Part 3 (1/2)

The object-lessons involved in the plays are those which especially belong to the Kindergarten, because their aim is not so much to open the intellect to science, as to give moral training. The latter is ever to be kept in advance of the former; for it is the _tree of life_, whose fruits--if they are first eaten--will render harmless and salutary those of the tree of knowledge.

I was not unaware of this when I began my own Kindergarten; and the very first thing I did, was to give an object lesson, which was, as I afterwards found, exactly in the spirit of Froebel. When the children were a.s.sembled the first day, in my very pleasant room, looking full of expectation, I went forward with a beautiful rose-tree in a little flower-pot, and said, ”Come, and I will show you what is beautiful. It is a rose fully blown. Now say the words--all of you--after me; and I said again, 'It is a rose fully blown.'” They all repeated these words with glad voices, and then each following sentence of that beautiful prose hymn of Mrs. Barbauld. I especially noted the smiling eyes and lips, as they repeated,--

”He who made the rose is more beautiful than the rose.

”It is beautiful, but He is beauty.”

Another day a basket of roses was handed round to the children; and, when each had one in hand, this recitation was renewed.

After it was over, I said, ”What did G.o.d make the rose for?” They all smiled, as if conscious of knowing; and one, more courageous than the rest, said, ”To give us pleasure;” followed by a dear little utilitarian, who said, ”To make rose-water.” I added, ”Yes; and the rose-water gives us pleasure, too, because it has a sweet smell, and a sweet taste, besides. Is not G.o.d very good to give us roses to look at and smell; and to make into rose-water, after they are all faded and fallen to pieces? What is the reason that G.o.d makes things to give us pleasure? Could we not have lived very comfortably without flowers?”

They answered spontaneously, ”Because G.o.d loves us.” ”What else does the dear G.o.d give us to make us happy?” Different children answered, and spoke of different flowers, and of other things which gave them pleasure, and thus they were put into a grateful mood, without a word said about the _duty_ of grat.i.tude to G.o.d; for love of G.o.d comes spontaneously, when he is conceived aright, and forecloses the thought of duty. But duty to our fellow-creatures should always be suggested when the heart is overflowing with grat.i.tude to the common Father. I went on asking such questions as ”Do _you_ love anybody? what do you do to make people happy that you love? what would you like to do with your rose? Do sick people like to have flowers? do you know any sick person?

do you like to do the same kind of things G.o.d does? do you think G.o.d wants you to make your friends happy? and all happy whom he loves?” The roses were then gathered into a shallow basin of water, to be preserved till school should be over, and they could go and bestow them as they had severally suggested; for it is important to make children _do_ whatever of kindness they think of, not idly sentimentalize.

Other lessons, on the material origin of the rose, the planting, the process of growth, and even the making of rose-water, opened up; and Mrs. Barbauld's prose hymns afforded other subjects for similar lessons, as well as whatever other hymns they learned to recite or sing; and I took great care that no hymns should be sung that did not admit of being made intelligible to their hearts and imaginations.

Moral training is effected by taking care in the plays to keep the children in the mood of mutual accommodation, by showing them how this is necessary for the beauty of the play. There is also a great opportunity in the playing, to check all selfish movements, by appeals to sympathy and conscience, which is the presentiment of reason, and forefeeling of moral order, for whose culture material order is indispensable; and order must be kept by the child intentionally, that it may cultivate the intellectual principle of which it is the manifestation. Some plan of play prevents the little creatures from hurting each other, and fancy naturally furnishes the plan,--the mind unfolding itself in fancies, which are easily quickened and led in harmless directions by an adult of any resource. Children delight to personate animals; and a fine genius could not better employ itself than in inventing a great many more plays, setting them to rhythmical words, describing what is to be done. Kindergarten plays are easy intellectual exercises; for to do anything whatever with a thought beforehand, develops the heart or quickens the intelligence; and thought of this kind does not tax intellect, or check physical development, which last must never be sacrificed in the process of education.

There are enough instances of marvellous acquisition in infancy, to show that imbibing with the mind is as natural as with the body, if suitable beverage is put to the lips; but in most cases the mind's power is balanced by instincts of body, which should have priority, if they cannot certainly be in full harmony. The mind can better afford to wait for the maturing of the body, for it survives the body, than the body can afford to wait for the mind; for it is irretrievably stunted, if the nervous energy is not free to stimulate its special organs, at least equally with those of the mind.

There is not, however, any need to sacrifice the culture of either mind or body, but to harmonize them. They can and ought to grow together.

They mutually help each other.

CHAPTER V.

THE KINDERGARTNER.

THE first requisite to a Kindergarten is, of course, the Kindergartner, fully intelligent of childhood, and thoroughly trained herself in everything that the child is to do.

