Part 10 (1/2)
The play consists in each fish being represented by a child; and the little boy also. As the Sturgeon asks her questions, she jumps up and down, and as the fishes answer, they jump up and down, till all are in motion. But, before it is played, the whole must be learnt,--which is nearly a winter's work.
In the Kindergarten connected with Madame Kriege's Normal cla.s.s in Boston, German is taught at the same time with English; or at least as soon as the children can read English with tolerable fluency.
And Mrs. Kriege would doubtless, if desired, teach the Normal scholars German; but to learn German they would need to remain in the training-school more than six months, the time she decides to be the least possible for preparation to be a Kindergartner.
CHAPTER XIII.
GEOGRAPHY.
MR. SHELDON, in his ”Elementary Instruction,” has shown the way in which we may begin to teach geography without books. To proceed in that way, up to the point of drawing all maps, is feasible in a Kindergarten, if the children stay long enough. My children learn a great deal about the geographical locality of animals, from the natural history lessons given over the blocks. A ”Picturesque Geography,” compiled by Mrs. Mann, from the most brilliant descriptions of travellers, may by and by be printed, and it would be a good book to read to children. It should be read slowly, requiring them to tell what it makes them see in their fancy.
This comprises a great deal of physical geography, and is a desirable precursor of political geography, which will be studied to most advantage by and by, with history. (But history is altogether beyond the Kindergarten.)
As soon as children know how to read, we advise that they be taught topography by Mr. Theodore Fay's atlas, according to his method,--which secures that they learn the maps by looking at the places as represented, and not by _words_, which can be learned without conveying the image, or an idea; and are easily forgotten.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SECRET OF POWER.
IN the foregoing pages I have done what I can, to make a Kindergarten Guide; not only for the use of those who undertake the new education, but in order to give parents a definite idea of the value of the new education to their children, and how they may aid rather than hinder its legitimate effect. Parents who live in places so isolated as to make a Kindergarten impossible, may also get some hints how to supply the want in some measure, by becoming themselves the playmates of their children.
I think it will be readily inferred, from what I have said, that the secret of power and success is _gradualism_. Any child can learn anything, if time and opportunity is given to go step by step. Then learning becomes as easy and agreeable as eating and drinking. Every degree of knowledge, also, must be practically used as soon as attained.
It then becomes a power; makes the child a power in nature; and prepares him, when his spirit shall come into union with the G.o.d of Nature, and Father of Human Spirits, to become a power over Nature--”for the glory of G.o.d and relief of man's estate.”
MORAL CULTURE OF INFANCY.
LETTER I.
MY DEAR ANNA,--I had heard of your intention of keeping school before you wrote to me, and had rejoiced for the good cause as only one can do who knows your peculiar qualifications for it. I have been full of the purpose of answering your letter, to tell you how joyfully I look forward to the realization of some of my wishes through your help, such as that of perfecting some beautiful plan of education, which you and I, with our faith in perfectibility, might invent, but which I could not make alone. When we parted many years since, in one of those beautiful porticos of the temple of knowledge, where we had together been warmed by the fires of genius, and where our sympathy (perhaps I should say _yours_) had rekindled a certain torch of enthusiasm that had been long quenched by adversity--(I sadly fear it is smouldering again under the ashes of freshly-buried hope)--I little expected to meet you again in my favorite walk, made fragrant by the breath of little children. If we had chanced to meet often enough since then, we should have found much to reunite us, for my best teachers have been certain wise mothers;--indeed, the only schools in which I have found the instruction I needed, have been the nurseries and firesides to which I have been admitted, often through my loving interest in the little flowers that bloomed around them. I could tell you, if I dared, how many times I have wished I could be queen of such kingdoms, for the sake of the younger subjects of those realms, for I have learned quite as much from the mistakes as from the wisdom I have witnessed.
My desire to gather all I could, from the efforts and experience of others, once tempted me on an exploring expedition through our much vaunted Primary Schools. What would you say if I were to tell you that I met with but one spirit kindred to my own in the whole circuit? Among all the hard, knotty women, young and old, whom I found presiding over youthful destinies in this extensive organization, I found one lovely young creature who _loved_ all her scholars, and who, by the power of this love, contrived partially to mitigate the horrors of benches without backs, long rote spelling-lessons, crowded and ill-ventilated rooms, tedious periods of idleness in which little darlings had to sit up straight and not speak or fidget (which last I consider one of the prerogatives of childhood). Her face radiated suns.h.i.+ne, her voice was music itself, and yet firm, and she often varied her routine of exercises, prescribed by the primary school committee, with a pleasant little story to ill.u.s.trate some principle she wished the children to act upon. She was the only one who had interpolated a regular entertaining lesson into the routine, and this she effected by nipping some of the prescribed lessons five minutes each, so as to save twenty for her little treatise upon some interesting subject of natural history. I quite agreed with her that it was a species of petty larceny for which she would be acquitted in the courts above.
I could describe sad, heart-breaking scenes of youthful misery and terror, injustice and daily cruelty in these schools. In several cases my indignation was so much aroused that I was obliged to leave the room to avoid showing my excited feelings. My sympathy for suppressed yawns, limbs suddenly outstretched, or wry faces made behind the teachers'
backs; tearful eyes, sleepy little heads nodding on fat shoulders, was so great, that I often smiled upon them when the teacher did not see _me_. I returned to my own little free republic, after spending one of my vacation weeks thus, more resolved than ever not to coerce babes into the paths of knowledge. Many a spine had its first bend there, I doubt not, and many a child learned to hate school in such scenes of discomfort. I have no doubt there were among the teachers many conscientious ones who did as well as they knew how under such a system.
