Part 77 (1/2)
JOHANN FRIEDRICH HERBART (1776-1841) Organizer of the Psychology of Instruction
FRIEDRICH WILHELM TROEBEL (1782-1852) Founder of the Kindergarten]
New methods of instruction in history and literature, and a new psychology, were now added to the norh this psychology has since been outgrown (R 357), it has been very useful in shaping pedagogical thought New courses of study for the training-schools were noorked out in which the elementary-school subjects were divided into drill subjects, content subjects, and motor- activity subjects [15]
Apperception, interest, correlation, social purpose, , and recitation methods became new terms to conjure with From the normal schools these ideas spread rapidly to the better city school systems of the time, and soon found their way into courses of study everywhere Practice schools and the model lessons in dozens of normal schools were remodeled after the pattern of those at Jena, and for a decade Herbartian ideas and the new child study vied with one another for the place of first i The Herbartian wave of the nineties resembled the Pestalozzian enthusiasm of the sixties
Each for a time furnished the new ideas in education, each introduced elements of importance into the elementary-school instruction, each deeply influenced the training of teachers in nor a new turn to the instruction there, and each gradually settled down into its proper place in educational practice and history
THE HERBARTIAN CONTRIBUTION To the Herbartians we are indebted in particular for i of history and literature, which have modified all our subsequent procedure; for the introduction of history teaching in sorades; for the e of history and geography; for the new emphasis on the moral aiy; and for a better organization of the technique of classrooave emphasis to that part of educational develop upon the child--as contrasted with the emphasis Pestalozzi had placed on anic law With the introduction of normal child activities, which came from another source about this same time, the elementary-school curriculum ashave it was practically complete, and the elementary school of 1850 was coinning of the twentieth century
III THE KINDERGARTEN, PLAY, AND MANUAL ACTIVITIES
To another German, Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852), we are indebted, directly or indirectly, for three other additions to elearten, the play idea, and handwork activities
ORIGIN OF THE KINDERGARTEN Of Gered fro led a most unhappy childhood, and apprenticed to a forester without his wishes being consulted, at twenty-three Froebel decided to become a schoolteacher and visited Pestalozzi in Switzerland Two years later he became the tutor of three boys, and then spent the years 1808-10 as a student and teacher in Pestalozzi's Institute at Yverdon During his years there Froebel was deeply ireat value of music and play in the education of children, and of all that he carried away from Pestalozzi's institution these ideas werein a variety of occupations--student, soldier against Napoleon, and curator in a y--he finally opened a little private school, in 1816, which he conducted for a decade along Pestalozzian lines
In this the play idea, music, and the self-activity of the pupils were uppermost The school was a failure, financially, but while conducting it Froebel thought out and published (1826) his ical work--_The Education of Man_
Gradually Froebel became convinced that the most needed reform in education concerned the early years of childhood His own youth had been most unhappy, and to this phase of education he now addressed himself
After a period as a teacher in Switzerland he returned to Gera self-activity were the do characteristics, and in 1840 he hit upon the naarten_ for it In 1843 his _Mutter- und Kose-Lieder_, a book of fifty songs and games, was published
This has been translated into ales
SPREAD OF THE KINDERGARTEN IDEA After a series of unsuccessful efforts to bring his new idea to the attention of educators, Froebel, hied and resolved to address himself henceforth to wo hi of teachers in the new ideas Froebel was fortunate in securing as one of his most ardent disciples, just before his death, the Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz Bulow-Wendhausen (1810-93), who did , in 1849, the man mentioned to her as ”an old fool,” she understood hi to the attention of the world the work of this unworldly man who did not kno to make it known for hi so in a hly characteristic of the political reaction which by that tiartens in Prussia The Baroness then went to London and lectured there on Froebel's ideas, organizing kindergartens in the English ”ragged schools” Here, by contrast, she met with a cordial reception She later expounded Froebelian ideas in Paris, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, and (after 1860, when the prohibition was re-college in Dresden Many of her writings have been translated into English, and published in the United States
Considering the importance of this work, and the tiarten idea has ress on the continent of Europe Its spirit does not harovernary it had ress in Europe, perhaps, has been in dereat leaders in deovernment, the Infant-School developrowth of the kindergarten In England, though, the Infant School has recently been entirely transforarten spirit [17] In France, infant education has taken a somewhat different direction [18]
In the United States the kindergarten idea has met with a most cordial reception In no country in the world has the spirit of the kindergarten been so caught and applied to school work, and probably nowhere has the original kindergarten idea been so expanded and iarten in the United States was a Gerarten, established at Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1855, by Mrs Carl Schurz, a pupil of Froebel
During the next fifteen years so coarten was opened privately in Boston, in 1860, by Miss Elizabeth Peabody In 1868 a private training-college for kindergartners was opened in Boston, largely through Miss Peabody's influence, by Madahter, who had recently arrived from Germany In 1872 Miss Marie Boelte opened a si school in New York City, and in 1873 her pupil, Miss Susan Blow, accepted the invitation of Superintendent Williao there and open the first public-school kindergarten in the United States [20]
