diff options
| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-06 22:43:46 -0800 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-06 22:43:46 -0800 |
| commit | 8d2afb59d36e55b2ff2c8b79b72aeb17e3a6491d (patch) | |
| tree | 9d02352813c7a487cb9a10ebea7cd6ae5788c589 | |
| parent | 487ec0e4bb4a59b20fdf9dffd360b06eac9c2692 (diff) | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/54277-0.txt | 8250 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/54277-0.zip | bin | 154269 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/54277-h.zip | bin | 209568 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/54277-h/54277-h.htm | 11613 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/54277-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 44239 -> 0 bytes |
8 files changed, 17 insertions, 19863 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9fad98 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #54277 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54277) diff --git a/old/54277-0.txt b/old/54277-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index aa45176..0000000 --- a/old/54277-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8250 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology, by -Elsie Riach Murray - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology - -Author: Elsie Riach Murray - -Release Date: March 3, 2017 [EBook #54277] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROEBEL *** - - - - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet -Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - -FROEBEL AS A PIONEER IN MODERN PSYCHOLOGY - - - - - FROEBEL AS A PIONEER - IN MODERN PSYCHOLOGY - - BY - E. R. MURRAY - - _Author of “A Story of Infant Schools and Kindergartens”_ - - “Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping. - Pioneers! O Pioneers!” - - BALTIMORE Md. WARWICK & YORK, INC. 1914 - - (_All rights reserved_) - - - - -PREFACE - - -Some day Froebel will come to his own, and the carefulness of his -observation, the depth of his thought, the truth of his theories, and the -success of his actual experiments in education will all be acknowledged. - -There are few schools nowadays so modern as the short-lived Keilhau, -with its spirit of freedom and independence and its “Areopagus” in which -the boys themselves judged grave misdemeanours while the masters settled -smaller matters alone. There are few schools now which have such an -all-round curriculum, including, as it did, the mother tongue as well as -classics and modern languages; ancient and modern history; Nature study -and Nature rambles; school journeys, lasting for two or three weeks and -extending as far as Switzerland for the older lads, while the younger -boys visited German towns and were made acquainted with peasant life; -definite instruction in field-work, in building and carpentry, etc.; -religious teaching in which Middendorf endeavoured “to show the merits of -the religions of all nations”; physical training with the out-of-doors -wrestling ground and shooting stand and gymnasium “for every spare moment -of the winter,” and organized games; and dramatic teaching where “classic -dramas” and other plays were performed, and for which the boys built the -stage and painted the scenes. There was even co-education, “flirtation -being unknown,” because all had their heads so full of more important -matters, but where free intercourse of boy and girl “softened the -manners of the young German savages.” - -The purpose of this book is to show that all these things, besides the -Kindergarten and the excellent plan for the Helba Institute, did not come -into being by chance, but were the outcome of the deep reflection of a -man who combined the scientific with the philosophic temperament; and -who, because his ideal as a teacher was “Education by Development,” had -made a special study of the instinctive tendencies, and the requirements -of different stages of child development, as I have tried to prove in -Chapters VI and VII. - -I should like to explain one or two points, first, that though for all -quotations I have referred to the most commonly used translations of -Froebel’s writings, yet I have frequently given my own rendering when -the other seemed inadequate; secondly, that I have endeavoured to give -the context as often as possible, and have also given the actual German -words, that I might not be accused of reading in modern ideas which are -not really in the text; and, lastly, that I have purposely repeated -quotations rather than give my readers the trouble of turning back to -another page. - -In conclusion may I take this opportunity of paying grateful thanks -first to Miss Alice Words and to Miss K. M. Clarke, without whose -kind encouragement I should never have completed my task, and also to -Professor Alexander for several helpful suggestions, and to Miss Ida -Sachs for friendly help. - - E. R. MURRAY. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - - I. FROEBEL’S ANTICIPATION OF MODERN - PSYCHOLOGY 1 - - II. FROEBEL’S ANALYSIS OF MIND 12 - - III. WILL AND ITS EARLY MANIFESTATIONS 22 - - IV. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLIEST CONSCIOUSNESS 36 - - V. HOW CONSCIOUSNESS IS DIFFERENTIATED.--THE PLACE - OF ACTION IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERCEPTION - AND OF FEELING 47 - - VI. INSTINCT AND INSTINCTS 66 - - VII. PLAY AND ITS RELATION TO WORK 122 - - VIII. FROEBEL’S PLAY-MATERIAL AND ITS ORIGINAL - PURPOSE 148 - - IX. WEAK POINTS CONSIDERED 168 - - X. SOME CRITICISMS ANSWERED 190 - - APPENDIX I. ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD - “ACTIVITY” 213 - - APPENDIX II. COMPARISON OF PLAYS NOTED BY FROEBEL - WITH THE ENUMERATION GIVEN BY GROOS 219 - - INDEX 225 - - - - -EXPLANATION OF REFERENCES - -To the Works of Froebel quoted in the text - - - E = EDUCATION OF MAN. TRANSLATED BY W. N. HAILMANN. - - M = MUTTER U. KOSE LIEDER. TRANSLATED BY F. AND E. LORD. - - P = PEDAGOGICS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. TRANSLATED BY JOSEPHINE JARVIS. - - L = LETTERS. } TRANSLATED BY EMILIE MICHAELIS - A = AUTOBIOGRAPHY. } AND H. KEATLEY MOORE, B.A., B.MUS. - - - - -CHAPTER I - -FROEBEL’S ANTICIPATION OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY - -“_A great man condemns the world to the task of explaining him._” - - -The purpose of this little book is to show that Froebel’s educational -theories were based on psychological views of a type much more modern -than is at all generally understood. It is frequently stated that -Froebel’s psychology is conspicuous by its absence, but in a somewhat -close study of Froebel’s writings I have been again and again surprised -to find how much Froebel seems to have anticipated modern psychology. - -A probable reason for the overlooking of so much sound psychological -truth is to be found in the fact that much of it is obscured by details -which seem to us trivial, but which Froebel meant as applications of the -theories he was endeavouring to make clear to minds not only innocent of, -but incapable of, psychology. - -Most educationists have read “The Education of Man,” but few outside the -Kindergarten world are likely to have bestowed much thought on Froebel’s -later writings. It is in these, however, that we see Froebel watching -with earnest attention that earliest mental development which is now -regarded as a distinct chapter in mental science, but which was then -largely if not entirely ignored. - -With the same spirit of inquiry and the same field for investigation--for -children acted and thought then as they act and think now--it is -only natural that Froebel should have made at least some of the same -discoveries as the genetic psychologist of to-day. - -It would be unfair at any date to expect a complete psychology from a -writer whose subject is not mental science, but education. Mistakes, too, -one must expect, and these are not to be ignored.[1] Still there remains -a solid amount of psychological discovery for which Froebel has had as -yet but little credit. - -Indeed, just as his disciples have been inclined, like all disciples, -to think that their master has said the last word on his own subject, -so have opponents of Froebelian doctrines, irritated perhaps by these -pretensions, made direct attacks on somewhat insufficient grounds. In a -later chapter, an attempt has been made to deal with what seems unfounded -in such attacks.[2] - -The major part of the book, however, is intended to show the correctness -of Froebel’s views on points now regarded as of fundamental importance, -and generally recognized as modern theories. For this purpose passages -from Froebel’s writings are here compared with similar passages from such -undoubted authorities as Dr. James Ward, Professor Stout, Professor Lloyd -Morgan, Mr. W. Macdougall, Mr. J. Irving King, and others. - -In the first place, it should be noted that Froebel was fully aware of -the necessity for a psychological basis for his educational theories. - -Writing in 1841, he says: - - “I am firmly convinced that all the phenomena of the child - world, those which delight us, as well as those which grieve - us, depend upon fixed laws as definite as those of the - cosmos, the planetary system and the operations of Nature; it - is therefore possible to discover them and examine them. When - once we know and have assimilated these laws, we shall be able - powerfully to counteract any retrograde and faulty tendencies - in children, and to encourage, at the same time, all that is - good and virtuous.”--_L., p. 91._ - -Nor was Froebel in any doubt as to how these laws are to be discovered, -and his order of investigation is very similar to that prescribed by -Professor Stout. The latter, though regarding genetic psychology as -“the most important and most interesting,” considers that it should -be preceded by:--1, A general analysis of consciousness, analytic and -largely introspective; 2, An investigation of the laws of mental process, -“analytic also, inasmuch as we endeavour to ascertain the general laws of -mental process by analysis of the fully developed mind.” - -Froebel, too, regards the analytic as a necessary preparation for the -genetic, and says that parents and teachers, who wish to supply the needs -of the child at different stages of development: - - “are to consider life _firstly_ through looking into - themselves, into the course of their own development, its - phenomena and its claims--through the retrospection (Rückblick) - of the earliest possible years of their own lives, and also - the introspection (Einblick) of their present lives, that - their own experience may furnish a key to the problem of the - child’s condition (den Zustand des Kindes in sich zu lösen). - _Secondly_, by the deepest possible search into the life of the - child, and into what he must necessarily require according to - his present stage of development.”--_P., p. 168._ - -Professor Stout adds later that anthropology and philology may ultimately -yield results as important as those yielded by physiology. Froebel could -have no idea of the physiological parallel to mental process, but he did -not omit the anthropological inquiry, for in another passage he enlarges -his first point, declaring that: - - “It is essential for parents and teachers, for the sake of - their children, and that their educational efforts may meet - with a rich reward, not only to recall as far as possible the - first phenomena, the course and conditions of the development - of their own lives, but that they should compare this with the - phenomena, the course and conditions of the development of - the world, and of life in general in Nature and History, and - so by degrees raise themselves to a knowledge of the general - as well as of the particular laws of life development, that - the guidance of the child may find in these laws a higher - and stronger--their true foundation, as well as their surest - determination.”--_P., p. 66._ - -Even his detractors generally allow that Froebel had a wonderful insight -into child-nature, but this is too often spoken of as if it were due to -some specialized faculty of intuition, not known to psychology. - -Froebel’s knowledge of child-nature came to him precisely as it comes -to the psychologist of the present day, through patient observation of -the doings of little children, and thoughtful interpretation of their -possible meaning. It is true that he drew his conclusions from too -narrow a field, but of this he was well aware. In a letter to a cousin -thanking her for the “comparative account of the various manifestations -of children,” which she had sent him, he complains, _and this, be it -remembered, in 1840_, that “it is a subject to which one can rarely get -even cultivated parents to pay attention,” and he adds: - - “I would beg of you to collect as many observations for me as - you can, both things which you yourself have observed, and - also remarks made by your Robert and the other children when - at play. If you have the time for this, pray do it for the - furtherance of the cause; other friends are at work for me in - the same way.”--_L., p. 67._ - -In another letter to this cousin he says: - - “It would delight me greatly if you could confide to me what - you remember of your feelings, perceptions, and ideas as a - mother greeting the new-born life of her infant, and your - observations of the first movements of its limbs and the - beginning of the development of its senses.”--_L., p. 110._ - -To another friend he writes: - - “In the interests of the children I have still another - request to make--that you would record in writing the most - important facts about each separate child. It seems to me most - necessary for the comprehension, and for the true treatment - of child-nature, that such observations should be made public - from time to time, in order that children may become better and - better understood in their manifestations, and may therefore - be more rightly treated, and that true care and observation of - unsophisticated childhood may ever increase.”--_L., p. 89._ - -Froebel made these requests, as he made his own observations, as the -result of the conviction with which he declares himself “thoroughly -penetrated,” - - “that the movements of the young and delicate mind of the - child, although as yet so small as to be almost unnoticeable, - are of the most essential consequence to his future - life.”--_P., p. 53._ - - “Why do we observe the child less than the germ of a plant? Is - it to be supposed that in the child, the capacity to become - a complete human being is contained less than in the acorn - is contained the capacity to become a strong, vigorous and - complete oak?”--_P., p. 62._ - - “We cannot pass over unmentioned the fact, essential for - the whole life of the child, for the whole course of his - development, that phenomena and impressions which seem to us - insignificant, and which we generally leave unnoticed, have for - the child, and especially for his inner world, most important - results, since the child develops more through what seems to - us small and imperceptible, than through what appears to us - large and striking … hence--wholly contrary to prevailing - opinion--nowhere is consideration of that which is small and - insignificant of more importance than in the nursery.”--_P., p. - 125._ - -Professor Dewey, one of the few important educational writers who do -justice to Froebel as a pioneer, gives as a general summary of his -educational principles: - -“1. That the primary business of school is to train children in -co-operative and mutually helpful living; to foster in them the -consciousness of mutual interdependence, and to help them practically in -making the adjustments that will carry this spirit into overt deeds. - -“2. That the primary root of all educative activity is in the -instinctive, impulsive attitudes and activities of the child, and -not in the presentation and application of external material, whether -through the ideas of others or through the senses; and that, accordingly, -numberless spontaneous activities of children, plays, games, mimic -efforts, even the apparently meaningless motions of infants--exhibitions -previously ignored as trivial, futile, or even condemned as positively -evil--are capable of educational use, nay, are the foundation-stones of -educational effort. - -“3. That these individual tendencies and activities are organized and -directed through the uses made of them in keeping up the co-operative -living already spoken of; taking advantage of them to reproduce on the -child’s plane the typical doings and occupations of the larger maturer -society into which he is finally to go forth; and that it is through -production and creative use that valuable knowledge is secured and -clinched.”[3] - -So little, however, are these principles understood as Froebel’s, that -in the Pedagogical Seminary for July, 1900, a paper was published on -“The Reconstruction of the Kindergarten,” wherein it was maintained -that the basis of reconstruction must be the child’s natural instincts. -The writer, Mr. Eby, had apparently no idea that the Kindergarten was -originally based on this very foundation. He evidently did not know -that Froebel has given, in his “Education of Man,” a very fair account -of these instincts, omitting nothing of great importance, and pointing, -at least, to a better principle of classification than that adopted by -Mr. Eby.[4] It is, however, only fair to Froebel to mention that he -himself regarded his own account as far from being commensurate with -the importance of the subject, for the year following that of the -publication of “The Education of Man” he writes: - - “Since these spontaneous activities of children have not yet - been thoroughly thought out from a high point of view, and - have not yet been regarded from what I might almost call their - cosmical and anthropological side, we may from day to day - expect some philosopher to write a comprehensive book about - them.”--_A., p. 76._ - -The problems Froebel endeavoured to solve are precisely those which are -absorbing the genetic psychologist of the present day, as stated, for -example, in Mr. Irving King’s “Psychology of Child Development,” viz.: -“to examine the various forms of the child’s activity, to get some -insight into the nature of the child himself”--“to get at the meaning of -child-life in terms of itself.” - -Every reader of “The Education of Man” will remember how Froebel uses his -own boyish reminiscences to help others to understand childish actions -often utterly misunderstood. In his paper on “Movement Plays” he writes: - - “In that nurture of childhood which is intended to assist - development, it is by no means sufficient to supply - play-material in proportion merely to the stage of development - already outwardly manifest. It is at the same time of the - utmost importance to trace out the inner process of development - and to satisfy its demands.… In the nurture, development, and - education of the child, and especially in the attempt to employ - him, his own nature, his own life and energy must be the main - consideration. The knowledge of isolated and external phenomena - may occasionally be a guide-post pointing our direction, but - it can never be a path leading to the specific aim of child - culture and education; for _the condition of education is none - other than comprehension of the whole nature and essence of - humanity as manifested in the child_.”--_P., p. 239._ - -Just as Mr. Irving King, writing in 1904, says that we must take as our -starting-point the child’s bodily activities, so did Froebel too declare, -that: - - “The present time makes upon the educator the wholly - indispensable requirement--to comprehend the earliest activity, - the first action of the child.”--_P., p. 16._ - -To this first action, Froebel devotes a whole paper, “Das erste -Kindesthun,” the opening sentence of which contains the words: - - “As the new-born child, like a ripe grain of corn, bears - life within itself which will be developed progressively - and spontaneously, though in close connection with life in - general, so activity and action are the first manifestations of - awakening child-life.”--_P., p. 23._ - -Writing in 1847, Froebel says that “decision, zeal, and perseverance” -must be brought to bear upon his plan, in order that: - - “(_a_) More careful observation of the child, his relationships - and his line of development, may become general amongst us; and - thereby - - “(_b_) A better grounded insight be obtained into the child’s - being, mental and physical, and the general collective - conditions of his life.… Deeper insight will be gained into - the meaning and importance of the child’s actions and outward - manifestations.”--_L., p. 248._ - -This quotation is important as showing that Froebel was deliberately -looking for “_a line of development_,” that he might better understand -“the child’s being, mental and physical.” Considering that Froebel wrote -between 1826 and 1850, the important points on which he may be said to -have successfully anticipated modern psychology are, his recognition that -the mind is what he calls “a tri-unity” of action, feeling, and thought; -his treatment of early mental activity and his definition of will; his -conception of the earliest consciousness as an undifferentiated whole; -his recognition of the importance of action not only in the realm of -perception, but also in that of feeling; and his surprisingly complete -account of instinct. Such anticipations are due to the fact that the idea -of development then new to the scientific world possessed his very soul. - - “Humanity, _which lives only in its continuous development_ and - cultivation, seems to us dead and stationary, something to be - modelled over again and again in accordance with its present - type. We are ignorant of our own nature and the nature of - humanity.…”--_E., p. 146._ - - “God neither ingrafts nor inoculates. He _develops_ the - most trivial and imperfect things in continuously ascending - series and in accordance with eternal self-grounded and - self-developing laws. And God-likeness is and ought to be man’s - highest aim in thought and deed.”--_E., p. 328._ - -Justice has already been done to Froebel’s philosophy by Dr. John Angus -MacVannel, who says in his closing paragraph: - -“Froebel’s system has that unmistakable mark of greatness about it -that makes it worth our faithful effort to understand it, and turn -its conclusions to our advantage.… His philosophy of education taken -as a whole seems, perhaps, the most satisfactory we have yet had. One -cannot but believe, however, that the candid reader will at times -find conclusions in his writings sustained by reasonings, that are -inadequately developed and important questions by no means satisfactorily -answered.… On the other hand we must not forget that it is insight, -rather than exactitude, that is the life of a philosophy; herein lies the -secret of Froebel’s lasting influence and power.”[5] - - - - -CHAPTER II - -FROEBEL’S ANALYSIS OF MIND - - -It is probably due to the emphasis which Froebel laid upon the careful -observation and equally careful interpretation of the very earliest -manifestations of mental activity, that his views as to mental analysis -approach so closely to more modern ideas. His psychology cannot possibly -be dismissed as “faculty psychology” in which the mind of a child is -regarded as a smaller and weaker replica of the mind of an adult. The -older psychologies, Professor Stout points out, are based chiefly, if not -entirely, on introspection alone, while Froebel, as we have already seen, -demanded close observation of children in general, and of “each separate -child,” as well as consideration of mental development in the race, in -addition to introspection. - -This “too exclusive reliance upon introspection” to which Professor Stout -refers as “the fundamental error” of the faculty psychology, caused the -older writers to infer that just as a child is possessed of legs, arms -and hands, smaller and weaker, but otherwise apparently the same as those -of an adult, even so did he possess mental “faculties,” such as memory -and imagination, which, like the little legs and arms, only required -exercise in order to grow strong. “It never occurred to them,” writes -Professor Stout, “that the powers of understanding, willing, imagining, -etc., instead of existing at the outset, might have arisen as the result -of a long series of changes, each of which paved the way for the next.” -It did more than “_occur_” to Froebel, it was a cardinal point with him. -Professor Stout points out that the idea of development is essential -to mental science, and Froebel was a biologist actually studying -development, before he became a psychologist. He came to the study of -mind prepared to find just such a series of changes.[6] In speaking of -evolution in general, he says: - - “Each successive stage of development does not exclude the - preceding, but takes it up into itself, ennobled, uplifted, - perfected.”--_P., p. 198._ - - He speaks of: - - “the master thought, the fundamental idea of our time, that is, - the education and development of mankind.”--_L., p. 149._ - -And in his “Education of Man,” in a long and eloquent passage on the need -for continuity of training from the tiniest of beginnings, he says: - - “It is highly pernicious and even destructive to consider the - stages of human development as distinct, and not as life shows - them, continuous in themselves, in unbroken transitions.”--_E., - p. 27._ - -The analysis of mind which Froebel recognizes, is the still commonly -accepted “tri-partite,” but he never fails to refer to this as a unity or -a tri-unity. Indeed, his constant harping upon this string becomes almost -wearisome, in spite of the ingenuity with which he continually varies his -terms. - - “The early phenomenon of child-life, of human existence in - childhood, is an activity, one with feeling and perception - (Wahrnehmen).”--_P., p. 23._ - - “That the nature of man shows itself early in the life of - the child, as feeling, acting and representing, thinking and - perceiving, and that in this tri-unity is included the whole of - his life utterance and activity, we have said repeatedly, and - it lies open for any one to notice.”--_P., p. 122._ - -Disguised as Love, Life, and Light, this trinity is made the connection -of man, on the one side with Nature, on the other side with God. God--who -is Life, Love, and Light, the All--shows Himself in Nature, in the -universe as life (energy), in humanity as love, and in wisdom or in the -spirit as light. Energy or life man shares with Nature; by love he is -united with humanity; and by light or wisdom he is at one with God. - -For his “gift plays” Froebel claims that they “take hold of the child in -the tri-unity of his nature”: - - “As now each of the single plays separately considered takes - hold of the child early, in the tri-unity of his nature, as - doing, feeling, and thinking, so yet more do the employments as - a whole.”--_P., p. 56._ - -And a forcible passage runs: - - “Only if the child is treated through fostering his instinct - for activity in the tri-unity of his nature, as living, loving, - and perceiving, in the unity of his life, only thus can he - develop as that which he is, the manifold and organized, but in - himself single, whole.”--_P., p. 12._ - -This development of the threefold yet single nature constitutes -the “harmonious development,” reiterated _ad nauseam_ and without -explanation, in Kindergarten text-books. It is also the key to much that -seems to us useless detail as to the toys and games of early childhood. -The mother is told that: - - “It is of the highest importance for the nurse to consider the - earliest and slightest traces of the organization (Gliederung) - within itself of the child’s mind as bodily, emotional and - intellectual, that in his development from mere existence - to perception and thought, none of these directions of his - nature should be fostered at the expense of the other … the - real foundation, the starting-point of human development is - the heart and the emotions, but cultivation of action and - thought (die Ausbildung zur That und zum Denken) must go side - by side with it, constantly and inseparably: and thought must - form itself into action, and action resolve and clear itself - into thought; but both have their roots in the emotional - nature.”[7]--_P., p. 42._ - -The first part of the following quotation from a letter written in -1851 towards the close of Froebel’s life might almost be taken from a -text-book of the present day: - - “We find also three attitudes, spheres of work, and regions of - mind in man: - - “(1) the region of the soul, the heart, Feeling; - - “(2) the region of the mind, the head, Intellect; - - “(3) the region of the active life, the putting forth to actual - deed, Will. - - “As mental attitudes these three divisions seem the wider apart - the more we contemplate them; as spheres of work and regions - of mind they seem quite separate and perfect opposites. But - the highest and most absolute opposition is that which most - needs, and necessitates reconciliation; complete opposites - condition their uniting link. The need for the uniting link - appears in almost every circumstance of life.… To satisfy that - need is the most imperative need now set before the human - race, … you will realize that the strengthening of character - which we all agree to be a necessity of the age, is to be - gained not only by stimulating and elevating the soul and - the emotions, but by raising the whole mind, by training the - intellect and the will.… Then the heart would acknowledge and - esteem the intellectual power, just as the intellect already - recognizes feeling as that which gives true warmth to our - lives; and life as a whole would make manifest the soul which - quickens existence, and gives it a meaning, as well as the - intellect which gives it precision and culture. _Intellect_, - _feeling_ and _will_ would then unite, _a many-sided power_, - to build up and constitute our life. In the room of the - unstable character which must result from the mere cultivation - of the one department of emotion; in the room of the doubt, - or, I might say empty negation, which too often proceeds from - the mere cultivation of the intellect; in the room of the - materialism, animalism, and sensuality which must come from the - mere attention to the body, and physical side of our nature; - we should then have the harmonious development of every side - of our nature alike, we should then be able to build up a life - which would be everywhere in touch with God, with physical - nature, with humanity at large.”--_L., p. 300._ - -In his article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Dr. Ward says, that -in taking up the question of what we exactly mean by _thinking_, “we -are really passing one of the hardest and fastest lines of the old -psychology--that between sense and understanding. So long as it was the -fashion to assume a multiplicity of faculties the need was less felt for -a clear exposition of their connection. A man had senses and intellect -much as he had eyes and ears; the heterogeneity in the one case was no -more puzzling than in the other.” - -In this connection it can again be shown that Froebel was in advance of -the old psychologists. In the first of the two games in the Mother-Play -book dealing with sense-training--two out of forty-nine, the remainder -dealing chiefly with action--he makes it very clear that he draws no hard -and fast line between sense and understanding. He tells the mother that -Nature speaks to the child through the senses, which act as gateways to -the world within, but that light comes from the mind: - - “Durch die Sinne, schliesst sich auf des Innern Thor - Doch der Geist ist’s der dies zieht ans Licht hervor.” - -And when he says that the baby in the cradle should not be left -unoccupied if it wakes, he uses a pronoun in the singular in referring to -“the activity of sense and mind.” He suggests hanging a cage containing a -lively bird in the child’s line of vision and adds: - - “This attracts the activity of the child’s senses and mind and - gives _it_ nourishment in many ways.”[8]--_E., p. 49._ - -The faculty psychology and the formal discipline theory that came from -it, says Professor Horne, did not admit the possibility of training one -faculty, e.g. perception, by training another, e.g. reason, “it was not -the mind that was trained, but its faculties.” - -It is, however, of the merest infant that Froebel uses such expressions -as “the awakening power of thought,” “the tenderest growth of mind,” -and tells the mother that he “shows trace of thought, and can draw -conclusions.” The ball is given to the baby to help him “to find himself -in the midst of his perceptive, operative, and his comparing (thinking) -activity.”[9]--_P., p. 55._ Long years before this he had written of the -teaching of drawing, “this instruction addresses itself to the senses, -and through them to the power of thought.”--_E., p. 294._ - - “He who does not perceive traces of the future development of - the child, who does not foster these with self-consciousness - and wisdom, when they lie hidden in the depths and in the - night, will not see them clearly, will not nourish them - suitably, at least, not sufficiently, when they lie open before - him.”--_P., p. 58._ - -Instead of ready-made faculties Froebel recognizes possibilities, -conditions, which will remain possibilities if the necessary stimulus is -not forthcoming, for in noting how the mother talks to her infant, though -she is obliged to confess that there can be no understanding of her -words, he says the mother’s instinctive action is right: - - “for that which will one day develop, and which must originate, - begins and must begin when as yet nothing exists but the - conditions, the possibility.”--_P., p. 40._ - -Elsewhere he asks: - - “Is it to be supposed that in the child the capacity for - becoming a complete human being is contained less than in the - acorn is contained the capacity to become a strong, vigorous - and complete oak?”--_P., p. 62._ - -And he speaks of how the mother appeals to the infant as - - “understanding, perceptive and capable, for where there is not - the germ of something, that something can never be called forth - and appear.”--_P., p. 31._ - -It is true that in the same passage in which he speaks of “the tenderest -growth of mind,” he does speak of mental powers (Geisteskräfte), -as indeed every one does, but a few lines above he has spoken of -“the cultivation of the mental power of the child in different -directions.”[10] Besides, the mental powers to which he here alludes, and -which are to be awakened and fostered in the infant, are the powers “to -compare, to infer, to judge, to think.”--_P., p. 57._ Here, too, Froebel -gives a description of what he means by memory, and it is clearly not a -separate faculty considered apart from another faculty, viz. imagination: - - “The plays carried on with the ball awaken and exercise the - power of the child’s mind to place again before himself - mentally a vanished object, to see it mentally even when the - outer perception is gone; these games awaken and practise the - power of re-presenting, of remembering, of holding fast in - remembrance an object formerly present, of again thinking of - it; that is, they foster the memory.”--_P., p. 57._ - -So even the infant is to think, and the progress is well described in the -Mother Plays as - - “from experience of a thing, joined with thought about it, up - to pure thought.”--_M., p. 121._ - -In a lecture[11] given many years ago, Dr. Ward sought to drive home to -teachers the futility of this hard and fast line between sense training -and training to think. And there are some interesting parallels between -Dr. Ward’s metaphors here and Froebel’s writing in “The Education of -Man.” Dr. Ward said: - -“Training of the senses, as it is not very happily called, is, if it -is anything, so much intellectual exercise.… And nothing can be more -absurd than to suppose it is not necessary.… By a judicious training in -observation you begin to make a child think when it is five years old.… -If a child is to think to any purpose, he must think as he goes on; as -soon as the material he has gathered begins to oppress him he must think -it into shape, or it will tend to smother intellectual life at its dawn, -as a bee is drowned in its own honey, for want of cells in which to store -it.” - -It is in describing how the little child collects pebbles, twigs, leaves, -etc., that Froebel writes: - - “The child loves all things that enter his small horizon and - extend his little world. To him the least thing is a new - discovery; but it must not come dead into the little world, nor - lie dead therein, lest it obscure the small horizon and crush - the little world.… It is the longing for interpretation that - urges the child to appeal to us … the intense desire for this - that urges him to bring his treasures to us and lay them in our - laps.”--_E., p. 73._ - -The help we are told to give at first is merely to supply the child with -a name, for “through the name the form is retained in memory and defined -in thought.” Later the mother is told to provide “encouragement and help, -that the child may weave into a whole what he has found scattered and -parted.” As a type of the help considered necessary we have: - - “‘Mother, are the pigeons and hens birds, for the pigeons live - in pigeon-houses and the chickens don’t fly?’ ‘Have they no - feathers, child; have they no wings? Haven’t they two legs like - all birds?’ ‘Are the bees and butterflies and beetles birds, - too: for they have wings and fly much higher.…’ ‘Look, they - have no feathers, they build no nests.’”--_M., p. 56._ - -In another passage Froebel calls it not only advisable but necessary -that the parents, without being pedantic or over-anxious, should connect -the child’s doings with language, because this “increases knowledge, -and awakens that judgment and reflection (die Urtheilskraft und das -Nachdenken), to which man, left to Nature, does not attain sufficiently -early.”--_E., p. 79._ - -Giving names, and helping in classification is surely a sufficient -parallel to Dr. Ward’s “thinking the material into shape,” and just as -the latter says that by such training you can “make a child think” when -it is five years old, so Froebel in his chapter on “Man in Earliest -Childhood” makes his ideal father “sum up his rule of conduct in a few -words,” declaring that: “To lead children early to think, this I consider -the first and foremost object of child-training.”--_E., p. 87._ - -Froebel’s theories, then, cannot be dismissed as based on “faculty -psychology,” since it seems clear that wherever he found them his views -on mental analysis were very similar to those now generally accepted. -It is more remarkable, however, that he should have modern views about -Conation and Will. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -WILL AND ITS EARLY MANIFESTATIONS - - -It is open to doubt whether any modern psychologist has yet given a -better definition of fully developed Will than that given by Froebel -eighty-seven years ago: - - “Will is the mental activity of man ever consciously proceeding - from a definite point, in a definite direction, to a definite - conscious end and aim, in harmony with the whole nature of - humanity.”--_E., p. 96._ - -With this definition compare what Professor Stout has to say: - -“In its most complex developments, mental activity takes the form of -self-conscious and deliberate volition, in which the starting-point is -the idea of an end to be attained, and the desire to attain it; and the -goal is the realization of this end, by the production of a long series -of changes in the external world … it belongs to the essence of will, not -merely to be directed towards an end, but to ideally anticipate this and -consciously aim at it.”[12] - -Between these two definitions the difference is in the omission in -Froebel’s definition of any mention of desire, and this is supplied a -little later, when, having stated that “by school here is meant neither -the schoolroom, nor school-keeping, but the conscious communication of -knowledge for a definite purpose, and in definite connection,” he ends up -with: - - “By this knowledge, instruction and the school are to lead man - _from desire to will_, from activity of will to firmness of - will, and thus continually advancing, to the attainment of his - destiny, of his earthly perfection.”--_E., p. 139._ - -Now Professor Stout’s whole psychology is founded on his conception of -mental activity. Towards the end of his second volume he says: “The -reader is already familiar with my general doctrine. It has pervaded -the whole treatment of psychological topics in this work. The aim of -the present chapter is to present it in a more systematic form, and to -guard it against objections. Our starting-point lies in the conception of -mental activity as the direction of mental process towards an end.” - -It is distinctly significant, therefore, to find how closely Froebel’s -ideas on the subject resemble Professor Stout’s conception of mental -activity. - -“Conscious process,” writes Professor Stout, “is in every moment directed -towards an end, whether this end be distinctly or vaguely recognized by -the conscious subject, or not recognized at all.” - -Froebel writes: - - “In all activity, in every deed of man, even as a child, - yes the very smallest, an aim is expressed, a reference to - something, to the furthering or representing of something; … - thus the child strives, even if unconsciously, to make his - inner life objective, and through that perceptible, that so he - may become conscious of it.”--_P., pp. 237-240._ - -The same idea, that conscious process is directed to an end, though there -may be no consciousness of that end, is given in another passage, where -Froebel is speaking of the need for satisfying a child’s normal desire -for playthings. - - “Very often the child seeks for something, nevertheless he - himself does not know at all what he seeks; at another time he - puts something away from him and again knows not why.”--_P., p. - 168._ - -Of the earliest mental activity Professor Stout writes: - -“In its earliest and simplest form, mental activity consists in those -simple reactions which without being determined by any definite idea of -an end to be realized, tend on the whole to the maintenance of immediate -pleasure and the avoidance of immediate pain.” - -The movements of the organism at this earliest stage “seem primarily -adapted to the conservation and furtherance of vital process in -general.”[13] - -Froebel speaks of the child’s efforts: - - “to put far from him that which is opposed to the needs of his - life and yet would break in upon it.”--_P., p. 167._ - -He tells the mother that, in the first stages at least, the restlessness -and tears of the infant will warn her of the presence of anything in his -surroundings hurtful to his development, while his laughter and movements -of pleasure will show “what according to the feeling of the child is -suited to the undisturbed development of his life as an immature human -being.” - -Mr. Stout goes on to say that such simple reactions are adapted -“secondarily and by way of necessary corollary to the conservation and -furtherance of conscious life.” He tells us that: “The primary craving -with which the education of the senses begins, so far as it does not -involve such practical needs as that of food, may be described as a -general craving for stimulation or excitement … this conation being in -the first instance in the highest degree indeterminate.” - -Froebel, who speaks of the nurse “soothing the restless child _vaguely -striving_ for definite and satisfactory outward activity,” tells us that: - - “if his bodily needs are satisfied and he feels himself well - and strong, the first spontaneous employment of the child is - spontaneous taking in (selbstthätiges Aufnehmen) of the outer - world.”--_P., p. 29._ - -He writes to Madame Schmidt, the cousin for whose assistance he has -begged in observing children: - - “This spontaneous activity of limb and vividness of sensation - natural to infancy, and I may say inseparable from it, must - also be carefully studied.”--_L., p. 110._ - -And, in the Mother Songs, he says: - - “You can see how his bodily activity, the movement and use of - his limbs, like the activity of his senses, all turn towards - one point: Life must be grasped, experienced and perceived … - he wants to appropriate the outer and to re-embody it … his - susceptibility for all that gives and takes up life will strike - you as something that elevates his life in every way; even - as young plants and animals are susceptible to the faintest - workings of light and warmth, or the impressions of their - environment, however delicate. Moreover, this receptivity - is most closely related to great general excitability and - sensibility (Erregbarkeit, Reizbarkeit).”--_M., pp. 119-121._ - -Froebel’s views as to the nature both of early and of later mental -activity then bear a strong resemblance to the modern view as stated by -Professor Stout.[14] - -In searching Froebel’s writings to find what he has to say about the -stages lying between early mental activity and fully developed will, -between what he calls “natural activity of the will, and true genuine -firmness of will,” it soon becomes clear that it is impossible to -separate what is said about will development, from what is said about -intellectual development.[15] This is a natural consequence of Froebel’s -constant insistence on the unity of consciousness, and it is the position -of modern psychology, whether written from the analytic or the genetic -point of view. Mr. Irving King writes: “The functional point of view -emphasizes first of all the intimate inter-relation of all forms of -mental activity and the impossibility of describing any one aspect -of consciousness except with reference to consciousness as a whole.” -Professor Stout, in his “Analytic Psychology,” has a section entitled -“Conation and Cognition developed co-incidentally,”[16] while Froebel -says: - - “Thought must form itself in action, and action resolve and - clear itself in thought.”--_P., p. 42._ - -Froebel speaks of his projected institution at Helba as “fundamental,” - - “inasmuch as in training and instruction it will rest on the - foundation from which proceed all genuine knowledge and all - genuine practical attainments; it will rest on life itself - and on creative efforts, _on the union and interdependence of - doing and thinking_, representation and knowledge, art and - science. The institution will base its work on the pupil’s - personal efforts in work and expression, making these, again, - the foundation of all genuine knowledge and culture. Joined - with thoughtfulness, these efforts become a direct medium of - culture.”--_E., p. 38._ - -Professor Stout’s account of how the unconscious mental activity of early -childhood becomes transformed into the definite and conscious activity of -fully developed will is, stated briefly, something to this effect. It is -of the essence of conation to seek its own satisfaction, and this is only -possible as the conation becomes definite. “Blind craving gives place to -open-eyed desire,” as the original conation tends to define itself. So -“the gradual acquisition of knowledge through experience is but another -expression for the process whereby the originally blind craving becomes -more distinct and more differentiated.” The grouping of cognitions is not -produced by the conscious needs: “It is the way in which the conation -itself grows and develops.” - -For this account we can find a wonderfully exact parallel in one of -Froebel’s less well-known papers, that on “Movement Plays.” - - “All outer activity of the child has its ultimate and - distinctive foundation in his inmost nature and life. - The deepest craving of this inner activity is to behold - itself mirrored in some outward object. In and through such - representation, the child himself grasps and perceives the - nature, direction and aim of his own activity, and learns - also further to regulate and determine his life, that is his - activity, according to these outward phenomena.”--_P., p. 238._ - -This craving for outward representation, by satisfaction of which the -child gains knowledge of the ends of his activity, is an exact equivalent -of Stout’s blind craving which gives place to open-eyed desire as -it tends to define itself. Froebel’s conclusion, that only as this -unconscious or blind craving for action is satisfied does the child -become “conscious of the nature, direction and ends of his own activity,” -is but another way of stating Professor Stout’s conclusion, that the -grouping of cognitions, which is the gradual acquirement of knowledge -through experience, is “the way in which the conation itself grows and -develops.” So, cognition and conation are developed simultaneously, or, -to repeat Froebel’s own phrase, “Thought forms itself in action, and -action resolves and clears itself in thought.” - -Professor Stout goes on to say that in this defining process one conation -springs out of another, whereby as one conation is satisfied and so comes -to an end, another becomes in its turn the end of activity. He takes as -illustration the child learning to walk, saying, “The mental attitude of -the child learning to walk is one of conscious endeavour. When he has -become habituated to the act, he performs it without attending to his -movements, his mind being fixed on the attainment of other ends.” Froebel -proceeds in the same way, using the very same example. He has already -said that at first the child: - - “cares for the use of his body, his senses and limbs, merely - for the sake of their use and practice, but not for the sake of - the results of this use. He is wholly indifferent to this; _or, - rather, he has as yet no idea whatever of this_.”--_P., p. 48._ - -Now, in the paper on movement, he goes on: - - “Each sure and independent movement gives the child pleasure, - because of the feeling of power which it arouses in him. - Even simple walking produces this effect, for it gives the - child a threefold feeling, a threefold consciousness: First, - the consciousness that he _moves_ himself; secondly, that he - moves himself from one place to another; third, that through - this movement he attains or reaches something.… It is a - well-established fact that his first walking gives the child - pleasure as an expression of his power. _To this pleasure, - however, are soon added the two joy-bringing perceptions of - coming to something, and of being able to attain something._ - These several perceptions should all be fostered at the same - time … he should get his limbs, and indeed his whole body, - into his own power. He should learn to use his bodily strength - and the activity of his limbs for definite purposes.… _The - effort to reach a particular object may have its source in the - child’s desire to hold himself firm and upright by it, but we - also observe that it gives him pleasure to be actually near - the object, to touch it, to feel it, to grasp it, and perhaps - also--which is a new phase of activity--to be able to move it._ - Hence we see that the child when he has reached the desired - object, hops up and down before it, and beats on it with his - little arms and hands, in order, as it were, to assure himself - of the reality of the object and to notice its qualities. It is - well, _while the child is making these experiments_, to name - the object and its parts. _The object of giving these names is - not primarily the development of the child’s power of speech, - but to assist his comprehension of the object_, its parts and - its properties, _by defining his sense-impressions_.”--_P., p. - 241._ - -Another passage runs: - - “The present effort of mankind is an endeavour after freer - self-development.… Therefore the more or less clear aim of the - individual is to attain to clearness about himself and about - life, to comprehension and right use of life, to both insight - and accomplishment.… Therefore the educator must understand the - earliest activity and encourage the impulse to self-culture, - through independent doing, observing and experimenting.”--_P., - p. 16._ - -To say that a conation tends to define itself is only to say that -unconscious ends tend to be replaced by conscious ends, and we have -seen that both Froebel and Professor Stout give unconsciousness or -consciousness of the end, as the difference between earlier and later -forms of mental activity. Professor Stout’s conclusion is that “apart -from the perpetual germination of one conation out of another, the -characteristic features of the mental life of human beings would be -inexplicable.” - -Now, to be conscious of one’s ends or aims is, in a certain sense, to be -self-conscious, so the transition from earlier to later forms of mental -activity is practically the development of self-consciousness. It is -interesting, therefore, to see that just as Professor Stout gives as his -explanation of human life, the perpetual germination of one conation out -of another, so Froebel gives as his explanation, his meaning of life, the -gradual development of self-consciousness. - -Self-consciousness, involving true volition, or self-determination, is to -Froebel “the end of man, for which he first was planned.” It is, as he -constantly put it, man’s “destination.” - - “To become clearly conscious of all the conditions and - relations in which and by means of which man exists makes man - first become man in consciousness and in action.”--_P., p. 12._ - - “For man is destined for consciousness, for freedom, for - self-determination.”--_E., p. 136._ - - “Self-consciousness belongs to the nature of man, is one with - it; to become conscious of itself is the first task in the life - of the child as a human being, as it is the task of his whole - life.”--_P., p. 40._ - -“Who amongst us,” exclaims Professor Royce, “conceives himself in his -uniqueness except as the remote goal of some ideal process of coming -to himself and of awakening to the truth about his own life? Only an -infinite process can show me who I am.”[17] - -Froebel never loses sight of this. In his Autobiography he tells how -he began “unwillingly” to write something in the album of a friend who -was the owner of a beautiful farm, and he concludes: “Then my thoughts -grew clear and I continued, ‘Thou givest man bread; let my aim be to -give man himself.’” That he verily believed that the gradual development -of self-consciousness is the first task in the life of the child is -abundantly evident. In the very beginning of his Mother Songs he tells -the mother to give her child something to push against, “to bring the -child to self-knowledge as soon as possible,” and at the end he says, -“When a child or human being has found himself and has firm hold over -himself, he is ready to walk joyfully through life.” - -In “The First Action of a Child,” Froebel writes: - - “The nature of man, as man, is that he is self-conscious, and - this is stamped with distinctness enough to be observed in - the quite peculiar character of childish activity,[18] in - his impulse to busy himself self-actively, spontaneously: an - impulse which awakens simultaneously with mind, and which is - in harmony with feeling and perception. If this tendency to - spontaneous activity is fostered, man’s triune nature--energy, - emotion and intellect--is satisfied.”--_P., p. 21._ - -A realization of what Sir Oliver Lodge calls “the universal struggle for -self-manifestation and corporeal realization, which plays so large a part -in all activity,” underlies all that Froebel has to say of the progress -from unconscious activity to self-conscious volition. His view of the -Universe is exactly that tentatively suggested by Professor Lodge, viz. -that something akin to this universal struggle “is exhibited in a region -beyond and above what is ordinarily conceived of as ‘Nature.’ The process -of evolution can be regarded as the gradual unfolding of the Divine -Thought or Logos, throughout the universe, by the action of Spirit upon -matter.” - -This takes us out of the region of psychology, but Froebel’s subject was -not psychology, _per se_, but child development, as a part of the whole -plan of evolution, man being the most highly developed of creatures. - -The whole universe is an expression of the Divine, but man alone can -become conscious of his origin. - - “All things are destined to reveal God in their external and - transient being.… It is the special destiny of man, as an - intelligent and rational being to become conscious of his - divine essence and to render this active, to reveal it in his - life, with self-determination and freedom.”--_E., p. 2._ - -“Made in the image of God,” meant to Froebel self-conscious and -self-determined. The relation of man to God is expressed by Froebel as -the relation of the thought to the thinker “_could the thought but become -conscious of itself_.” In a letter of 1843, he says: - - “At the basis of the Kindergarten lies an idea which serves - alike for all the interstellar spaces, for all systems of the - sun; the fulfilment of the divine will and the manifestation - of the same. _In order to become such a manifestation - of the divine, man has first to attain the basis of - self-consciousness_; to which end serves the early culture of - the spirit of humanity in the world of childhood.”--_L., p. - 133._ - -In a paper entitled “A Second Review of the Plays,” which really deals -chiefly with evolution, we read: - - “We must see clearly the conditions of development in Nature - and then employ them in life. Thus only can we raise man upon - his own plane, that is, the spiritual plane, at least to such a - degree of perfection as is shown on their plane by the types of - Nature. - - “Man--the all-surveying--must develop himself by gradual growth - of consciousness, must raise himself eventually to clear - consciousness of the foundation, conditions and goal of his - life.”--_P., p. 198._ - -It was as clear to Froebel as to Professor Lloyd Morgan that the lower -animals are kept from reaching self-consciousness by the definiteness -of their instincts,[19] but to Froebel as to Browning “in completed Man -begins anew a tendency to God.” Like Browning again, Froebel finds that -man has “somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become,” he, too, “finds -Progress man’s distinctive mark alone, not God’s, and not the beasts’; -God is, they are, man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.” - - “Man in his first period of life on earth is to be regarded - while a child in three separate relations, which are united in - themselves. - - “(_a_) As a child of Nature, that is according to his - earthly and natural conditions and connections, and in this - relation bound, chained, unconscious, subject to impulses - (als ein gebundenes, gefesseltes, unbewusstes, den Trieben - unterworfenes). - - “(_b_) As a child of God, and in this relation as a free being, - destined to self-consciousness. - - “(_c_) As a child of Humanity, and in this relation, as - a being struggling from bondage toward freedom, toward - consciousness.”--_P., p. 11._ - -And the beginning of all he finds in “The First Action of the Child.” In -the paper to which he gives this title Froebel writes: - - “Helplessness and personal will, a mind of one’s own, soon - become therefore the turning-points of child-life, the fulcrum - of which is free spontaneous activity, self-employment.”--_P., - p. 27._ - -It is because Froebel believes this, that we hear so much of creative -activity. Consciousness, which Meredith calls “the great result of mortal -suffering,” is the outcome of all the unconscious striving. - - “The child, although unconsciously, strives to make his life - outwardly objective, and thus perceptible and so to become - conscious of it.”--_P., p. 240._ - - “Man only comes to the power of self-examination and - self-knowledge in any relation whatever with the greatest - difficulty, and must first learn to study himself … in the - mirror of Nature and of all creation.”--_L., p. 57._ - - “The child must perceive and grasp his own life in an objective - manifestation before he can perceive and grasp it in himself. - Such mirroring of the inner life, such making of the inner life - objective, is essential, for through it, the child comes to - self-consciousness and learns to order, determine and master - himself.”--_P., p. 238._ - -Froebel realizes then, that true volition is the outcome of unconscious -striving, that it can only come through action, and, what is most -important, through action which is the outcome of feeling, “worthy his -effort.” So, while stating that the formation of “a pure, strong and -enduring will” is the main object of education, he takes care to point -out that unless the boy is allowed to carry out in action “that which is -within,” ideas which have appealed to him, and which he has already made -his own, that main object will not be easily attainable. - - “To raise activity of will to firmness of will, and so to - arouse, and form a pure, strong and enduring will, for the - representation of a characteristic humanity, is the chief aim, - the main object of the school.… The starting-point of all - mental activity in the boy should be energetic and healthy, - the direction should be simple and definite, the aim certain - and conscious, and worthy of his effort. Therefore to raise - the natural activity of the will to true genuine firmness of - will, all the boy’s activities should have reference to the - development and accomplishment of what is within him. Activity - of will proceeds from activity of the feelings, and firmness - of will from firmness of the feelings, and where the first is - lacking, the second will be difficult of attainment.”--_E., p. - 96._ - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLIEST CONSCIOUSNESS - - -It is in the emphasis he lays upon the mental activity of the child from -the very first, that Froebel approaches so closely to the position of the -modern psychologist, and in his account of the earliest consciousness he -distinctly resembles Professors Ward and Stout. - -Only to “some of our most distinguished modern psychologists” does -Professor Stout attribute a strong disposition to recognize in the -elementary processes of perception and association, the rudimentary -presence of these mental operations which in their higher form we call -reasoning and constructive imagination. - -Now Froebel writes: - - “One can recognize and watch, even in the first stages of - childhood, though only in their slightest traces and tenderest - germs, all the mental activities which certainly do not stand - out prominently till later life. Say not, ye parents, How can - such tendencies lie already in the life of the child still so - unconscious and so helpless? If they did not lie in it they - could never be developed from it … for where there is not - the germ of something, this something will never be called - forth and appear.… As man is a being intended for increasing - self-consciousness, so shall he also become an inferring and - judging being (schliessendes und urtheilendes). Man has also a - quite characteristic power of imagination, and--what must never - be forgotten, but continually kept before the eyes as important - and guiding--the new-born child not only will become man, but - the man with all his qualities, and with the unity of his - being, already appears and indeed is in the child.”--_P., pp. - 30-49._ - -Psychologists in general, says Professor Stout, show a tendency, which he -regards as erroneous, “to ignore the constructive aspect of early mental -process, to recognize mental productiveness only in complete and advanced -stages of mental development.” - -But Froebel, in speaking of the mother’s play with a mere infant, when -the coloured ball may present “the perception of an object as such,” most -distinctly states that the child’s “first impressions, as it were the -first cognitions,” come to him in these early plays by _means of his own -activity_, an activity of body emphatically, as we shall see presently, -but an activity also of mind, of perception, “durch Wahrnehmen … durch -dunkles Auffassen … durch Selbst-thätigkeit.”[20] - -Froebel uses such expressions as “the spontaneous reception” and even -“the critical reception of the outer world,” just as Dr. Ward, in -refusing to recognize an internal sense, says “the new facts … are due to -our mental activity, and not to a special mode of what has been called -our sensitivity.” - -The active, rather than the passive attitude, strikes Froebel so forcibly -that he calls the two modes of consciousness, the receiving of, and -reacting upon impressions, a “double expression.” - - “The first voluntary needs of the child, if its bodily needs - are satisfied and it feels well and strong, are observation - of its surroundings, spontaneous reception of the outer world - (selbstthätiges Aufnehmen der Aussenwelt) and play, which is - spontaneous expression, or acting out of what is within. This - double expression (Diese Doppeläusserung) of taking in and - expressing outwardly is necessarily grounded in its nature, as - in human nature in general; since the child’s first earthly - destiny is to attain by critical reception (durch prüfende - Aufnahme) of the outer world into itself, by manifold inward - impressions and outward expressions of its inner world, and - by critical comparison of both, to the recognition of their - unity.…”--_P., p. 29._ - -Professor Stout attributes this ignoring by certain psychologists of -the constructive aspect of early mental process to a false view of the -nature both of association and of construction, the fundamental fallacy -of the associationists lying in their disposition to explain the nature -and existence of a whole by reference to the nature and existence of the -parts which are contained in it, so that “the parts must be supposed -to pre-exist before they are combined, and to pre-exist in such a way -that they need only to be in some manner externally brought together or -associated in order to constitute the whole which contains them.” - -In like manner Dr. Ward accuses psychologists of having “usually -represented mental advance as consisting fundamentally in the combination -and recombination of various elementary units, the so-called sensations -and primitive movements, or, in other words, in a species of mental -chemistry.” - -That Froebel seems to have avoided the error thus pointed out by those -two psychologists, is surprising enough, but it is even more surprising -to find that this is probably due to the fact that his conception of the -earliest possible consciousness is very much like theirs. - -In rejecting “the atomistic view,” Professor Ward maintains that “the -further we go back, the nearer we approach to a total presentation, -having the character of one general continuum in which differences are -latent.” - -Froebel’s account, as given in “The Education of Man,” is very similar: - - “Although in itself made up of the same objects and of the same - organization, the external world comes to the child at first, - out of its void, as it were, in misty, formless indistinctness, - in chaotic confusion, even the child and the outer world merge - into one another.”--_E., p. 40._ - -This description reminds us of Professor James’ picturesque expression, -“big, blooming, buzzing confusion,” which is so often quoted, but which -does not really convey so true a picture as Dr. Ward’s account, for where -there is no distinction there can surely be no confusion. But a few pages -further on we find Froebel describing the infant consciousness before -speech begins, as “_still an unorganized, undifferentiated unity_” (noch -eine ungegliederte mannigfaltigkeitslose Einheit). This is identical with -the expression used by Professor Stout, who, in speaking of the stage to -which he gives the name “implicit apprehension,” the apprehension of an -unanalysed whole, uses the phrase “distinctionless unity.” Froebel talks -of the child feeling himself a whole and “so also, though unconsciously, -seeking to grasp a whole, never merely a part as such.” And just as Dr. -Ward claims for psychology as well as for biology “what may be called a -principle of progressive differentiation or specialization,” so Froebel -writes: - - “The child mind develops according to the law which governs - world development, viz.: that of progression from the unlimited - to the limited, from the general to the special, from the whole - to the part.”--_P., p. 170._ - -In this, of course, lies the reason for Froebel’s correct apprehension -of the infant mind, he was biologist first, and his mind was full of the -idea of development. - - “At the same time there begins in the child, as in the - seed-corn, a development towards complexity.”--_P., p. 172._ - - “Whether we are looking at a seed or an egg, whether we - are watching feeling or thought, what is definite proceeds - everywhere from what is indefinite and this is the way in which - your child’s life is sure to show itself.”--_M., p. 121._ - -Professor Ward goes on to discuss what is implied in this process of -differentiation or mental growth, saying that if analogies are to be -taken from the physical world at all, the growth of a seed or embryo, -will furnish far better illustrations of the unfolding of the contents of -consciousness than the building up of molecules. - -It was the endeavour, and quaint enough it seems to us, to translate this -psychological truth into educational practice, that led Froebel to lay so -much stress on the fact that the earliest of his so-called “Gifts” are -indivisible wholes: - - “Let us place ourselves at the nursery table, and try to - perceive what the child is impelled to do in the beginning - of his self-employment. Let us sit ourselves as unnoticed as - possible considering how the child, after he has examined the - self-contained tangible object in its form and colour, has - moved it here and there and proved its solidity, how he then - tries to divide it, at least to change its form.… Thus _after - perception of the whole, the child desires to see it separated_ - into parts.… Let us stop at this significant phenomenon and - try to discern through it what plaything following on the - self-contained ball, hard and soft, and the solid hard cube, we - should for inner reason and without arbitrariness give to the - child.”--_P., p. 117._ - -Then come directions as to the manner in which the toy is to be presented: - - “in order to give the child _the impression of the whole_ (den - Eindrück des Ganzen). _From this as the first fundamental - perception_ (der ersten Grundanschauung) _everything proceeds - and must proceed_.”[21] - -Starting from the conception of an undifferentiated totality or objective -continuum, Dr. Ward says, “Of the very beginnings of this continuum we -can say nothing, absolute beginnings are beyond the pale of science. -Actual presentation consists in this continuum being differentiated; -every differentiation constitutes a new presentation. Hence the -common-place of psychologists: ‘We are only conscious as we are conscious -of change.’” … - -As to absolute beginnings, Froebel too writes that these are past -finding out, but he does so in order to call the mother’s attention to -the importance of the very earliest steps: - - “Do not say, It is much too early.… Too early? Do you know - when, where and how your child’s intellectual development - begins? Can you tell when and where is the boundary of - existence that has not yet begun, and of its actual beginning, - and how this boundary manifests itself?”--_M., p. 154._ - -Coming now to what Froebel has to say as to how his “unorganized unity” -becomes differentiated, we shall not find that his brief account differs -in any really fundamental way from that of Professor Ward. Some of his -expressions have a very modern sound, such as: “how the outer world -begins to divide and analyse itself”; how “out of the indefinite outside -and around the child comes the definite”; or again how the child gains -“the three great perceptions of object, space and time, which at first -were one collective perception.” (“Die drei grossen Wahrnehmungen von -Gegenstand, Raum und Zeit; welche anfangs in einer Gesammtwahrnehmung in -dem Kinde ruhten.”)--_P., p. 37._ - -Commenting upon the phrase “We are only conscious as we are conscious -of change,” Dr. Ward remarks that the word change does not sufficiently -explain what happens in differentiation, for this implies that the -increased complexity is due to the persistence of former changes; -such persistence being essential to the very idea of growth or -development.… At the same time he is careful to point out that neither -in “retentiveness” nor in assimilation is there “any confronting of the -old with the new,” any “active comparison.” Without change of impression -consciousness would be a blank, but “a difference between presentations -is not at all the same as the presentation of that difference. The former -must precede the latter; the latter, which requires active comparison, -need not follow … we must recognize objects before we can compare them.” - -Froebel says that: - - “All the development of the child has its foundation in - almost imperceptible attainments and perceptions … the first - perceptions, in the beginning almost imperceptible and - evanescent, are fixed, increased and clarified by innumerable - repetitions, and _by change_.”--_P., p. 38._ - -Froebel, too, goes back to this very earliest stage, the stage when a -baby “begins to notice.” He says that this indication of an intellect -(Seelenaeusserung) begins when the child is a few weeks old, and is -occasioned at first by the movement, that is change in position, of a -bright object, “in and by means of the motion the child first perceives -the object.”--_P., p. 64._ - -In another passage Froebel speaks of change as “a dim conception of -sequence, and thus of dim comparison.” - - “These first impressions come to the child by means of - perception and seeing, and by means of coming, staying and - vanishing (of the ball); _by means of change_, thus also, in - a certain point of view by means of early dim conceptions of - sequence, of foundation and result, of cause and effect, and - thus of dim comparison.”--_P., p. 65._ - -A change or difference which does not imply active comparison, and a -change or sequence which does imply dim comparison are not very far -apart, and Froebel makes his meaning clearer still by using the words -“unconsciously comparing” (unbewusst vergleichend). - - “By this play his attention is called to the precise shape - of the cube; and he will look at it sharply, unconsciously - comparing it with the hand, to which his eyes were first - attracted.”--_P., p. 84._ - -Nor does Froebel omit to notice the necessary close connection of the new -with the old, which Dr. Ward emphasizes. - - “The child very often seeks for something without at all - knowing what he seeks; in like manner he repels something - without at all knowing why. Yet the child does not for this - reason turn away accidentally, neither does he seek the - accidental. Generally it is the new for which the child - seeks, but not a novelty which has no connection with what - has hitherto been, for that, should it appear, would obstruct - development. He seeks the new which has developed from the - old, like a bud from a branch. He seeks a new unexpected turn, - a new unexpected use of a thing, new unexpected properties, - new and yet unconsciously anticipated development, a new - unexpected connection with his life.… The child indeed seeks - for the new that is outside of himself, but not on account - of its externality. Really he is seeking the new of which he - feels premonitions in himself, in his own development. Since, - however, he does not yet know this, and so cannot give an - account of it, _the child seeks especially for change_, in - order to gain a means of growing up within himself, and of - growing forth outwardly from himself. - - “Above all, therefore, it is the old within the child which - clarifies, unfolds and transmutes itself, thus developing that - which is new. The whole process takes place according to a - definite law resting in the child himself, in his life, in life - as such.”--_P., p. 168._ - -We have seen that Froebel draws no hard and fast line between sensation -and thought. On more than one occasion, he does refer to something less -definite than a perception, in one passage using the word “Eindrück,” -and in another the term “Vorentwickelung,” translated by Miss Jarvis as -“preliminary impression,” of which he says it is “to be raised later, at -the right time, by look and by word, to a clear perception.”--_P., p. 86._ - -In “The Education of Man,” Froebel’s earlier work, he deals with the -function of language, “the word,” in differentiating “the misty formless -darkness,” the nothing, the mist. - - “At an early period there come, too, on the part of the - parents, corresponding words which at first separate the child - from the outer world, but afterwards re-unite them. With the - help of these words, these objects present themselves, at first - singly and rarely, but later in various combinations and more - frequently in their self-contained definite individuality. At - last man--the child--beholds himself as a definite individual - object, wholly distinct from all others.”--_E., p. 40._ - -The function of the name, as calling attention to the thing, seemed to -Froebel of so much consequence, that he says, “the name creates the thing -for the child.” It is in connection with the development of speech in -the stage just following on infancy that he says: “Up to this stage, the -inner being of man is still an unorganized undifferentiated unity. With -language, organization sets in.” - - “This period is pre-eminently the period of the development - of the faculty of speech. Therefore it was indispensable - that whatever the child did should be clearly and definitely - designated by the word. Every object, every thing, became - such, as it were only through the word; before it had been - named, although the child might have seemed to see it with the - outer eyes, it had no existence for him. The name, as it were, - created the thing for the child.--_E., p. 90._ - - “The object of giving names is not primarily the development of - the child’s power of speech, but to assist his comprehension - of the object, its parts and properties, by defining his - sense-impressions.”--_P., p. 242._ - -Professor Stout also speaks of the casual naming of the object, by those -around the child as “a means of fixing the attention of the child on the -object when it would otherwise pass unnoticed,” and he guards against the -misconception that the name at the outset is a name for the child. He -calls it “merely a special sound associated with a special percept in a -quite casual and indefinite way.” - -Froebel, too, is careful when he says: - - “A definite tone is to be connected with a definite perception, - and the tone when heard again may recall the perception.” - -Though Froebel has little to say about the separate senses, and what -little he has is worthless, yet on the other hand he has a great deal to -say, especially in his later writings, about the child’s bodily activity, -and the experiences and perceptions (Erfahrung-Wahrnehmen) he gains from -it. Indeed he makes so much of this, and it is so essentially a modern -way of thinking that it has been given a chapter to itself. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -HOW CONSCIOUSNESS IS DIFFERENTIATED.--THE PLACE OF ACTION IN THE -DEVELOPMENT OF PERCEPTION AND OF FEELING - - -Once objects have begun to emerge, differentiated out of the formless -indistinctness, comes what Froebel calls the “sucking-in stage,” where -the child “makes the external internal.” - -Here, more than anywhere perhaps, Froebel shows his genius, his -originality as a student of child psychology, in that he perceived that -this mental sucking-in is not merely a matter of sense organs, but that -it is also a muscular performance. - -Who, before Froebel, understood the importance of motor activity from the -very earliest days, as a means of gaining ideas, or realized as we now -begin to do, that this is the true explanation of the “endless imitation -which is the child’s vocation”? - -In speaking of the “new-born child,” it is activity or action which -is again and again repeated and emphasized as the outstanding -characteristic, “an activity and action devoted to working with and -prevailing over the outer.” - - “As rest appears to be the earliest requirement of the bodily - life, so movement soon appears as the demand of the soul - life.”--_P., p. 63._ - -The baby’s “feeble strength” is to be drawn into the game, where -possible, “particularly that he may experience and perceive, directly -through and in his own activity” (durch und in Eigenthätigkeit -unmittelbar selbst erfahre und wahrnehme).--_P., p. 78._ - -It is “through spontaneous activity, as well as through the mother’s -instinctive knowledge of his needs” that the child gains “the first -impressions of the soul, as it were, the first cognitions.” - -Out of forty-nine Mother Songs, two only deal specifically with the -senses, though all deal with action, and Froebel takes care to point out -the close connection of sense and movement. - - “Limbs and senses seem to have very different provinces of - activity, and so they have; yet so deep-seated is their linked - interchange that neither of them fails to react on the other. - And no Games for the limbs have presented themselves to us, not - even the ‘Kicking Song’ which have not also made demands upon - the sense of sight.”--_M., p. 168._ - - “The use of the body and of the limbs is developed - simultaneously and in the same proportion as the use of the - senses, the order being determined by their own nature and the - properties of the material world. Outer objects are near, or - moving away, or fixed at a distance, and either invite rest, - seizure and holding fast, or invite him who would bring them - nearer to move towards them.”--_E., p. 47._ - -Froebel’s account of the significance of the ceaseless activity of -the young child anticipates to a certain extent that of Mr. Irving -King, who, in his most interesting “Psychology of Child Development,” -deals expressly with “the functional relation of consciousness to -activity.” But the views of Professor Stout as expressed in his “Analytic -Psychology,” and with which Froebel’s writing has already been compared, -and those of Mr. Irving King do not appear to clash in any way. - -Mr. King begins by discussing the “sort of consciousness” a young child -must have, and concludes that it must from the very first be a unified -consciousness, however vague, any discreteness being on the part of the -object. He also states that the consciousness of a human being must -differ from that of the animal entering life with many “ready-made -complexes of adjustment,” because “Consciousness is related not to -activity, but to the growth of activity.” We have just seen that Froebel -too insists on a unified consciousness, that he too says that “the -external world,” though composed always of the same variety of objects, -“comes to the child as ‘an undifferentiated unity.’” Froebel is also -quite sound as to the difference between the mental possibilities of the -animal “whose instincts, as they are called, are at birth so definite -and strong,” and that of the child “born in the extreme condition of -helplessness,” by whom “everything external is to be overcome.”[22] - -Reflex and instinctive acts which the child brings into the world -with him, says Mr. King, are unconscious, as are reflex and habitual -activities to the adult, but “the checking of a movement must make the -child more definitely conscious of it … it is no longer mere movement, -but movement-stopped-by-something. As soon as movement stands out, as -soon as the consciousness of it is interwoven with something that is not -movement, we have the basis for indefinite advance.” - -Froebel says the same thing in the first of the Mother Songs, where -he takes as the point of departure for all future training this -movement-stopped-by-something, to which Mr. King refers as the earliest -beginning of consciousness. The mother is told that when her baby -“strikes out with his small arms, as he kicks with his feet,” it is a -challenge, to which she instinctively responds by giving him her hand or -her chest, “against which he tramples with alternate feet and so measures -and increases his strength.” So, he reaches “that first consciousness of -self, which is born of physical opposition to and connection with the -external world.”--_P., p. 171._ - -Every one knows that Froebel laid much stress on the necessity for what -is usually called “expression,” which he called _Darstellung_--often -translated “representation.” One of his reasons for this emphasis is, -however, by no means always understood, viz. that it “induces clear -perception.” - -It is in discussing and criticizing Professor Baldwin’s description of -imitation as a circular process, that Mr. Irving King brings out two -points of view from which we may regard imitation, that of the observer -and that of the so-called imitator. Imitation, he says, is a term for -the observer only, and not a term for psychology at all. Baldwin says -that “real or persistent imitation is the reaction that will reproduce -the stimulating impression and so tend to perpetuate itself.” But as Mr. -King shows in the case of the child who imitates his mother’s poking of -the fire, “the response of the child to the copy does not reinstate the -original stimulus.… What the child gets is not a reproduced stimulus, but -a new experience.” - -In “The Education of Man,” written years before his whole attention -was given to the young child, Froebel had emphasized the necessity for -“representation” which “induces and implies clear perception.” - - “For what man tries to represent or do, that he begins to - understand.”--_E., p. 76._ - -As we have seen that Froebel sets before himself the self-same task which -Mr. King states as the business of the genetic psychologist, so it should -be no surprise that he gives virtually the same answer to the question: -What do the imitative activities mean to the child? - -Mr. King’s answer is that the child’s emphasis is not on the copying of -a certain act, but on the attainment of a certain experience that comes -through the copying or imitating. “The child,” he says, “is seldom or -never imitating from his own point of view, but is always trying to sort -out some of his own ill-organized experiences.” - -Froebel’s words are: - - “The child, though unconsciously, strives to make his inner - life outwardly objective and thus perceptible, and so to become - conscious of it, to see it mirrored in the outward phenomena. - It is for this reason that the child tries to do himself - whatever he sees done.”--_P., p. 240._ - - “If your child is to understand any action, you must let him - carry it out himself, deeply rooted in this fact is his prompt - and delighted imitation of whatever he finds around him.”--_M., - p. 16._ - - “Thought must form itself in action, and action resolve and - clear itself in thought.”--_P., p. 42._ - -Every stimulus, says Mr. King, is a suggestion to activity, and it is -interesting to notice how two minds working on the same lines, though -separated not only by years but by difference of language, can fall into -almost the same phrases. Mr. King unconsciously uses almost Froebel’s -very words when he writes: “_The sight of the object tends to set the -activity free_.” - -Froebel writes: - - “As the ball stirs, moves, goes, runs and rolls, the child who - is playing with it begins to feel the desire to do likewise.… - The smallest child moves joyfully, springs gaily, hops up and - down or beats with his arms when he sees a moving object. This - is not merely delight in the movement of the object before him, - but it is the working of the inner activity wakened in him by - the sight of outer activity. _Through such vision the inner - life has been freed._”--_P., p. 239._ - -We have seen that according to Froebel the earliest consciousness is a -kind of self-consciousness. Mr. Irving King says that the very beginning -of consciousness is “movement-stopped-by-something,” and Froebel says -that when the baby kicks out or tramples with his feet and the mother -responds by giving him her hand or chest to push against, the child -reaches that “first consciousness of self which is born of physical -opposition to and connection with the external world.” Here again we -come to a point in which Froebel’s insight shows well in comparison -with a typical modern genetic psychologist. “Many writers,” says Mr. -Irving King, “have tried to select out certain kinds of activity as -peculiarly connected with the development of the infant’s sense of -self.” Preyer, for instance, connects this development specially with -painful sensations; Baldwin, with experience associated with people, as -contrasted with experience of things. His own conclusion is that “it -seems more correct to say that all the child’s activities are factors -of very nearly equal importance for developing the sense of self, as -distinct from things and other people,” and it is this view that we find -in Froebel’s writings. Even in “The Education of Man” we find: - - “If man, in accordance with his destiny, is truly and - thoroughly to know each thing of the surrounding world; if - _with the aid of each thing he is truly and thoroughly to know - himself_.…”--_E., p. 92._ - -And among his later writings, in connection with the child’s play with -bricks Froebel says: - - “True and early knowledge of Nature and of the outer world - and _especially clear self-knowledge_ come to the child by - this early dismembering and reconstruction and perception - of real things, though not as yet, by any means, through - verbal designation of the various productions of childish - activity.”--_P., p. 123._ - -“Self-consciousness,” says Mr. King, “is essentially a relative and -variable term for all of us. It stands for a process of definition, that, -strictly speaking, proceeds till maturity, or even later.” And Froebel, -writing about how, through the mother’s play with a ball, a child may -gain his earliest perceptions of object, space and time, says that by the -coming and going of the ball, etc., - - “there goes forth to the child the object, recognized as such - by the mind and so held fast, the consciousness of the object, - and so consciousness itself awakens in the child.” - -And without a pause he goes on: - - “Self-consciousness belongs to the nature of man, and is one - with it. To become conscious of itself is the first task in - the life of the child, as it is the task of the whole life of - man. That this task may be accomplished the child is, even - from his first appearance, surrounded by a definite place and - by objects: by the air blowing around all living creatures, as - well as by the arousing, human, spiritual language of words.… - Thus it is with the attainment of man to consciousness and - the speech required and conditioned by that attainment to - consciousness.”--_P., p. 39._ - -It is rather interesting to notice that in her translation of this -passage in which Froebel declares that self-consciousness comes to -a child as a result of all his surroundings, Miss Jarvis omits the -word “self.” She begins her paragraph with “Bewusstsein,” instead of -“Selbstbewusstsein” as it stands in the original. To quote Mr. King, -“It is generally held that these are two distinct attitudes, that -consciousness may exist without an accompanying consciousness of the -self as separate from the objects, activities and persons of the rest of -the world.” Probably this was Miss Jarvis’s own view, and she left out -the word “self” as having no place or meaning in the context. It was, -however, not meaningless to Froebel himself. - -Mr. King continues: “The really important point is not to be able -to put the finger down on some one thing that proves a developed -self-consciousness, but to be able to show at every point that the -process of definition is a function of the growing complexity of the -child’s activities.” And, in “The First Action of a Child” Froebel writes: - - “The nature of man as a being intended for self-consciousness, - shows itself in the quite distinctive nature of the child’s - activity, even at the end of the so-called three months’ - slumber, in the totality of the first childish action. This - cannot be better comprehended than by the expression ‘to busy - himself’ (sich beschäftigen) in the impulse of the child--an - impulse awakening simultaneously with his inner life--an - impulse in close union with feeling and perception, to be - active for the increasing development of his life: in this - lies the nature of man as a being intended to grow towards and - ultimately to become self-conscious.”--_P., p. 22._ - -Speaking of his second plaything, intended for a child six months old, he -says: - - “And so his play, and through his play, his - surroundings--finally Nature and Universe--may become a mirror - of himself and of his life. But this cannot be too early - facilitated, that the child at once, from the first beginning - of his self-developing feeling of life, may grow up in exchange - and comparison with Nature and life, and as he impresses his - life in form, and as form on things outside, so he may again - perceive his life therein.”--_P., p. 95._ - -Froebel was bound to watch for early developments of self-consciousness, -because his whole philosophy and pedagogy are based on his firm belief -that while everything in the universe is an expression of the Divine, man -alone is “destined” to express the God within “with self-determination.” -So, of the little child, he writes: - - “Because the child himself begins to represent his inner being - outwardly, he imputes the same activity to all about him, to - the pebble and chip of wood, to the plant, the flower, and - the animal. And thus there is developed in the child at this - stage his own life, his life with parents and family, and - particularly his life in and with Nature, as if this held life - _like that which he feels within himself_.”--_E., p. 54._ - -As the child grows older, the mother, Froebel continues, tries to teach -him to feel the complexity of his own body, “Give me your arm,” “Where is -your hand?” she says, and she “playfully leads him to a knowledge of the -members which he cannot see,” and the passage ends: - - “The aim of all this is to lead the child to - self-consciousness, to reflection about himself in the - approaching period of boyhood. Thus, a boy ten years old, - similarly guided by instinct, believing himself unobserved, - soliloquized: ‘I am not my arm, nor my ear; all my limbs - and organs I can separate from myself, and I still remain - myself; I wonder what I am; who and what is this which I call - myself?’”--_E., p. 56._ - -Nor does Froebel forget the idea of the self as the boy grows older. - -Once the activities of running, jumping, etc., are familiar, the boy’s -play takes on a new complexion. His games are now “trials of strength,” -or “displays of strength.” - - “The boy tries to see himself in his companions, to feel - himself in them, to weigh and measure himself by them, to know - and find himself by their aid.”--_E., p. 114._ - - “The life of the boy has, indeed, no other purpose but that - of the outer representation of his self: his life is in truth - but an external representation of his inner being, of his - power, particularly through plastic material. In the forms he - fashions, he does not see outer forms which he is to take in - and understand; he sees in them the expression of his spirit, - of the activities of his own mind.”--_E., p. 279._ - -Surely it is another touch of genius that makes Froebel spring to the -nascent idea of self as _the_ reason for the child’s craving for tales of -all kinds. - - “Knowledge of a thing can never be attained by comparing it - with itself. Therefore the boy cannot attain any knowledge of - the nature and meaning of his own life, by comparing it with - itself … everybody knows that comparisons with somewhat remote - objects are more effective than those with very near objects. - Only the study of the life of others can furnish such points - of comparison with the life he has himself experienced.… It is - the innermost desire and need of a vigorous boy to understand - his own life.… This is the chief reason why boys are so fond - of stories, legends and tales.… The story concerns other men, - other circumstances, other times and places, yet the hearer - seeks his own image, he beholds it, and no one knows that he - sees it.”--_E., p. 305._ - -As Froebel shows so much insight into the paramount importance of action -in the development of self-consciousness, it is not surprising to find -that he recognizes also its special importance in the development of -feeling. - -It is probably to the late Professor James and his sparkling paradoxes -that the educational world owes its grasp of the importance of expression -in connection with feeling; we feel because we act, we are told, we do -not run away because we are afraid, but we are afraid because we have run -away. But all Froebelians had already learnt the truth at the bottom of -this from Froebel’s Mother Songs. - -When he wrote his earliest and greatest book, “The Education of Man,” -Froebel was already far enough advanced to point out the necessity for at -least verbal expression of feeling. He then advocated giving to young -boys simple prayers or words by which they can express childish gratitude -for care and protection, so that these feelings may be retained and -deepened. - - “It is natural that religious feelings and thoughts should - spring up.… In the beginning these sentiments and feelings will - only manifest themselves as an effect, a fullness without word - or form, without any adequate expression of what they are, - merely as something that uplifts our being and fills the soul. - At this juncture, it is most beneficial, strengthening, and - uplifting for the boy to receive words--a language for these - sentiments and feelings--_so that they may not be stifled in - themselves, vanish for lack of expression_.”--_E., p. 246._ - -The same remark is made in connection with the teaching of poems and -songs. When feeling is aroused by the contemplation of Nature, it must be -expressed. When Spring brings “gladness,” and Autumn “longing and hope,” -and when Winter awakens “courage and vigour,” then: - - “Man, too, would express the thoughts and feelings that are - awakened in him and for which he cannot find words, and these - should be given him.… the thoughtful teacher can easily - interpret the thoughts and feelings of the boys, as well as - the phases of Nature, in living fitting words.… In general, - all that was said concerning the appropriation of religious - expressions is true here.”--_E., p. 267._ - -Froebel had also noted even thus early how “the natural mother” from the -very beginning cultivates feeling through expression, through gesture or -action. - - “Mother love seeks to awaken and to interpret the feeling of - community between the child and the father, brother and sister, - when she says, ‘Dear Daddy!’ as she caressingly passes the - child’s hand over the father’s cheek. ‘Love daddy, love little - sister,’ etc.”--_E., p. 69._ - -In the Mother’s Songs, written much later and after Froebel had made -careful observation of young children, he is more emphatic, and his ideas -of expression are both wider and more definite. In “The Education of Man” -he had said that literature exercises and tests judgment and feelings, -and he had added that this should be followed up by some constructive -action. But now he knows that feeling when stirred ought to express -itself in actual service, just as James suggests “speaking genially to -one’s grandmother, or giving up one’s seat in a horse car, if nothing -more heroic offers.” - -The mother is told that at first she should help her little one -to understand her care of him and his dependence on her by “the -looking-glass of outer life,” by letting him, for instance, watch the hen -caring for her chickens, and the parent birds feeding and brooding over -their young in the nest. In the rhymed motto of “The Nest” she is told: - - “Already the baby likes to see pictures showing the loving care - of a mother. Let him do so often, that his life experience may - become clear to him.” - -But the longer explanation has an important addition: - - “The way lies through our imaginative, tender and emotional - observation of Nature and of man’s life, and through the - child’s affectionately taking their most intimate meaning into - the life of his own heart, _and expressing by representation - what he thus takes in_.”