Part 13 (1/2)
The hu not only craves liberty and love instinctively, but law also; he ”feels the weight of chance desires,” and ”longs for a repose that ever is the same” This is the _rationale_ of Frbel's ests the child's action, so it pere, what is the opposite? which itself suggests the combination of opposites, that immediately produces a symmetrical effect The child enjoys the symmetry all the more, if he feels as if he personally produced it This is the secret of his love of repetition He wants to see if by the saain produce the saain, till he feels that he does it all of himself He does not want you to help him even with your words (and you never should help hiestion, he feels free,--but if he produces the saestion, he has a stillsense of power; and his will becomes more consciously free the more he chooses to put on the harness of order
The kindergartner will sometimes have a child put under her care whose will has been exasperated by arbitrary and capricious treatainst his inclination till he has reacted, out of pure _contrariness_, as we say This contrariness proves that he has been outraged; perhaps in so his e of law The very violence of the evil may show that he is an exceptionally fine child, with an enormous sense of power that he does not knohat to do with because the proper educational influence has failed hiainst the vicious will of another, who, instead of offering him the bread of law, has presented to hiive the child law, as well as love; but when you are doubtful whether you can genially suggest the law,--at all events express the love; and never substitute for the law your oill The lahich produces a good or beautiful effect, is God's will; your will is not creative of the child's will like God's; its best effect is to stionism of the child's, when the latter is feeble, which it soanization, or by having been crushed by overbearing ement, or vitiated by selfish caprice
I enial, coaxing character, it fails of being an ie of the Divine Providence, which is an alternation of attractions and antagonis now in the s, not only cherishi+ng the heart with love, but sti the ith law; and be warned not to enervate the character, by producing an aesthetic luxury of sentinate in the worst kind of selfishness--the passive kind This objection arten were to be protracted beyond the era to which Frbel limits it Certainly the tionized, if need be, by the law of universal hu, nized that there ht be a _wiser_ will, not to be doubted as still ; and said, ”Not my will, but Thine be done,”--”Into Thy hands I coartner reood, and beware of enacting the sovereign judge There is no doubt that an exclusively cherishi+ng tenderness should be the law of the nursery, with no antagonise it is a wise self-assertion which ish to develop We therefore act _for_ the infant, having secured his acting _with_ us by our genial encourage to act for him, when he can act with consciousness of an individual life We arten; or, at least, we raft personal consciousness upon it, by _playing_ little antagonisainst the play of kindergarten that it does mature men Let the children play with co to laws,” and they will all the more likely seek lahen they come into wider relations
The development of the consciousness of man is serial In the nursery we coax the child to exercise the varioustheir action; wehis senses, as it were, with the whole operation as an object The child first experiences the pleasure ofthis pleasure; then enjoys your helping hith and skill to accomplish; and finally wills to take up his body and make his first independent step This is the first crisis in the history of his individuality, and everyfaith that enables hih it He then repeats the action intentionally, si the exertion he un to walk too soon and experienced the pain of nu hands Such pains disturb and haunt his fancy, and dishearten hith and enterprise to activity
The nursery and kindergarten education are the preliminary processes which foreshadow all the processes of the Divine Providence Therefore, even in the nursery we _play_ antagonizing processes We heighten the child's enjoy him conscious of isolation a htful sense of relation; for the baby likes to have a handkerchief thrown over his head unexpectedly, and suddenly withdrawn again and again So we sometimes pretend to let him fall, and just when he is about to cry with alarain and kiss him
Frbel in his nursery plays has several of this nature; and as children grow older they play antagonisms spontaneously, which are beneficial just so far as they elicit the consciousness of individual power; but are har too far, they show its limitations painfully, and arten season various sensibilities are manifest that have not shown themselves in the nursery, and which are premonitions of the destined dominion over material nature, which at first so much dominates the child, and would destroy his body if you did not intervene with your loving care These are to be artner's heart till they beco his will, which is encouraged and strengthened--if it is never superseded by your will--until he shall begin to realize his personal responsibility Then, as he took his body into his own keeping when he began to run alone, so noill take his character into his own hands to educate, and he will do it all the etically, if he feels you to be an all-helping, all-cherishi+ng, all-inspiring friend, which you must needs be if you are open to feel and wise to know God's love to you, in li the inexorable laws of nature, for the fulcrum of the power that He pours into His children in the form of will; and which obeys Him just in proportion as it keeps its freedoer any evil to be conscious of, and ot the doenerous purposes, in a universal ressive attain happiness of man; a happiness which uishes the eternal life of Christ from the nirwana of Buddha
MORAL SENTIMENT
WE have been asked by one of the students of Frbel's art and science, what books we should recoe of the subjects on which we gave a few hints in our first and second paper of _Glimpses_
