBRIDGE, Ma.s.s., March 1, 1869.

SINCE publis.h.i.+ng the first edition of what I meant to be a Guide to those who undertake to give Kindergarten culture, I have been in Europe, and made a special study of the Kindergartens established in Hamburgh, Berlin, and Dresden, by Froebel himself, and his most distinguished scholars.

This study has more and more confirmed the conviction I derived from reading Froebel's ”Essay on the Education of the Human Race;” viz., that no greater benefit could be conferred on our country, than the far and wide spread of Kindergartens, _as an underpinning_, so to say, of our n.o.ble public-school system, giving adequate moral foundation, thoroughness, and practicality to the national education.

But I also learned that no book could be written that would make an expert Kindergartner. It was the careful observations and earnest experiments of half a century, that gave to Froebel himself that profound knowledge of childhood which enabled him to formulate the principles, deduce the rules, and call forth the spirit of a genuine art of education. But though no genius and industry less than his own could have originated this art, any soundly cultured, intelligent, genial-tempered young woman, who loves children, can appreciate and practise it, if--and only if--she is trained by a living teacher engaged in the work at the moment.

This, I myself have proved experimentally also; for _my_ knowledge was first obtained only from books. I had the best manuals and guides, but did not know that they were intended merely for the convenience of already trained teachers; and that they necessarily omitted the characteristic peculiarity of the method, because _written words_ cannot do justice to the fine steps by which the child is led to gradually carry its total spontaneity forwards, on every plane of its little life,--artistic, moral, and intellectual.

For there is nothing merely mechanical and imitative in true Kindergarten culture: the child acts ”from within outwards” in every thing it does, however seemingly trifling; and, if we use the word _artist_ in its most general sense, becomes an artist from the beginning. Thus is prevented that too common divorce between the powers of thinking and acting, whose harmony ensures ability in a strict proportion to intellectual capacity. Consciousness of aim, and enjoyment of success, at every step develop new ideas and power, and fulfil that law of nature by which thought tends to rush into act instantly, as in childish play. Nothing is more melancholy in experience than to see people _drifting_ instead of _living_; but this general failure of human life is owing to the fact, that the una.s.sisted child is baffled in its will and balked of its desires, by a want of that steadiness of aim, perseverance, and knowledge of how to adapt means to ends, which adult sympathy and wisdom should supply; and from want of which it loses the original harmony of its being in the process of its growth. Kindergarten culture is the adult mind entering into the child's world, and appreciating nature's intention as displayed in every impulse of spontaneous life; and so directing it that the joy of success may be ensured at every step, and artistic things be actually produced, which gives the self-reliance and conscious intelligence that ought to discriminate human power from blind force.

The only mistake in idea which I see that I made in my ”Guide,” was making it the object of the teacher to cultivate the _individualities_ of each pupil especially. This is not even desirable, and would require the intuitive genius of Froebel in every single teacher. In a true art of education, individualities will be tenderly respected; but it is not what is individual, but what is common to all (or that universal of human nature which rises into the divine creative), which is to be cultivated especially. Every process of Froebel's Kindergarten is good for all children, and, interfering with nothing original, leaves their individualities free to express themselves _sufficiently_. For individual varieties are irrefragable, and give piquancy and beauty to human life, except they are pampered,--when they become deformities. To follow universal laws in their orderly development, ensures a necessary harmony with others, while a margin is always to be left for _invention_, which is what gives conscious freedom, and makes obedience no longer blind and pa.s.sive, but intelligent and active; every healthy instinct and affection becoming at last spiritual law.

Nevertheless, I gladly meet the demand of the public for a second edition of the ”Guide,” because its defect is not in its spirit and general idea, seeing that it has awakened an interest in Kindergartens all over the United States, as numerous letters from all parts have proved to me; but in my having somewhat confused what belongs to the second and third stages of primary education, with a preliminary process, which it is necessary not only to begin with, but to keep distinct for a considerable time, until the habit of mind is formed of asking clearly what is going to be done before attempting to do it. What I missed cannot be supplied by any book; for this preliminary process can only be learned from the living teaching of the Normal cla.s.s. I make some revisory notes, also change some thirty pages, and gladly embrace the opportunity, which the popularity of my ”Guide” gives me, to make known, as far as it goes abroad, that, when I came home from Europe, I found what I had seen to be the indispensable condition of an effective introduction of Froebel's art into either the private or public education of America; viz., a training-school for Kindergartners, actually established by Madame Kriege in Boston (127 Charles Street), in connection with a Kindergarten to be taught by her daughter, fresh from the school of Berlin, founded by the Baroness Marienholtz, a n.o.ble lady who has devoted her pen, her fortune, the prestige of her rank, and even her personal services, to the diffusion of Kindergarten culture on the continent of Europe.

The so-called Kindergarten which I had established, was gladly given up to make room for this genuine one; and I have the highest expectations from the Normal training. Already several teachers, who had made experiments of their own, which had taught them the need of this special instruction, have engaged themselves as Madame Kriege's pupils; and the spread of the demand for Kindergartners will, I think, keep her Normal cla.s.s always full. I cannot but hope that the time may come when the Normal schools of all our States may be endowed with a professors.h.i.+p of Kindergarten culture adequately filled.

Omitting my own preface to my first edition, I retain as explanation of the origin of the letters on moral culture, which make the last part of the ”Guide,” and give it its greatest value to mothers, Mrs. Mann's

POSTSCRIPT.

”I have been urged to publish these letters, written twenty years ago, as an appendix to a Kindergarten Guide, because the school herein described was a groping attempt at something of the same kind, and had left very pleasant memories in the hearts of the children referred to--now no longer children, but some of them men and women n.o.bly and beautifully acting their parts on earth as parents; and others,--having died martyrs' deaths for human freedom in the desolating war that now ravages our beloved country,--angels in heaven.

”If an inborn love of children and of school-keeping are qualifications for judging of the best means of educating them, I may claim to have known something of the theory and practice best adapted to that end. My object was to put them in possession of all their faculties. Many improvements in methods, and many facilities in means, have been added to the resources of teachers since these letters were written. Physical training is felt to be of the greatest importance, in preference to the ancient mode of shutting children up many hours in close rooms, and repressing all natural and joyous life. The principle is discovered of educating by _directing the activities_. Hence the Kindergarten.

”M. M.

”CONCORD, Ma.s.s., 1863.”

AMERICAN KINDERGARTEN.

CHAPTER I.

KINDERGARTEN--WHAT IS IT?

WHAT is a Kindergarten? I will reply by negatives. It is not the old-fas.h.i.+oned infant-school. That was a narrow inst.i.tution, comparatively; the object being (I do not speak of Pestalozzi's own, but that which we have had in this country and in England) to take the children of poor laborers, and keep them out of the fire and the streets, while their mothers went to their necessary labor. Very good things, indeed, in their way. Their principle of discipline was to circ.u.mvent the wills of children, in every way that would enable their teachers to keep them within bounds, and quiet. It was certainly better that they should learn to sing _by rote_ the Creed and the ”definitions”

of scientific terms, and such like, than to learn the profanity and obscenity of the streets, which was the alternative. But no mother who wished for anything which might be called the _development_ of her child would think of putting it into an infant-school, especially if she lived in the country, amid

”the mighty sum Of things forever speaking,”