--_M., p. 149._ - -So, as the child begins to realize what he owes, comes the next little -play, “The Flower Basket,” the key-note of which is given in its motto: - - “Try to let the child give outward form to what stirs his - feelings, for the love even of a child dies away if not - carefully fostered.”--_M., p. 38._ - -And the baby makes of his tiny hands a basket for flowers wherewith to -celebrate the father’s birthday in orthodox German fashion. In Froebel’s -own phrase, the “inner meaning” of the little finger play with its -picture, is “to cherish thoughtfully the bond, which is invisible, yet -which can be felt, whereby the life of humanity is bound together, the -first opportunity for which is afforded by the life of the child and the -family.” What is important here is that Froebel has pointed out the way -in which this bond can be strengthened, that is by expression, by giving -“outward form to what stirs feeling.” - -This idea of service as expression of feeling comes into Froebel’s -description of the ideal child, “merry, happy, strong and busy,” when the -mother: - - “Kissed upon his brow her blessing, - Then, his love for her expressing, - Off he starts his mother serving - All he can do, she’s deserving.”--_M., p. 191._ - -Again, in connection with childish productions, the little baskets, -napkin rings, etc., that they have made, Froebel wrote: - - “The use made of these little productions is very important to - the civilizing and nourishing of the child’s being and mind, - for I consider the fact that many children receive so much - and can give hardly anything to be one of the most essential - causes of the frequent retrogression of childish love and - sensibility.” - -Froebel always emphasizes the essential importance of family bonds in the -development of feeling, and he not only instructs the mother to see to -it that the child recognizes the family circle, but he tells her that he -will realize his “kinship” by service done for the family. - - “Family, family, you are more than School or Church … without - you what are Altar and Church.…”--_M., p. 159._ - - “That many things are in a whole - Soon dawns upon a childish soul. - Then let the mother teach him carefully - To know the circle of the family.”--_M., p. 46._ - - “Duties are not burdens, duty fulfilled leads to light, this is - why every healthy child likes and enjoys doing duties, provided - they speak to him clearly and simply, above all inexorably.… - See how happy a child is feeling he has done his small duties. - He already feels his kinship with you thereby. Cherish this - feeling, and it will be salvation and blessing to him.”--_M., - p. 174._ - -As the feeling of the adult is called out by the helplessness of a child, -so, too: - - “the child’s sympathy is roused by the young creatures’ - necessities more than by anything else, and among these - chiefly by their nakedness and softness: ‘… Mother, the poor - little birds are so lonely, I am so sorry for the poor little - things.’”--_M., p. 150._ - -And in this connection too comes the warning that feeling must not be -allowed to evaporate without action: - - “If your child’s to love and cherish - Life that needs him day by day, - Give him things to tend that perish - If he ever stops away.”--_M., p. 84._ - -The child is “to feel within himself Nature’s close interdependence”: - - “Whenever opportunity occurs, make this inner dependence of - life clear, visible, impressive, tangible and perceptible to - your child, even though it be in only a few of the essential - links of this great chain, until you come to the last ring that - holds all the rest, God’s Father-love for all. The baker cannot - bake if the miller brings him no flour, the miller can grind no - flour if the farmer brings him no corn, the field can yield no - crop if Nature does not work towards it in harmony, and Nature - could not work in harmony if God had not placed in her power - and material, and if His love did not guide everything to its - fulfilment.”--_M., p. 148._ - -And again, as always, follows the need for expression of some kind. The -children are not to be disturbed while they “say grace” over their doll’s -feast. - - “It is no drawing down of the sacred into outer life; no, this - is the germ which gives the outside actions of life the inner - meaning and higher consecration, which life so much needs. For - how is your child to cultivate innocently in himself a lively - feeling for what is holy, if you will not grant that it takes - form for him even in his innocent games.”--_M., p. 148._ - -It may be as well before leaving the subject to notice here one or two -other points in connection with feeling that are touched upon by Froebel. - -Though, as we have seen[23], the feeling side is always kept in closest -connection with those of knowledge and action, yet the fundamental -importance of the emotional side is stated quite distinctly. The child -is “living, loving and perceiving,” or “creating, feeling and thinking,” -still: - - “The cultivation of boyhood rests wholly on that of childhood; - therefore activity and firmness of the will rest upon activity - and firmness of the feelings and of the heart. Where the latter - are lacking, the former will scarcely be attainable.”--_E., p. - 97._ - -This is put more strongly in connection with the child’s imitation of the -music of the bell note, the “bim-baum” or “ding-dong” sung by the mother, -while she swings the ball to and fro, which according to Froebel “serves -the emotional side.” - - “The children thus early and definitely point out that the - centre, the real foundation, the starting-point of human - development is the heart and the emotions, but the training - to action and thought, the corporeal and mental, goes on - constantly and inseparably by the side of it; and thought - must form itself into action, and action resolve and clear - itself in thought; but both have their roots in the emotional - nature.”--_P., p. 42._ - -Another point Froebel makes in this connection, is that feeling alone can -awaken feeling, and that those who complain of want of feeling in their -children have probably themselves to blame. Want of good feeling and the -prevalence among boys of egotism, unfriendliness, etc., is explained as: - - “clearly due not merely to the failure of arousing at an early - period, and of subsequently cultivating in the child a feeling - of common sympathy, but also to the early annihilation of this - feeling between parents and children.”--_E., p. 122._ - -The elders must show sympathy with the child’s thoughts and feelings, -they must not rest content with caring for his bodily welfare. If the -child fails to find sympathy, for example in connection with his interest -in Nature, if he “fails to find the same feelings among adults who -suppress his germinating inner life” then, says Froebel: - - “a double effect follows, loss of respect for the elder and a - recoil of the original anticipation.”--_E., p. 164._ - - “Mothers and Fathers, is it not almost incredible how early - the child appears to distinguish inner intellectual and loving - gifts from outer bodily ones, or, rather, to be conscious of - the heart and mind of the giver to feel the giving spirit? - Who does not see this in the effect of a friendly glance, of - a sympathizingly spoken word, of a tender care which often - affords little more than sympathy and companionship?… It is a - remarkable fact that the mere love for the outward person, the - mere bodily care, does not satisfy him; indeed, the nobler the - child is in his nature the less does he cling to the giving - person. Through this consideration we have found and recognized - what we sought, namely, that the respect and love--yea, the - reverence--of children and youth are gained and secured to - parents in proportion to what the latter are doing for the - education of the mental life of the children.… If the lively - appreciation of what has been done to cultivate his inner world - fill the soul of a child, then will true love and gratitude - towards parents, respect and veneration for age, germinate in - the mind of a child.”--_P., p. 111._ - -We have spoken in this chapter of what is popularly called the instinct -of imitation, and we have seen that Froebel makes much of what he calls -the instinct or impulse of activity (Thätigkeitstrieb), or the instinct -for employment (Beschäftigungstrieb). - -It may be well now to consider what, considering the ideas of his day and -generation, Froebel could find to say on a subject so important as the -instinctive activities of human beings and of other animals, concerning -which so much has now been written and which, according to Professor -Dewey, Froebel regarded and rightly regarded as the foundation-stones of -educational method. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -INSTINCT AND INSTINCTS - - -“The older writings on Instinct are ineffectual wastes of words,” -writes Professor James, “because their authors never came down to this -simple and definite idea (that the nervous system is to a great extent -a pre-organized bundle of reactions), but smothered everything in vague -wonder at the clairvoyant and prophetic power of animals--so superior to -anything in Man.”[24] - -Froebel was certainly not in a position to know much of the nervous -system, but what he wrote about instinct cannot be classed with these -older writings. For even without modern knowledge, he waxes indignant -over the opinions of those who created James’ “ineffectual wastes -of words.” Far from allowing that instinct in the lower animals is -superior to anything in man, Froebel maintains that the very weakness, -indefiniteness of man’s instincts or impulses (Triebe) is a sign of his -superiority. - - “Notwithstanding the early manifestation in the human infant - of the impulse to employment (Beschäftigungstriebe), much - has been said from an entirely wrong point of view about - man’s helplessness at birth, and his slow development to - independence, which necessitates for so long a period the - care and help of the mother. It has even been said, that, - in this respect, man’s position is behind and below that of - other animals. But that very point, which has been cited as - evidence of man’s imperfection, is a proof of his worth. For we - recognize through this helplessness, that man is called to ever - higher self-consciousness.”--_P., p. 24._ - -At the same time it should be pointed out that Froebel does not make -the opposite mistake of supposing that man has no instincts. Since he -approached psychology from the biological side, so far as it could be -known to him, Froebel was bound to have faith in instinct, in race-habit, -in tendencies which, because they have been of use to the race, are -bedded in the nature of each individual. It is to Froebel’s later -writings and especially to the little paper, on “The First Action of a -Child,” that we must turn to see how wonderfully correct are his views on -the whole question of instinct. - -It may be better to give first the position of modern writers on the -subject by quoting from the last chapter of Professor Lloyd Morgan’s -“Habit and Instinct,” a clear and concise passage showing that the -contrary schools of thought represented on the one hand by the Darwin and -Romanes and on the other by Professors James and Wundt, can after all be -resolved into a matter of definition. - -“If, then, the question be asked, whether man has a large or a small -endowment of instinct, the answer will depend upon the precise definition -of ‘instinct.’ If we take congenital definiteness as characteristic -of instinct, we shall agree with Darwin, that ‘the fewness and the -comparative simplicity of the instincts of the higher animals are -remarkable as compared with those of lower animals;’ and with Romanes -that ‘instinct plays a larger part in the psychology of many animals -than it does in the psychology of man.’ If, on the other hand, a broader -definition of instinct be accepted, so as to include what is innate, -in the sense before defined, we shall agree with Professor Wundt that -human life is ‘permeated through and through with instinctive action, -determined in part, however, by intelligence and volition;’ and shall not -profoundly disagree with Professor Wm. James, who says that man possesses -all the impulses that they (the lower animals) have and a great many more -besides.” - -In Mr. McDougall’s important contribution to the discussion of human -instinct, he says that the view which is rapidly gaining ground is that -the gradual evolution of intelligence “did not supplant and lead to the -atrophy of the instincts, but controlled and modified their operation.” -As Mr. McDougall goes on to state his belief “that the recognition of the -full scope and function of the human instincts will appear to those that -come after us as the most important advance made by psychology in our -time,” it is important to the purpose of this book, to make clear to what -extent Froebel’s views on the subject approach those of modern writers. - -Mr. McDougall makes a very clear distinction between specific tendencies -to which he limits the word instinct, and non-specific or general -tendencies. Naturally Froebel did not reach this standpoint, but he -does seem to have thought out his terminology. He felt strongly as -to the use of words of foreign origin, and generally uses “_Trieb_,” -“_Lebenstrieb_,” “_Drang_” or “_Lebensdrang_,” where we might use -instinct. But he does occasionally use “instinct,” notably in a passage -quoted below “whose impulses, powers and abilities, whose instincts -as they are called” (dessen Lebenstriebe Kräfte und Anlagen, dessen -Instincte wie man es nennt), where he seems to be feeling about for -the right expression. Other words in constant use are “_Neigung_,” -“_Streben_” and “_Richtung_,” probably best translated by “tendency.” It -can be argued, however, that to the word Trieb Froebel does seem to have -attached a more definite meaning, and his use of this word is certainly -limited. - -Professor James’ account of instinct begins with the statement that -“Every instinct is an impulse,” a driving to action, but the use of the -words “_Trieb_” and “_Drang_” makes such a pronouncement unnecessary to -a German writer, and if this root idea is not implied by the noun, it -generally, in Froebel’s writings, makes its appearance in the verb. Thus -we frequently read of “a longing which drives the child to,” etc. (die -Sehnsucht die das Kind treibt). - -The merest glance through Froebel’s writings is enough to show his belief -in the existence of instinct in the human being. His references to it are -constant. It is an impulse (Trieb) “which the child did not give himself, -which came without his will, in later life even against his will,” but -which “urges to action” (drängt ihn dazu). It is a force so strong, that -it “holds captive mind and body.” The child is described as “driven by -impulse” (des von Lebensdrang getriebenen Kindes). The boy again is “held -captive by harmless, even praiseworthy, impulses” (sogar lobenswerten -Triebe), or “gives himself up entirely to the impulses of his inner life” -(dem Treibenden innern Leben). - -In his earlier work, “The Education of Man,” Froebel is first concerned -with urging that the young human being, “a product of Nature,” has -instincts quite as trustworthy as those of any other young animal, and -the following eloquent passage is very well known: - - “The undisturbed working of the Divine Unity is necessarily - good, and this implies that the young human being, still as it - were in the process of creation, would seek as a product of - Nature, though still unconsciously, yet decidedly and surely - that which is in itself best: and, moreover, in a form wholly - adapted to his condition, disposition, powers and means. Thus - the duckling hastens to the pond, while the young chicken - scratches the ground, and the young swallow catches his food - upon the wing and scarcely ever touches the ground. We grant - space and time to young plants and animals because we know that - in accordance with the laws that live in them they will develop - properly and grow well. Arbitrary interference with their - growth is avoided because it is known that this would disturb - their development; but the young human being is looked upon as - a piece of wax, a lump of clay, which man can mould into what - he pleases.… Thus, O parents, could your children, on whom you - force in tender years forms and aims against their nature, - thus could your children too unfold in beauty and develop in - harmony.”--_E., p. 7._ - -It is true that to Froebel evolution is “the working of Divine Unity.” -But there seems to be no special reason why this should invalidate -what Froebel has to say, any more than Sir Oliver Lodge should be -disqualified as a scientist, because he has produced a book in which he -writes: “Development means unfolding latent possibilities … growth and -development are in accordance with the law of the universe … the law -of the universe and the will of God are here regarded as in some sort -synonymous terms.” - -This is exactly Froebel’s position; he writes that - - “Nature and man have their origin in one and the same eternal - Being, and their development takes place in accordance with the - same laws, only at different stages.”--_E., p. 161._ - -That Froebel not only recognized the presence of instinct in human -beings, but that he also saw, as Professor Wundt puts it, that this -is “determined in parts by intelligence and volition,” he states very -plainly: - - “Natural instinct and good example will do much, but here, - as in all human concerns, one must proceed by extension of - knowledge, and by careful scrutiny, or both the one and the - other may mislead or be misdirected. Experience cries aloud - to us, to warn us of this danger. _Assuredly man ought not to - neglect his natural instincts, still less abandon them, but he - must ennoble them through his intelligence, purify them through - his reason._”--_L., p. 222._ - - “In the progress of development three stages differentiate - themselves and fall apart; and these stages are seen both in - individual men, and in the race as a whole. They are: - - (1) _Unconsciousness, the merely instinctive stage_; - - (2) _Vague Feeling, the tendency upwards towards - consciousness_; and - - (3) _Relatively clear Conscious Intelligence_. - - Everything that is acquired by a great unity, say by a family, - a community, a nation, must in its beginnings be acquired by - the single members of that unity; and further it will take - them in one of the three grades of development, either that of - mere unconsciousness, or of vague feeling, or in the third and - highest grade, that of conscious intelligence, so far as it has - been maintained by mankind up to the present time.”--(Letter to - Madame D. Lutkens, dated March, 1851.) - -It is in “The First Action of a Child” that we find Froebel contrasting -the instincts of the lower animals with those of man. Here curiously -enough, Froebel, according to Professor Stout, is almost more correct -than Professor Lloyd Morgan himself, whose statement “that animals do not -perceive relations” Professor Stout regards as misleading. His correction -is, “unless an artificial restriction is put on the meaning of the term -_relation_, this statement would imply that animals cannot perceive the -position of objects in space or their motion.… Hence we should say, -not that the perception of relation is deficient in animals, but only -that definite perception of relations is deficient which depends on -comparison.” - -Now it is this very point of comparison which Froebel takes as the -essential intellectual difference between the animal independent from -birth thanks to fully developed instinct, and the child helpless and -apparently inferior at first, yet destined for progress “self-active and -free.” He writes: - - “The animal whose life impulses, powers and abilities, whose - instincts as they are called (dessen Lebenstriebe, Kräfte - und Anlagen, dessen Instincte wie man es nennt) are at once - so definite and strong, that in natural conditions it never - fails, indeed cannot fail to overcome every hindrance within - its life’s reach, the animal just on this account can never - arrive at a knowledge of its powers, its qualities, its nature - … _for it lacks all points of comparison. It lacks all points - of comparison, which, in the case of man proceed from the fact - that the weakest output of strength meets with obstacles_ which - increase as the strength increases, and which will only with - difficulty be conquered or overcome and annihilated. - - “It is quite different in the life of man, in the beginning - of which practically nothing can be accomplished without help - from without. Nothing especially can be accomplished through - a preponderance of inner power such, for example, as the - newly hatched duckling shows on the water. Thus everything - external must, by Man, with his preponderance of helplessness, - be overcome as an obstacle solely through inner advancing, - and outer strengthening and increasing of power through free - activity of the will.”--_P., p. 25._ - -With this passage from “The First Action of a Child” we can compare the -following from Stout’s “Analytic Psychology”: - -“The peculiar feature in the life of animals which prevents progressive -development is the existence of instincts which do for them what the -human being must do for himself. Their inherited organization is such, -that they perform the movements adapted to supply their needs on the -mere occurrence of an appropriate external stimulus.… In man, a blind -craving has to grope its way from darkness into light in order to become -effective; in the animal the means of satisfaction are provided ready -made by Nature at the outset.” - -After having stated that “Every instinct is an impulse,” Professor James -goes on to say that instinct depends upon the biological fact that the -nervous system is “a pre-organized bundle of re-actions,” and that when -impulses block one another, an animal with many impulses, and whose mind -is elevated enough to discriminate, “loses the instinctive demeanour and -appears to live a life of hesitation and choice, an intellectual life.” - -Notwithstanding the very obvious fact that Froebel could know but little -of the nervous system and its re-actions, it is still quite evident -that his observation had led him to a clear recognition of the earlier -stage, when “hesitation and choice” are impossible. The child, he says, -“acts in obedience to an instinct which holds captive mind and body,” -he is “incredibly short-sighted in his obedience to instinct.” That he -also recognized the beginning of hesitation and choice is shown in his -defence of the child who “in spite of abandonment to momentary impulse,” -may have “an intense inner desire for goodness,” which, “if it could -be appreciated in time,” would make of him a good man (_E., p. 125_); -and also in his plea for the early awakening and training “of judgment -and of that reflection which avoids so many blunders and which, _in a -natural way_ (i.e. without training), does not come to man sufficiently -early.”--_E., p. 79._ - - “Another source of boyish faults is in the precipitation, - want of caution, indiscretion, in a word the thoughtlessness, - the acting according to an impulse quite blameless, even - praiseworthy, which holds captive all activity of mind and - body, but whose consequences have not as yet entered into his - experience, indeed it has not yet entered into his mind to - define the consequences.”--_E., p. 122._ - -Froebel gives from real life a few well-chosen examples of what the -boy so “incredibly short-sighted in his obedience to impulse” may do; -telling how one deliberately aims a stone at a window “with earnest -effort to hit it, yet without even saying to himself that if it does -so, the window must be broken,” and how he “stands rooted to the spot” -when this happens. Another, a “very good-hearted boy, who dearly loved -and took care of pigeons, aimed at his neighbour’s pigeon on the roof, -without considering that if the bullet hit it the dove must fall.” No -wonder that he urges the early awakening of that reflection (Nachdenken) -which would avoid so much, and in this connection it must be remembered -too that Froebel emphasized the indefiniteness of human instinct which -makes comparison possible. It is also worth remarking that Froebel knew -that it is only by noting consequences of actual deeds that reflection -comes, and this he shows in one of his quaint parallels between “the -history of creation and the development of all things.” - - “Similarly in each child there is repeated the deed which marks - the beginning of moral and human emancipation, of the dawn - of reason--essentially the same deed that marked the dawn of - reason in the race as a whole.”--_E., p. 41._ - -It must have been a somewhat unorthodox view in 1826, but some pages -further on Froebel speaks even more boldly of “the fall or--since the -result is the same--the ascent of the mind of man from simple emotional -development into the development of externally analytic and critical -reason.”--_E., p. 193._ - -Professor James goes on to state two other principles which make for -non-uniformity of instinct. The first of these is that instincts are -inhibited by habits, and the second that instincts are transitory. - -The physiological fact of “plasticity” in which these principles are -grounded, was of course quite out of Froebel’s ken. Nevertheless, the -principles themselves do not escape his shrewd observation. Mr. McDougall -points out that even acquired habits of thought and action, so important -as springs of action in the developed human mind, are in a sense -derived from and secondary to instincts. He goes on to say that “in the -absence of instincts no habits could be formed,” so it is interesting -to find Froebel arguing that the phenomena of habit is a proof of the -existence of what in the infant he calls the impulse to activity or to -self-employment. - - “The helplessness of the new-born human being in regard to - all outer things is the opposite of his future ability--since - life is a whole--to help himself through the enhancing of - his will-power.… Helplessness and personal will, therefore, - become the two points between which the child’s life turns, and - the fulcrum is free activity. Herein lies for the educator a - key to phenomena of child-life which seem to contradict each - other. For out of the impulse to activity (Thätigkeitstriebe) - and to free self-employment, or rather out of the united - three--helplessness, personal will, and self-employment--soon - proceed custom and habit, often indolence and too facile - yielding. - - “Consideration of custom, and of the spontaneous acquiring - of habit in the child, especially in regard to what causes - it, and to its effect upon the child, is just as important - for the educator, as is the consideration and guidance of his - instinct of activity. This very phenomenon that the child so - early accustoms and inures himself to something, this early - phenomenon of child life, the growing together and becoming - one, as it were, with his surroundings, is a proof of the - existence and inner working, even thus early, of the impulse - for activity or employment, even where the child appears - outwardly inactive and passive: in that the child accommodates - himself to outer surroundings, relations and requirements in - order to provide more scope for his inner activity.”--_P., p. - 27._ - -This proof may not be quite so clear to others as it was to Froebel, -but at least the passage shows the close connection in his mind between -instinct--the impulse towards activity and employment--and habit, and -that he had noted the interaction between the two. - -There are many references to the transitory nature of at least childish -impulses. - - “What delight a child takes in noticing what is smooth, woolly, - hairy, sparkling, round, etc.… But if you do not cherish this - and do not set it going in the right way, it becomes a lost - thing; it grows rusty, and loses its power as a magnet loses - its power when it is not sufficiently used. Power that is not - at once used, effort that does not at once meet the right - object--perishes.”--_M., p. 181._ - - “Now, at last, we would fain give another direction to the - energies, desires and instincts (Kräfte, Neigungen und Triebe) - of the child growing into boyhood; but it is too late. For the - deep meaning of child-life passing into boyhood we not only - failed to appreciate, but we misjudged it; we not only failed - to nurse it, but we misdirected and crushed it.”--_E., p. 75._ - - “See parents, the first impulse to activity, the first - constructive impulse (Bildungstrieb) comes from man according - to the nature of the working of his mind, unconsciously, - unrecognized, without his will, as man can indeed perceive - in himself in later life. If, however, this inner summons to - activity (diese innere Aufforderung zur Thätigkeit) meets - with outer hindrance, especially such a one as the will of - the parents, which cannot be set aside, the power is at - once weakened in itself, and with many repetitions of this - weakening, falls into inaction.”--_E., p. 100._ - - “The neglect of inner power causes the inner power itself to - vanish.”--_E., p. 133._ - - “It is true there are few such children; but there would be - more, were we not ignorantly blunting so many tendencies in our - children, or starving them into inanition.”--_E., p. 220._ - -Writing of the origin of boyish faults Froebel says: - - “When we look for the sources of these shortcomings … we find - a double reason, first, complete neglect of the development - of certain sides of human life, secondly early misdirection, - early unnatural stages in development, and distortion, through - arbitrary interference with human powers, qualities and - tendencies good in their source.… Therefore at the bottom of - every shortcoming in man, lies a crushed, frustrated quality or - tendency, suppressed, misunderstood or misguided.”--_E., pp. - 119-121._ - -When we come to the enumeration of the various human instincts we find -that Froebel can hardly be said to have omitted any that are important -from an educational point of view, except perhaps the instinct of fear, -and to this he would be loth to appeal.[25] Moreover, it can be shown -that his explanation of certain tendencies suggests a better basis of -classification than is supplied by certain recent writers, who might be -expected to surpass him with ease. - -Before the publication of Mr. McDougall’s “Social Psychology,” there were -but few attempts at any classification of instincts within at least the -reach of English readers. In July, 1900, there appeared an article in -“The Pedagogical Seminary” in which Mr. Eby proposed to reconstruct the -Kindergarten on the basis of natural instinct. The writer had apparently -no dawning idea that this was the original basis[26] of the institution -he proposes to reform, but Froebel’s account of Instinct shows in certain -ways a clearer understanding of the subject than does his own. - -Mr. Eby’s tabulation was: - - I. Language--with gesture and expression. - - II. Curiosity, or Instinct for Knowledge. - - III. Play Instinct. - - (_a_) Motor Plays. - (_b_) Hunting and Wandering. - (_c_) Imitative. - (_d_) Constructive. - (_e_) Agricultural. - (_f_) Improvised. - - IV. Artistic and Aesthetic Instincts. - - V. Social Instinct. - - VI. Instinct of Acquisition and Ownership. - - VII. Number Instinct. - - VIII. Interest in Stories. - -Another classification, well known at least to teachers, is that given by -Mr. Kirkpatrick in his “Fundamentals of Child Study.”[27] - -His list comprises: - - I. Individual or Self-preserving Instincts. - (Feeding, Fear and Fighting.) - - II. Parental Instincts. - - III. Social or Group Instincts. - (Gregariousness, Sympathy, Love of Approbation, Altruism.) - - IV. Adaptive Instincts. - (Imitation, Play, Curiosity.) - - V. Regulative. - (Moral, Religious.) - - VI. Resultant and Miscellaneous. - (Including such tendencies as those of - collecting and constructing, and the - tendency to adornment, with the - æsthetic pleasure of contemplating - beautiful objects.) - -Interesting, helpful and suggestive as these lists are, they both serve -as examples of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of any hard-and-fast -lines of classification. For example, regulative instincts, which Mr. -Kirkpatrick divides into moral and religious, must be derived from social -instincts; gregarious instincts cannot be satisfactorily separated from -instincts of self-preservation, and surely all instincts must be adaptive. - -Froebel’s account of the instincts of a child in some ways resembles that -of Mr. McDougall, and it is certainly in some points more enlightening -than either of the others. - -Under the heading of Investigation, Froebel brings both the Number -Instinct, and the Interest in Stories, to which Mr. Eby gives a position -as fundamental as that of the Social Instinct. The constructive instinct -which Mr. Kirkpatrick brings under “Resultant and Miscellaneous,” has a -very special place in Froebel’s account, as being one way of imitating, -that is another mode of investigating the surroundings, and also what is -equally important, a way by which the child gains a knowledge of his own -power, reaches Self-Consciousness. - -It is because of the emphasis Froebel continually lays upon the -developing self-consciousness that his views somewhat tend to resemble -those of Mr. McDougall, though it would be absurd to attempt to draw -any parallel. For Froebel, though he in no way minimizes the importance -of Imitation, and although it is as the apostle of Play that he is -most widely known, yet, like Mr. McDougall, he never speaks either of -an Instinct of Play nor of Imitation, that is, he never uses for these -his special word Trieb; nor has he any Instinct for Religion. Curiously -enough, too, Froebel, with his constant insistence on the threefold -aspect of mind, partly forestalls Mr. McDougall’s view that “instinctive -action is the outcome of a distinctly mental process, one which is -incapable of being described in purely mechanical terms, … and one which, -like every other mental process, has and can only be fully described in -terms of the three aspects of all mental process, the cognitive, the -affective, and the conative aspects.” - -It is in connection with the very earliest activity that Froebel writes: - - “The first phenomenon of awakening child-life is activity. - It is an inner activity, showing itself by consideration of - and working with what is outer, by overcoming hindrances and - subduing the outer. The nature of man as growing towards, and - destined to reach self-consciousness, is shown in the quite - peculiar character of childish activity even as early as when - the infant awakes from its so-called three months’ slumber. It - is shown in the child’s impulse to busy himself (in dem Triebe - sich zu beschäftigen) in the instinct, _one with feeling and - perception_, to be active for the progressive development of - his own life. - - “We are repeatedly impressed with the conviction that - everything that is to be done for the specifically human - development of the child must be connected with the fostering - of this instinct to employ himself. For _this instinct - corresponds to man’s triune activity of doing, feeling and - thinking. It corresponds to the essential nature of humanity, - which is to have power and understanding, to become ever more - and more self-conscious and self-determining._”--_P., p. 24._ - -In the last sentence of this passage, which refers to the merest infant, -and which immediately precedes Froebel’s comparison of human instincts -with those of the lower animals, are indicated the lines on which we -may say Froebel classified though he never did so formally. He deals -only with the “purely” or “specifically” human, as he never tires of -reiterating, so that fundamental animal instincts, self-preserving and -race-preserving, such as feeding and the sexual impulse, are little -noticed, and only in connection with the necessity for self-control. - -But, as with Mr. McDougall much is made to depend on self-feeling, -so with Froebel still more does everything centre round that -self-consciousness which to him is of the very nature of man, and which -is made possible by the undefined or undeveloped character of human -instinct. - -The instincts and impulses noted by Froebel, all, be it clearly -understood, in the service of the growing self-consciousness, and -self-determination are: the instinct to independent activity (der -Trieb zur Frei- und Selbst-thätigkeit), the instinct to investigation -(Forschungstrieb), with which Froebel deals very thoroughly and by which -he explains a great deal, the impulse of acquisition, the instinct of -construction or formation (Bildungstrieb Gestaltungstrieb), the social -instinct and the maternal instinct. - -Froebel himself never tabulates, yet his apparently careful use of the -word Trieb, taken along with his convincing explanations of various -tendencies (Richtungen, Neigungen, Streben) seems to show that in -relation to instinct there were in his mind two pairs of ideas, so -closely related as to be inseparable, viz.: - -(_a_) Investigation and Control of Surroundings, and (_b_) Consciousness -of Self and Self-Determination. - -It is impossible to become conscious of one’s self except by becoming -conscious of a world of objects.[28] It is equally impossible to -become self-determining without gaining control over these objects, -over the surroundings. In order to control the surroundings, one -must first investigate them, and this investigation brings with it -self-consciousness, knowledge of one’s own powers and consequent -self-determination. All this seems fully in accordance with what has -been already stated as to the close connection between volitional and -intellectual development. - -The two main lines on which instinctive action must run, if it is to be, -as it must be, adaptive, are given in Froebel’s words, “to have power -and understanding.” To adapt ourselves to our surroundings we must first -know them, and secondly, have power over them. Even this separation -into firstly and secondly is more a matter of words than of reality. -No one knew more clearly or emphasized more strongly than Froebel that -action, by which alone we gain power, is also the child’s royal road to -knowledge. This he states very plainly in the “Plan” which he drew up for -the school at Helba, which unfortunately never came into existence. - - “The institution will be fundamental inasmuch as in training - and instruction it will rest on the foundation from which - proceed all genuine knowledge and all genuine practical - attainments; it will rest on life itself and on creative - effort, on the union and interdependence of doing and thinking, - representation and knowledge, art and science. The institution - will base its work on the pupil’s personal efforts in work and - expression, making these, again, the foundation of all genuine - knowledge and culture. Joined with thoughtfulness these efforts - become a direct medium of culture; joined with reasoning, they - become a direct means of instruction and thus make of work a - true subject of instruction.”--_E., p. 38._ - -Knowledge of his surroundings is however not the only knowledge that the -child gains through action; this is his only way of gaining knowledge of -himself, of his power and of his weakness. It is through outward activity -that, as Froebel says, he “comes to self-consciousness and learns to -order, determine and master himself,” and it is in connection with the -earliest Impulse to Activity that Froebel writes: - - “The present effort of mankind is an effort after freer - self-development, freer self-formation, freer determining of - one’s own destiny.… Therefore the more or less clear aim of - the individual is Consciousness, the attaining of clearness - about himself and about life in its unity as well as in its - thousand ramifications, to attain to _comprehension and right - use_ of life.… That this highest aim may be accomplished, - the present time lays upon the educator the indispensable - obligation--to understand the earliest activity, the first - action of the child, the impulse (Trieb) to spontaneous - activity, which appears so early; to foster the impulse (Trieb) - for self-culture and self-instruction, through independent - doing, observing and experimenting.”--_P., p. 15._ - - “The first spontaneous employments of the child are noticing - his environment, and play, that is, independent outward action, - living outside himself.… The deepest foundation of all the - phenomena, of the earliest activity of the child is this; that - he must exercise the dim anticipation of conscious life, and - consequently must exercise power, test and thus compare power, - exercise independence, test and thus compare the degree of - independence.”--_P., pp. 29-31._ - - “All outer activity of the child has its distinctive and - ultimate ground in his inmost nature and life. The deepest - craving of this inner life, this inner activity, is to behold - itself mirrored in some external object. In and through - such reflection the child learns to know his own activity, - its essence, direction and aim, and learns also to order - and determine his activity in correspondence with the outer - phenomena. Such mirroring of the inner life, such making of the - inner life objective is essential, for through it the child - comes to self-consciousness, and learns to order, determine and - master himself. The child must perceive and grasp his own life - in an objective manifestation before he can perceive and grasp - it in himself.”--_P., p. 238._ - -It may seem very presumptuous to venture to discuss here the -classification of instincts adopted by Mr. McDougall, yet there are in -it a few points which would not have appealed to Froebel, and it is -conceivable that Mr. McDougall might make alterations in a future edition -and attach even more importance to positive self-feeling as Froebel -would undoubtedly have done. It is impossible to imagine Froebel having -any dealings with an Instinct of Self-Abasement, though the Instinct of -Self-Assertion is in full accordance with his ideas. And while it is hard -to see the biological utility of an Instinct of Self-Abasement, it does -seem as if the frustration of the Instinct of Self-Assertion might be -made to cover all that is brought under its opposite. - -It is difficult, too, to imagine Froebel allowing an Instinct of -Pugnacity, and Mr. McDougall allows that this presupposes the other -instincts, and that it cannot strictly be brought under his own -definition of instinct. He allows, too, that this instinct is “lacking in -the constitution of the females of some species,” and it seems impossible -not to notice the difference between little boys and girls in this -respect. Surely it puts too much to the credit of mere pugnacity to say: -“A man devoid of the pugnacious instinct would not only be incapable -of anger, but would lack this great source of reserve energy, which -is called into play in most of us by any difficulty in our path.”[29] -The Instinct of Self-Assertion, if it is worth anything, ought to be -sufficient not only to produce anger,[30] but also to call up reserve -energy to deal with difficulties. Certainly Froebel would have said so. -No doubt it is because of her weaker physique that the woman has not -the pugnacity of the man, but Froebel too wrote mainly of the boy, and -he puts boyish tussling and fighting down to the instinctive desire to -measure and to increase power and this can easily be matched on the -female side, though the power measured may not be that of muscle. - - “At this age the healthy boy brought up simply and naturally - never evades an obstacle, a difficulty; nay he seeks it and - overcomes it. ‘Let it lie,’ the vigorous youngster exclaims to - his father, who is about to roll a piece of wood out of the - boy’s way--‘let it lie, I can get over it.’ With difficulty, - indeed, the boy gets over it the first time; but he has - accomplished the feat by his own strength. Strength and courage - have grown in him. He returns, gets over the obstacle a - second time, and soon he learns to clear it easily.… The most - difficult thing seems easy, the most daring thing seems without - danger to him, for his prompting comes from the innermost, from - his heart and will.”--_E., p. 102._ - - “Many of the plays and occupations of boys at this age are - predominantly mere practice and trials of strength, and many - aim simply at display of strength.… _The boy tries to see - himself in his companions, to feel himself in them, to weigh - and measure himself by them, to know and find himself with - their help._”--_E., pp. 112-114._ - -In passing, it may be suggested that it hardly seems worth while to -postulate an Instinct of Repulsion with the impulses or actions of -rejecting evil-tasting substances from the mouth and of shrinking from -objects which are slimy or slippery. Surely the rejection of unsuitable -food might be a compound reflex action tending to the preservation of -health; while shrinking from slimy objects, and even from the touch of -fur, might have had their uses in the case of children left in caves, and -might be drawn under the instinct of fear. - -There does not seem to be anything to which Mr. McDougall would take -exception in what Froebel has to say about Play or about Imitation. - -As to play, Froebel must be regarded as a pioneer in the attempt to -explain a subject all important to educators, and by his explanation -certain kinds, and notably imitative play find an appropriate place under -his instinct of investigation (Forschungstrieb). - - “The means of shadowing forth to the child his own nature and - that of the cosmos are his play and playthings.”--_P., p. 201._ - -As the word Investigation certainly implies activity, it may be -permissible to wonder why Mr. McDougall has not made use of the terms -“The Instinct of Investigation and the Emotion of Curiosity,” the more -so that he himself has clearly a strong inclination to use the word -curiosity to express emotion.[31] - -Imitation, as we have seen,[32] is, according to Froebel, action which -renders a child conscious of what is around him, conscious of his inner -life of perceptions, ideas and feelings, conscious of his own power. -Froebel also points out that imitation, as well as habit, is the outcome -of a more fundamental impulse to activity. - - “It is just as important to notice the habits of a child, - especially with regard to cause and effect, as it is to notice - and to foster its impulse to activity.… As now habit springs - from free and spontaneous activity, so too does imitation, and - it is no less important for the fostering of child-life to keep - in view this origin of imitation, than it is to keep in view - the phenomena of habit, custom and independent activity. For - we see the whole inner life of the child manifest itself as a - tri-unity in the threefold phenomenon of spontaneous activity, - habit and imitation. These three phenomena are closely united - in early childhood, and give us most important discoveries - concerning child-life, as to foundation and result and surest - guides for the early correct treatment of the child.”--_P., p. - 27._ - -Mr. McDougall notes “at least three distinct classes” of imitative -actions. The first class consists of expressive actions, secondary to -the sympathetic induction of the emotions they express, as when a child -responds to a smile with a smile, and here we remember how Froebel notes -the child’s first smile to his mother as the earliest sign of what he -calls “the feeling of community.” The third class is the deliberate and -voluntary imitation of an admired person, which does not concern us here. -The second class are “simple ideo-motor actions evoked by the visual -presentation of a movement,” and as a parallel to this we have Froebel’s -“working of the inner activity wakened by the sight of outer activity.” - - “The smallest child moves joyfully, springs gaily, hops up and - down, or beats with his arms when he sees a moving object. This - is certainly not merely delight in the movement of the object - before him, but _it is the working of inner activity wakened in - him by the sight of outer activity_. Through such vision the - inner life has been freed.…”--_P., pp. 239-40._ - -A point to which exception may well be taken is that in the infant -Froebel notes what he seems to regard as a fundamental tendency, the -impulse or instinct of activity, or as he frequently puts it, the impulse -to busy oneself, which, however, soon differentiates into two more -specific tendencies, viz. the impulse to investigate and the constructive -impulse. - - “What formerly the child did only for the sake of activity, - the boy now does for the sake of the result or product of his - activity. The child’s impulse to activity (Thätigkeitstrieb) - has in the boy become a constructive, a formative impulse - (Bildungs-Gestaltungstriebe), in which the whole outer life of - the boy finds at this stage its outlet.”--_E., p. 99._ - -It may be worth mentioning that Groos would like to assume a “universal -impulse to activity,” and though he “can only hold fast to the primal -need for activity,” yet according to him Ribot approaches this -assumption.--(“The Play of Man,” _p. 3_). - -Even in the infant, however, this instinct or impulse to activity is -devoted to “penetrating what is outer,” and the Kindergarten, meant for -children from three to six, is intended to foster the three instincts, -activity, investigation and construction, as well as to cultivate the -social instinct by placing a little child among his equals. Froebel -describes it in his plan as: - - “An Institution for fostering of family life and for shaping - the life of the nation and human life generally, through - cultivating the human instincts of activity, of investigation - (Forschungstrieb), and of construction in the child, as a - member of the family, of the nation, and of humanity.…”--_P., - p. 6._ - -As regards the child, the word Trieb, which is exactly equal to impulse, -seems to be applied only in one other direction, to what we would call -the social instinct, and here again Froebel shows his recognition of the -vagueness and indefiniteness of early consciousness. As he attributes to -the infant the one impulse to activity which differentiates later into -Investigation and Construction, so in the infant he recognizes a “feeling -of community” (Gesammtgefühl), but says that it differentiates later into -something more definite.[33] - - “The development of man constitutes an unbroken whole, steadily - and continuously progressing, gradually ascending. The feeling - of community (Gemeingefühl) awakened in the infant, develops - in the child into impulse, inclination (entwickelt sich in dem - Kinde der Trieb, die Neigung).”--_E., p. 95._ - -Under the important Instinct of Investigation, or the Instinct for -Self-Instruction, Froebel includes a great deal. Many different -activities until recently somewhat carelessly talked of collectively -as “play,” Froebel has separated and explained as the child’s way of -investigating his surroundings. Even “the earliest activity and first -action of the child,” Froebel says, shows “the instinct to self-teaching -and self-instruction.” - -Imitative action or imitative play is always referred to as action which -helps towards understanding of the surroundings. In the “Mother Songs” we -read: - - “Your child will certainly understand all the better if you - make him take a part--though it be only by imitation--in - what grown-up people are doing in their anxiety to maintain - life.…”--_M., p. 141._ - - “I have already said that this little game arose because people - felt that a child’s love of activity, and his striving to get - the use of his limbs, ought to be carried on in such a way - as to lift him at once into the complexity of the life which - surrounds him.… Pray do not disturb them in their ingenious - charming play (saying grace over the dolls’ feast), but rather - avoid noticing it if you cannot identify yourself with its - charm.… For how is your child to cultivate in himself the - feeling of what is holy, if you will not grant that it takes - form for him in all its purity in his innocent games.”--_M., p. - 148._ - - “What man tries to represent he begins to understand.”--_E., p. - 76._ - -Representation, however, may be carried out in many ways, by the use of -material, as well as by bodily action so that the constructive instinct -also subserves that of investigation. - - “To grasp a thing through life and action is much more - developing, cultivating and strengthening than merely to - receive it through the verbal communication of ideas. - Similarly, representation of a thing by material means, in life - and action, united with thought and speech, is more developing - than merely verbal representation of ideas.”--_E., p. 279._ - - “The child must perceive and grasp his own life in an objective - manifestation before he can perceive and grasp it in himself. - This law of development, prescribed by Nature and by the - essential character of the child, must always be respected and - obeyed by the true educator. Its recognition is the aim of my - gifts and games apprehended relatively to the educator.”--_P., - p. 38._ - -Here Froebel has plainly stated the main object of his specially selected -play-material. The ordinary parent not being “the man advanced in -insight,” who “makes clear to himself the purpose of playthings,” Froebel -often saw children supplied with expensive but unsuitable toys, toys -which would not bring the child any nearer his destination, “to have -power and understanding, to become ever more and more self-conscious and -self-determining.” - - “Here, then, we meet as a great imperfection in ordinary - playthings, a disturbing element which slumbers like a viper - under roses, viz. that it is too complex, too much finished. - The child can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce enough - variety by it; his power of creative imagination, his power of - giving outward form to his own idea is thus actually deadened. - When we provide children with too finished playthings, we - deprive them of the incentive to perceive the particular in - the general (_P., p. 122_).… What presents are most prized - by the child? Those which afford him a means of unfolding - his inner life most freely and of shaping it in various - directions.”--_P., p. 142._ - - “The man, advanced in insight, should be as clear as possible - in his own mind about all this before he introduces his - child into the outer world. Even when he gives the child a - plaything, he must make clear to himself its purpose, and the - purpose of playthings and occupation material in general. This - purpose is, to aid the child freely to express what is in - him and to bring the phenomena of the outer world nearer to - him.”--_P., p. 171._ - - “To realize his aims, man, and more particularly the child, - requires material, if it be only a bit of wood or a pebble with - which he makes something or which he makes into something. In - order to lead the child to the handling of material, we gave - him the soft ball, the wooden sphere and cube, etc., discussed - in the chapters on the Kindergarten Gifts. Each of these gifts - incites the child to free spontaneous activity, to independent - movement.”[34]--_P., p. 237._ - -As the child grows older his constructions advance, but still they -connect themselves with investigating: - - “Here he makes a little garden under the hedge; there he - represents the course of the river in his furrow and in his - ditch; there he studies the effects of the fall or pressure of - water upon his little water-wheel.”--_E., p. 105._ - -Investigating naturally leads to exploring, “external objects invite him -who would bring them nearer to move toward them,” and so the child once -he is able to stand begins to travel: - - “When the child makes his first attempts at walking he - frequently tries to go to some particular object. This effort - may have its source in the child’s desire to hold himself - firm and upright by it, but we also observe that it gives him - pleasure to be near the object, to touch it, to feel it, and - perhaps also--a new phase of activity--to be able to move it. - Hence we see the child hops up and down before it and beats - on it with his little hands, in order to assure himself of - the reality of the object, and to notice its qualities.… Each - new phenomenon is a discovery in the child’s small and yet - rich world--e.g. one can go round the chair, one can stand - before, behind, beside it, but one cannot go behind the bench - or the wall. He likes to change his relationship to different - objects, and through these changes he seeks self-recognition - and self-comprehension, as well as recognition of the different - objects which surround him, and recognition of his environment - as a whole. Each little walk is a tour of discovery; each - object is an America--a new world, which he either goes around - to see if it be an island, or whose coast he follows to - discover if it be a continent.”--_P., p. 243._ - -The boy has lost none of this tendency to explore, but he goes further -afield, and it is worth noting that because the boy has a distinct -purpose in view his exploring is distinctly called work. - - “If activity brought joy to the child, work now gives delight - to the boy. Hence the daring and venturesome feats of boyhood; - the explorations of caves and ravines; the climbing of trees - and mountains; the searching of heights and depths; the roaming - through fields and forests.… To climb a new tree means to - the boy the discovery of a new world.… Not less significant - of development is the boy’s inclination (Neigung) to descend - into caves and ravines, to ramble in the shady grove and dark - forest.”--_E., pp. 102-5._ - -Even the baby shows trace of the collecting or acquiring instinct, but to -Froebel this still falls under the head of investigation. The child who -has just learned to walk is: - - “attracted by the bright round smooth pebble, by the quaint - brilliant leaf, by the smooth piece of wood, and he tries to - get hold of these with the help of the newly acquired use of - his limbs. Look at the child that can scarcely keep himself - erect and that can walk only with the greatest care--he sees - a twig, a bit of straw; painfully he secures it.… See the - child laboriously stooping and slowly going forward under the - eaves. The force of the rain has washed out of the sand small, - smooth, bright pebbles, and the ever-observing child gathers - them.”--_E., p. 72._ - -The boy, still only from six to eight years old, keeps up the collecting -habit with more method and with a wider range, and he demands assistance. - - “Not less full of significance, nor less developing, is the - boy’s inclination to descend into caves and ravines, to ramble - in the shady grove and in the dark forest. It is _the effort_ - (_Streben_) to seek and find the new, to see and discover the - hidden, the desire to bring to light and _to appropriate_ that - which lies concealed in darkness and shadow. - - “From these rambles the boy returns with rich treasures of - unknown stones and plants, of animals--worms, beetles, spiders - and lizards, that dwell in darkness and concealment. ‘What - is this? What is its name?’ etc., are the questions to be - answered; and every new word enriches his world and throws - light upon his surroundings. Beware of greeting him with the - exclamation, ‘Fie, throw that down, that is horrid!’ or ‘Drop - that, it will bite you!’ If the child obeys, he drops and - throws away a considerable portion of his power.”--_E., p. 104._ - -This quotation brings us to another mode of investigation, that of asking -questions, which Froebel was not likely to miss. - - “The child, your child, ye fathers, follows you wherever you - go. Do not harshly repel him. Show no impatience about his - ever-recurring questions. Every harshly repelling word crushes - a bud of his tree of life.… Question upon question comes from - the lips of the boy thirsting for knowledge--How? Why? When? - What for? and every satisfactory answer opens to him a new - world.”--_E., p. 86._ - -Professor O’Shea has an interesting section on what he calls “The -Sense of Location,” which he says is “at the bottom of one of the most -interesting and important phenomena of adjustment--the questioning -activity.” So it may be worth while to notice that Froebel, whom the -Professor has dismissed with one slighting reference, has been beforehand -with him here, and has dealt with this same early beginning in one of his -earliest Mother Songs, viz. “It’s all Gone,” where he says to the mother: - - “How can the child understand that anything is “all gone,” yet - he must see sense in it or he will not be satisfied. What he - saw just now is there no longer, what was above is below, what - was there has vanished.”--_M., p. 18._ - -Questioning implies language, but Froebel has no language instinct. He -does, however, call speech immediate (unmittelbar), usually translated -“innate,” and he does say that because others talk to him, the child’s -capacity for speech will develop of necessity and will break forth -spontaneously. - -It is in connection with the child’s earliest investigations that Froebel -brings in the learning to speak. In “The Education of Man,” he notes -how the young child brings all his discoveries, “his treasures,” to the -mother’s lap, and she is warned to give the right kind of help and at the -right time. - - “It is the longing for interpretation that urges the child to - appeal to us, it is the intense desire for this that urges him - to bring his treasures to us and to lay them in our laps. The - child loves all things that enter his small horizon and extend - his little world. To him the least thing is a new discovery; - but it must not come dead into the little world, nor lie dead - therein lest it obscure the small horizon and crush the little - world.”--_E., p. 73._ - -All the help the mother need give at first is to supply names, since as -Froebel says, “the name, as it were, creates the thing for the child.” -Later she must help him to compare and classify. - - “How little is needed from those around the child to aid him - in this tendency (to seek for knowledge). It is only necessary - to name, to put into words what the child does, sees and - finds.”--_E., p. 75._ - - “It is as well while the child is making these first - experiments (at walking about the room) to name the - objects--e.g. There is the chair, the table, etc.… The object - of giving these names is not primarily the development of - the child’s power of speech, but to assist his comprehension - of the object, its parts and its properties by defining his - sense-impressions. By a rich store of such experiences - the capacity for speech develops of necessity, and speech - breaks forth of itself, as it were, through heightened mental - self-activity in accordance with the nature of mind.”--_P., p. - 242._ - -Expression, of course, of which speech is but one form, is to Froebel -all-important. “Speech,” he says, is “required and conditioned by -the attainment to consciousness,” and as self-consciousness is the -characteristic of humanity, so speech is “the first manifestation of -mankind.” In his “Autobiography” Froebel writes: - - “Mankind as a whole, as one great unity, had now become my - quickening thought. I kept this conception continually before - my mind. I sought after proofs of it in my little world within - and in the great world without me; I desired by many a struggle - to win it, and then to set it worthily forth. And thus I was - led back to the first appearance of man upon our earth, and to - the first manifestation of mankind, his speech.”--_A., p. 84._ - -In talking of the mother’s play with an infant he says that she -accompanies every action with words, “even if obliged to confess that -there can be no understanding of the spoken word,” as “the general sense -of hearing is not yet developed, still less the special sense of hearing -words.” Froebel says she is right: - - “for that which will one day develop and which must originate, - begins and must begin when there is as yet only the conditions, - the possibility thereof. Thus it is with the attainment of - the human being to consciousness, and the speech required and - conditioned by consciousness.”--_P., p. 40._ - -Words, says Froebel, first separate the child from the world outside him. - - “Up to this stage (the beginning of speech), the inner being - of man is still an unmembered, undifferentiated unity. With - language, the expression and representation of the internal - begin; with language, organization, or a differentiation with - reference to ends and means sets in.”--_E., p. 50._ - -Both in the earlier “Education of Man,” and in his later writings Froebel -uses the strong expression that “the word creates the thing” for the -child, and in one passage he adds that by language the idea is defined -and retained. - - “This period is pre-eminently the period of the development of - speech. Therefore in all the child did, it was indispensable - that what he did should be clearly designated by words. Every - object, every thing became such, as it were, only through the - word; before it had been named although the child might have - seemed to see it with the outer eyes, it had no existence for - the child. The name, as it were, created the thing for the - child; hence the name and the thing seemed to be one.”--_E., p. - 90._ - - “Through her little rhymes the mother will make clear to the - little one what he has done, and so his accidental productions - will become a point of departure for his self-development. Word - and form are opposite and yet related. Hence the word should - accompany the form as its shadow. In a certain sense, giving - a form a name really creates the form itself. Through the - name, moreover, the form is retained in memory and defined in - thought.”--_P., p. 192._ - -Of very early speech Froebel says that it shows: - - “the peculiarity and requirement of the human mind to render - itself intelligible to clarify itself by communication with - others.”--_P., p. 56._ - -Having investigated his surroundings, near or far, and collected -what seems to him attractive, the child, whether older or younger, -arranges his treasures in some way, and this arrangement implies some -comparison. “Like things must be ranged together and things unlike must -be separated,” says Froebel of the child “scarce able to walk,” who has -collected “the small, smooth, pebbles washed out of the sand by the -rain.” This “arranging objects of each kind singly in a row” is at first -no doubt only a recognition of the like and unlike, but Froebel notes -that it is also one way in which the child may arrive at “the capacity -for counting” by which his sphere of knowledge is again extended. - - “The knowledge of the relations of quantity adds much to a - child’s life.… At first he places together similar objects.… - Who has not had frequent opportunity to observe how the child - arranges the objects of each kind singly in a row. Let the - mother supply the quickening word, saying Apple, apple, apple, - etc. All apples. Pear, pear, pear, etc. All pears.… One pear, - another apple, another apple.… Instead of the indefinite word - “another” the mother subsequently uses the numerals, counting - together with the child, thus: One apple, two apples, three - apples, etc.”--_E., p. 80._ - -To many children, however, counting may come through efforts to draw. I -have seen a child of four-and-a-half, in drawing a man, make a line for -the arm, then lay down her pencil to count her own fingers and then draw -five lines for the man’s hand. Froebel says: - - “The representation of objects by drawing, and the exact - perception conditioned and required by the representation, soon - leads the child quickly to recognize the constantly repeated - association of certain numbers of different objects--e.g. two - eyes and two arms, five fingers, etc. Thus the drawing of the - object leads to the discovery of number.… By the development of - the capacity for counting, the child’s sphere of knowledge, his - world, is again extended.… He was unable to determine relative - quantities, but now he knows that he has two large and three - small pebbles, four white and five yellow flowers,” etc.--_E., - p. 80._ - -Yet another mode of Investigation is that of Experimenting; every normal -child is what Froebel calls “a self-teaching scientist.” - - “The material must be known not only by its name, but by its - qualities and uses.… For this reason the child examines the - object on all sides; for this reason he tears and breaks it; - for this reason he puts it in his mouth and bites it. We - reprove the child for his naughtiness and foolishness; and - yet he is wiser than we who reprove him. An instinct which - the child did not give himself, the instinct which rightly - understood and rightly guided would lead him to know God in his - works, drives him to this.”--_E., p. 73._ - -It may well be through his ceaseless experimenting that the little child -begins to draw, gains what the late Mr. Ebenezer Cooke called “a language -of line,” or as Froebel puts it, notices “linear phenomena, which direct -his attention to the linear properties of surrounding objects.” - - “A child has found a pebble, a fragment of lime or chalk. In - order to determine by experiment its properties, he has rubbed - it on a board near by, and has discovered its property of - imparting colour. See how he delights in the newly discovered - property, how busily he makes use of it! … but soon he begins - to find pleasure in the winding, straight, curved, and other - forms that appear. These linear phenomena direct his attention - to the linear properties of surrounding objects. Now the - head becomes a circle, and now the circular line represents - the head, the elliptical curve connected with it represents - the body; arms and legs appear as straight or broken lines, - and these again represent arms and legs; the fingers he sees - as straight lines meeting in a common point, and lines so - connected are, for the busy child, again hands and fingers; the - eyes he sees as dots, and these again represent eyes; and thus - a new world opens within and without. For what man tries to - represent, that he begins to understand.”--_E., p. 75._ - -I have watched a child go through the process of discovering “linear -phenomena,” just as Froebel describes it, no doubt from his own -observation. A boy of three, having folded a piece of paper for the roof -of a house, was colouring it, by rubbing on red chalk, when he called -out, “Oh! I’m making lines.” The other children went on rubbing, but Phil -made “lines” till the roof was finished. - -But Froebel does not leave unnoticed the fact that the very earliest -“drawing” is an outgrowth of the muscular action to which his instinct -of activity is urged by the stimulus of contact. - - “Would you know how to lead the child in this matter? Watch - him, he will teach you what to do. See! he is tracing the table - by passing his fingers along its edges and outlines as far as - he can reach, he is sketching the object on itself. This is - the first and the safest step by which he becomes aware of the - outlines and forms of objects. In this way he sketches and so - studies the chair, the bench, the window. But soon he advances. - He draws lines across the four-cornered bit of board, across - the leaf of the table, or the seat of the chair, in the dim - anticipation that so he can retain the forms and relations of - the surfaces. Now, already he draws the form diminished. - - “See! there the child has drawn table, chair and bench on a - leaf of the table. Do you not see how he spontaneously trained - himself for this? Objects which he could move, which were in - sight, he laid on the board, and drew their form on the plane - surface, following the boundaries of the objects with his - hands. Soon scissors and boxes, and later leaves and twigs, - even his own hand and the shadows of objects will thus be - copied. - - “Much is developed in the child by this action, more than - it is possible to express--a clear comprehension of form, - the possibility of representing the form separate from the - object, the possibility of retaining the form as such, and - the strengthening and fitting of hand and arm for the free - representation of form.”--_E., p. 77._ - -Here, perhaps, is the right place to introduce what Froebel had to say -about the artistic tendencies of children, since Art, to him, is always -expression. - - “Absolutely nothing can appear, nothing visible and sensible - can come forth, that does not hold within itself the living - spirit; that does not bear upon its surface the imprint of the - living spirit of the being by whom it has been produced, and - to whom it owes its existence. And this is true of the work - of every human being--from the highest artist to the meanest - labourer--as well as of the works of God, which are Nature, the - creation, and all created things.”--_E., p. 153._ - -So, when Froebel comes to speak of art as a subject of the school -curriculum he says: “Here, art will be considered only as the pure -representation of the inner … differentiated according to the material -it uses, whether motion, as such, audible in sound, or visible in lines, -surfaces and colours, or massive”; and he adds: - - “We noticed that even at an earlier stage children have the - desire to draw, but the desire also to express ideas by - modelling and colouring is frequently found at this earlier - stage of childhood, certainly at the very beginning of the - stage of boyhood (from six years old). _This proves that art - and appreciation of art constitute a general capacity or talent - of man_, and should be cared for early, at latest in boyhood. - - “This does not imply that the boy is to devote himself chiefly - to art, and is to become an artist; but that he should be - enabled to understand and appreciate true works of art. At - the same time, a true education will guard him from the error - of claiming to be an artist unless there is in him the true - artistic calling.”--_E., p. 227._ - -In connection with the mother’s instinctive rhythmic crooning and -dandling of the infant, Froebel says: - - “Thus the genuine natural mother cautiously follows in all - directions the slowly developing all-sided life of the - child. Others suppose him to be empty.… Thus those means - of cultivation that lead so simply and naturally to the - development of rhythm are lost.… Nevertheless an early - development of rhythmic movement would prove most wholesome.… - Even very small children, in moments of quiet, and particularly - when going to sleep, will hum little strains of songs they have - heard; and this should be heeded and developed as the first - germ of future growth in melody and song. Undoubtedly this - would soon lead in children to a spontaneity such as is shown - by children in the use of speech.”--_E., p. 71._ - -In the “Mother Songs,” too, Froebel writes: - - “Hence it is so very important to rouse at least the germs - of all this (the perceiving of harmony in sound and form and - colour) early in a human being. If they do not develop and take - shape as independent formations in life, they at least teach - how to understand and recognize those of other people. This is - life-gain enough. It makes a person’s life richer--richer by - the lives of others. And how could our earthly life be long - enough to form our being with equal perfection on all sides. - We can only do it by knowing and respectfully recognizing in - the mirror of the lives of others what we should like to carry - out ourselves. And this is as it should be, for it is by means - of knowledge, regard for and respectful recognition of others, - that the whole of humanity ought to represent the whole of a - God-like harmonious human being.”--_M., p. 162._ - -In what he says of the Interest in Stories, Froebel again seems to -show deeper insight than either Mr. Eby or Professor Kirkpatrick. Mr. -McDougall does not touch upon the subject. It is still the outcome of the -child’s instinctive desire to understand himself and his surroundings. -Froebel says very truly that he can only understand others in proportion -as he understands himself, and can only learn to understand himself, -his own life, by comparing it with that of others. The desire for -stories is “a striving, a longing, a demand of the mind” (ein Streben, -eine Sehnsucht, eine Forderung des Gemüthes). For the little one, the -simplest story of the mother bird feeding her young ones is a help to the -understanding of his own life, makes his own life objective; the mother’s -“effective story will hold up a looking-glass to the child, especially -if it be told at the right time.” For the boy the story does the same -and also answers to his instinctive demand not only to understand the -present, but the past: - - “It is the innermost desire and need of a vigorous, genuine boy - to understand his own life, to get a knowledge of its nature, - its origin and outcome. Only the study of the life of others - can furnish such points of comparison with the life he himself - has experienced. In these the boy, endowed with an active life - of his own, can view the latter as in a mirror and learn to - appreciate its value. This is the chief reason why boys are - so fond of stories, legends and tales; the more so when these - are told as having actually occurred at some time, or as lying - within the reach of probability, for which, however, there are - scarcely any limits for a boy.”--_E., p. 305._ - - “The existence of the present teaches him the existence of the - past. That, which was before he was, he would know; he would - know the reason, the past cause of what now is. Who fails to - remember the keen desire that filled his heart when he beheld - old walls, and towers, ruins, monuments and columns on hill and - the roadside--to hear others give accounts of these things, - their times and causes … thus is developed the desire and - craving for tales, legends, for all kinds of stories, and later - for historical accounts.”--_E., p. 115._ - -Even the fairy story seems to have found its legitimate place under -the same heading, the instinct for investigation. Froebel sees that it -covers for the little child the ground occupied by myth in the primitive -consciousness. It explains the otherwise inexplicable. - - “Even the present in which the boy lives still contains much - that at this period of development he cannot interpret, and yet - would like to interpret; much that seems to him dumb, and which - he would fain have speak; … and thus there is developed in him - the intense desire for fables and fairy tales which impart - language and reason to speechless things--the one within, the - other beyond the limits of human relations. Surely all must - have noticed this if they have given more than superficial - attention to the life of boys at this age. Similarly, they must - have noticed that if the boy’s desire is not gratified by those - around him, he will spontaneously hit upon the invention and - presentation of fairy tales, and either work them out in his - own mind or entertain his companions with them. These fairy - tales and stories will then very clearly reveal to the observer - what is going on in the innermost mind of the boy, though - doubtless the latter may not himself be conscious of it.”--_E., - p. 116._ - - “The child, like the man, would like to learn the significance - of what happens around him. This is the foundation of the Greek - choruses, especially in tragedy. This, too, is the foundation - of very many productions in the realms of legends and fairy - tales, and is indeed the cause of many phenomena in actual - history. This is the result of the deeply-rooted consciousness, - the deeply slumbering premonition of being surrounded by that - which is higher and more conscious than ourselves.”--_P., p. - 146._ - -The outcome of the instinct of construction, which is also so closely -connected with the instinct of investigation, is that “sense of -power” which _is_ self-consciousness. Without this there can be no -self-determination, but, says Froebel, “the sense of power must precede -its cultivation.” With this growing personality, too, Froebel connects -what is called the instinct of Acquisition, which begins when the little -child “painfully secures his bit of straw,” and the boy of six to eight -shows “the tendency to appropriate what he finds in the darkness of cave -and forest.” - - “The same tendency that urges the boy to seek knowledge on - the mountain and in the valley, attracts and holds him to - the plain. Here he makes a garden, there he represents the - course of the river, and studies the effect of the presence of - water … here he has dammed up the water to form a pool.… He - is particularly fond of busying himself with clear running - water and with plastic materials. In these the boy who - seeks self-knowledge beholds his soul as in a mirror. These - employments are to him an element of his life, for now, because - of a previously acquired sense of power he seeks to control and - master new material. Everything must submit to his constructive - instinct; there in that heap of earth he digs a cellar and on - it he places a garden and a bench. Boards, branches and poles - must be made into a hut, the deep, fresh snow must be rolled up - to form the walls and ramparts of a fort, and the rough stones - on the hill are heaped together to form a castle.… And thus - each one soon forms for himself his own world; for the feeling - of his own power requires and conditions also the possession - of his own space and his own material belonging exclusively to - him. Whether his kingdom, his province, his estate, as it were, - be a corner of the yard, or of the house, or whether it be the - space of a box, the human being must have at this stage an - external point to which he refers all his activities, and this - is best chosen and provided by himself.”--_E., p. 106._ - -And here, just when he is emphasizing the fast developing consciousness -of self, with its demand for its own space and its own material, Froebel -brings out the strength of the social instinct in boyhood. It is here -that he points out that this effort to construct has a uniting, not a -separating, tendency. Continuous with the last quotation comes: - - “When the space to be filled is extensive, when the province - to be ruled is large, when the whole to be represented is - composed of many parts, then brotherly union of those who are - of one mind is displayed. And when those who are of one mind - meet and put their hearts into the same effort, then either - the work already begun is extended or begun again as a joint - production.”--_E., p. 107._ - -Froebel describes such joint work first in the Keilhau schoolroom--his -own phrase is “education room”--where the younger boys are using building -blocks, sand, sawdust, and moss, which they have brought in from the -forest around and then among the older boys. - - “Down yonder by the brook, how busy are the older boys with - their work! They have made canals with locks, bridges and - seaports, dams and mills, each undisturbed by the others. But - now the water is to be used to carry ships from one level to - another, and now, at every stage, each boy asserts his own - rights while recognizing the rights of others. How can they - settle their difficulties? Only by making agreements, and so, - like States, they bind themselves by strict treaties.”--_E., p. - 111._ - -Of games of physical movement, running, wrestling, etc., Froebel writes: - - “It is the sense of power, the sense of its increase, both as - an individual and as a member of a group, that fills the boy - with joy, in these games.… The boy tries to see himself in his - companions, to weigh and measure himself by them, to find and - know himself by their help. Thus the games directly influence - and educate the boy for life, they awake and cultivate many - civic and moral virtues. Every town should have its common - playground for the boys. Glorious would be the results from - this for the entire community. For at this stage of development - games whenever possible are held in common, thus developing - the sense of community and the laws and requirements of a - community.”--_E., p. 113._ - -Froebel had studied boys to some purpose, and he tells us not, however, -to expect too much in the way of social virtues. Justice, self-control, -honesty, courage and “severe criticism of pleasant indolence” may be -expected, but mutual forbearance and consideration for those who are -weaker or less familiar with the game, though not entirely lacking, are -referred to as “the more delicate blossoms” of the playground. It is here -that he says with wise moderation, “The feeling of power must precede its -cultivation.” - -The social instinct does not suddenly spring into existence in boyhood. -It has its roots in what Froebel calls the Feeling of Community which -unites the child first with the mother, then with father, brothers and -sisters. - - “We cannot deny that there is at present among children and - boys little gentleness, mutual forbearance … indeed, there is - much egotism, unfriendliness and roughness. This is clearly due - not only to the absence of early cultivation of the feeling of - community, but this sympathy between parents and children is - too often disturbed, yes even annihilated.”--_E., p. 119._ - -The sympathy of the little child ought to be trained and is trained by -the wise mother always through action. - - “Mother love seeks to awaken and to interpret the feeling - of community, which is so important, between the child and - the father, brother and sister, saying while she draws the - child’s little hand caressingly across the face of the father - or of the little sister, ‘Love the dear father--the little - sister.’”--_E., p. 69._ - -In the Finger Play called “The Nest,” Froebel tells the mother: - - “The way lies through our imaginative, tender and emotional - observation of Nature and of man’s life, through the child’s - taking their meaning into his own heart and expressing by - representation what he thus takes in.… The child’s sympathy - is roused by the young creatures’ necessities more than by - anything, and chiefly by their nakedness and softness.”--_M., - p. 149._ - -And the action which fosters the growth of sympathy is not to be merely -representative; The Garden Song has this motto: - - “If your child’s to love and cherish Life that needs him - day-by-day, Give him things to tend that perish If he ever - stays away.”--_M., p. 84._ - -It is because “the desire for unity is the basis of all true human -development” that the child is to be encouraged to help in the work he -sees going on around him. - - “Family, family--let us say it openly and plainly--you are more - than School and Church, and therefore more than all else that - necessity may have called into being for the protection of - right and property … without you, what are Altar and Church?… - Therefore, Mother, in the little finger game, teach your - child some notion of the nature of a whole, especially of a - family-whole.”--_M., p. 159._ - - “We have not yet touched nor even considered an important side - of child-life, the side of association with father and mother - in their domestic duties, in the duties of their calling.… - (_E., p. 84_). Do not let the urgency of your business tempt - you to say, ‘Go away, you only hinder me.’ … After a third - rebuff of this kind scarcely any child will again propose to - help and share the work.”--_E., p. 99._ - -It is an essential part of the Kindergarten to consider the child as a -member of the human family. It is described in one place as: - - “An establishment for training quite young children, in their - first stage of intellectual development, where their training - and instruction shall be based upon their own free action - or spontaneity, acting under proper rules … such rules as - are in fact discovered by the actual observation of children - when associated in companies. (_L., p. 251_).… Practice in - combined games for many children, which will train the child, - by his very nature eager for companionship, in the habit of - association with comrades, that is, in good fellowship and all - that this implies.”--_L., p. 252._ - -Among his Group Instincts Mr. Kirkpatrick mentions the Love of -Approbation, and this receives special attention from Froebel at a -surprisingly early stage. It is in the “Mother Songs,” in connection with -his adaptation of an old German nursery rhyme about knights who come to -visit “a good child,” that Froebel tells the mother that: - - “A new life stage has begun, and you, dear Mother, must use - your best and most watchful care, when first the child listens - to a stranger.” - -In the same connection he writes: - - “The child must be roused to good by inclination, love and - respect, _through the opinion of others around him_, and all - this must be strengthened and developed.… When, therefore, - Mother, observation as to the judgment of others awakes in your - child--when, separating himself and on the watch _he brings - himself before the judgment of others_, then you really have a - double task to perform.…”--_M., p. 190._ - -The Love of Approbation cannot be separated from what Mr. Kirkpatrick -calls the Regulative, i.e. the Moral and Religious Instincts, for it is -both social and regulative, and in the social instincts Froebel sees the -foundation of the religious instincts or tendencies, to which we shall -come presently. But he also notes a “sense of order,” as Mr. Sully does -in his delightful “Studies of Childhood,” and this he traces back to very -early beginnings, connecting it with the tendency towards rhythm. - - “That disorder and rough wilfulness may never enter the games, - it is a good plan wherever it is possible to accompany each - change in the play by rhyme and song; so that the latent sense - of rhythm and song, _and above all the sense of order in the - human being and child_, may be aroused and strengthened to an - impulse for social cooperation.”--_P., p. 267._ - -One of the earliest Mother Plays, “Tic-tac,” deals with rhythmic -movement, and in “The Education of Man” Froebel takes the beginning -of “conscious control” still further back. His ideal mother fosters -“all-sided life,” that is, she fosters the cognitive, emotional and -conative, the first by calling the child’s attention to his own body and -his immediate surroundings, and the second by “seeking to awaken and to -interpret the feeling of community between the child and the father, -brother and sister,” and Froebel goes on: - - “In addition to the sense of community as such, the germ of - so much glorious development, the mother’s love seeks also - through movements to lead the child to feel his own inner - life. By regular rhythmic movements--and this is of special - importance--she brings this life within the child’s conscious - control when she dandles him up and down on her hand or arm in - rhythmic movements and to rhythmic sounds. Thus the genuine - natural mother cautiously follows in all directions the slowly - developing all-sided life in the child, strengthening and - arousing to ever greater activity, and developing the all-sided - life within. Others suppose the child to be empty and wish to - inoculate him with life, and thus make him as empty as they - think him to be.”--_E., p. 69._ - -It is surprising to find that Froebel, writing so early, has nothing -at all resembling any special “moral faculty.” His references to -“Conscience” are decidedly interesting, though given in quaint connection -with games and rhymes for mere babes. He asks why the “Where’s Baby?” -game gives such delight, and shows his psychological insight in the -answer he finds, viz. that it is the feeling or recognition of self, of -personality, which gives such joy. - - “Why, now, is my child so happy over the hiding game? It is the - feeling of Personality which already so delights the child, it - is the feeling of recognition of his own self.”[35] - -The game which follows this repeats the hiding experience, but this time -with the cry of “cuckoo,” from some one unseen, and this is likened to -the conscience call, which is described as “consciousness of union in -separation and of separateness, that is personality, in union.”--_M., p. -98._ - - “In ‘Where’s Baby Been?’ parting and union seem more separate, - as though in order that each may become more and more clearly - conscious of itself; in ‘Cuckoo,’ parting and union are, as - it were, joined. It is parting in union and union in parting - that makes ‘Cuckoo’ such a peculiar game and so delightful - to a child. But consciousness of union in separation, and - of separateness--that is personality--in union, is also the - essence, the deep foundation of conscience.”--_M., p. 197._ - -Mr. Kirkpatrick’s second Regulative instinct or tendency is that of -Religion, but Froebel again, like Mr. McDougall, finds that Religion has -its roots in an instinct “not specifically religious,”[36] viz. in the -Social Instinct. He says this in “The Education of Man” in the plainest -of terms. - - “This feeling of Community first uniting the child with - father, mother, brothers and sisters, and resting on a higher - spiritual unity, to which later on is added the discovery that - father, mother, brothers and sisters, human beings in general, - feel and know themselves to be in community and unity with a - higher principle--with humanity, with God--this is the very - first germ, the very first beginning of all true religious - spirit, of all genuine yearning for unhindered unification with - the Eternal, with God.”--_E., p. 25._ - -It seems quite in accordance with this that Froebel should write that he -likes better the German word _Gott-einigkeit_--union with God--than the -foreign word religion; and also that he should speak of “developing the -sense of kinship with man in every child, and the sense of kinship with -God in every man.” So, in his “Mother Songs,” he tells the mother to give -her child duties to perform, that so he may “feel his kinship” with her: - - “Every age, even the age of childhood, has something to cherish - that is plain, and from doing so no exemption can be procured; - it has therefore its duties. Happy is it for a child if he - be led to deal with them adequately, and for the present - unconsciously. Duties are not burdens.… Fulfilment of duty - strengthens body and mind, and the consciousness of duty done - gives independence; even a child feels this. See, Mother, how - happy your child is in feeling he has done his small duties. He - already feels his kinship with you thereby.”--_M., p. 174._ - -There is never a separation between Morality and Religion: - - “Religion without industry, without work, is liable to be lost - in empty dreams, worthless visions, idle fancies. Similarly, - work or industry without religion degrades man into a beast - of burden, a machine. Work and religion must be simultaneous; - for God, the Eternal has been creating from all eternity.… - Where religion, industry and self-control, the truly undivided - trinity rule, there indeed is heaven upon earth.”--_E., p. 35._ - -There is only one other instinct mentioned by Froebel, and that is the -parental, or, rather, the maternal instinct. He is eager that this -should be recognized as an instinct, but he is equally eager that, like -other human instincts, its action should be determined by intelligence. -In describing the “Plan” for his Kindergarten, Froebel pleads for more -careful observation of the child and his relationships, and says that -“thereby”: - - “Deeper insight will be gained into the meaning and importance - of the child’s actions and outward manifestations and - also into the way of dealing with children which has been - evolved naturally by the mother led by her pure maternal - instinct.”--_L., p. 248._ - -As to the early beginnings of the instinct in the little girl we can find -just a few references, sufficient to show that it did not pass unnoticed, -and it seems here legitimate to say that “the girl anticipates her -destiny,” as Froebel does in speaking of doll-play, though certainly this -does not cover all such play: - - “The joy of the child in its doll has a far deeper human - foundation than is generally supposed--a foundation by no - means resting merely in the external resemblance … the girl - anticipates her destiny--to foster Nature and life.”--_P., p. - 93._ - -The boy’s destiny is “to penetrate and rule Nature,” so in the “Mother -Songs” Froebel describes how the boy is “cowering that no sign of life -in the chicken family may escape him, while the girl starts up, _all her -care of things stirred_, in order to beckon or call the hen or cock not -to forget their chickens.”--_M., p. 143._ - -In all his writings, Froebel refers to how much he has learned from -mothers: “It was in watching your clever mother-doings that I learnt.” -But, as he says of himself, it was “a necessary part of me to be -irresistibly driven to search out the ultimate or primary cause of every -fact of life,” and so he writes: - - “The natural mother does all this instinctively without - instruction or direction; but this is not enough: it is needful - that she should do it consciously, as a conscious being - acting upon another which is growing into consciousness, and - consciously tending toward the continuous development of the - human being.”--_E., p. 64._ - - “Motherly and womanly instinct does much of its own accord; but - it often makes mistakes.”--_L., p. 63._ - - “Women’s work in education must be based not upon natural - instinct, so often perverted or misunderstood, but upon - intelligent knowledge.… Some mothers level the taunt at me that - I, a man, understanding nothing of a mother’s instinct, should - dare to presume to instruct mothers in their dealings with - their own children.… How could such a thought enter my head - as to attempt anything against the course of Nature? My whole - strength is exerted on the contrary, to the work of getting the - natural instinct and its tendencies more rightly understood, - and more acknowledged; so that women may follow its leadings - as truly as possible aided by the higher light of intelligent - comprehension, and yet at the same time in all freedom, and - with complete individuality.”--_L., p. 259._ - -So, in what he says of this last instinct, Froebel is faithful to what he -has said of all human instincts. - - “Man shall assuredly not neglect his natural instincts, still - less abandon them, but he must ennoble them through his - intelligence and purify them through his reason.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -PLAY AND ITS RELATION TO WORK - - -To write even a small book on Froebel without directly touching on the -subject of play would be impossible, though in dealing with instincts and -the carrying out of natural activities we have necessarily considered -much that comes under this heading. - -On the educative value of play, Froebel is recognizedly original, and -his views have influenced and are influencing schools for young children -in most civilized countries. Indeed, it would be difficult to show that -modern writers on play, in spite of the scientific thoroughness of their -investigations, classifications and terminology, have made much advance -upon Froebel’s theories. Rather do they tend to show how remarkable was -his insight, and how surprisingly well grounded his theories. - -Nothing, however, has yet been said as to the relation of play to work, -no direct definition has yet been given, nor has any reference been made -to the now familiar theories of play. - -In Froebel’s day, these, as clearly formulated theories, were -non-existent. His work was that of a pioneer, and his theory might -have been called that of “Preparation through Recapitulation.” He -would, however, have allowed that play is sometimes, though not always, -recreative, and he makes clear the necessity for what he calls “healthy -vital energy” (gesunden Lebensmuthe), but he would never have called -this mere “surplus energy,” because he thought it was not more than was -required: - - “The genuine schoolboy should be full of life and spirit, - strong in body and mind.