The first Kindergartner was Froebel himself; who, in the course of a long life, studied into the science of childhood, and worked out a series of artistical exercises, which aim to educate--that is, _draw_ forth---the powers of children from a more profound depth than ordinary education respects. But instead of beginning with putting checks upon childish play, he took the hint of his method from this spontaneous activity; and began with genially directing it to a more certainly beautiful effect than it can attain when left to itself. A large part of the art of primary school-teaching hitherto, has consisted in keeping children still, and preventing them from playing.

It was Froebel's wisdom to accept the natural activity of childhood as a hint of the Divine Providence, and to utilize its spontaneous play for education. And it is this which takes away from his system that element of baneful antagonism which school discipline is so apt to excite, and which it is such a misfortune should ever be excited between the young and old. Nothing is worse for the soul, at any period of life, than to be put upon self-defence; for humility is the condition of the growth of mind as well as morals, and ensures that natural self-respect shall not degenerate into a petty wilfulness and self-a.s.sertion. The divine impulse of activity in children should not be directly opposed, but accepted and guided into beautiful production, according to the laws of creative order, which the adult has studied out in nature, and genially presents in _playing_ with the child.

But such playing is a great art, and founded on the deepest science of nature, within and without; and therefore Froebel never established a Kindergarten without previously preparing Kindergartners by a normal training, which his faithful disciples have scrupulously kept up. And if only genius and love like his own could in one lifetime have discovered the science and worked out the processes of this culture, yet hundreds of pupils of these normal cla.s.ses have proved, that any fairly gifted, well-educated, genial-tempered young woman, who will devote a reasonable time to training for it, can become a competent Kindergartner.

Nothing short of this will do; for none of the manuals which have been written to guide already trained experts, can supply the place of the living teacher. Written words will not describe the fine gradations of the work, or give an idea of the conversation which is to be constantly had with the children. It would be less absurd to suppose that a person could learn to make watches by reading a description of the manufacture in an encyclopaedia, than to suppose a person could learn to educate children by mere formulas.

Indeed, it is _infinitely_ less absurd. For a child is not finite ma.s.s to be moulded, or a blank paper to be written upon, at another's will.

It is a living subject, whose own cooperation--or at least willingness--is to be conciliated and made instrumental to the end in view. Would a Cremona violin be put into the hands of a person ignorant of music, to be tuned and made to discourse divine harmonies? How is it, then, that the ”harp of a thousand strings”--which G.o.d puts into the hands of every mother, in perfect tune--is so recklessly committed, first to ignorant girl-nurses, and then to the least educated teachers?

Looking at children's first schools, it would seem that anybody is thought skilful enough to begin a child's education! It takes a long apprentices.h.i.+p to learn to play on the instrument with seven strings, in order to bring out music. But it is stupidly thought that anybody can play on the greater instrument, whose strings thrill with pleasure or pain, and discourse good or evil, as they are touched wisely or unwisely!

Froebel struck the key-note of the music of the spheres, which human life is destined to become, when he announced, as a first principle, that the well-thought-out wisdom of the ideal mother's love is the science of education; and that this science of sciences is founded on self-knowledge; by which he did not mean (any more than did Socrates, or that older sage who engraved ”know thyself” upon the temple of Delphi) individual idiosyncrasy, but the very self which Jesus Christ said all men must _become_, when he set a little child in the midst, and declared that no one could enter his kingdom, that did not _become_ as _one_; and when, another time, he called and blessed little children, because, as he said, of such was the kingdom of heaven; and again, more significantly still, when he warned from ”_offending_ (it might be better rendered _perverting_) these little ones; _because_,” as he added, ”_their spirits do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven_.” To know the soul before it has been warped by individual caprice and circ.u.mstance, is the science of sciences, on which is to be founded the art of arts; viz., that of educating the child so that its individuality may develop, not destroy, its sense of universal relations. And here I must pause to say, that it is simply astonis.h.i.+ng that when most of us believe, as our religion, that Jesus Christ embodied in himself the wisdom, as well as love, and even power of G.o.d,--”without measure,”--his words about children are pa.s.sed over with so little inquiry into the depths of their _meaning_. What can it mean--that their spirits always behold the face of the Father--short of the very philosophy of Gioberti,--that the newly-created soul commences its consciousness in the eternal world, with a reciprocal vision of G.o.d _remembered in the heart_ through life, and const.i.tuting the divine term of conscience, which is the CONSTANT, while the human term is of only fitful growth. As Wordsworth says,--

”Our Life's Star Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar!

Not in entire forgetfulness And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From G.o.d who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy, But he beholds the light and whence it flows; He sees it _in his joy_: The youth, who daily from the East Must travel, still is nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended.”