To-day the kindergarten is found in so been carried to all continents by overnments [21] japan early adopted the idea, and China is now beginning to do so
THE KINDERGARTEN IDEA The doarten is natural but directed self-activity, focused upon educational, social, and moral ends Froebel believed in the continuity of a child's life from infancy onward, and that self-activity, deterently directed, was essential to the unfolding of the child's inborn capacities He saw, more clearly than any one before him had done, the unutilized wealth of the child's world; that the child's chief characteristic is self-activity; the desirability of the child finding hi these early years was to supple the ideal side of his nature To these ends doing, self activity, and expression becaesture, directed play, song, color, the story, and huarten technique Nature study and school gardening were given a prominent place, andfar beyond Pestalozzi's principle of sense- i by doing (R
358)
Froebel, as well as Herbart, also saw the social importance of education, and that man must realize himself not independently amid nature, as Rousseau had said, but as a social animal in cooperation with his fellowmen Hence he made his schoolroom a miniature of society, a place where courtesy and helpfulness and social cooperation were prominent features This social and at tiarten has always been aout social ideas ames, such as shoemaker, carpenter, smith, and farmer, were devised and set to music The ”story” by the teacher was , and often worked out constructively in clay, blocks, or paper Other games to develop skill orked out, and use was ifts” and ”occupations” which Froebel devised were intended to develop constructive and aesthetic power, and to provide for connection and develops
Individual development as its aim, motor-expression as its method, and social cooperation as its means were the characteristic ideas of this new school for little children (R 358)
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE KINDERGARTEN Wholly aside fro the year, year and a half, or two years they spend in this type of school, the addition of the kindergarten to elenificance and usefulness The idea that the child is priiven new eiven new force The idea that a child's chief business is play has been a new conception of large educational value The eliarten has been an idea that has slowly but gradually been extended upward into the lower grades of the eleely as a result of the spreading of the kindergarten spirit, the world is co like their real social, moral, and educational values, wholly aside from their benefits as concern physical welfare, and in ular subject in school progra of the kindergarten, and arten ideas have been introduced into the schools
INSTRUCTION IN THE MANUAL ACTIVITIES Froebel not only introduced constructive work--paper-folding, weaving, needlework, and ith sand and clay and color--into the kindergarten, but he also proposed to extend and develop such work for the upper years of schooling in a school for hand training which he outlined, but did not establish His proposed plan included the ele idea, developed later, and he justified such instruction on the sarounds that we advance to-day It was not to teach a boy a trade, as Rousseau had advocated, or to train children in sense-perception, as Pestalozzi had employed all his manual activities, but as a for creative poithin the child The idea was advocated by a number of thinkers, about 1850 to 1860, but the movement took its rise in Finland, Sweden, and Russia
The first country to organize such work as a part of its school instruction was Finland, where, as early as 1858, Uno Cygnaeus (1810-1888) outlined a course for , and basket-weaving In 1866 Finland made some form of manual work compulsory for boys in all its rural schools, and in its training- colleges for overnment of Sweden decided to introduce sloyd work into its schools, partly to counteract the bad physical and estion, and partly to revivify the declining home industries of the people A sloyd school was established at Naas, in 1872, to train teachers, and in 1875 a second school, known as a ”Sloyd Seun The su teachers from many nations In 1877 sloyd as added to the Folk School instruction of Sweden At first the old native sloyd occupations were followed, such as carpentering, turning, wood- carving, brush-, and work in copper and iron, but later the industrial eleanized course in educational tool work for boys froe, after the Finnish plan
SPREAD OF THE MANUAL-TRAINING IDEA France was the first of the larger European nations to adopt this new addition to eleanized at Paris in 1873, and, in 1882, the instruction in manual activities was ordered introduced into all the prih, to provide work roo in coland the as first introduced in London, about 1887 The governan to aid in the training of teachers By 1900 the as found in all the larger cities, and included cooking and sewing for girls, as well as oes back still farther, and was an outgrowth of the earlier ”schools of industry” established to train girls for domestic service (R 241) By 1846 instruction in needlework had been begun in earnest in England In German lands needleas also an early school subject, while soirls had been provided infor boys, though, despite anda work, had made but little headway up to that tiarten, the initiative and self-expression aspects of themovement made no appeal to those responsible for the work of the people's schools, and, in consequence, the ely for the continuation and vocational schools for older pupils
In the United States theand household-arts ideas have found a very ready welcome Curious as it may seem, the first introduction to the United States of this new forh the exhibit overn the work in wood and iron made by the pupils at the Imperial Technical Institute at Moscow This, however, was not the Swedish sloyd, but a type of work especially adapted to secondary-school instruction In consequence the movement for instruction in the manual activities in the United States, unlike in other nations, began as a highly organized technical type of high-school instruction, [22] while the eleirls cah school has since developed rapidly in this country, has rendered an important educational service, and is a peculiarly A idea has been confined to the elementary school, and no institution exists there which parallels these costly and well-equipped American technical secondary schools