… Would that, in judging the power of - children and boys, we might never forget the words of one of - our greatest German writers: that there is a greater advance - from the infant to the speaking child than there is from the - schoolboy to a Newton! Now, if the advance is greater, the - power, too, must be greater; this we should consider.”--_E., p. - 134._ - -Ebers, the Egyptologist, tells us that when he was a boy at Keilhau full -provision was made for this abounding energy. We read of walks long and -short, of botanizing and geologizing rambles, of climbing trees and -cliffs for birds’ eggs, of which only one might be taken from a nest. -We hear of Indian games out of Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, -of classic and other dramas on winter evenings, and of Homeric battles, -which Froebel, he says, would have called “signs of creative imagination -and individual life.” There was swimming and skating and coasting and -“the spacious wrestling ground with the shooting stand and the gymnasium -for every spare moment of the winter”; and a piece of ground “assigned -to each pupil, where he could wield spade and pickaxe, roll stones, sow -and reap.” But the great game was the Bergwacht, where the boys, divided -into four parties that all might be active, actually constructed, and -then attacked and defended stone fortresses. “How quickly,” says Ebers, -“we learned to use the plummet, to take levels, hew the stone and wield -the axe.” The weapons were blunted stakes. It was forbidden to touch the -head, but it was a point of honour among the boys to yield as prisoner if -touched by the pole, “and what self-denial it required!” These combats -were held on fine Saturday evenings, and when all was over “the women,” -probably the girls of the school community, had lighted fires and made -supper ready, and the lads slept in their fortresses while two sentinels -marched up and down, relieved every half-hour. On the Sunday following -the boys were not required to go to church, “where we should merely have -gone to sleep.” - -It has frequently been brought as an accusation against Froebel that -he makes no clear cut distinction between work and play, and that is -true, but who nowadays does? Common sense would probably join hands -with the philosopher in saying that the feeling of freedom is the chief -distinction of play as opposed to work, and this is the definition quite -distinctly given by Froebel. The definition is given in his detailed -enumeration of “the various directions of an active life of instruction -and education,” and after mentioning religious training, cultivation of -the body as the means of expressing mind, the study of Nature, etc., -etc., he comes to: - - “Play, that is, spontaneous representation and exercise of - every kind.”--_E., p. 236._ - -Another definition given in “The First Action of a Child” is: - - “Play, which is independent outward expression of what is - within.”--_P., p. 29._ - -It is because it is spontaneous that Froebel calls play, during the -period of earliest childhood, when the child is gaining control of -language, “the highest phase of human development at this stage.” - - “Play and speaking form the element in which the child lives - at this time.… Play is the highest stage of child-development, - of human development at this stage, because it is spontaneous - (freithätige) representation of the inner, representation of - the inner out of the need and desire of the inner itself. This - is implied in the very word Play.”--_E., p. 34._ - -For modern views on play we turn to the exhaustive study made by Karl -Groos in his two volumes, “The Play of Animals,” and “The Play of Man.” -Here we find the writer taking “the conception of impulse life as a -starting-point,” and reaching the conclusion “that among higher animals -certain instincts are present which, especially in youth, but also in -maturity, produce activity that is without serious intent, and so give -rise to the various phenomena which we include in the word ‘play.’” In -this play, Groos goes on, “opportunity is given to the animal through -the exercise of inborn dispositions, to strengthen and increase his -inheritance in the acquisition of adaptations to his complicated -environment, an achievement which would be unattainable by mere -mechanical instinct alone.” In the treatment of human play he considers -“an analogous position is tenable,” but, for the word instinct, with its -particular reactions, he must substitute “natural or hereditary impulse.” - -We have already seen that though Froebel recognized the existence -and importance of human instinct, still he distinguished between it -and the “definite and strong instincts” which belong to the animals -lower than man. We have seen that he regarded the play of childhood as -“spontaneous self-instruction” based on the instincts of investigation -and of construction or representation, action being regarded as the -principal means of investigating, as well as of gaining control over -the surroundings and over the self. We have noticed, too, that Groos -feels inclined to assume a universal “impulse to activity,” and points -out that Ribot approaches such an assumption, though for himself he can -only venture to “hold fast to the fact of the primal need for activity.” -Froebel does, as we have seen, attribute to the infant the one instinct -of activity, which in one place he calls “the natural longing for some -mode of activity inherent in all children,” and this he says becomes -differentiated at a later period. - -The special place given by Groos to imitation as “the link between -instinctive and intelligent conduct” is also noteworthy. For we have -seen that Froebel regards imitation in precisely the same light, never -calling it an instinct, but saying that it is the outcome of spontaneous -activity, and that it leads on to understanding. - - “For what man tries to represent or do he begins to - understand.”--_E., p. 76._ - - “As now, habit in the child proceeds from spontaneous and - independent activity, so also does imitation; … the whole - inner life of the child shows itself as a tri-unity in the - three-#fold phenomenon of spontaneous activity, habit and - imitation.”--_P., p. 28._ - -It is impossible to make plain how Froebel regarded play, until it is -known how he regarded work, work, too, not only for a child but for a -human being. What he desired for all was work which produces joy; he -calls it “a debasing illusion that man works, produces, creates, only in -order to preserve his body, only to secure food, clothing and shelter.” -Man, he says, works “primarily and in truth that his real essence may -assume outward form,” and one of his sayings is that “the true spirit of -life is the genuine spirit of play.” In an ideal state of affairs, no -human being would be condemned to entirely mechanical work. Work “worthy -of the nature of man” is to Froebel work which in some way expresses -the man; mechanical work is dismissed as “degrading man into a beast of -burden or a machine.” It is because man is of God that he must work, must -produce. “Nearer we hold of God who gives, than of his tribes who take, I -must believe,” is Froebel’s thought in Browning’s words: - - “Each thought of God is a work, an act, a result.… God created - man in His own image. Therefore man must create and work - like God. Man’s spirit must hover over the unformed and move - it that figure and form may come forth. This is the higher - meaning, the deep significance, the great purpose of work and - industry, of working, and, as it is truly significantly called, - of creating. We become like God by diligence and industry, by - work and action, which are accompanied by the clear perception - or even the least anticipation that thereby we represent the - inner by the outer; that we give body to spirit and form to - thought, make visible the invisible, give an outward transient - existence to the eternal that lives in the spirit.… Early work, - guided in accordance with its inner meaning, confirms and - elevates religion. Religion without work is apt to become empty - dreaming.”--_E., p. 30._ - - “The boy is to take up his future work which now has become his - calling, not indolently in sullen gloom, but cheerfully and - joyously, trusting God, himself and Nature, rejoicing in the - manifold prosperity of his work.… Nor will the father say that - his son must take up his own business … he will see that every - business may be ennobled and made worthy of man.”--_E., p. 233._ - -It is too cheap a jibe to throw at Froebel and his educational theories -that he makes little distinction between work and play. It ought never -to come from any one who has made even a slight study of psychology. -The sting is meant to lie in the suggestion that play is trifling and -easy and that it requires no exertion, while work is serious and demands -concentrated effort, but this view will not bear any consideration. Every -one knows that the play even of an adult, where the differentiation -between work and play ought to be more possible, is often most -exhausting, either to body or to mind. As to the play of childhood, one -of the best known passages in “The Education of Man” is the one in which -Froebel protests that: - - “Play at this time is not trivial, it is highly serious and of - deep significance.”--_E., p. 55._ - -It is in this passage, too, that he speaks of the child “wholly absorbed -in play,” who after “playing enduringly even to the point of fatigue” has -fallen asleep “while so absorbed,” and calls this “the most beautiful -expression of child-life at this stage.” - -It is Froebel’s glory that as early as 1826 he had applied the theory of -development to education and, rightly or wrongly, he believed that if we -could but supply to our school children material suited to their needs -according to their stage of development, they would respond with the same -eagerness that the younger child shows in what we call his play, but what -Froebel called his “self-culture and self-education.” He states this -view quite distinctly: - - “We have considered the object and aim of human life in - general.… It now remains to show in what sequence and - connection the life impulses of the boy develop at this stage, - how and in what order and form, the school should work in order - to satisfy human instincts in general, and especially the - instincts of the boy at this stage of school-life. - - “From a consideration of _the means of instruction and manner - of teaching thereby conditioned, which necessarily coincide - with the striving of man toward development_, what is necessary - for the knowledge of number, of space, of form, of exercises - in speech, of writing and of reading comes out clearly and - definitely.”--_E., p. 229._ - -The view that “the material of instruction and the manner of teaching” -are necessarily conditioned by the child’s stage of development is a -view that has rapidly gained ground. Froebel did his best to apply it, -and it had a partial application in the “culture epochs” theory of the -Herbartians. It has received a stronger impetus into what seems at -present a much truer direction, from the experimental work carried out at -Chicago, under the auspices of Professor Dewey. Froebel maintained that -it was a condition of satisfactory work in every subject. For example, in -connection with the teaching of writing he says: - - “Here, as in all instruction, we should start from a definite - need of the boy, a need, which must, to a certain extent, - have been previously developed, if he is to be taught with - profit and success. This is the source of a multitude of - imperfections in our schools, that we teach without having - awakened any need for it, nay even after having repressed what - need was already there! How can instruction and the school - prosper?”--_E., p. 223._ - -Froebel speaks in the same way of work in colours, saying “children feel -the need of a knowledge of colours.” Of poetry in general, including -religious verses and prayers, he says “these must be given according to -the requirements of the development of the child’s mind, and must give -expression to what is already there.” - -Returning now to the subject of play as such, we find that Groos retains -as “general psychological criteria of play,” but two “of the elements -popularly regarded as essential--namely, its pleasurableness, and the -actual severance from life’s serious aims.” Of these he says: “Both are -included in activity performed for its own sake.” - -It is in connection with very young children that Froebel speaks of -activity for its own sake, and here he does not differentiate between -work and play. He is true to his theory that in all things capable -of development, “what is definite proceeds everywhere from what is -indefinite.” So he says that: - - “Play is at first just natural life.”--_E., p. 54._ - -He maintains that: - - “The activity of the senses and limbs is the first germ or bud, - and play, building and shaping (Gestalten) the first tender - blossoms of the formative instinct, and that this is the point - of time, at which man is to be prepared for future industry, - diligence, and productive activity.”--_E., p. 34._ - -But, in the case of the boy a little older, though still only seven or -eight, Froebel does distinctly differentiate, giving the definition of -play already quoted, “spontaneous expression and practice of every kind,” -and saying of work, that: - - “Boys of this age should have definite domestic occupations, - indeed they could be actually instructed by mechanics and - farmers as has already been done by many a father with active - natural insight. Boys of a somewhat advanced age should be - often placed in a position to accomplish something with their - own hands and their own judgment … should devote daily at - least one or two hours to an occupation with outward results - … after such a refreshing _work bath_, I cannot better - designate it, the mind goes with new life to its intellectual - employments.”--_E., p. 236._ - -Of the infant, Froebel writes: - - “At this stage of development the man-to-be (dem erschienenen - werdenden Menschen) _uses his body, his senses, his limbs, - entirely for that use, practice and exercise, not at all for - its results_, to which he is quite indifferent, or, to speak - more correctly, of which he has as yet no idea. Out of this - comes what begins at this stage, the child’s play with his - limbs; with his hands, fingers, lips, tongue and feet, and also - with the movements of his eyes and of his face.”--_E., p. 48._ - -Of the older child Froebel very distinctly insists that he wants more -than the activity, that he wants outward result. But the result of which -he speaks is one which Groos himself would not disallow. It is only the -outward product of the impulse which has been gratified, a result which -is present to the mind of the older child, while to the infant no such -consciousness is possible. - - “What at an earlier stage of childhood was action for the - sake of the activity, is now, in the boy, activity for the - sake of the visible result; the child’s instinct of activity - has developed into an instinct for shaping or giving form, - and herein lies the solution of the whole outer life or outer - manifestation of boy life at this stage.”--_E., p. 99._ - -Inquiring into the kind of pleasure derived from play, Groos finds that -it rests primarily on the satisfaction of inborn impulses, which press -for discharge, and he gives three special “inborn necessities which -ground our pleasure in play--namely, the exercise of attention, the -demand to be an efficient cause, and imagination.” - -As to attention, he suggests that it lends a meaning to the vague idea -of a general need for activity, speaking of “the pitiable condition of -boredom” if opportunity is withheld. - -Froebel, of course, has much to say about the instinct of activity, -or, as he usually calls it in “The First Action of a Child,” the -instinct of employment (Beschäftigungstrieb), which is noticeable “even -when the so-called three months’ slumber has just ended.” He, too, -frequently refers to “the ennui and pernicious lack of occupation,” -to the “mischievous idleness which results from our not satisfying or -misdirecting the natural longing for activity inherent in all children.” -It is because Froebel’s thoughts always run on conscious revelation of -the self within as the explanation of human life, that he makes so much -of “the child’s instinct to employ itself” (Triebe des Kindes, sich zu -beschäftigen). This also explains how so much that he says corresponds -with what Groos brings forward with regard to “the joy in being a cause,” -and its modifications. These modifications are (_a_) pleasure in the mere -possession of power, (_b_) emulation, when a model is copied, and (_c_) -in the case of imitative competition there is pleasure in surpassing -others as well as the enjoyment of success resulting from that pleasure -of overcoming difficulties which comes under the combative instinct. - -Froebel is warning parents that they must provide for their children -opportunity for the exercise of the impulse to formative activity by -letting them help, even if their help is really a hindrance, and he says: - - “If his earlier activity was only imitation of what he saw - around him, now it is sharing in the business of the house, - lifting, pulling, carrying, digging, and wood-splitting. In - everything the boy will exercise, measure and compare his - strength that his body may grow stronger, _that his power may - increase, and that he may know its measure_.… At this age the - healthy boy, brought up simply and naturally, never avoids a - difficulty, never goes round a hindrance: no, he seeks it out - and overcomes it. ‘Let it lie,’ calls the vigorous youngster - to the father, who offers to remove an obstacle; ‘Let it lie: - I can get over it.’ … As activity gave pleasure to the child, - so work gives pleasure to the boy. Hence the daring feats of - boyhood.… Easy is the most difficult, without peril the most - adventurous, for the impulse comes from the innermost nature, - from his heart and will.”--_E., p. 101._ - - “But it is not only the impulse to use and to measure his - power that urges the boy to roam and to climb--it is the need - to widen his mental horizon.… The same desire holds him to - the plain … he occupies himself with water and with plastic - materials. For he seeks now _because of the feeling of power - over material already gained_ to master these. Everything - must serve his impulse towards construction.… And so each - forms for himself his own world, _for the feeling of his own - power demands his own space and his own material_.…”--_E., pp. - 102-107._ - - “But all the plays and occupations of boys do not by any means - aim at representing objects and things. On the contrary, _in - many pure exercise of strength and measuring of strength - predominate_, and many have no further aim than the display - of strength. Yet the play of this age has always its peculiar - characteristic, namely, as during the period of childhood, - the aim of play consisted simply in activity as such, so - now its aim is always a definite conscious purpose, which - characteristic develops more and more as the boys increase in - age. This is observable even with all games of bodily movement, - of running, boxing, wrestling, with ball-games, goal, hunting, - and war games, etc.” - - “_It is the sense of sure and reliable power, the sense of its - increase_ both as an individual and as a member of the group - _that fills the boy with all-pervading jubilant joy_ during - these games.”--_E., p. 113._ - -It is evidently difficult even for practised thinkers to grasp the -importance of what we so glibly call play in the case of the young child. -Mr. Kirkpatrick, for instance, fully recognizes its importance in regard -to children somewhat older, and he makes a suggestive distinction between -play and amusement, calling play active, while amusement is passive. -Others, he says, work for our amusement. But when he speaks of the -infant, he slips into the mistake of saying that the infant, even though -active, “amuses” itself. To the ordinary observer the whole life of a -young child is play, but it would be as correct to say that it is all -work. - -Professor Stout, true to what he calls the tendency of the moderns to -see in the little child what is writ large in the adult, allows “purely -intellectual curiosity” on the part of the infant. We have no right to -call an infant passive and therefore amused even when the mother shakes -the rattle for his edification. He may be striving hard to accommodate -his organs of sight, he may be recalling previous sounds similar and -dissimilar, he may be watching and comparing different movements and -different positions. He has so much to learn “with the world so new and -all,” and, to judge from his seriousness, it is at times a most momentous -inquiry. The baby to whom the activity of throwing is new, and who -spends full twenty minutes in throwing a tram ticket on the floor of the -car--which the patient mother restores each time--throwing, too, with -such force and evident purpose, cannot properly be said to be playing. -Nor can the infant who stares with such concentration at the lighted lamp -and who, when the mother moves out of the direct range of the light, -strives with all its feeble strength to readjust its position to that -entrancing brightness. - -Of the very young child, Froebel writes: - - “The first voluntary employments of the child are observation - of its surroundings, spontaneous taking in of the outer world, - and play, which is independent outward expression … it is - evident therefore how important is the training … and also - the kind of voluntary playful occupation of the child.… For as - the life of man is continuous one can recognize even in the - first baby life, though only in the slightest traces and most - delicate germs, all the mental activities which in later life - become predominant.”--_P., p. 29._ - -When Groos reaches the pedagogical standpoint, he says: - -“We have repeatedly found in the course of this inquiry that even the -most serious work may include a certain playfulness, especially when -enjoyment of being a cause and of conquest are prominent. Between -flippant trifling, and conscientious study there is a wide chasm which -nothing can bridge, but not all play is such trifling. Who would forbid -the teacher’s making the effort to induce in his pupils a psychological -condition like that of the adult worker, who is not oppressed by the -_shall_ and _must_ in the pursuit of his calling, because the very -exertion of his physical and mental powers in work, involving all his -capabilities, fills his soul with joy? Since play thus approaches work, -when pleasure in the activity as such, as well as its practical aim, -becomes a motive power (as in the gymnastic games of adults), so may work -become like play, when its real aim is superseded by enjoyment of the -activity itself. And it can hardly be doubted that this is the highest -and noblest form of work.”[37] - -It is beyond dispute that this is the kind of work that Froebel desired -for all humanity, so it is not surprising if he drew no hard and fast -line between work and the “_play_” which he insists “_is not trivial_,” -and which he urges parents to protect and guide. Of play at the stage of -boyhood he writes: - - “Joy is the soul of every activity at this period.”--_E., p. - 304._ - -And in reference to the right kind of instruction he says: - - “The union of school and life is the first and indispensable - requirement … if men are ever to free themselves from the - oppressive burden and emptiness of merely extraneously - communicated knowledge, heaped up in memory, if they would ever - rise to the joy and vigour of a knowledge of the real nature - of things, to a living knowledge of things.… Mankind is meant - to enjoy a degree of knowledge and insight, of energy and - efficiency, of which at present we have no conception; for who - has measured the limits of God-born mankind! The boy is to take - up his work which has now become his calling, not indolently in - sullen gloom, but cheerfully and joyously.”--_E., pp. 230-233._ - -One distinct line of division is that drawn by Groos when he says that -with young animals and probably with children “their first manifestation -of what is afterwards experimentation, fighting and imitative play, etc., -is rarely conscious, and therefore we cannot assert with assurance that -it is pleasurable.”[38] In this case he says the biological but not the -psychological germ of play is present. Froebel never lost sight of the -psychological point of view in so far as his desire always was to see -what the action meant to the actor, what the child’s play meant to the -child, and also in that he desired all the activity to be joyous, to be -performed for its own sake. But it was really the biological view that -he endeavoured to reach and to set forth. - -Coming now to the Theories of Play, it seems clear that, if he had -ever heard of them, Froebel would have endeavoured to combine those of -Recapitulation and Preparation. He states quite plainly that these are -not incompatible, recognizing that in any work or play, by which the -child retraces past stages of human development, he gains what is most -necessary for his own future life, control over his surroundings as well -as over himself, something after the manner in which these have been -gained by the race. - - “The observation of the development of individual man and its - comparison with the general development of the human race - show plainly that, in the development of the inner life of - the individual man, the history of the mental development of - the race is repeated, and that the race in its totality may - be viewed as one human being, in whom there will be found the - necessary steps in the development of individual man.”--_E., p. - 160._ - - “Indeed each successive generation and each successive - individual human being, inasmuch as he would understand the - past and present, must pass through all preceding phases of - human development and culture, and this should not be done in - the way of dead imitation, or mere copying, but in the way of - spontaneous self-activity.”--_E., p. 18._ - - “Man should, at least mentally, repeat the achievements of - mankind, that they may not be to him empty dead masses, that - his judgment of them may not be external and spiritless; he - should mentally go over the ways of mankind, that he may learn - to understand them. However it may be said of this growing - activity of boyhood, which by spirit and law are destined for - a conscious aim, ‘My son does not require this.’ Perhaps you - are right, I do not know, but you do know that your sons need - energy, judgment, perseverance, prudence, etc., and that these - things are indispensable to them; and all these things they are - sure to get in the course indicated.…”--_E., p. 282._ - -It is often said that traditional games are mere survivals, degenerate -imitations of ancient customs, and therefore not worth encouraging. But -children are not bound by tradition, and Froebel is probably right when -he says: - - “It is my firm conviction that whenever you find anything that - gives children lastingly and ever freshly a joy belonging - to a true pure life--anything where innocence and mirth - predominate--you have found something which has at the bottom - of it a higher and more important meaning for a child’s - life.”--_M., p. 172._ - -We cannot always tell why children enjoy the game, or what they gain -from it. Such games are at least the earliest and simplest introduction -to “the rules of the game,” and they contain the elements of choosing -sides and of whispered secrets. These things may seem small to the -ordinary onlooker, but not to the real observer, who sees the amount -of self-control required by a child of four or five, that he may not -proclaim the secret aloud, the difficulty he has in whispering, and the -importance to him of the choice between oranges and lemons or whatever it -may be. There are certainly some which most thinking persons, Froebelian -or otherwise, would wish to discourage. As Froebel himself said of some -that he found in use: - - “I thought some were too empty and silly and some said a great - deal that I would not willingly have said to children. Yet the - counting games themselves seemed to me important in many ways, - as I hope will appear from comparing the way I have dealt with - them, and above all, as the mottoes are meant to point out. I - even wished to keep the sound of the well-known popular words, - at least in the opening words.…”--_M., p. 157._ - -Certainly, Froebel would have had no dealings with either work or -play which would interfere with progressive development, he wanted -recapitulation because he regarded that “great necessary highway” as the -road to sure progress. - - “Only if in each particular we tread again the great necessary - highway of humanity as a whole, does the great and vigorous - early life of humanity come back to us in and through the - children.”--_E., p. 222._ - - “Education must be much more tolerating[39] and following than - predetermining and prescribing, for by the full application of - the latter method of instruction we should entirely lose the - characteristic, the sure and steady progressive development of - mankind.”--_E., p. 10._ - -Some educators who have made much of the “culture epochs” might have -avoided mistakes and exaggerations if they had taken to heart Froebel’s -repeated warning that the child has “living relations” not only with the -past, but with the future, besides being at the same time the child of -the present generation. - - “Parents should view their child in his necessary connection, - in his obvious and living relations to the past, present, - and future development of humanity, in order to bring the - education of the child into harmony with the past, present and - future requirements of the development of humanity and of the - race.… Man, humanity in man, as an external manifestation, - should therefore be looked upon not as perfectly developed, - not as fixed and stationary, but as steadily and progressively - growing, in a state of ever-living development, ever ascending - from one stage of culture to another toward its aim, which - partakes of the infinite and eternal. - - “It is unspeakably pernicious to look upon the development of - humanity as stationary and completed and to see in its present - phases only repetitions and greater generalizations of itself. - For the child, as well as every successive generation, becomes - thereby exclusively imitative, an external dead copy--a cast, - as it were, of the preceding, and not a living ideal of the - stage which it has attained in human development considered - as a whole, to serve future generations in all time to - come.”--_E., p. 17._ - -Underlying all that Froebel has to say of play, is the idea that it is -a preparation for future life activities. This is implied even in the -definition given of the play of the child of three years old, viz. that -it is “spontaneous self-instruction”; it is most evident in the passage: - - “Play, building and modelling are the first tender blossoms, - and this is the period when man is to be prepared for future - industry, diligence and productive activity.”--_E., p. 34._ - - “The whole later life of man has its source in the period of - childhood, be this later life bright or gloomy, gentle or - violent, industrious or lazy, rich or poor in action, passed - in dull stupor or in keen creativeness, in stupid wonder or in - intelligent insight, productive or destructive.”--_E., p. 55._ - -Of his later institution, the Kindergarten, Froebel says: - - “The great end and aim of the whole undertaking is the - Education of Man from its earliest beginning, by means of - action, feeling, and thought, in accordance with his own - inward being and outward relations, … _this to be attained by_ - the right care of child-life, _the encouragement of childish - activities_.”--_L., p. 164._ - - “For the object is twofold: Firstly the realization in as - clear and perfect a manner as possible, of _the fundamental - conception of a mode of education_ based upon the early and - complete training of human life, and _satisfying the needs - of children by a genuine encouragement of their spontaneous - activity_ through the medium of a normal institution which we - have symbolically named a Kindergarten.”--_L., p. 166._ - -About the play of boyhood Froebel says: - - “Play to the boy is a mirror of the combat of life awaiting him - in the future: therefore, in order to strengthen himself for - the combat, the human being both in early and later boyhood - seeks out obstacles, difficulty and combat in his play.… Many - of his actions have an inner significance.… How wholesome it - would be if parents and child, for their present and future, - if parents believed in this, if they would observe the life of - their children in this respect, what a new living bond would - unite parents and child, what a new thread of life would be - drawn between their present and their future life!”--_E., p. - 118._ - -Of his own Keilhau boys he writes: - - “One thing is certain, these plays are the outcome of the - spirit of boyhood. And the boys who played thus were good - scholars, intelligent, and willing to learn, seeing and - expressing clearly, diligent and full of zeal. Some are now - capable young men with well trained heads and hearts, quick - in expedients and dexterous in action; some are capable, - clear-sighted men, and others will become so.”--_E., p. 111._ - -In America at least the authorities are beginning to realize the truth -of Froebel’s words as to the importance of playgrounds, and actual -experiment has shown that he was right in saying that “even the plays -should be under right guidance,” not for purposes of repression, but for -the encouragement of real play which “must necessarily break forth in joy -from within.” - - “Justice, moderation, self-control, truthfulness, loyalty, - brotherly feeling and again, strict impartiality--who, when - he approaches a group of boys engaged in such games, could - fail to catch the fragrance of these delicious blossomings - of the heart and mind and of a firm will; not to mention the - beautiful, though perhaps less fragrant, blossoms of courage, - perseverance, resolution, prudence, together with the severe - elimination of indolent indulgence? Flowers of still more - delicate fragrance bloom … forbearance, consideration, sympathy - and encouragement for the weaker, younger and more delicate; - fairness to those who are as yet unfamiliar with the game. - - “Would that all who, in the education of boys, barely tolerate - playgrounds might consider these things! There are, indeed, - many harsh words and many rude deeds, but the sense of power - must needs precede its cultivation. Keen, clear and penetrating - are the boy’s eyes; keen and decided therefore, even harsh and - severe is his judgment of those who are his equals, or who - claim equality with him in judgment and power. - - “Every place should have its own common playground for the - boys. Glorious results would come from this for the entire - community. For at this period, games, whenever it is feasible, - are common, and thus develop the feeling and desire for - community and the laws and requirements of community. - - “The boy tries to see himself in his companions, to feel - himself in them, to weigh and measure himself by them, to know - and find himself with their help. Thus the games directly - influence and educate the boy for life, awaken and cultivate - many civil and moral virtues.”--_E., p. 113._ - -It was in watching boys one day--“boys,” he says, “of the right age for -these plays, but whose life is not awakened, or has been dulled, and who -now idly lounge around, getting in their own way, as it were”--that a -friend said to him, “I do not understand how these boys cannot play, how -many plays we had at their age!” And it is here that Froebel gives his -version of the “surplus energy” theory when he writes: - - “In every case the plays of this age are or should be pure - manifestations of strength and vitality, they are the product - of fullness of life, and of pleasure in life. They presuppose - actual vigour of life, both inner and outer. Where these are - lacking, there cannot be true play, which, bearing life in - itself, awakens, nourishes and heightens life.… This shows - clearly that even the plays at this age should be under - guidance[40], and the boy made ready for them, i.e. his life, - his experience both in school and out of it, must be made so - rich that it must necessarily break forth in joy from within, - like the blossom from the swelling bud. Joy is the soul of - every activity of boyhood at this period.”--_E., p. 303._ - -It is here, too, in the section entitled, “Play or Spontaneous Expression -and Practice of Every Kind” that Froebel begins a general classification -of boy’s play: - - “The plays, or spontaneous occupations, of this age are of - three kinds, they are either (_a_) imitations of life, or (_b_) - spontaneous applications of what has been learned, or they - are (_c_) perfectly spontaneous expression with all kinds of - material. These last are either governed by the material, or by - the thought and feeling of the human being.… They may be and - are either Physical plays, exercising strength and dexterity, - or else mere buoyancy of life; or Sense plays exercising the - hearing, e.g. in hiding games, etc., or the sight, as in - shooting plays or colour plays, etc.; or Intellectual plays, - games of reflection and judgment, e.g. draughts, etc. As such - they are already arranged, but the true aim and spirit of the - play is rarely understood and the games are seldom managed - according to the needs of the boy.”--_E., p. 304._ - -This general classification is very much the same as that of Groos, who -divides Play first into two main classes, viz. Playful Experimentation -and Playful Exercise of the Second or Socionomic Order. Under the first -heading come I. Playful Activity of the Sensory Apparatus; II. Playful -Use of the Motor Apparatus; and III. Playful Exercise of the Higher -Mental Powers. The first two correspond to Froebel’s Sense Plays and -Physical Plays, and the third to his Intellectual Plays. Under the second -heading, Groos brings Fighting Plays, which as we have seen Froebel -attributes to the unconscious desire to measure and increase strength; -Imitative Play, which to Froebel is the child’s way of learning by -action; Love Plays of which Froebel takes no notice at all, and Social -Play. Under this comes what has been given as to the importance of -Playgrounds, and much of what Froebel wrote as to the Kindergarten Games. -For instance, as part of the work of the students in his Training Course -comes: - - “The acquisition of little games arranged to exercise the - limbs and senses of the child.… The acquisition of other games - arranged to suit special ends and suited to varied grades of - development.… Practice in combined games for many children, and - particularly action games, which will, from the first, train - the child (by his very nature eager for companionship) in the - habit of association with comrades, that is, in good fellowship - and all that this implies.… To games for individual children - succeed games for the whole Kindergarten together. The child in - these associated games alternately appears first as taking some - individual or separate part, and then as merely one of several - closely knit and equally important members of a greater whole, - so that he becomes familiar with both the strongly opposed - elements of his life; namely the individual determining and - directing side, and the general ordered and subordinated - side.”--_L., p. 253._ - -Games of this kind have been much misused, especially by being given a -rigidity of form which, Froebel wrote: - - “Would quite destroy that fresh merry life which should animate - the games … the games would cease to be games and lose their - full educational power. The main thought must be held fast; but - the precise form and style in which the games are played must - be the outcome of the moment. The freer and more spontaneous - the arrangement, the more excellent is the effect of the - game.”--_L., p. 85._ - -The number and variety of plays and games noted by Froebel is quite -surprising. Of the long list given by Groos there are few indeed which -he does not mention.[41] The plays for older children are given in “The -Education of Man,” but other games encouraged at Keilhau are to be found -in the accounts given by Ebers. Even in his earlier work Froebel shows -how closely he had been observing the play of little children, but this -he worked out later in his Mother Songs, in the papers on his various -“Gifts,” and in that on Movement Play. These later books were written and -the play material was planned because Froebel saw that the children who -do not play are those “in whom life has not awakened or has been dulled,” -just because “the true aim and the spirit of play is rarely understood -and the games are seldom managed according to the needs of the boy.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -FROEBEL’S PLAY-MATERIAL AND ITS ORIGINAL PURPOSE - - -To one who believed, as Froebel did, that “the means by which the child -gains his first ideas of his own nature and life and the nature and life -of the cosmos, are his play and playthings,” these playthings could not -be indifferent. - - “It has been stated as a fundamental truth that the plays - and occupations of children should by no means be treated as - offering merely means for passing, we might say for consuming, - time, hence as mere outer activity, but rather that by means of - such plays and employments the child’s innermost nature must be - satisfied.”--_P., p. 108._ - -Froebel was speaking of his own Play-material--known by the name of -“Froebel’s Gifts” because he thought them the most suitable gifts for -little children--when he wrote: - - “To realize his aims, man, and more particularly the child, - requires material, though it be only a bit of wood or a - pebble with which he makes something or which he makes into - something.”--_P., p. 235._ - -And although his opinion of the importance of that particular series of -playthings, which he chose from among those he saw in general use, may -have been exaggerated, still there is a good deal of sound psychology -in what he says about them. In speaking of imitative action and -construction, we have already touched upon what were perhaps the most -important ideas underlying this series.[42] - - “What presents are most prized by the child? Those which afford - him a means of unfolding his inner life most freely and of - shaping it in various directions.”--_P., p. 142._ - -But Froebel also writes of his Gifts that “they will cover the whole -ground of training in sense perception,” and he has managed to think -out a very fair number of the points which Dr. Ward, in his Analysis of -Perception, notes as important. - -One of Froebel’s frequent Reviews of his play-material begins: - - “How has the child developed up to this point? How has the - world, the objects and things around him developed? How has - the child developed himself _especially through the toys_--the - means of play and employment--which have thus far been given - him? The brightening light in the child’s mind illuminates the - objects around him. In proportion as the inner light increases, - the nature of external objects grows clear to him … the law - of development is that of progress from the unlimited to the - limited, from the whole to the part, from an undifferentiated - to a membered totality … the outer world comes to meet the - inner world, it does not hinder, but helps the inner world. - - “The man advanced in insight should be clear about all this - before he introduces his child to the outer world. Even when he - gives his child a plaything he must make clear to himself its - purpose, and the purpose of playthings and occupation material - in general. This purpose is to aid the child freely to express - what lies within him--to bring the phenomena of the outer world - nearer to him, and thus to serve as mediator between the mind - and the world.”--_P., pp. 169-171._ - -Then Froebel explains in so many words the really psychological aim or -meaning of his sequence of “Gifts,” so well known by name--and even -better known in most _un_-psychological practice--but little understood -in their real and original significance, as a means of perception, the -earlier ones at least, for children much below even Kindergarten age. - - “Recognizing the mediatorial character of play and playthings, - we shall no longer be indifferent either to the choice, the - succession, or the organic connection of the toys we give - children. In these I offer them, I shall consider as carefully - as possible, how the child may in using them develop his nature - freely and yet in accordance with law (laws of mind), and - how through such use he may also learn to apprehend external - things correctly and to employ them justly. As the child’s - first consciousness of self was born of physical opposition to - and connection with the external world, so through play with - the ball, the external world itself began to rise out of chaos - and to assume definiteness. In recognizing the ball the child - moved from the indefinite to the definite, from the universal - to the particular, from mere externality (compare Prof. - Ward’s ‘mere thing stuff’) to a self-included space-filling - object. In the ball, especially through movement, through - the opposition of rest and motion, through departing and - returning, the object came forth out of general space as a - special space-filling object, as a body: just as the child by - means of his life (activity) also perceives himself, his bodily - frame, as a space-filling object, as a body. The child has - thus obtained two important terms of comparison for his first - intellectual development; body and body, object and object.… At - the same time there begins in the child, as in a seed-corn, a - development advancing towards manifoldness. For this reason he - should receive a corresponding seed-corn in the object which he - first detaches as object from the external chaos. Such object - should, like himself, include an indefinite manifoldness, and - be susceptible of a progressive development. Such an object is - the ball (Gift I).”--_P., p. 171._ - -The very first “intimation of an intellect,” Froebel writes, is when the -child is seen to “keep his gaze fixed upon the motion of a bright object. -This begins a few weeks after birth.” The ball is to be given to the baby -“when the starting-point of recognition and knowledge (Erkennens und -Erkenntniss), viz. perceiving, noticing, thinking (das Gewahrwerden, das -Bemerken und Beachten) becomes perceptible”: when the child “can freely -move its little arms and hands, when it can perceive and distinguish -tones, and can turn its attention and gaze in the direction from which -these tones come.” - -In his analysis of Perception, Dr. Ward distinguishes (i) Assimilation or -Recognition, (ii) Localization or Spatial Fixation, and (iii) Objective -Reference, or Intuition of Things. Of these, the first, Assimilation, has -already been taken up in Chapter IV, and we have seen that, according to -Dr. Ward, it involves Retention and Differentiation, though in itself -there is no active comparison, and we have seen that Froebel also -spoke of the earliest impressions as “almost imperceptible, but _fixed_ -by repetition and by change,”[43] and of a “perception of sequence” -involving “dim” or “unconscious comparison.” - -Of the second process Dr. Ward writes: “To treat of the localization -of impressions is really to give an account of the steps by which the -psychological individual comes to a knowledge of space,” and he goes -on to say that psychologists may have been too apt to examine “the -conception of space and not our concrete space perceptions.” Now Froebel -did consider concrete space perception, and with a certain amount -of care. That he saw its importance is clear from the fact that in -discussing his “means of employment” he says: - - “They will cover the whole ground of training in sense - perception but _will begin with the observation of space and - the knowledge that comes from that, since the child first - feels and finds himself in space and finds others occupying - space around him_. They are to go on by development of limbs - and senses and by means of language to understand Nature in - all directions, so that finally man _who at first could find - himself only in space and by means of space_, may learn to - know himself as an existent, feeling, thinking, intelligent, - rational being, and as such to try to live.”--_P., p. 19._ - -And although Froebel may not fully have realized that, as Dr. Ward puts -it: “The infant’s earliest lessons in spatial perception are in exploring -his limbs,” still we do find him writing from Blankenburg, in a letter -accompanying the first sketch of his Nursery Songs: - - “I soon felt that some important connecting link was - imperatively required to prepare the newly awakening life of a - child for its later activity with the ball. It was through the - ball itself that I discovered this link: in general terms it - may be described as _the first development of muscular movement - and sensation_ specially distinguishing infancy. The link - between the infant, still an undivided self-sufficient whole - of peaceful life, and the ball, which is something external - given to him to play with, lies in the child’s own limbs, the - child’s own senses; and _the first toys and occupations of the - child come from himself; he plays with his own limbs_, and - uses them as the material for representing his ideas. This - spontaneous activity of limb and vividness of sensation natural - to infancy must also be studied; for a considerable degree of - cultivation of these powers is already necessary in the use - of the ball, etc.… To help the child to use his own body, his - limbs and sensations, and to assist mothers to a consciousness - of their duties … I have carefully preserved several little - songs and games and send this collection to you for your severe - criticism.”[44]--_L., p. 108._ - -Having said that “the child first perceives himself, his corporeal -frame, as a space-filling object, as a body, by means of his life,” -or his activity, the first two of this collection naturally deal with -large body movements. In the one the mother alternately lowers and -raises the infant, “letting him really feel a slight shock,” and in the -other the baby tramples with his feet, and she is told to supply the -object of resistance. This resistance, as we have seen, gives him “the -dim consciousness of self, which comes out of physical opposition to, -and connection with, the outer world,” which Dr. Ward speaks of under -the head of Localization of Impressions. Dr. Ward writes that “the -distinction between his own and foreign bodies begins when the child -feels the difference between a series of movements accompanied by passive -touches, and one without passive touches,” but Froebel goes no further -than noting what comes through “resistance.” The ball, however, as we -have just seen, is to be used so as to assist the child’s comprehension -of “a self-included space-filling object,” and through play with the ball -he is to gain the “three great perceptions of object, space and time.” - -In the Intuition of things, Dr. Ward distinguishes five points -“concerning which psychology may be expected to give an account: (_a_) -the reality; (_b_) solidity or occupation of space; (_c_) permanence, -or, rather, continuity in time; (_d_) unity and complexity; and (_e_) -substantiality and the connection of its attributes and powers.” - -(_a_) _Reality_ he disposes of as “not strictly an item by itself, but -a characteristic of all the items that follow.” Of (_b_), _Solidity -or Impenetrability_, he writes that “here our feelings of effort come -specially into play. They are not entirely absent in those movements of -exploration by which we attain a knowledge of space; but it is when these -movements are definitely realized, or are only possible by increased -effort, that we reach the full meaning of body as that which occupies -space.” Dr. Ward goes on to add as “in the highest degree essential,” -that muscular effort should meet with something which seems to be “making -an effort the counterpart of our own.” - -Besides telling the mother to give the required definite resistance, by -opposing her hand or chest to the little trampling feet, Froebel gives a -“new play, a new perception of the object,” when he tells the mother that -“as soon as the child is sufficiently developed to perceive the ball as -a thing separate from himself,” she should tie a string to it and pull -gently. - - “The child will hold the ball fast, the arm will rise as you - lift the ball, and as you loosen the string the hand and arm - will sink back from their own weight; the feeling of the - utterance of force, as well as the alternation of the movement, - will delight the child. From this, however, soon springs a - quite new play, that is also something new to the child, when, - through a suitable drawing and lifting, the ball escapes from - the child’s hand and then quietly moves freely before him as an - individual object. Through this play is developed in the child - a new feeling, the new perception of the object as a something - now clasped, grasped and handled, and now as a freely active - opposite something.”--_P., p. 36._ - -_Unity and Complexity_, “the remaining factors in the psychological -constitution of things,” says Dr. Ward, “might be described in general -terms as the time-relations of their opponents.…” - -And Froebel, going straight on from “the opposite something,” comes in -like manner to time-relations. - - “One may say with deep conviction that even this simple - activity is inexpressibly important for the child, for which - reason it is to be repeated as a play with the child as often - as possible. What the little one has up to this time directly - felt so often by the touch of the mother’s breast--union and - separation--it now perceives outwardly in an object which - can be grasped and clasped. Thus the repetition of this play - confirms, strengthens, and clears in the mind of the child a - feeling and perception deeply grounded in, and important to the - whole life of man--the feeling and perception of oneness and - individuality, and of disjunction and separateness; also of - present and past possession.… The idea of return or recurrence - soon develops to the child’s perception, from the presence and - absence; that of reunion from the singleness and separateness; - of future repossession from present and past possession, and so - the idea of being, having and becoming, are the dim perceptions - which first dawn on the child. - - “From these perceptions there at once develop in the child’s - mind the three great perceptions of object, space and time, - which were at first one collective perception. From the - perceptions of being, having and becoming in respect to space - and object, and in connection with them, there soon develop - also the new perceptions of present, past and future in respect - to time. Indeed, these ninefold perceptions which open to the - child the portals of a new objective life, unfold themselves - most clearly by means of his constant play with the one single - ball.”--_P., p. 36._ - -Dr. Ward gives as the first step “in the psychological constitution of -distinct things”--as opposed to what he calls “mere thingstuff”--“the -simultaneous projection into the same occupied space of the several -impressions, which we thus come to regard as the qualities of the body -filling it.” - -Froebel writes: - - “We gave, therefore, to the mother the brightly coloured soft - ball to make a unity of touch and perception through sight, - for through the brightness it makes itself known to sight, and - through warmth (softness?) to touch, as an objective phenomena, - a thing in itself.”--_P., p. 65._ - -To reach unity and complexity, says Ward, “it is essential that objects -should recur, and recur as they have previously recurred, if knowledge -is ever to begin.” The constituent impressions must also “be again and -again repeated in like order to prompt anew the same grouping,” and -the constancy of one group must present itself “along with changes in -other groups, and in the general field.… It is only where a group, as a -whole, has been found to change its position relatively to other groups, -and--apart from causal changes--to be independent of changes of position -among them, that such complexes can become distinct unities and yield a -world of things.” - -Froebel writes of one of his early plays: - - “It is really important for the human being, especially as - a child, that the essential perceptions of things should be - _repeated frequently_ under different forms, and _if possible - in a particular order_, so that the child may easily learn to - distinguish the essential from the unessential and accidental, - and the abiding from the changing. Unnoticed and unrecognized - though the phenomena are to the child, yet the impression of - them will be certain and firm, and this so much the more when - the repetition has been precise and clear.”--_P., p. 88._ - -Later, speaking of a child’s earliest attempts at walking, he says: - - “The smallest child who begins to exercise the power of - walking, loves to go from place to place--i.e. _he likes to - turn about and to change the relationships in which he stands - to different objects, and in which they stand to him. Through - these changes he seeks self-recognition and self-comprehension, - as well as recognition of the different objects which surround - him, and recognition of his environment as a whole_.”--_P., p. - 243._ - -Dr. Ward requires still more and says that “the unity of a thing” carries -us over to temporal continuity, and this he attributes to “the continuous -presentation of such a group as the bodily self, which makes us infer -continuity of existence, for presentations which have been presented, -removed and re-presented.” - -We have seen already that Froebel says the child perceives the ball -“through departing and returning, as a space-filling object, as a body, -just as he perceives himself, his corporeal frame, as a space-filling -object, as a body.” And there is also a quaint, but interesting reference -to something of this kind in one of the earliest Nursery Songs called -“All Gone,” where the mother is distinctly told that she must help her -child to realize continuity through change. - - “How can the child understand what you mean when you say ‘It’s - all gone, Baby’? He will not be contented unless you put - meaning into it. What he saw just now he sees no longer, what - was above is below, what was there is just now vanished. Where, - then, has it gone?” - -And the baby is supposed to be quieted by the mother’s playful tale of -the present whereabouts of his bread and milk, a German version of the -homely “Down red lane.” - -Professor Ward’s last point in the intuition of things is -“substantiality.” “What is it,” he says, “that has thus a beginning and -continues indefinitely?” The answer is that “of all the constituents -of things only one is universally present, that of physical solidity, -which presents itself according to circumstances, as impenetrability, -resistance or weight.… In other words, that which occupies space is -the substantial; the other real constituents are but its properties or -attributes, the marks or manifestations which lead us to expect its -presence.” - -Froebel, again, sums up the ideas he intends the child to gain from play -with the ball: - - “The ball shows contents, mass, matter, space, form, size - and figure; it bears within itself an independent power - (elasticity) and hence it has rest and movement, and - consequently stability and spontaneity; it offers even colour, - and at least calls forth sound; it is indeed heavy--that is, - it is attracted--and thus shares in the general property of - all bodies.… Therefore, it places man, on his entrance into - the world, furnished with activity of limbs and senses, in - the midst of all phenomena and perceptions of Nature and of - all life … to place man through a skilful education in the - understanding of Nature and life, and to maintain him in it - with consciousness and circumspection cannot be done too - early.”--_P., p. 53._ - -The soft ball of the first gift is supposed to be given to the child when -he is three or even two months old, but when he reaches six or eight -months, he is supposed to be ready for something which “makes itself -known especially through noise, sound, tone, as it were through speech.” -The second gift therefore consists of a wooden sphere and a cube, which -are intended not only to please the child by the noise they make, but -to serve as material for comparison. The mother is told to roll the -sphere and then, in order to make this oppositeness between sphere and -cube perceptible to the child, to place the cube steadily before him and -presently to take one of his little hands, pushing gently at first, but - - “finally overcoming the gravity of the cube and pushing it - away with the child’s hand and fingers … drawing the child’s - strength, although yet so feeble, into the play, that his - limbs may be trained, his strength increased, and that he may - experience and perceive much through his own activity.”--_P., - p. 77._ - -By even these few representations the mother can present to her child: - - “The quiet, firm sure-standing on a relatively larger surface; - the filling of space by each object; heaviness which is - expressed by pressure; the final overcoming of heaviness - (gravity); and the possibility of moving away the body by the - use of a proportionately greater strength. The perception of - all these and many other facts, showing themselves merely as - changing phenomena in oft-recurring repetition, will give - pleasure even to the child who is scarcely half a year, or at - least not a whole year old, especially when the play is placed - in intimate connection with the child’s life, and with his - impulse to activity.”--_P., p. 78._ - -Many plays are suggested, all to be accompanied by song or rhyme, only, -says Froebel, “one must not go on in opposition to the wish of the child, -but always follow his requirements and needs and his own expressions of -life and activity.” - -It is in this connection that Froebel notices how early a child begins to -note cause. - - “Even the child whose capacity for speech is as yet undeveloped - will remark the cause of the fall of the cube, at least - experience has shown us that children of this age drew away the - holding support, and, as the cube then fell over, turned toward - their mother with face and body as in joyous triumph.”--_P., p. - 80._ - -The sphere and cube are also to be compared as to shape: - - “Through all that has been done hitherto, the child’s attention - has been predominantly called to the object, as filling space, - and acting, but only incidentally to the object as being the - identical one; nor yet to the figure and shape, nor to the - members and parts. But attention to the form and figure of the - object can also be utilized for the child in play.”--_P., p. - 83._ - -So the mother is directed to hide the cube in her hand and show it -again--so that the child will watch for its reappearance. - - “By this play the child is not only again made to notice that - the cube fills space, but his attention is also called to its - precise form; and he will look at it sharply, _unconsciously - comparing_ it with the hand to which his eyes were first - attracted.”--_P., p. 84._ - - “Each object speaks constantly to man by its qualities and - attributes, and still more to the child, though in mute - speech.… It is essential for the intellectual development - of man that the surroundings should speak to him by their - qualities and attributes.”--_P., p. 95._ - -Froebel’s “Gift III” is a little box containing eight-inch cubes for -building purposes, and after the child has clearly gained the idea of -“outer object” Froebel says: - - “Let us first of all hasten to place ourselves together in - the children’s play corner, and there seek to discover what - attracts the child, or, rather, in what direction he himself - turns his attention, what he would like to do and what he needs - for the purpose. Let us take our place there as quietly and as - unnoticed as possible, observing how the child, between the - ages of one and three years, after he has clearly gained the - idea of “outer object,” has contemplated the form and colour of - the self-contained body which he can handle, has moved it here - and there in his hands, and experimented upon its solidity, - now tries to pull it apart, or at least to alter its form in - order to discover new properties in it, and to find out new - ways of using it. If the little one succeeds in his attempt - to separate the object, we see that he then tries to put the - parts together, to form the whole which he had at first, or to - arrange them in a new whole. We see that he will unweariedly - and quietly repeat this for a long time. - - “Let us linger over this significant phenomenon and seek to - recognize through it what we have to furnish to the child from - inner grounds and without arbitrariness. This is: something - firm which can be easily pulled apart by the child’s strength, - and just as easily put together.”--_P., p. 117._ - -The time when the child wants this something to arrange is given as -any time “between the ages of one and three.” It is the time when “his -greatest delight consists in the quick alternation of building up and -tearing down.”--_P., p. 106._ - -At first the little one will be satisfied with arranging and rearranging -the cubes, piling them one upon another, “placing one before, behind, -beside another.” Soon, however, he will try to make something definite, -and “the intelligent nurse interprets the dim idea and sees whether -a something, a table, a chair, etc., can be perceived in what is -represented.” Then the something must have a purpose, so the chair is -grannie’s chair, the table is ready for the soup, and so on. - -There is nothing here which is not quite a usual proceeding. Froebel’s -peculiarity of treatment comes from his desire to give the blocks to -the child as a whole which he can take to pieces. This is the reason -of the traditional proceeding, perhaps still kept up in old-fashioned -kindergartens, when the children first slip the lid out a little way, -then reverse the boxes, pull out the lid and lift it off the box. The -directions are Froebel’s own, and are given: - - “in order to furnish to the child at once clearly and - definitely, the impression of the whole, of the self-contained; - from this perception, as the first fundamental perception - (Grundanschauung) all proceeds and must proceed.”--_P., p. 123._ - -It is clear that this meaning is quite lost when the same proceeding is -forced on older children, who are quite accustomed to pull down and build -up. - -Froebel emphasizes the fact that the pieces are of the same cubical form -as the whole thus presented, and adds: - - “Thus fundamental perceptions, whole and part, form, and size, - are made clear by comparison and contrast, as well as deeply - impressed by repetition.”--_P., p. 119._ - -It is in speaking of this simplest of toys that Froebel enters a strong -protest against the complex and useless toys which afford no scope for -childish activity. - - “Here, then, we meet a very great imperfection and - inadequateness--indeed in reference to the inner development - of the child an obstructing element in that which is now so - frequently provided as a plaything for children; an element - which slumbers like a viper under roses--it is, in a word, the - already too complex and ornate, too-finished plaything. The - child can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce enough - variety by means of it; his power of creative imagination, - his power of giving form to his own idea, are thus actually - deadened. For when we provide children with too finished - playthings we at the same time deprive them of the incentive to - perceive the particular in the general, and of taking the means - to find it.… What presents are the most prized by the child as - well as by mankind in general? Those which afford him a means - of unfolding his inner life most purely and of shaping it in - a varied manner, giving it freest activity and presenting it - clearly.”--_P., p. 122._ - -This quotation sets forth quite plainly the main idea underlying all the -varied toys or play-material known as the “Gifts and Occupations” of the -Kindergarten. - -According to Mr. Hailmann and other writers, the gifts are material by -which the child can gain ideas, and the occupations furnish material for -gaining skill. But Mr. Hailmann allows that this distinction, which to -him seems important, was never formulated by Froebel. - -Froebel’s psychological knowledge, in fact, was in advance of that of his -interpreters. He knew that it was by action, by manipulation of material, -that the child gains his ideas and that the clear distinction between -gift and occupation which to Mr. Hailmann is “very important” is on the -contrary actually non-existent. - -Gifts III to VI are boxes of building blocks, intended to present -sequence in difficulty of manipulation, and also increasing variety of -form. Because of the stress he laid on self-expression, Froebel thought -very highly of the educational possibilities of a box of bricks. In “The -Education of Man” he writes: - - “Look into this education room of eight boys, seven to ten - years old. On the large table stands a chest of building - blocks, in the form of bricks, each side about one-sixth of the - size of actual bricks, the finest and most variable material - that can be offered a boy for purposes of representation. Sand - or sawdust, too, have found their way into the room, and fine - green moss has been brought in abundantly from the last walk in - the beautiful pine forest. It is free time, and each one has - begun his own work. There in a corner stands a chapel … there a - building which represents a castle.…”--_E., p. 108._ - -After the bricks come the coloured tablets of Gift VII, which children -from four and upwards, _if left free_, often highly appreciated as -material for making patterns; and the Sticks or splints of various -lengths of Gift VIII, with which they used to lay outlines of familiar -objects. English children often use burnt matches for this, sometimes -they do the same thing with “mother’s pin-box,” and a child quite -innocent of Kindergarten ideas has been seen to appropriate the various -nails of a tool-box to the same purpose. Along with the sticks Froebel -supplied rings of metal or paper; the little English child who used the -nails took small curtain rings for the petals of her flower and screw -nails for its stalk. In Gift IX the child is presented with very small -articles for stringing or arranging--beads, coloured beans, pebbles, -etc. A child’s pleasure in this material and in the sticks and rings -probably shows that he is ready to practise movements of the thumbs and -forefingers. Froebel said that the use of these sticks called the child’s -attention to “linear phenomena,” and I have already mentioned that many -years ago, when we were still using Froebel’s play-material, I heard a -child call out, “Oh, I’m making lines!” just after he had been using the -sticks. The other children contentedly went on rubbing with the crayons; -but this young discoverer continued to make laborious lines, always from -left to right, till the work was completed to his satisfaction. - -The remaining “Gifts” include coloured paper to fold and cut either to -produce such objects as boats, boxes, purses, chairs, etc., or to form -patterns, or to weave together for the well-known paper mat; drawing and -paper materials; modelling clay and sand, and so on. - -The weakness of the series is the semi-psychological semi-mathematical -arrangement, which has been dealt with in the following chapter. What -Froebel meant to do was to pick out from among the material he saw given -to children, or appropriated by them, those things which seemed to him -best adapted to call out the activities of children at various ages or -stages, in accordance with his idea that “the man advanced in insight -should make clear to himself the purpose of playthings, viz. to help the -child to express himself, and to bring the phenomena of the outer world -nearer to him.” - -Surprise has often been expressed that Froebel did not include such toys -as dolls in his series. - -One reason is that he did not live long enough, for he does speak of -doll-play and says that later the time will come “when we shall speak of -the doll and the hobby-horse as the plays of the awakening life of the -girl and of the boy.” In his brief reference he does speak of the child’s -own nature becoming objective through the doll-play, and he adds that by -such play she “anticipates and feels her destiny.” He notes, too, with -interest that: - - “Little girls make their favourite dolls of the heavy bootjack - or like piece of wood. I was informed by a mother that a heavy - sandbag which she accidentally found became her most cherished - doll, because it had in it the weight of an actual child, and - so she gave herself up to the illusion and imagined herself to - be carrying a real child.” - -Undoubtedly Froebel was right in demanding simple toys and in -characterizing the “too complex toy” as a “viper under the roses,” and -also in demanding that toys should be carefully considered and chosen so -as to meet the needs of the child’s developing mind. But the plays and -the toys of a developing child cannot be definitely prescribed, and every -similar attempt is likely to fail, as Froebel’s has done. In his choice, -Froebel was biased by the great idea which obsessed him, the idea of -development. Like all human beings, he had the defects of his virtues, -and it is to these defects that we must now turn our attention. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -WEAK POINTS CONSIDERED - - -An honest attempt to show what credit is due to Froebel, for the -remarkable anticipations of modern theories on which he based his -pedagogy, seems to involve the opposite process of inquiring whether or -not any of his practices can be shown to have an unsound basis. - -The modern boys’ school, with a few, and a very few exceptions, does not -even approach the school at Keilhau as a place of real education, as any -one may see who reads the account given of it by Georg Ebers. On the -other hand, the modern Kindergarten is probably in many ways an advance -upon the original attempts. Many practices of which Froebel approved -are now discarded, some no doubt because of progress in physiological -discovery; we know now that a child is not fitted as regards nervous -development and muscular control to deal with fine pricking or drawing in -chequers. - -But a better knowledge of physiology does not account for all the -changes that have taken place. Important as they undoubtedly were in -Froebel’s eyes, the modern Kindergartener is inclined to smile over -her predecessors’ “worship of the ‘Gifts’”; and, though we are agreed -as to the importance of games, the modern teacher chooses from a wide, -perhaps too wide a range, and no longer reposes blind faith in certain -circle-games with their supposed “symbolic” virtue. - -To some, the word symbolic will at once suggest Froebel’s weakest point, -others will resent any such idea, for symbolism appeals strongly to one -and repels another. For Froebel himself, undoubtedly the whole world was -symbolic, in so far as he regarded the universe as one expression of the -Divine. To him, as to Browning: - - “The earth has speech of God’s writ down, no matter if - In cursive script or hieroglyph.” - -But this has not affected his educational practice to the extent -generally supposed. - -At the same time it does seem as if one, if not two, psychological errors -lie at the root of certain practices which the modern Froebelian has -discarded. - -It would be most unfair to Froebel not to emphasize what is often -overlooked, viz. that the “Gifts” were important in his eyes -solely because he believed that in them he was presenting toys, or -“play-material,” exactly suited to the succeeding stages of the child’s -development, bodily and mental. “The new gift,” he says, “corresponds -both to the child’s increasing constructive ability, and to his growing -capacity to comprehend the external world.” And he writes: - - “But such a course of training and occupations for children - answering to the laws of development and the laws of life, - demanded a thoroughly expressive medium in the shape of - materials for these occupations and games for the child: - therefore to meet this point I have arranged a series of play - materials under the title of: ‘A complete series of gifts for - play.’”--_P., p. 250._ - -It should also be noted that Froebel did not commit the mistake of -inventing new toys. What he attempted to do was what we are all -attempting now, viz. to use what natural instinct has already selected, -as a basis for conscious educational work. Balls and building blocks, -coloured tablets and papers, sand and clay, are all spontaneously -appropriated by normal children. Even these materials which seem to us -unchildlike are not so in different surroundings. For instance, in the -Black Forest, one may watch children playing with long slivers of wood -exactly like Froebel’s laths, and these they take from the cut logs which -are being hauled up for winter storage. - -Again, it is only fair to point out that Froebel’s followers have -appropriated material which he suggested as suited to children aged from -three months to five or six years, and have used them with children from -four or five to six or seven and even older.[45] Teachers have also found -it convenient to disregard Froebel’s frequent warnings not to interfere, -to let the child “bang and pound” when he wants to, to let him “play -quietly and thoughtfully by himself as long as he will,” to give him -“the greatest possible freedom of expression.” In some, at least, of the -original text-books on Kindergarten practice, written by Froebel’s early -disciples, this advice is totally disregarded, and we find prescribed the -most formal of object lessons, dealing with the properties of the ball in -set questions and answers; only at the end comes “If there is time, the -children may be allowed to roll the ball.” - -Still, when all due allowance is made, there remains the fact that -Froebel attributed far too much importance to the series of toys he -arranged, and in addition to this he must be held in large measure -responsible for the extraordinary amount of mathematical perceptions of -which young children have been considered capable, and beneath which many -gleams of intelligence may have been extinguished. - -The psychological error which seems to underlie both these mistakes in -pedagogy seems to have been that of making too much of the outer factor -in the process of perception. Froebel was quite right and quite modern -in refusing to draw any hard and fast line between sense perception and -thinking, in saying that the child moves “from perception of a thing, -joined with thought about it, up to pure thought.” But he must have -failed somehow, sufficiently to grasp the fact that all that is present -to sense is not necessarily perceived, that perception depends not -merely upon what is presented, but upon previous mind content. The word -“apperception,” though apparently somewhat fallen into disfavour of late, -has certainly been of service in emphasizing this point. - -What seems strange is that in the very book, in which we find the theory -disregarded in practice, we find Froebel stating the theory itself in the -plainest of terms: - - “The properties and nature of the outer world unfold themselves - in exact proportion to the capacities of the child.”--_P., p. - 120._ - - “The child creates his own world for himself; it is at once - the expression of his inward realization of the external world - and its surroundings, and also the outward representation - of his internal mental world, the world of his own - subjectivity.”--_L., p. 141._ - - “Above all, it is the old within the new, which clarifies, - unfolds and transmutes itself, thus developing what is new.… We - must not require of the child anything not conditioned by his - previous achievements.”--_P., p. 169._ - -No one, surely, can maintain that these words are carried into effect in -e.g.: - - “Could forms of knowledge (mathematical forms) be, for a - child of one to three, play forms, and thus forms produced - by spontaneous activity? Well, why not? Arrange the eight - part-cubes together, and say, ‘One whole.’ But divide it - immediately and say, ‘Two halves.’… Or, comparing and - connecting and describing by song at the same time that the - objects are manipulated: - - ‘Look here and see! One whole two halves. - One half two fourths, two halves four fourths. - One whole four fourths. - Four fourths eight eighths. - Eight eighths one whole.’”--_P., p. 138._ - -There is certainly no “old within the child” of one to three, which can -condition this achievement, nor is there any spontaneity. For the child a -little older we have: - - “The hints that are here given suffice to show that the - knowledge forms are adapted to children of three and four years - of age, and that they incite plays which are both spontaneous - and nourishing to heart and intellect.… These few indications - for the use of these forms must suffice; they already show - sufficiently clearly that the observation and comprehension - of them are perfectly suited to the active, intellectual and - emotional sides of children three and four years of age, - and to actual free play which strengthens intellect and - feeling.”--_P., p. 185._ - -Now the “hints” refer to making clear to the child, always in justice, be -it remembered, in the concrete, “as perceptible facts only,” such points -as “similarity of size with dissimilarity of shape and position, in such -words as: - - “Twice as long and half as wide, - Half as long and twice as wide, - The same size are we two.” - -Certainly children differ very much, and some have a special aptitude for -mathematical relations, but to most children under five these words would -convey nothing. _Half_ may have a meaning, though at that age and for -some time after we hear of “a fair half” and “quarter” is generally used -as a name for any fraction recognized as not a half, even if it should -be greater. Such words as _fourth_ and _eighth_ can have no meaning for -a child who shows no consciousness of difference when shown six, seven -or eight objects. At the age of three, an average child recognizes three -objects, but when a fourth is added, he proceeds to count one by one, he -does not recognize three plus one. - -Again, we must repeat that Froebel never intended any mathematical ideas -to be forced upon unwilling children. He constantly tells the mother not -to force, and he frequently speaks of the child’s “accidental productions -which will become a point of departure for his self-development,” through -the explanatory rhymes, to be sung by the mother in order to call the -child’s attention to the results of his own action. It is true, too, that -it is in connection with this kind of work, or play, that Froebel writes -of “the knowledge-acquiring side of the game, which is the quickly tiring -side.” - -But the fact remains that either Froebel made a miscalculation as to -what mathematical ideas are within the grasp of children of tender age, -or else he attributed too much consequence to what is outside. It is -indeed quite possible to present to a child of any age, by means of the -cubes of his Fifth Gift, several particular instances of the Theorem of -Pythagoras, as Froebel suggests. But though the construction is present -to the sense of both child and adult, the career of the child of five -or six, who perceives or apperceives the relationship of the squares so -presented, may be watched with interest. He is likely to distinguish -himself in mathematical research, should he live long enough. Froebel -ought to have known, indeed he did know, for he taught it to others, -that the child does not “quickly tire” of acquiring knowledge suited to -his stage of development by methods equally suitable. From the houses -and railway trains, of which at this stage they seem never to tire, -children probably gain as much knowledge as Nature means them to absorb -by such means. In Froebel’s own hands, with his real and sympathetic -understanding of the need for freedom of action, probably no harm was -done, but it is easy to see how the ordinary teacher would grasp at the -possibility of producing mathematical prodigies through what was supposed -to be play. - -The same error seems to show itself in various ways, e.g., in some of -the reasons Froebel gives for choosing his First Gift, though there is -no fault to be found with the choice. He was right in saying that the -child first takes in a whole, not a variety of elements, to be combined -later. Because of this fact, the ordinary coral and bells, with all its -complexity, is just as much a whole to the infant as the woollen ball. -But Froebel does seem to have thought that he must make the “outer -objects,” or toys from which the child is to gain his earliest ideas, -as simple as these ideas, and this certainly implies a wrong view of -perception. The same objection might be taken to Froebel’s directions as -to how the Third Gift--an 8-inch cube, cut once in each direction--is -to be presented; how in order “to furnish to the child clearly and -definitely the impression of the whole, of the self-contained, from -which fundamental perception everything must proceed,” the box is to be -reversed, the lid slipped out and the box is to be lifted “that the play -thing may appear as a cube closely united.” But in this case Froebel is -“presenting” the first divided unit, “something which may be taken to -pieces, arranged and re-arranged and finally re-constructed,” for it is -“by this dismembering and re-constructing, and perception of real objects -that true knowledge and especially self-knowledge comes to the child.” - -A second psychological error, or at least an inconsistency, seems to lie -at the root of certain practical directions Froebel gives with regard -to the use of his toys. In spite of his iteration and re-iteration that -the child’s mind is a unity, that though separation is “permitted for -the thinking mind,” there is none in reality, yet in his anxiety for the -due fostering of the whole, of the “doing, feeling and thinking” his -harmonious development, in actual practice he has an attempted separation -which has had bad results. A Kindergarten practice, now discontinued, -was to make the children build, either on different occasions, or during -different parts of one lesson, what Froebel called (_a_) Life-forms or -Objects (Lebens oder Sachformen), i.e. houses, churches, etc.; (_b_) -Beauty or Picture forms (Schönheits oder Bildformen), i.e. symmetrical -designs; and (_c_) Knowledge or Instruction forms (Erkenntniss oder -Lernformen), i.e. squares, triangles, etc. Though this classification is -based on the familiar and important “knowing, willing and feeling,” yet -it is plain that a child may experience quite as much emotion, probably -more, in building a house as in making a star pattern, and that the -active side is involved in every kind of construction. Froebel draws -a parallel, legitimate to a certain extent, between intellect, feeling -and will on the one hand, and truth, beauty and usefulness on the other. -Here, however, we can quote him against himself; “Separation is only -permitted for the thinking mind.” The useful ought to be beautiful, there -is beauty in all truth, and the æsthetic revelation of the world is the -world in order. Beauty degenerates into mere ornament and artificiality, -when separated from life and use. “Mathematics,” as Froebel wrote -himself, “is neither foreign to life, nor deduced from life; it is the -expression of life as such: its nature may be studied in life, and -life may be studied with its help.… Mathematics should be studied more -physically and dynamically as the outcome of nature and energy.”--_E., p. -206-7._ - -The result of this suggested separation has in past times been -disastrous. Failing to recognize that a young child is of necessity -exercising his intellectual power in constructing his castle or bridge -of blocks, and failing still more to realize that ornament is far from -synonymous with beauty, teachers have wearied and stupefied children -with mathematical forms for which they were not ready, and have forced -upon them symmetrical designs when their souls hungered for “puffer -trains.”[46] - -It is easy to show that what Froebel wanted was only due attention -to what we now call the affective and conative as well as to the -intellectual. From the very first he insists on this, and justly, though -his way of doing it may seem to us quaint. About the child’s imitation -of the clock he writes: - - “As soon as the child’s first capacity for speech is somewhat - developed, we notice how he tries, in and by the movement, - to listen to the tone and to imitate it with the tone of his - own voice. _Tic tac_, we hear him say, imitating the movement - of the pendulum; _pim paum_ (ding dong?) he says when the - sound is more noticed.… So we must observe that even when - he first begins to speak the child expresses and retains - the physical part of the movement by _tic tac_, but by _pim - paum_ he perceives the movement more, if one may say so, - from the feeling in the mind, and if I may be allowed so to - express myself, by the ‘here and there’ which comes later, - the child catches hold (festhalten) of the movement more as - a thing of comparison, of recognition, and in his dawning - thought, more intellectually.… It is most important that the - mother should observe the first and slightest traces of the - articulation (Gliederung) of the child as an active, emotional - and intellectual being, and watch it in his development from - existence to experience and thought, so that in his development - no side of his nature should be cultivated at the cost of - the others, nor should any be repressed or neglected for the - sake of the others. It seems important, and we believe that - all who quietly observe the child have remarked, or will yet - remark, that from the first the child expresses the swinging - movement in a singing tone, in a tone which approaches song and - so serves the emotional nature. Thus early is it shown that - the real foundation, the starting-point for the education of - humanity and so of the child, is the heart and the emotions - (das Gemüth u. die Gemüthliche), but that training to - action and thought (zur That u. zum Denken), the physical - and the intellectual goes with it side by side constantly - and inseparably. Thought forms itself in action, and action - clears itself in thought, but both must have their roots in the - emotions.”--_P., p. 41._ - -Two further reasons may be given for Froebel’s belief in his selected -series of toys: (_a_) his delight in the theory of development, and -(_b_) his eagerness to bring the child as soon as possible to that -consciousness of self which differentiates man from the lower animals. - -Every sign of unity of plan within the universe gave Froebel real joy, -and he traces development from the simple to the complex, from the -undifferentiated to the differentiated, not only in plant and animal -life, but also in the inorganic. Much of what he says on crystals may be -fanciful, but much is beautiful and suggestive. “Chemical combination” is -to him “the life of the inorganic world,” and he writes: - - “We have in this a new confirmation of the law of development - in crystals, the passing from special-sidedness to - all-sidedness, from imperfection to perfection as the law of - all development in nature. Man, then, appears as the most - perfect earthly being, in whom all that is corporeal appears - in highest equilibrium and in whom the primordial force is - fully spiritualized, so that man feels, understands, and knows - his own power. But while man externally and corporeally has - attained equilibrium and symmetry of form, there heave and - surge in him, viewed as a spiritual being, appetites, desires - and passions. - - “As in the world of crystals we noticed the heaving and surging - of simple energy, and in the vegetable and animal worlds, the - heaving and surging of living forces, so here the heaving and - surging of spiritual forces. Therefore man with reference to - spiritual development has returned to a first stage as crystals - are in a first stage with reference to the development of - life.… For this reason the boy should at an early period be - taught to see Nature in all her diversity as a unit, as a great - living whole, as a thought of God. The integrity of Nature, as - a continually self-developing whole must be shown him at an - early period.”--_E., p. 198._ - -Although this particular passage was written in connection with Nature -Study for older boys, yet it is from thoughts such as these that Froebel -seems to have taken an idea that man-in-infancy ought to meet, if it may -be so expressed, matter-in-infancy. Though everything in the surroundings -was to help to bring about self-consciousness, “the air blowing about all -living creatures, as well as the arousing spiritual language of words,” -yet that definite thing-in-itself, which is to help the child to an early -dim consciousness of self is to be “the counterpart of himself,” a simple -undifferentiated whole “susceptible of a progressive development.” - -And now we must come to the question of Froebel’s “Symbolism,” a thorny -subject, because one into which the personal equation enters largely. -Some writers, notably Miss Susan Blow, author of “Symbolic Education,” -regard this symbolism as all-important, Froebel’s glory rather than his -weakness. Others consider that it appeals to adults alone and that where -it is supposed to affect children it tends towards artificiality and -sentimentality. In so far as this is true, it must be regarded as a weak -point. - -It is, however, not an easy task to settle what ideas are covered by -the term “Froebel’s symbolism.” The dictionary meaning for symbol is -“a visible sign or representation of an idea; anything which suggests -an idea, as by resemblance or convention; an emblem; a representation; -a type; a figure; as the lion is the symbol of courage and the lamb of -meekness or patience.” - -It certainly passes my comprehension how anything can symbolize an -idea not yet acquired, however much it may help in calling up ideas -already more or less clearly gained. The crown may symbolize power to -an adult, but not to the child, who when told that Stephen and Matilda -fought for the crown, innocently inquired: “Couldn’t they have had -another one made?” The Union Jack may symbolize British nationality or -British freedom, or even British Jingoism to adults who already possess -these ideas, but not to a little child. On the other hand, any kind of -celebration appeals to children, as to more primitive people, and to -be allowed to march round the playground on Empire Day carrying a flag -arouses a joyous emotion, which will later be interwoven with patriotic -ideas of various kinds. It is decidedly open to question whether as -regards the child Froebel himself intended much more than this, whatever -his followers may have done. - -Professor Thorndyke gives us to understand that Froebel says a -child plays with a ball because it symbolizes “infinite development -and absolute limitation.” Now it is true that Froebel wrote in his -“Aphorisms”--quoted in a footnote to Hailmann’s “Education of Man”--“The -spherical is the symbol of diversity in unity and of unity in diversity.… -It is infinite development and absolute limitation.” But the “Aphorisms” -were not written for children, and Hailmann quotes the passage in -speaking of Froebel’s philosophical doctrines as to the ultimate nature -of force and matter! - -To Froebel, Spirit is everywhere striving for utterance. The -Universe--the Manifold--is the revelation of one great mind, and -everything in Nature, “though soundless it be to the ear, a message can -give emblematic (sinnbildlich) but clear.” Certainly, he would have the -boy study Nature, “the writing and book of God,” but it is not to the boy -that he says: - - “The works speak, by the form the Spirit manifests itself. By - that which has been produced and created, the nature and spirit - of the producer and creator make themselves known. The world - must therefore necessarily manifest the nature of its original - cause--the spirit of its Creator.” - -For Froebel as for Goethe, the Time Spirit “weaves for God the garment -we see Him by.” He calls “the temporal an expression of the eternal, -the material a manifestation of the spiritual.” He speaks of “the Power -which reveals itself by uniting all things, in Nature in the Universe -as weight, in human life as Love,” and it pleases him to put into the -hand of the boy--in that picture of a family group by which he typifies -Humanity--a ball hanging by a string, and this he calls an emblem or -symbol (Sinnbild). - -There is nothing in all this with which any one need quarrel. Froebel -was assuredly an idealist, but in these days that is no longer a term of -reproach. No one, to whom it does not appeal, need use the suggestion, -but to those of us who believe that right guidance of a child’s delight -in fairy tales is one way of developing his sense of reverence, there is -nothing so very far fetched even in Froebel’s way of trying to bring to -the child’s consciousness, the spirit striving for utterance not only -in every beautiful form, but in everything beautiful as he does in “The -Smell Song.” - -Of fairy tales Froebel says: - - “The child, like the man, would like to know the meaning of - what happens around him. This is the foundation of the Greek - choruses, especially in tragedies. This, too, is the foundation - of many legends and fairy tales, and it is the result of the - deeply-rooted consciousness of being surrounded by that which - is higher and more conscious than ourselves.”--_P., p. 147._ - -So, when the child delights in the scent of the flower, Froebel says to -the mother: “Let your child find in all things a mind, a struggle for -being. Colour form and spicy smell all forthtell the One ruling hand -which called all into existence.” But all she is told to pass on to the -child is only the thought that an angel has put the scent there and is -saying: “The little one does not see me, but without me there would be no -fragrance.” - -Although in one sense the educator of young children need have no -dealings at all with “symbolism,” yet in another, a walking-stick does, -for the boy who bestrides it, symbolize, a horse, as a piece of wood -may symbolize for his little sister the infant whom she may nurse and -caress, with what Froebel calls “the dim and transferred perception of -inner life.” Here Froebel seems quite right, as when in speaking of a -child’s visit to a toyshop he says, “a true child is content with very -little of the outer, he is satisfied by a doll or cart, a whistle or a -sheep, provided only that in or through it he can find his own world and -represent it in actual deeds.”