In reply, ould first say, that it is a needed preparation for any study of books on intellectual and moral philosophy, to look back on our own moral history and mental experience, and ask ourselves as the process of our rowth, and the circumstances of the formation of our opinions; that is, what action of our relatives, guardians, and companions, had the best--and what the worst--practical effects upon our characters; what aided and what hindered us? Every fault in our characters has its history, having generally originated in the action of others upon us; sometimes their intentional action, which may have been nant; and sometimes an influence unconsciously exerted On the other hand, much of our life that has blest ourselves and others, can be referred to spontaneousno special reference to ourselves; generous sentienerous acts recorded in history, or done in the privacy of doinative poetry, over which our young hearts e of the great nature which we share, is a living nucleus that will give vitalto any true words hich scientific treatises on the e whether the writer is talking about facts of life, or mere abstractions, out of which have died all spiritual substance, leaving only ”a heap of empty boxes” In no departs than in this Abstraction is the source of all the false philosophy and theology which has distracted the world Generalizations are of no aid--but a delusion and a snare--unless the mental and moral phenomena, from which they are derived, have been the writer's experiences, personal or sympathetic Such experiences are as substantial as s, to say the least; and even they do not do justice to the whole truth, which is--if we may so express it--the vital experience of God Hence is the Living Word to which hu, indeed, but the refuse of thought, ”a weight to be laid aside” and forgotten, like a work done, as we stretch forward to the prize of truth, which is our ”high calling”
In Book II chapter vii of Campbell's _Philosophy of Rhetoric_, there is a section headed, ”Why is it that nonsense so often escapes being detected, both by the writer and reader?” It explains with great perspicuity the uses and abuses of our faculty of abstraction, which is not a spiritual, but merely an intellectual faculty I would commend this essay (and indeed, for several reasons, the whole book) to a student of intellectual philosophy A great deal uage, printed a second time with some other papers, by Phillips & Sampson, Boston, in 1857, and probably still to be found in old bookstores, if it be not reprinted by its author, R L Hazard
On the subject of my second paper of _Glimpses_ the same author has written two books, one published by D Appleton, in New York, in 1864, _The Freedo that wills, a Creative First Cause_; and in 1869, Lee & Shepard, Boston, published, as supple, addressed to John Stuart Mill, with an Appendix on the Existence of Matter, and our Notions of Infinite space_[13]
INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM TO WILL
IF the spontaneous will of man, and its heart with its latent love, hope, and sense of beauty and justice, are without date,
”An eye a the blind, That deaf and silent reads the eternal deep, Haunted forever by the eternal mind,”
yet there is no doubt that the huradually identifies the individual for co of the hu universe, against which the sensibility reacts, and by this activity develops the organs of sense, which are the connection of those two great contrasts, the soul and the outward universe For perceptions of sense are the instru the particulars of the surrounding universe as to give the definite for has no absolute knowledge like the lower animals, who are passive instrumentality of God to certain finite ends below the plane of spirituality Created for the infinite ends of intelligence, and free communion with one another and God, men need to beco, and do so by a gradual conversation with God, who is forever saying, by the universe, which is his speech, I AM And here education begins its offices, by helping itimate art But no one man can utter the _thou art_ of humanity adequately It takes all humanity forever and ever to do so; and it does not do so but just so far as theand communion with each other Therefore each child must be taken by the hand by those already conscious, and led to realize his own consciousness by learning that of his fellows
In the action and reaction of the individual with his special environives him pleasure and pain, and he will be attracted to the former, and repelled fros from each other The observation and discri_ Sensuous ihts, but discri to their siht
Education has an office in both the accu The mother and nurse of each child ans shall be properly irow to be a good instru even more delicate impressions A tender sy to identify hireatest perfection,--are the special qualifications of the educator at this stage Such a knowledge of nature's laws and order, asto law and order, can alone help the child to reproduce, on his finite plane, an ie of God's creative action The educator who should succeed the nurse is the kindergartner, ithout lacking the sye of nature boththese opposites into their right connection with each other
She will therefore lead the child to _produce_ soround for the operation of thinking Instead of letting the blind will spend its energy in wild and aimless motion, she will present a desirable aim to attain, which will produce an effect that shall satisfy the heart, and produce an object that shall engage the attention, and stihly known, not only in its natural properties, but in the law of its being, which was the child's own enesis of the understanding, then, is, first, sensuous i itself intentionally, beco of e To get understanding precedes getting knowledge, which is the special work of the understanding when it is developed
There is another faculty of the individual, besides understanding, and which is to be discriminated from it--fancy Vivid and clear sensuous impressions are the foundation of fancy, as well as of understanding