If such schools could be presided over by genius, and such geniuses could be left to their own judgment about what to teach and how to teach it, the experience of Mr. Alcott in his first Infant School among the poor of the North End proves that primary Education can be made for all, what we can make it who have the advantage of teaching in our own parlors.
It is astonis.h.i.+ng to me that greater improvements have not already been made in this public school education. Often when I am sitting in my pleasant school-room with these favored children of wealthy parents around me, my thoughts recur to those crowded rooms, and the only remedy I see is, that school committees shall be formed of _women_. I believe many of the women I saw teaching in those primary schools would do better if left to their own instincts about the children. They have no liberty whatever, except such stolen liberty as I mentioned in the case of Miss E. What do _men_ know about the needs of little children just out of nurseries? If I were one of the school committee, with _carte blanche_, I would have ”stir-the-mush” or ”puss-in-the-corner” among the exercises, with singing every hour, and marching and clapping of hands.
And I would have well-ventilated rooms instead of such hot, suffocating places, warmed by large iron stoves.
And as I see the poor and neglected children in the streets, or in their own wretched houses, and how they live and grovel in low practices, gradually losing the sweet innocence of infantile expression, and becoming coa.r.s.e and violent, even brutal, I wonder still more at the torpidity of society upon this subject. Nothing is such a proof of its selfishness as this neglect. Nothing makes me feel so keenly the need of a new organization of things. I do not like the thought of merging the sacred family relation in communities where all live together in public as it were, but it seems as if something might be done for the children of the needy that is not yet done. These poor city children are sequestered even from the influences of Nature. How strange that the more favored individuals should not seek every means to give them what culture they can have amid these brick walls. So much might be done by the help of the salient imagination of childhood, that we should be helped more than half way by blessed Nature herself. I often take an unfas.h.i.+onable walk inside the Mall on Sunday afternoon, when the Irish people bring their babes to play upon the green. I think it is the best inst.i.tution in the city, and it would be a good idea to appoint a Commissioner in each ward to bring all the street children there every day and watch them while they play, and see that all have fair play. If school committees were formed of women, I think such an office might be created.
What faith we need to forgive heaven for the things that are! ”How much that is, is _not_ right,” I am sometimes tempted to exclaim. I have no idea, however, that Pope meant anything but the eternal IS, when he wrote ”Whatever is, is right.” It would have been better for superficial thinkers, if he had never said it however, for I often hear it quoted to defend what I consider the marring, not the making of G.o.d's plans. I have no doubt there is a remedy for every individual case of misery in this world, if eyes were only open to see it, but this couching process is the needful thing, and _that_ G.o.d has left us to think out for ourselves. We know that there are millions who live and die in ignorance of all that makes G.o.d _G.o.d_, or a Father. To these he is only the being that created them, and they may well ask, ”Why did he make us? to suffer? to sin?”--for they are conscious only of the irregularities of that creation by which they are tortured. They never see the wonderful adaptation of things to each other;--they know nothing of the harmonies of their being with the being of others, or with Nature. The sort of education they get in cities, where life is stirring briskly around them, and each one seems scrambling to get the best morsel for himself, only makes them worse, unless something is done to evoke order for them out of this chaos. Their belief in Deity is a superst.i.tious feeling about some supernatural power that exercises dominion over them, and subjects them to an imperious necessity. In the agony of death they cry aloud for fear; for they know they have made their fellow-men suffer, and death is a mirror that holds them up to themselves. Conscience breathes upon the gla.s.s, and in the dissolving picture its countenance is recognized,--but this is a base fear, and cannot be called an aspiration. To make sure the foundations of faith in G.o.d, one must know what G.o.d has done for him. Man must be made acquainted with his own nature before G.o.d's benevolence can be realized. If I did not think ignorance was at the root of all human evil, I should not have any hope; but though its kingdom is very large, no despot can be so easily driven from the throne. I hope all this does not seem irrelevant to the matter we are discussing; it brings me nearer to the point I wished to reach. I believe in that redemption which knowledge and principle combined bring to the soul that has slumbered in darkness. Its recuperative power is its most glorious attribute. The tendency of the character is so often imparted in earliest youth, that if this is right, if the first impressions of life and its author are the true ones, the rest of the education may almost with impunity be left to what is called chance. But if a child lives to the age of eight or ten years, without a ray of light which will explain his existence and position to himself; or lead him through Nature up to G.o.d; it must be difficult to inspire him afterwards with the true filial feeling toward his heavenly parent. And if, by a longer period of darkness, he has found that in a certain sense he can live without G.o.d in the world, he will stand a poor chance of realizing that he cannot do so in ordinary life after the period of impressible youth is past. I believe the soul will to all eternity have renewed chances to redeem itself; but I cannot easily give up this first life. When I think of the beautiful adaptations of the world to our wants; of the exquisite gratification the knowledge of these brings to the mind; of the harmonies of our existence with all other existences; and of the power of virtue to triumph over the earthward tendencies of this double human nature, and to sacrifice the present to the future good;--when I think of what the perfect man can be,--I cannot be reconciled that one should live and not have the keys to unlock this part of the universe. Childhood is in our power. The helpless little beings must be taken care of. The world waits upon the babe, as has truly been said; and is not this one of those beautiful provisions of Nature which show us how
”There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them as we will!”
”The child is father of the man,” indeed; and while the heart bounds lightly, let us teach this youthful father the religion of Nature, which he can understand. When he comes to riper years he will be ready to comprehend the religion of the Spirit, without danger of superst.i.tion or bigotry.