--_M., p. 199._ - -It may be said, too, that there is symbolism in children’s drawings, the -animal or object is symbolized by that which to the child is the most -outstanding characteristic. One small boy drew a camel with a rider so -small that some one protested he could not see over the hump, so the -artist promptly drew a second rider in front. Being asked if he could -draw an elephant, he assented cheerfully and added a trunk to his camel. -By the addition of claws the elephant became a cat, but at that point he -paused, remarking, “It’s not very like a cat, it’s more like a bird,” and -a pair of wings completed the transformations. In like manner by help of -a walking stick a child becomes his own father, and a pair of spectacles -transforms him into his grandmother. But in all such cases the child is -dealing with ideas he has already grasped. - -To say that circle or ring games help a child to gain an idea of -unity--Ring a Ring of Roses may give the first dim idea of corporate -unity--is a very different thing from saying that a circle is to the -child a symbol of unity. This is the kind of thing, however, that -Froebel is supposed to have said, but after careful investigation one -is surprised to find how little there is, and to what extent Froebel’s -disciples and translators seem to have read in their own interpretations. - -For instance, in searching for passages about symbolism, we find in -the English translation of the paper on Movement Plays, a passage -stating that the “Snail Game” forms a frequent conclusion to a “games” -period, because it yields the form of the circle, “which is symbolic of -wholeness.” On comparing this with the original, however, we find that -this phrase is an addition of the translator’s. No doubt she considered -it explanatory, but all that Froebel himself says is that the game -is suitable “because it finally unites all the players in a lively -and completely finished whole.” To practical teachers, who know the -difficulty of getting a number of children to settle down after a game, -this may bear a very different meaning. - -It seems to me that Froebel’s translators have been altogether too fond -of the word “symbolic.” The German words usually translated “symbol” -and “symbolic” are “Sinnbild” and “Vorbild,” with their respective -adjectives. After considering innumerable passages in which these words -occur it seems plain that Froebel’s meaning would often have been -better expressed by “typical,” or by “significant,” and sometimes by -“metaphorical.” - -For instance, it is quite legitimate to say of such perceptions as -Froebel intended a child to gain from his second “Gift”--resistance, -weight, hardness and softness, noise, etc.--that the ball and cube -give, and are only intended to give, “normal, fundamental and _typical_ -perceptions” (nur die normalen, begründenden und vorbildlichen -Anschauungen), and Froebel goes on to say that the same perceptions must -come from many other objects. There is nothing _symbolic_ here, and there -is no reason for using this word. - -That in many passages _significant_ would be a much more correct -translation than symbolic is abundantly evident. Froebel was convinced, -and most people will now agree with him, that there is real meaning or -significance in those activities, which are common to children of all -countries, and this meaning he endeavours to discover. Small blame to him -if, though wonderfully correct on the whole, he sometimes hits upon a -wrong meaning, in which case we are apt to fall back upon that convenient -scapegoat, his symbolism. - -In one of his letters he thanks his cousin for describing to him how she -had watched a tiny child “who quietly let his eye travel from the ball -hanging at the end of its cord, up to the hand which held it,” and he -adds: - - “I am convinced, and I wish that all teachers, and especially - all mothers, shared in the conviction, that the very earliest - phenomena of child-life are _full of symbolic meaning_, that - is to say, they indicate the higher, the intellectual life in - the child and his individual peculiarities at the same time. - Our duty is to search in everything for its ultimate basis, - its point of origin, its well-spring; and to make clear the - connection between the outward manifestation and its inward - cause.”--_L., p. 101._ - -What Froebel deduced from the incident was that the child looks not only -at the appearance of the swinging ball, but for the cause of the swinging -phenomenon, the supporting, moving hand. So it is plain that for “full -of symbolism” we should here read “full of significance.” Or, again, in -his excellent sketch of early boyhood, with its desire to share the work -of the father, its desire to explore, to collect, to construct, etc., -Froebel concludes: - - “Thus it is certain that very many of the boy’s actions have - an inner, an intellectual importance, that they indicate his - mental tendencies and are therefore _symbolical_.”--_E., p. - 118._ - -Here, again, _significant_ would be a better English translation than -_symbolical_. - -Again, in accordance with his belief in instinct, Froebel declares that -it is his “firm conviction that wherever we find anything that gives -children ever freshly a joy belonging to real life there is at the bottom -of it something important for a child’s life.” When he sees that children -often enjoy going to church and joining in the singing at an age when -the words can have no meaning, he says: “All the spontaneous activity of -child-life is _symbolical_ (Sinnbildlich).” But there is not a word of -anything that is ordinarily called “symbolical” in what follows, so far -as the child is concerned. The little one is supposed to have “reached -a new life-stage,” viz. “the dim anticipation that he is not alone in -life, but one amid mankind.” Consequently he is attracted by “assembly -life.” The most ardent believer in symbolism can make little of the very -practical answers the mother is told to give to the child’s questions. -He is to be answered “out of the range of his own experience, feelings -and ideas, his own intellectual development and necessities.” He is to be -told that when he is old enough to go to church, he will not only like to -hear the organ, but will find out “why flowers bloom and birdies sing and -why we still remember Christmas Day.” - -There is another child in the Mother Songs, who wants to visit the -moon, and drags his mother towards the ladder that he may climb up. -According to the translator Froebel says he wants to point out “the -higher symbolical meaning.” But what he says is that one remark presses -itself upon him, how “we ought to cultivate intelligently the child’s -observation of and pleasure in the moon, and in the night sky, and not -let this sink into the formlessness and emptiness of mere wonder.” For -example, it is, he says, quite as easy to tell a child that the moon is a -beautiful bright swimming ball, as to say it is a man; or that the stars -are sparkling suns which look small because they are far away, as to call -them “golden pins,” and he adds “Truth never injures, but error always -does.” - -There are certainly some instances in which Froebel found for the -tendencies and actions of children, a meaning that does not commend -itself to common sense, but as a rule he only “ventures to suggest” -rather than insists, and his practical application is generally -unobjectionable. We assent willingly, when Froebel tells us that -rhythmic movement, passive as well as active, is the earliest beginning -of all ordered activity. But we smile when, in accounting for the -childish interest in clocks, after allowing for the mystery, he goes on: - - “Let me hold the opinion that a deeply slumbering notion of the - importance of time lies at the bottom of the pleasure children - take in playing with a clock.”--_M., p. 139._ - -As he truly and naïvely remarks, “this opinion of mine hurts, as an -opinion, neither the child nor any one else,” and the application may, -even in this instance, be useful as he says it is, viz. that we should -use this pleasure to instil the beginnings of punctuality or law and -order. As an opinion it is not worthy of Froebel’s insight, and we can -only say that instances of this kind are really negligible, though some -have been unnecessarily emphasized by certain Froebelians to whom they -appeal. - -There are, it is true, a few instances which deserve the strictures which -have been heaped up somewhat rashly. It is only put as a question, but -Froebel does say of children’s pleasure in circle games, “May not their -delight spring from the longing and efforts to get an all-round, or -all-sided, grasp of an object?” - -As to metaphor, Froebel delights in this; his bent of mind is to take -pleasure in all analogies, and he suggests that the mother should make -more use of the metaphors implied in ordinary language. For example, he -speaks of “the transferred moral meaning of such words and phrases as -‘_straight_ and _straightforward_,’ and of ‘_walking in crooked paths_.’” -In using little finger plays to give a child control over his hands, -the mother is told to think how important for later life is “the right -handling of things, in the actual as well as in the figurative sense.” -The wise mother is represented as cherishing the child’s love of light -and brightness, saying, “Never shrink away from light”; and while she -shows the picture she says, “Here is a boy who has broken the window and -now he must go a long way to fetch the glazier unless he can content -himself with a dark board that will keep out the dear bright light. You -must not heedlessly stop Light’s entering your heart and mind, for if you -do, you will have to buy it back by trouble and loss of time lest heart -and mind become dark. Open your door and little window to the light.” -Thus she makes the child “see inner things through the outer,” and uses -his pleasure in light to make him hate deeds of darkness. But there is no -harm in all this, the words are used as a clergyman uses the half-dozen -words of his text, as a germ of thought which he cultivates, as a -finger-post pointing the way in which our minds may travel. And Froebel, -like the clergyman, sometimes travels far from the branching of the roads. - -Froebel’s curious attempts at etymology ought perhaps to be mentioned -as a weak point, though they really do not affect his theories, -psychological or educational, one way or another. The ball, as the -child’s first object through which he gains his first perceptions of -solidity, weight, mass, etc., is described as on that account “an image -of the universe” (der B--all ist der Bild des Alles). The thought is -worth having, the pseudo-etymology does not much matter. - -To sum up, then, there is mysticism in Froebel’s writings as addressed -to the adult, and with this no one has any right to quarrel even if it -should not appeal to him or her personally. But an undue preponderance -has been given to this side of Froebel by those to whom it appeals, or -so it seems to me. It does not appeal to me, nor can I perceive that it -affects to any appreciable extent the educational theories based on the -psychological grounds so carefully considered by Froebel. To writers -like Miss Blow, the author of “Symbolic Education,” such a statement -would no doubt seem outrageous. With intellectual people possessed of -Miss Blow’s philosophic insight, children may be safe from artificiality -and sentimentality. But the average teacher is incapable of philosophy, -and when the uncultured mind is supplied with food it cannot digest, -that mind is starved. The teacher who glibly uses phrases which she -does not understand has reached a state of mind immeasurably below -plain ignorance, for it is destructive of honest thought and common -sense.[47] The main business of the Froebelian is to forward the cause -to which Froebel devoted his life “to bring about a more general use of -progressive development in the culture and education of children. We must -throw overboard everything that hampers action and set before ourselves, -as in his day Froebel tells us he attempted to do, the definite task of -“founding anew the practical methods of actual teaching so as to bring -them into satisfactory relation with the needs of our life of to-day.” - - - - -CHAPTER X - -SOME CRITICISMS ANSWERED - - -Professor Adams ends the first chapter of his delightfully witty -“Herbartian Psychology” with a challenge to all educational thinkers to -come out of their caves and defend their idols. Throughout the book, -there is many a side-thrust at Froebel, all of a more or less disparaging -nature, in spite of the humorous twinkle which has a fairly permanent -abode in the eye of the writer. - -Some of the accusations are tolerably sweeping, for example, that -Froebelianism “as a psychology is simply non-existent”; that Froebel -has failed to correlate theory and practice; that although in “The -Education of Man” “we have beautiful, if obscurely expressed, truths -about education,” yet the Kindergarten cannot be evolved from it, in fact -“between the two there is a great gulf fixed, a gulf that Froebel has not -bridged.” - -But the main contention is that Froebel disapproves in theory of any -interference with the natural course of development. The Froebelian -teacher is thus, according to Professor Adams, reduced to the position -of a “humble under-gardener” who merely watches with interest and -admiration, and education becomes “a general paralysis.” - -Mr. Graham Wallas, whose objections to Froebel, or at least to -Froebelianism[48], as he understands it, are well known, bases these on -the ground that because he was a pre-Darwinian evolutionist, Froebel -was bound to overrate the importance of the innate as a factor in -development, and to undervalue the other factor of environment. - -Professor O’Shea disposes of Froebel in one sentence and in much the same -way, as an advocate of what he calls “the doctrine of Unfoldment,” where -“everything is inner and self-relating,” as opposed to the conception -gained from Biology, which “implies that the business of a human being is -to get properly related to the world--religious, social and physical--of -which he is an integral part.” - -If Froebel really believed that development is entirely from within, as -stated by Professor O’Shea, or if he failed to realize the importance of -the surroundings, as Mr. Graham Wallas expresses it, he would naturally -disapprove of any interference, as Professor Adams says he does. The -Froebelian, being thus reduced to passive watching, the mere provision -of a Kindergarten would be an interference with the surroundings and -a contradiction in practice of the theory of non-interference. If -non-interference is really the theory propounded in “The Education of -Man,” there certainly is a gulf between it and the Kindergarten, a gulf -it would be difficult to bridge. - -But Froebelians are not prepared to admit the premises of any of these -critics. It seems to many of us that these and all similar criticisms -are due to misunderstanding. This is sometimes clearly due to careless -reading, and consequent want of attention to the context, but even -where this is not the case, misunderstandings occur. Few, of late -years, have made any real study of Froebel’s writings as a whole, such -as is necessary to get at his real meaning, which is often obscured -by prolixities and repetitions, and sometimes hidden among apparent -trivialities. - -Professor O’Shea, for example, does not seem to be aware to what extent -Froebel, like himself, derived his educational aim and principles -from biology. He has probably never realized the deep interest taken -by Froebel in the then all-absorbing question of natural development. -Clearly he has no idea that Froebel has given expression to a conception -of education, practically identical with that given above which he -himself draws from biology,[49] and sets in contrast with the one he -unjustly attributes to Froebel. - -There is no doubt whatever that Froebel laid much stress on what is -innate. In his generation, he tells us the child was looked upon “as a -piece of wax, or lump of clay, which man can mould into what he pleases.” -Because Froebel was a student of biology he knew better. He knew, as -we have seen, that human beings have instincts, innate tendencies or -dispositions differing from those of the lower animals chiefly in their -indefiniteness. We are not so afraid of the word “innate” nowadays, -when both innate ideas and innate faculties are safely buried, and that -Froebel had no dealings with these has been amply shown. - -But that this stress on innate tendencies implies that the child is to -unfold from within, the educator standing by passive[50], or that Froebel -imagined that the developing process could go on with little or no -reference to the environment, is quite another matter. - -Few of Froebel’s critics have taken the trouble to look up the original -German before pronouncing condemnation, and this explains part of the -injustice that has been done to him. The passage upon which much, perhaps -most, of the adverse criticism is based is the one in which Froebel -applies to education the term “leidend,” translated “passive” in both the -English, or, rather, American editions of “The Education of Man.” The -translation of “leidend” as “passive” is not a happy one. Moreover, the -translators have endeavoured to help the reader by dividing the text into -numbered sections, a proceeding which though often helpful, sometimes -tends to break the continuity of Froebel’s thought. This effect is -heightened in Hailmann’s translation by the interpolated notes, however -valuable as some of these are in themselves. This passage, however, opens -with “_therefore_,” and those who take exception to it ought to have -considered the preceding argument. Fair criticism looks back to see why -and under what circumstances education is to be “passive or following,” -as opposed to “dictating and limiting.” - -In the first place, absolutely passive education is a contradiction in -terms. Froebel begins by stating that: - - “Education consists in leading man as a thinking, intelligent - being, growing into self-consciousness, to a pure, conscious - and free representation of the law of his being, and in - teaching him ways and means thereto.” - -He defines the _Theory of Education_ as “the system of directions derived -from the knowledge and study of that law to guide human beings in the -apprehension of their life-work”; and the _Practice of Education_ as -“the self-active application of this knowledge in the direct development -and cultivation of rational beings towards the attainment of their -destiny.” - -To go on from this to say, on the next page but one, that the educator is -to do nothing, to stand aside and be truly passive, would be absurd. - -That our word “passive” is not the equivalent of Froebel’s word -“leidend,” is easily proved, for in another passage where Froebel does -mean “passive” he couples “leidend” with “inactive,” and puts passive -in a bracket beside it. The passage runs: “wo das Kind äusserlich als -unthätig, leidend (passiv) erscheint.” In the passage under discussion -“passiv” does not appear at all, and “leidend” is coupled, not with -“inactive,” but with “following,” and is contrasted with “dictating, -limiting and interfering.”[51] - -A few lines further we read how the gardener may even destroy the vine -“if he fail _in his work_ passively and attentively to follow the nature -of the plant.” He cannot surely “work” and be inactively passive at the -same time. - -A more correct translation of “leidend” here would perhaps be “tolerant” -or “suffering” in its old sense of “permitting,” “bearing with,” or -having patience with. - -As to immediate context, Froebel has just stated that education ought “to -lift man to a knowledge of himself and mankind, to a knowledge of God -and Nature, and to the pure and consecrated life conditioned thereby.” -“But,” he goes on, “education must be founded on what is essential or -innermost, and though the real nature of things can only be known by -outer manifestations, yet it behoves the educator to be very careful -how he judges, for the child that appears good outwardly, is often not -really good, i.e. does not will the good from his own determination, or -from love, respect for or recognition of it,” while “the outwardly rough -self-willed child often has within him a vigorous struggle to do what -seems to him right.” Judging from outer manifestations furnishes constant -occasion for false judgments concerning the motives of children, for -endless misunderstanding between parent and child, and for unreasonable -demands made upon children. - -And here comes the force of the conjunction: “_Therefore_,” says Froebel, -“education, instruction and training in their fundamental principles -must necessarily be tolerant, following, not dictating, not limiting or -defining, not interfering.” - -What is it, then, that Froebel is telling us to follow almost passively, -interfering, in our ignorance, as little as possible? Simply the natural -order of development, the natural instincts of childhood, which in this -very passage he is arguing are as trustworthy as those of other young -animals. Here, as everywhere, man can only control Nature _by following_, -by obeying her laws. - - “As the duckling hastens to the pond and the chicken scratches - the ground, so will the human being, still young, still, as it - were, in the process of creation, though as unconsciously as - any Nature product, yet definitely and surely desire what is - best for him. We give plants and animals time and space and - freedom to develop, but the young human being is to man a piece - of wax, a lump of clay, from which he can mould what he will. O - man, who roamest through garden and field, through meadow and - grove, why dost thou close thy mind to the silent teaching of - Nature?”--_E., p. 8._ - -Surely we have here a plea to “suffer (leiden) little children,” to -bear with the little one, still, as Froebel describes him, “still, as -it were, in the process of creation,” nay, more, a plea for the actual -recognition and fostering of these instinctive tendencies which Professor -Dewey calls “the foundation-stones of educational method,” rather than -a recommendation to “gratify every youthful impulse,” or to stand aside -altogether. For the context, the whole, is not yet complete. - -Froebel goes on to say that if we are certain of any tendency to -unhealthy development we are to interfere with full severity (so tritt -geradezubestimmende, fordernde Erziehungsweise in ihrer ganzen Strenge -ein). - -And now comes a sentence apparently quite overlooked by Mr. Graham -Wallas, who blames Froebel for underestimating the environment. In the -mean-time, until we are sure that our interference is justifiable, -“nothing is left for us to do but to bring the child into relations and -surroundings in all respects adapted to him.”[52]--_E., p. 11._ - -In many other passages Froebel shows plainly that he had no thought of -the “gratifying of every youthful impulse” in the sense of individual -caprice. - -In his plea for monetary help to establish Kindergartens and training -establishments connected with them, he complains that in existing -institutions children are either “repressed and their energies crippled, -_or else we are confronted with the wild and uncontrollable character -which results when children are uncared for and are left altogether to -their own impulses_.”--_L., p. 159._ - -“Life has no room for wilfulness and whims,” he says in his Mother Songs; -“Boyhood is the age of Discipline” he states in “The Education of Man.” -But, as he himself sums up this discussion: - - “All true education is double-sided, prescribing and following, - active and passive, positive yet giving scope, firm and - yielding.… Between educator and pupil should rule invisibly a - third something to which both are equally subject. The third - something is the right, the best … the child, the pupil has a - very keen apprehension whether what father or teacher requests - is personal and arbitrary or the expression of general law and - necessity.”--_E., p. 14._ - -The proof of whether or not the educator has succeeded in rightly -adjusting the claims of freedom and authority, Froebel expresses in words -recalling Kant’s, “When the ‘Thou Shalt’ of the Law becomes the ‘I will’ -of the doer, then we are free.” - - “In good education, in genuine instruction, in true teaching, - necessity must and will call forth freedom, law will call forth - self-determination, and outer compulsion inner free-will. - - “Where necessity produces bondage, where law brings fraud - and crime, and outer compulsion causes slavery, there every - effect of education is destroyed. There oppression destroys and - debases, severity and harshness bring obstinacy and deceit, and - the burden is more than can be borne.”--_E., p. 14._ - -To emphasize the fact that Froebel did realize the importance of -environment, and to anticipate the criticism that this shortened -rendering is an interpretation in the light of modern educational -theories, of Froebel’s somewhat cumbrous phrases, we can turn to a -passage in his later writing, part of which has been quoted elsewhere: - - “Through the child’s efforts to repel that which is contrary to - the needs of his life, indignation and discontent are awakened; - and on the other hand, from the fact that his normal desires - are ungratified, they become inordinate and mischievous. How - may parents avoid these evil results? Most satisfactorily - through a threefold yet single glance at life. Let them look - into themselves, and their own course of development and its - requirements, let them recall their own earliest years, then - later stages of development, and look deeply into their present - life. Next, let them look equally deeply into the life of - the child and what he must require for his present stage of - development. Having scrutinized what the child needs, _let them - scrutinize his environment_, and first observe what it offers - and does not offer for the fulfilment of such requirements. - Let them utilize all offered possibilities of meeting normal - needs; and when such needs cannot be met, let them recognize - this fact, and show the child plainly the impossibility of - their fulfilment. Finally, let them clearly recognize whatever - _in the child’s environment_ tends to awaken antagonism and - discontent, remove it if it be removable, and admit its defect - if it be not removable.”[53]--_P., p. 167._ - -It is, of course, true that Froebel was pre-Darwinian in time, but it is -equally true that he was post-Darwinian in many of his beliefs. - -To find out whether or not his educational doctrines are really based -on false or exploded theories of development, as the Criticism of Mr. -Graham Wallas implies, we must gather together from Froebel’s various -writings, his most important references to the subject. - -The key-note to his interest in it lies probably in the yearning for -unity and union in all relations, which was a part of his individuality. -This may have dated back to the time when, a puzzled little mortal of -eight or nine years old, he was most unwisely allowed to hear his father -exhorting and rebuking his parishioners. It seemed to the boy that most -of the trouble arose from the fact that human beings, and human beings -alone, so far as he knew, were divided into two sexes, and he felt that -he would have arranged matters differently. Comfort came to him when his -older brother, by showing him the male and female flower of the hazel, -gave him some idea of a great law of Nature. Strange comfort, too, it -seems, for a boy not yet ten years old! - -The late Mr. Ebenezer Cooke pointed out long ago[54] that Mr. Graham -Wallas had not only overshot the mark in saying that “Darwin transferred -the cause of development from within to without,” but that he had himself -failed to draw any distinction between the facts of development, as -seen in the individual, and the theory of the origin or development -of species, which we associate with the names of Darwin and Wallace. -Mr. Cooke pointed to Froebel’s connection with Batch, the founder of a -Natural History Society, of which Goethe was a member, as showing that -he was in direct touch with those who were working out the theory of -development of the individual. - -Froebel himself refers to this Natural History Society in his -Autobiography, saying that “students,” of whom he was one, “who had -shown living interest and done active work in Natural Science,” were -invited to become members, and that this awoke within him “a yearning -towards higher scientific knowledge.” At this time Froebel was but a -youth of seventeen, with no idea that education was to be his life work. -Three years later, he meets a private tutor, “a young man quite out of -the common, with actively inquiring mind,” who was “especially fond of -making comprehensive schemes of education.” The year after this we find -him reading what he can of anthropology and history, and saying of his -reading: “It taught me of man in his broad historical relations and set -before me the general life of my kind as one great whole.” - -One year more, and while he is looking for a situation with an -architect--in spite of uneasy communing with himself as to how -architecture was to be used “for the culture and ennoblement of -mankind”--Grüner claps him on the shoulder with “Give up architecture, it -is not your vocation at all! Become a teacher.” - -It is perhaps because Froebel passed thus from interest in biology to -interest in education that at this time he gives to his own question, -What is the purpose of education?--almost the identical answer that -Professor O’Shea puts into the mouth of his biologist[55], and which he -sets in opposition to Froebel’s supposed opinions: - - “In answering the question, What is the purpose of education? - I relied at that time on the following observations: Man lives - in a world of objects, which influence him and which he desires - to influence; therefore he ought to know these objects in - their nature, in their conditions and in their relations with - each other and with mankind.… I sought, to the extent of such - powers as I consciously possessed at that time, to make clear - to myself the meaning of all things through man, his relations - with himself, and with the external world … it seemed to me - that everything which should or could be required for human - education must be necessarily conditioned and given, by virtue - of the very nature of the necessary course of his development, - in man’s own being and in the relations amidst which he is set. - A man, it seemed to me, would be well educated when he had been - trained to care for these relationships and to acknowledge - them, to master them and to survey them.”--_A., p. 69._ - -In the very beginning, then, of his educational career, Froebel -emphasized rather than overlooked “the relationships amidst which man is -set,” but he was to learn more yet about development. - -Six years later he is back at a university, and “just at this time,” he -says, “those great discoveries of the French and English philosophers -became generally known through which the great manifold external world -was seen to form a comprehensive outer world.” - -The English writer may have been Erasmus Darwin. The French writer was -no doubt Lamarck, to whom belongs “the immortal glory of having for the -first time worked out the theory of Descent as an independent scientific -theory of the first order and as the philosophical foundation of the -whole science of Biology.” - -From some such source, at any rate, Froebel must have gained -“the key-note of development,” viz., that it is always from the -undifferentiated to the differentiated. We have already seen that he -applied this to mental development and so gained his modern conception -of the earliest infant consciousness, “an undifferentiated unorganized -unity.” - -In “The Education of Man” he speaks of - - “the all-pervading law of Nature according to which the general - gives rise to the particular,”--_E., p. 167._ - -and in the Mother Songs he says: - - “Whether we are looking at a seed or an egg, whether we - are watching feeling or thought, what is definite proceeds - everywhere from what is indefinite.”--_M., p. 121._ - -Or, again: - - “In the child as in the grain of seed, there begins a - development proceeding towards complexity.”--_P., p. 172._ - -Such quotations fully exonerate Froebel from belief in any -“pre-formation” theory, whether physical or mental, as indeed Mr. Cooke -made abundantly plain. - -It is in one of his later papers[56] that Froebel generalizes and states -very plainly how everything is developed under the influence of its -environment. - - “Taking Nature as our guide, let us endeavour to find the - essential nature of material objects and the conditions under - which this develops, for the process of development shows the - essence of the developing object. - - “_Firstly_, each thing and each object manifesting existence - and life, develops itself in accordance with the highest and - simplest, the general laws of life. Thus everything manifests - these laws and their primeval cause. - - “_Secondly_, each thing and each object in Nature develops - itself according to its own individuality and the laws of its - being. - - “_Thirdly_, everything in Nature develops itself under the - collective influence of all things. If any object seems to be - withdrawn from this collective influence, such withdrawal is - only mediate.… - - “In Nature, and in everything, all things develop as members - of the world-whole, the universal life, as members of a whole, - each perfect in its kind, because each, while standing in - the centre of the collective influence streaming upwards and - inwards--nay, in a certain sense, as the receiver, yielding - itself to this influence--yet also acts (as assimilative and - formative) and develops itself, faithful to the indwelling - laws of life universal and particular. We must see clearly the - conditions of perfect development in Nature, and then employ - them in human life. Thus only can we help man to attain, - upon the plane of human development--which means spiritual - development--a degree of perfection corresponding to that which - the forms and types of Nature show upon the plane of physical - development.”--_P., p. 196._ - -When child development is in question, far from minimising, as he is -supposed to do, the importance of environment, parents and teachers are -told: - - “We must hold fast for consideration in life this fact, that - in the spontaneous occupation and playing of the child, not - the germ only, but the growing point of his life also, is - formed _in union with his surroundings, and under their silent - unremarked influence_ (im Vereine mit der Umgebung und unter - deren stillen unbemerkten Einwirkung).”--_P., p. 108._ - -Or, again: - - “As the new-born child, like a ripe grain of seed dropped from - the mother plant has life in itself, and as it spontaneously - develops life _in progressive connection with the common - life whole_; so activity and action are the first phenomena - of his awakening life. This activity bears the impress of - what is innermost, it is an inner activity whose purpose is - manifestation of the inner through the outer, and, as leading - up to this, devoted to consideration of and working with the - outer to penetrating the outer and overcoming hindrances as - such.”--_P., p. 23._ - -This account surely makes plain, that whatever Froebel may have believed -with regard to the origin of species, he in no way believed that -development in general was a one-sided process, in which the environment -went for nothing. - -In his “Criticism,” Mr. Graham Wallas remarked: “Whoever divorced his -educational system from his philosophy, would have seemed to Froebel to -have taken all force and meaning out of his work.” This is most true, and -it approaches absurdity to attribute so limited a view to a man imbued as -Froebel was with the philosophical doctrine of the reconciliation of the -opposites.[57] That all development was the result of a harmony between -opposites was one of his cardinal doctrines. - -“We are living in an age,” he writes, “when we are consciously under a -law of development acting by the reconciliation of opposites.” - -Mr. Hailmann gives a long footnote where Froebel is quoted as comparing -his idea of the law of connection or unification with the ideas of Fichte -and Hegel, and saying: - - “It is both of these, and yet has nothing in common with either - of them; it is the law which the contemplation of Nature has - taught me.… And where do we find absolute contrasts that have - not somewhere and somehow a connection? In action and reaction - the contrasts that we see everywhere give rise to the motions - in the universe as they do in the smallest organism. This - implies for all development a struggle which however sooner - or later will find its adjustment; and this adjustment is the - connection of contrasts.”--_E., p. 42._ - -What Froebel knew of Hegel’s philosophy was probably gained from -discussions among his friends, for in the hearing of Madame von -Marenholz, he said, “I do not know how Hegel formulates and applies this -law, for I have had no time for the study of his system,” and he went -on to say of “the philosophical systems of others” that “most of them -belong to a theory of the world that is passing away, whose one-sidedness -becomes more apparent every day” (Reminiscences, 225). Ebers, too, speaks -of Froebel’s ideas as opposed to those of Hegel. - -Even Mr. Graham Wallas allows that Froebel’s casual references to the -development of species are “surprisingly modern.” No orthodox views as -to the exact date of the creation of the world keep him from accepting -the newly discovered testimony of the rocks as to “the remains of -perished ages.” Ardent as his religious convictions were, they had a -philosophic width unusual indeed in his day. The Garden of Eden is to -him a parable, repeated “in the experience of every child from the time -of his appearance on earth to the time when he consciously (by the help -of names) beholds himself in beautiful Nature spread out before him.” In -each child he sees “repeated at a later period, the deed which marks the -beginning of moral and human emancipation, of the dawn of reason.” - -He refers calmly to - - “the fall, or, since the result is the same, the ascent of - the mind of man, from simple, uniform, emotional development, - into the development of externally analytic and critical - reason.”--_E., p. 194._ - -Not Stanley Hall himself insists more that the development of the -individual shall follow the development of the race, and this in 1826, -two years before Baer, and four years before Comte, to whom Herbert -Spencer attributed the doctrine. “Humanity,” he says, “lives only in its -continuous development.” - - “Each successive generation and each successive individual - human being, inasmuch as he would understand the past and - present, must pass through all preceding phases of human - development and culture, and this should not be done in the way - of dead imitation or mere copying, but in the way of living - spontaneous self-activity.”--_E., p. 18._ - -There is certainly no ground for assuming that Froebel held any such -pre-Darwinian views as a special creation of each species, for there -is no point on which he insists more emphatically than that in Nature -development is continuously progressive. - - “In God’s world, just because it is God’s world, by Him - created, one thing constant is expressed to which we give the - name of unbroken progression of development in all and through - all.”[58]--_M., p. 154._ - - “God neither ingrafts nor inoculates, He develops the most - trivial and imperfect things in continuously ascending - series and in accordance with eternal self-grounded and - self-developing laws.”--_E., p. 328._ - -Mr. Winch makes merry over Froebel’s sentence: - - “As Man and Nature have one origin, they must be subject to the - same laws,” - -and remarks that “this conception is almost completely given up.… Our -view now rather is one in which God and Nature are at strife, in which -the ethical interest overcomes Nature.…” - -But Froebel is far ahead of this. The great law to him is the Law of -Development to which Man and Nature, which includes Man, are subject. The -ethical interest is not, as Mr. Winch intimates, something transcending -Nature, but is itself evolved. Morality, Froebel distinctly tells us, is -“rooted” in Instinct, and “human development means spiritual development.” - -Professor O’Shea says of the doctrine of Unfoldment which he attributes -to Froebel that it “regards man on his spiritual side as an entity set -apart from everything in the universe.”[59] - -Froebel, however, writes: - - “Difficult, very difficult, would it be to define where the - purely physical ends and the purely intellectual begins. It - is precisely on account of this close welding or flowing into - one another of the Physical and Psychical, the bodily and - mental, the material and spiritual, the vital (des Vitalen) - and intellectual, instinct and morality; it is because of - this rooting of the higher in the lower that the training - and ennobling of the senses, such as smell and taste, are so - important.”--_M., p. 183._ - -“Training and ennobling,” these words bring us back to the educational -doctrines Froebel based upon what he knew of development, physical and -mental, from whatever source he may have gained his information. - -“From the beginning of the Darwinian reconstruction of the moral -sciences,” says Mr. Graham Wallas, “it was absurd, while speaking -of ‘environment,’ to ignore the fact that the deliberate care and -contrivance of the parent must form a large part of the environment of -the child.” Undoubtedly. - -But it was because Froebel exalted “the deliberate care and contrivance -of the parent” that he wrote “The Education of Man,” to tell his -generation how best to care and contrive. It was because he realized -that this deliberate care and contrivance must begin from the very first -that he wrote his Mother Songs. He tells the mother here that “if she is -wise, in all she does a noble meaning lies”; that she must “do nothing -aimlessly or she’ll create a child she cannot educate.” He tells her that -it is “by watching what makes the child’s eyes bright, that she will know -how best to give delight,” and that she must “seek to strengthen power -and mind in all things.” - -In very truth the Kindergarten itself, with all its imperfections, is -nothing more nor less than an attempt to supply that very environment -which its founder is supposed to undervalue--an attempt to foster, -by providing suitable conditions, those innate tendencies or natural -activities, to which Froebel attached infinite importance. - -This is why the discovery of the name Kindergarten gave Froebel the -pleasure expressed in his cry, “Eureka, I have it! Kindergarten shall be -its name.” The original designation contained the actual words “through -the culture of the instinct for activity, inquiry and creation, inherent -in man,” but this original title spreads over several lines of print. -“Garden” to Froebel expresses just what he wanted, “As in a garden under -God’s favour, and _by the care of a skilled, intelligent gardener_, -growing plants are cultivated in accordance with Nature’s laws, so here, -in our child-garden, shall the noblest of all growing things, _men_ -(that is, children, the germs and shoots of humanity), be cultivated in -accordance with the laws of their own being, of God and of Nature.”--_L., -p. 161._ - -This is why he urges on his pupil, Ida Seele, to retain the name in spite -of the prejudices it aroused. It is to her that he writes: - - “Is there really such importance underlying the mere name of - a system?--some one might ask. Yes, there is: … It is true - that any one carefully watching your teaching would observe - a new spirit … you would strike him as personally capable, - nay, as extremely capable, but you would fail to strike him - as priestess of the idea, and of the struggle towards the - realization of the idea--education by development--the destined - means of raising the whole human race. For, after all, what do - we mean by ‘Kindergarten’?… No man can acquire fresh knowledge - beyond the measure which his own mental strength and stage - of development fits him to receive. But little children have - no development at all.… Infant schools are nothing but a - contradiction of child nature. Little children ought not to be - _schooled_ and taught, they merely need to be developed. It is - the pressing need of our age, and only the idea of a garden can - serve to show us symbolically the proper treatment of children. - This idea lies in the very name of a Kindergarten. … How much - better had you been able to call your work by its proper name, - and to make evident by that expression, the real nature of the - new spirit you have introduced.”--_L., p. 290._ - -There is no gulf between the Kindergarten, and “The Education of Man,” -with its appeal to educators to follow instead of interfering with -Nature’s methods, to foster instead of repressing the “instincts of -activity and of construction,” to foster play, which though “merely -natural life,” yet holds “the seed leaves of all later life.” - -Froebel’s gardener is “skilled and intelligent,” and a skilled gardener -is supposed to have scientific knowledge of his plants, of the conditions -of soil, exposure, etc., best suited to them. Professor Adams says that -“to call a child a plant does not advance matters much, and it certainly -does not account for the use of the cubes, spheres and such like.” This, -however, it does most certainly if these cubes and spheres are the right -food material for the child’s mind, as Froebel at any rate believed. - -All the employments of the Kindergarten, all the varied materials, -the sand and clay, the pencil and paint brush, the building blocks, -cardboard, sawdust, moss, nut-shells, etc., for constructive or -“representative” play are definitely mentioned and definitely commended -in “The Education of Man.” They are commended because they are the -employments and the material which children everywhere find for -themselves; because Froebel had sufficient knowledge of biology to know -that instinctive action must somehow benefit the individual and the race; -and also because he had psychological insight enough to see that by such -activities children gain not merely skill, but clear ideas and “firmness -of will.” - -Professor Adams writes: “Not Philosophy, but common sense, experience -and loving observation, have led Froebel and his followers to adopt -certain apparatus and certain methods, which are excellent in themselves, -and which in capable hands produce admirable results. For this he -deserves all the honour that has been heaped upon him--but he has not -explained John.” - -True enough, Froebel has not explained, at least, he has not entirely -explained that charming John, the Professor’s own creation and type -of all our children. Who has? Still, by his efforts as a pioneer in -genetic psychology--the result of his belief that “only by the study -of development in ourselves and others, can we learn to understand the -child”--and by the two sketches so full of insight into child-life and -into boy life, which he has given us in “The Education of Man,” surely -Froebel has done at least his share even in explaining John. - -No doubt he learnt much from “loving observation.” Nor does he undervalue -it, but, in his case, the observation was induced by the Philosophy, as -well as by the love. For, as he tells us, “it is a necessary part of -me to be irresistibly driven to search out the ultimate cause of every -fact in life, to discover its roots.” He learned much from watching both -mothers and children, but he says: - - “What natural mother wit and human common sense left to - themselves, have been doing by chance and piece-meal, ought now - to be brought forward by a thoughtful mind, its foundation, - connections and deeper meaning recognized, that it may be - improved upon by clever and kindly thought.”--_M., p. 147._ - -An education which “follows” needs shown by the child, which “follows” -the laws of development, physical and mental, as far as these can be -discovered from history, from introspection, and from observation -of children in general and of “each individual child,” that is the -“patiently following” education which Froebel puts before us as an ideal. -“For,” he says: - - “By the full application of the latter method of education, the - prescribing and interfering, we should wholly lose the sure, - steady and progressive development of mankind, which is the - ultimate aim and object of all education.”--_E., p. 10._ - - NOTE.--The foregoing chapter was written some years ago, but in - 1912 there appeared a fresh criticism of Froebel and his work - in many ways more adequate than certain others. It appeared - as an Introduction to a new translation of “The Education of - Man” and of some of Froebel’s lesser writings, by Dr. Fletcher - and Professor Welton. In this introduction, important points - are granted, for example, that Froebel had “grasped the vital - principle that all true development, and consequently all true - education, is a self-directed process--that purpose is the - key-note of human culture and advance. It was the emphasis - which he laid upon this which makes Froebel one of the princes - of education and gives him an enduring place in the history - of thought.” Or again, that Froebel’s teaching is “not the - negation of all human constraint,” but that he sees clearly - that “constraint is necessary to train the will to resist - impulse and follow purpose”; that with Froebel “Discipline must - direct instinctive impulse, not simply oppose and thwart it.” - Unfortunately, however, the writers of the book do not seem to - have grasped the idea of the Kindergarten as an Institution - which had this very end in view, and the second part of the - book which is called “The Kindergarten,” never mentions its - essential features. So we have the familiar statement that - between the Kindergarten and “The Education of Man” a gulf is - fixed, a statement which has been already discussed. And we are - also told that Froebel attracts us “by his very vagueness.” - But Keilhau and Helba and the real Kindergarten are none of - them vague. That Froebel attributed too much importance to his - Gifts and occupations most of us will readily allow, but that - the forms of expression set forth in the Helba plan are to be - regarded as merely additions to the Gifts is impossible seeing - that the plan for Helba is dated 1829. Besides, all such work - had already been very much in evidence at Keilhau (See _p. v_, - Preface), and the Gifts and Occupations were an attempt to - provide in a similar manner for children very much younger, and - as materials are only such as children find for themselves. We - claim that Froebel himself is the best interpreter of his own - invention, the Kindergarten, and we are content to abide by his - own definition of it: _An Institution for the cultivation of - the life of mankind through fostering the impulse to activity, - investigation and construction in the child; an institution - for the self-instruction, for self-education of mankind - through play, that is creative self-activity and spontaneous - self-instruction_. - - - - -APPENDIX I - -ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD “ACTIVITY” - - -Professor Stout is particularly definite in his use of the word -“activity,” and as he agrees with Mr. Bradley, from whom he quotes “that -the current use of the word activity in the literature of philosophy is -a scandal,” it may be well to inquire here whether Froebel used the word -loosely or with some degree of definiteness. - -Professor Stout considers the word “activity” specially appropriate to -cases “in which the return of a causal process upon itself is especially -prominent or important.” He quotes from Mr. Bradley again that “Activity -seems to be self-caused change. A transition that begins with, and comes -out of the thing itself is the process where we feel that it is active.” -“Thus,” Mr. Stout comments, “the life and growth of organisms are -specially appropriate examples of activity; for such processes are in a -large measure immanent or self-determining.” - -The first point that suggests itself is that in the majority of cases, -Froebel may perhaps be said to have avoided the difficulty by his -constant reference not only to activity but to “self-activity,” a word -associated with the name of Froebel closely as his very shadow. - -In the second place, we do find Froebel very markedly referring to the -self-determining activity of organisms, in a passage where he is trying -to show that all instruction should start from the child’s own desire -and power of will. He says that the mother--grounding her instruction -in her child’s desire to write to the absent father--acts like the -sun, “whose warmth awakens in every grain of seed, life, impulse, -power, self-activity, self-determination” (die Triebe, die Kraft, die -Selbstthätigkeit und Selbstbestimmung).[60] - -It is Froebel’s peculiarity that he brings his philosophical conceptions -into the veriest details, and so even in speaking of how the mother may -make a ball represent a springing kitten, etc., and saying that to the -child the ball is “the uniting object,” yet, he says, considering the -plays as proceeding from the child (vom Kinde aus), “all activity, though -mediated (vermittelt) by the ball, proceeds definitely from the child, -and though going through the ball, refers back again to the child, who is -himself a unit.” - -There is a particular passage which suggests that there existed a special -definite idea in Froebel’s mind in regard to the word “activity,” and it -is one which presents a difficulty to an ordinary and unphilosophical -mind, though a possible light is thrown upon it by Mr. Bradley’s -definition. In this passage activity (Thätigkeit) is very distinctly -given as something higher than impulse (Triebe). - -The working of the primeval Cause, “the uniting,” is called, Froebel -says, “according to the different stages in development, Force, Impulse, -Life, Life-impulse, Activity” (Wirken, Trieb, Leben, Lebenstrieb, -Thätigkeit). - -This placing of activity so high in the scale is at least no accident, -and conscious self-determination is constantly attributed to man as “the -most perfect earthly being,” and to man alone. - -Mr. Stout proceeds to examine the conception of self-determining process, -with special reference to changes within the sphere of an individual -consciousness, taking as the most convenient point of departure, such -illustrative analogies as come from the physical world, and beginning -with the simplest form of self-determination, the law of inertia.[61] - -“Conscious life,” he says, “is always in some degree self-sustaining, -this indeed is an indispensable part of the connotation of all such words -as activity, endeavour, conation, effort, striving, will, attention. -All such terms imply that the process to which they refer, tends by its -intrinsic nature in a certain direction, or toward a certain end.” - -Now the word “endeavour” or “effort” (Streben) is a word Froebel -constantly uses in speaking of a child’s activity, and he does more than -merely “imply” that this process “tends in a certain direction, or toward -a certain end” when he affirms that “In every activity, in every deed of -man, and of the smallest child, an aim is expressed.” - -Professor Stout goes on to say that in conscious states we can always -distinguish between determination from within and from without, and -“it is a point of vital significance that this distinction coincides -with that between mental activity and mental passivity.”[62] With -mental passivity Froebel has but few dealings, if indeed he has any. -There is one passage in which he uses the word passive (passiv); this, -however, merely states that the child, in accommodating himself to his -surroundings, may outwardly appear inactive or passive, but only in -order to have more scope for his inner activity (wo es äusserlich als -unthätig, leidend [passiv] erscheint … um so seiner innern Thätigkeit -mehr Spielraum zu verschaffen). - -From what he does say there is little doubt but that Froebel would -willingly have subscribed to Professor Stout’s dictum, “that to be -mentally active is identical with being mentally alive or awake,[63] -though in degree the activity may shade off gradually from that -“involving a sense of strain, to that of almost passivity.” But just as -Professor Stout rejects the idea of purely passive consciousness, so, -too, does he reject “pure” mental activity. “It is impossible to find -any bit of mental process which is determined purely from within.”[64]… -“At the same time it is equally true that no change within is entirely -determined from without.”[65] Mr. Stout does not say that pure -activity--a purely self-determined process--cannot exist, for “we should, -by parity of reasoning, be bound to reject the second law of motion.”[66] -“But it rests,” he says, “with the advocates of pure activity, if there -are such, to adduce a case of it, and until such a case is brought -forward we must assume that there is none.… No portion of matter can be, -even for a moment, outside the sphere of influence of other portions.” - -We have seen that Mr. O’Shea practically accuses Froebel of being an -“advocate of pure activity,”[67] nor is he the only one of Froebel’s -critics who does so. If, however, it be considered an accident that -Froebel should in one passage put “conscious self-determination” at the -highest point of life development, and in another passage give this place -to “activity” which Mr. Bradley and Mr. Stout tell us is to be regarded -as self-determined, is it also an accident that in the very same passage -Froebel should state that “everything in Nature develops and forms itself -under the total collective influence of all other things”? - -If these correspondences are not accidental, then it must be allowed in -the first place that Froebel attached a fairly definite meaning to the -word “activity,” including self-determination in its connotation; and in -the second place that the grounds on which he is charged with being a -believer in “pure activity” are very insufficient. When Mr. Stout says -that even if it is allowable “as an illustrative hypothesis” to regard -the physical universe as an internally complete system,[68] it is clear -that “the stream of individual consciousness is no such self-contained -unit,” but “the merest fragment of universal reality, as its correlated -brain process is the merest fragment of the material world[69]”; is -this anything but a statement of that unity, on which Froebel insists -in season and out of season--which appears on almost every page of -his writings, so that the word has become the veriest “cant” of the -half-trained Kindergarten teacher[70]. - -The philosophic conception of unity, the belief that there is no -separation in either world, physical or psychical, or between either -world, was always present to Froebel’s mind. “In Nature,” he writes, -“every phenomenon has its sufficient foundation and its necessary -consequence.” But as every philosopher would say, so Froebel said, -“Separation is permitted for the observing, thinking and comparing -intellect, and the outwardly representing life, and is indeed required by -it, but must by no means on that account be permitted to appear in the -mind which is intended to grasp and constantly to retain in its original -inner union, that which is outwardly apparently separated by the thinking -intellect, the reason and the life.”[71] So Professor Münsterberg, -writing as a professed scientist, says, “Science is to me, not a mass -of disconnected information, … but the certainty that nothing can exist -outside the gigantic mechanism of causes and effects, but Science is not -and cannot be, and ought never to try to be, an expression of ultimate -reality.”[72] - -It would never have dawned on Froebel, nor would it have appealed to -him, to separate his philosophy from his science, but there is no -more contradiction in Froebel’s “self-activity” which is influenced -from without, than there is in Professor Stout when he speaks of -self-determination as included in the connotation of “activity,” and adds -that until a case of “pure activity” is brought forward, we must assume -that there is none. - -Of all his “means of play,” Froebel says: - - “In order, therefore, on the one hand to introduce the child - to the handling of his play material, we gave him the ball, … - but each of these means of play summons the child in return - to self-activity, to free self-activity; to movement, to - free independent movement” (zur Selbsthätigkeit, zur freien - Selbsthätigkeit; zur Bewegung, zur freien, inabhängigen - Bewegung).[73] - - - - -APPENDIX II - -COMPARISON OF PLAYS NOTED BY FROEBEL WITH THE ENUMERATION GIVEN BY GROOS - - -Much that is given in Groos’ more elaborate classification can also be -found in Froebel’s suggestions, particularly where younger children are -concerned. For plays coming under the heading of Playful Activity of the -Sensory Apparatus, Froebel has a parallel for every kind except that of -Temperature, and for this Groos has not himself found anything that can -fairly be called play. - -For Sensations of Contact there is the Kicking Play, and Taste and Smell -are also represented in the Mother Play book. For Hearing play we have -the wooden ball, “a plaything for the child liable to produce noise by -its movement,” as well as the Tic-tac and Finger Piano plays, and for -receptive play, the mother is told to speak, rhythmically if possible, -or to sing with every play. For Sensations of Brightness we have “Mother -you want to foster this delight in all things that are sparkling clear -and bright” of the “Fish in the Brook,” as well as “The Lightbird,” which -Froebel has “found over and over again in all grades of the culture that -makes up social life in village and in town.” - -Sensations of colour are well provided for. In “The Two Windows” we have: -“See the beautiful coloured circles and rays, just like rainbow and -dew-drops, see how beautifully the colours play through each other.” -Colour is a feature in Gift I, in beadwork, in the tablets, in paper -folding, cutting and plaiting, and besides these there are crayons and -paints, and frequent reference is made to the child’s pleasure in the -colour of flowers. - -Froebel also makes much play depend on perception of form: “Attention to -the form and figure of the object can also be utilized for the child in -play,” or, again, “Early in life the child delights in round and varied -pebbles, he seeks and collects them, he takes pleasure in the straight -edged and right angled.” He has found “The Target” play very widely -spread, “plainly because it contains, as I see it, the first trace of an -endeavour to make a child notice position and form.” - -For perception of movement, to which Froebel would have added perception -of change of position, there are many plays with the ball as well as -“Tic-tac,” “The Child and the Pigeons,” “The Lightbird,” “The Fish in the -Brook,” etc. - -Groos’ next class is Play with the Motor Apparatus and under this comes -first Playful movement of the Bodily Organs. Here we have Froebel saying: -“The first toys and occupations of the child come from himself: he plays -with his own limbs.”--_L., p. 108._ “The child at this stage begins to -play with his limbs--his hands, his fingers, his lips, his tongue, his -feet, as well as with the expression of his eyes and face.”--_E., p. 48._ - -Under playful locomotion, Groos actually quotes Froebel’s description -of the child learning to walk, and we have also marching, running, and -racing games; “the large majority,” says Froebel, “I have created simply -by watching the children at play.… Thus I have prepared a limping-game -because I see my boys always limping and hopping.” - -Next comes Playful Movement of Foreign Bodies, and under this heading -Groos gives “Hustling things about, pushing, pulling, shaking, seizing -and pushing away, dabbling in water, handling sand and clay, kite-flying, -and capture of insects.” Of these Froebel mentions pushing of carriages, -kite-flying, hobby-horse riding; he makes much of play with water, sand -and clay, and he speaks of the catching of insects, etc., desiring that -it should be wisely checked by directing the activity into other channels. - -As to Destructive or Analytic Movement Play, Froebel notes that: “The -child wishes to know all the properties of the thing, for this reason he -examines it on all sides; for this reason he tears and breaks it; for -this reason he puts it in his mouth and bites it.”--_E., p. 73._ “The -cruel treatment of insects and other animals originates in the little -boy’s desire to obtain an insight into the life of the animal.”--_E., p. -164._ - -Of Constructive or Synthetic Movement Play, so much has been said -already, that it is not necessary to dwell on it. Froebel, in fact, gives -a far more inclusive account of this than Groos himself, not omitting -his “simplest form,” viz. moulding new forms with sand, etc., nor the -collecting and arranging in rows which to Groos and to Froebel is a more -primitive form of construction. Of Exercise of Endurance, too, we have -spoken, in quoting passages where Froebel shows the boyish desire to -measure and to increase strength. Throwing and Catching Plays have their -place in the “Apprentice and Master Workman” game. - -The important third class, the Playful Use of the Higher Mental Powers, -includes according to Groos a good deal that he has dealt with under -other heads, e.g. Memory Play includes (_a_) Recognition and (_b_) -Reflective Memory. Under the former comes that pleasure in recognition -of form which has already been dealt with, the pleasure given by -pictures, often, says Groos, greater than is given by the reality. -Froebel, too, says that if the father makes a sketch, “this man of lines, -this horse of lines, will give the child more joy than an actual man, an -actual horse will do.”--_E., p. 77._ Froebel, too, notes the pleasure it -will give a child to name flowers through recognition of a form: “Spurred -like a rider, circled like a snail, umbrellas, wheels, he’ll find the -names.”--_M., p. 181._ There is also the recognition of animal and other -noises, as in Froebel’s Yard Gate. Rote learning as a play Froebel hardly -mentions. - -As to the two groups which Groos brings under the heading of Imagination, -viz. “Illusion either playful or serious,” and “the voluntary or -involuntary transformation of our mental content,” these receive full -recognition. Froebel notes how the stick becomes a horse or the knotted -handkerchief the baby, as well as the play of listening to and inventing -stories. - -Under the head of Attention comes such games as Hide and Seek, because -of the alternate stress and relaxation, and Froebel noted before Darwin -did the pleasure of the baby in Bo-peep. Groos also brings curiosity -under this heading, and we have seen that Froebel deals fully with such -play as the outcome of the instinct of investigation, or the instinct for -self-teaching. - -Froebel would certainly not draw the line where Groos does, when he says -“the true characteristics of play are in inverse ratio to the intensity -of the desire for knowledge,” and if this rule were strictly adhered to, -a good deal of what Groos does call play might have to come out. - -The plays which fall under the head of Reason have two bearings, says -Groos, first causality, and second inherence. There are various -references to the “joy of being a cause” from the child “whose capacity -for speech is as yet undeveloped,” but who draws away the support and -as the cube falls “turns to his mother in joyous triumph,” up to the -pride of Keilhau boys, who “might not have accomplished their fortresses -without the sapper,” but “who believed that if cast on a desert island, -each could build a hut of his own.” Froebel also brings in intellectual -games such as draughts, and he notes how children will invent their own -words and their own alphabets in play. Of the making and solving of -riddles I think Froebel never speaks. - -As to what Groos says of Experimentation with the feelings, the parallels -in Froebel are surprise plays such as Hide and Seek, adventure and -hunting games where there may be play with fear, and the legends and -stories. - -Under the Impulse of the Second or Socionomic order, come the Fighting -Plays, Love Play, Imitative Play, and Social Play. Of Love Play, Froebel -has none, but the hunting and fighting were allowed abundant scope at -Keilhau. Of Imitative Play there is much that can be cited from the -playful imitation of simple movements and sounds in the Mother Songs and -the Kindergarten Games, to the “classic dramas” of the Keilhau boys. -Plastic and constructive play, too, goes from the simplest sand play, -through the Kindergarten handwork, not only up to the fortress making, -but also to the “boxes with locks and hinges, so neatly finished, -veneered, and polished that many a trained cabinet-maker’s apprentice -could have done no better,” which were made at Keilhau. - -Of the Social Plays Groos says with feeling that, however advisable, it -is wellnigh impossible to make a distinct class. He starts, however, with -the “need of bodily association or the herding instinct.” He brings in -the child’s eager desire to be with his fellows, and the importance in -adult life of festivals, religious or otherwise. He mentions the child’s -voluntary submission to a leader, and speaks of play as instrumental in -teaching children submission to law. We have noticed Froebel speaking -of the “combined games, which will train the child, by his very nature -eager for companionship, in the habit of association with comrades, in -good fellowship and all that this implies.” He also wants the child to -take alternately some special part in the game and to be merely one of -the crowd: “Each child should have a chance to lead, for it is especially -developing to a child to recognize himself as independent as well as a -member of the whole.” Among the older boys, the Bergwachts for instance -were carefully organized under separate leaders and the captain of -the first band was director of the whole. Froebel, too, made much of -festivals at Keilhau, and this has always been a recognized feature of -the Kindergarten. - -Enjoyment of the comic never, I think, makes its appearance at all. -Froebel had many gifts, but the saving sense of humour does not appear to -have been among them. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] See Chapter IX. - -[2] See Chapter X. - -[3] “Froebel’s Educational Principles,” Elementary School Record, Vol. I, -No. 5, or “The Dewey School,” published by the Froebel Society. - -[4] See Chapter VI, _p. 79_. - -[5] The Philosophy and Psychology of the Kindergarten.--“Teachers’ -College Record,” Nov., 1903. - -[6] It is true that Froebel was pre-Darwinian, but see _p. 198_. - -[7] All this is said in connection with the infant’s play with a woollen -ball, with quaint suggestions that the singing tone accompanying the -swinging like a ball affects the feelings, while the recognition of a -change of position is a thing of “dawning thought,” and that by tic-tac -the movement is expressed. See _p. 176_. - -[8] Dies fesselt die Sinnen- und Geistesthätigkeit des Kindes und gibt -_ihm_ mehrseitige Nahrung. - -[9] In der Mitte seiner wahrnehmenden (empfindenden) seiner wirkenden und -schaffenden, seiner vergleichenden (denkenden) Thätigkeit. - -[10] Die Ausbildung der verschiedenen Richtungen der Geisteskraft des -Kindes. - -[11] “Journal of Education.” Reprinted in “Child Life,” January, 1901. - -[12] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 152_ _et seq._ - -[13] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 153_. - -[14] It is true that Professor Stout complains of the loose way in which -the word “activity” has been used, and that he is careful to define his -own meaning, but Froebel too is careful. See Appendix I. - -[15] See also _p. 82_. - -[16] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. II, _p. 82_. - -[17] “The Conception of Immortality,” _p. 58_. - -[18] Froebel is comparing the child with other young animals, and -somewhat scornfully refers to those who, “notwithstanding the early -manifestation of the instinct to employ himself,” regard the human infant -as inferior to the young of other animals. - -[19] See chapter on Instinct. - -[20] “In dem ersten Sinnenspiele, kommen also dem Kinde durch Wahrnehmen -u. Schauen, durch Kommen, Bleiben u. Schwinden, durch Wechsel, also auch -in gewisser Hinsicht durch frühes dunkles auffassen … somit von dunkler -Vergleichung, die ersten Eindrücke der Seele, gleichsam die ersten -Erkenntnisse zugleich durch Selbst-thätigkeit, wie durch die sein Leben -und dessen Forderungen in sich tragende Mutterliebe.”--_P., p. 66._ - -[21] It does not, however, follow that this outer object, or this manner -of presenting it, is so important as Froebel supposed; see Chapter IX. - -[22] See _p. 66_. - -[23] See Chapter II. - -[24] “Principles of Psychology,” Vol. II, _p. 884_. - -[25] Froebel is too often ignorantly accused of being “soft,” but it is a -mistake to think that he leaves fear out of count. What he insists on is, -that rightly used authority should produce self-control, not servility. - -[26] See _p. 90_. - -[27] Macmillan, 1906. - -[28] _P. 53._ - -[29] “Social Psychology,” _p. 61_. - -[30] Mr. McDougall allows (_p. 60_) that in the case of an unprovoked -blow, the impulse, the thwarting of which provokes anger, is the impulse -of self-assertion. - -[31] For example, on _p. 46_, “Hence language provides special names -for such modes of affective experience, names such as anger, fear, -curiosity”; and on _p. 94_, in connection with the sympathetic induction -of emotion, we have, “Later still, fear, curiosity, and, I think, anger -are communicated readily from one child to another”; and there are other -examples. - -[32] _P. 51._ - -[33] This is all that can be said, for the passage seems incomplete; -after “entwickelt … der Trieb die Neigung,” comes only “sie führen zur -Gemüths- und Herzensbildung; und aus ihr geht in dem Knaben Geistes- und -Willensthätigkeit hervor.” - -[34] For a fuller account of these “Gifts,” see Chap. VIII., _p. 148_. - -[35] In the well-known translation by F. and E. Lord: - - “You wonder why a game at hide-and-seek - Brings a glad flush of joy to baby’s cheek? - The sense of his own personality - Is causing all this joy that you can see - When people call him, say, ‘Where’s Baby been?’ - He feels that it is he, himself, they mean.” - -[36] “Social Psychology,” _p. 89_. - -[37] “The Play of Man,” _p. 400_. - -[38] “The Play of Man,” _p. 382_. - -[39] See _p. 194_. - -[40] In another place Froebel does say that, “Only on condition that -the genuine spirit of play--i.e. the true spirit of life--lives in the -teacher, can he call it forth in the child.” - -[41] See Appendix II. - -[42] See _pp. 93, 94_. - -[43] See _p. 43_. - -[44] Froebel goes on to say: “I believe, that after progressing through -the vast orbit of almost two generations (he was nearly fifty-nine) I -have been carried round to the point of commencement, to the fountain -head of the education of mankind, but _with the significant addition of a -full consciousness of my task_.” - -[45] The material can of course be used at any age provided it conveys -suitable ideas in a suitable manner. Some of it is even now found useful -in helping senior classes to realize problems in area and in volume. - -[46] Many years ago, a young teacher came to me for help. She had been -told to give her class number lessons, for a whole term, from Gift III, -which consists of eight little cubes, and the children had long since -grasped 4 + 4, 6 + 2, 5 + 3, and 8 - 4, 8 - 2, etc. I suggested that she -should leave the number out and let the children play with the blocks. -“Oh! I mayn’t do that,” was the answer, “they have building with Gift IV.” - -[47] A really pathetic story has been told me of an earnest teacher in -far Australia, whose educational opportunities had been very limited, -but whose desire for knowledge was most sincere. She had been listening -without comprehension to some glib user of phrases, and was bewailing her -ignorance to an enlightened teacher who knew there had been little of -real value, and who said with a laugh “Never mind, Miss ----, it is only -a case of ‘Mind and Matter glide swift into the vortex of immensity.’” -And the listener said, “Oh please, would you say that slowly, and I’ll -write it down.” - -[48] These objections were embodied in a paper entitled “A Criticism -of Froebelian Pedagogy,” which Mr. Graham Wallas read at a Conference -of the Froebel Society in January 1901, and which was published in the -Conference Supplement for Child Life, July 1901. - -[49] See _p. 200_. - -[50] Few critics are likely to go so far as Mr. Winch, who gave as a -Froebelian conception “that the true destiny of man is to be obtained by -gratifying every youthful impulse.” But, Mr. Winch is perhaps not to be -taken seriously, for in the same paper he took _one sentence out of a -passage on the importance of continuity extending over four pages_, and -says of it, “This jerky discontinuity (!) has not the slightest support -in biological science, and never had.” (See Memorandum written for Mr. -Graham Wallas in “Problems of Education.”) - -[51] Deshalb sollen Erziehung, Unterricht und Lehre ursprünglich und in -ihren ersten Grundzügen nothwendig leidend, nachgehend (nur behütend -schützend), nicht vorschreibend, bestimmend, eingreifend sein. - -[52] Mr. Graham Wallas said: “The educational task for us is not to find -out how completely we can stand aside, but how far we can so influence -the environment of the child, as to cause those tendencies in it which we -think best, to become permanent.” - -[53] Mr. Graham Wallas said: “From the beginning of the Darwinian -reconstruction of the moral sciences, it was absurd, while speaking -of ‘environment,’ to ignore the fact that the deliberate care and -contrivance of the parent must form a large part of the environment of -the child.” The passage quoted shows that Froebel was guilty of no such -absurdity. - -[54] “Is Development from Within?” “Child Life,” October, 1904, and -January, 1905. - -[55] See _p. 192_. - -[56] “Second Review of Plays: A Fragment,” but part of this has been -omitted in the English translation. - -[57] Those who desire a full and scholarly account of Froebel’s -philosophy are referred to that given by Professor Angus MacVannel, -Ph.D., “Teachers’ College Record,” Vol. IV, No. 5. The Macmillan Co., New -York. - -[58] In Gottes Welt, eben weil es die Welt Gottes, durch Gott Gewordenes -ist, spricht sich ein Stetiges, das heisst ungetrennt Fortgehendes der -Entwickelung in Allem und durch Alles aus. - -[59] See Appendix, _p. 216_. - -[60] “Das Pedagogik des Kindergartens,” _p. 329_. - -[61] According to this principle, the mere fact that a particle is moving -with a certain velocity in a certain direction, is in itself a reason why -it should continue to move with the same velocity in the same direction.… -Now, in so far as continuance of change in a certain direction is -traceable to the pre-existence of change in that direction, this whole -process may be regarded as being in a perfectly intelligible sense, -self-determining (“Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 146_). - -[62] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 147_. - -[63] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 168_. - -[64] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 155_. - -[65] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 156_. - -[66] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 156_. - -[67] _P. 191._ - -[68] And so to regard “each successive moment of the world-process as -issuing out of the preceding by purely immanent casuality.” - -[69] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 156_. - -[70] “Unity and Froebel are synonymous terms,” is one “howler” from a -student’s examination paper. - -[71] Ed. by Development, _p. 212_. - -[72] “The Eternal Life,” _p. 14_. - -[73] “Das Kindergartenwesen,” _p. 330_. - - - - -INDEX - - - A - - Acquisition, Instinct of, 96, 109 - - Activity, Spontaneous, 132 - Differentiation, 90 - Earliest Activity, 1, 9, 34, 126 - Consciousness and Self-Consciousness, Development of, 48, 81, 84, 85 - Nature of First Voluntary Employments, 135 - Expression, _see_ that title - Foundation of Education, 6, 84, 142, 210 - Fundamental Tendency, 47, 85, 88, 90 - Meaning of, in Froebel’s Writings, 213 _et seq._ - Self-determination included in connotation, 217 - Universal Impulse, 90, 126 - - Adams, Prof., quoted, 190, 210 - - Amusement, Distinction from Play, 134 - - Analysis of Mind - Observation and Introspection, 12 - Order of Investigation of Laws of Mental Process, 3, 4 - Sense and Understanding, Inseparability, 17, 20 - Tri-une Character, 13 - - Animal Instincts, 72 - - Anticipations of Modern Psychology, 2 _et seq._--Summary, 10 - - Anthropological Aspect of Psychological Inquiry, 4, 8, 206 - - Approbation, Love of, 114, 115 - - Arrangement and Comparison, 101, 166 - - Artistic Tendencies of Children, 105 - - Associationists, Fallacy of, 38 - - “Atomistic View,” 38, 39 - - Attacks on Froebel, 2, 190-1 - - - B - - Baer referred to, 206 - - Baldwin, Prof., quoted, 50, 52 - - Ball-Play--Ideas to be gained, etc., 40, 150, 151, 155, 156, 159 - - Batch, Froebel’s connection with, 199 - - Biological Studies, Influence on Froebel’s Views, connection with - stress laid on Development, etc., 13, 40, 67, 138, 192, 199, 210 - - Blow, Miss Susan--Froebel’s Symbolism, 179, 189 - - Bradley, Mr., quoted, 213 - - - C - - Cause, Early Notice of, 160 - - Change--Use in fixing Impressions, 43, 152 - - Collecting or Acquiring Instinct, 96, 109 - - Colour, Sense of, 165, 166 - - Community, Feeling of, _refer to_ Social Instinct - - Comte referred to, 206 - - Conation, _refer to_ Will - - Connection or Unification, Law of, 204 - - Conscience, references to, 116, 117 - - Consciousness - Development by Action, 48 - --Movement stopped by Something, 49, 52 - Earliest Consciousness - Absolute Beginnings--Beyond the pale of Science, 41 - Indefiniteness, 39, 49, 91--Undifferentiated, unorganized Unity, - 91, 201 - Process of Differentiation, 40, 42, 47 - Reasoning and Constructive Imagination, 36, 38 - Unity of, 26 - _See also_ title Self-Consciousness - - Construction, Instinct of, 90 - “Sense of Power,” i.e., Self-Consciousness resulting, 109, 133 - Subserving Instinct of Investigation, 92, 94 - - Continuous Development, _see_ Development - - Cooke, Mr. Ebenezer, quoted, 102, 199, 202 - - Counting, Development of Capacity for, 101, 102 - - Criticisms of Froebel, 2, 190 - - “Culture Epochs” Theory, 129 - - - D - - Darwin, references to, 67, 201 - - Development--Froebel’s Theory of Continuous Development, 10, 128, 140, - 178, 179, 206, 207, 209 - Biological Studies, Connection with, 13 - Development from within, 136, 192, 195, 196 - “Harmonious Development,” 14-16 - Individual development of, following that of the Race, 206 - Law of--Unlimited to Limited, Whole to Part, Indefinite to Definite, - 40, 130, 150, 151, 155, 201, 202 - Possibilities and Conditions in place of Faculties, 18-20 - Reconciliation of Opposites, Result of, 204 - Self-directed Process, 212 _note_ - Three Stages, 71 - - Development of Species, Modernness of Froebel’s View, 205 - - Dewey, Prof. - Experimental Work at Chicago, 129 - Summary of Froebel’s Educational Principles, 6 - - Discipline - Adjusting Claims of Freedom and Authority, 197 - Direction of Impulse, not Opposition, 212 _note_ - Non-Interference Theory, 190, 191, 192 _note_, 193-5 - - Doll-Play, 167 - - Drawing - Counting Capacity, Means of developing, 101 - Origin of Earliest Drawing, 103 - Process of discovering “Linear Phenomena,” 103, 166 - - Duties as a means of realizing Kinship, 61, 114, 118 - - - E - - Ebers--Account of Life at Keilhau, 123, 147, 168 - - Eby, Mr., quoted, 7, 79 - - Emotion, _see_ Feeling - - Employment, Instinct of, _refer to_ Activity - - Environment, Alleged Neglect by Froebel, 190, 196 - --Reply to Critics, 197, 199, 200-4, 208, 210 - - Evolution--Froebel’s Post-Darwinianism, 198, 205 - - Experimenting--Mode of Investigation, 102 - - Exploring Tendency, 94-5 - - Expression - Art as, 105 - Feeling, Importance in Development of, 57-62 - Need for, 50, 99, 133 - Play, Definition of, 124, 125 - Understanding, Means of, 92 - - - F - - Faculty Psychology, Criticism of, 13, 17 _et seq._ - - Fairy Tales, 108, 182 - - Family Bonds, 61, 113 - - Fear, Froebel’s attitude towards, 78 and _note_ - - Feeling, Development of, etc., 130 - Action, Importance of, 57-62 - Family Bonds and Service for the Family, 61, 113 - Fundamental Importance, 63 - Starting Point of Education, 117 - Want of Good Feeling in Children, Cause, 63-4, 112 - - Fichte, Reference to, 204 - - Fletcher, Dr., quoted, 212 _note_ - - Following and Tolerating--Character of True Education, 160, 195 - - - G - - Games, _refer to_ Play - - Genetic Psychology preceded by Analytic, 3 - - “Gifts” and “Gift Plays” - Description of the Series, 159-166 - Excessive Importance attached to, 170 - Hailmann’s, Mr., distinction between “Gifts” and “Occupations,” 164, - 165 - Psychological Aim or Meaning, 40, 149, 150, 164, 169, 178 - Selection following Natural Instinct, 169, 170 - Tri-Unity of Child-Nature, Relation of Gift Plays to, 14 - Weakness of the Series, 166 - Two Mistakes, and the Psychological Errors underlying them, 170-6 - - Groos, Karl, quoted, 90, 125, 126, 130, 132, 136, 137, 145, 147, 219 - - Grüner, reference to, 200 - - - H - - Habit - Instinct, Proof of existence of, 76 - Outcome of Impulse of Activity, 88 - - Hailmann, Mr., quoted, 164, 193 - - Hall, Stanley, quoted, 206 - - “Harmonious Development,” 14-16 - - Hegel, Froebel’s knowledge of, 205 - - Helba Plan, 26, 84, 212 _note_ - - Herbartians--“Culture Epochs” Theory, 129 - - Horne, Prof., quoted, 17 - - - I - - Imitation - McDougall’s, Mr., Three Classes of Imitative Actions, 89 - Outcome of Activity and Means of Expression, 47, 88, 126 - Results gained, 50, 51, 91 - - Instincts - Classifications - Eby, 79, 80 - Froebel, 83 _et seq._ - Kirkpatrick, 79, 80, 81 - McDougall, 79, 81 - Direction and Training needed, 71, 121 - Divergent Views a matter of Definition, 67-8 - Froebel’s belief in Instinct, 67, 69, 70, 74, 125 - Froebel’s Terminology, 68, 69 - Habit and Instinct, Interaction between, 76 - Indefinite in Man--Proof of Superiority and Capacity for Progressive - Development, 66, 72, 75 - Specific and General Tendencies, Distinction between, 68 - Specifically Human Instincts only dealt with by Froebel, 82 - Transitory Nature, 75, 77, 78 - Two Main Lines of Instinctive Action, 83 - - Interdependence of Life, 62 - - Intuition of Things--Dr. Ward’s Points, 154-5 - - Investigation, Instinct of, 88, 90-2, 94-7, 102, 107 - - - J - - James, Prof., quoted, 39, 57, 59, 65, 68, 69, 73-5 - - Jarvis, Miss--Translation of passage _re_ Self-Consciousness, 54 - - Joy in Activity, 136-7, 139, 143, 145 - - - K - - Keilhau, Life at, 111, 123, 143, 147, 168, 212 _note_, 223, 224 - - Kindergarten - Associated Games, Social Training, etc., 114, 146, 147 - Defined, 90, 114, 142 - Disregard of Froebel’s instructions by his disciples, 147, 170 - End and Aim of, 90, 142, 208, 210 - Gifts and Occupations, _refer to_ title Gifts - No gulf between Kindergarten and “The Education of Man,” 210, - 212 _note_ - - King, Mr. Irving, quoted, 8, 26, 48, 49, 50-2, 54 - - Kirkpatrick, Mr., quoted, 79-80, 114, 115, 117, 134 - - - L - - Lamarck, reference to, 201 - - Language - Development of capacity for Speech, 97-101 - Earliest Training, Use in--Names the beginning of Organization, 21, - 29, 45, 46, 98, 100 - Feeling, Development of, 58 - - Location, Sense of, 152, 153 - Source of questioning Activity, 97 - - Lodge, Sir Oliver, quoted, 32 - - - M - - McDougall, Mr., quoted, 68, 76, 86, 89, 117 - - MacVannel, Dr. J. A., quoted, 10 - - Marenholz, Madame von, 205 - - Material of Instruction and Manner of Teaching--Conditioned by stage - of Development, 129 - - Maternal Instinct, 119, 120 - - Mathematical Perceptions--Over-estimate of Children’s Capacity, 170-4 - - Memory--Froebel’s Description, 19 - - Mental Activity, 3, 4, 13, 23-7 - Earlier and later Forms, 30 - Possibilities--Difference between Child and Animal, 49 - Sense and Understanding, Close connection, 17, 20, 207 - - Mental Analysis, _see_ Analysis of Mind - - Metaphor, Froebel’s delight in, 187-8 - - Moral Faculty, 116, 118, 207 - - Morgan, Prof. Lloyd, quoted, 33, 67, 72 - - Mother Wit--Need for Thought and Training, 120, 211 - - Movement, _see_ Activity - - Münsterberg, Prof., quoted, 218 - - Music--Importance of early Training, 106 - - Mysticism, _see_ Symbolism - - - N - - Naming, _refer to_ Language - - Natural Instincts, _see_ Instincts - - Non-Interference, Froebel’s Theory of, 190-5 - - Number, Discovery of, 101, 102 - - - O - - Observation of Children, 4-6, 8, 9, 29, 74, 87, 92, 94, 96, 103, 104, - 109, 111, 133, 162, 165 - - Order, Sense of, and the Instinct of Rhythm, 115, 116 - - Organization and Language, 21, 29, 45-6, 100 - - Outer Factor in Perception, over-emphasized by Froebel, 171, 173, 174 - - O’Shea, Prof., quoted, 97, 191, 200, 207, 216 - - - P - - Parental Instinct, 119, 120 - - Personality, Consciousness of, _see_ Self-Consciousness - - Philosophy, Froebel’s, 10 - - Physical and Psychical, Close connection between, 17, 20, 207 - - Play - Amusement, Distinction from, 134 - Biological View, 138 - Classifications (Froebel and Groos), 145, 219 - Earliest Childhood, Play in, 124, 125, 128, 130, 147 - Educative Value, Originality of Froebel’s View, 122 - Groos’ Criteria, 130 - Guidance needed, 143, 145 and _note_ - Imitative Play, 88 - Joy in Games, 133, 136, 139 - Recreative Play, 122 - Self-Consciousness, Development of, in Boyhood, 56 - Social Virtues, Development by Games, 111, 144, 146 - Surplus Energy Theory, 123, 144 - Theories of Play--Recapitulation and Preparation, 138, 140, 141, 142 - Work and Play - Distinction between--Froebel’s definition, 124, 128 - Earliest Activity--No Differentiation, 130, 131 - Early Boyhood, Differentiation in, 131, 132 - - Playgrounds, Importance of, 143 - - Play-Material - Definite prescription impossible, 167 - First Playthings, 153 - Importance in relation to Development, 148, 149 - Mistake of giving expensive and complex toys, 164 - Number and variety of games noted, 147 - Object of Froebel’s play-material, 93 - _See_ also title Gifts - - Poems and Songs, Use in Development of Feeling, 58, 130 - - Preyer quoted, 52 - - Psychological Basis for Educational Theories, 2 - - Pugnacity, Instinct of, 86 - - Purpose of Education, 200 - _Refer also to_ Self-Consciousness - - - Q - - Quantity, Relations of, 101 - - Questioning Activity, 97 - - - R - - Reflection, Development of, 75 - - Religious Instincts - Foundation in Social Instincts, 115, 117 - Morality and Religion, 118 - Work and Religion, 127 - - Religious Convictions of Froebel, 205-6 - - Repetition, Impressions fixed by, 43, 152 - - Representation (Darstellung), _see_ Expression - - Rhythm--Importance of early development of Instinct, 106, 160, 187 - Order, Sense of, Connection with, 115, 116 - - Ribot quoted, 90, 126 - - Romanes quoted, 68 - - Royce, Prof., quoted, 31 - - - S - - Seele, Ida, 209 - - Self-Abasement and Self-Assertion, Instincts of, 86 - - Self-Consciousness, Development of, 52, 53, 56, 84, 109, 116, 117, 153 - Early Developments, 54, 55 - Indefiniteness of Instinct rendering development possible, 82 - Purpose of Education and “End of Man,” 30-5, 53, 178 - Tales, Craving for, due to nascent idea of Self, 57, 107 - - Self-Determination, _refer to_ Will - - Self-Employment, _refer to_ Activity - - Self-Instruction, Instinct of, _refer to_ Investigation - - Sense and Movement, Connection of, 48 - - Sense and Understanding, Close connection of, 17, 20, 207 - - Separation attempted in use of “Gifts”--Psychological error, 175-6 - - Service as Expression of Feeling, 59, 60 - - Social Instinct - Development from the “Feeling of Community,” 91, 110-12 - Early Training essential, 63-4, 112 - Games, Education in, 111-12, 144, 146 - Religious Instincts, Foundation of, 115, 117 - - Speech, _refer to_ Language - - Spencer, Herbert, quoted, 206 - - Sphere and Cube (Gift II)--Material for Comparison, 41, 159, 161 - - Spontaneous Activity, _see_ Activity - - Stories, Interest in, 57, 107 - - Stout, Prof., quoted, 3, 4, 12, 22, 23, 24, 26, 36, 37, 38, 48, 73, - 135, 213, 215, 216 - - Summary of Froebel’s Educational Principles, 6 - - “Surplus Energy” Theory, 123, 144 - - Symbolism--Froebel’s alleged excessive and far-fetched Symbolism, 169, - 179-82 - Exaggeration by disciples and translators, 183-6, 188 - Instances--Practical application usually harmless, 186-7 - - - T - - Tales, Craving for, 57, 107 - - Thorndyke, Prof., quoted, 180 - - Time-Relations, 155 - - Toys, _refer to_ titles Gifts and Play-Material - - Tri-une Nature of Man, 10, 32, 34, 89, 116, 126 - - - U - - Unfoldment, Doctrine of, _see_ Development - - Unification or Connection, Law of, 204-5 - - Unity and Complexity, 155, 157, 158 - Froebel’s yearning for Unity, 199, 217 - - - W - - Wallas, Mr. Graham--Criticisms of Froebel, 190, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201, - 208 - - Ward, Dr., quoted, 17, 20, 36, 37, 38, 149, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157, 158 - - Welton, Prof., quoted, 212 _note_ - - Will - Definitions (Froebel and Stout), 22 - Development - Action and Feeling, Development through, 35 - Bound up with Intellectual Development, 26, 27 - Parallel Accounts (Froebel and Stout), 27, 28 - Self-Consciousness involving true volition, 30 - - Winch, Mr.--Criticism of Froebel, 192 _note_, 207 - - Women’s Work in Education--Intelligent knowledge needed in addition to - natural Instinct, 120, 211 - - Work - Condition of best work, 127, 128 - Play, Relation to, _see_ title Play - Religion and Work, 118, 119 - - Wundt, Prof., quoted, 68 - -GEORGE PHILIP & SON, LTD., LONDON - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Froebel as a pioneer in modern -psychology, by Elsie Riach Murray - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROEBEL *** - -***** This file should be named 54277-0.txt or 54277-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/2/7/54277/ - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet -Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project -Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you -charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you -do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the -rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose -such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and -research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do -practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is -subject to the trademark license, especially commercial -redistribution. - - - -*** START: FULL LICENSE *** - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project -Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at -http://gutenberg.org/license). - - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy -all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. -If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the -terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or -entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement -and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" -or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the -collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an -individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are -located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from -copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative -works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg -are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project -Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by -freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of -this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with -the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by -keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project -Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in -a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check -the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement -before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or -creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project -Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning -the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United -States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate -access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently -whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, -copied or distributed: - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived -from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is -posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied -and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees -or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work -with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the -work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 -through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the -Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or -1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional -terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked -to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the -permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any -word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or -distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than -"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version -posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), -you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a -copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon -request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other -form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided -that - -- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is - owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he - has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the - Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments - must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you - prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax - returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and - sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the - address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to - the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." - -- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or - destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium - and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of - Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any - money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days - of receipt of the work. - -- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set -forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from -both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael -Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the -Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm -collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain -"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or -corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual -property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a -computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by -your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with -your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with -the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a -refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity -providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to -receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy -is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further -opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER -WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO -WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. -If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the -law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be -interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by -the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any -provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance -with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, -promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, -harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, -that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do -or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm -work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any -Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. - - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers -including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists -because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from -people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. -To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 -and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive -Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at -http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent -permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. -Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered -throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at -809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email -business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact -information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official -page at http://pglaf.org - -For additional contact information: - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To -SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any -particular state visit http://pglaf.org - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. -To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate - - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm -concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared -with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project -Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. - - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. -unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/54277-0.zip b/old/54277-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 89c51f9..0000000 --- a/old/54277-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/54277-h.zip b/old/54277-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 746ed8e..0000000 --- a/old/54277-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/54277-h/54277-h.htm b/old/54277-h/54277-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 5f21e65..0000000 --- a/old/54277-h/54277-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11613 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Froebel as a Pioneer in Modern Psychology, by E. R. Murray. - </title> - - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - -<style type="text/css"> - -a { - text-decoration: none; -} - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -h1,h2 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -hr { - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - clear: both; - width: 65%; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -ul { - list-style-type: none; -} - -li.indx { - margin-top: .5em; - padding-left: 2em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -li.ifrst { - margin-top: 2em; - padding-left: 5em; - font-size: 120%; - font-weight: bold; -} - -li.isub1 { - padding-left: 4em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -li.isub2 { - padding-left: 6em; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -p { - margin-top: 0.5em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: 0.5em; - text-indent: 1em; -} - -table { - margin: 1em auto 1em auto; - max-width: 40em; - border-collapse: collapse; -} - -td { - padding-left: 2.25em; - padding-right: 0.25em; - vertical-align: top; - text-indent: -2em; -} - -td.indented { - padding-left: 3.25em; - text-indent: -1em; -} - -.blockquote { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - -.bracket { - font-size: 200%; -} - -.bybracket { - position: relative; - top: -0.75em; -} - -.center { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -.footnotes { - margin-top: 1em; - border: dashed 1px; -} - -.footnote { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; - font-size: 0.9em; -} - -.footnote .label { - position: absolute; - right: 84%; - text-align: right; -} - -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: super; - font-size: .8em; - text-decoration: none; -} - -.larger { - font-size: 150%; -} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - right: 4%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; -} - -.poetry-container { - text-align: center; - margin: 1em; -} - -.poetry { - display: inline-block; - text-align: left; -} - -.poetry .verse { - text-indent: -3em; - padding-left: 3em; -} - -.poetry .indent1 { - text-indent: -2em; -} - -.poetry .indent10 { - text-indent: 7em; -} - -.right { - text-align: right; -} - -.smaller { - font-size: 80%; -} - -.smcap { - font-variant: small-caps; - font-style: normal; -} - -.titlepage { - text-align: center; - margin-top: 3em; - text-indent: 0em; -} - -@media handheld { - -.poetry { - display: block; - margin-left: 1.5em; -} - -.blockquote { - margin-left: 5%; - margin-right: 5%; -} -} - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology, by -Elsie Riach Murray - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology - -Author: Elsie Riach Murray - -Release Date: March 3, 2017 [EBook #54277] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROEBEL *** - - - - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet -Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - -<h1>FROEBEL AS A PIONEER IN MODERN PSYCHOLOGY</h1> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - -<p class="titlepage larger">FROEBEL AS A PIONEER<br /> -IN MODERN PSYCHOLOGY</p> - -<p class="titlepage">BY<br /> -<span class="larger">E. R. MURRAY</span><br /> -<i>Author of “A Story of Infant Schools and Kindergartens”</i><br /></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping.</div> -<div class="indent10">Pioneers! O Pioneers!”</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="titlepage smaller">BALTIMORE Md.<br /> -WARWICK & YORK, INC.<br /> -1914</p> - -<p class="center smaller">(<i>All rights reserved</i>)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - -<h2>PREFACE</h2> - -<p>Some day Froebel will come to his own, and the carefulness -of his observation, the depth of his thought, -the truth of his theories, and the success of his actual -experiments in education will all be acknowledged.</p> - -<p>There are few schools nowadays so modern as the -short-lived Keilhau, with its spirit of freedom and -independence and its “Areopagus” in which the boys -themselves judged grave misdemeanours while the -masters settled smaller matters alone. There are few -schools now which have such an all-round curriculum, -including, as it did, the mother tongue as well as -classics and modern languages; ancient and modern -history; Nature study and Nature rambles; school -journeys, lasting for two or three weeks and extending -as far as Switzerland for the older lads, while the -younger boys visited German towns and were made -acquainted with peasant life; definite instruction in -field-work, in building and carpentry, etc.; religious -teaching in which Middendorf endeavoured “to show -the merits of the religions of all nations”; physical -training with the out-of-doors wrestling ground and -shooting stand and gymnasium “for every spare -moment of the winter,” and organized games; and -dramatic teaching where “classic dramas” and other -plays were performed, and for which the boys built -the stage and painted the scenes. There was even -co-education, “flirtation being unknown,” because -all had their heads so full of more important matters,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span> -but where free intercourse of boy and girl “softened -the manners of the young German savages.”</p> - -<p>The purpose of this book is to show that all these -things, besides the Kindergarten and the excellent plan -for the Helba Institute, did not come into being by -chance, but were the outcome of the deep reflection -of a man who combined the scientific with the philosophic -temperament; and who, because his ideal as a -teacher was “Education by Development,” had made -a special study of the instinctive tendencies, and the -requirements of different stages of child development, -as I have tried to prove in Chapters VI and VII.</p> - -<p>I should like to explain one or two points, first, that -though for all quotations I have referred to the most -commonly used translations of Froebel’s writings, yet -I have frequently given my own rendering when the -other seemed inadequate; secondly, that I have -endeavoured to give the context as often as possible, -and have also given the actual German words, that I -might not be accused of reading in modern ideas which -are not really in the text; and, lastly, that I have -purposely repeated quotations rather than give my -readers the trouble of turning back to another page.</p> - -<p>In conclusion may I take this opportunity of paying -grateful thanks first to Miss Alice Words and to Miss -K. M. Clarke, without whose kind encouragement I -should never have completed my task, and also to -Professor Alexander for several helpful suggestions, -and to Miss Ida Sachs for friendly help.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">E. R. Murray.</span></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="Contents"> - <tr> - <td class="right smaller">CHAP.</td> - <td></td> - <td class="right smaller">PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">I.</td> - <td>FROEBEL’S ANTICIPATION OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">II.</td> - <td>FROEBEL’S ANALYSIS OF MIND</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">12</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">III.</td> - <td>WILL AND ITS EARLY MANIFESTATIONS</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">22</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">IV.</td> - <td>CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLIEST CONSCIOUSNESS</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">36</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">V.</td> - <td>HOW CONSCIOUSNESS IS DIFFERENTIATED.—THE PLACE OF ACTION - IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERCEPTION AND OF FEELING</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">47</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">VI.</td> - <td>INSTINCT AND INSTINCTS</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">66</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">VII.</td> - <td>PLAY AND ITS RELATION TO WORK</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">122</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">VIII.</td> - <td>FROEBEL’S PLAY-MATERIAL AND ITS ORIGINAL PURPOSE</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">148</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">IX.</td> - <td>WEAK POINTS CONSIDERED</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">168</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">X.</td> - <td>SOME CRITICISMS ANSWERED</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">190</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">APPENDIX I. ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD “ACTIVITY”</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_I">213</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">APPENDIX II. COMPARISON OF PLAYS NOTED BY FROEBEL - WITH THE ENUMERATION GIVEN BY GROOS</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#APPENDIX_II">219</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td colspan="2">INDEX</td> - <td class="right"><a href="#INDEX">225</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> - -<h2>EXPLANATION OF REFERENCES<br /> -<span class="smaller">To the Works of Froebel quoted in the text</span></h2> - -<table summary="Meanings of the abbreviation letters used to attribute the quotes"> - <tr> - <td>E</td> - <td>=</td> - <td colspan="2">EDUCATION OF MAN. TRANSLATED BY W. N. HAILMANN.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>M</td> - <td>=</td> - <td colspan="2">MUTTER U. KOSE LIEDER. TRANSLATED BY F. AND E. LORD.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>P</td> - <td>=</td> - <td colspan="2">PEDAGOGICS OF THE KINDERGARTEN. TRANSLATED BY JOSEPHINE JARVIS.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>L</td> - <td>=</td> - <td>LETTERS.</td> - <td rowspan="2"><span class="bracket">}</span> <span class="bybracket">TRANSLATED BY - EMILIE MICHAELIS AND H. KEATLEY MOORE, B.A., B.MUS.</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td>A</td> - <td>=</td> - <td>AUTOBIOGRAPHY.</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br /> -<span class="smcap">Froebel’s Anticipation of Modern Psychology</span></h2> - -<p class="center">“<cite>A great man condemns the world to the task of explaining -him.</cite>”</p> - -<p>The purpose of this little book is to show that -Froebel’s educational theories were based on -psychological views of a type much more modern -than is at all generally understood. It is frequently -stated that Froebel’s psychology is conspicuous by its -absence, but in a somewhat close study of Froebel’s -writings I have been again and again surprised to find -how much Froebel seems to have anticipated modern -psychology.</p> - -<p>A probable reason for the overlooking of so much -sound psychological truth is to be found in the fact that -much of it is obscured by details which seem to us -trivial, but which Froebel meant as applications of the -theories he was endeavouring to make clear to minds -not only innocent of, but incapable of, psychology.</p> - -<p>Most educationists have read “The Education of -Man,” but few outside the Kindergarten world are -likely to have bestowed much thought on Froebel’s -later writings. It is in these, however, that we see -Froebel watching with earnest attention that earliest -mental development which is now regarded as a distinct -chapter in mental science, but which was then largely -if not entirely ignored.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<p>With the same spirit of inquiry and the same field -for investigation—for children acted and thought then -as they act and think now—it is only natural that -Froebel should have made at least some of the same -discoveries as the genetic psychologist of to-day.</p> - -<p>It would be unfair at any date to expect a complete -psychology from a writer whose subject is not -mental science, but education. Mistakes, too, one must -expect, and these are not to be ignored.<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Still there -remains a solid amount of psychological discovery -for which Froebel has had as yet but little credit.</p> - -<p>Indeed, just as his disciples have been inclined, -like all disciples, to think that their master has said the -last word on his own subject, so have opponents of -Froebelian doctrines, irritated perhaps by these pretensions, -made direct attacks on somewhat insufficient -grounds. In a later chapter, an attempt has been -made to deal with what seems unfounded in such -attacks.<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> - -<p>The major part of the book, however, is intended to -show the correctness of Froebel’s views on points now -regarded as of fundamental importance, and generally -recognized as modern theories. For this purpose passages -from Froebel’s writings are here compared with similar -passages from such undoubted authorities as Dr. James -Ward, Professor Stout, Professor Lloyd Morgan, Mr. -W. Macdougall, Mr. J. Irving King, and others.</p> - -<p>In the first place, it should be noted that Froebel -was fully aware of the necessity for a psychological -basis for his educational theories.</p> - -<p>Writing in 1841, he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“I am firmly convinced that all the phenomena -of the child world, those which delight us, as well -as those which grieve us, depend upon fixed laws as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> -definite as those of the cosmos, the planetary -system and the operations of Nature; it is therefore -possible to discover them and examine them. -When once we know and have assimilated these -laws, we shall be able powerfully to counteract -any retrograde and faulty tendencies in children, -and to encourage, at the same time, all that is -good and virtuous.”—<cite>L., p. 91.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Nor was Froebel in any doubt as to how these laws -are to be discovered, and his order of investigation is -very similar to that prescribed by Professor Stout. -The latter, though regarding genetic psychology as -“the most important and most interesting,” considers -that it should be preceded by:—1, A general analysis -of consciousness, analytic and largely introspective; -2, An investigation of the laws of mental process, -“analytic also, inasmuch as we endeavour to ascertain -the general laws of mental process by analysis of the -fully developed mind.”</p> - -<p>Froebel, too, regards the analytic as a necessary -preparation for the genetic, and says that parents and -teachers, who wish to supply the needs of the child at -different stages of development:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“are to consider life <em>firstly</em> through looking into -themselves, into the course of their own development, -its phenomena and its claims—through the -retrospection (Rückblick) of the earliest possible -years of their own lives, and also the introspection -(Einblick) of their present lives, that their own -experience may furnish a key to the problem of -the child’s condition (den Zustand des Kindes in -sich zu lösen). <em>Secondly</em>, by the deepest possible -search into the life of the child, and into what -he must necessarily require according to his present -stage of development.”—<cite>P., p. 168.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> - -<p>Professor Stout adds later that anthropology and -philology may ultimately yield results as important as -those yielded by physiology. Froebel could have no -idea of the physiological parallel to mental process, -but he did not omit the anthropological inquiry, for in -another passage he enlarges his first point, declaring -that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is essential for parents and teachers, for -the sake of their children, and that their educational -efforts may meet with a rich reward, not only to -recall as far as possible the first phenomena, the -course and conditions of the development of their -own lives, but that they should compare this with -the phenomena, the course and conditions of the -development of the world, and of life in general in -Nature and History, and so by degrees raise themselves -to a knowledge of the general as well as of -the particular laws of life development, that the -guidance of the child may find in these laws a higher -and stronger—their true foundation, as well as -their surest determination.”—<cite>P., p. 66.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Even his detractors generally allow that Froebel -had a wonderful insight into child-nature, but this is -too often spoken of as if it were due to some specialized -faculty of intuition, not known to psychology.</p> - -<p>Froebel’s knowledge of child-nature came to him -precisely as it comes to the psychologist of the present -day, through patient observation of the doings of little -children, and thoughtful interpretation of their possible -meaning. It is true that he drew his conclusions from -too narrow a field, but of this he was well aware. In -a letter to a cousin thanking her for the “comparative -account of the various manifestations of children,” -which she had sent him, he complains, <em>and this, be it -remembered, in 1840</em>, that “it is a subject to which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> -one can rarely get even cultivated parents to pay -attention,” and he adds:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“I would beg of you to collect as many observations -for me as you can, both things which you -yourself have observed, and also remarks made by -your Robert and the other children when at play. -If you have the time for this, pray do it for the -furtherance of the cause; other friends are at work -for me in the same way.”—<cite>L., p. 67.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In another letter to this cousin he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It would delight me greatly if you could confide -to me what you remember of your feelings, -perceptions, and ideas as a mother greeting the -new-born life of her infant, and your observations -of the first movements of its limbs and the beginning -of the development of its senses.”—<cite>L., p. 110.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>To another friend he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In the interests of the children I have still -another request to make—that you would record -in writing the most important facts about each -separate child. It seems to me most necessary for -the comprehension, and for the true treatment of -child-nature, that such observations should be made -public from time to time, in order that children -may become better and better understood in their -manifestations, and may therefore be more rightly -treated, and that true care and observation of -unsophisticated childhood may ever increase.”—<cite>L., -p. 89.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel made these requests, as he made his own -observations, as the result of the conviction with which -he declares himself “thoroughly penetrated,”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“that the movements of the young and delicate -mind of the child, although as yet so small as to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> -almost unnoticeable, are of the most essential -consequence to his future life.”—<cite>P., p. 53.</cite></p> - -<p>“Why do we observe the child less than the -germ of a plant? Is it to be supposed that in the -child, the capacity to become a complete human -being is contained less than in the acorn is contained -the capacity to become a strong, vigorous -and complete oak?”—<cite>P., p. 62.</cite></p> - -<p>“We cannot pass over unmentioned the fact, -essential for the whole life of the child, for the -whole course of his development, that phenomena -and impressions which seem to us insignificant, -and which we generally leave unnoticed, have for -the child, and especially for his inner world, most -important results, since the child develops more -through what seems to us small and imperceptible, -than through what appears to us large and striking -… hence—wholly contrary to prevailing opinion—nowhere -is consideration of that which is small -and insignificant of more importance than in the -nursery.”—<cite>P., p. 125.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Professor Dewey, one of the few important educational -writers who do justice to Froebel as a pioneer, -gives as a general summary of his educational principles:</p> - -<p>“1. That the primary business of school is to train -children in co-operative and mutually helpful living; -to foster in them the consciousness of mutual interdependence, -and to help them practically in making -the adjustments that will carry this spirit into overt -deeds.</p> - -<p>“2. That the primary root of all educative activity -is in the instinctive, impulsive attitudes and activities<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -of the child, and not in the presentation and application -of external material, whether through the ideas of -others or through the senses; and that, accordingly, -numberless spontaneous activities of children, plays, -games, mimic efforts, even the apparently meaningless -motions of infants—exhibitions previously ignored as -trivial, futile, or even condemned as positively evil—are -capable of educational use, nay, are the foundation-stones -of educational effort.</p> - -<p>“3. That these individual tendencies and activities -are organized and directed through the uses made of -them in keeping up the co-operative living already -spoken of; taking advantage of them to reproduce on -the child’s plane the typical doings and occupations of -the larger maturer society into which he is finally -to go forth; and that it is through production and -creative use that valuable knowledge is secured and -clinched.”<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - -<p>So little, however, are these principles understood -as Froebel’s, that in the Pedagogical Seminary for -July, 1900, a paper was published on “The Reconstruction -of the Kindergarten,” wherein it was maintained -that the basis of reconstruction must be the child’s -natural instincts. The writer, Mr. Eby, had apparently -no idea that the Kindergarten was originally based on -this very foundation. He evidently did not know that -Froebel has given, in his “Education of Man,” a very -fair account of these instincts, omitting nothing of great -importance, and pointing, at least, to a better principle -of classification than that adopted by Mr. Eby.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> It is, -however, only fair to Froebel to mention that he himself -regarded his own account as far from being commensurate -with the importance of the subject, for the year<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> -following that of the publication of “The Education -of Man” he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Since these spontaneous activities of children -have not yet been thoroughly thought out from a -high point of view, and have not yet been regarded -from what I might almost call their cosmical and -anthropological side, we may from day to day -expect some philosopher to write a comprehensive -book about them.”—<cite>A., p. 76.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The problems Froebel endeavoured to solve are -precisely those which are absorbing the genetic -psychologist of the present day, as stated, for example, -in Mr. Irving King’s “Psychology of Child Development,” -viz.: “to examine the various forms of the -child’s activity, to get some insight into the nature of -the child himself”—“to get at the meaning of child-life -in terms of itself.”</p> - -<p>Every reader of “The Education of Man” will -remember how Froebel uses his own boyish reminiscences -to help others to understand childish actions -often utterly misunderstood. In his paper on “Movement -Plays” he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In that nurture of childhood which is intended -to assist development, it is by no means sufficient -to supply play-material in proportion merely to the -stage of development already outwardly manifest. -It is at the same time of the utmost importance to -trace out the inner process of development and to -satisfy its demands.… In the nurture, development, -and education of the child, and especially in -the attempt to employ him, his own nature, his own -life and energy must be the main consideration. -The knowledge of isolated and external phenomena -may occasionally be a guide-post pointing our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> -direction, but it can never be a path leading to the -specific aim of child culture and education; for -<em>the condition of education is none other than comprehension -of the whole nature and essence of humanity -as manifested in the child</em>.”—<cite>P., p. 239.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Just as Mr. Irving King, writing in 1904, says that -we must take as our starting-point the child’s bodily -activities, so did Froebel too declare, that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The present time makes upon the educator -the wholly indispensable requirement—to comprehend -the earliest activity, the first action of -the child.”—<cite>P., p. 16.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>To this first action, Froebel devotes a whole paper, -“Das erste Kindesthun,” the opening sentence of which -contains the words:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“As the new-born child, like a ripe grain of -corn, bears life within itself which will be developed -progressively and spontaneously, though in close -connection with life in general, so activity and -action are the first manifestations of awakening -child-life.”—<cite>P., p. 23.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Writing in 1847, Froebel says that “decision, zeal, -and perseverance” must be brought to bear upon his -plan, in order that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“(<i>a</i>) More careful observation of the child, his -relationships and his line of development, may -become general amongst us; and thereby</p> - -<p>“(<i>b</i>) A better grounded insight be obtained into -the child’s being, mental and physical, and the -general collective conditions of his life.… -Deeper insight will be gained into the meaning and -importance of the child’s actions and outward -manifestations.”—<cite>L., p. 248.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p> - -<p>This quotation is important as showing that Froebel -was deliberately looking for “<em>a line of development</em>,” -that he might better understand “the child’s being, -mental and physical.” Considering that Froebel wrote -between 1826 and 1850, the important points on which -he may be said to have successfully anticipated modern -psychology are, his recognition that the mind is what -he calls “a tri-unity” of action, feeling, and thought; -his treatment of early mental activity and his definition -of will; his conception of the earliest consciousness -as an undifferentiated whole; his recognition of the -importance of action not only in the realm of perception, -but also in that of feeling; and his surprisingly -complete account of instinct. Such anticipations are -due to the fact that the idea of development then -new to the scientific world possessed his very soul.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Humanity, <em>which lives only in its continuous -development</em> and cultivation, seems to us dead and -stationary, something to be modelled over again -and again in accordance with its present type. -We are ignorant of our own nature and the nature -of humanity.…”—<cite>E., p. 146.</cite></p> - -<p>“God neither ingrafts nor inoculates. He -<em>develops</em> the most trivial and imperfect things in -continuously ascending series and in accordance -with eternal self-grounded and self-developing laws. -And God-likeness is and ought to be man’s highest -aim in thought and deed.”—<cite>E., p. 328.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Justice has already been done to Froebel’s philosophy -by Dr. John Angus MacVannel, who says in his -closing paragraph:</p> - -<p>“Froebel’s system has that unmistakable mark of -greatness about it that makes it worth our faithful effort -to understand it, and turn its conclusions to our advantage.…<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -His philosophy of education taken as a whole -seems, perhaps, the most satisfactory we have yet had. -One cannot but believe, however, that the candid reader -will at times find conclusions in his writings sustained -by reasonings, that are inadequately developed and -important questions by no means satisfactorily answered.… -On the other hand we must not forget that it is -insight, rather than exactitude, that is the life of a -philosophy; herein lies the secret of Froebel’s lasting -influence and power.”<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br /> -<span class="smcap">Froebel’s Analysis of Mind</span></h2> - -<p>It is probably due to the emphasis which Froebel laid -upon the careful observation and equally careful -interpretation of the very earliest manifestations of -mental activity, that his views as to mental analysis -approach so closely to more modern ideas. His psychology -cannot possibly be dismissed as “faculty -psychology” in which the mind of a child is regarded as -a smaller and weaker replica of the mind of an adult. -The older psychologies, Professor Stout points out, are -based chiefly, if not entirely, on introspection alone, -while Froebel, as we have already seen, demanded -close observation of children in general, and of “each -separate child,” as well as consideration of mental -development in the race, in addition to introspection.</p> - -<p>This “too exclusive reliance upon introspection” to -which Professor Stout refers as “the fundamental error” -of the faculty psychology, caused the older writers to -infer that just as a child is possessed of legs, arms and -hands, smaller and weaker, but otherwise apparently the -same as those of an adult, even so did he possess mental -“faculties,” such as memory and imagination, which, -like the little legs and arms, only required exercise in -order to grow strong. “It never occurred to them,” -writes Professor Stout, “that the powers of understanding, -willing, imagining, etc., instead of existing at -the outset, might have arisen as the result of a long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -series of changes, each of which paved the way for the -next.” It did more than “<em>occur</em>” to Froebel, it was a -cardinal point with him. Professor Stout points out that -the idea of development is essential to mental science, -and Froebel was a biologist actually studying development, -before he became a psychologist. He came to the -study of mind prepared to find just such a series of -changes.<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> In speaking of evolution in general, he -says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Each successive stage of development does not -exclude the preceding, but takes it up into itself, -ennobled, uplifted, perfected.”—<cite>P., p. 198.</cite></p> - -<p>He speaks of:</p> - -<p>“the master thought, the fundamental idea of our -time, that is, the education and development of -mankind.”—<cite>L., p. 149.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And in his “Education of Man,” in a long and eloquent -passage on the need for continuity of training from the -tiniest of beginnings, he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is highly pernicious and even destructive -to consider the stages of human development as -distinct, and not as life shows them, continuous in -themselves, in unbroken transitions.”—<cite>E., p. 27.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The analysis of mind which Froebel recognizes, is -the still commonly accepted “tri-partite,” but he never -fails to refer to this as a unity or a tri-unity. Indeed, -his constant harping upon this string becomes almost -wearisome, in spite of the ingenuity with which he -continually varies his terms.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The early phenomenon of child-life, of human -existence in childhood, is an activity, one with -feeling and perception (Wahrnehmen).”—<cite>P., p. 23.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“That the nature of man shows itself early in -the life of the child, as feeling, acting and representing, -thinking and perceiving, and that in this -tri-unity is included the whole of his life utterance -and activity, we have said repeatedly, and it lies -open for any one to notice.”—<cite>P., p. 122.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Disguised as Love, Life, and Light, this trinity is -made the connection of man, on the one side with -Nature, on the other side with God. God—who is Life, -Love, and Light, the All—shows Himself in Nature, in -the universe as life (energy), in humanity as love, and -in wisdom or in the spirit as light. Energy or life -man shares with Nature; by love he is united with -humanity; and by light or wisdom he is at one -with God.</p> - -<p>For his “gift plays” Froebel claims that they “take -hold of the child in the tri-unity of his nature”:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“As now each of the single plays separately -considered takes hold of the child early, in the -tri-unity of his nature, as doing, feeling, and thinking, -so yet more do the employments as a whole.”—<cite>P., p. 56.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And a forcible passage runs:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Only if the child is treated through fostering -his instinct for activity in the tri-unity of his nature, -as living, loving, and perceiving, in the unity of his -life, only thus can he develop as that which he is, -the manifold and organized, but in himself single, -whole.”—<cite>P., p. 12.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>This development of the threefold yet single nature -constitutes the “harmonious development,” reiterated -<i lang="la">ad nauseam</i> and without explanation, in Kindergarten -text-books. It is also the key to much that seems to us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -useless detail as to the toys and games of early childhood. -The mother is told that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is of the highest importance for the nurse -to consider the earliest and slightest traces of the -organization (Gliederung) within itself of the child’s -mind as bodily, emotional and intellectual, that in -his development from mere existence to perception -and thought, none of these directions of his nature -should be fostered at the expense of the other … -the real foundation, the starting-point of human -development is the heart and the emotions, but -cultivation of action and thought (die Ausbildung -zur That und zum Denken) must go side by side -with it, constantly and inseparably: and thought -must form itself into action, and action resolve -and clear itself into thought; but both have their -roots in the emotional nature.”<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>—<cite>P., p. 42.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The first part of the following quotation from a -letter written in 1851 towards the close of Froebel’s -life might almost be taken from a text-book of the -present day:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“We find also three attitudes, spheres of work, -and regions of mind in man:</p> - -<p>“(1) the region of the soul, the heart, Feeling;</p> - -<p>“(2) the region of the mind, the head, Intellect;</p> - -<p>“(3) the region of the active life, the putting -forth to actual deed, Will.</p> - -<p>“As mental attitudes these three divisions seem -the wider apart the more we contemplate them;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> -as spheres of work and regions of mind they seem -quite separate and perfect opposites. But the -highest and most absolute opposition is that which -most needs, and necessitates reconciliation; complete -opposites condition their uniting link. The -need for the uniting link appears in almost every -circumstance of life.… To satisfy that need is the -most imperative need now set before the human -race, … you will realize that the strengthening -of character which we all agree to be a necessity -of the age, is to be gained not only by stimulating -and elevating the soul and the emotions, but -by raising the whole mind, by training the intellect -and the will.… Then the heart would -acknowledge and esteem the intellectual power, -just as the intellect already recognizes feeling -as that which gives true warmth to our lives; -and life as a whole would make manifest the -soul which quickens existence, and gives it a -meaning, as well as the intellect which gives it -precision and culture. <em>Intellect</em>, <em>feeling</em> and <em>will</em> -would then unite, <em>a many-sided power</em>, to build -up and constitute our life. In the room of the -unstable character which must result from the -mere cultivation of the one department of emotion; -in the room of the doubt, or, I might -say empty negation, which too often proceeds -from the mere cultivation of the intellect; in -the room of the materialism, animalism, and sensuality -which must come from the mere attention -to the body, and physical side of our nature; we -should then have the harmonious development of -every side of our nature alike, we should then be -able to build up a life which would be everywhere -in touch with God, with physical nature, with -humanity at large.”—<cite>L., p. 300.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> - -<p>In his article in the Encyclopædia Britannica, -Dr. Ward says, that in taking up the question of what -we exactly mean by <em>thinking</em>, “we are really passing -one of the hardest and fastest lines of the old psychology—that -between sense and understanding. So long as -it was the fashion to assume a multiplicity of faculties -the need was less felt for a clear exposition of their -connection. A man had senses and intellect much as -he had eyes and ears; the heterogeneity in the one -case was no more puzzling than in the other.”</p> - -<p>In this connection it can again be shown that Froebel -was in advance of the old psychologists. In the first -of the two games in the Mother-Play book dealing with -sense-training—two out of forty-nine, the remainder -dealing chiefly with action—he makes it very clear that -he draws no hard and fast line between sense and -understanding. He tells the mother that Nature -speaks to the child through the senses, which act as -gateways to the world within, but that light comes -from the mind:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Durch die Sinne, schliesst sich auf des Innern Thor</div> -<div class="verse">Doch der Geist ist’s der dies zieht ans Licht hervor.”</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>And when he says that the baby in the cradle should -not be left unoccupied if it wakes, he uses a pronoun in -the singular in referring to “the activity of sense and -mind.” He suggests hanging a cage containing a lively -bird in the child’s line of vision and adds:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“This attracts the activity of the child’s -senses and mind and gives <em>it</em> nourishment in many -ways.”<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>—<cite>E., p. 49.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The faculty psychology and the formal discipline -theory that came from it, says Professor Horne, did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -admit the possibility of training one faculty, e.g. perception, -by training another, e.g. reason, “it was not -the mind that was trained, but its faculties.”</p> - -<p>It is, however, of the merest infant that Froebel -uses such expressions as “the awakening power of -thought,” “the tenderest growth of mind,” and tells -the mother that he “shows trace of thought, and can -draw conclusions.” The ball is given to the baby to -help him “to find himself in the midst of his perceptive, -operative, and his comparing (thinking) activity.”<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>—<cite>P., -p. 55.</cite> Long years before this he had written of -the teaching of drawing, “this instruction addresses -itself to the senses, and through them to the power -of thought.”—<cite>E., p. 294.</cite></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“He who does not perceive traces of the future -development of the child, who does not foster these -with self-consciousness and wisdom, when they lie -hidden in the depths and in the night, will not -see them clearly, will not nourish them suitably, -at least, not sufficiently, when they lie open before -him.”—<cite>P., p. 58.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Instead of ready-made faculties Froebel recognizes -possibilities, conditions, which will remain possibilities -if the necessary stimulus is not forthcoming, for in -noting how the mother talks to her infant, though she -is obliged to confess that there can be no understanding -of her words, he says the mother’s instinctive action -is right:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“for that which will one day develop, and which -must originate, begins and must begin when as -yet nothing exists but the conditions, the possibility.”—<cite>P., -p. 40.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> - -<p>Elsewhere he asks:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Is it to be supposed that in the child the -capacity for becoming a complete human being -is contained less than in the acorn is contained -the capacity to become a strong, vigorous and -complete oak?”—<cite>P., p. 62.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And he speaks of how the mother appeals to the -infant as</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“understanding, perceptive and capable, for where -there is not the germ of something, that something -can never be called forth and appear.”—<cite>P., p. 31.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is true that in the same passage in which he -speaks of “the tenderest growth of mind,” he -does speak of mental powers (Geisteskräfte), as indeed -every one does, but a few lines above he has spoken -of “the cultivation of the mental power of the child -in different directions.”<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Besides, the mental powers to -which he here alludes, and which are to be awakened -and fostered in the infant, are the powers “to compare, -to infer, to judge, to think.”—<cite>P., p. 57.</cite> Here, -too, Froebel gives a description of what he means by -memory, and it is clearly not a separate faculty considered -apart from another faculty, viz. imagination:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The plays carried on with the ball awaken -and exercise the power of the child’s mind to place -again before himself mentally a vanished object, -to see it mentally even when the outer perception -is gone; these games awaken and practise the -power of re-presenting, of remembering, of holding -fast in remembrance an object formerly present, -of again thinking of it; that is, they foster the -memory.”—<cite>P., p. 57.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> - -<p>So even the infant is to think, and the progress is -well described in the Mother Plays as</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“from experience of a thing, joined with thought -about it, up to pure thought.”—<cite>M., p. 121.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In a lecture<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> given many years ago, Dr. Ward -sought to drive home to teachers the futility of this -hard and fast line between sense training and training -to think. And there are some interesting parallels -between Dr. Ward’s metaphors here and Froebel’s -writing in “The Education of Man.” Dr. Ward said:</p> - -<p>“Training of the senses, as it is not very happily -called, is, if it is anything, so much intellectual exercise.… -And nothing can be more absurd than to suppose -it is not necessary.… By a judicious training in -observation you begin to make a child think when it -is five years old.… If a child is to think to any -purpose, he must think as he goes on; as soon as the -material he has gathered begins to oppress him he -must think it into shape, or it will tend to smother -intellectual life at its dawn, as a bee is drowned in -its own honey, for want of cells in which to store it.”</p> - -<p>It is in describing how the little child collects pebbles, -twigs, leaves, etc., that Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child loves all things that enter his small -horizon and extend his little world. To him the -least thing is a new discovery; but it must not -come dead into the little world, nor lie dead -therein, lest it obscure the small horizon and -crush the little world.… It is the longing for -interpretation that urges the child to appeal to -us … the intense desire for this that urges -him to bring his treasures to us and lay them -in our laps.”—<cite>E., p. 73.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The help we are told to give at first is merely to -supply the child with a name, for “through the name<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -the form is retained in memory and defined in thought.” -Later the mother is told to provide “encouragement -and help, that the child may weave into a whole what -he has found scattered and parted.” As a type of the -help considered necessary we have:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“‘Mother, are the pigeons and hens birds, for -the pigeons live in pigeon-houses and the chickens -don’t fly?’ ‘Have they no feathers, child; have -they no wings? Haven’t they two legs like all -birds?’ ‘Are the bees and butterflies and beetles -birds, too: for they have wings and fly much higher.…’ -‘Look, they have no feathers, they build no -nests.’”—<cite>M., p. 56.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In another passage Froebel calls it not only advisable -but necessary that the parents, without being -pedantic or over-anxious, should connect the child’s -doings with language, because this “increases knowledge, -and awakens that judgment and reflection (die -Urtheilskraft und das Nachdenken), to which man, left -to Nature, does not attain sufficiently early.”—<cite>E., p. 79.</cite></p> - -<p>Giving names, and helping in classification is -surely a sufficient parallel to Dr. Ward’s “thinking the -material into shape,” and just as the latter says that -by such training you can “make a child think” when -it is five years old, so Froebel in his chapter on “Man -in Earliest Childhood” makes his ideal father “sum -up his rule of conduct in a few words,” declaring that: -“To lead children early to think, this I consider the -first and foremost object of child-training.”—<cite>E., p. 87.</cite></p> - -<p>Froebel’s theories, then, cannot be dismissed as -based on “faculty psychology,” since it seems clear -that wherever he found them his views on mental -analysis were very similar to those now generally -accepted. It is more remarkable, however, that he -should have modern views about Conation and Will.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br /> -<span class="smcap">Will and its Early Manifestations</span></h2> - -<p>It is open to doubt whether any modern psychologist -has yet given a better definition of fully developed -Will than that given by Froebel eighty-seven years -ago:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Will is the mental activity of man ever -consciously proceeding from a definite point, in a -definite direction, to a definite conscious end and -aim, in harmony with the whole nature of -humanity.”—<cite>E., p. 96.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>With this definition compare what Professor Stout -has to say:</p> - -<p>“In its most complex developments, mental activity -takes the form of self-conscious and deliberate volition, -in which the starting-point is the idea of an end to be -attained, and the desire to attain it; and the goal is -the realization of this end, by the production of a long -series of changes in the external world … it belongs -to the essence of will, not merely to be directed towards -an end, but to ideally anticipate this and consciously -aim at it.”<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p> - -<p>Between these two definitions the difference is in -the omission in Froebel’s definition of any mention of -desire, and this is supplied a little later, when, having -stated that “by school here is meant neither the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> -schoolroom, nor school-keeping, but the conscious -communication of knowledge for a definite purpose, -and in definite connection,” he ends up with:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“By this knowledge, instruction and the school -are to lead man <em>from desire to will</em>, from activity -of will to firmness of will, and thus continually -advancing, to the attainment of his destiny, of his -earthly perfection.”—<cite>E., p. 139.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Now Professor Stout’s whole psychology is founded -on his conception of mental activity. Towards the end -of his second volume he says: “The reader is already -familiar with my general doctrine. It has pervaded the -whole treatment of psychological topics in this work. -The aim of the present chapter is to present it in a more -systematic form, and to guard it against objections. -Our starting-point lies in the conception of mental -activity as the direction of mental process towards -an end.”</p> - -<p>It is distinctly significant, therefore, to find how -closely Froebel’s ideas on the subject resemble Professor -Stout’s conception of mental activity.</p> - -<p>“Conscious process,” writes Professor Stout, “is -in every moment directed towards an end, whether -this end be distinctly or vaguely recognized by the -conscious subject, or not recognized at all.”</p> - -<p>Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In all activity, in every deed of man, even as -a child, yes the very smallest, an aim is expressed, -a reference to something, to the furthering or -representing of something; … thus the child -strives, even if unconsciously, to make his inner -life objective, and through that perceptible, that -so he may become conscious of it.”—<cite>P., pp. -237-240.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> - -<p>The same idea, that conscious process is directed -to an end, though there may be no consciousness of -that end, is given in another passage, where Froebel -is speaking of the need for satisfying a child’s normal -desire for playthings.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Very often the child seeks for something, -nevertheless he himself does not know at all what -he seeks; at another time he puts something away -from him and again knows not why.”—<cite>P., p. 168.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Of the earliest mental activity Professor Stout -writes:</p> - -<p>“In its earliest and simplest form, mental activity -consists in those simple reactions which without being -determined by any definite idea of an end to be realized, -tend on the whole to the maintenance of immediate -pleasure and the avoidance of immediate pain.”</p> - -<p>The movements of the organism at this earliest -stage “seem primarily adapted to the conservation -and furtherance of vital process in general.”<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a></p> - -<p>Froebel speaks of the child’s efforts:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“to put far from him that which is opposed to the -needs of his life and yet would break in upon it.”—<cite>P., -p. 167.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>He tells the mother that, in the first stages at least, -the restlessness and tears of the infant will warn her of -the presence of anything in his surroundings hurtful to -his development, while his laughter and movements of -pleasure will show “what according to the feeling of -the child is suited to the undisturbed development of -his life as an immature human being.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Stout goes on to say that such simple reactions -are adapted “secondarily and by way of necessary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -corollary to the conservation and furtherance of -conscious life.” He tells us that: “The primary -craving with which the education of the senses begins, -so far as it does not involve such practical needs as that -of food, may be described as a general craving for -stimulation or excitement … this conation being in -the first instance in the highest degree indeterminate.”</p> - -<p>Froebel, who speaks of the nurse “soothing the -restless child <em>vaguely striving</em> for definite and satisfactory -outward activity,” tells us that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“if his bodily needs are satisfied and he feels -himself well and strong, the first spontaneous -employment of the child is spontaneous taking in -(selbstthätiges Aufnehmen) of the outer world.”—<cite>P., -p. 29.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>He writes to Madame Schmidt, the cousin for whose -assistance he has begged in observing children:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“This spontaneous activity of limb and vividness -of sensation natural to infancy, and I may -say inseparable from it, must also be carefully -studied.”—<cite>L., p. 110.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And, in the Mother Songs, he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“You can see how his bodily activity, the -movement and use of his limbs, like the activity -of his senses, all turn towards one point: Life -must be grasped, experienced and perceived … -he wants to appropriate the outer and to re-embody -it … his susceptibility for all that gives -and takes up life will strike you as something -that elevates his life in every way; even as young -plants and animals are susceptible to the faintest -workings of light and warmth, or the impressions -of their environment, however delicate. Moreover, -this receptivity is most closely related to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -great general excitability and sensibility (Erregbarkeit, -Reizbarkeit).”—<cite>M., pp. 119-121.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel’s views as to the nature both of early and -of later mental activity then bear a strong resemblance -to the modern view as stated by Professor Stout.<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> - -<p>In searching Froebel’s writings to find what he has -to say about the stages lying between early mental -activity and fully developed will, between what he calls -“natural activity of the will, and true genuine firmness -of will,” it soon becomes clear that it is impossible to -separate what is said about will development, from -what is said about intellectual development.<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> This is -a natural consequence of Froebel’s constant insistence -on the unity of consciousness, and it is the position of -modern psychology, whether written from the analytic -or the genetic point of view. Mr. Irving King writes: -“The functional point of view emphasizes first of all -the intimate inter-relation of all forms of mental -activity and the impossibility of describing any one -aspect of consciousness except with reference to consciousness -as a whole.” Professor Stout, in his -“Analytic Psychology,” has a section entitled “Conation -and Cognition developed co-incidentally,”<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> while -Froebel says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Thought must form itself in action, and -action resolve and clear itself in thought.”—<cite>P., -p. 42.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel speaks of his projected institution at Helba -as “fundamental,”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“inasmuch as in training and instruction it will rest -on the foundation from which proceed all genuine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -knowledge and all genuine practical attainments; -it will rest on life itself and on creative efforts, -<em>on the union and interdependence of doing and -thinking</em>, representation and knowledge, art and -science. The institution will base its work on the -pupil’s personal efforts in work and expression, -making these, again, the foundation of all genuine -knowledge and culture. Joined with thoughtfulness, -these efforts become a direct medium of -culture.”—<cite>E., p. 38.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Professor Stout’s account of how the unconscious -mental activity of early childhood becomes transformed -into the definite and conscious activity of fully developed -will is, stated briefly, something to this effect. It is of -the essence of conation to seek its own satisfaction, and -this is only possible as the conation becomes definite. -“Blind craving gives place to open-eyed desire,” as the -original conation tends to define itself. So “the gradual -acquisition of knowledge through experience is but -another expression for the process whereby the originally -blind craving becomes more distinct and more differentiated.” -The grouping of cognitions is not produced -by the conscious needs: “It is the way in which -the conation itself grows and develops.”</p> - -<p>For this account we can find a wonderfully exact -parallel in one of Froebel’s less well-known papers, that -on “Movement Plays.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“All outer activity of the child has its ultimate -and distinctive foundation in his inmost nature and -life. The deepest craving of this inner activity -is to behold itself mirrored in some outward object. -In and through such representation, the child -himself grasps and perceives the nature, direction -and aim of his own activity, and learns also further -to regulate and determine his life, that is his activity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -according to these outward phenomena.”—<cite>P., -p. 238.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>This craving for outward representation, by satisfaction -of which the child gains knowledge of the ends of -his activity, is an exact equivalent of Stout’s blind -craving which gives place to open-eyed desire as it -tends to define itself. Froebel’s conclusion, that only as -this unconscious or blind craving for action is satisfied -does the child become “conscious of the nature, direction -and ends of his own activity,” is but another way of -stating Professor Stout’s conclusion, that the grouping -of cognitions, which is the gradual acquirement of -knowledge through experience, is “the way in which -the conation itself grows and develops.” So, cognition -and conation are developed simultaneously, or, to repeat -Froebel’s own phrase, “Thought forms itself in action, -and action resolves and clears itself in thought.”</p> - -<p>Professor Stout goes on to say that in this defining -process one conation springs out of another, whereby -as one conation is satisfied and so comes to an end, -another becomes in its turn the end of activity. He takes -as illustration the child learning to walk, saying, “The -mental attitude of the child learning to walk is one of -conscious endeavour. When he has become habituated -to the act, he performs it without attending to his -movements, his mind being fixed on the attainment -of other ends.” Froebel proceeds in the same way, -using the very same example. He has already said -that at first the child:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“cares for the use of his body, his senses and limbs, -merely for the sake of their use and practice, but -not for the sake of the results of this use. He -is wholly indifferent to this; <em>or, rather, he has as -yet no idea whatever of this</em>.”—<cite>P., p. 48.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> - -<p>Now, in the paper on movement, he goes on:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Each sure and independent movement gives -the child pleasure, because of the feeling of power -which it arouses in him. Even simple walking produces -this effect, for it gives the child a threefold -feeling, a threefold consciousness: First, the consciousness -that he <em>moves</em> himself; secondly, that -he moves himself from one place to another; -third, that through this movement he attains or -reaches something.… It is a well-established fact -that his first walking gives the child pleasure as an -expression of his power. <em>To this pleasure, however, -are soon added the two joy-bringing perceptions of -coming to something, and of being able to attain -something.</em> These several perceptions should all be -fostered at the same time … he should get his -limbs, and indeed his whole body, into his own -power. He should learn to use his bodily strength -and the activity of his limbs for definite purposes.… -<em>The effort to reach a particular object may have -its source in the child’s desire to hold himself firm and -upright by it, but we also observe that it gives him -pleasure to be actually near the object, to touch it, -to feel it, to grasp it, and perhaps also—which is a -new phase of activity—to be able to move it.</em> Hence -we see that the child when he has reached the -desired object, hops up and down before it, and -beats on it with his little arms and hands, in order, -as it were, to assure himself of the reality of the -object and to notice its qualities. It is well, <em>while -the child is making these experiments</em>, to name the -object and its parts. <em>The object of giving these -names is not primarily the development of the child’s -power of speech, but to assist his comprehension of -the object</em>, its parts and its properties, <em>by defining -his sense-impressions</em>.”—<cite>P., p. 241.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> - -<p>Another passage runs:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The present effort of mankind is an endeavour -after freer self-development.… Therefore the -more or less clear aim of the individual is to attain -to clearness about himself and about life, to comprehension -and right use of life, to both insight and -accomplishment.… Therefore the educator must -understand the earliest activity and encourage the -impulse to self-culture, through independent doing, -observing and experimenting.”—<cite>P., p. 16.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>To say that a conation tends to define itself is only -to say that unconscious ends tend to be replaced by -conscious ends, and we have seen that both Froebel and -Professor Stout give unconsciousness or consciousness -of the end, as the difference between earlier and later -forms of mental activity. Professor Stout’s conclusion -is that “apart from the perpetual germination of one -conation out of another, the characteristic features of -the mental life of human beings would be inexplicable.”</p> - -<p>Now, to be conscious of one’s ends or aims is, in a -certain sense, to be self-conscious, so the transition from -earlier to later forms of mental activity is practically -the development of self-consciousness. It is interesting, -therefore, to see that just as Professor Stout gives as -his explanation of human life, the perpetual germination -of one conation out of another, so Froebel gives as his -explanation, his meaning of life, the gradual development -of self-consciousness.</p> - -<p>Self-consciousness, involving true volition, or self-determination, -is to Froebel “the end of man, for -which he first was planned.” It is, as he constantly -put it, man’s “destination.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“To become clearly conscious of all the conditions -and relations in which and by means of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -which man exists makes man first become man in -consciousness and in action.”—<cite>P., p. 12.</cite></p> - -<p>“For man is destined for consciousness, for -freedom, for self-determination.”—<cite>E., p. 136.</cite></p> - -<p>“Self-consciousness belongs to the nature of -man, is one with it; to become conscious of itself -is the first task in the life of the child as a -human being, as it is the task of his whole life.”—<cite>P., -p. 40.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>“Who amongst us,” exclaims Professor Royce, -“conceives himself in his uniqueness except as the -remote goal of some ideal process of coming to himself -and of awakening to the truth about his own life? -Only an infinite process can show me who I am.”<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p> - -<p>Froebel never loses sight of this. In his Autobiography -he tells how he began “unwillingly” to -write something in the album of a friend who was -the owner of a beautiful farm, and he concludes: -“Then my thoughts grew clear and I continued, -‘Thou givest man bread; let my aim be to give man -himself.’” That he verily believed that the gradual -development of self-consciousness is the first task in -the life of the child is abundantly evident. In the -very beginning of his Mother Songs he tells the mother -to give her child something to push against, “to bring -the child to self-knowledge as soon as possible,” and -at the end he says, “When a child or human being -has found himself and has firm hold over himself, he -is ready to walk joyfully through life.”</p> - -<p>In “The First Action of a Child,” Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The nature of man, as man, is that he is -self-conscious, and this is stamped with distinctness -enough to be observed in the quite peculiar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -character of childish activity,<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> in his impulse to -busy himself self-actively, spontaneously: an -impulse which awakens simultaneously with mind, -and which is in harmony with feeling and perception. -If this tendency to spontaneous activity -is fostered, man’s triune nature—energy, emotion -and intellect—is satisfied.”—<cite>P., p. 21.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>A realization of what Sir Oliver Lodge calls “the -universal struggle for self-manifestation and corporeal -realization, which plays so large a part in all activity,” -underlies all that Froebel has to say of the progress -from unconscious activity to self-conscious volition. -His view of the Universe is exactly that tentatively -suggested by Professor Lodge, viz. that something akin -to this universal struggle “is exhibited in a region -beyond and above what is ordinarily conceived of -as ‘Nature.’ The process of evolution can be regarded -as the gradual unfolding of the Divine Thought or -Logos, throughout the universe, by the action of Spirit -upon matter.”</p> - -<p>This takes us out of the region of psychology, but -Froebel’s subject was not psychology, <i lang="la">per se</i>, but child -development, as a part of the whole plan of evolution, -man being the most highly developed of creatures.</p> - -<p>The whole universe is an expression of the Divine, -but man alone can become conscious of his origin.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“All things are destined to reveal God in their -external and transient being.… It is the special -destiny of man, as an intelligent and rational being -to become conscious of his divine essence and to -render this active, to reveal it in his life, with self-determination -and freedom.”—<cite>E., p. 2.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Made in the image of God,” meant to Froebel -self-conscious and self-determined. The relation of man -to God is expressed by Froebel as the relation of the -thought to the thinker “<em>could the thought but become -conscious of itself</em>.” In a letter of 1843, he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“At the basis of the Kindergarten lies an idea -which serves alike for all the interstellar spaces, -for all systems of the sun; the fulfilment of the -divine will and the manifestation of the same. -<em>In order to become such a manifestation of the divine, -man has first to attain the basis of self-consciousness</em>; -to which end serves the early culture of the spirit -of humanity in the world of childhood.”—<cite>L., p. 133.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In a paper entitled “A Second Review of the Plays,” -which really deals chiefly with evolution, we read:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“We must see clearly the conditions of development -in Nature and then employ them in life. -Thus only can we raise man upon his own plane, -that is, the spiritual plane, at least to such a -degree of perfection as is shown on their plane -by the types of Nature.</p> - -<p>“Man—the all-surveying—must develop himself -by gradual growth of consciousness, must raise -himself eventually to clear consciousness of the -foundation, conditions and goal of his life.”—<cite>P., -p. 198.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It was as clear to Froebel as to Professor Lloyd -Morgan that the lower animals are kept from -reaching self-consciousness by the definiteness of their -instincts,<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> but to Froebel as to Browning “in completed -Man begins anew a tendency to God.” Like -Browning again, Froebel finds that man has “somewhat -to cast off, somewhat to become,” he, too, “finds -Progress man’s distinctive mark alone, not God’s, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -not the beasts’; God is, they are, man partly is, -and wholly hopes to be.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Man in his first period of life on earth is to be -regarded while a child in three separate relations, -which are united in themselves.</p> - -<p>“(<i>a</i>) As a child of Nature, that is according to -his earthly and natural conditions and connections, -and in this relation bound, chained, unconscious, -subject to impulses (als ein gebundenes, gefesseltes, -unbewusstes, den Trieben unterworfenes).</p> - -<p>“(<i>b</i>) As a child of God, and in this relation as -a free being, destined to self-consciousness.</p> - -<p>“(<i>c</i>) As a child of Humanity, and in this relation, -as a being struggling from bondage toward -freedom, toward consciousness.”—<cite>P., p. 11.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And the beginning of all he finds in “The First -Action of the Child.” In the paper to which he gives -this title Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Helplessness and personal will, a mind of -one’s own, soon become therefore the turning-points -of child-life, the fulcrum of which is free -spontaneous activity, self-employment.”—<cite>P., p. 27.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is because Froebel believes this, that we hear -so much of creative activity. Consciousness, which -Meredith calls “the great result of mortal suffering,” -is the outcome of all the unconscious striving.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child, although unconsciously, strives to -make his life outwardly objective, and thus perceptible -and so to become conscious of it.”—<cite>P., -p. 240.</cite></p> - -<p>“Man only comes to the power of self-examination -and self-knowledge in any relation whatever -with the greatest difficulty, and must first learn to -study himself … in the mirror of Nature and of -all creation.”—<cite>L., p. 57.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child must perceive and grasp his own -life in an objective manifestation before he can -perceive and grasp it in himself. Such mirroring -of the inner life, such making of the inner life -objective, is essential, for through it, the child -comes to self-consciousness and learns to order, -determine and master himself.”—<cite>P., p. 238.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel realizes then, that true volition is the outcome -of unconscious striving, that it can only come -through action, and, what is most important, through -action which is the outcome of feeling, “worthy his -effort.” So, while stating that the formation of “a -pure, strong and enduring will” is the main object of -education, he takes care to point out that unless the -boy is allowed to carry out in action “that which is -within,” ideas which have appealed to him, and which -he has already made his own, that main object will -not be easily attainable.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“To raise activity of will to firmness of will, -and so to arouse, and form a pure, strong and -enduring will, for the representation of a characteristic -humanity, is the chief aim, the main -object of the school.… The starting-point of -all mental activity in the boy should be energetic -and healthy, the direction should be simple and -definite, the aim certain and conscious, and -worthy of his effort. Therefore to raise the -natural activity of the will to true genuine firmness -of will, all the boy’s activities should have -reference to the development and accomplishment -of what is within him. Activity of will proceeds -from activity of the feelings, and firmness of will -from firmness of the feelings, and where the -first is lacking, the second will be difficult of -attainment.”—<cite>E., p. 96.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br /> -<span class="smcap">Characteristics of the Earliest Consciousness</span></h2> - -<p>It is in the emphasis he lays upon the mental activity -of the child from the very first, that Froebel -approaches so closely to the position of the modern -psychologist, and in his account of the earliest consciousness -he distinctly resembles Professors Ward and -Stout.</p> - -<p>Only to “some of our most distinguished modern -psychologists” does Professor Stout attribute a strong -disposition to recognize in the elementary processes of -perception and association, the rudimentary presence -of these mental operations which in their higher form -we call reasoning and constructive imagination.</p> - -<p>Now Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“One can recognize and watch, even in the first -stages of childhood, though only in their slightest -traces and tenderest germs, all the mental activities -which certainly do not stand out prominently till -later life. Say not, ye parents, How can such -tendencies lie already in the life of the child still so -unconscious and so helpless? If they did not lie -in it they could never be developed from it … for -where there is not the germ of something, this -something will never be called forth and appear.… -As man is a being intended for increasing self-consciousness, -so shall he also become an inferring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -and judging being (schliessendes und urtheilendes). -Man has also a quite characteristic power of -imagination, and—what must never be forgotten, -but continually kept before the eyes as important -and guiding—the new-born child not only will -become man, but the man with all his qualities, -and with the unity of his being, already appears -and indeed is in the child.”—<cite>P., pp. 30-49.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Psychologists in general, says Professor Stout, -show a tendency, which he regards as erroneous, “to -ignore the constructive aspect of early mental process, -to recognize mental productiveness only in complete -and advanced stages of mental development.”</p> - -<p>But Froebel, in speaking of the mother’s play with -a mere infant, when the coloured ball may present “the -perception of an object as such,” most distinctly states -that the child’s “first impressions, as it were the first -cognitions,” come to him in these early plays by -<em>means of his own activity</em>, an activity of body -emphatically, as we shall see presently, but an activity -also of mind, of perception, “durch Wahrnehmen … -durch dunkles Auffassen … durch Selbst-thätigkeit.”<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> - -<p>Froebel uses such expressions as “the spontaneous -reception” and even “the critical reception of the -outer world,” just as Dr. Ward, in refusing to recognize -an internal sense, says “the new facts … are due to -our mental activity, and not to a special mode of what -has been called our sensitivity.”</p> - -<p>The active, rather than the passive attitude, strikes -Froebel so forcibly that he calls the two modes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -consciousness, the receiving of, and reacting upon -impressions, a “double expression.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The first voluntary needs of the child, if its -bodily needs are satisfied and it feels well and -strong, are observation of its surroundings, spontaneous -reception of the outer world (selbstthätiges -Aufnehmen der Aussenwelt) and play, which is -spontaneous expression, or acting out of what is -within. This double expression (Diese Doppeläusserung) -of taking in and expressing outwardly is -necessarily grounded in its nature, as in human -nature in general; since the child’s first earthly destiny -is to attain by critical reception (durch prüfende -Aufnahme) of the outer world into itself, by manifold -inward impressions and outward expressions of its -inner world, and by critical comparison of both, -to the recognition of their unity.…”—<cite>P., p. 29.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Professor Stout attributes this ignoring by certain -psychologists of the constructive aspect of early mental -process to a false view of the nature both of association -and of construction, the fundamental fallacy of the -associationists lying in their disposition to explain the -nature and existence of a whole by reference to the -nature and existence of the parts which are contained -in it, so that “the parts must be supposed to pre-exist -before they are combined, and to pre-exist in such a -way that they need only to be in some manner externally -brought together or associated in order to constitute -the whole which contains them.”</p> - -<p>In like manner Dr. Ward accuses psychologists of -having “usually represented mental advance as consisting -fundamentally in the combination and recombination -of various elementary units, the so-called -sensations and primitive movements, or, in other -words, in a species of mental chemistry.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span></p> - -<p>That Froebel seems to have avoided the error thus -pointed out by those two psychologists, is surprising -enough, but it is even more surprising to find that -this is probably due to the fact that his conception -of the earliest possible consciousness is very much -like theirs.</p> - -<p>In rejecting “the atomistic view,” Professor Ward -maintains that “the further we go back, the nearer -we approach to a total presentation, having the -character of one general continuum in which differences -are latent.”</p> - -<p>Froebel’s account, as given in “The Education of -Man,” is very similar:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Although in itself made up of the same -objects and of the same organization, the external -world comes to the child at first, out of its void, -as it were, in misty, formless indistinctness, in -chaotic confusion, even the child and the outer -world merge into one another.”—<cite>E., p. 40.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>This description reminds us of Professor James’ -picturesque expression, “big, blooming, buzzing confusion,” -which is so often quoted, but which does not -really convey so true a picture as Dr. Ward’s account, -for where there is no distinction there can surely be -no confusion. But a few pages further on we find -Froebel describing the infant consciousness before -speech begins, as “<em>still an unorganized, undifferentiated -unity</em>” (noch eine ungegliederte mannigfaltigkeitslose -Einheit). This is identical with the expression used -by Professor Stout, who, in speaking of the stage to -which he gives the name “implicit apprehension,” the -apprehension of an unanalysed whole, uses the phrase -“distinctionless unity.” Froebel talks of the child -feeling himself a whole and “so also, though unconsciously, -seeking to grasp a whole, never merely a part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -as such.” And just as Dr. Ward claims for psychology -as well as for biology “what may be called a principle -of progressive differentiation or specialization,” so -Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child mind develops according to the -law which governs world development, viz.: that -of progression from the unlimited to the limited, -from the general to the special, from the whole -to the part.”—<cite>P., p. 170.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In this, of course, lies the reason for Froebel’s -correct apprehension of the infant mind, he was -biologist first, and his mind was full of the idea of -development.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“At the same time there begins in the child, -as in the seed-corn, a development towards complexity.”—<cite>P., -p. 172.</cite></p> - -<p>“Whether we are looking at a seed or an egg, -whether we are watching feeling or thought, what -is definite proceeds everywhere from what is indefinite -and this is the way in which your child’s -life is sure to show itself.”—<cite>M., p. 121.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Professor Ward goes on to discuss what is implied -in this process of differentiation or mental growth, -saying that if analogies are to be taken from the -physical world at all, the growth of a seed or embryo, -will furnish far better illustrations of the unfolding of -the contents of consciousness than the building up of -molecules.</p> - -<p>It was the endeavour, and quaint enough it seems -to us, to translate this psychological truth into educational -practice, that led Froebel to lay so much stress -on the fact that the earliest of his so-called “Gifts” -are indivisible wholes:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Let us place ourselves at the nursery table, -and try to perceive what the child is impelled to -do in the beginning of his self-employment. Let -us sit ourselves as unnoticed as possible considering -how the child, after he has examined the self-contained -tangible object in its form and colour, -has moved it here and there and proved its solidity, -how he then tries to divide it, at least to change -its form.… Thus <em>after perception of the whole, -the child desires to see it separated</em> into parts.… -Let us stop at this significant phenomenon and -try to discern through it what plaything following -on the self-contained ball, hard and soft, and the -solid hard cube, we should for inner reason and -without arbitrariness give to the child.”—<cite>P., -p. 117.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Then come directions as to the manner in which -the toy is to be presented:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“in order to give the child <em>the impression of the -whole</em> (den Eindrück des Ganzen). <em>From this as -the first fundamental perception</em> (der ersten Grundanschauung) -<em>everything proceeds and must proceed</em>.”<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> - -</div> - -<p>Starting from the conception of an undifferentiated -totality or objective continuum, Dr. Ward says, “Of -the very beginnings of this continuum we can say -nothing, absolute beginnings are beyond the pale of -science. Actual presentation consists in this continuum -being differentiated; every differentiation constitutes -a new presentation. Hence the common-place of -psychologists: ‘We are only conscious as we are -conscious of change.’” …</p> - -<p>As to absolute beginnings, Froebel too writes that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> -these are past finding out, but he does so in order to -call the mother’s attention to the importance of the -very earliest steps:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Do not say, It is much too early.… Too -early? Do you know when, where and how -your child’s intellectual development begins? -Can you tell when and where is the boundary -of existence that has not yet begun, and of its -actual beginning, and how this boundary manifests -itself?”—<cite>M., p. 154.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Coming now to what Froebel has to say as to how -his “unorganized unity” becomes differentiated, we -shall not find that his brief account differs in any -really fundamental way from that of Professor Ward. -Some of his expressions have a very modern sound, -such as: “how the outer world begins to divide and -analyse itself”; how “out of the indefinite outside -and around the child comes the definite”; or again -how the child gains “the three great perceptions of -object, space and time, which at first were one collective -perception.” (“Die drei grossen Wahrnehmungen -von Gegenstand, Raum und Zeit; welche anfangs in -einer Gesammtwahrnehmung in dem Kinde ruhten.”)—<cite>P., -p. 37.</cite></p> - -<p>Commenting upon the phrase “We are only conscious -as we are conscious of change,” Dr. Ward remarks that -the word change does not sufficiently explain what -happens in differentiation, for this implies that the -increased complexity is due to the persistence of former -changes; such persistence being essential to the very -idea of growth or development.… At the same time -he is careful to point out that neither in “retentiveness” -nor in assimilation is there “any confronting of the old -with the new,” any “active comparison.” Without -change of impression consciousness would be a blank,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -but “a difference between presentations is not at all -the same as the presentation of that difference. The -former must precede the latter; the latter, which -requires active comparison, need not follow … we must -recognize objects before we can compare them.”</p> - -<p>Froebel says that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“All the development of the child has its -foundation in almost imperceptible attainments -and perceptions … the first perceptions, in the -beginning almost imperceptible and evanescent, are -fixed, increased and clarified by innumerable -repetitions, and <em>by change</em>.”—<cite>P., p. 38.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel, too, goes back to this very earliest stage, -the stage when a baby “begins to notice.” He says that -this indication of an intellect (Seelenaeusserung) begins -when the child is a few weeks old, and is occasioned at -first by the movement, that is change in position, of a -bright object, “in and by means of the motion the child -first perceives the object.”—<cite>P., p. 64.</cite></p> - -<p>In another passage Froebel speaks of change as -“a dim conception of sequence, and thus of dim comparison.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“These first impressions come to the child by -means of perception and seeing, and by means of -coming, staying and vanishing (of the ball); <em>by -means of change</em>, thus also, in a certain point of -view by means of early dim conceptions of sequence, -of foundation and result, of cause and effect, and -thus of dim comparison.”—<cite>P., p. 65.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>A change or difference which does not imply active -comparison, and a change or sequence which does -imply dim comparison are not very far apart, and -Froebel makes his meaning clearer still by using the -words “unconsciously comparing” (unbewusst vergleichend).</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“By this play his attention is called to the -precise shape of the cube; and he will look at -it sharply, unconsciously comparing it with the -hand, to which his eyes were first attracted.”—<cite>P., -p. 84.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Nor does Froebel omit to notice the necessary close -connection of the new with the old, which Dr. Ward -emphasizes.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child very often seeks for something -without at all knowing what he seeks; in like -manner he repels something without at all knowing -why. Yet the child does not for this reason -turn away accidentally, neither does he seek the -accidental. Generally it is the new for which the -child seeks, but not a novelty which has no connection -with what has hitherto been, for that, -should it appear, would obstruct development. -He seeks the new which has developed from the -old, like a bud from a branch. He seeks a new -unexpected turn, a new unexpected use of a -thing, new unexpected properties, new and yet -unconsciously anticipated development, a new -unexpected connection with his life.… The -child indeed seeks for the new that is outside -of himself, but not on account of its externality. -Really he is seeking the new of which he feels -premonitions in himself, in his own development. -Since, however, he does not yet know this, and so -cannot give an account of it, <em>the child seeks especially -for change</em>, in order to gain a means of growing -up within himself, and of growing forth outwardly -from himself.</p> - -<p>“Above all, therefore, it is the old within the -child which clarifies, unfolds and transmutes itself, -thus developing that which is new. The whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -process takes place according to a definite law -resting in the child himself, in his life, in life as -such.”—<cite>P., p. 168.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>We have seen that Froebel draws no hard and fast line -between sensation and thought. On more than one -occasion, he does refer to something less definite than a -perception, in one passage using the word “Eindrück,” -and in another the term “Vorentwickelung,” translated -by Miss Jarvis as “preliminary impression,” of which he -says it is “to be raised later, at the right time, by look -and by word, to a clear perception.”—<cite>P., p. 86.</cite></p> - -<p>In “The Education of Man,” Froebel’s earlier work, -he deals with the function of language, “the word,” in -differentiating “the misty formless darkness,” the -nothing, the mist.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“At an early period there come, too, on the -part of the parents, corresponding words which -at first separate the child from the outer world, -but afterwards re-unite them. With the help of -these words, these objects present themselves, at -first singly and rarely, but later in various combinations -and more frequently in their self-contained -definite individuality. At last man—the child—beholds -himself as a definite individual object, -wholly distinct from all others.”—<cite>E., p. 40.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The function of the name, as calling attention to the -thing, seemed to Froebel of so much consequence, that -he says, “the name creates the thing for the child.” -It is in connection with the development of speech in -the stage just following on infancy that he says: “Up -to this stage, the inner being of man is still an unorganized -undifferentiated unity. With language, organization -sets in.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p><div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“This period is pre-eminently the period of the -development of the faculty of speech. Therefore it -was indispensable that whatever the child did -should be clearly and definitely designated by the -word. Every object, every thing, became such, -as it were only through the word; before it had -been named, although the child might have seemed -to see it with the outer eyes, it had no existence -for him. The name, as it were, created the thing -for the child.—<cite>E., p. 90.</cite></p> - -<p>“The object of giving names is not primarily -the development of the child’s power of speech, -but to assist his comprehension of the object, its -parts and properties, by defining his sense-impressions.”—<cite>P., -p. 242.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Professor Stout also speaks of the casual naming -of the object, by those around the child as “a means -of fixing the attention of the child on the object -when it would otherwise pass unnoticed,” and he -guards against the misconception that the name at -the outset is a name for the child. He calls it “merely -a special sound associated with a special percept in -a quite casual and indefinite way.”</p> - -<p>Froebel, too, is careful when he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“A definite tone is to be connected with a -definite perception, and the tone when heard again -may recall the perception.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>Though Froebel has little to say about the separate -senses, and what little he has is worthless, yet on the -other hand he has a great deal to say, especially in -his later writings, about the child’s bodily activity, -and the experiences and perceptions (Erfahrung-Wahrnehmen) -he gains from it. Indeed he makes so -much of this, and it is so essentially a modern way of -thinking that it has been given a chapter to itself.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br /> -<span class="smcap">How Consciousness is Differentiated.—The Place -of Action in the Development of Perception and of Feeling</span></h2> - -<p>Once objects have begun to emerge, differentiated -out of the formless indistinctness, comes what -Froebel calls the “sucking-in stage,” where the child -“makes the external internal.”</p> - -<p>Here, more than anywhere perhaps, Froebel shows -his genius, his originality as a student of child psychology, -in that he perceived that this mental sucking-in -is not merely a matter of sense organs, but that -it is also a muscular performance.</p> - -<p>Who, before Froebel, understood the importance of -motor activity from the very earliest days, as a means -of gaining ideas, or realized as we now begin to do, -that this is the true explanation of the “endless -imitation which is the child’s vocation”?</p> - -<p>In speaking of the “new-born child,” it is activity -or action which is again and again repeated and -emphasized as the outstanding characteristic, “an -activity and action devoted to working with and -prevailing over the outer.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“As rest appears to be the earliest requirement -of the bodily life, so movement soon appears as -the demand of the soul life.”—<cite>P., p. 63.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The baby’s “feeble strength” is to be drawn into -the game, where possible, “particularly that he may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -experience and perceive, directly through and in his -own activity” (durch und in Eigenthätigkeit unmittelbar -selbst erfahre und wahrnehme).—<cite>P., p. 78.</cite></p> - -<p>It is “through spontaneous activity, as well as -through the mother’s instinctive knowledge of his -needs” that the child gains “the first impressions of -the soul, as it were, the first cognitions.”</p> - -<p>Out of forty-nine Mother Songs, two only deal -specifically with the senses, though all deal with action, -and Froebel takes care to point out the close connection -of sense and movement.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Limbs and senses seem to have very different -provinces of activity, and so they have; yet -so deep-seated is their linked interchange that -neither of them fails to react on the other. And -no Games for the limbs have presented themselves -to us, not even the ‘Kicking Song’ which -have not also made demands upon the sense of -sight.”—<cite>M., p. 168.</cite></p> - -<p>“The use of the body and of the limbs is -developed simultaneously and in the same proportion -as the use of the senses, the order being -determined by their own nature and the properties -of the material world. Outer objects are near, or -moving away, or fixed at a distance, and either -invite rest, seizure and holding fast, or invite him -who would bring them nearer to move towards -them.”—<cite>E., p. 47.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel’s account of the significance of the ceaseless -activity of the young child anticipates to a certain -extent that of Mr. Irving King, who, in his most -interesting “Psychology of Child Development,” deals -expressly with “the functional relation of consciousness -to activity.” But the views of Professor Stout as -expressed in his “Analytic Psychology,” and with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -which Froebel’s writing has already been compared, -and those of Mr. Irving King do not appear to clash -in any way.</p> - -<p>Mr. King begins by discussing the “sort of consciousness” -a young child must have, and concludes that it -must from the very first be a unified consciousness, -however vague, any discreteness being on the part of -the object. He also states that the consciousness of a -human being must differ from that of the animal -entering life with many “ready-made complexes of -adjustment,” because “Consciousness is related not to -activity, but to the growth of activity.” We have -just seen that Froebel too insists on a unified consciousness, -that he too says that “the external -world,” though composed always of the same variety -of objects, “comes to the child as ‘an undifferentiated -unity.’” Froebel is also quite sound as to the difference -between the mental possibilities of the animal -“whose instincts, as they are called, are at birth so -definite and strong,” and that of the child “born in -the extreme condition of helplessness,” by whom -“everything external is to be overcome.”<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> - -<p>Reflex and instinctive acts which the child brings -into the world with him, says Mr. King, are unconscious, -as are reflex and habitual activities to the adult, but -“the checking of a movement must make the child -more definitely conscious of it … it is no longer -mere movement, but movement-stopped-by-something. -As soon as movement stands out, as soon as the -consciousness of it is interwoven with something that -is not movement, we have the basis for indefinite -advance.”</p> - -<p>Froebel says the same thing in the first of the -Mother Songs, where he takes as the point of departure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -for all future training this movement-stopped-by-something, -to which Mr. King refers as the earliest -beginning of consciousness. The mother is told that -when her baby “strikes out with his small arms, as he -kicks with his feet,” it is a challenge, to which she -instinctively responds by giving him her hand or her -chest, “against which he tramples with alternate feet -and so measures and increases his strength.” So, he -reaches “that first consciousness of self, which is -born of physical opposition to and connection with -the external world.”