Part 14 (1/2)

Wherever the kindergarten has been fairly tried, its results have been lively enjoyment by the little pupils of their ”school” hours, and readiness to receive not as drudgery, but with delight, all opportunities of acquiring knowledge This readiness, it is believed, would less often change into a hatred of lessons, if the subsequent school-teaching did not too commonly despise those indications of natural taste and fitness which Frbel, in his systeartens for the poor, already established at Queen Street, Salford, and in the Workpeople's Hall, Pendleton,--where visitors are at all times most heartily welcoive a truly hu to children of the least favored class, gathered in large nu these schools also, intelligent persons will forenuity and beauty of the processes by which this natural and si is effected Thus too will be understood, that the kindergarten system, which in relation to its pupils is the si, not athwart, their natural tastes, is, as respects its professors, very far removed indeed from every-day facility and _rule of thumb_ It demands in those who aspire to teach, a sincere love of children and an earnest devotion to duties which bring much pleasure ell perforive up sufficient tihly instructed in the principles, and sufficiently practised in the use, of a machinery which, while beautifully si dehly trained in this systearten schools proper, and for infant schools commonly so called

To supply this de school

NOTE B, TO PAGE 81

_Letter from Michelet to the Baroness Marenholtz von Bulow_

MARCH 27, 1859

By a stroke of genius Frbel has found what the wise ht in vain,--the solution of the probleain: Your first explanation made it clear to me that Frbel has laid the necessary basis for a new education for the present and future

Frbel looks at huht, and finds theto natural laws, as heretofore has never been done I am your most faithful advocate, and speak constantly with friends and acquaintances about this great work that you have undertaken Several journalists and writers will mention it in their papers Dispose of all my power to aid you The ambassador of Hayti, Monsieur Ardoin, minister of instruction, is ready to return to Port au Prince, and wishes to make your acquaintance He will come to see you to-morrow For the inhabitants of that island, in process of reorganization, Frbel's reat deal I have asked several persons to aid in this work Niffner and Dolfus are writing, at present, a great work on education, and will be happy to give a place to your cause I send you a letter for Isodore Cohen; you must see him

You, personally, can do ether I shall come to you shortly to hear more about Frbel I would like to have a comparison drawn between hihly Let me have souess at incos I would like to know about the continuation of his irls, and await iate the heads of children of different ages, the ins in early childhood, when the es in the brain take place All my sympathies are with your work

_Letter from the Abbe Miraud, author of volu ”La Democratic et la Catholicisreat mission in common I shall be most happy to procure for Frbel's theory, _which I accept fully_, a hearing To appreciate this theory in all its grandeur, richness, and utility, the shade of pantheism it seems to contain is no hindrance to me; it seeation to work for the ideas of Frbel according to my ability, of course within the limits of orthodox Catholicism, to which I ao with ether there

If you resolve to do so, I will ood opportunity for _propaganda_ My friends there would aid us, but without your presence nothing can be done Italy needs a regeneration by education Let us here the most rapid diffusion is certain

_Mons A Guyard, a Parisian author writes:_

JUNE 14, 1857

The more I hear you about Frbel's method, the more my interest increases, and the deeper my conviction becomes that by this means a basis is laid for a new education for the salvation of humanity Accept ation of Frbel's reatest philosopher of our time, and has found in you what all philosophers need, that is, a woman who understands him, who clothes him with flesh and blood, and makes him alive I think, I believe, indeed, that an idea in order to bear fruit, must have a father and a mother Hitherto, all ideas have had only fathers As Frbel's ideas are so likely to find mothers, they will have an immense success When the ideas of the future have becoed

_Laious subjects, after listening to the lectures upon Frbel given by Madam Marenholtz in Paris, wrote on:_--

PARIS, March 4, 1856

Your last lecture has unious point of view, surpasses everything that has hitherto been done in education And this is the ed for its aim is to awaken love to God and man--the foundation upon which Christianity rests Education has hitherto done little to awaken this love ofsoul, from which all piety flows This is the reason we find so much skepticism and indifference in hu misery, and of the want of order and lawfulness These sad results are the condemnations of those methods of education that suppress the hu channels, or arbitrarily superi free development It is the sad mistake of our moralists ithout faith in a Heavenly Father, do not understand huion with hu truth, in first awakening the child's senses and capacities by the si Creator, before he taxes his intellect with religious dogmas, which are beyond the intellect of childhood, and only confuse it To lead it through the love of God, the Heavenly Father of us all, to the love of the neighbor, by acting and doing, is the natural and simple hich Frbel has pointed out, and we shall owe it to him, if before our children are four or five years old, before they can read books, they learn the great law of huain: Frbel's discovery, or invention, furnishes the means to follow the natural order of all develops, by which alone they will coe of, and at last to union with, their Heavenly Father This is the hich Christianity prescribed eighteen hundred years ago, but into which education has not understood how to lead us, because it has put statutes instead of actual experience, and has not let the study of nature, as the work of God, _precede_ statutes

Frbel leads education again into the path intended by God, which, in the course of universal development, will lead to the happiness of the individual, as well as of the whole of society In the hu itself are the rich mines, the development of which our false modes of education have hitherto made impossible May mothers have faith in God, the Heavenly Father of their children, and that he has given theood, which will crush the head of the serpent, and bring the kingdom of God upon earth

NOTE C, TO PAGE 84

In the second part ofof Infancy_, published by E Steiger, 25 Park Place, New York, is an account of how I actually first began to teach to read on this_After Kindergarten--what?_ The first kindergartner who tried the method, in the course of the first half-hour led her children to write on their slates (in imitation of what she wrote on the blackboard, letter by letter, giving the power, not the nah to involve the whole alphabet; na_, _dizzy_, _old_, _hen_, _fixes_, _vest_, _jelly_, _jars_, _puss_, _kitty_ The words were in a colunized each word, pronouncing it right when she pointed to it on the blackboard But she was surprised the next day to find they remembered every one, and they had so clear an idea of the correspondence of the letters and sounds, that, long before they had finished writing at her dictation the words of the first vocabulary, they read at sight any word of it, no matter how many syllables it had In fact, at the end of the first week she wrote and askedwith the sroup, which is most exceptional, in a feeeks they could all read

But I would not advise this rapid acquisition of the whole language in so short a ti of the words,--not asking the them to make sentences in which they put the word, which will shohether or not they understand its reat deal ht children while learning to read

NOTE D, TO PAGE 102

History of Printing, an unfinished manuscript of which he found in the Antiquarian Library of Worcester

NOTE E, TO PAGE 110