—<cite>P., p. 171.</cite></p> - -<p>Every one knows that Froebel laid much stress on -the necessity for what is usually called “expression,” -which he called <i lang="de">Darstellung</i>—often translated “representation.” -One of his reasons for this emphasis is, however, -by no means always understood, viz. that it “induces -clear perception.”</p> - -<p>It is in discussing and criticizing Professor Baldwin’s -description of imitation as a circular process, that -Mr. Irving King brings out two points of view from -which we may regard imitation, that of the observer -and that of the so-called imitator. Imitation, he says, -is a term for the observer only, and not a term for -psychology at all. Baldwin says that “real or persistent -imitation is the reaction that will reproduce -the stimulating impression and so tend to perpetuate -itself.” But as Mr. King shows in the case of the -child who imitates his mother’s poking of the fire, -“the response of the child to the copy does not reinstate -the original stimulus.… What the child gets -is not a reproduced stimulus, but a new experience.”</p> - -<p>In “The Education of Man,” written years before -his whole attention was given to the young child, -Froebel had emphasized the necessity for “representation” -which “induces and implies clear perception.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“For what man tries to represent or do, that -he begins to understand.”—<cite>E., p. 76.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>As we have seen that Froebel sets before himself -the self-same task which Mr. King states as the -business of the genetic psychologist, so it should be -no surprise that he gives virtually the same answer to -the question: What do the imitative activities mean -to the child?</p> - -<p>Mr. King’s answer is that the child’s emphasis is -not on the copying of a certain act, but on the attainment -of a certain experience that comes through the -copying or imitating. “The child,” he says, “is -seldom or never imitating from his own point of -view, but is always trying to sort out some of his -own ill-organized experiences.”</p> - -<p>Froebel’s words are:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child, though unconsciously, strives to -make his inner life outwardly objective and thus -perceptible, and so to become conscious of it, to -see it mirrored in the outward phenomena. It -is for this reason that the child tries to do himself -whatever he sees done.”—<cite>P., p. 240.</cite></p> - -<p>“If your child is to understand any action, you -must let him carry it out himself, deeply rooted -in this fact is his prompt and delighted imitation -of whatever he finds around him.”—<cite>M., p. 16.</cite></p> - -<p>“Thought must form itself in action, and action -resolve and clear itself in thought.”—<cite>P., p. 42.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Every stimulus, says Mr. King, is a suggestion to -activity, and it is interesting to notice how two minds -working on the same lines, though separated not only -by years but by difference of language, can fall into -almost the same phrases. Mr. King unconsciously uses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -almost Froebel’s very words when he writes: “<em>The -sight of the object tends to set the activity free</em>.”</p> - -<p>Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“As the ball stirs, moves, goes, runs and rolls, -the child who is playing with it begins to feel the -desire to do likewise.… The smallest child moves -joyfully, springs gaily, hops up and down or beats -with his arms when he sees a moving object. This -is not merely delight in the movement of the object -before him, but it is the working of the inner -activity wakened in him by the sight of outer -activity. <em>Through such vision the inner life has -been freed.</em>”—<cite>P., p. 239.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>We have seen that according to Froebel the -earliest consciousness is a kind of self-consciousness. -Mr. Irving King says that the very beginning of -consciousness is “movement-stopped-by-something,” -and Froebel says that when the baby kicks out -or tramples with his feet and the mother responds -by giving him her hand or chest to push against, -the child reaches that “first consciousness of self -which is born of physical opposition to and connection -with the external world.” Here again we -come to a point in which Froebel’s insight shows -well in comparison with a typical modern genetic -psychologist. “Many writers,” says Mr. Irving King, -“have tried to select out certain kinds of activity as -peculiarly connected with the development of the -infant’s sense of self.” Preyer, for instance, connects -this development specially with painful sensations; -Baldwin, with experience associated with people, as -contrasted with experience of things. His own conclusion -is that “it seems more correct to say that -all the child’s activities are factors of very nearly -equal importance for developing the sense of self, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> -distinct from things and other people,” and it is this -view that we find in Froebel’s writings. Even in -“The Education of Man” we find:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“If man, in accordance with his destiny, is -truly and thoroughly to know each thing of the -surrounding world; if <em>with the aid of each thing -he is truly and thoroughly to know himself</em>.…”—<cite>E., -p. 92.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And among his later writings, in connection with the -child’s play with bricks Froebel says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“True and early knowledge of Nature and of -the outer world and <em>especially clear self-knowledge</em> -come to the child by this early dismembering and -reconstruction and perception of real things, though -not as yet, by any means, through verbal designation -of the various productions of childish -activity.”—<cite>P., p. 123.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>“Self-consciousness,” says Mr. King, “is essentially -a relative and variable term for all of us. It stands for -a process of definition, that, strictly speaking, proceeds -till maturity, or even later.” And Froebel, writing -about how, through the mother’s play with a ball, -a child may gain his earliest perceptions of object, -space and time, says that by the coming and going -of the ball, etc.,</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“there goes forth to the child the object, recognized -as such by the mind and so held fast, the consciousness -of the object, and so consciousness itself -awakens in the child.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>And without a pause he goes on:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Self-consciousness belongs to the nature of -man, and is one with it. To become conscious of -itself is the first task in the life of the child, as -it is the task of the whole life of man. That this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -task may be accomplished the child is, even from -his first appearance, surrounded by a definite -place and by objects: by the air blowing around -all living creatures, as well as by the arousing, -human, spiritual language of words.… Thus it -is with the attainment of man to consciousness -and the speech required and conditioned by that -attainment to consciousness.”—<cite>P., p. 39.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is rather interesting to notice that in her translation -of this passage in which Froebel declares that -self-consciousness comes to a child as a result of all his -surroundings, Miss Jarvis omits the word “self.” She -begins her paragraph with “Bewusstsein,” instead of -“Selbstbewusstsein” as it stands in the original. To -quote Mr. King, “It is generally held that these are -two distinct attitudes, that consciousness may exist -without an accompanying consciousness of the self as -separate from the objects, activities and persons of the -rest of the world.” Probably this was Miss Jarvis’s -own view, and she left out the word “self” as having -no place or meaning in the context. It was, however, -not meaningless to Froebel himself.</p> - -<p>Mr. King continues: “The really important point -is not to be able to put the finger down on some one -thing that proves a developed self-consciousness, but -to be able to show at every point that the process -of definition is a function of the growing complexity of -the child’s activities.” And, in “The First Action -of a Child” Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The nature of man as a being intended for -self-consciousness, shows itself in the quite distinctive -nature of the child’s activity, even at the -end of the so-called three months’ slumber, in the -totality of the first childish action. This cannot -be better comprehended than by the expression<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -‘to busy himself’ (sich beschäftigen) in the impulse -of the child—an impulse awakening simultaneously -with his inner life—an impulse in close union with -feeling and perception, to be active for the increasing -development of his life: in this lies the nature -of man as a being intended to grow towards and -ultimately to become self-conscious.”—<cite>P., p. 22.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Speaking of his second plaything, intended for a -child six months old, he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“And so his play, and through his play, his -surroundings—finally Nature and Universe—may -become a mirror of himself and of his life. But -this cannot be too early facilitated, that the child -at once, from the first beginning of his self-developing -feeling of life, may grow up in exchange -and comparison with Nature and life, and as he -impresses his life in form, and as form on things -outside, so he may again perceive his life therein.”—<cite>P., -p. 95.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel was bound to watch for early developments -of self-consciousness, because his whole philosophy and -pedagogy are based on his firm belief that while everything -in the universe is an expression of the Divine, -man alone is “destined” to express the God within -“with self-determination.” So, of the little child, he -writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Because the child himself begins to represent -his inner being outwardly, he imputes the same -activity to all about him, to the pebble and chip -of wood, to the plant, the flower, and the animal. -And thus there is developed in the child at this -stage his own life, his life with parents and family, -and particularly his life in and with Nature, as if -this held life <em>like that which he feels within himself</em>.”—<cite>E., -p. 54.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p> - -<p>As the child grows older, the mother, Froebel -continues, tries to teach him to feel the complexity of -his own body, “Give me your arm,” “Where is your -hand?” she says, and she “playfully leads him to a -knowledge of the members which he cannot see,” and -the passage ends:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The aim of all this is to lead the child to self-consciousness, -to reflection about himself in the -approaching period of boyhood. Thus, a boy ten -years old, similarly guided by instinct, believing -himself unobserved, soliloquized: ‘I am not my -arm, nor my ear; all my limbs and organs I can -separate from myself, and I still remain myself; -I wonder what I am; who and what is this which -I call myself?’”—<cite>E., p. 56.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Nor does Froebel forget the idea of the self as the -boy grows older.</p> - -<p>Once the activities of running, jumping, etc., are -familiar, the boy’s play takes on a new complexion. -His games are now “trials of strength,” or “displays -of strength.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The boy tries to see himself in his companions, -to feel himself in them, to weigh and measure -himself by them, to know and find himself by their -aid.”—<cite>E., p. 114.</cite></p> - -<p>“The life of the boy has, indeed, no other -purpose but that of the outer representation of -his self: his life is in truth but an external representation -of his inner being, of his power, particularly -through plastic material. In the forms he -fashions, he does not see outer forms which he -is to take in and understand; he sees in them -the expression of his spirit, of the activities of -his own mind.”—<cite>E., p. 279.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> - -<p>Surely it is another touch of genius that makes -Froebel spring to the nascent idea of self as <em>the</em> reason -for the child’s craving for tales of all kinds.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Knowledge of a thing can never be attained -by comparing it with itself. Therefore the boy -cannot attain any knowledge of the nature and -meaning of his own life, by comparing it with -itself … everybody knows that comparisons with -somewhat remote objects are more effective than -those with very near objects. Only the study of -the life of others can furnish such points of comparison -with the life he has himself experienced.… -It is the innermost desire and need of a -vigorous boy to understand his own life.… This -is the chief reason why boys are so fond of stories, -legends and tales.… The story concerns other -men, other circumstances, other times and places, -yet the hearer seeks his own image, he beholds it, -and no one knows that he sees it.”—<cite>E., p. 305.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>As Froebel shows so much insight into the -paramount importance of action in the development of -self-consciousness, it is not surprising to find that he -recognizes also its special importance in the development -of feeling.</p> - -<p>It is probably to the late Professor James and his -sparkling paradoxes that the educational world owes -its grasp of the importance of expression in connection -with feeling; we feel because we act, we are told, we do -not run away because we are afraid, but we are afraid -because we have run away. But all Froebelians had -already learnt the truth at the bottom of this from -Froebel’s Mother Songs.</p> - -<p>When he wrote his earliest and greatest book, “The -Education of Man,” Froebel was already far enough -advanced to point out the necessity for at least verbal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> -expression of feeling. He then advocated giving to -young boys simple prayers or words by which they -can express childish gratitude for care and protection, -so that these feelings may be retained and deepened.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is natural that religious feelings and -thoughts should spring up.… In the beginning -these sentiments and feelings will only manifest -themselves as an effect, a fullness without word -or form, without any adequate expression of what -they are, merely as something that uplifts our -being and fills the soul. At this juncture, it is -most beneficial, strengthening, and uplifting for -the boy to receive words—a language for these -sentiments and feelings—<em>so that they may not be -stifled in themselves, vanish for lack of expression</em>.”—<cite>E., -p. 246.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The same remark is made in connection with the -teaching of poems and songs. When feeling is aroused -by the contemplation of Nature, it must be expressed. -When Spring brings “gladness,” and Autumn “longing -and hope,” and when Winter awakens “courage and -vigour,” then:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Man, too, would express the thoughts and -feelings that are awakened in him and for which -he cannot find words, and these should be given -him.… the thoughtful teacher can easily interpret -the thoughts and feelings of the boys, as well -as the phases of Nature, in living fitting words.… -In general, all that was said concerning -the appropriation of religious expressions is true -here.”—<cite>E., p. 267.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel had also noted even thus early how “the -natural mother” from the very beginning cultivates -feeling through expression, through gesture or action.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Mother love seeks to awaken and to interpret -the feeling of community between the child -and the father, brother and sister, when she says, -‘Dear Daddy!’ as she caressingly passes the -child’s hand over the father’s cheek. ‘Love -daddy, love little sister,’ etc.”—<cite>E., p. 69.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In the Mother’s Songs, written much later and after -Froebel had made careful observation of young children, -he is more emphatic, and his ideas of expression are -both wider and more definite. In “The Education of -Man” he had said that literature exercises and tests -judgment and feelings, and he had added that this -should be followed up by some constructive action. -But now he knows that feeling when stirred ought to -express itself in actual service, just as James suggests -“speaking genially to one’s grandmother, or giving up -one’s seat in a horse car, if nothing more heroic offers.”</p> - -<p>The mother is told that at first she should help -her little one to understand her care of him and his -dependence on her by “the looking-glass of outer life,” -by letting him, for instance, watch the hen caring for -her chickens, and the parent birds feeding and brooding -over their young in the nest. In the rhymed motto -of “The Nest” she is told:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Already the baby likes to see pictures showing -the loving care of a mother. Let him do so often, -that his life experience may become clear to him.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>But the longer explanation has an important -addition:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The way lies through our imaginative, tender -and emotional observation of Nature and of man’s -life, and through the child’s affectionately taking -their most intimate meaning into the life of his -own heart, <em>and expressing by representation what he -thus takes in</em>.”—<cite>M., p. 149.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span></p> - -<p>So, as the child begins to realize what he owes, -comes the next little play, “The Flower Basket,” the -key-note of which is given in its motto:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Try to let the child give outward form to -what stirs his feelings, for the love even of a child -dies away if not carefully fostered.”—<cite>M., p. 38.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And the baby makes of his tiny hands a basket for -flowers wherewith to celebrate the father’s birthday in -orthodox German fashion. In Froebel’s own phrase, -the “inner meaning” of the little finger play with its -picture, is “to cherish thoughtfully the bond, which is -invisible, yet which can be felt, whereby the life of -humanity is bound together, the first opportunity for -which is afforded by the life of the child and the family.” -What is important here is that Froebel has pointed -out the way in which this bond can be strengthened, -that is by expression, by giving “outward form to -what stirs feeling.”</p> - -<p>This idea of service as expression of feeling comes -into Froebel’s description of the ideal child, “merry, -happy, strong and busy,” when the mother:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Kissed upon his brow her blessing,</div> -<div class="verse">Then, his love for her expressing,</div> -<div class="verse">Off he starts his mother serving</div> -<div class="verse">All he can do, she’s deserving.”—<cite>M., p. 191.</cite></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Again, in connection with childish productions, -the little baskets, napkin rings, etc., that they have -made, Froebel wrote:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The use made of these little productions is -very important to the civilizing and nourishing of -the child’s being and mind, for I consider the fact -that many children receive so much and can give -hardly anything to be one of the most essential<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> -causes of the frequent retrogression of childish -love and sensibility.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel always emphasizes the essential importance -of family bonds in the development of feeling, and he -not only instructs the mother to see to it that the child -recognizes the family circle, but he tells her that he -will realize his “kinship” by service done for the -family.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Family, family, you are more than School -or Church … without you what are Altar and -Church.…”—<cite>M., p. 159.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“That many things are in a whole</div> -<div class="verse">Soon dawns upon a childish soul.</div> -<div class="verse">Then let the mother teach him carefully</div> -<div class="verse">To know the circle of the family.”—<cite>M., p. 46.</cite></div> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Duties are not burdens, duty fulfilled leads to -light, this is why every healthy child likes and -enjoys doing duties, provided they speak to him -clearly and simply, above all inexorably.… See -how happy a child is feeling he has done his -small duties. He already feels his kinship with -you thereby. Cherish this feeling, and it will be -salvation and blessing to him.”—<cite>M., p. 174.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>As the feeling of the adult is called out by the -helplessness of a child, so, too:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“the child’s sympathy is roused by the young -creatures’ necessities more than by anything else, -and among these chiefly by their nakedness and -softness: ‘… Mother, the poor little birds are -so lonely, I am so sorry for the poor little things.’”—<cite>M., -p. 150.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And in this connection too comes the warning that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -feeling must not be allowed to evaporate without -action:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“If your child’s to love and cherish</div> -<div class="verse indent1">Life that needs him day by day,</div> -<div class="verse">Give him things to tend that perish</div> -<div class="verse indent1">If he ever stops away.”—<cite>M., p. 84.</cite></div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The child is “to feel within himself Nature’s close -interdependence”:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Whenever opportunity occurs, make this inner -dependence of life clear, visible, impressive, tangible -and perceptible to your child, even though it be in -only a few of the essential links of this great chain, -until you come to the last ring that holds all the -rest, God’s Father-love for all. The baker cannot -bake if the miller brings him no flour, the miller -can grind no flour if the farmer brings him no corn, -the field can yield no crop if Nature does not work -towards it in harmony, and Nature could not work -in harmony if God had not placed in her power and -material, and if His love did not guide everything -to its fulfilment.”—<cite>M., p. 148.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And again, as always, follows the need for expression -of some kind. The children are not to be -disturbed while they “say grace” over their doll’s -feast.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is no drawing down of the sacred into outer -life; no, this is the germ which gives the outside -actions of life the inner meaning and higher consecration, -which life so much needs. For how is -your child to cultivate innocently in himself a -lively feeling for what is holy, if you will not grant -that it takes form for him even in his innocent -games.”—<cite>M., p. 148.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> - -<p>It may be as well before leaving the subject to -notice here one or two other points in connection with -feeling that are touched upon by Froebel.</p> - -<p>Though, as we have seen<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a>, the feeling side is always -kept in closest connection with those of knowledge and -action, yet the fundamental importance of the -emotional side is stated quite distinctly. The child is -“living, loving and perceiving,” or “creating, feeling -and thinking,” still:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The cultivation of boyhood rests wholly on -that of childhood; therefore activity and firmness -of the will rest upon activity and firmness of the -feelings and of the heart. Where the latter are -lacking, the former will scarcely be attainable.”—<cite>E., -p. 97.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>This is put more strongly in connection with the -child’s imitation of the music of the bell note, the -“bim-baum” or “ding-dong” sung by the mother, -while she swings the ball to and fro, which according -to Froebel “serves the emotional side.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The children thus early and definitely point -out that the centre, the real foundation, the -starting-point of human development is the heart -and the emotions, but the training to action and -thought, the corporeal and mental, goes on constantly -and inseparably by the side of it; and -thought must form itself into action, and action -resolve and clear itself in thought; but both have -their roots in the emotional nature.”—<cite>P., p. 42.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Another point Froebel makes in this connection, -is that feeling alone can awaken feeling, and that those -who complain of want of feeling in their children have -probably themselves to blame. Want of good feeling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -and the prevalence among boys of egotism, unfriendliness, -etc., is explained as:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“clearly due not merely to the failure of arousing -at an early period, and of subsequently cultivating -in the child a feeling of common sympathy, but -also to the early annihilation of this feeling between -parents and children.”—<cite>E., p. 122.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The elders must show sympathy with the child’s -thoughts and feelings, they must not rest content with -caring for his bodily welfare. If the child fails to find -sympathy, for example in connection with his interest -in Nature, if he “fails to find the same feelings among -adults who suppress his germinating inner life” then, -says Froebel:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“a double effect follows, loss of respect for the -elder and a recoil of the original anticipation.”—<cite>E., -p. 164.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Mothers and Fathers, is it not almost incredible -how early the child appears to distinguish -inner intellectual and loving gifts from outer bodily -ones, or, rather, to be conscious of the heart and -mind of the giver to feel the giving spirit? Who -does not see this in the effect of a friendly glance, -of a sympathizingly spoken word, of a tender care -which often affords little more than sympathy and -companionship?… It is a remarkable fact that -the mere love for the outward person, the mere -bodily care, does not satisfy him; indeed, the -nobler the child is in his nature the less does he -cling to the giving person. Through this consideration -we have found and recognized what we -sought, namely, that the respect and love—yea, -the reverence—of children and youth are gained -and secured to parents in proportion to what the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -latter are doing for the education of the mental -life of the children.… If the lively appreciation -of what has been done to cultivate his inner world -fill the soul of a child, then will true love and -gratitude towards parents, respect and veneration -for age, germinate in the mind of a child.”—<cite>P., -p. 111.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>We have spoken in this chapter of what is popularly -called the instinct of imitation, and we have seen that -Froebel makes much of what he calls the instinct or -impulse of activity (Thätigkeitstrieb), or the instinct -for employment (Beschäftigungstrieb).</p> - -<p>It may be well now to consider what, considering -the ideas of his day and generation, Froebel could find -to say on a subject so important as the instinctive -activities of human beings and of other animals, concerning -which so much has now been written and which, -according to Professor Dewey, Froebel regarded and -rightly regarded as the foundation-stones of educational -method.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br /> -<span class="smcap">Instinct and Instincts</span></h2> - -<p>“The older writings on Instinct are ineffectual -wastes of words,” writes Professor James, “because -their authors never came down to this -simple and definite idea (that the nervous system is -to a great extent a pre-organized bundle of reactions), -but smothered everything in vague wonder -at the clairvoyant and prophetic power of animals—so -superior to anything in Man.”<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> - -<p>Froebel was certainly not in a position to know -much of the nervous system, but what he wrote about -instinct cannot be classed with these older writings. -For even without modern knowledge, he waxes indignant -over the opinions of those who created James’ -“ineffectual wastes of words.” Far from allowing -that instinct in the lower animals is superior to anything -in man, Froebel maintains that the very weakness, -indefiniteness of man’s instincts or impulses -(Triebe) is a sign of his superiority.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Notwithstanding the early manifestation in -the human infant of the impulse to employment -(Beschäftigungstriebe), much has been said from -an entirely wrong point of view about man’s -helplessness at birth, and his slow development -to independence, which necessitates for so long a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -period the care and help of the mother. It has -even been said, that, in this respect, man’s position -is behind and below that of other animals. -But that very point, which has been cited as -evidence of man’s imperfection, is a proof of his -worth. For we recognize through this helplessness, -that man is called to ever higher self-consciousness.”—<cite>P., -p. 24.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>At the same time it should be pointed out that -Froebel does not make the opposite mistake of supposing -that man has no instincts. Since he approached -psychology from the biological side, so far -as it could be known to him, Froebel was bound to -have faith in instinct, in race-habit, in tendencies -which, because they have been of use to the race, are -bedded in the nature of each individual. It is to -Froebel’s later writings and especially to the little -paper, on “The First Action of a Child,” that we -must turn to see how wonderfully correct are his -views on the whole question of instinct.</p> - -<p>It may be better to give first the position of -modern writers on the subject by quoting from the -last chapter of Professor Lloyd Morgan’s “Habit and -Instinct,” a clear and concise passage showing that -the contrary schools of thought represented on the one -hand by the Darwin and Romanes and on the other -by Professors James and Wundt, can after all be -resolved into a matter of definition.</p> - -<p>“If, then, the question be asked, whether man -has a large or a small endowment of instinct, the -answer will depend upon the precise definition of -‘instinct.’ If we take congenital definiteness as -characteristic of instinct, we shall agree with Darwin, -that ‘the fewness and the comparative simplicity of -the instincts of the higher animals are remarkable as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -compared with those of lower animals;’ and with -Romanes that ‘instinct plays a larger part in the -psychology of many animals than it does in the psychology -of man.’ If, on the other hand, a broader -definition of instinct be accepted, so as to include -what is innate, in the sense before defined, we shall -agree with Professor Wundt that human life is ‘permeated -through and through with instinctive action, -determined in part, however, by intelligence and -volition;’ and shall not profoundly disagree with -Professor Wm. James, who says that man possesses -all the impulses that they (the lower animals) have -and a great many more besides.”</p> - -<p>In Mr. McDougall’s important contribution to the -discussion of human instinct, he says that the view -which is rapidly gaining ground is that the gradual -evolution of intelligence “did not supplant and lead -to the atrophy of the instincts, but controlled and -modified their operation.” As Mr. McDougall goes on -to state his belief “that the recognition of the full -scope and function of the human instincts will appear -to those that come after us as the most important -advance made by psychology in our time,” it is important -to the purpose of this book, to make clear to -what extent Froebel’s views on the subject approach -those of modern writers.</p> - -<p>Mr. McDougall makes a very clear distinction -between specific tendencies to which he limits the -word instinct, and non-specific or general tendencies. -Naturally Froebel did not reach this standpoint, but -he does seem to have thought out his terminology. -He felt strongly as to the use of words of foreign -origin, and generally uses “<i lang="de">Trieb</i>,” “<i lang="de">Lebenstrieb</i>,” -“<i lang="de">Drang</i>” or “<i lang="de">Lebensdrang</i>,” where we might use -instinct. But he does occasionally use “instinct,” -notably in a passage quoted below “whose impulses,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> -powers and abilities, whose instincts as they are -called” (dessen Lebenstriebe Kräfte und Anlagen, -dessen Instincte wie man es nennt), where he seems -to be feeling about for the right expression. Other -words in constant use are “<i lang="de">Neigung</i>,” “<i lang="de">Streben</i>” and -“<i lang="de">Richtung</i>,” probably best translated by “tendency.” -It can be argued, however, that to the word Trieb -Froebel does seem to have attached a more definite -meaning, and his use of this word is certainly limited.</p> - -<p>Professor James’ account of instinct begins with -the statement that “Every instinct is an impulse,” a -driving to action, but the use of the words “<i lang="de">Trieb</i>” -and “<i lang="de">Drang</i>” makes such a pronouncement unnecessary -to a German writer, and if this root idea is -not implied by the noun, it generally, in Froebel’s -writings, makes its appearance in the verb. Thus we -frequently read of “a longing which drives the child -to,” etc. (die Sehnsucht die das Kind treibt).</p> - -<p>The merest glance through Froebel’s writings is -enough to show his belief in the existence of instinct -in the human being. His references to it are constant. -It is an impulse (Trieb) “which the child did not give -himself, which came without his will, in later life even -against his will,” but which “urges to action” (drängt -ihn dazu). It is a force so strong, that it “holds -captive mind and body.” The child is described as -“driven by impulse” (des von Lebensdrang getriebenen -Kindes). The boy again is “held captive by -harmless, even praiseworthy, impulses” (sogar lobenswerten -Triebe), or “gives himself up entirely to the -impulses of his inner life” (dem Treibenden innern -Leben).</p> - -<p>In his earlier work, “The Education of Man,” -Froebel is first concerned with urging that the young -human being, “a product of Nature,” has instincts -quite as trustworthy as those of any other young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> -animal, and the following eloquent passage is very -well known:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The undisturbed working of the Divine -Unity is necessarily good, and this implies that -the young human being, still as it were in the -process of creation, would seek as a product of -Nature, though still unconsciously, yet decidedly -and surely that which is in itself best: and, moreover, -in a form wholly adapted to his condition, -disposition, powers and means. Thus the duckling -hastens to the pond, while the young -chicken scratches the ground, and the young -swallow catches his food upon the wing and -scarcely ever touches the ground. We grant -space and time to young plants and animals -because we know that in accordance with the -laws that live in them they will develop properly -and grow well. Arbitrary interference with their -growth is avoided because it is known that this -would disturb their development; but the young -human being is looked upon as a piece of wax, -a lump of clay, which man can mould into what -he pleases.… Thus, O parents, could your -children, on whom you force in tender years -forms and aims against their nature, thus could -your children too unfold in beauty and develop -in harmony.”—<cite>E., p. 7.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is true that to Froebel evolution is “the working -of Divine Unity.” But there seems to be no -special reason why this should invalidate what Froebel -has to say, any more than Sir Oliver Lodge should be -disqualified as a scientist, because he has produced a -book in which he writes: “Development means unfolding -latent possibilities … growth and development -are in accordance with the law of the universe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -… the law of the universe and the will of God are -here regarded as in some sort synonymous terms.”</p> - -<p>This is exactly Froebel’s position; he writes that</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Nature and man have their origin in one -and the same eternal Being, and their development -takes place in accordance with the same -laws, only at different stages.”—<cite>E., p. 161.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>That Froebel not only recognized the presence of -instinct in human beings, but that he also saw, as -Professor Wundt puts it, that this is “determined in -parts by intelligence and volition,” he states very -plainly:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Natural instinct and good example will do -much, but here, as in all human concerns, one -must proceed by extension of knowledge, and by -careful scrutiny, or both the one and the other -may mislead or be misdirected. Experience -cries aloud to us, to warn us of this danger. -<em>Assuredly man ought not to neglect his natural -instincts, still less abandon them, but he must ennoble -them through his intelligence, purify them through his -reason.</em>”—<cite>L., p. 222.</cite></p> - -<p>“In the progress of development three stages -differentiate themselves and fall apart; and these -stages are seen both in individual men, and in the -race as a whole. They are:</p> - -<p>(1) <em>Unconsciousness, the merely instinctive stage</em>;</p> - -<p>(2) <em>Vague Feeling, the tendency upwards towards -consciousness</em>; and</p> - -<p>(3) <em>Relatively clear Conscious Intelligence</em>.</p> - -<p>Everything that is acquired by a great unity, -say by a family, a community, a nation, must in -its beginnings be acquired by the single members<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> -of that unity; and further it will take them in -one of the three grades of development, either that -of mere unconsciousness, or of vague feeling, or in -the third and highest grade, that of conscious -intelligence, so far as it has been maintained by -mankind up to the present time.”—(Letter to -Madame D. Lutkens, dated March, 1851.)</p> - -</div> - -<p>It is in “The First Action of a Child” that we -find Froebel contrasting the instincts of the lower -animals with those of man. Here curiously enough, -Froebel, according to Professor Stout, is almost more -correct than Professor Lloyd Morgan himself, whose -statement “that animals do not perceive relations” -Professor Stout regards as misleading. His correction -is, “unless an artificial restriction is put on the meaning -of the term <em>relation</em>, this statement would imply -that animals cannot perceive the position of objects -in space or their motion.… Hence we should say, -not that the perception of relation is deficient in -animals, but only that definite perception of relations -is deficient which depends on comparison.”</p> - -<p>Now it is this very point of comparison which -Froebel takes as the essential intellectual difference -between the animal independent from birth thanks to -fully developed instinct, and the child helpless and -apparently inferior at first, yet destined for progress -“self-active and free.” He writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The animal whose life impulses, powers and -abilities, whose instincts as they are called (dessen -Lebenstriebe, Kräfte und Anlagen, dessen Instincte -wie man es nennt) are at once so definite -and strong, that in natural conditions it never -fails, indeed cannot fail to overcome every hindrance -within its life’s reach, the animal just on -this account can never arrive at a knowledge of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -its powers, its qualities, its nature … <em>for it -lacks all points of comparison. It lacks all points -of comparison, which, in the case of man proceed -from the fact that the weakest output of strength -meets with obstacles</em> which increase as the strength -increases, and which will only with difficulty be -conquered or overcome and annihilated.</p> - -<p>“It is quite different in the life of man, in the -beginning of which practically nothing can be -accomplished without help from without. -Nothing especially can be accomplished through -a preponderance of inner power such, for example, -as the newly hatched duckling shows on the -water. Thus everything external must, by Man, -with his preponderance of helplessness, be overcome -as an obstacle solely through inner advancing, -and outer strengthening and increasing of -power through free activity of the will.”—<cite>P., p. 25.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>With this passage from “The First Action of a -Child” we can compare the following from Stout’s -“Analytic Psychology”:</p> - -<p>“The peculiar feature in the life of animals which -prevents progressive development is the existence of -instincts which do for them what the human being -must do for himself. Their inherited organization is -such, that they perform the movements adapted to -supply their needs on the mere occurrence of an appropriate -external stimulus.… In man, a blind craving -has to grope its way from darkness into light in order -to become effective; in the animal the means of satisfaction -are provided ready made by Nature at the -outset.”</p> - -<p>After having stated that “Every instinct is an -impulse,” Professor James goes on to say that instinct -depends upon the biological fact that the nervous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -system is “a pre-organized bundle of re-actions,” and -that when impulses block one another, an animal -with many impulses, and whose mind is elevated -enough to discriminate, “loses the instinctive demeanour -and appears to live a life of hesitation -and choice, an intellectual life.”</p> - -<p>Notwithstanding the very obvious fact that Froebel -could know but little of the nervous system and its -re-actions, it is still quite evident that his observation -had led him to a clear recognition of the earlier stage, -when “hesitation and choice” are impossible. The -child, he says, “acts in obedience to an instinct which -holds captive mind and body,” he is “incredibly -short-sighted in his obedience to instinct.” That he -also recognized the beginning of hesitation and choice -is shown in his defence of the child who “in spite of -abandonment to momentary impulse,” may have -“an intense inner desire for goodness,” which, “if it -could be appreciated in time,” would make of him a -good man (<cite>E., p. 125</cite>); and also in his plea for the -early awakening and training “of judgment and of -that reflection which avoids so many blunders and -which, <em>in a natural way</em> (i.e. without training), does -not come to man sufficiently early.”—<cite>E., p. 79.</cite></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Another source of boyish faults is in the -precipitation, want of caution, indiscretion, in a -word the thoughtlessness, the acting according to -an impulse quite blameless, even praiseworthy, -which holds captive all activity of mind and body, -but whose consequences have not as yet entered -into his experience, indeed it has not yet entered -into his mind to define the consequences.”—<cite>E., -p. 122.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel gives from real life a few well-chosen -examples of what the boy so “incredibly short-sighted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -in his obedience to impulse” may do; telling how -one deliberately aims a stone at a window “with -earnest effort to hit it, yet without even saying to -himself that if it does so, the window must be broken,” -and how he “stands rooted to the spot” when this -happens. Another, a “very good-hearted boy, who -dearly loved and took care of pigeons, aimed at his -neighbour’s pigeon on the roof, without considering -that if the bullet hit it the dove must fall.” No -wonder that he urges the early awakening of that -reflection (Nachdenken) which would avoid so much, -and in this connection it must be remembered too that -Froebel emphasized the indefiniteness of human instinct -which makes comparison possible. It is also -worth remarking that Froebel knew that it is only -by noting consequences of actual deeds that reflection -comes, and this he shows in one of his quaint parallels -between “the history of creation and the development -of all things.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Similarly in each child there is repeated the -deed which marks the beginning of moral and -human emancipation, of the dawn of reason—essentially -the same deed that marked the dawn -of reason in the race as a whole.”—<cite>E., p. 41.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It must have been a somewhat unorthodox view -in 1826, but some pages further on Froebel speaks -even more boldly of “the fall or—since the result is -the same—the ascent of the mind of man from simple -emotional development into the development of -externally analytic and critical reason.”—<cite>E., p. 193.</cite></p> - -<p>Professor James goes on to state two other principles -which make for non-uniformity of instinct. -The first of these is that instincts are inhibited by -habits, and the second that instincts are transitory.</p> - -<p>The physiological fact of “plasticity” in which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -these principles are grounded, was of course quite out -of Froebel’s ken. Nevertheless, the principles themselves -do not escape his shrewd observation. Mr. -McDougall points out that even acquired habits of -thought and action, so important as springs of action -in the developed human mind, are in a sense derived -from and secondary to instincts. He goes on to say -that “in the absence of instincts no habits could be -formed,” so it is interesting to find Froebel arguing -that the phenomena of habit is a proof of the existence -of what in the infant he calls the impulse to activity -or to self-employment.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The helplessness of the new-born human -being in regard to all outer things is the opposite -of his future ability—since life is a whole—to help -himself through the enhancing of his will-power.… -Helplessness and personal will, therefore, -become the two points between which the child’s -life turns, and the fulcrum is free activity. Herein -lies for the educator a key to phenomena of -child-life which seem to contradict each other. -For out of the impulse to activity (Thätigkeitstriebe) -and to free self-employment, or rather out -of the united three—helplessness, personal will, -and self-employment—soon proceed custom and -habit, often indolence and too facile yielding.</p> - -<p>“Consideration of custom, and of the spontaneous -acquiring of habit in the child, especially -in regard to what causes it, and to its effect upon -the child, is just as important for the educator, -as is the consideration and guidance of his instinct -of activity. This very phenomenon that the child -so early accustoms and inures himself to something, -this early phenomenon of child life, the -growing together and becoming one, as it were,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> -with his surroundings, is a proof of the existence -and inner working, even thus early, of the impulse -for activity or employment, even where the child -appears outwardly inactive and passive: in that -the child accommodates himself to outer surroundings, -relations and requirements in order to -provide more scope for his inner activity.”—<cite>P., -p. 27.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>This proof may not be quite so clear to others as -it was to Froebel, but at least the passage shows the -close connection in his mind between instinct—the -impulse towards activity and employment—and habit, -and that he had noted the interaction between the two.</p> - -<p>There are many references to the transitory nature -of at least childish impulses.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“What delight a child takes in noticing what -is smooth, woolly, hairy, sparkling, round, etc.… -But if you do not cherish this and do not -set it going in the right way, it becomes a lost -thing; it grows rusty, and loses its power as a -magnet loses its power when it is not sufficiently -used. Power that is not at once used, effort that -does not at once meet the right object—perishes.”—<cite>M., -p. 181.</cite></p> - -<p>“Now, at last, we would fain give another -direction to the energies, desires and instincts -(Kräfte, Neigungen und Triebe) of the child -growing into boyhood; but it is too late. For -the deep meaning of child-life passing into boyhood -we not only failed to appreciate, but we -misjudged it; we not only failed to nurse it, but -we misdirected and crushed it.”—<cite>E., p. 75.</cite></p> - -<p>“See parents, the first impulse to activity, the -first constructive impulse (Bildungstrieb) comes -from man according to the nature of the working of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -his mind, unconsciously, unrecognized, without -his will, as man can indeed perceive in himself in -later life. If, however, this inner summons to -activity (diese innere Aufforderung zur Thätigkeit) -meets with outer hindrance, especially such -a one as the will of the parents, which cannot be -set aside, the power is at once weakened in itself, -and with many repetitions of this weakening, -falls into inaction.”—<cite>E., p. 100.</cite></p> - -<p>“The neglect of inner power causes the inner -power itself to vanish.”—<cite>E., p. 133.</cite></p> - -<p>“It is true there are few such children; but -there would be more, were we not ignorantly -blunting so many tendencies in our children, or -starving them into inanition.”—<cite>E., p. 220.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Writing of the origin of boyish faults Froebel says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“When we look for the sources of these shortcomings -… we find a double reason, first, complete -neglect of the development of certain sides -of human life, secondly early misdirection, early -unnatural stages in development, and distortion, -through arbitrary interference with human powers, -qualities and tendencies good in their source.… -Therefore at the bottom of every shortcoming in -man, lies a crushed, frustrated quality or tendency, -suppressed, misunderstood or misguided.”—<cite>E., pp. 119-121.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>When we come to the enumeration of the various -human instincts we find that Froebel can hardly be -said to have omitted any that are important from an -educational point of view, except perhaps the instinct -of fear, and to this he would be loth to appeal.<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> -Moreover, it can be shown that his explanation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -certain tendencies suggests a better basis of classification -than is supplied by certain recent writers, who -might be expected to surpass him with ease.</p> - -<p>Before the publication of Mr. McDougall’s “Social -Psychology,” there were but few attempts at any classification -of instincts within at least the reach of -English readers. In July, 1900, there appeared an -article in “The Pedagogical Seminary” in which Mr. Eby -proposed to reconstruct the Kindergarten on the basis -of natural instinct. The writer had apparently no -dawning idea that this was the original basis<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> of the -institution he proposes to reform, but Froebel’s account -of Instinct shows in certain ways a clearer understanding -of the subject than does his own.</p> - -<p>Mr. Eby’s tabulation was:</p> - -<table summary="Classification by Mr. Eby"> - <tr> - <td class="right">I.</td> - <td>Language—with gesture and expression.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">II.</td> - <td>Curiosity, or Instinct for Knowledge.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">III.</td> - <td>Play Instinct.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right"></td> - <td class="indented">(<i>a</i>) Motor Plays.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right"></td> - <td class="indented">(<i>b</i>) Hunting and Wandering.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right"></td> - <td class="indented">(<i>c</i>) Imitative.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right"></td> - <td class="indented">(<i>d</i>) Constructive.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right"></td> - <td class="indented">(<i>e</i>) Agricultural.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right"></td> - <td class="indented">(<i>f</i>) Improvised.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">IV.</td> - <td>Artistic and Aesthetic Instincts.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">V.</td> - <td>Social Instinct.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">VI.</td> - <td>Instinct of Acquisition and Ownership.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">VII.</td> - <td>Number Instinct.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">VIII.</td> - <td>Interest in Stories.</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p>Another classification, well known at least to -teachers, is that given by Mr. Kirkpatrick in his -“Fundamentals of Child Study.”<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> - -<p>His list comprises:</p> - -<table summary="Classification by Mr. Kirkpatrick"> - <tr> - <td class="right">I.</td> - <td>Individual or Self-preserving Instincts.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="indented">(Feeding, Fear and Fighting.)</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">II.</td> - <td>Parental Instincts.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">III.</td> - <td>Social or Group Instincts.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="indented">(Gregariousness, Sympathy, Love of Approbation, Altruism.)</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">IV.</td> - <td>Adaptive Instincts.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="indented">(Imitation, Play, Curiosity.)</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">V.</td> - <td>Regulative.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="indented">(Moral, Religious.)</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="right">VI.</td> - <td>Resultant and Miscellaneous.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td class="indented">(Including such tendencies as those of collecting and constructing, and the - tendency to adornment, with the æsthetic pleasure of contemplating beautiful objects.)</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p>Interesting, helpful and suggestive as these lists -are, they both serve as examples of the difficulty, if -not impossibility, of any hard-and-fast lines of classification. -For example, regulative instincts, which Mr. -Kirkpatrick divides into moral and religious, must be -derived from social instincts; gregarious instincts -cannot be satisfactorily separated from instincts of -self-preservation, and surely all instincts must be -adaptive.</p> - -<p>Froebel’s account of the instincts of a child in some -ways resembles that of Mr. McDougall, and it is -certainly in some points more enlightening than either -of the others.</p> - -<p>Under the heading of Investigation, Froebel brings -both the Number Instinct, and the Interest in Stories, -to which Mr. Eby gives a position as fundamental as -that of the Social Instinct. The constructive instinct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> -which Mr. Kirkpatrick brings under “Resultant and -Miscellaneous,” has a very special place in Froebel’s -account, as being one way of imitating, that is another -mode of investigating the surroundings, and also what -is equally important, a way by which the child gains -a knowledge of his own power, reaches Self-Consciousness.</p> - -<p>It is because of the emphasis Froebel continually -lays upon the developing self-consciousness that his -views somewhat tend to resemble those of Mr. -McDougall, though it would be absurd to attempt to -draw any parallel. For Froebel, though he in no way -minimizes the importance of Imitation, and although -it is as the apostle of Play that he is most widely -known, yet, like Mr. McDougall, he never speaks either -of an Instinct of Play nor of Imitation, that is, he -never uses for these his special word Trieb; nor has -he any Instinct for Religion. Curiously enough, too, -Froebel, with his constant insistence on the threefold -aspect of mind, partly forestalls Mr. McDougall’s view -that “instinctive action is the outcome of a distinctly -mental process, one which is incapable of being described -in purely mechanical terms, … and one which, like -every other mental process, has and can only be fully -described in terms of the three aspects of all mental -process, the cognitive, the affective, and the conative -aspects.”</p> - -<p>It is in connection with the very earliest activity -that Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The first phenomenon of awakening child-life -is activity. It is an inner activity, showing itself -by consideration of and working with what is -outer, by overcoming hindrances and subduing the -outer. The nature of man as growing towards, -and destined to reach self-consciousness, is shown<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -in the quite peculiar character of childish activity -even as early as when the infant awakes from its -so-called three months’ slumber. It is shown in -the child’s impulse to busy himself (in dem Triebe -sich zu beschäftigen) in the instinct, <em>one with -feeling and perception</em>, to be active for the progressive -development of his own life.</p> - -<p>“We are repeatedly impressed with the conviction -that everything that is to be done for the -specifically human development of the child must -be connected with the fostering of this instinct to -employ himself. For <em>this instinct corresponds to -man’s triune activity of doing, feeling and thinking. -It corresponds to the essential nature of humanity, -which is to have power and understanding, to become -ever more and more self-conscious and self-determining.</em>”—<cite>P., -p. 24.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In the last sentence of this passage, which refers -to the merest infant, and which immediately precedes -Froebel’s comparison of human instincts with those of -the lower animals, are indicated the lines on which we -may say Froebel classified though he never did so -formally. He deals only with the “purely” or “specifically” -human, as he never tires of reiterating, so -that fundamental animal instincts, self-preserving and -race-preserving, such as feeding and the sexual impulse, -are little noticed, and only in connection with the -necessity for self-control.</p> - -<p>But, as with Mr. McDougall much is made to -depend on self-feeling, so with Froebel still more does -everything centre round that self-consciousness which -to him is of the very nature of man, and which is -made possible by the undefined or undeveloped -character of human instinct.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> -<p>The instincts and impulses noted by Froebel, all, -be it clearly understood, in the service of the growing -self-consciousness, and self-determination are: the -instinct to independent activity (der Trieb zur Frei- -und Selbst-thätigkeit), the instinct to investigation -(Forschungstrieb), with which Froebel deals very -thoroughly and by which he explains a great deal, the -impulse of acquisition, the instinct of construction or -formation (Bildungstrieb Gestaltungstrieb), the social -instinct and the maternal instinct.</p> - -<p>Froebel himself never tabulates, yet his apparently -careful use of the word Trieb, taken along with his -convincing explanations of various tendencies (Richtungen, -Neigungen, Streben) seems to show that in -relation to instinct there were in his mind two pairs -of ideas, so closely related as to be inseparable, viz.:</p> - -<p>(<i>a</i>) Investigation and Control of Surroundings, and -(<i>b</i>) Consciousness of Self and Self-Determination.</p> - -<p>It is impossible to become conscious of one’s self -except by becoming conscious of a world of objects.<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> -It is equally impossible to become self-determining -without gaining control over these objects, over the -surroundings. In order to control the surroundings, -one must first investigate them, and this investigation -brings with it self-consciousness, knowledge of one’s -own powers and consequent self-determination. All -this seems fully in accordance with what has been -already stated as to the close connection between -volitional and intellectual development.</p> - -<p>The two main lines on which instinctive action -must run, if it is to be, as it must be, adaptive, are -given in Froebel’s words, “to have power and understanding.” -To adapt ourselves to our surroundings -we must first know them, and secondly, have power -over them. Even this separation into firstly and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -secondly is more a matter of words than of reality. -No one knew more clearly or emphasized more strongly -than Froebel that action, by which alone we gain -power, is also the child’s royal road to knowledge. -This he states very plainly in the “Plan” which he -drew up for the school at Helba, which unfortunately -never came into existence.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The institution will be fundamental inasmuch -as in training and instruction it will rest on the -foundation from which proceed all genuine knowledge -and all genuine practical attainments; it -will rest on life itself and on creative effort, on the -union and interdependence of doing and thinking, -representation and knowledge, art and science. -The institution will base its work on the pupil’s -personal efforts in work and expression, making -these, again, the foundation of all genuine knowledge -and culture. Joined with thoughtfulness -these efforts become a direct medium of culture; -joined with reasoning, they become a direct means -of instruction and thus make of work a true -subject of instruction.”—<cite>E., p. 38.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Knowledge of his surroundings is however not the -only knowledge that the child gains through action; -this is his only way of gaining knowledge of himself, -of his power and of his weakness. It is through outward -activity that, as Froebel says, he “comes to -self-consciousness and learns to order, determine and -master himself,” and it is in connection with the earliest -Impulse to Activity that Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The present effort of mankind is an effort -after freer self-development, freer self-formation, -freer determining of one’s own destiny.… -Therefore the more or less clear aim of the -individual is Consciousness, the attaining of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -clearness about himself and about life in its -unity as well as in its thousand ramifications, -to attain to <em>comprehension and right use</em> of life.… -That this highest aim may be accomplished, -the present time lays upon the educator the -indispensable obligation—to understand the earliest -activity, the first action of the child, the -impulse (Trieb) to spontaneous activity, which -appears so early; to foster the impulse (Trieb) for -self-culture and self-instruction, through independent -doing, observing and experimenting.”—<cite>P., p. 15.</cite></p> - -<p>“The first spontaneous employments of the -child are noticing his environment, and play, that -is, independent outward action, living outside -himself.… The deepest foundation of all the -phenomena, of the earliest activity of the child -is this; that he must exercise the dim anticipation -of conscious life, and consequently must -exercise power, test and thus compare power, -exercise independence, test and thus compare the -degree of independence.”—<cite>P., pp. 29-31.</cite></p> - -<p>“All outer activity of the child has its distinctive -and ultimate ground in his inmost nature and -life. The deepest craving of this inner life, this -inner activity, is to behold itself mirrored in some -external object. In and through such reflection -the child learns to know his own activity, its -essence, direction and aim, and learns also to -order and determine his activity in correspondence -with the outer phenomena. Such mirroring of -the inner life, such making of the inner life objective -is essential, for through it the child comes to -self-consciousness, and learns to order, determine -and master himself. The child must perceive and -grasp his own life in an objective manifestation -before he can perceive and grasp it in himself.”—<cite>P.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -p. 238.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It may seem very presumptuous to venture to -discuss here the classification of instincts adopted by -Mr. McDougall, yet there are in it a few points which -would not have appealed to Froebel, and it is conceivable -that Mr. McDougall might make alterations -in a future edition and attach even more importance -to positive self-feeling as Froebel would undoubtedly -have done. It is impossible to imagine Froebel having -any dealings with an Instinct of Self-Abasement, -though the Instinct of Self-Assertion is in full accordance -with his ideas. And while it is hard to see the -biological utility of an Instinct of Self-Abasement, it -does seem as if the frustration of the Instinct of Self-Assertion -might be made to cover all that is brought -under its opposite.</p> - -<p>It is difficult, too, to imagine Froebel allowing an -Instinct of Pugnacity, and Mr. McDougall allows that -this presupposes the other instincts, and that it cannot -strictly be brought under his own definition of -instinct. He allows, too, that this instinct is “lacking -in the constitution of the females of some species,” -and it seems impossible not to notice the difference -between little boys and girls in this respect. Surely -it puts too much to the credit of mere pugnacity to -say: “A man devoid of the pugnacious instinct would -not only be incapable of anger, but would lack this -great source of reserve energy, which is called into -play in most of us by any difficulty in our path.”<a name="FNanchor_29" id="FNanchor_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> -The Instinct of Self-Assertion, if it is worth anything, -ought to be sufficient not only to produce anger,<a name="FNanchor_30" id="FNanchor_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> -but also to call up reserve energy to deal with difficulties.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -Certainly Froebel would have said so. No -doubt it is because of her weaker physique that the -woman has not the pugnacity of the man, but Froebel -too wrote mainly of the boy, and he puts boyish -tussling and fighting down to the instinctive desire to -measure and to increase power and this can easily be -matched on the female side, though the power -measured may not be that of muscle.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“At this age the healthy boy brought up -simply and naturally never evades an obstacle, -a difficulty; nay he seeks it and overcomes it. -‘Let it lie,’ the vigorous youngster exclaims to -his father, who is about to roll a piece of wood -out of the boy’s way—‘let it lie, I can get over it.’ -With difficulty, indeed, the boy gets over it the -first time; but he has accomplished the feat by -his own strength. Strength and courage have -grown in him. He returns, gets over the obstacle -a second time, and soon he learns to clear it easily.… -The most difficult thing seems easy, the most -daring thing seems without danger to him, for -his prompting comes from the innermost, from his -heart and will.”—<cite>E., p. 102.</cite></p> - -<p>“Many of the plays and occupations of boys -at this age are predominantly mere practice and -trials of strength, and many aim simply at display -of strength.… <em>The boy tries to see himself in his -companions, to feel himself in them, to weigh and -measure himself by them, to know and find himself -with their help.</em>”—<cite>E., pp. 112-114.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In passing, it may be suggested that it hardly seems -worth while to postulate an Instinct of Repulsion with -the impulses or actions of rejecting evil-tasting substances -from the mouth and of shrinking from objects -which are slimy or slippery. Surely the rejection of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -unsuitable food might be a compound reflex action -tending to the preservation of health; while shrinking -from slimy objects, and even from the touch of fur, -might have had their uses in the case of children left -in caves, and might be drawn under the instinct of -fear.</p> - -<p>There does not seem to be anything to which Mr. -McDougall would take exception in what Froebel has -to say about Play or about Imitation.</p> - -<p>As to play, Froebel must be regarded as a pioneer -in the attempt to explain a subject all important to -educators, and by his explanation certain kinds, and -notably imitative play find an appropriate place under -his instinct of investigation (Forschungstrieb).</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The means of shadowing forth to the child -his own nature and that of the cosmos are his play -and playthings.”—<cite>P., p. 201.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>As the word Investigation certainly implies -activity, it may be permissible to wonder why Mr. -McDougall has not made use of the terms “The Instinct -of Investigation and the Emotion of Curiosity,” -the more so that he himself has clearly a strong inclination -to use the word curiosity to express emotion.<a name="FNanchor_31" id="FNanchor_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p> - -<p>Imitation, as we have seen,<a name="FNanchor_32" id="FNanchor_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> is, according to -Froebel, action which renders a child conscious of -what is around him, conscious of his inner life of perceptions, -ideas and feelings, conscious of his own -power. Froebel also points out that imitation, as well -as habit, is the outcome of a more fundamental -impulse to activity.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p> -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is just as important to notice the habits -of a child, especially with regard to cause and -effect, as it is to notice and to foster its impulse -to activity.… As now habit springs from free -and spontaneous activity, so too does imitation, -and it is no less important for the fostering of -child-life to keep in view this origin of imitation, -than it is to keep in view the phenomena of habit, -custom and independent activity. For we see the -whole inner life of the child manifest itself as a -tri-unity in the threefold phenomenon of spontaneous -activity, habit and imitation. These -three phenomena are closely united in early -childhood, and give us most important discoveries -concerning child-life, as to foundation and result -and surest guides for the early correct treatment -of the child.”—<cite>P., p. 27.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Mr. McDougall notes “at least three distinct -classes” of imitative actions. The first class consists -of expressive actions, secondary to the sympathetic -induction of the emotions they express, as when a -child responds to a smile with a smile, and here we -remember how Froebel notes the child’s first smile to -his mother as the earliest sign of what he calls “the -feeling of community.” The third class is the deliberate -and voluntary imitation of an admired person, -which does not concern us here. The second class -are “simple ideo-motor actions evoked by the visual -presentation of a movement,” and as a parallel to this -we have Froebel’s “working of the inner activity -wakened by the sight of outer activity.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The smallest child moves joyfully, springs -gaily, hops up and down, or beats with his arms -when he sees a moving object. This is certainly -not merely delight in the movement of the object -before him, but <em>it is the working of inner activity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -wakened in him by the sight of outer activity</em>. -Through such vision the inner life has been freed.…”—<cite>P., -pp. 239-40.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>A point to which exception may well be taken is -that in the infant Froebel notes what he seems to -regard as a fundamental tendency, the impulse or -instinct of activity, or as he frequently puts it, the -impulse to busy oneself, which, however, soon differentiates -into two more specific tendencies, viz. the -impulse to investigate and the constructive impulse.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“What formerly the child did only for the -sake of activity, the boy now does for the sake of -the result or product of his activity. The child’s -impulse to activity (Thätigkeitstrieb) has in the -boy become a constructive, a formative impulse -(Bildungs-Gestaltungstriebe), in which the whole -outer life of the boy finds at this stage its outlet.”—<cite>E., -p. 99.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It may be worth mentioning that Groos would like -to assume a “universal impulse to activity,” and -though he “can only hold fast to the primal need for -activity,” yet according to him Ribot approaches this -assumption.—(“The Play of Man,” <cite>p. 3</cite>).</p> - -<p>Even in the infant, however, this instinct or impulse -to activity is devoted to “penetrating what is -outer,” and the Kindergarten, meant for children from -three to six, is intended to foster the three instincts, -activity, investigation and construction, as well as to -cultivate the social instinct by placing a little child -among his equals. Froebel describes it in his plan -as:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“An Institution -for fostering of family life and for shaping the -life of the nation and human life generally, through -cultivating the human instincts of activity, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -investigation (Forschungstrieb), and of construction -in the child, as a member of the family, of the -nation, and of humanity.…”—<cite>P., p. 6.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>As regards the child, the word Trieb, which is -exactly equal to impulse, seems to be applied only in -one other direction, to what we would call the social -instinct, and here again Froebel shows his recognition -of the vagueness and indefiniteness of early consciousness. -As he attributes to the infant the one impulse -to activity which differentiates later into Investigation -and Construction, so in the infant he recognizes a -“feeling of community” (Gesammtgefühl), but says -that it differentiates later into something more definite.<a name="FNanchor_33" id="FNanchor_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The development of man constitutes an -unbroken whole, steadily and continuously progressing, -gradually ascending. The feeling of -community (Gemeingefühl) awakened in the infant, -develops in the child into impulse, inclination -(entwickelt sich in dem Kinde der Trieb, die -Neigung).”—<cite>E., p. 95.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Under the important Instinct of Investigation, or -the Instinct for Self-Instruction, Froebel includes a -great deal. Many different activities until recently -somewhat carelessly talked of collectively as “play,” -Froebel has separated and explained as the child’s -way of investigating his surroundings. Even “the -earliest activity and first action of the child,” Froebel -says, shows “the instinct to self-teaching and self-instruction.”</p> - -<p>Imitative action or imitative play is always -referred to as action which helps towards understanding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -of the surroundings. In the “Mother Songs” -we read:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Your child will certainly understand all the -better if you make him take a part—though it -be only by imitation—in what grown-up people -are doing in their anxiety to maintain life.…”—<cite>M., -p. 141.</cite></p> - -<p>“I have already said that this little game -arose because people felt that a child’s love of -activity, and his striving to get the use of his -limbs, ought to be carried on in such a way as to -lift him at once into the complexity of the life -which surrounds him.… Pray do not disturb -them in their ingenious charming play (saying -grace over the dolls’ feast), but rather avoid -noticing it if you cannot identify yourself with -its charm.… For how is your child to cultivate -in himself the feeling of what is holy, if you will -not grant that it takes form for him in all its purity -in his innocent games.”—<cite>M., p. 148.</cite></p> - -<p>“What man tries to represent he begins to -understand.”—<cite>E., p. 76.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Representation, however, may be carried out in -many ways, by the use of material, as well as by -bodily action so that the constructive instinct also -subserves that of investigation.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“To grasp a thing through life and action is -much more developing, cultivating and strengthening -than merely to receive it through the -verbal communication of ideas. Similarly, representation -of a thing by material means, in life and -action, united with thought and speech, is more -developing than merely verbal representation of -ideas.”—<cite>E., p. 279.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child must perceive and grasp his own -life in an objective manifestation before he can -perceive and grasp it in himself. This law of -development, prescribed by Nature and by the -essential character of the child, must always be -respected and obeyed by the true educator. Its -recognition is the aim of my gifts and games -apprehended relatively to the educator.”—<cite>P., p. 38.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Here Froebel has plainly stated the main object of -his specially selected play-material. The ordinary -parent not being “the man advanced in insight,” who -“makes clear to himself the purpose of playthings,” -Froebel often saw children supplied with expensive -but unsuitable toys, toys which would not bring the -child any nearer his destination, “to have power -and understanding, to become ever more and more -self-conscious and self-determining.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Here, then, we meet as a great imperfection -in ordinary playthings, a disturbing element -which slumbers like a viper under roses, viz. that -it is too complex, too much finished. The child -can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce -enough variety by it; his power of creative -imagination, his power of giving outward form to -his own idea is thus actually deadened. When -we provide children with too finished playthings, -we deprive them of the incentive to perceive the -particular in the general (<cite>P., p. 122</cite>).… What -presents are most prized by the child? Those -which afford him a means of unfolding his inner -life most freely and of shaping it in various directions.”—<cite>P., -p. 142.</cite></p> - -<p>“The man, advanced in insight, should be as -clear as possible in his own mind about all this -before he introduces his child into the outer world. -Even when he gives the child a plaything, he must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -make clear to himself its purpose, and the purpose -of playthings and occupation material in general. -This purpose is, to aid the child freely to express -what is in him and to bring the phenomena of the -outer world nearer to him.”—<cite>P., p. 171.</cite></p> - -<p>“To realize his aims, man, and more particularly -the child, requires material, if it be only -a bit of wood or a pebble with which he makes -something or which he makes into something. -In order to lead the child to the handling of -material, we gave him the soft ball, the wooden -sphere and cube, etc., discussed in the chapters -on the Kindergarten Gifts. Each of these gifts -incites the child to free spontaneous activity, to -independent movement.”<a name="FNanchor_34" id="FNanchor_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>—<cite>P., p. 237.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>As the child grows older his constructions advance, -but still they connect themselves with investigating:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Here he makes a little garden under the -hedge; there he represents the course of the river -in his furrow and in his ditch; there he studies -the effects of the fall or pressure of water upon -his little water-wheel.”—<cite>E., p. 105.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Investigating naturally leads to exploring, “external -objects invite him who would bring them nearer -to move toward them,” and so the child once he is -able to stand begins to travel:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“When the child makes his first attempts at -walking he frequently tries to go to some particular -object. This effort may have its source -in the child’s desire to hold himself firm and -upright by it, but we also observe that it gives -him pleasure to be near the object, to touch it, -to feel it, and perhaps also—a new phase of -activity—to be able to move it. Hence we see<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> -the child hops up and down before it and beats -on it with his little hands, in order to assure -himself of the reality of the object, and to notice -its qualities.… Each new phenomenon is a -discovery in the child’s small and yet rich world—e.g. -one can go round the chair, one can stand -before, behind, beside it, but one cannot go -behind the bench or the wall. He likes to change -his relationship to different objects, and through -these changes he seeks self-recognition and self-comprehension, -as well as recognition of the -different objects which surround him, and recognition -of his environment as a whole. Each -little walk is a tour of discovery; each object -is an America—a new world, which he either -goes around to see if it be an island, or whose -coast he follows to discover if it be a continent.”—<cite>P., -p. 243.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The boy has lost none of this tendency to explore, -but he goes further afield, and it is worth noting that -because the boy has a distinct purpose in view his -exploring is distinctly called work.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“If activity brought joy to the child, work -now gives delight to the boy. Hence the daring -and venturesome feats of boyhood; the explorations -of caves and ravines; the climbing of trees -and mountains; the searching of heights and -depths; the roaming through fields and forests.… -To climb a new tree means to the boy the -discovery of a new world.… Not less significant -of development is the boy’s inclination -(Neigung) to descend into caves and ravines, to -ramble in the shady grove and dark forest.”—<cite>E., -pp. 102-5.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span></p> -<p>Even the baby shows trace of the collecting or -acquiring instinct, but to Froebel this still falls under -the head of investigation. The child who has just -learned to walk is:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“attracted by the bright round smooth pebble, -by the quaint brilliant leaf, by the smooth piece -of wood, and he tries to get hold of these with -the help of the newly acquired use of his limbs. -Look at the child that can scarcely keep himself -erect and that can walk only with the greatest -care—he sees a twig, a bit of straw; painfully he -secures it.… See the child laboriously stooping -and slowly going forward under the eaves. The -force of the rain has washed out of the sand -small, smooth, bright pebbles, and the ever-observing -child gathers them.”—<cite>E., p. 72.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The boy, still only from six to eight years old, -keeps up the collecting habit with more method and -with a wider range, and he demands assistance.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Not less full of significance, nor less developing, -is the boy’s inclination to descend into caves -and ravines, to ramble in the shady grove and in -the dark forest. It is <em>the effort</em> (<i lang="de">Streben</i>) to seek -and find the new, to see and discover the hidden, -the desire to bring to light and <em>to appropriate</em> -that which lies concealed in darkness and shadow.</p> - -<p>“From these rambles the boy returns with -rich treasures of unknown stones and plants, of -animals—worms, beetles, spiders and lizards, that -dwell in darkness and concealment. ‘What is -this? What is its name?’ etc., are the questions -to be answered; and every new word enriches -his world and throws light upon his surroundings. -Beware of greeting him with the exclamation, -‘Fie, throw that down, that is horrid!’ or ‘Drop -that, it will bite you!’ If the child obeys, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -drops and throws away a considerable portion of -his power.”—<cite>E., p. 104.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>This quotation brings us to another mode of investigation, -that of asking questions, which Froebel was -not likely to miss.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child, your child, ye fathers, follows you -wherever you go. Do not harshly repel him. -Show no impatience about his ever-recurring -questions. Every harshly repelling word crushes -a bud of his tree of life.… Question upon question -comes from the lips of the boy thirsting for -knowledge—How? Why? When? What for? -and every satisfactory answer opens to him a new -world.”—<cite>E., p. 86.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Professor O’Shea has an interesting section on -what he calls “The Sense of Location,” which he says -is “at the bottom of one of the most interesting and -important phenomena of adjustment—the questioning -activity.” So it may be worth while to notice that -Froebel, whom the Professor has dismissed with one -slighting reference, has been beforehand with him here, -and has dealt with this same early beginning in one -of his earliest Mother Songs, viz. “It’s all Gone,” -where he says to the mother:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“How can the child understand that anything -is “all gone,” yet he must see sense in it or he -will not be satisfied. What he saw just now is -there no longer, what was above is below, what -was there has vanished.”—<cite>M., p. 18.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Questioning implies language, but Froebel has no -language instinct. He does, however, call speech -immediate (unmittelbar), usually translated “innate,” -and he does say that because others talk to him, the -child’s capacity for speech will develop of necessity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> -and will break forth spontaneously.</p> - -<p>It is in connection with the child’s earliest investigations -that Froebel brings in the learning to speak. -In “The Education of Man,” he notes how the young -child brings all his discoveries, “his treasures,” to the -mother’s lap, and she is warned to give the right kind -of help and at the right time.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is the longing for interpretation that urges -the child to appeal to us, it is the intense desire -for this that urges him to bring his treasures to -us and to lay them in our laps. The child loves -all things that enter his small horizon and extend -his little world. To him the least thing is a new -discovery; but it must not come dead into the -little world, nor lie dead therein lest it obscure -the small horizon and crush the little world.”—<cite>E., -p. 73.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>All the help the mother need give at first is to -supply names, since as Froebel says, “the name, as it -were, creates the thing for the child.” Later she must -help him to compare and classify.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“How little is needed from those around the -child to aid him in this tendency (to seek for -knowledge). It is only necessary to name, to put -into words what the child does, sees and finds.”—<cite>E., -p. 75.</cite></p> - -<p>“It is as well while the child is making these -first experiments (at walking about the room) to -name the objects—e.g. There is the chair, the -table, etc.… The object of giving these names -is not primarily the development of the child’s -power of speech, but to assist his comprehension -of the object, its parts and its properties by -defining his sense-impressions. By a rich store -of such experiences the capacity for speech<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -develops of necessity, and speech breaks forth of -itself, as it were, through heightened mental self-activity -in accordance with the nature of mind.”—<cite>P., -p. 242.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Expression, of course, of which speech is but one -form, is to Froebel all-important. “Speech,” he says, -is “required and conditioned by the attainment to -consciousness,” and as self-consciousness is the characteristic -of humanity, so speech is “the first manifestation -of mankind.” In his “Autobiography” Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Mankind as a whole, as one great unity, had -now become my quickening thought. I kept this -conception continually before my mind. I sought -after proofs of it in my little world within and in -the great world without me; I desired by many -a struggle to win it, and then to set it worthily -forth. And thus I was led back to the first appearance -of man upon our earth, and to the first -manifestation of mankind, his speech.”—<cite>A., p. 84.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In talking of the mother’s play with an infant he -says that she accompanies every action with words, -“even if obliged to confess that there can be no understanding -of the spoken word,” as “the general sense -of hearing is not yet developed, still less the special -sense of hearing words.” Froebel says she is right:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“for that which will one day develop and which -must originate, begins and must begin when there -is as yet only the conditions, the possibility -thereof. Thus it is with the attainment of the -human being to consciousness, and the speech -required and conditioned by consciousness.”—<cite>P., -p. 40.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p> -<p>Words, says Froebel, first separate the child from -the world outside him.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Up to this stage (the beginning of speech), -the inner being of man is still an unmembered, -undifferentiated unity. With language, the expression -and representation of the internal begin; -with language, organization, or a differentiation -with reference to ends and means sets in.”—<cite>E., -p. 50.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Both in the earlier “Education of Man,” and in -his later writings Froebel uses the strong expression -that “the word creates the thing” for the child, and -in one passage he adds that by language the idea is -defined and retained.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“This period is pre-eminently the period of -the development of speech. Therefore in all the -child did, it was indispensable that what he did -should be clearly designated by words. Every -object, every thing became such, as it were, only -through the word; before it had been named -although the child might have seemed to see it -with the outer eyes, it had no existence for the -child. The name, as it were, created the thing -for the child; hence the name and the thing -seemed to be one.”—<cite>E., p. 90.</cite></p> - -<p>“Through her little rhymes the mother will -make clear to the little one what he has done, and -so his accidental productions will become a point -of departure for his self-development. Word and -form are opposite and yet related. Hence the -word should accompany the form as its shadow. -In a certain sense, giving a form a name really -creates the form itself. Through the name, moreover, -the form is retained in memory and defined -in thought.”—<cite>P., p. 192.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p> -<p>Of very early speech Froebel says that it shows:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“the peculiarity and requirement of the human -mind to render itself intelligible to clarify itself -by communication with others.”—<cite>P., p. 56.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Having investigated his surroundings, near or far, -and collected what seems to him attractive, the child, -whether older or younger, arranges his treasures in -some way, and this arrangement implies some comparison. -“Like things must be ranged together and -things unlike must be separated,” says Froebel of the -child “scarce able to walk,” who has collected “the -small, smooth, pebbles washed out of the sand by the -rain.” This “arranging objects of each kind singly -in a row” is at first no doubt only a recognition of the -like and unlike, but Froebel notes that it is also one -way in which the child may arrive at “the capacity -for counting” by which his sphere of knowledge is -again extended.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The knowledge of the relations of quantity -adds much to a child’s life.… At first he places -together similar objects.… Who has not had -frequent opportunity to observe how the child -arranges the objects of each kind singly in a row. -Let the mother supply the quickening word, -saying Apple, apple, apple, etc. All apples. -Pear, pear, pear, etc. All pears.… One pear, -another apple, another apple.… Instead of the -indefinite word “another” the mother subsequently -uses the numerals, counting together with -the child, thus: One apple, two apples, three -apples, etc.”—<cite>E., p. 80.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>To many children, however, counting may come -through efforts to draw. I have seen a child of four-and-a-half, -in drawing a man, make a line for the arm, -then lay down her pencil to count her own fingers and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> -then draw five lines for the man’s hand. Froebel -says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The representation of objects by drawing, -and the exact perception conditioned and required -by the representation, soon leads the child -quickly to recognize the constantly repeated -association of certain numbers of different objects—e.g. -two eyes and two arms, five fingers, etc. -Thus the drawing of the object leads to the discovery -of number.… By the development of -the capacity for counting, the child’s sphere of -knowledge, his world, is again extended.… -He was unable to determine relative quantities, -but now he knows that he has two large and three -small pebbles, four white and five yellow flowers,” -etc.—<cite>E., p. 80.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Yet another mode of Investigation is that of -Experimenting; every normal child is what Froebel -calls “a self-teaching scientist.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The material must be known not only by its -name, but by its qualities and uses.… For this -reason the child examines the object on all sides; -for this reason he tears and breaks it; for this reason -he puts it in his mouth and bites it. We reprove -the child for his naughtiness and foolishness; and -yet he is wiser than we who reprove him. An -instinct which the child did not give himself, the -instinct which rightly understood and rightly -guided would lead him to know God in his works, -drives him to this.”—<cite>E., p. 73.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It may well be through his ceaseless experimenting -that the little child begins to draw, gains what the late -Mr. Ebenezer Cooke called “a language of line,” or -as Froebel puts it, notices “linear phenomena, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span> -direct his attention to the linear properties of surrounding -objects.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“A child has found a pebble, a fragment of -lime or chalk. In order to determine by experiment -its properties, he has rubbed it on a board -near by, and has discovered its property of imparting -colour. See how he delights in the newly -discovered property, how busily he makes use of -it! … but soon he begins to find pleasure in the -winding, straight, curved, and other forms that -appear. These linear phenomena direct his attention -to the linear properties of surrounding -objects. Now the head becomes a circle, and now -the circular line represents the head, the elliptical -curve connected with it represents the body; -arms and legs appear as straight or broken lines, -and these again represent arms and legs; the -fingers he sees as straight lines meeting in a -common point, and lines so connected are, for the -busy child, again hands and fingers; the eyes -he sees as dots, and these again represent eyes; -and thus a new world opens within and without. -For what man tries to represent, that he begins -to understand.”—<cite>E., p. 75.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>I have watched a child go through the process -of discovering “linear phenomena,” just as Froebel -describes it, no doubt from his own observation. A -boy of three, having folded a piece of paper for the -roof of a house, was colouring it, by rubbing on red -chalk, when he called out, “Oh! I’m making lines.” -The other children went on rubbing, but Phil made -“lines” till the roof was finished.</p> - -<p>But Froebel does not leave unnoticed the fact that -the very earliest “drawing” is an outgrowth of the -muscular action to which his instinct of activity is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> -urged by the stimulus of contact.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Would you know how to lead the child in -this matter? Watch him, he will teach you what -to do. See! he is tracing the table by passing -his fingers along its edges and outlines as far as -he can reach, he is sketching the object on itself. -This is the first and the safest step by which he -becomes aware of the outlines and forms of -objects. In this way he sketches and so studies -the chair, the bench, the window. But soon he -advances. He draws lines across the four-cornered -bit of board, across the leaf of the table, -or the seat of the chair, in the dim anticipation -that so he can retain the forms and relations of -the surfaces. Now, already he draws the form -diminished.</p> - -<p>“See! there the child has drawn table, chair -and bench on a leaf of the table. Do you not -see how he spontaneously trained himself for -this? Objects which he could move, which were -in sight, he laid on the board, and drew their form -on the plane surface, following the boundaries of -the objects with his hands. Soon scissors and -boxes, and later leaves and twigs, even his own -hand and the shadows of objects will thus be -copied.</p> - -<p>“Much is developed in the child by this action, -more than it is possible to express—a clear comprehension -of form, the possibility of representing -the form separate from the object, the possibility -of retaining the form as such, and the strengthening -and fitting of hand and arm for the free representation -of form.”—<cite>E., p. 77.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Here, perhaps, is the right place to introduce what -Froebel had to say about the artistic tendencies of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -children, since Art, to him, is always expression.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Absolutely nothing can appear, nothing visible -and sensible can come forth, that does not -hold within itself the living spirit; that does not -bear upon its surface the imprint of the living -spirit of the being by whom it has been produced, -and to whom it owes its existence. And this is -true of the work of every human being—from -the highest artist to the meanest labourer—as -well as of the works of God, which are Nature, -the creation, and all created things.”—<cite>E., p. 153.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>So, when Froebel comes to speak of art as a subject -of the school curriculum he says: “Here, art will be -considered only as the pure representation of the inner -… differentiated according to the material it uses, -whether motion, as such, audible in sound, or visible -in lines, surfaces and colours, or massive”; and he -adds:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“We noticed that even at an earlier stage -children have the desire to draw, but the desire -also to express ideas by modelling and colouring -is frequently found at this earlier stage of childhood, -certainly at the very beginning of the stage -of boyhood (from six years old). <em>This proves -that art and appreciation of art constitute a general -capacity or talent of man</em>, and should be cared for -early, at latest in boyhood.</p> - -<p>“This does not imply that the boy is to devote -himself chiefly to art, and is to become an artist; -but that he should be enabled to understand and -appreciate true works of art. At the same -time, a true education will guard him from the -error of claiming to be an artist unless there is -in him the true artistic calling.”—<cite>E., p. 227.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span></p> -<p>In connection with the mother’s instinctive rhythmic -crooning and dandling of the infant, Froebel says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Thus the genuine natural mother cautiously -follows in all directions the slowly developing all-sided -life of the child. Others suppose him to be -empty.… Thus those means of cultivation that -lead so simply and naturally to the development -of rhythm are lost.… Nevertheless an early -development of rhythmic movement would prove -most wholesome.… Even very small children, -in moments of quiet, and particularly when going -to sleep, will hum little strains of songs they have -heard; and this should be heeded and developed -as the first germ of future growth in melody and -song. Undoubtedly this would soon lead in children -to a spontaneity such as is shown by children -in the use of speech.”—<cite>E., p. 71.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In the “Mother Songs,” too, Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Hence it is so very important to rouse at -least the germs of all this (the perceiving of harmony -in sound and form and colour) early in a -human being. If they do not develop and take -shape as independent formations in life, they at -least teach how to understand and recognize -those of other people. This is life-gain enough. -It makes a person’s life richer—richer by the -lives of others. And how could our earthly life -be long enough to form our being with equal -perfection on all sides. We can only do it by -knowing and respectfully recognizing in the -mirror of the lives of others what we should like -to carry out ourselves. And this is as it should -be, for it is by means of knowledge, regard for -and respectful recognition of others, that the -whole of humanity ought to represent the whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -of a God-like harmonious human being.”—<cite>M., -p. 162.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In what he says of the Interest in Stories, Froebel -again seems to show deeper insight than either Mr. -Eby or Professor Kirkpatrick. Mr. McDougall does -not touch upon the subject. It is still the outcome -of the child’s instinctive desire to understand himself -and his surroundings. Froebel says very truly that -he can only understand others in proportion as he -understands himself, and can only learn to understand -himself, his own life, by comparing it with that -of others. The desire for stories is “a striving, a -longing, a demand of the mind” (ein Streben, eine -Sehnsucht, eine Forderung des Gemüthes). For the -little one, the simplest story of the mother bird feeding -her young ones is a help to the understanding of his -own life, makes his own life objective; the mother’s -“effective story will hold up a looking-glass to the -child, especially if it be told at the right time.” For -the boy the story does the same and also answers to -his instinctive demand not only to understand the -present, but the past:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is the innermost desire and need of a -vigorous, genuine boy to understand his own life, -to get a knowledge of its nature, its origin and -outcome. Only the study of the life of others -can furnish such points of comparison with the -life he himself has experienced. In these the -boy, endowed with an active life of his own, can -view the latter as in a mirror and learn to appreciate -its value. This is the chief reason why boys -are so fond of stories, legends and tales; the more -so when these are told as having actually occurred -at some time, or as lying within the reach of -probability, for which, however, there are scarcely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -any limits for a boy.”—<cite>E., p. 305.</cite></p> - -<p>“The existence of the present teaches him the -existence of the past. That, which was before he -was, he would know; he would know the reason, -the past cause of what now is. Who fails to -remember the keen desire that filled his heart -when he beheld old walls, and towers, ruins, -monuments and columns on hill and the roadside—to -hear others give accounts of these things, -their times and causes … thus is developed the -desire and craving for tales, legends, for all kinds -of stories, and later for historical accounts.”—<cite>E., -p. 115.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Even the fairy story seems to have found its -legitimate place under the same heading, the instinct -for investigation. Froebel sees that it covers for the -little child the ground occupied by myth in the primitive -consciousness. It explains the otherwise inexplicable.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Even the present in which the boy lives still -contains much that at this period of development -he cannot interpret, and yet would like to interpret; -much that seems to him dumb, and which -he would fain have speak; … and thus there is -developed in him the intense desire for fables and -fairy tales which impart language and reason to -speechless things—the one within, the other -beyond the limits of human relations. Surely all -must have noticed this if they have given more -than superficial attention to the life of boys at -this age. Similarly, they must have noticed that -if the boy’s desire is not gratified by those around -him, he will spontaneously hit upon the invention -and presentation of fairy tales, and either work -them out in his own mind or entertain his companions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -with them. These fairy tales and stories -will then very clearly reveal to the observer what -is going on in the innermost mind of the boy, -though doubtless the latter may not himself be -conscious of it.”—<cite>E., p. 116.</cite></p> - -<p>“The child, like the man, would like to learn -the significance of what happens around him. -This is the foundation of the Greek choruses, -especially in tragedy. This, too, is the foundation -of very many productions in the realms of legends -and fairy tales, and is indeed the cause of many -phenomena in actual history. This is the result -of the deeply-rooted consciousness, the deeply -slumbering premonition of being surrounded by -that which is higher and more conscious than -ourselves.”—<cite>P., p. 146.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The outcome of the instinct of construction, which -is also so closely connected with the instinct of investigation, -is that “sense of power” which <em>is</em> self-consciousness. -Without this there can be no self-determination, -but, says Froebel, “the sense of power -must precede its cultivation.” With this growing -personality, too, Froebel connects what is called the -instinct of Acquisition, which begins when the little -child “painfully secures his bit of straw,” and the boy -of six to eight shows “the tendency to appropriate -what he finds in the darkness of cave and forest.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The same tendency that urges the boy to -seek knowledge on the mountain and in the -valley, attracts and holds him to the plain. Here -he makes a garden, there he represents the course -of the river, and studies the effect of the presence -of water … here he has dammed up the water -to form a pool.… He is particularly fond of -busying himself with clear running water and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> -with plastic materials. In these the boy who -seeks self-knowledge beholds his soul as in a -mirror. These employments are to him an -element of his life, for now, because of a previously -acquired sense of power he seeks to -control and master new material. Everything -must submit to his constructive instinct; there -in that heap of earth he digs a cellar and on it -he places a garden and a bench. Boards, -branches and poles must be made into a hut, -the deep, fresh snow must be rolled up to form -the walls and ramparts of a fort, and the rough -stones on the hill are heaped together to form a -castle.… And thus each one soon forms for -himself his own world; for the feeling of his own -power requires and conditions also the possession -of his own space and his own material belonging -exclusively to him. Whether his kingdom, his -province, his estate, as it were, be a corner of -the yard, or of the house, or whether it be the -space of a box, the human being must have at -this stage an external point to which he refers -all his activities, and this is best chosen and -provided by himself.”—<cite>E., p. 106.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And here, just when he is emphasizing the fast -developing consciousness of self, with its demand for -its own space and its own material, Froebel brings out -the strength of the social instinct in boyhood. It is -here that he points out that this effort to construct -has a uniting, not a separating, tendency. Continuous -with the last quotation comes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“When the space to be filled is extensive, -when the province to be ruled is large, when the -whole to be represented is composed of many -parts, then brotherly union of those who are of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -one mind is displayed. And when those who are -of one mind meet and put their hearts into the -same effort, then either the work already begun -is extended or begun again as a joint production.”—<cite>E., -p. 107.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel describes such joint work first in the -Keilhau schoolroom—his own phrase is “education -room”—where the younger boys are using building -blocks, sand, sawdust, and moss, which they have -brought in from the forest around and then among -the older boys.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Down yonder by the brook, how busy are -the older boys with their work! They have made -canals with locks, bridges and seaports, dams -and mills, each undisturbed by the others. But -now the water is to be used to carry ships from -one level to another, and now, at every stage, -each boy asserts his own rights while recognizing -the rights of others. How can they settle their -difficulties? Only by making agreements, and -so, like States, they bind themselves by strict -treaties.”—<cite>E., p. 111.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Of games of physical movement, running, wrestling, -etc., Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is the sense of power, the sense of its -increase, both as an individual and as a member -of a group, that fills the boy with joy, in these -games.… The boy tries to see himself in his -companions, to weigh and measure himself by -them, to find and know himself by their help. -Thus the games directly influence and educate the -boy for life, they awake and cultivate many civic -and moral virtues. Every town should have its -common playground for the boys. Glorious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -would be the results from this for the entire community. -For at this stage of development games -whenever possible are held in common, thus -developing the sense of community and the laws -and requirements of a community.”—<cite>E., p. 113.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel had studied boys to some purpose, and he -tells us not, however, to expect too much in the way -of social virtues. Justice, self-control, honesty, -courage and “severe criticism of pleasant indolence” -may be expected, but mutual forbearance and consideration -for those who are weaker or less familiar -with the game, though not entirely lacking, are referred -to as “the more delicate blossoms” of the playground. -It is here that he says with wise moderation, “The -feeling of power must precede its cultivation.”</p> - -<p>The social instinct does not suddenly spring into -existence in boyhood. It has its roots in what Froebel -calls the Feeling of Community which unites the child -first with the mother, then with father, brothers and -sisters.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“We cannot deny that there is at present among -children and boys little gentleness, mutual forbearance -… indeed, there is much egotism, unfriendliness -and roughness. This is clearly due not only -to the absence of early cultivation of the feeling -of community, but this sympathy between parents -and children is too often disturbed, yes even -annihilated.”—<cite>E., p. 119.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The sympathy of the little child ought to be -trained and is trained by the wise mother always -through action.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Mother love seeks to awaken and to -interpret the feeling of community, which is so -important, between the child and the father,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> -brother and sister, saying while she draws the -child’s little hand caressingly across the face of -the father or of the little sister, ‘Love the dear -father—the little sister.’”—<cite>E., p. 69.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In the Finger Play called “The Nest,” Froebel -tells the mother:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The way lies through our imaginative, tender -and emotional observation of Nature and of man’s -life, through the child’s taking their meaning into -his own heart and expressing by representation -what he thus takes in.… The child’s sympathy -is roused by the young creatures’ necessities -more than by anything, and chiefly by their -nakedness and softness.”—<cite>M., p. 149.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And the action which fosters the growth of sympathy -is not to be merely representative; The Garden -Song has this motto:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“If your child’s to love and cherish -Life that needs him day-by-day, -Give him things to tend that perish -If he ever stays away.”—<cite>M., p. 84.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is because “the desire for unity is the basis of -all true human development” that the child is to be -encouraged to help in the work he sees going on around -him.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Family, family—let us say it openly and -plainly—you are more than School and Church, -and therefore more than all else that necessity -may have called into being for the protection of -right and property … without you, what are -Altar and Church?… Therefore, Mother, in the -little finger game, teach your child some notion -of the nature of a whole, especially of a family-whole.”—<cite>M.,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> -p. 159.</cite></p> - -<p>“We have not yet touched nor even considered -an important side of child-life, the side of association -with father and mother in their domestic -duties, in the duties of their calling.… (<cite>E., -p. 84</cite>). Do not let the urgency of your business -tempt you to say, ‘Go away, you only hinder -me.’ … After a third rebuff of this kind -scarcely any child will again propose to help and -share the work.”—<cite>E., p. 99.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is an essential part of the Kindergarten to consider -the child as a member of the human family. It -is described in one place as:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“An establishment for training quite young -children, in their first stage of intellectual development, -where their training and instruction shall -be based upon their own free action or spontaneity, -acting under proper rules … such rules -as are in fact discovered by the actual observation -of children when associated in companies. -(<cite>L., p. 251</cite>).… Practice in combined games -for many children, which will train the child, by -his very nature eager for companionship, in the -habit of association with comrades, that is, in -good fellowship and all that this implies.”—<cite>L., -p. 252.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Among his Group Instincts Mr. Kirkpatrick mentions -the Love of Approbation, and this receives -special attention from Froebel at a surprisingly early -stage. It is in the “Mother Songs,” in connection -with his adaptation of an old German nursery rhyme -about knights who come to visit “a good child,” that -Froebel tells the mother that:</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span></p> -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“A new life stage has begun, and you, dear -Mother, must use your best and most watchful -care, when first the child listens to a stranger.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>In the same connection he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child must be roused to good by inclination, -love and respect, <em>through the opinion of -others around him</em>, and all this must be strengthened -and developed.… When, therefore, -Mother, observation as to the judgment of others -awakes in your child—when, separating himself -and on the watch <em>he brings himself before the -judgment of others</em>, then you really have a double -task to perform.…”—<cite>M., p. 190.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The Love of Approbation cannot be separated from -what Mr. Kirkpatrick calls the Regulative, i.e. the -Moral and Religious Instincts, for it is both social -and regulative, and in the social instincts Froebel -sees the foundation of the religious instincts or tendencies, -to which we shall come presently. But he -also notes a “sense of order,” as Mr. Sully does in his -delightful “Studies of Childhood,” and this he traces -back to very early beginnings, connecting it with the -tendency towards rhythm.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“That disorder and rough wilfulness may -never enter the games, it is a good plan wherever -it is possible to accompany each change in the -play by rhyme and song; so that the latent sense -of rhythm and song, <em>and above all the sense of -order in the human being and child</em>, may be aroused -and strengthened to an impulse for social cooperation.”—<cite>P., -p. 267.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>One of the earliest Mother Plays, “Tic-tac,” deals -with rhythmic movement, and in “The Education of -Man” Froebel takes the beginning of “conscious -control” still further back. His ideal mother fosters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -“all-sided life,” that is, she fosters the cognitive, -emotional and conative, the first by calling the child’s -attention to his own body and his immediate surroundings, -and the second by “seeking to awaken and -to interpret the feeling of community between the -child and the father, brother and sister,” and Froebel -goes on:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In addition to the sense of community as -such, the germ of so much glorious development, -the mother’s love seeks also through movements -to lead the child to feel his own inner life. By -regular rhythmic movements—and this is of -special importance—she brings this life within the -child’s conscious control when she dandles him -up and down on her hand or arm in rhythmic -movements and to rhythmic sounds. Thus the -genuine natural mother cautiously follows in all -directions the slowly developing all-sided life in -the child, strengthening and arousing to ever -greater activity, and developing the all-sided life -within. Others suppose the child to be empty -and wish to inoculate him with life, and thus -make him as empty as they think him to be.”—<cite>E., -p. 69.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is surprising to find that Froebel, -writing so early, has nothing at all resembling any -special “moral faculty.” His references to “Conscience” -are decidedly interesting, though given in -quaint connection with games and rhymes for mere -babes. He asks why the “Where’s Baby?” game -gives such delight, and shows his psychological insight -in the answer he finds, viz. that it is the feeling or -recognition of self, of personality, which gives such -joy.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span></p> -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Why, now, is my child so happy over the -hiding game? It is the feeling of Personality -which already so delights the child, it is the feeling -of recognition of his own self.”<a name="FNanchor_35" id="FNanchor_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> - -</div> - -<p>The game which follows this repeats the hiding -experience, but this time with the cry of “cuckoo,” -from some one unseen, and this is likened to the conscience -call, which is described as “consciousness of -union in separation and of separateness, that is personality, -in union.”—<cite>M., p. 98.</cite></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In ‘Where’s Baby Been?’ parting and union -seem more separate, as though in order that each -may become more and more clearly conscious of -itself; in ‘Cuckoo,’ parting and union are, as it -were, joined. It is parting in union and union in -parting that makes ‘Cuckoo’ such a peculiar -game and so delightful to a child. But consciousness -of union in separation, and of separateness—that -is personality—in union, is also the -essence, the deep foundation of conscience.”—<cite>M., -p. 197.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Mr. Kirkpatrick’s second Regulative instinct or -tendency is that of Religion, but Froebel again, like -Mr. McDougall, finds that Religion has its roots in -an instinct “not specifically religious,”<a name="FNanchor_36" id="FNanchor_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> viz. in the -Social Instinct. He says this in “The Education of -Man” in the plainest of terms.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“This feeling of Community first uniting the -child with father, mother, brothers and sisters, -and resting on a higher spiritual unity, to which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> -later on is added the discovery that father, mother, -brothers and sisters, human beings in general, -feel and know themselves to be in community and -unity with a higher principle—with humanity, -with God—this is the very first germ, the very first -beginning of all true religious spirit, of all genuine -yearning for unhindered unification with the -Eternal, with God.”—<cite>E., p. 25.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It seems quite in accordance with this that Froebel -should write that he likes better the German word -<i lang="de">Gott-einigkeit</i>—union with God—than the foreign word -religion; and also that he should speak of “developing -the sense of kinship with man in every child, and the -sense of kinship with God in every man.” So, in his -“Mother Songs,” he tells the mother to give her child -duties to perform, that so he may “feel his kinship” -with her:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Every age, even the age of childhood, has -something to cherish that is plain, and from -doing so no exemption can be procured; it has -therefore its duties. Happy is it for a child if -he be led to deal with them adequately, and -for the present unconsciously. Duties are not -burdens.… Fulfilment of duty strengthens body -and mind, and the consciousness of duty done -gives independence; even a child feels this. -See, Mother, how happy your child is in feeling -he has done his small duties. He already feels his -kinship with you thereby.”—<cite>M., p. 174.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>There is never a separation between Morality and -Religion:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Religion without industry, without work, is -liable to be lost in empty dreams, worthless -visions, idle fancies. Similarly, work or industry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> -without religion degrades man into a beast of -burden, a machine. Work and religion must be -simultaneous; for God, the Eternal has been -creating from all eternity.… Where religion, -industry and self-control, the truly undivided -trinity rule, there indeed is heaven upon earth.”—<cite>E., -p. 35.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>There is only one other instinct mentioned by -Froebel, and that is the parental, or, rather, the -maternal instinct. He is eager that this should be -recognized as an instinct, but he is equally eager that, -like other human instincts, its action should be determined -by intelligence. In describing the “Plan” for -his Kindergarten, Froebel pleads for more careful -observation of the child and his relationships, and -says that “thereby”:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Deeper insight will be gained into the meaning -and importance of the child’s actions and -outward manifestations and also into the way of -dealing with children which has been evolved -naturally by the mother led by her pure maternal -instinct.”—<cite>L., p. 248.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>As to the early beginnings of the instinct in the -little girl we can find just a few references, sufficient -to show that it did not pass unnoticed, and it seems -here legitimate to say that “the girl anticipates her -destiny,” as Froebel does in speaking of doll-play, -though certainly this does not cover all such play:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The joy of the child in its doll has a far deeper -human foundation than is generally supposed—a -foundation by no means resting merely in the -external resemblance … the girl anticipates her -destiny—to foster Nature and life.”—<cite>P., p. 93.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> -<p>The boy’s destiny is “to penetrate and rule Nature,” -so in the “Mother Songs” Froebel describes how the -boy is “cowering that no sign of life in the chicken -family may escape him, while the girl starts up, <em>all her -care of things stirred</em>, in order to beckon or call the hen -or cock not to forget their chickens.”—<cite>M., p. 143.</cite></p> - -<p>In all his writings, Froebel refers to how much he -has learned from mothers: “It was in watching your -clever mother-doings that I learnt.” But, as he says -of himself, it was “a necessary part of me to be -irresistibly driven to search out the ultimate or primary -cause of every fact of life,” and so he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The natural mother does all this instinctively -without instruction or direction; but this is not -enough: it is needful that she should do it consciously, -as a conscious being acting upon another -which is growing into consciousness, and consciously -tending toward the continuous development -of the human being.”—<cite>E., p. 64.</cite></p> - -<p>“Motherly and womanly instinct does much -of its own accord; but it often makes mistakes.”—<cite>L., -p. 63.</cite></p> - -<p>“Women’s work in education must be based -not upon natural instinct, so often perverted or -misunderstood, but upon intelligent knowledge.… -Some mothers level the taunt at me that -I, a man, understanding nothing of a mother’s -instinct, should dare to presume to instruct -mothers in their dealings with their own children.… -How could such a thought enter my head -as to attempt anything against the course of -Nature? My whole strength is exerted on the -contrary, to the work of getting the natural instinct -and its tendencies more rightly understood, -and more acknowledged; so that women may -follow its leadings as truly as possible aided by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> -the higher light of intelligent comprehension, and -yet at the same time in all freedom, and with -complete individuality.”—<cite>L., p. 259.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>So, in what he says of this last instinct, Froebel -is faithful to what he has said of all human instincts.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Man shall assuredly not neglect his natural -instincts, still less abandon them, but he must -ennoble them through his intelligence and purify -them through his reason.”</p> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII<br /> -<span class="smcap">Play and Its Relation to Work</span></h2> - -<p>To write even a small book on Froebel without -directly touching on the subject of play would -be impossible, though in dealing with instincts and -the carrying out of natural activities we have -necessarily considered much that comes under this -heading.</p> - -<p>On the educative value of play, Froebel is recognizedly -original, and his views have influenced and are -influencing schools for young children in most civilized -countries. Indeed, it would be difficult to show that -modern writers on play, in spite of the scientific -thoroughness of their investigations, classifications and -terminology, have made much advance upon Froebel’s -theories. Rather do they tend to show how remarkable -was his insight, and how surprisingly well grounded -his theories.</p> - -<p>Nothing, however, has yet been said as to the -relation of play to work, no direct definition has yet -been given, nor has any reference been made to the -now familiar theories of play.</p> - -<p>In Froebel’s day, these, as clearly formulated -theories, were non-existent. His work was that of a -pioneer, and his theory might have been called that of -“Preparation through Recapitulation.” He would, -however, have allowed that play is sometimes, though -not always, recreative, and he makes clear the necessity -for what he calls “healthy vital energy” (gesunden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -Lebensmuthe), but he would never have called this -mere “surplus energy,” because he thought it was not -more than was required:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The genuine schoolboy should be full of life -and spirit, strong in body and mind.… Would -that, in judging the power of children and boys, -we might never forget the words of one of our -greatest German writers: that there is a greater -advance from the infant to the speaking child than -there is from the schoolboy to a Newton! Now, -if the advance is greater, the power, too, must -be greater; this we should consider.”—<cite>E., p. 134.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Ebers, the Egyptologist, tells us that when he was -a boy at Keilhau full provision was made for this -abounding energy. We read of walks long and short, -of botanizing and geologizing rambles, of climbing -trees and cliffs for birds’ eggs, of which only one might -be taken from a nest. We hear of Indian games out -of Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, of classic -and other dramas on winter evenings, and of Homeric -battles, which Froebel, he says, would have called -“signs of creative imagination and individual life.” -There was swimming and skating and coasting and -“the spacious wrestling ground with the shooting stand -and the gymnasium for every spare moment of the -winter”; and a piece of ground “assigned to each -pupil, where he could wield spade and pickaxe, roll -stones, sow and reap.” But the great game was the -Bergwacht, where the boys, divided into four parties -that all might be active, actually constructed, and -then attacked and defended stone fortresses. “How -quickly,” says Ebers, “we learned to use the plummet, -to take levels, hew the stone and wield the axe.” The -weapons were blunted stakes. It was forbidden to -touch the head, but it was a point of honour among<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> -the boys to yield as prisoner if touched by the pole, -“and what self-denial it required!” These combats -were held on fine Saturday evenings, and when all -was over “the women,” probably the girls of the -school community, had lighted fires and made supper -ready, and the lads slept in their fortresses while two -sentinels marched up and down, relieved every half-hour. -On the Sunday following the boys were not -required to go to church, “where we should merely -have gone to sleep.”</p> - -<p>It has frequently been brought as an accusation -against Froebel that he makes no clear cut distinction -between work and play, and that is true, but who -nowadays does? Common sense would probably -join hands with the philosopher in saying that the -feeling of freedom is the chief distinction of play as -opposed to work, and this is the definition quite distinctly -given by Froebel. The definition is given in -his detailed enumeration of “the various directions of -an active life of instruction and education,” and after -mentioning religious training, cultivation of the body -as the means of expressing mind, the study of Nature, -etc., etc., he comes to:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Play, that is, spontaneous representation and -exercise of every kind.”—<cite>E., p. 236.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Another definition given in “The First Action of a -Child” is:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Play, which is independent outward expression -of what is within.”—<cite>P., p. 29.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is because it is spontaneous that Froebel calls -play, during the period of earliest childhood, when the -child is gaining control of language, “the highest phase -of human development at this stage.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Play and speaking form the element in which -the child lives at this time.… Play is the highest -stage of child-development, of human development -at this stage, because it is spontaneous (freithätige) -representation of the inner, representation of the -inner out of the need and desire of the inner -itself. This is implied in the very word Play.”—<cite>E., -p. 34.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>For modern views on play we turn to the exhaustive -study made by Karl Groos in his two volumes, “The -Play of Animals,” and “The Play of Man.” Here we -find the writer taking “the conception of impulse life -as a starting-point,” and reaching the conclusion “that -among higher animals certain instincts are present -which, especially in youth, but also in maturity, produce -activity that is without serious intent, and so -give rise to the various phenomena which we include -in the word ‘play.’” In this play, Groos goes on, -“opportunity is given to the animal through the -exercise of inborn dispositions, to strengthen and -increase his inheritance in the acquisition of adaptations -to his complicated environment, an achievement -which would be unattainable by mere mechanical -instinct alone.” In the treatment of human play he -considers “an analogous position is tenable,” but, for -the word instinct, with its particular reactions, he -must substitute “natural or hereditary impulse.”</p> - -<p>We have already seen that though Froebel recognized -the existence and importance of human instinct, -still he distinguished between it and the “definite and -strong instincts” which belong to the animals lower -than man. We have seen that he regarded the play -of childhood as “spontaneous self-instruction” based -on the instincts of investigation and of construction or -representation, action being regarded as the principal -means of investigating, as well as of gaining control<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> -over the surroundings and over the self. We have -noticed, too, that Groos feels inclined to assume a -universal “impulse to activity,” and points out that -Ribot approaches such an assumption, though for himself -he can only venture to “hold fast to the fact of the -primal need for activity.” Froebel does, as we have -seen, attribute to the infant the one instinct of -activity, which in one place he calls “the natural -longing for some mode of activity inherent in all -children,” and this he says becomes differentiated at -a later period.</p> - -<p>The special place given by Groos to imitation as -“the link between instinctive and intelligent conduct” -is also noteworthy. For we have seen that Froebel -regards imitation in precisely the same light, never -calling it an instinct, but saying that it is the outcome -of spontaneous activity, and that it leads on to -understanding.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“For what man tries to represent or do he -begins to understand.”—<cite>E., p. 76.</cite></p> - -<p>“As now, habit in the child proceeds from -spontaneous and independent activity, so also -does imitation; … the whole inner life of the -child shows itself as a tri-unity in the three-#fold -phenomenon of spontaneous activity, habit -and imitation.”—<cite>P., p. 28.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is impossible to make plain how Froebel regarded -play, until it is known how he regarded work, work, -too, not only for a child but for a human being. What -he desired for all was work which produces joy; he -calls it “a debasing illusion that man works, produces, -creates, only in order to preserve his body, only to -secure food, clothing and shelter.” Man, he says, works -“primarily and in truth that his real essence may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -assume outward form,” and one of his sayings is that -“the true spirit of life is the genuine spirit of play.” -In an ideal state of affairs, no human being would -be condemned to entirely mechanical work. Work -“worthy of the nature of man” is to Froebel work -which in some way expresses the man; mechanical -work is dismissed as “degrading man into a beast -of burden or a machine.” It is because man is of -God that he must work, must produce. “Nearer we -hold of God who gives, than of his tribes who take, -I must believe,” is Froebel’s thought in Browning’s -words:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Each thought of God is a work, an act, a -result.… God created man in His own image. -Therefore man must create and work like God. -Man’s spirit must hover over the unformed and -move it that figure and form may come forth. -This is the higher meaning, the deep significance, -the great purpose of work and industry, of working, -and, as it is truly significantly called, of creating. -We become like God by diligence and industry, -by work and action, which are accompanied by -the clear perception or even the least anticipation -that thereby we represent the inner by the outer; -that we give body to spirit and form to thought, -make visible the invisible, give an outward transient -existence to the eternal that lives in the spirit.… -Early work, guided in accordance with its -inner meaning, confirms and elevates religion. -Religion without work is apt to become empty -dreaming.”—<cite>E., p. 30.</cite></p> - -<p>“The boy is to take up his future work which -now has become his calling, not indolently in sullen -gloom, but cheerfully and joyously, trusting God, -himself and Nature, rejoicing in the manifold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> -prosperity of his work.… Nor will the father -say that his son must take up his own business -… he will see that every business may be -ennobled and made worthy of man.”—<cite>E., p. 233.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is too cheap a jibe to throw at Froebel and his -educational theories that he makes little distinction -between work and play. It ought never to come from -any one who has made even a slight study of -psychology. The sting is meant to lie in the suggestion -that play is trifling and easy and that it requires no -exertion, while work is serious and demands concentrated -effort, but this view will not bear any consideration. -Every one knows that the play even of an -adult, where the differentiation between work and play -ought to be more possible, is often most exhausting, -either to body or to mind. As to the play of childhood, -one of the best known passages in “The Education of -Man” is the one in which Froebel protests that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Play at this time is not trivial, it is highly -serious and of deep significance.”—<cite>E., p. 55.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is in this passage, too, that he speaks of the -child “wholly absorbed in play,” who after “playing -enduringly even to the point of fatigue” has fallen -asleep “while so absorbed,” and calls this “the most -beautiful expression of child-life at this stage.”</p> - -<p>It is Froebel’s glory that as early as 1826 he had -applied the theory of development to education and, -rightly or wrongly, he believed that if we could but -supply to our school children material suited to their -needs according to their stage of development, they -would respond with the same eagerness that the younger -child shows in what we call his play, but what Froebel -called his “self-culture and self-education.” He states<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -this view quite distinctly:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“We have considered the object and aim of -human life in general.… It now remains to -show in what sequence and connection the life -impulses of the boy develop at this stage, how and -in what order and form, the school should work -in order to satisfy human instincts in general, and -especially the instincts of the boy at this stage of -school-life.</p> - -<p>“From a consideration of <em>the means of instruction -and manner of teaching thereby conditioned, -which necessarily coincide with the striving of man -toward development</em>, what is necessary for the -knowledge of number, of space, of form, of exercises -in speech, of writing and of reading comes -out clearly and definitely.”—<cite>E., p. 229.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The view that “the material of instruction and the -manner of teaching” are necessarily conditioned by -the child’s stage of development is a view that has -rapidly gained ground. Froebel did his best to apply -it, and it had a partial application in the “culture -epochs” theory of the Herbartians. It has received a -stronger impetus into what seems at present a much -truer direction, from the experimental work carried out -at Chicago, under the auspices of Professor Dewey. -Froebel maintained that it was a condition of satisfactory -work in every subject. For example, in connection -with the teaching of writing he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Here, as in all instruction, we should start -from a definite need of the boy, a need, which -must, to a certain extent, have been previously -developed, if he is to be taught with profit and -success. This is the source of a multitude of -imperfections in our schools, that we teach without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> -having awakened any need for it, nay even after -having repressed what need was already there! -How can instruction and the school prosper?”—<cite>E., -p. 223.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel speaks in the same way of work in colours, -saying “children feel the need of a knowledge of -colours.” Of poetry in general, including religious -verses and prayers, he says “these must be given -according to the requirements of the development of -the child’s mind, and must give expression to what -is already there.”</p> - -<p>Returning now to the subject of play as such, we -find that Groos retains as “general psychological -criteria of play,” but two “of the elements popularly -regarded as essential—namely, its pleasurableness, and -the actual severance from life’s serious aims.” Of these -he says: “Both are included in activity performed for -its own sake.”</p> - -<p>It is in connection with very young children that -Froebel speaks of activity for its own sake, and here -he does not differentiate between work and play. He -is true to his theory that in all things capable of development, -“what is definite proceeds everywhere from what -is indefinite.” So he says that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Play is at first just natural life.”—<cite>E., p. 54.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>He maintains that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The activity of the senses and limbs is the -first germ or bud, and play, building and shaping -(Gestalten) the first tender blossoms of the formative -instinct, and that this is the point of time, -at which man is to be prepared for future industry, -diligence, and productive activity.”—<cite>E., p. 34.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> -<p>But, in the case of the boy a little older, though -still only seven or eight, Froebel does distinctly differentiate, -giving the definition of play already quoted, -“spontaneous expression and practice of every kind,” -and saying of work, that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Boys of this age should have definite domestic -occupations, indeed they could be actually instructed -by mechanics and farmers as has already -been done by many a father with active natural -insight. Boys of a somewhat advanced age should -be often placed in a position to accomplish something -with their own hands and their own judgment -… should devote daily at least one or two -hours to an occupation with outward results … -after such a refreshing <em>work bath</em>, I cannot better -designate it, the mind goes with new life to its -intellectual employments.”—<cite>E., p. 236.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Of the infant, Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“At this stage of development the man-to-be -(dem erschienenen werdenden Menschen) <em>uses his -body, his senses, his limbs, entirely for that use, -practice and exercise, not at all for its results</em>, to -which he is quite indifferent, or, to speak more -correctly, of which he has as yet no idea. Out of -this comes what begins at this stage, the child’s -play with his limbs; with his hands, fingers, lips, -tongue and feet, and also with the movements of -his eyes and of his face.”—<cite>E., p. 48.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Of the older child Froebel very distinctly insists -that he wants more than the activity, that he wants -outward result. But the result of which he speaks is -one which Groos himself would not disallow. It is -only the outward product of the impulse which has -been gratified, a result which is present to the mind -of the older child, while to the infant no such consciousness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> -is possible.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“What at an earlier stage of childhood was -action for the sake of the activity, is now, in the -boy, activity for the sake of the visible result; -the child’s instinct of activity has developed into -an instinct for shaping or giving form, and herein -lies the solution of the whole outer life or outer -manifestation of boy life at this stage.”—<cite>E., p. 99.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Inquiring into the kind of pleasure derived from -play, Groos finds that it rests primarily on the satisfaction -of inborn impulses, which press for discharge, -and he gives three special “inborn necessities which -ground our pleasure in play—namely, the exercise of -attention, the demand to be an efficient cause, and -imagination.”</p> - -<p>As to attention, he suggests that it lends a meaning -to the vague idea of a general need for activity, -speaking of “the pitiable condition of boredom” if -opportunity is withheld.</p> - -<p>Froebel, of course, has much to say about the -instinct of activity, or, as he usually calls it in “The -First Action of a Child,” the instinct of employment -(Beschäftigungstrieb), which is noticeable “even when -the so-called three months’ slumber has just ended.” -He, too, frequently refers to “the ennui and pernicious -lack of occupation,” to the “mischievous -idleness which results from our not satisfying or -misdirecting the natural longing for activity inherent -in all children.” It is because Froebel’s thoughts -always run on conscious revelation of the self within -as the explanation of human life, that he makes so -much of “the child’s instinct to employ itself” -(Triebe des Kindes, sich zu beschäftigen). This -also explains how so much that he says corresponds -with what Groos brings forward with regard to “the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> -joy in being a cause,” and its modifications. These -modifications are (<i>a</i>) pleasure in the mere possession -of power, (<i>b</i>) emulation, when a model is copied, and -(<i>c</i>) in the case of imitative competition there is -pleasure in surpassing others as well as the enjoyment -of success resulting from that pleasure of overcoming -difficulties which comes under the combative instinct.</p> - -<p>Froebel is warning parents that they must provide -for their children opportunity for the exercise of the -impulse to formative activity by letting them help, -even if their help is really a hindrance, and he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“If his earlier activity was only imitation of -what he saw around him, now it is sharing in the -business of the house, lifting, pulling, carrying, -digging, and wood-splitting. In everything the -boy will exercise, measure and compare his -strength that his body may grow stronger, <em>that -his power may increase, and that he may know -its measure</em>.… At this age the healthy boy, -brought up simply and naturally, never avoids a -difficulty, never goes round a hindrance: no, he -seeks it out and overcomes it. ‘Let it lie,’ -calls the vigorous youngster to the father, who -offers to remove an obstacle; ‘Let it lie: I can -get over it.’ … As activity gave pleasure to -the child, so work gives pleasure to the boy. -Hence the daring feats of boyhood.… Easy is -the most difficult, without peril the most adventurous, -for the impulse comes from the innermost -nature, from his heart and will.”—<cite>E., p. 101.</cite></p> - -<p>“But it is not only the impulse to use and to -measure his power that urges the boy to roam and -to climb—it is the need to widen his mental -horizon.… The same desire holds him to the -plain … he occupies himself with water and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -with plastic materials. For he seeks now <em>because -of the feeling of power over material already gained</em> -to master these. Everything must serve his -impulse towards construction.… And so each -forms for himself his own world, <em>for the feeling -of his own power demands his own space and his -own material</em>.…”—<cite>E., pp. 102-107.</cite></p> - -<p>“But all the plays and occupations of boys do -not by any means aim at representing objects and -things. On the contrary, <em>in many pure exercise of -strength and measuring of strength predominate</em>, -and many have no further aim than the display -of strength. Yet the play of this age has always -its peculiar characteristic, namely, as during the -period of childhood, the aim of play consisted -simply in activity as such, so now its aim is always -a definite conscious purpose, which characteristic -develops more and more as the boys increase in -age. This is observable even with all games of -bodily movement, of running, boxing, wrestling, -with ball-games, goal, hunting, and war games, -etc.”</p> - -<p>“<em>It is the sense of sure and reliable power, the -sense of its increase</em> both as an individual and as a -member of the group <em>that fills the boy with all-pervading -jubilant joy</em> during these games.”—<cite>E., -p. 113.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is evidently difficult even for practised thinkers -to grasp the importance of what we so glibly call play -in the case of the young child. Mr. Kirkpatrick, for -instance, fully recognizes its importance in regard to -children somewhat older, and he makes a suggestive -distinction between play and amusement, calling play -active, while amusement is passive. Others, he says,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -work for our amusement. But when he speaks of the -infant, he slips into the mistake of saying that the -infant, even though active, “amuses” itself. To the -ordinary observer the whole life of a young child is -play, but it would be as correct to say that it is all -work.</p> - -<p>Professor Stout, true to what he calls the tendency -of the moderns to see in the little child what is writ -large in the adult, allows “purely intellectual curiosity” -on the part of the infant. We have no right to call an -infant passive and therefore amused even when the -mother shakes the rattle for his edification. He may -be striving hard to accommodate his organs of sight, -he may be recalling previous sounds similar and dissimilar, -he may be watching and comparing different -movements and different positions. He has so much -to learn “with the world so new and all,” and, to judge -from his seriousness, it is at times a most momentous -inquiry. The baby to whom the activity of throwing -is new, and who spends full twenty minutes in -throwing a tram ticket on the floor of the car—which -the patient mother restores each time—throwing, too, -with such force and evident purpose, cannot properly -be said to be playing. Nor can the infant who stares -with such concentration at the lighted lamp and who, -when the mother moves out of the direct range of -the light, strives with all its feeble strength to readjust -its position to that entrancing brightness.</p> - -<p>Of the very young child, Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The first voluntary employments of the child -are observation of its surroundings, spontaneous -taking in of the outer world, and play, which is -independent outward expression … it is evident -therefore how important is the training … and -also the kind of voluntary playful occupation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -the child.… For as the life of man is continuous -one can recognize even in the first baby -life, though only in the slightest traces and most -delicate germs, all the mental activities which in -later life become predominant.”—<cite>P., p. 29.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>When Groos reaches the pedagogical standpoint, he -says:</p> - -<p>“We have repeatedly found in the course of this -inquiry that even the most serious work may include -a certain playfulness, especially when enjoyment of -being a cause and of conquest are prominent. Between -flippant trifling, and conscientious study there is a -wide chasm which nothing can bridge, but not all play -is such trifling. Who would forbid the teacher’s -making the effort to induce in his pupils a psychological -condition like that of the adult worker, who is not -oppressed by the <em>shall</em> and <em>must</em> in the pursuit of his -calling, because the very exertion of his physical and -mental powers in work, involving all his capabilities, -fills his soul with joy? Since play thus approaches -work, when pleasure in the activity as such, as well -as its practical aim, becomes a motive power (as in -the gymnastic games of adults), so may work become -like play, when its real aim is superseded by enjoyment -of the activity itself. And it can hardly be -doubted that this is the highest and noblest form of -work.”<a name="FNanchor_37" id="FNanchor_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a></p> - -<p>It is beyond dispute that this is the kind of work -that Froebel desired for all humanity, so it is not -surprising if he drew no hard and fast line between -work and the “<em>play</em>” which he insists “<em>is not trivial</em>,” -and which he urges parents to protect and guide. Of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -play at the stage of boyhood he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Joy is the soul of every activity at this -period.”—<cite>E., p. 304.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And in reference to the right kind of instruction he -says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The union of school and life is the first and -indispensable requirement … if men are ever to -free themselves from the oppressive burden and -emptiness of merely extraneously communicated -knowledge, heaped up in memory, if they would -ever rise to the joy and vigour of a knowledge of -the real nature of things, to a living knowledge of -things.… Mankind is meant to enjoy a degree -of knowledge and insight, of energy and efficiency, -of which at present we have no conception; for -who has measured the limits of God-born mankind! -The boy is to take up his work which -has now become his calling, not indolently in -sullen gloom, but cheerfully and joyously.”—<cite>E., -pp. 230-233.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>One distinct line of division is that drawn by Groos -when he says that with young animals and probably -with children “their first manifestation of what is -afterwards experimentation, fighting and imitative play, -etc., is rarely conscious, and therefore we cannot assert -with assurance that it is pleasurable.”<a name="FNanchor_38" id="FNanchor_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> In this case -he says the biological but not the psychological germ -of play is present. Froebel never lost sight of the -psychological point of view in so far as his desire always -was to see what the action meant to the actor, what -the child’s play meant to the child, and also in that -he desired all the activity to be joyous, to be performed -for its own sake. But it was really the biological<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -view that he endeavoured to reach and to set forth.</p> - -<p>Coming now to the Theories of Play, it seems clear -that, if he had ever heard of them, Froebel would -have endeavoured to combine those of Recapitulation -and Preparation. He states quite plainly that these -are not incompatible, recognizing that in any work -or play, by which the child retraces past stages of -human development, he gains what is most necessary -for his own future life, control over his surroundings -as well as over himself, something after the manner in -which these have been gained by the race.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The observation of the development of individual -man and its comparison with the general -development of the human race show plainly that, -in the development of the inner life of the individual -man, the history of the mental development -of the race is repeated, and that the race in its -totality may be viewed as one human being, in -whom there will be found the necessary steps in -the development of individual man.”—<cite>E., p. 160.</cite></p> - -<p>“Indeed each successive generation and each -successive individual human being, inasmuch as he -would understand the past and present, must pass -through all preceding phases of human development -and culture, and this should not be done in -the way of dead imitation, or mere copying, but -in the way of spontaneous self-activity.”—<cite>E., p. 18.</cite></p> - -<p>“Man should, at least mentally, repeat the -achievements of mankind, that they may not be -to him empty dead masses, that his judgment of -them may not be external and spiritless; he -should mentally go over the ways of mankind, -that he may learn to understand them. However -it may be said of this growing activity of boyhood,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -which by spirit and law are destined for a conscious -aim, ‘My son does not require this.’ Perhaps you -are right, I do not know, but you do know that -your sons need energy, judgment, perseverance, -prudence, etc., and that these things are indispensable -to them; and all these things they are -sure to get in the course indicated.…”—<cite>E., -p. 282.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is often said that traditional games are mere -survivals, degenerate imitations of ancient customs, and -therefore not worth encouraging. But children are not -bound by tradition, and Froebel is probably right when -he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is my firm conviction that whenever you -find anything that gives children lastingly and ever -freshly a joy belonging to a true pure life—anything -where innocence and mirth predominate—you -have found something which has at the bottom -of it a higher and more important meaning for a -child’s life.”—<cite>M., p. 172.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>We cannot always tell why children enjoy the game, -or what they gain from it. Such games are at least -the earliest and simplest introduction to “the rules of -the game,” and they contain the elements of choosing -sides and of whispered secrets. These things may seem -small to the ordinary onlooker, but not to the real -observer, who sees the amount of self-control required -by a child of four or five, that he may not proclaim -the secret aloud, the difficulty he has in whispering, -and the importance to him of the choice between -oranges and lemons or whatever it may be. There -are certainly some which most thinking persons, -Froebelian or otherwise, would wish to discourage.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -As Froebel himself said of some that he found in use:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“I thought some were too empty and silly and -some said a great deal that I would not willingly -have said to children. Yet the counting games -themselves seemed to me important in many ways, -as I hope will appear from comparing the way I -have dealt with them, and above all, as the mottoes -are meant to point out. I even wished to keep the -sound of the well-known popular words, at least -in the opening words.…”—<cite>M., p. 157.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Certainly, Froebel would have had no dealings with -either work or play which would interfere with progressive -development, he wanted recapitulation because -he regarded that “great necessary highway” as the -road to sure progress.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Only if in each particular we tread again the -great necessary highway of humanity as a whole, -does the great and vigorous early life of humanity -come back to us in and through the children.”—<cite>E., -p. 222.</cite></p> - -<p>“Education must be much more tolerating<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> and -following than predetermining and prescribing, for -by the full application of the latter method of instruction -we should entirely lose the characteristic, -the sure and steady progressive development of -mankind.”—<cite>E., p. 10.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Some educators who have made much of the -“culture epochs” might have avoided mistakes and -exaggerations if they had taken to heart Froebel’s -repeated warning that the child has “living relations” -not only with the past, but with the future, besides being -at the same time the child of the present generation.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Parents should view their child in his necessary -connection, in his obvious and living relations to -the past, present, and future development of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -humanity, in order to bring the education of the -child into harmony with the past, present and -future requirements of the development of -humanity and of the race.… Man, humanity -in man, as an external manifestation, should therefore -be looked upon not as perfectly developed, -not as fixed and stationary, but as steadily and -progressively growing, in a state of ever-living -development, ever ascending from one stage of -culture to another toward its aim, which partakes -of the infinite and eternal.</p> - -<p>“It is unspeakably pernicious to look upon the -development of humanity as stationary and completed -and to see in its present phases only -repetitions and greater generalizations of itself. -For the child, as well as every successive generation, -becomes thereby exclusively imitative, an -external dead copy—a cast, as it were, of the -preceding, and not a living ideal of the stage -which it has attained in human development -considered as a whole, to serve future generations -in all time to come.”—<cite>E., p. 17.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Underlying all that Froebel has to say of play, -is the idea that it is a preparation for future life -activities. This is implied even in the definition -given of the play of the child of three years old, viz. -that it is “spontaneous self-instruction”; it is most -evident in the passage:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Play, building and modelling are the first -tender blossoms, and this is the period when man -is to be prepared for future industry, diligence -and productive activity.”—<cite>E., p. 34.</cite></p> - -<p>“The whole later life of man has its source in -the period of childhood, be this later life bright or -gloomy, gentle or violent, industrious or lazy, rich<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -or poor in action, passed in dull stupor or in keen -creativeness, in stupid wonder or in intelligent -insight, productive or destructive.”—<cite>E., p. 55.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Of his later institution, the Kindergarten, Froebel says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The great end and aim of the whole undertaking -is the Education of Man from its earliest -beginning, by means of action, feeling, and thought, -in accordance with his own inward being and outward -relations, … <em>this to be attained by</em> the right -care of child-life, <em>the encouragement of childish -activities</em>.”—<cite>L., p. 164.</cite></p> - -<p>“For the object is twofold: Firstly the realization -in as clear and perfect a manner as possible, -of <em>the fundamental conception of a mode of education</em> -based upon the early and complete training of -human life, and <em>satisfying the needs of children by -a genuine encouragement of their spontaneous -activity</em> through the medium of a normal institution -which we have symbolically named a -Kindergarten.”—<cite>L., p. 166.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>About the play of boyhood Froebel says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Play to the boy is a mirror of the combat of -life awaiting him in the future: therefore, in order -to strengthen himself for the combat, the human -being both in early and later boyhood seeks out -obstacles, difficulty and combat in his play.… -Many of his actions have an inner significance.… -How wholesome it would be if parents and -child, for their present and future, if parents believed -in this, if they would observe the life of their -children in this respect, what a new living bond -would unite parents and child, what a new thread -of life would be drawn between their present and -their future life!”—<cite>E., p. 118.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p> -<p>Of his own Keilhau boys he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“One thing is certain, these plays are the -outcome of the spirit of boyhood. And the boys -who played thus were good scholars, intelligent, -and willing to learn, seeing and expressing clearly, -diligent and full of zeal. Some are now capable -young men with well trained heads and hearts, -quick in expedients and dexterous in action; some -are capable, clear-sighted men, and others will -become so.”—<cite>E., p. 111.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In America at least the authorities are beginning -to realize the truth of Froebel’s words as to the importance -of playgrounds, and actual experiment has -shown that he was right in saying that “even the -plays should be under right guidance,” not for purposes -of repression, but for the encouragement of real -play which “must necessarily break forth in joy from -within.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Justice, moderation, self-control, truthfulness, -loyalty, brotherly feeling and again, strict -impartiality—who, when he approaches a group -of boys engaged in such games, could fail to -catch the fragrance of these delicious blossomings -of the heart and mind and of a firm will; not to -mention the beautiful, though perhaps less fragrant, -blossoms of courage, perseverance, resolution, -prudence, together with the severe elimination -of indolent indulgence? Flowers of still more -delicate fragrance bloom … forbearance, consideration, -sympathy and encouragement for the -weaker, younger and more delicate; fairness to -those who are as yet unfamiliar with the game.</p> - -<p>“Would that all who, in the education of boys, -barely tolerate playgrounds might consider these -things! There are, indeed, many harsh words and -many rude deeds, but the sense of power must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -needs precede its cultivation. Keen, clear and -penetrating are the boy’s eyes; keen and decided -therefore, even harsh and severe is his judgment -of those who are his equals, or who claim equality -with him in judgment and power.</p> - -<p>“Every place should have its own common -playground for the boys. Glorious results would -come from this for the entire community. For -at this period, games, whenever it is feasible, are -common, and thus develop the feeling and desire -for community and the laws and requirements of -community.</p> - -<p>“The boy tries to see himself in his companions, -to feel himself in them, to weigh and measure -himself by them, to know and find himself with -their help. Thus the games directly influence and -educate the boy for life, awaken and cultivate -many civil and moral virtues.”—<cite>E., p. 113.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It was in watching boys one day—“boys,” he says, -“of the right age for these plays, but whose life is not -awakened, or has been dulled, and who now idly lounge -around, getting in their own way, as it were”—that a -friend said to him, “I do not understand how these -boys cannot play, how many plays we had at their -age!” And it is here that Froebel gives his version -of the “surplus energy” theory when he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In every case the plays of this age are or -should be pure manifestations of strength and -vitality, they are the product of fullness of life, and -of pleasure in life. They presuppose actual vigour -of life, both inner and outer. Where these are -lacking, there cannot be true play, which, bearing -life in itself, awakens, nourishes and heightens -life.… This shows clearly that even the plays<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -at this age should be under guidance<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>, and the -boy made ready for them, i.e. his life, his experience -both in school and out of it, must be -made so rich that it must necessarily break forth -in joy from within, like the blossom from the -swelling bud. Joy is the soul of every activity of -boyhood at this period.”—<cite>E., p. 303.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is here, too, in the section entitled, “Play or -Spontaneous Expression and Practice of Every Kind” -that Froebel begins a general classification of boy’s -play:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The plays, or spontaneous occupations, of -this age are of three kinds, they are either (<i>a</i>) -imitations of life, or (<i>b</i>) spontaneous applications -of what has been learned, or they are (<i>c</i>) perfectly -spontaneous expression with all kinds of material. -These last are either governed by the material, -or by the thought and feeling of the human being.… -They may be and are either Physical plays, -exercising strength and dexterity, or else mere -buoyancy of life; or Sense plays exercising the -hearing, e.g. in hiding games, etc., or the sight, -as in shooting plays or colour plays, etc.; or Intellectual -plays, games of reflection and judgment, -e.g. draughts, etc. As such they are already -arranged, but the true aim and spirit of the play -is rarely understood and the games are seldom -managed according to the needs of the boy.”—<cite>E., -p. 304.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>This general classification is very much the same -as that of Groos, who divides Play first into two main -classes, viz. Playful Experimentation and Playful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -Exercise of the Second or Socionomic Order. Under -the first heading come I. Playful Activity of the Sensory -Apparatus; II. Playful Use of the Motor Apparatus; -and III. Playful Exercise of the Higher Mental Powers. -The first two correspond to Froebel’s Sense Plays and -Physical Plays, and the third to his Intellectual Plays. -Under the second heading, Groos brings Fighting -Plays, which as we have seen Froebel attributes to the -unconscious desire to measure and increase strength; -Imitative Play, which to Froebel is the child’s way of -learning by action; Love Plays of which Froebel takes -no notice at all, and Social Play. Under this comes -what has been given as to the importance of Playgrounds, -and much of what Froebel wrote as to the -Kindergarten Games. For instance, as part of the -work of the students in his Training Course comes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The acquisition of little games arranged to -exercise the limbs and senses of the child.… -The acquisition of other games arranged to suit -special ends and suited to varied grades of development.… -Practice in combined games for many -children, and particularly action games, which -will, from the first, train the child (by his very -nature eager for companionship) in the habit of -association with comrades, that is, in good fellowship -and all that this implies.… To games for -individual children succeed games for the whole -Kindergarten together. The child in these associated -games alternately appears first as taking -some individual or separate part, and then as -merely one of several closely knit and equally -important members of a greater whole, so that he -becomes familiar with both the strongly opposed -elements of his life; namely the individual -determining and directing side, and the general<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -ordered and subordinated side.”—<cite>L., p. 253.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Games of this kind have been much misused, -especially by being given a rigidity of form which, -Froebel wrote:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Would quite destroy that fresh merry life which -should animate the games … the games would -cease to be games and lose their full educational -power. The main thought must be held fast; -but the precise form and style in which the games -are played must be the outcome of the moment. -The freer and more spontaneous the arrangement, -the more excellent is the effect of the game.”—<cite>L., -p. 85.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The number and variety of plays and games noted -by Froebel is quite surprising. Of the long list given -by Groos there are few indeed which he does not -mention.<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> The plays for older children are given in -“The Education of Man,” but other games encouraged -at Keilhau are to be found in the accounts -given by Ebers. Even in his earlier work Froebel -shows how closely he had been observing the play of -little children, but this he worked out later in his -Mother Songs, in the papers on his various “Gifts,” -and in that on Movement Play. These later books -were written and the play material was planned because -Froebel saw that the children who do not play are -those “in whom life has not awakened or has been -dulled,” just because “the true aim and the spirit of -play is rarely understood and the games are seldom -managed according to the needs of the boy.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br /> -<span class="smcap">Froebel’s Play-Material and its Original -Purpose</span></h2> - -<p>To one who believed, as Froebel did, that “the -means by which the child gains his first ideas -of his own nature and life and the nature and life -of the cosmos, are his play and playthings,” these -playthings could not be indifferent.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It has been stated as a fundamental truth -that the plays and occupations of children should -by no means be treated as offering merely means -for passing, we might say for consuming, time, -hence as mere outer activity, but rather that by -means of such plays and employments the child’s -innermost nature must be satisfied.”—<cite>P., p. 108.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel was speaking of his own Play-material—known -by the name of “Froebel’s Gifts” because he -thought them the most suitable gifts for little children—when -he wrote:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“To realize his aims, man, and more particularly -the child, requires material, though it be -only a bit of wood or a pebble with which he makes -something or which he makes into something.”—<cite>P., -p. 235.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And although his opinion of the importance of that -particular series of playthings, which he chose from -among those he saw in general use, may have been -exaggerated, still there is a good deal of sound psychology -in what he says about them. In speaking of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -imitative action and construction, we have already -touched upon what were perhaps the most important -ideas underlying this series.<a name="FNanchor_42" id="FNanchor_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“What presents are most prized by the child? -Those which afford him a means of unfolding his -inner life most freely and of shaping it in various -directions.”—<cite>P., p. 142.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>But Froebel also writes of his Gifts that “they -will cover the whole ground of training in sense -perception,” and he has managed to think out a very -fair number of the points which Dr. Ward, in his -Analysis of Perception, notes as important.</p> - -<p>One of Froebel’s frequent Reviews of his play-material -begins:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“How has the child developed up to this -point? How has the world, the objects and -things around him developed? How has the -child developed himself <em>especially through the toys</em>—the -means of play and employment—which -have thus far been given him? The brightening -light in the child’s mind illuminates the objects -around him. In proportion as the inner light -increases, the nature of external objects grows -clear to him … the law of development is that -of progress from the unlimited to the limited, -from the whole to the part, from an undifferentiated -to a membered totality … the outer -world comes to meet the inner world, it does -not hinder, but helps the inner world.</p> - -<p>“The man advanced in insight should be clear -about all this before he introduces his child to the -outer world. Even when he gives his child a -plaything he must make clear to himself its purpose,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -and the purpose of playthings and occupation -material in general. This purpose is to aid the -child freely to express what lies within him—to -bring the phenomena of the outer world nearer -to him, and thus to serve as mediator between -the mind and the world.”—<cite>P., pp. 169-171.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Then Froebel explains in so many words the really -psychological aim or meaning of his sequence of -“Gifts,” so well known by name—and even better -known in most <em>un</em>-psychological practice—but little -understood in their real and original significance, as -a means of perception, the earlier ones at least, for -children much below even Kindergarten age.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Recognizing the mediatorial character of play -and playthings, we shall no longer be indifferent -either to the choice, the succession, or the organic -connection of the toys we give children. In these -I offer them, I shall consider as carefully as possible, -how the child may in using them develop -his nature freely and yet in accordance with law -(laws of mind), and how through such use he may -also learn to apprehend external things correctly -and to employ them justly. As the child’s first -consciousness of self was born of physical opposition -to and connection with the external -world, so through play with the ball, the external -world itself began to rise out of chaos and to -assume definiteness. In recognizing the ball the -child moved from the indefinite to the definite, -from the universal to the particular, from mere -externality (compare Prof. Ward’s ‘mere thing -stuff’) to a self-included space-filling object. In -the ball, especially through movement, through the -opposition of rest and motion, through departing -and returning, the object came forth out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -general space as a special space-filling object, as a -body: just as the child by means of his life -(activity) also perceives himself, his bodily frame, -as a space-filling object, as a body. The child has -thus obtained two important terms of comparison -for his first intellectual development; body and -body, object and object.… At the same time -there begins in the child, as in a seed-corn, -a development advancing towards manifoldness. -For this reason he should receive a corresponding -seed-corn in the object which he first detaches as -object from the external chaos. Such object -should, like himself, include an indefinite manifoldness, -and be susceptible of a progressive -development. Such an object is the ball (Gift I).”—<cite>P., -p. 171.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The very first “intimation of an intellect,” Froebel -writes, is when the child is seen to “keep his gaze fixed -upon the motion of a bright object. This begins a -few weeks after birth.” The ball is to be given to the -baby “when the starting-point of recognition and -knowledge (Erkennens und Erkenntniss), viz. perceiving, -noticing, thinking (das Gewahrwerden, das -Bemerken und Beachten) becomes perceptible”: when -the child “can freely move its little arms and hands, -when it can perceive and distinguish tones, and can -turn its attention and gaze in the direction from which -these tones come.”</p> - -<p>In his analysis of Perception, Dr. Ward distinguishes -(i) Assimilation or Recognition, (ii) Localization or -Spatial Fixation, and (iii) Objective Reference, or -Intuition of Things. Of these, the first, Assimilation, -has already been taken up in Chapter IV, and we have -seen that, according to Dr. Ward, it involves Retention -and Differentiation, though in itself there is no active -comparison, and we have seen that Froebel also spoke<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -of the earliest impressions as “almost imperceptible, -but <em>fixed</em> by repetition and by change,”<a name="FNanchor_43" id="FNanchor_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> and of a -“perception of sequence” involving “dim” or “unconscious -comparison.”</p> - -<p>Of the second process Dr. Ward writes: “To treat -of the localization of impressions is really to give an -account of the steps by which the psychological individual -comes to a knowledge of space,” and he goes on -to say that psychologists may have been too apt to -examine “the conception of space and not our concrete -space perceptions.” Now Froebel did consider concrete -space perception, and with a certain amount of -care. That he saw its importance is clear from the -fact that in discussing his “means of employment” -he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“They will cover the whole ground of training -in sense perception but <em>will begin with the observation -of space and the knowledge that comes from -that, since the child first feels and finds himself in -space and finds others occupying space around him</em>. -They are to go on by development of limbs and -senses and by means of language to understand -Nature in all directions, so that finally man <em>who -at first could find himself only in space and by means -of space</em>, may learn to know himself as an existent, -feeling, thinking, intelligent, rational being, and -as such to try to live.”—<cite>P., p. 19.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>And although Froebel may not fully have realized -that, as Dr. Ward puts it: “The infant’s earliest lessons -in spatial perception are in exploring his limbs,” still -we do find him writing from Blankenburg, in a letter -accompanying the first sketch of his Nursery Songs:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“I soon felt that some important connecting -link was imperatively required to prepare the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> -newly awakening life of a child for its later -activity with the ball. It was through the ball -itself that I discovered this link: in general -terms it may be described as <em>the first development -of muscular movement and sensation</em> specially distinguishing -infancy. The link between the infant, -still an undivided self-sufficient whole of peaceful -life, and the ball, which is something external -given to him to play with, lies in the child’s own -limbs, the child’s own senses; and <em>the first toys -and occupations of the child come from himself; -he plays with his own limbs</em>, and uses them as -the material for representing his ideas. This -spontaneous activity of limb and vividness of -sensation natural to infancy must also be studied; -for a considerable degree of cultivation of these -powers is already necessary in the use of the -ball, etc.… To help the child to use his own -body, his limbs and sensations, and to assist -mothers to a consciousness of their duties … -I have carefully preserved several little songs and -games and send this collection to you for your -severe criticism.”<a name="FNanchor_44" id="FNanchor_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a>—<cite>L., p. 108.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Having said that “the child first perceives himself, -his corporeal frame, as a space-filling object, as a body, -by means of his life,” or his activity, the first two of -this collection naturally deal with large body movements. -In the one the mother alternately lowers and -raises the infant, “letting him really feel a slight shock,” -and in the other the baby tramples with his feet, and -she is told to supply the object of resistance. This -resistance, as we have seen, gives him “the dim consciousness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -of self, which comes out of physical opposition -to, and connection with, the outer world,” which -Dr. Ward speaks of under the head of Localization of -Impressions. Dr. Ward writes that “the distinction -between his own and foreign bodies begins when the -child feels the difference between a series of movements -accompanied by passive touches, and one without -passive touches,” but Froebel goes no further than -noting what comes through “resistance.” The ball, -however, as we have just seen, is to be used so as to -assist the child’s comprehension of “a self-included -space-filling object,” and through play with the ball -he is to gain the “three great perceptions of object, -space and time.”</p> - -<p>In the Intuition of things, Dr. Ward distinguishes -five points “concerning which psychology may be -expected to give an account: (<i>a</i>) the reality; (<i>b</i>) -solidity or occupation of space; (<i>c</i>) permanence, or, -rather, continuity in time; (<i>d</i>) unity and complexity; -and (<i>e</i>) substantiality and the connection of its attributes -and powers.”</p> - -<p>(<i>a</i>) <em>Reality</em> he disposes of as “not strictly an item -by itself, but a characteristic of all the items that -follow.” Of (<i>b</i>), <em>Solidity or Impenetrability</em>, he writes -that “here our feelings of effort come specially into -play. They are not entirely absent in those movements -of exploration by which we attain a knowledge -of space; but it is when these movements are definitely -realized, or are only possible by increased effort, that -we reach the full meaning of body as that which -occupies space.” Dr. Ward goes on to add as “in the -highest degree essential,” that muscular effort should -meet with something which seems to be “making an -effort the counterpart of our own.”</p> - -<p>Besides telling the mother to give the required -definite resistance, by opposing her hand or chest to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -the little trampling feet, Froebel gives a “new play, a -new perception of the object,” when he tells the mother -that “as soon as the child is sufficiently developed to -perceive the ball as a thing separate from himself,” -she should tie a string to it and pull gently.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child will hold the ball fast, the arm will -rise as you lift the ball, and as you loosen the -string the hand and arm will sink back from their -own weight; the feeling of the utterance of force, -as well as the alternation of the movement, will -delight the child. From this, however, soon -springs a quite new play, that is also something -new to the child, when, through a suitable drawing -and lifting, the ball escapes from the child’s hand -and then quietly moves freely before him as an -individual object. Through this play is developed -in the child a new feeling, the new perception of -the object as a something now clasped, grasped -and handled, and now as a freely active opposite -something.”—<cite>P., p. 36.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p><em>Unity and Complexity</em>, “the remaining factors in -the psychological constitution of things,” says Dr. -Ward, “might be described in general terms as the -time-relations of their opponents.…”</p> - -<p>And Froebel, going straight on from “the opposite -something,” comes in like manner to time-relations.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“One may say with deep conviction that even -this simple activity is inexpressibly important for -the child, for which reason it is to be repeated as -a play with the child as often as possible. What -the little one has up to this time directly felt so -often by the touch of the mother’s breast—union -and separation—it now perceives outwardly in an -object which can be grasped and clasped. Thus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -the repetition of this play confirms, strengthens, -and clears in the mind of the child a feeling and -perception deeply grounded in, and important to -the whole life of man—the feeling and perception -of oneness and individuality, and of disjunction -and separateness; also of present and past possession.… -The idea of return or recurrence soon -develops to the child’s perception, from the -presence and absence; that of reunion from the -singleness and separateness; of future repossession -from present and past possession, and so the -idea of being, having and becoming, are the dim -perceptions which first dawn on the child.</p> - -<p>“From these perceptions there at once develop -in the child’s mind the three great perceptions of -object, space and time, which were at first one -collective perception. From the perceptions of -being, having and becoming in respect to space -and object, and in connection with them, there -soon develop also the new perceptions of present, -past and future in respect to time. Indeed, these -ninefold perceptions which open to the child the -portals of a new objective life, unfold themselves -most clearly by means of his constant play with -the one single ball.”—<cite>P., p. 36.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Dr. Ward gives as the first step “in the psychological -constitution of distinct things”—as opposed to -what he calls “mere thingstuff”—“the simultaneous -projection into the same occupied space of the several -impressions, which we thus come to regard as the -qualities of the body filling it.”</p> - -<p>Froebel writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“We gave, therefore, to the mother the brightly -coloured soft ball to make a unity of touch and -perception through sight, for through the brightness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -it makes itself known to sight, and through -warmth (softness?) to touch, as an objective -phenomena, a thing in itself.”—<cite>P., p. 65.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>To reach unity and complexity, says Ward, “it is -essential that objects should recur, and recur as they -have previously recurred, if knowledge is ever to -begin.” The constituent impressions must also “be -again and again repeated in like order to prompt anew -the same grouping,” and the constancy of one group -must present itself “along with changes in other -groups, and in the general field.… It is only where -a group, as a whole, has been found to change its -position relatively to other groups, and—apart from -causal changes—to be independent of changes of -position among them, that such complexes can become -distinct unities and yield a world of things.”</p> - -<p>Froebel writes of one of his early plays:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is really important for the human being, -especially as a child, that the essential perceptions -of things should be <em>repeated frequently</em> under -different forms, and <em>if possible in a particular -order</em>, so that the child may easily learn to distinguish -the essential from the unessential and -accidental, and the abiding from the changing. -Unnoticed and unrecognized though the phenomena -are to the child, yet the impression of -them will be certain and firm, and this so much -the more when the repetition has been precise and -clear.”—<cite>P., p. 88.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Later, speaking of a child’s earliest attempts at -walking, he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The smallest child who begins to exercise the -power of walking, loves to go from place to place—i.e. -<em>he likes to turn about and to change the relationships<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -in which he stands to different objects, and in -which they stand to him. Through these changes he -seeks self-recognition and self-comprehension, as well -as recognition of the different objects which surround -him, and recognition of his environment as a whole</em>.”—<cite>P., -p. 243.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Dr. Ward requires still more and says that “the -unity of a thing” carries us over to temporal continuity, -and this he attributes to “the continuous -presentation of such a group as the bodily self, which -makes us infer continuity of existence, for presentations -which have been presented, removed and re-presented.”</p> - -<p>We have seen already that Froebel says the child -perceives the ball “through departing and returning, -as a space-filling object, as a body, just as he perceives -himself, his corporeal frame, as a space-filling object, -as a body.” And there is also a quaint, but interesting -reference to something of this kind in one of the -earliest Nursery Songs called “All Gone,” where the -mother is distinctly told that she must help her child -to realize continuity through change.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“How can the child understand what you mean -when you say ‘It’s all gone, Baby’? He will not -be contented unless you put meaning into it. -What he saw just now he sees no longer, what -was above is below, what was there is just now -vanished. Where, then, has it gone?”</p> - -</div> - -<p>And the baby is supposed to be quieted by the -mother’s playful tale of the present whereabouts of his -bread and milk, a German version of the homely -“Down red lane.”</p> - -<p>Professor Ward’s last point in the intuition of -things is “substantiality.” “What is it,” he says, -“that has thus a beginning and continues indefinitely?”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -The answer is that “of all the constituents -of things only one is universally present, that of -physical solidity, which presents itself according to -circumstances, as impenetrability, resistance or weight.… -In other words, that which occupies space is the -substantial; the other real constituents are but its -properties or attributes, the marks or manifestations -which lead us to expect its presence.”</p> - -<p>Froebel, again, sums up the ideas he intends the -child to gain from play with the ball:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The ball shows contents, mass, matter, space, -form, size and figure; it bears within itself an -independent power (elasticity) and hence it has -rest and movement, and consequently stability -and spontaneity; it offers even colour, and at -least calls forth sound; it is indeed heavy—that -is, it is attracted—and thus shares in the general -property of all bodies.… Therefore, it places -man, on his entrance into the world, furnished with -activity of limbs and senses, in the midst of all -phenomena and perceptions of Nature and of all -life … to place man through a skilful education -in the understanding of Nature and life, and to -maintain him in it with consciousness and circumspection -cannot be done too early.”—<cite>P., p. 53.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The soft ball of the first gift is supposed to be -given to the child when he is three or even two months -old, but when he reaches six or eight months, he is -supposed to be ready for something which “makes -itself known especially through noise, sound, tone, as -it were through speech.” The second gift therefore -consists of a wooden sphere and a cube, which are -intended not only to please the child by the noise they -make, but to serve as material for comparison. The -mother is told to roll the sphere and then, in order to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> -make this oppositeness between sphere and cube perceptible -to the child, to place the cube steadily before -him and presently to take one of his little hands, -pushing gently at first, but</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“finally overcoming the gravity of the cube and -pushing it away with the child’s hand and fingers -… drawing the child’s strength, although yet so -feeble, into the play, that his limbs may be -trained, his strength increased, and that he may -experience and perceive much through his own -activity.”—<cite>P., p. 77.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>By even these few representations the mother can -present to her child:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The quiet, firm sure-standing on a relatively -larger surface; the filling of space by each object; -heaviness which is expressed by pressure; the -final overcoming of heaviness (gravity); and the -possibility of moving away the body by the use of -a proportionately greater strength. The perception -of all these and many other facts, showing -themselves merely as changing phenomena in oft-recurring -repetition, will give pleasure even to the -child who is scarcely half a year, or at least not a -whole year old, especially when the play is placed -in intimate connection with the child’s life, and -with his impulse to activity.”—<cite>P., p. 78.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Many plays are suggested, all to be accompanied -by song or rhyme, only, says Froebel, “one must not -go on in opposition to the wish of the child, but always -follow his requirements and needs and his own expressions -of life and activity.”</p> - -<p>It is in this connection that Froebel notices how -early a child begins to note cause.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Even the child whose capacity for speech is -as yet undeveloped will remark the cause of the -fall of the cube, at least experience has shown us -that children of this age drew away the holding -support, and, as the cube then fell over, turned -toward their mother with face and body as in -joyous triumph.”—<cite>P., p. 80.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The sphere and cube are also to be compared as to -shape:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Through all that has been done hitherto, the -child’s attention has been predominantly called to -the object, as filling space, and acting, but only -incidentally to the object as being the identical -one; nor yet to the figure and shape, nor to the -members and parts. But attention to the form -and figure of the object can also be utilized for -the child in play.”—<cite>P., p. 83.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>So the mother is directed to hide the cube in her -hand and show it again—so that the child will watch -for its reappearance.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“By this play the child is not only again -made to notice that the cube fills space, but his -attention is also called to its precise form; and -he will look at it sharply, <em>unconsciously comparing</em> -it with the hand to which his eyes were first -attracted.”—<cite>P., p. 84.</cite></p> - -<p>“Each object speaks constantly to man by its -qualities and attributes, and still more to the -child, though in mute speech.… It is essential -for the intellectual development of man that the -surroundings should speak to him by their qualities -and attributes.”—<cite>P., p. 95.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Froebel’s “Gift III” is a little box containing -eight-inch cubes for building purposes, and after the -child has clearly gained the idea of “outer object”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -Froebel says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Let us first of all hasten to place ourselves -together in the children’s play corner, and there -seek to discover what attracts the child, or, rather, -in what direction he himself turns his attention, -what he would like to do and what he needs for -the purpose. Let us take our place there as -quietly and as unnoticed as possible, observing -how the child, between the ages of one and three -years, after he has clearly gained the idea of -“outer object,” has contemplated the form and -colour of the self-contained body which he can -handle, has moved it here and there in his hands, -and experimented upon its solidity, now tries to -pull it apart, or at least to alter its form in order -to discover new properties in it, and to find out -new ways of using it. If the little one succeeds -in his attempt to separate the object, we see that -he then tries to put the parts together, to form -the whole which he had at first, or to arrange -them in a new whole. We see that he will -unweariedly and quietly repeat this for a long -time.</p> - -<p>“Let us linger over this significant phenomenon -and seek to recognize through it what we have to -furnish to the child from inner grounds and without -arbitrariness. This is: something firm which -can be easily pulled apart by the child’s strength, -and just as easily put together.”—<cite>P., p. 117.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The time when the child wants this something to -arrange is given as any time “between the ages of -one and three.” It is the time when “his greatest -delight consists in the quick alternation of building -up and tearing down.”—<cite>P., p. 106.</cite></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> -<p>At first the little one will be satisfied with arranging -and rearranging the cubes, piling them one -upon another, “placing one before, behind, beside -another.” Soon, however, he will try to make something -definite, and “the intelligent nurse interprets the -dim idea and sees whether a something, a table, a -chair, etc., can be perceived in what is represented.” -Then the something must have a purpose, so the chair -is grannie’s chair, the table is ready for the soup, and -so on.</p> - -<p>There is nothing here which is not quite a usual -proceeding. Froebel’s peculiarity of treatment comes -from his desire to give the blocks to the child as a -whole which he can take to pieces. This is the reason -of the traditional proceeding, perhaps still kept up in -old-fashioned kindergartens, when the children first slip -the lid out a little way, then reverse the boxes, pull -out the lid and lift it off the box. The directions are -Froebel’s own, and are given:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“in order to furnish to the child at once clearly -and definitely, the impression of the whole, of -the self-contained; from this perception, as the -first fundamental perception (Grundanschauung) -all proceeds and must proceed.”—<cite>P., p. 123.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is clear that this meaning is quite lost when the -same proceeding is forced on older children, who are -quite accustomed to pull down and build up.</p> - -<p>Froebel emphasizes the fact that the pieces are of -the same cubical form as the whole thus presented, -and adds:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Thus fundamental perceptions, whole and -part, form, and size, are made clear by comparison -and contrast, as well as deeply impressed by -repetition.”—<cite>P., p. 119.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p> -<p>It is in speaking of this simplest of toys that -Froebel enters a strong protest against the complex -and useless toys which afford no scope for childish -activity.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Here, then, we meet a very great imperfection -and inadequateness—indeed in reference to -the inner development of the child an obstructing -element in that which is now so frequently provided -as a plaything for children; an element -which slumbers like a viper under roses—it is, in -a word, the already too complex and ornate, too-finished -plaything. The child can begin no new -thing with it, cannot produce enough variety by -means of it; his power of creative imagination, -his power of giving form to his own idea, are thus -actually deadened. For when we provide children -with too finished playthings we at the same -time deprive them of the incentive to perceive -the particular in the general, and of taking the -means to find it.… What presents are the -most prized by the child as well as by mankind -in general? Those which afford him a means of -unfolding his inner life most purely and of shaping -it in a varied manner, giving it freest activity and -presenting it clearly.”—<cite>P., p. 122.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>This quotation sets forth quite plainly the main -idea underlying all the varied toys or play-material -known as the “Gifts and Occupations” of the Kindergarten.</p> - -<p>According to Mr. Hailmann and other writers, the -gifts are material by which the child can gain ideas, -and the occupations furnish material for gaining skill. -But Mr. Hailmann allows that this distinction, which -to him seems important, was never formulated by -Froebel.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p> -<p>Froebel’s psychological knowledge, in fact, was in -advance of that of his interpreters. He knew that it -was by action, by manipulation of material, that the -child gains his ideas and that the clear distinction -between gift and occupation which to Mr. Hailmann -is “very important” is on the contrary actually non-existent.</p> - -<p>Gifts III to VI are boxes of building blocks, intended -to present sequence in difficulty of manipulation, -and also increasing variety of form. Because -of the stress he laid on self-expression, Froebel -thought very highly of the educational possibilities of -a box of bricks. In “The Education of Man” he -writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Look into this education room of eight boys, -seven to ten years old. On the large table stands -a chest of building blocks, in the form of bricks, -each side about one-sixth of the size of actual -bricks, the finest and most variable material that -can be offered a boy for purposes of representation. -Sand or sawdust, too, have found their -way into the room, and fine green moss has been -brought in abundantly from the last walk in the -beautiful pine forest. It is free time, and each -one has begun his own work. There in a corner -stands a chapel … there a building which -represents a castle.…”—<cite>E., p. 108.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>After the bricks come the coloured tablets of Gift -VII, which children from four and upwards, <em>if left free</em>, -often highly appreciated as material for making patterns; -and the Sticks or splints of various lengths of Gift -VIII, with which they used to lay outlines of familiar -objects. English children often use burnt matches for -this, sometimes they do the same thing with “mother’s -pin-box,” and a child quite innocent of Kindergarten -ideas has been seen to appropriate the various nails<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -of a tool-box to the same purpose. Along with the -sticks Froebel supplied rings of metal or paper; the -little English child who used the nails took small -curtain rings for the petals of her flower and screw nails -for its stalk. In Gift IX the child is presented with -very small articles for stringing or arranging—beads, -coloured beans, pebbles, etc. A child’s pleasure in this -material and in the sticks and rings probably shows -that he is ready to practise movements of the thumbs -and forefingers. Froebel said that the use of these -sticks called the child’s attention to “linear phenomena,” -and I have already mentioned that many years -ago, when we were still using Froebel’s play-material, -I heard a child call out, “Oh, I’m making lines!” -just after he had been using the sticks. The other -children contentedly went on rubbing with the crayons; -but this young discoverer continued to make laborious -lines, always from left to right, till the work was -completed to his satisfaction.</p> - -<p>The remaining “Gifts” include coloured paper to -fold and cut either to produce such objects as boats, -boxes, purses, chairs, etc., or to form patterns, or to -weave together for the well-known paper mat; drawing -and paper materials; modelling clay and sand, -and so on.</p> - -<p>The weakness of the series is the semi-psychological -semi-mathematical arrangement, which has been dealt -with in the following chapter. What Froebel meant to -do was to pick out from among the material he saw -given to children, or appropriated by them, those -things which seemed to him best adapted to call out -the activities of children at various ages or stages, in -accordance with his idea that “the man advanced in -insight should make clear to himself the purpose of -playthings, viz. to help the child to express himself, -and to bring the phenomena of the outer world nearer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -to him.”</p> - -<p>Surprise has often been expressed that Froebel -did not include such toys as dolls in his series.</p> - -<p>One reason is that he did not live long enough, -for he does speak of doll-play and says that later the -time will come “when we shall speak of the doll and -the hobby-horse as the plays of the awakening life of -the girl and of the boy.” In his brief reference he -does speak of the child’s own nature becoming objective -through the doll-play, and he adds that by such -play she “anticipates and feels her destiny.” He notes, -too, with interest that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Little girls make their favourite dolls of the -heavy bootjack or like piece of wood. I was -informed by a mother that a heavy sandbag -which she accidentally found became her most -cherished doll, because it had in it the weight of -an actual child, and so she gave herself up to the -illusion and imagined herself to be carrying a real -child.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>Undoubtedly Froebel was right in demanding -simple toys and in characterizing the “too complex -toy” as a “viper under the roses,” and also in demanding -that toys should be carefully considered and -chosen so as to meet the needs of the child’s -developing mind. But the plays and the toys of a -developing child cannot be definitely prescribed, and -every similar attempt is likely to fail, as Froebel’s -has done. In his choice, Froebel was biased by the -great idea which obsessed him, the idea of development. -Like all human beings, he had the defects of -his virtues, and it is to these defects that we must -now turn our attention.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX<br /> -<span class="smcap">Weak Points Considered</span></h2> - -<p>An honest attempt to show what credit is due to -Froebel, for the remarkable anticipations of -modern theories on which he based his pedagogy, -seems to involve the opposite process of inquiring -whether or not any of his practices can be shown to -have an unsound basis.</p> - -<p>The modern boys’ school, with a few, and a very -few exceptions, does not even approach the school at -Keilhau as a place of real education, as any one may -see who reads the account given of it by Georg Ebers. -On the other hand, the modern Kindergarten is probably -in many ways an advance upon the original -attempts. Many practices of which Froebel approved -are now discarded, some no doubt because of progress -in physiological discovery; we know now that a child -is not fitted as regards nervous development and -muscular control to deal with fine pricking or drawing -in chequers.</p> - -<p>But a better knowledge of physiology does not -account for all the changes that have taken place. -Important as they undoubtedly were in Froebel’s eyes, -the modern Kindergartener is inclined to smile over -her predecessors’ “worship of the ‘Gifts’”; and, -though we are agreed as to the importance of games, -the modern teacher chooses from a wide, perhaps too -wide a range, and no longer reposes blind faith in certain -circle-games with their supposed “symbolic” virtue.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p> -<p>To some, the word symbolic will at once suggest -Froebel’s weakest point, others will resent any such -idea, for symbolism appeals strongly to one and repels -another. For Froebel himself, undoubtedly the whole -world was symbolic, in so far as he regarded the universe -as one expression of the Divine. To him, as to -Browning:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“The earth has speech of God’s writ down, no matter if</div> -<div class="verse">In cursive script or hieroglyph.”</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>But this has not affected his educational practice to -the extent generally supposed.</p> - -<p>At the same time it does seem as if one, if not -two, psychological errors lie at the root of certain -practices which the modern Froebelian has discarded.</p> - -<p>It would be most unfair to Froebel not to emphasize -what is often overlooked, viz. that the “Gifts” were -important in his eyes solely because he believed that -in them he was presenting toys, or “play-material,” -exactly suited to the succeeding stages of the child’s -development, bodily and mental. “The new gift,” he -says, “corresponds both to the child’s increasing constructive -ability, and to his growing capacity to comprehend -the external world.” And he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“But such a course of training and occupations -for children answering to the laws of development -and the laws of life, demanded a thoroughly -expressive medium in the shape of materials for -these occupations and games for the child: therefore -to meet this point I have arranged a series -of play materials under the title of: ‘A complete -series of gifts for play.’”—<cite>P., p. 250.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It should also be noted that Froebel did not commit -the mistake of inventing new toys. What he -attempted to do was what we are all attempting now, -viz. to use what natural instinct has already selected,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> -as a basis for conscious educational work. Balls and -building blocks, coloured tablets and papers, sand and -clay, are all spontaneously appropriated by normal -children. Even these materials which seem to us -unchildlike are not so in different surroundings. For -instance, in the Black Forest, one may watch children -playing with long slivers of wood exactly like Froebel’s -laths, and these they take from the cut logs which are -being hauled up for winter storage.</p> - -<p>Again, it is only fair to point out that Froebel’s -followers have appropriated material which he suggested -as suited to children aged from three months -to five or six years, and have used them with children -from four or five to six or seven and even older.<a name="FNanchor_45" id="FNanchor_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> -Teachers have also found it convenient to disregard -Froebel’s frequent warnings not to interfere, to let -the child “bang and pound” when he wants to, to let -him “play quietly and thoughtfully by himself as long -as he will,” to give him “the greatest possible freedom -of expression.” In some, at least, of the original -text-books on Kindergarten practice, written by -Froebel’s early disciples, this advice is totally disregarded, -and we find prescribed the most formal of -object lessons, dealing with the properties of the ball -in set questions and answers; only at the end comes -“If there is time, the children may be allowed to roll -the ball.”</p> - -<p>Still, when all due allowance is made, there remains -the fact that Froebel attributed far too much importance -to the series of toys he arranged, and in addition -to this he must be held in large measure responsible for -the extraordinary amount of mathematical perceptions -of which young children have been considered capable,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> -and beneath which many gleams of intelligence may -have been extinguished.</p> - -<p>The psychological error which seems to underlie -both these mistakes in pedagogy seems to have been -that of making too much of the outer factor in the -process of perception. Froebel was quite right and -quite modern in refusing to draw any hard and fast -line between sense perception and thinking, in saying -that the child moves “from perception of a thing, -joined with thought about it, up to pure thought.” -But he must have failed somehow, sufficiently to grasp -the fact that all that is present to sense is not necessarily -perceived, that perception depends not merely -upon what is presented, but upon previous mind content. -The word “apperception,” though apparently -somewhat fallen into disfavour of late, has certainly -been of service in emphasizing this point.</p> - -<p>What seems strange is that in the very book, in -which we find the theory disregarded in practice, we -find Froebel stating the theory itself in the plainest of -terms:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The properties and nature of the outer world -unfold themselves in exact proportion to the -capacities of the child.”—<cite>P., p. 120.</cite></p> - -<p>“The child creates his own world for himself; -it is at once the expression of his inward realization -of the external world and its surroundings, -and also the outward representation of his internal -mental world, the world of his own subjectivity.”—<cite>L., -p. 141.</cite></p> - -<p>“Above all, it is the old within the new, which -clarifies, unfolds and transmutes itself, thus -developing what is new.… We must not require -of the child anything not conditioned by -his previous achievements.”—<cite>P., p. 169.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p> -<p>No one, surely, can maintain that these words are -carried into effect in e.g.:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Could forms of knowledge (mathematical -forms) be, for a child of one to three, play forms, -and thus forms produced by spontaneous activity? -Well, why not? Arrange the eight part-cubes -together, and say, ‘One whole.’ But divide -it immediately and say, ‘Two halves.’… Or, -comparing and connecting and describing by song -at the same time that the objects are manipulated:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">‘Look here and see! One whole two halves.</div> -<div class="verse">One half two fourths, two halves four fourths.</div> -<div class="verse">One whole four fourths.</div> -<div class="verse">Four fourths eight eighths.</div> -<div class="verse">Eight eighths one whole.’”—<cite>P., p. 138.</cite></div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<p>There is certainly no “old within the child” of one -to three, which can condition this achievement, nor -is there any spontaneity. For the child a little older -we have:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The hints that are here given suffice to show -that the knowledge forms are adapted to children -of three and four years of age, and that they incite -plays which are both spontaneous and nourishing -to heart and intellect.… These few indications -for the use of these forms must suffice; they -already show sufficiently clearly that the observation -and comprehension of them are perfectly -suited to the active, intellectual and emotional -sides of children three and four years of age, and -to actual free play which strengthens intellect and -feeling.”—<cite>P., p. 185.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Now the “hints” refer to making clear to the child, -always in justice, be it remembered, in the concrete, -“as perceptible facts only,” such points as “similarity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> -of size with dissimilarity of shape and position, in such -words as:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“Twice as long and half as wide,</div> -<div class="verse">Half as long and twice as wide,</div> -<div class="verse">The same size are we two.”</div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Certainly children differ very much, and some have -a special aptitude for mathematical relations, but to -most children under five these words would convey -nothing. <em>Half</em> may have a meaning, though at that -age and for some time after we hear of “a fair half” -and “quarter” is generally used as a name for any -fraction recognized as not a half, even if it should be -greater. Such words as <em>fourth</em> and <em>eighth</em> can have no -meaning for a child who shows no consciousness of -difference when shown six, seven or eight objects. At -the age of three, an average child recognizes three -objects, but when a fourth is added, he proceeds to -count one by one, he does not recognize three plus one.</p> - -<p>Again, we must repeat that Froebel never intended -any mathematical ideas to be forced upon unwilling -children. He constantly tells the mother not to force, -and he frequently speaks of the child’s “accidental -productions which will become a point of departure -for his self-development,” through the explanatory -rhymes, to be sung by the mother in order to call the -child’s attention to the results of his own action. It -is true, too, that it is in connection with this kind of -work, or play, that Froebel writes of “the knowledge-acquiring -side of the game, which is the quickly -tiring side.”</p> - -<p>But the fact remains that either Froebel made a -miscalculation as to what mathematical ideas are within -the grasp of children of tender age, or else he attributed -too much consequence to what is outside. It is indeed -quite possible to present to a child of any age,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -by means of the cubes of his Fifth Gift, several particular -instances of the Theorem of Pythagoras, as -Froebel suggests. But though the construction is -present to the sense of both child and adult, the career -of the child of five or six, who perceives or apperceives -the relationship of the squares so presented, may be -watched with interest. He is likely to distinguish -himself in mathematical research, should he live long -enough. Froebel ought to have known, indeed he did -know, for he taught it to others, that the child does -not “quickly tire” of acquiring knowledge suited to -his stage of development by methods equally suitable. -From the houses and railway trains, of which at this -stage they seem never to tire, children probably gain -as much knowledge as Nature means them to absorb -by such means. In Froebel’s own hands, with his -real and sympathetic understanding of the need for -freedom of action, probably no harm was done, but it -is easy to see how the ordinary teacher would grasp -at the possibility of producing mathematical prodigies -through what was supposed to be play.</p> - -<p>The same error seems to show itself in various -ways, e.g., in some of the reasons Froebel gives for -choosing his First Gift, though there is no fault to be -found with the choice. He was right in saying that -the child first takes in a whole, not a variety of -elements, to be combined later. Because of this fact, -the ordinary coral and bells, with all its complexity, -is just as much a whole to the infant as the woollen -ball. But Froebel does seem to have thought that he -must make the “outer objects,” or toys from which -the child is to gain his earliest ideas, as simple as these -ideas, and this certainly implies a wrong view of perception. -The same objection might be taken to -Froebel’s directions as to how the Third Gift—an -8-inch cube, cut once in each direction—is to be presented;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -how in order “to furnish to the child clearly -and definitely the impression of the whole, of the -self-contained, from which fundamental perception -everything must proceed,” the box is to be reversed, -the lid slipped out and the box is to be lifted “that -the play thing may appear as a cube closely united.” -But in this case Froebel is “presenting” the first divided -unit, “something which may be taken to pieces, -arranged and re-arranged and finally re-constructed,” -for it is “by this dismembering and re-constructing, -and perception of real objects that true knowledge and -especially self-knowledge comes to the child.”</p> - -<p>A second psychological error, or at least an inconsistency, -seems to lie at the root of certain practical -directions Froebel gives with regard to the use of his -toys. In spite of his iteration and re-iteration that -the child’s mind is a unity, that though separation is -“permitted for the thinking mind,” there is none in -reality, yet in his anxiety for the due fostering of the -whole, of the “doing, feeling and thinking” his harmonious -development, in actual practice he has an -attempted separation which has had bad results. A -Kindergarten practice, now discontinued, was to make -the children build, either on different occasions, or -during different parts of one lesson, what Froebel -called (<i>a</i>) Life-forms or Objects (Lebens oder Sachformen), -i.e. houses, churches, etc.; (<i>b</i>) Beauty or -Picture forms (Schönheits oder Bildformen), i.e. symmetrical -designs; and (<i>c</i>) Knowledge or Instruction -forms (Erkenntniss oder Lernformen), i.e. squares, -triangles, etc. Though this classification is based on -the familiar and important “knowing, willing and -feeling,” yet it is plain that a child may experience -quite as much emotion, probably more, in building a -house as in making a star pattern, and that the active -side is involved in every kind of construction. Froebel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -draws a parallel, legitimate to a certain extent, between -intellect, feeling and will on the one hand, and truth, -beauty and usefulness on the other. Here, however, -we can quote him against himself; “Separation is -only permitted for the thinking mind.” The useful -ought to be beautiful, there is beauty in all truth, -and the æsthetic revelation of the world is the world -in order. Beauty degenerates into mere ornament -and artificiality, when separated from life and use. -“Mathematics,” as Froebel wrote himself, “is neither -foreign to life, nor deduced from life; it is the -expression of life as such: its nature may be studied -in life, and life may be studied with its help.… -Mathematics should be studied more physically and -dynamically as the outcome of nature and energy.”—<cite>E., -p. 206-7.</cite></p> - -<p>The result of this suggested separation has in past -times been disastrous. Failing to recognize that a -young child is of necessity exercising his intellectual -power in constructing his castle or bridge of blocks, -and failing still more to realize that ornament is far -from synonymous with beauty, teachers have wearied -and stupefied children with mathematical forms for -which they were not ready, and have forced upon them -symmetrical designs when their souls hungered for -“puffer trains.”<a name="FNanchor_46" id="FNanchor_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p> - -<p>It is easy to show that what Froebel wanted was -only due attention to what we now call the affective -and conative as well as to the intellectual. From the -very first he insists on this, and justly, though his -way of doing it may seem to us quaint. About the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -child’s imitation of the clock he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“As soon as the child’s first capacity for speech -is somewhat developed, we notice how he tries, in -and by the movement, to listen to the tone and -to imitate it with the tone of his own voice. <em>Tic -tac</em>, we hear him say, imitating the movement of -the pendulum; <em>pim paum</em> (ding dong?) he says -when the sound is more noticed.… So we must -observe that even when he first begins to speak -the child expresses and retains the physical part -of the movement by <em>tic tac</em>, but by <em>pim paum</em> he -perceives the movement more, if one may say so, -from the feeling in the mind, and if I may be -allowed so to express myself, by the ‘here and -there’ which comes later, the child catches hold -(festhalten) of the movement more as a thing of -comparison, of recognition, and in his dawning -thought, more intellectually.… It is most -important that the mother should observe the -first and slightest traces of the articulation -(Gliederung) of the child as an active, emotional -and intellectual being, and watch it in his development -from existence to experience and thought, -so that in his development no side of his nature -should be cultivated at the cost of the others, nor -should any be repressed or neglected for the sake -of the others. It seems important, and we believe -that all who quietly observe the child have remarked, -or will yet remark, that from the first -the child expresses the swinging movement in a -singing tone, in a tone which approaches song -and so serves the emotional nature. Thus early -is it shown that the real foundation, the starting-point -for the education of humanity and so of the -child, is the heart and the emotions (das Gemüth -u. die Gemüthliche), but that training to action<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -and thought (zur That u. zum Denken), the physical -and the intellectual goes with it side by -side constantly and inseparably. Thought forms -itself in action, and action clears itself in thought, -but both must have their roots in the emotions.”—<cite>P., -p. 41.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Two further reasons may be given for Froebel’s -belief in his selected series of toys: (<i>a</i>) his delight in -the theory of development, and (<i>b</i>) his eagerness to -bring the child as soon as possible to that consciousness -of self which differentiates man from the lower animals.</p> - -<p>Every sign of unity of plan within the universe -gave Froebel real joy, and he traces development from -the simple to the complex, from the undifferentiated -to the differentiated, not only in plant and animal life, -but also in the inorganic. Much of what he says on -crystals may be fanciful, but much is beautiful and -suggestive. “Chemical combination” is to him “the -life of the inorganic world,” and he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“We have in this a new confirmation of the -law of development in crystals, the passing from -special-sidedness to all-sidedness, from imperfection -to perfection as the law of all development -in nature. Man, then, appears as the most -perfect earthly being, in whom all that is corporeal -appears in highest equilibrium and in whom the -primordial force is fully spiritualized, so that man -feels, understands, and knows his own power. -But while man externally and corporeally has -attained equilibrium and symmetry of form, -there heave and surge in him, viewed as a spiritual -being, appetites, desires and passions.</p> - -<p>“As in the world of crystals we noticed the -heaving and surging of simple energy, and in the -vegetable and animal worlds, the heaving and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -surging of living forces, so here the heaving and -surging of spiritual forces. Therefore man with -reference to spiritual development has returned to -a first stage as crystals are in a first stage with -reference to the development of life.… For -this reason the boy should at an early period be -taught to see Nature in all her diversity as a unit, -as a great living whole, as a thought of God. The -integrity of Nature, as a continually self-developing -whole must be shown him at an early period.”—<cite>E., -p. 198.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Although this particular passage was written in -connection with Nature Study for older boys, yet it -is from thoughts such as these that Froebel seems to -have taken an idea that man-in-infancy ought to meet, -if it may be so expressed, matter-in-infancy. Though -everything in the surroundings was to help to bring -about self-consciousness, “the air blowing about all -living creatures, as well as the arousing spiritual -language of words,” yet that definite thing-in-itself, -which is to help the child to an early dim consciousness -of self is to be “the counterpart of himself,” a simple -undifferentiated whole “susceptible of a progressive -development.”</p> - -<p>And now we must come to the question of Froebel’s -“Symbolism,” a thorny subject, because one into -which the personal equation enters largely. Some -writers, notably Miss Susan Blow, author of “Symbolic -Education,” regard this symbolism as all-important, -Froebel’s glory rather than his weakness. -Others consider that it appeals to adults alone and -that where it is supposed to affect children it tends -towards artificiality and sentimentality. In so far as -this is true, it must be regarded as a weak point.</p> - -<p>It is, however, not an easy task to settle what ideas -are covered by the term “Froebel’s symbolism.” The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> -dictionary meaning for symbol is “a visible sign or -representation of an idea; anything which suggests -an idea, as by resemblance or convention; an emblem; -a representation; a type; a figure; as the lion is the -symbol of courage and the lamb of meekness or -patience.”</p> - -<p>It certainly passes my comprehension how anything -can symbolize an idea not yet acquired, however -much it may help in calling up ideas already more or -less clearly gained. The crown may symbolize power -to an adult, but not to the child, who when told that -Stephen and Matilda fought for the crown, innocently -inquired: “Couldn’t they have had another one -made?” The Union Jack may symbolize British -nationality or British freedom, or even British Jingoism -to adults who already possess these ideas, but -not to a little child. On the other hand, any kind of -celebration appeals to children, as to more primitive -people, and to be allowed to march round the playground -on Empire Day carrying a flag arouses a joyous -emotion, which will later be interwoven with patriotic -ideas of various kinds. It is decidedly open to question -whether as regards the child Froebel himself -intended much more than this, whatever his followers -may have done.</p> - -<p>Professor Thorndyke gives us to understand that -Froebel says a child plays with a ball because it symbolizes -“infinite development and absolute limitation.” -Now it is true that Froebel wrote in his “Aphorisms”—quoted -in a footnote to Hailmann’s “Education of -Man”—“The spherical is the symbol of diversity in -unity and of unity in diversity.… It is infinite -development and absolute limitation.” But the -“Aphorisms” were not written for children, and -Hailmann quotes the passage in speaking of Froebel’s -philosophical doctrines as to the ultimate nature of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -force and matter!</p> - -<p>To Froebel, Spirit is everywhere striving for utterance. -The Universe—the Manifold—is the revelation -of one great mind, and everything in Nature, “though -soundless it be to the ear, a message can give emblematic -(sinnbildlich) but clear.” Certainly, he would -have the boy study Nature, “the writing and book of -God,” but it is not to the boy that he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The works speak, by the form the Spirit -manifests itself. By that which has been produced -and created, the nature and spirit of the -producer and creator make themselves known. -The world must therefore necessarily manifest the -nature of its original cause—the spirit of its -Creator.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>For Froebel as for Goethe, the Time Spirit “weaves -for God the garment we see Him by.” He calls “the -temporal an expression of the eternal, the material a -manifestation of the spiritual.” He speaks of “the -Power which reveals itself by uniting all things, in -Nature in the Universe as weight, in human life as -Love,” and it pleases him to put into the hand of the -boy—in that picture of a family group by which he -typifies Humanity—a ball hanging by a string, and -this he calls an emblem or symbol (Sinnbild).</p> - -<p>There is nothing in all this with which any one -need quarrel. Froebel was assuredly an idealist, but -in these days that is no longer a term of reproach. -No one, to whom it does not appeal, need use the -suggestion, but to those of us who believe that right -guidance of a child’s delight in fairy tales is one way -of developing his sense of reverence, there is nothing -so very far fetched even in Froebel’s way of trying to -bring to the child’s consciousness, the spirit striving -for utterance not only in every beautiful form, but in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -everything beautiful as he does in “The Smell Song.”</p> - -<p>Of fairy tales Froebel says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“The child, like the man, would like to know -the meaning of what happens around him. This -is the foundation of the Greek choruses, especially -in tragedies. This, too, is the foundation of many -legends and fairy tales, and it is the result of the -deeply-rooted consciousness of being surrounded -by that which is higher and more conscious than -ourselves.”—<cite>P., p. 147.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>So, when the child delights in the scent of the -flower, Froebel says to the mother: “Let your child -find in all things a mind, a struggle for being. Colour -form and spicy smell all forthtell the One ruling hand -which called all into existence.” But all she is told -to pass on to the child is only the thought that an angel -has put the scent there and is saying: “The little one -does not see me, but without me there would be no -fragrance.”</p> - -<p>Although in one sense the educator of young children -need have no dealings at all with “symbolism,” -yet in another, a walking-stick does, for the boy who -bestrides it, symbolize, a horse, as a piece of wood may -symbolize for his little sister the infant whom she may -nurse and caress, with what Froebel calls “the dim -and transferred perception of inner life.” Here -Froebel seems quite right, as when in speaking of a -child’s visit to a toyshop he says, “a true child is -content with very little of the outer, he is satisfied by -a doll or cart, a whistle or a sheep, provided only that -in or through it he can find his own world and represent -it in actual deeds.”—<cite>M., p. 199.</cite></p> - -<p>It may be said, too, that there is symbolism in -children’s drawings, the animal or object is symbolized -by that which to the child is the most outstanding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -characteristic. One small boy drew a camel with a -rider so small that some one protested he could not -see over the hump, so the artist promptly drew a -second rider in front. Being asked if he could draw -an elephant, he assented cheerfully and added a trunk -to his camel. By the addition of claws the elephant -became a cat, but at that point he paused, remarking, -“It’s not very like a cat, it’s more like a bird,” and a -pair of wings completed the transformations. In like -manner by help of a walking stick a child becomes his -own father, and a pair of spectacles transforms him -into his grandmother. But in all such cases the child -is dealing with ideas he has already grasped.</p> - -<p>To say that circle or ring games help a child to -gain an idea of unity—Ring a Ring of Roses may give -the first dim idea of corporate unity—is a very different -thing from saying that a circle is to the child a -symbol of unity. This is the kind of thing, however, -that Froebel is supposed to have said, but after careful -investigation one is surprised to find how little there -is, and to what extent Froebel’s disciples and -translators seem to have read in their own interpretations.</p> - -<p>For instance, in searching for passages about symbolism, -we find in the English translation of the paper -on Movement Plays, a passage stating that the “Snail -Game” forms a frequent conclusion to a “games” -period, because it yields the form of the circle, “which -is symbolic of wholeness.” On comparing this with -the original, however, we find that this phrase is an -addition of the translator’s. No doubt she considered -it explanatory, but all that Froebel himself says is that -the game is suitable “because it finally unites all the -players in a lively and completely finished whole.” To -practical teachers, who know the difficulty of getting -a number of children to settle down after a game, this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -may bear a very different meaning.</p> - -<p>It seems to me that Froebel’s translators have -been altogether too fond of the word “symbolic.” -The German words usually translated “symbol” and -“symbolic” are “Sinnbild” and “Vorbild,” with their -respective adjectives. After considering innumerable -passages in which these words occur it seems plain -that Froebel’s meaning would often have been better -expressed by “typical,” or by “significant,” and -sometimes by “metaphorical.”</p> - -<p>For instance, it is quite legitimate to say of such -perceptions as Froebel intended a child to gain from -his second “Gift”—resistance, weight, hardness and -softness, noise, etc.—that the ball and cube give, and are -only intended to give, “normal, fundamental and <em>typical</em> -perceptions” (nur die normalen, begründenden und -vorbildlichen Anschauungen), and Froebel goes on to -say that the same perceptions must come from many -other objects. There is nothing <em>symbolic</em> here, and -there is no reason for using this word.</p> - -<p>That in many passages <em>significant</em> would be a much -more correct translation than symbolic is abundantly -evident. Froebel was convinced, and most people will -now agree with him, that there is real meaning or -significance in those activities, which are common to -children of all countries, and this meaning he endeavours -to discover. Small blame to him if, though -wonderfully correct on the whole, he sometimes hits -upon a wrong meaning, in which case we are apt to fall -back upon that convenient scapegoat, his symbolism.</p> - -<p>In one of his letters he thanks his cousin for -describing to him how she had watched a tiny child -“who quietly let his eye travel from the ball hanging -at the end of its cord, up to the hand which held it,” -and he adds:</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p> -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“I am convinced, and I wish that all teachers, -and especially all mothers, shared in the conviction, -that the very earliest phenomena of child-life -are <em>full of symbolic meaning</em>, that is to say, -they indicate the higher, the intellectual life in the -child and his individual peculiarities at the same -time. Our duty is to search in everything for its -ultimate basis, its point of origin, its well-spring; -and to make clear the connection between the -outward manifestation and its inward cause.”—<cite>L., -p. 101.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>What Froebel deduced from the incident was -that the child looks not only at the appearance of -the swinging ball, but for the cause of the swinging -phenomenon, the supporting, moving hand. So it is -plain that for “full of symbolism” we should here -read “full of significance.” Or, again, in his excellent -sketch of early boyhood, with its desire to share the -work of the father, its desire to explore, to collect, to -construct, etc., Froebel concludes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Thus it is certain that very many of the -boy’s actions have an inner, an intellectual importance, -that they indicate his mental tendencies -and are therefore <em>symbolical</em>.”—<cite>E., p. 118.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Here, again, <em>significant</em> would be a better English -translation than <em>symbolical</em>.</p> - -<p>Again, in accordance with his belief in instinct, -Froebel declares that it is his “firm conviction that -wherever we find anything that gives children ever -freshly a joy belonging to real life there is at the bottom -of it something important for a child’s life.” When -he sees that children often enjoy going to church and -joining in the singing at an age when the words can -have no meaning, he says: “All the spontaneous -activity of child-life is <em>symbolical</em> (Sinnbildlich).” But -there is not a word of anything that is ordinarily called<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span> -“symbolical” in what follows, so far as the child is -concerned. The little one is supposed to have -“reached a new life-stage,” viz. “the dim anticipation -that he is not alone in life, but one amid mankind.” -Consequently he is attracted by “assembly life.” The -most ardent believer in symbolism can make little of -the very practical answers the mother is told to give -to the child’s questions. He is to be answered “out -of the range of his own experience, feelings and ideas, -his own intellectual development and necessities.” -He is to be told that when he is old enough to go to -church, he will not only like to hear the organ, but -will find out “why flowers bloom and birdies sing and -why we still remember Christmas Day.”</p> - -<p>There is another child in the Mother Songs, who -wants to visit the moon, and drags his mother towards -the ladder that he may climb up. According to the -translator Froebel says he wants to point out “the -higher symbolical meaning.” But what he says is -that one remark presses itself upon him, how “we -ought to cultivate intelligently the child’s observation -of and pleasure in the moon, and in the night sky, and -not let this sink into the formlessness and emptiness -of mere wonder.” For example, it is, he says, quite -as easy to tell a child that the moon is a beautiful -bright swimming ball, as to say it is a man; or that -the stars are sparkling suns which look small because -they are far away, as to call them “golden pins,” and -he adds “Truth never injures, but error always does.”</p> - -<p>There are certainly some instances in which Froebel -found for the tendencies and actions of children, a -meaning that does not commend itself to common -sense, but as a rule he only “ventures to suggest” -rather than insists, and his practical application is -generally unobjectionable. We assent willingly, when -Froebel tells us that rhythmic movement, passive as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> -well as active, is the earliest beginning of all ordered -activity. But we smile when, in accounting for the -childish interest in clocks, after allowing for the -mystery, he goes on:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Let me hold the opinion that a deeply slumbering -notion of the importance of time lies at the -bottom of the pleasure children take in playing -with a clock.”—<cite>M., p. 139.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>As he truly and naïvely remarks, “this opinion of -mine hurts, as an opinion, neither the child nor any -one else,” and the application may, even in this instance, -be useful as he says it is, viz. that we should -use this pleasure to instil the beginnings of punctuality -or law and order. As an opinion it is not worthy of -Froebel’s insight, and we can only say that instances -of this kind are really negligible, though some have -been unnecessarily emphasized by certain Froebelians -to whom they appeal.</p> - -<p>There are, it is true, a few instances which deserve -the strictures which have been heaped up somewhat -rashly. It is only put as a question, but Froebel does -say of children’s pleasure in circle games, “May not -their delight spring from the longing and efforts to get -an all-round, or all-sided, grasp of an object?”</p> - -<p>As to metaphor, Froebel delights in this; his bent -of mind is to take pleasure in all analogies, and he -suggests that the mother should make more use of the -metaphors implied in ordinary language. For example, -he speaks of “the transferred moral meaning of such -words and phrases as ‘<em>straight</em> and <em>straightforward</em>,’ -and of ‘<em>walking in crooked paths</em>.’” In using little -finger plays to give a child control over his hands, the -mother is told to think how important for later life -is “the right handling of things, in the actual as well -as in the figurative sense.” The wise mother is represented<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -as cherishing the child’s love of light and brightness, -saying, “Never shrink away from light”; and -while she shows the picture she says, “Here is a boy -who has broken the window and now he must go a -long way to fetch the glazier unless he can content -himself with a dark board that will keep out the dear -bright light. You must not heedlessly stop Light’s -entering your heart and mind, for if you do, you will -have to buy it back by trouble and loss of time lest -heart and mind become dark. Open your door and -little window to the light.” Thus she makes the child -“see inner things through the outer,” and uses his -pleasure in light to make him hate deeds of darkness. -But there is no harm in all this, the words are used as -a clergyman uses the half-dozen words of his text, -as a germ of thought which he cultivates, as a finger-post -pointing the way in which our minds may travel. -And Froebel, like the clergyman, sometimes travels -far from the branching of the roads.</p> - -<p>Froebel’s curious attempts at etymology ought -perhaps to be mentioned as a weak point, though -they really do not affect his theories, psychological or -educational, one way or another. The ball, as the -child’s first object through which he gains his first -perceptions of solidity, weight, mass, etc., is described -as on that account “an image of the universe” (der -B—all ist der Bild des Alles). The thought is worth -having, the pseudo-etymology does not much matter.</p> - -<p>To sum up, then, there is mysticism in Froebel’s -writings as addressed to the adult, and with this no -one has any right to quarrel even if it should not appeal -to him or her personally. But an undue preponderance -has been given to this side of Froebel by those to -whom it appeals, or so it seems to me. It does not -appeal to me, nor can I perceive that it affects to any -appreciable extent the educational theories based on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> -the psychological grounds so carefully considered by -Froebel. To writers like Miss Blow, the author of -“Symbolic Education,” such a statement would no -doubt seem outrageous. With intellectual people possessed -of Miss Blow’s philosophic insight, children -may be safe from artificiality and sentimentality. -But the average teacher is incapable of philosophy, -and when the uncultured mind is supplied with food -it cannot digest, that mind is starved. The teacher -who glibly uses phrases which she does not understand -has reached a state of mind immeasurably below plain -ignorance, for it is destructive of honest thought and -common sense.<a name="FNanchor_47" id="FNanchor_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> The main business of the Froebelian -is to forward the cause to which Froebel devoted his -life “to bring about a more general use of progressive -development in the culture and education of children. -We must throw overboard everything that hampers -action and set before ourselves, as in his day Froebel -tells us he attempted to do, the definite task of “founding -anew the practical methods of actual teaching so -as to bring them into satisfactory relation with the -needs of our life of to-day.”</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X<br /> -<span class="smcap">Some Criticisms Answered</span></h2> - -<p>Professor Adams ends the first chapter of his -delightfully witty “Herbartian Psychology” with -a challenge to all educational thinkers to come -out of their caves and defend their idols. Throughout -the book, there is many a side-thrust at Froebel, all -of a more or less disparaging nature, in spite of the -humorous twinkle which has a fairly permanent abode -in the eye of the writer.</p> - -<p>Some of the accusations are tolerably sweeping, -for example, that Froebelianism “as a psychology is -simply non-existent”; that Froebel has failed to -correlate theory and practice; that although in “The -Education of Man” “we have beautiful, if obscurely -expressed, truths about education,” yet the Kindergarten -cannot be evolved from it, in fact “between -the two there is a great gulf fixed, a gulf that Froebel -has not bridged.”</p> - -<p>But the main contention is that Froebel disapproves -in theory of any interference with the natural -course of development. The Froebelian teacher is -thus, according to Professor Adams, reduced to the -position of a “humble under-gardener” who merely -watches with interest and admiration, and education -becomes “a general paralysis.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Graham Wallas, whose objections to Froebel, -or at least to Froebelianism<a name="FNanchor_48" id="FNanchor_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a>, as he understands it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -are well known, bases these on the ground that because -he was a pre-Darwinian evolutionist, Froebel was -bound to overrate the importance of the innate as a -factor in development, and to undervalue the other -factor of environment.</p> - -<p>Professor O’Shea disposes of Froebel in one sentence -and in much the same way, as an advocate of what -he calls “the doctrine of Unfoldment,” where “everything -is inner and self-relating,” as opposed to the -conception gained from Biology, which “implies that -the business of a human being is to get properly -related to the world—religious, social and physical—of -which he is an integral part.”</p> - -<p>If Froebel really believed that development is -entirely from within, as stated by Professor O’Shea, -or if he failed to realize the importance of the surroundings, -as Mr. Graham Wallas expresses it, he -would naturally disapprove of any interference, as -Professor Adams says he does. The Froebelian, being -thus reduced to passive watching, the mere provision -of a Kindergarten would be an interference with the -surroundings and a contradiction in practice of the -theory of non-interference. If non-interference is -really the theory propounded in “The Education of -Man,” there certainly is a gulf between it and the -Kindergarten, a gulf it would be difficult to bridge.</p> - -<p>But Froebelians are not prepared to admit the -premises of any of these critics. It seems to many of -us that these and all similar criticisms are due to misunderstanding. -This is sometimes clearly due to -careless reading, and consequent want of attention -to the context, but even where this is not the case, -misunderstandings occur. Few, of late years, have made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -any real study of Froebel’s writings as a whole, such -as is necessary to get at his real meaning, which is often -obscured by prolixities and repetitions, and sometimes -hidden among apparent trivialities.</p> - -<p>Professor O’Shea, for example, does not seem to be -aware to what extent Froebel, like himself, derived -his educational aim and principles from biology. He -has probably never realized the deep interest taken -by Froebel in the then all-absorbing question of natural -development. Clearly he has no idea that Froebel has -given expression to a conception of education, practically -identical with that given above which he himself -draws from biology,<a name="FNanchor_49" id="FNanchor_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> and sets in contrast with the -one he unjustly attributes to Froebel.</p> - -<p>There is no doubt whatever that Froebel laid much -stress on what is innate. In his generation, he tells -us the child was looked upon “as a piece of wax, or -lump of clay, which man can mould into what he -pleases.” Because Froebel was a student of biology -he knew better. He knew, as we have seen, that -human beings have instincts, innate tendencies or -dispositions differing from those of the lower animals -chiefly in their indefiniteness. We are not so afraid -of the word “innate” nowadays, when both innate -ideas and innate faculties are safely buried, and that -Froebel had no dealings with these has been amply shown.</p> - -<p>But that this stress on innate tendencies implies -that the child is to unfold from within, the educator -standing by passive<a name="FNanchor_50" id="FNanchor_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a>, or that Froebel imagined that -the developing process could go on with little or no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> -reference to the environment, is quite another matter.</p> - -<p>Few of Froebel’s critics have taken the trouble to -look up the original German before pronouncing condemnation, -and this explains part of the injustice that -has been done to him. The passage upon which much, -perhaps most, of the adverse criticism is based is the -one in which Froebel applies to education the term -“leidend,” translated “passive” in both the English, -or, rather, American editions of “The Education of -Man.” The translation of “leidend” as “passive” -is not a happy one. Moreover, the translators have -endeavoured to help the reader by dividing the text -into numbered sections, a proceeding which though -often helpful, sometimes tends to break the continuity -of Froebel’s thought. This effect is heightened in -Hailmann’s translation by the interpolated notes, -however valuable as some of these are in themselves. -This passage, however, opens with “<em>therefore</em>,” and -those who take exception to it ought to have considered -the preceding argument. Fair criticism looks -back to see why and under what circumstances education -is to be “passive or following,” as opposed to -“dictating and limiting.”</p> - -<p>In the first place, absolutely passive education is a -contradiction in terms. Froebel begins by stating that:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Education consists in leading man as a -thinking, intelligent being, growing into self-consciousness, -to a pure, conscious and free representation -of the law of his being, and in teaching -him ways and means thereto.”</p> - -</div> - -<p>He defines the <em>Theory of Education</em> as “the system -of directions derived from the knowledge and study of -that law to guide human beings in the apprehension -of their life-work”; and the <em>Practice of Education</em> as -“the self-active application of this knowledge in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> -direct development and cultivation of rational beings -towards the attainment of their destiny.”</p> - -<p>To go on from this to say, on the next page but -one, that the educator is to do nothing, to stand aside -and be truly passive, would be absurd.</p> - -<p>That our word “passive” is not the equivalent of -Froebel’s word “leidend,” is easily proved, for in -another passage where Froebel does mean “passive” -he couples “leidend” with “inactive,” and puts -passive in a bracket beside it. The passage runs: -“wo das Kind äusserlich als unthätig, leidend (passiv) -erscheint.” In the passage under discussion “passiv” -does not appear at all, and “leidend” is coupled, not -with “inactive,” but with “following,” and is contrasted -with “dictating, limiting and interfering.”<a name="FNanchor_51" id="FNanchor_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> - -<p>A few lines further we read how the gardener may -even destroy the vine “if he fail <em>in his work</em> passively -and attentively to follow the nature of the plant.” -He cannot surely “work” and be inactively passive -at the same time.</p> - -<p>A more correct translation of “leidend” here -would perhaps be “tolerant” or “suffering” in its -old sense of “permitting,” “bearing with,” or having -patience with.</p> - -<p>As to immediate context, Froebel has just stated -that education ought “to lift man to a knowledge of -himself and mankind, to a knowledge of God and -Nature, and to the pure and consecrated life conditioned -thereby.” “But,” he goes on, “education -must be founded on what is essential or innermost, -and though the real nature of things can only be known -by outer manifestations, yet it behoves the educator -to be very careful how he judges, for the child that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span> -appears good outwardly, is often not really good, i.e. -does not will the good from his own determination, -or from love, respect for or recognition of it,” while -“the outwardly rough self-willed child often has -within him a vigorous struggle to do what seems to -him right.” Judging from outer manifestations furnishes -constant occasion for false judgments concerning -the motives of children, for endless misunderstanding -between parent and child, and for unreasonable demands -made upon children.</p> - -<p>And here comes the force of the conjunction: -“<em>Therefore</em>,” says Froebel, “education, instruction -and training in their fundamental principles must -necessarily be tolerant, following, not dictating, not -limiting or defining, not interfering.”</p> - -<p>What is it, then, that Froebel is telling us to follow -almost passively, interfering, in our ignorance, as little -as possible? Simply the natural order of development, -the natural instincts of childhood, which in this very -passage he is arguing are as trustworthy as those of -other young animals. Here, as everywhere, man can -only control Nature <em>by following</em>, by obeying her -laws.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“As the duckling hastens to the pond and the -chicken scratches the ground, so will the human -being, still young, still, as it were, in the process -of creation, though as unconsciously as any Nature -product, yet definitely and surely desire what is -best for him. We give plants and animals time -and space and freedom to develop, but the young -human being is to man a piece of wax, a lump of -clay, from which he can mould what he will. O -man, who roamest through garden and field, -through meadow and grove, why dost thou close -thy mind to the silent teaching of Nature?”—<cite>E., p. 8.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> -<p>Surely we have here a plea to “suffer (leiden) -little children,” to bear with the little one, still, as -Froebel describes him, “still, as it were, in the process -of creation,” nay, more, a plea for the actual recognition -and fostering of these instinctive tendencies -which Professor Dewey calls “the foundation-stones of -educational method,” rather than a recommendation to -“gratify every youthful impulse,” or to stand aside altogether. -For the context, the whole, is not yet complete.</p> - -<p>Froebel goes on to say that if we are certain of any -tendency to unhealthy development we are to interfere -with full severity (so tritt geradezubestimmende, -fordernde Erziehungsweise in ihrer ganzen Strenge ein).</p> - -<p>And now comes a sentence apparently quite overlooked -by Mr. Graham Wallas, who blames Froebel -for underestimating the environment. In the mean-time, -until we are sure that our interference is justifiable, -“nothing is left for us to do but to bring the -child into relations and surroundings in all respects -adapted to him.”<a name="FNanchor_52" id="FNanchor_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a>—<cite>E., p. 11.</cite></p> - -<p>In many other passages Froebel shows plainly that -he had no thought of the “gratifying of every youthful -impulse” in the sense of individual caprice.</p> - -<p>In his plea for monetary help to establish Kindergartens -and training establishments connected with -them, he complains that in existing institutions children -are either “repressed and their energies crippled, -<em>or else we are confronted with the wild and uncontrollable -character which results when children are uncared -for and are left altogether to their own impulses</em>.”—<cite>L., -p. 159.</cite></p> - -<p>“Life has no room for wilfulness and whims,” he -says in his Mother Songs; “Boyhood is the age of -Discipline” he states in “The Education of Man.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> -But, as he himself sums up this discussion:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“All true education is double-sided, prescribing -and following, active and passive, positive yet -giving scope, firm and yielding.… Between -educator and pupil should rule invisibly a third -something to which both are equally subject. -The third something is the right, the best … -the child, the pupil has a very keen apprehension -whether what father or teacher requests is personal -and arbitrary or the expression of general law -and necessity.”—<cite>E., p. 14.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>The proof of whether or not the educator has succeeded -in rightly adjusting the claims of freedom and -authority, Froebel expresses in words recalling Kant’s, -“When the ‘Thou Shalt’ of the Law becomes the -‘I will’ of the doer, then we are free.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In good education, in genuine instruction, in -true teaching, necessity must and will call forth -freedom, law will call forth self-determination, and -outer compulsion inner free-will.</p> - -<p>“Where necessity produces bondage, where law -brings fraud and crime, and outer compulsion -causes slavery, there every effect of education is -destroyed. There oppression destroys and debases, -severity and harshness bring obstinacy and deceit, -and the burden is more than can be borne.”—<cite>E., -p. 14.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>To emphasize the fact that Froebel did realize the -importance of environment, and to anticipate the -criticism that this shortened rendering is an interpretation -in the light of modern educational theories, of -Froebel’s somewhat cumbrous phrases, we can turn to -a passage in his later writing, part of which has been -quoted elsewhere:</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p> -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Through the child’s efforts to repel that -which is contrary to the needs of his life, indignation -and discontent are awakened; and on the -other hand, from the fact that his normal desires -are ungratified, they become inordinate and mischievous. -How may parents avoid these evil -results? Most satisfactorily through a threefold -yet single glance at life. Let them look into -themselves, and their own course of development -and its requirements, let them recall their own -earliest years, then later stages of development, -and look deeply into their present life. Next, -let them look equally deeply into the life of the -child and what he must require for his present -stage of development. Having scrutinized what -the child needs, <em>let them scrutinize his environment</em>, -and first observe what it offers and does not offer -for the fulfilment of such requirements. Let them -utilize all offered possibilities of meeting normal -needs; and when such needs cannot be met, let -them recognize this fact, and show the child -plainly the impossibility of their fulfilment. Finally, -let them clearly recognize whatever <em>in the -child’s environment</em> tends to awaken antagonism -and discontent, remove it if it be removable, and -admit its defect if it be not removable.”<a name="FNanchor_53" id="FNanchor_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a>—<cite>P., p. 167.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>It is, of course, true that Froebel was pre-Darwinian -in time, but it is equally true that he was post-Darwinian -in many of his beliefs.</p> - -<p>To find out whether or not his educational doctrines -are really based on false or exploded theories of -development, as the Criticism of Mr. Graham Wallas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -implies, we must gather together from Froebel’s various -writings, his most important references to the subject.</p> - -<p>The key-note to his interest in it lies probably in -the yearning for unity and union in all relations, which -was a part of his individuality. This may have dated -back to the time when, a puzzled little mortal of eight -or nine years old, he was most unwisely allowed to -hear his father exhorting and rebuking his parishioners. -It seemed to the boy that most of the trouble arose -from the fact that human beings, and human beings -alone, so far as he knew, were divided into two sexes, -and he felt that he would have arranged matters -differently. Comfort came to him when his older -brother, by showing him the male and female flower -of the hazel, gave him some idea of a great law of -Nature. Strange comfort, too, it seems, for a boy not -yet ten years old!</p> - -<p>The late Mr. Ebenezer Cooke pointed out long ago<a name="FNanchor_54" id="FNanchor_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> -that Mr. Graham Wallas had not only overshot the mark -in saying that “Darwin transferred the cause of development -from within to without,” but that he had himself -failed to draw any distinction between the facts of -development, as seen in the individual, and the theory -of the origin or development of species, which we -associate with the names of Darwin and Wallace. -Mr. Cooke pointed to Froebel’s connection with Batch, -the founder of a Natural History Society, of which -Goethe was a member, as showing that he was in -direct touch with those who were working out the -theory of development of the individual.</p> - -<p>Froebel himself refers to this Natural History -Society in his Autobiography, saying that “students,” -of whom he was one, “who had shown living interest -and done active work in Natural Science,” were invited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -to become members, and that this awoke within him -“a yearning towards higher scientific knowledge.” At -this time Froebel was but a youth of seventeen, with -no idea that education was to be his life work. Three -years later, he meets a private tutor, “a young man -quite out of the common, with actively inquiring -mind,” who was “especially fond of making comprehensive -schemes of education.” The year after this -we find him reading what he can of anthropology and -history, and saying of his reading: “It taught me of -man in his broad historical relations and set before -me the general life of my kind as one great whole.”</p> - -<p>One year more, and while he is looking for a situation -with an architect—in spite of uneasy communing -with himself as to how architecture was to be used -“for the culture and ennoblement of mankind”—Grüner -claps him on the shoulder with “Give up -architecture, it is not your vocation at all! Become -a teacher.”</p> - -<p>It is perhaps because Froebel passed thus from -interest in biology to interest in education that at -this time he gives to his own question, What is the -purpose of education?—almost the identical answer -that Professor O’Shea puts into the mouth of his biologist<a name="FNanchor_55" id="FNanchor_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a>, -and which he sets in opposition to Froebel’s -supposed opinions:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In answering the question, What is the purpose -of education? I relied at that time on the -following observations: Man lives in a world of -objects, which influence him and which he desires -to influence; therefore he ought to know these -objects in their nature, in their conditions and -in their relations with each other and with mankind.… -I sought, to the extent of such -powers as I consciously possessed at that time,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -to make clear to myself the meaning of all things -through man, his relations with himself, and with -the external world … it seemed to me that -everything which should or could be required for -human education must be necessarily conditioned -and given, by virtue of the very nature of the -necessary course of his development, in man’s -own being and in the relations amidst which he -is set. A man, it seemed to me, would be well -educated when he had been trained to care for -these relationships and to acknowledge them, to -master them and to survey them.”—<cite>A., p. 69.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>In the very beginning, then, of his educational -career, Froebel emphasized rather than overlooked -“the relationships amidst which man is set,” but he -was to learn more yet about development.</p> - -<p>Six years later he is back at a university, and -“just at this time,” he says, “those great discoveries -of the French and English philosophers became generally -known through which the great manifold external -world was seen to form a comprehensive outer world.”</p> - -<p>The English writer may have been Erasmus Darwin. -The French writer was no doubt Lamarck, to whom -belongs “the immortal glory of having for the first -time worked out the theory of Descent as an independent -scientific theory of the first order and as the -philosophical foundation of the whole science of -Biology.”</p> - -<p>From some such source, at any rate, Froebel must -have gained “the key-note of development,” viz., that -it is always from the undifferentiated to the differentiated. -We have already seen that he applied this to -mental development and so gained his modern conception -of the earliest infant consciousness, “an -undifferentiated unorganized unity.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> -<p>In “The Education of Man” he speaks of</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“the all-pervading law of Nature according to -which the general gives rise to the particular,”—<cite>E., -p. 167.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>and in the Mother Songs he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Whether we are looking at a seed or an egg, -whether we are watching feeling or thought, what -is definite proceeds everywhere from what is -indefinite.”—<cite>M., p. 121.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Or, again:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In the child as in the grain of seed, there -begins a development proceeding towards complexity.”—<cite>P., -p. 172.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Such quotations fully exonerate Froebel from belief -in any “pre-formation” theory, whether physical or -mental, as indeed Mr. Cooke made abundantly plain.</p> - -<p>It is in one of his later papers<a name="FNanchor_56" id="FNanchor_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> that Froebel generalizes -and states very plainly how everything is developed -under the influence of its environment.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Taking Nature as our guide, let us endeavour -to find the essential nature of material objects -and the conditions under which this develops, for -the process of development shows the essence of -the developing object.</p> - -<p>“<em>Firstly</em>, each thing and each object manifesting -existence and life, develops itself in accordance -with the highest and simplest, the general -laws of life. Thus everything manifests these laws -and their primeval cause.</p> - -<p>“<em>Secondly</em>, each thing and each object in -Nature develops itself according to its own individuality -and the laws of its being.</p> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -<p>“<em>Thirdly</em>, everything in Nature develops itself -under the collective influence of all things. If any -object seems to be withdrawn from this collective -influence, such withdrawal is only mediate.…</p> - -<p>“In Nature, and in everything, all things -develop as members of the world-whole, the -universal life, as members of a whole, each perfect -in its kind, because each, while standing in the -centre of the collective influence streaming upwards -and inwards—nay, in a certain sense, as the receiver, -yielding itself to this influence—yet also acts (as -assimilative and formative) and develops itself, -faithful to the indwelling laws of life universal -and particular. We must see clearly the conditions -of perfect development in Nature, and -then employ them in human life. Thus only can -we help man to attain, upon the plane of human -development—which means spiritual development—a -degree of perfection corresponding to that -which the forms and types of Nature show upon -the plane of physical development.”—<cite>P., p. 196.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>When child development is in question, far from -minimising, as he is supposed to do, the importance of -environment, parents and teachers are told:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“We must hold fast for consideration in life -this fact, that in the spontaneous occupation and -playing of the child, not the germ only, but the -growing point of his life also, is formed <em>in union -with his surroundings, and under their silent unremarked -influence</em> (im Vereine mit der Umgebung -und unter deren stillen unbemerkten Einwirkung).”—<cite>P., -p. 108.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Or, again:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“As the new-born child, like a ripe grain of -seed dropped from the mother plant has life in -itself, and as it spontaneously develops life <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span><em>in -progressive connection with the common life whole</em>; -so activity and action are the first phenomena of -his awakening life. This activity bears the impress -of what is innermost, it is an inner activity whose -purpose is manifestation of the inner through the -outer, and, as leading up to this, devoted to consideration -of and working with the outer to penetrating -the outer and overcoming hindrances as -such.”—<cite>P., p. 23.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>This account surely makes plain, that whatever -Froebel may have believed with regard to the origin -of species, he in no way believed that development in -general was a one-sided process, in which the environment -went for nothing.</p> - -<p>In his “Criticism,” Mr. Graham Wallas remarked: -“Whoever divorced his educational system from his -philosophy, would have seemed to Froebel to have -taken all force and meaning out of his work.” This -is most true, and it approaches absurdity to attribute -so limited a view to a man imbued as Froebel was with -the philosophical doctrine of the reconciliation of the -opposites.<a name="FNanchor_57" id="FNanchor_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> That all development was the result of a -harmony between opposites was one of his cardinal -doctrines.</p> - -<p>“We are living in an age,” he writes, “when we -are consciously under a law of development acting by -the reconciliation of opposites.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Hailmann gives a long footnote where Froebel -is quoted as comparing his idea of the law of connection -or unification with the ideas of Fichte and Hegel, -and saying:</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p> -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“It is both of these, and yet has nothing in -common with either of them; it is the law which -the contemplation of Nature has taught me.… -And where do we find absolute contrasts that have -not somewhere and somehow a connection? In -action and reaction the contrasts that we see -everywhere give rise to the motions in the universe -as they do in the smallest organism. This implies -for all development a struggle which however -sooner or later will find its adjustment; and this -adjustment is the connection of contrasts.”—<cite>E., -p. 42.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>What Froebel knew of Hegel’s philosophy was -probably gained from discussions among his friends, -for in the hearing of Madame von Marenholz, he said, -“I do not know how Hegel formulates and applies -this law, for I have had no time for the study of his -system,” and he went on to say of “the philosophical -systems of others” that “most of them belong to a -theory of the world that is passing away, whose one-sidedness -becomes more apparent every day” -(Reminiscences, 225). Ebers, too, speaks of Froebel’s -ideas as opposed to those of Hegel.</p> - -<p>Even Mr. Graham Wallas allows that Froebel’s -casual references to the development of species are -“surprisingly modern.” No orthodox views as to the -exact date of the creation of the world keep him from -accepting the newly discovered testimony of the rocks -as to “the remains of perished ages.” Ardent as his -religious convictions were, they had a philosophic -width unusual indeed in his day. The Garden of -Eden is to him a parable, repeated “in the experience -of every child from the time of his appearance on -earth to the time when he consciously (by the help of -names) beholds himself in beautiful Nature spread out -before him.” In each child he sees “repeated at a -later period, the deed which marks the beginning of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -moral and human emancipation, of the dawn of reason.”</p> - -<p>He refers calmly to</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“the fall, or, since the result is the same, the -ascent of the mind of man, from simple, uniform, -emotional development, into the development of -externally analytic and critical reason.”—<cite>E., p. 194.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Not Stanley Hall himself insists more that the -development of the individual shall follow the development -of the race, and this in 1826, two years before -Baer, and four years before Comte, to whom Herbert -Spencer attributed the doctrine. “Humanity,” he says, -“lives only in its continuous development.”</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Each successive generation and each successive -individual human being, inasmuch as he -would understand the past and present, must pass -through all preceding phases of human development -and culture, and this should not be done in -the way of dead imitation or mere copying, but -in the way of living spontaneous self-activity.”—<cite>E., -p. 18.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>There is certainly no ground for assuming that -Froebel held any such pre-Darwinian views as a special -creation of each species, for there is no point on which -he insists more emphatically than that in Nature -development is continuously progressive.</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In God’s world, just because it is God’s -world, by Him created, one thing constant is -expressed to which we give the name of unbroken -progression of development in all and through -all.”<a name="FNanchor_58" id="FNanchor_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a>—<cite>M., p. 154.</cite></p> - -<p>“God neither ingrafts nor inoculates, He develops -the most trivial and imperfect things in continuously<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> -ascending series and in accordance with -eternal self-grounded and self-developing laws.”—<cite>E., -p. 328.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>Mr. Winch makes merry over Froebel’s sentence:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“As Man and Nature have one origin, they -must be subject to the same laws,”</p> - -</div> - -<p>and remarks that “this conception is almost completely -given up.… Our view now rather is one -in which God and Nature are at strife, in which the -ethical interest overcomes Nature.…”</p> - -<p>But Froebel is far ahead of this. The great law to -him is the Law of Development to which Man and -Nature, which includes Man, are subject. The ethical -interest is not, as Mr. Winch intimates, something -transcending Nature, but is itself evolved. Morality, -Froebel distinctly tells us, is “rooted” in Instinct, and -“human development means spiritual development.”</p> - -<p>Professor O’Shea says of the doctrine of Unfoldment -which he attributes to Froebel that it “regards -man on his spiritual side as an entity set apart from -everything in the universe.”<a name="FNanchor_59" id="FNanchor_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a></p> - -<p>Froebel, however, writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Difficult, very difficult, would it be to define -where the purely physical ends and the purely -intellectual begins. It is precisely on account of -this close welding or flowing into one another of -the Physical and Psychical, the bodily and mental, -the material and spiritual, the vital (des Vitalen) -and intellectual, instinct and morality; it is -because of this rooting of the higher in the lower -that the training and ennobling of the senses, -such as smell and taste, are so important.”—<cite>M., -p. 183.</cite></p> - -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> -<p>“Training and ennobling,” these words bring us -back to the educational doctrines Froebel based upon -what he knew of development, physical and mental, -from whatever source he may have gained his information.</p> - -<p>“From the beginning of the Darwinian reconstruction -of the moral sciences,” says Mr. Graham -Wallas, “it was absurd, while speaking of ‘environment,’ -to ignore the fact that the deliberate care and -contrivance of the parent must form a large part of -the environment of the child.” Undoubtedly.</p> - -<p>But it was because Froebel exalted “the deliberate -care and contrivance of the parent” that he wrote -“The Education of Man,” to tell his generation how -best to care and contrive. It was because he realized -that this deliberate care and contrivance must begin -from the very first that he wrote his Mother Songs. -He tells the mother here that “if she is wise, in all -she does a noble meaning lies”; that she must “do -nothing aimlessly or she’ll create a child she cannot -educate.” He tells her that it is “by watching what -makes the child’s eyes bright, that she will know how -best to give delight,” and that she must “seek to -strengthen power and mind in all things.”</p> - -<p>In very truth the Kindergarten itself, with all its -imperfections, is nothing more nor less than an attempt -to supply that very environment which its founder is -supposed to undervalue—an attempt to foster, by -providing suitable conditions, those innate tendencies -or natural activities, to which Froebel attached infinite -importance.</p> - -<p>This is why the discovery of the name Kindergarten -gave Froebel the pleasure expressed in his cry, -“Eureka, I have it! Kindergarten shall be its name.” -The original designation contained the actual words -“through the culture of the instinct for activity, -inquiry and creation, inherent in man,” but this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -original title spreads over several lines of print. “Garden” -to Froebel expresses just what he wanted, “As -in a garden under God’s favour, and <em>by the care of a -skilled, intelligent gardener</em>, growing plants are cultivated -in accordance with Nature’s laws, so here, in -our child-garden, shall the noblest of all growing -things, <em>men</em> (that is, children, the germs and shoots -of humanity), be cultivated in accordance with the -laws of their own being, of God and of Nature.”—<cite>L., -p. 161.</cite></p> - -<p>This is why he urges on his pupil, Ida Seele, to -retain the name in spite of the prejudices it aroused. -It is to her that he writes:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“Is there really such importance underlying -the mere name of a system?—some one might -ask. Yes, there is: … It is true that any one -carefully watching your teaching would observe -a new spirit … you would strike him as personally -capable, nay, as extremely capable, but -you would fail to strike him as priestess of the idea, -and of the struggle towards the realization of the -idea—education by development—the destined -means of raising the whole human race. For, -after all, what do we mean by ‘Kindergarten’?… -No man can acquire fresh knowledge beyond -the measure which his own mental strength and -stage of development fits him to receive. But -little children have no development at all.… -Infant schools are nothing but a contradiction of -child nature. Little children ought not to be -<em>schooled</em> and taught, they merely need to be -developed. It is the pressing need of our age, -and only the idea of a garden can serve to show -us symbolically the proper treatment of children. -This idea lies in the very name of a Kindergarten. -… How much better had you been able to call<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -your work by its proper name, and to make -evident by that expression, the real nature of the -new spirit you have introduced.”—<cite>L., p. 290.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>There is no gulf between the Kindergarten, and -“The Education of Man,” with its appeal to educators -to follow instead of interfering with Nature’s methods, -to foster instead of repressing the “instincts of -activity and of construction,” to foster play, which -though “merely natural life,” yet holds “the seed -leaves of all later life.”</p> - -<p>Froebel’s gardener is “skilled and intelligent,” and -a skilled gardener is supposed to have scientific knowledge -of his plants, of the conditions of soil, exposure, -etc., best suited to them. Professor Adams says that -“to call a child a plant does not advance matters -much, and it certainly does not account for the use of -the cubes, spheres and such like.” This, however, it -does most certainly if these cubes and spheres are the -right food material for the child’s mind, as Froebel at -any rate believed.</p> - -<p>All the employments of the Kindergarten, all the -varied materials, the sand and clay, the pencil and -paint brush, the building blocks, cardboard, sawdust, -moss, nut-shells, etc., for constructive or “representative” -play are definitely mentioned and definitely -commended in “The Education of Man.” They are -commended because they are the employments and -the material which children everywhere find for themselves; -because Froebel had sufficient knowledge of -biology to know that instinctive action must somehow -benefit the individual and the race; and also because -he had psychological insight enough to see that by such -activities children gain not merely skill, but clear ideas -and “firmness of will.”</p> - -<p>Professor Adams writes: “Not Philosophy, but -common sense, experience and loving observation, have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -led Froebel and his followers to adopt certain apparatus -and certain methods, which are excellent in themselves, -and which in capable hands produce admirable -results. For this he deserves all the honour that has -been heaped upon him—but he has not explained John.”</p> - -<p>True enough, Froebel has not explained, at least, -he has not entirely explained that charming John, the -Professor’s own creation and type of all our children. -Who has? Still, by his efforts as a pioneer in genetic -psychology—the result of his belief that “only by the -study of development in ourselves and others, can we -learn to understand the child”—and by the two -sketches so full of insight into child-life and into boy -life, which he has given us in “The Education of -Man,” surely Froebel has done at least his share even -in explaining John.</p> - -<p>No doubt he learnt much from “loving observation.” -Nor does he undervalue it, but, in his case, -the observation was induced by the Philosophy, as well -as by the love. For, as he tells us, “it is a necessary -part of me to be irresistibly driven to search out the -ultimate cause of every fact in life, to discover its -roots.” He learned much from watching both mothers -and children, but he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“What natural mother wit and human -common sense left to themselves, have been -doing by chance and piece-meal, ought now to be -brought forward by a thoughtful mind, its foundation, -connections and deeper meaning recognized, -that it may be improved upon by clever -and kindly thought.”—<cite>M., p. 147.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<p>An education which “follows” needs shown by -the child, which “follows” the laws of development, -physical and mental, as far as these can be discovered -from history, from introspection, and from observation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> -of children in general and of “each individual child,” -that is the “patiently following” education which -Froebel puts before us as an ideal. “For,” he says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“By the full application of the latter method -of education, the prescribing and interfering, we -should wholly lose the sure, steady and progressive -development of mankind, which is the ultimate -aim and object of all education.”—<cite>E., p. 10.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="smaller"> - -<p><span class="smcap">Note.</span>—The foregoing chapter was written some years ago, but -in 1912 there appeared a fresh criticism of Froebel and his work in -many ways more adequate than certain others. It appeared as an -Introduction to a new translation of “The Education of Man” and of -some of Froebel’s lesser writings, by Dr. Fletcher and Professor -Welton. In this introduction, important points are granted, for -example, that Froebel had “grasped the vital principle that all true -development, and consequently all true education, is a self-directed -process—that purpose is the key-note of human culture and advance. -It was the emphasis which he laid upon this which makes Froebel -one of the princes of education and gives him an enduring place in -the history of thought.” Or again, that Froebel’s teaching is “not -the negation of all human constraint,” but that he sees clearly that -“constraint is necessary to train the will to resist impulse and follow -purpose”; that with Froebel “Discipline must direct instinctive -impulse, not simply oppose and thwart it.” Unfortunately, however, -the writers of the book do not seem to have grasped the idea of the -Kindergarten as an Institution which had this very end in view, and -the second part of the book which is called “The Kindergarten,” never -mentions its essential features. So we have the familiar statement -that between the Kindergarten and “The Education of Man” a gulf is -fixed, a statement which has been already discussed. And we are -also told that Froebel attracts us “by his very vagueness.” But -Keilhau and Helba and the real Kindergarten are none of them -vague. That Froebel attributed too much importance to his Gifts -and occupations most of us will readily allow, but that the forms -of expression set forth in the Helba plan are to be regarded as merely -additions to the Gifts is impossible seeing that the plan for Helba is -dated 1829. Besides, all such work had already been very much in -evidence at Keilhau (See <a href="#Page_v"><cite>p. v</cite>, Preface</a>), and the Gifts and Occupations -were an attempt to provide in a similar manner for children -very much younger, and as materials are only such as children find for -themselves. We claim that Froebel himself is the best interpreter -of his own invention, the Kindergarten, and we are content to abide -by his own definition of it: <em>An Institution for the cultivation of the -life of mankind through fostering the impulse to activity, investigation -and construction in the child; an institution for the self-instruction, for -self-education of mankind through play, that is creative self-activity and -spontaneous self-instruction</em>.</p> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="APPENDIX_I">APPENDIX I<br /> -<span class="smcap">On the Meaning of the Word “Activity”</span></h2> - -<p>Professor Stout is particularly definite in his -use of the word “activity,” and as he agrees -with Mr. Bradley, from whom he quotes “that the -current use of the word activity in the literature of -philosophy is a scandal,” it may be well to inquire -here whether Froebel used the word loosely or with -some degree of definiteness.</p> - -<p>Professor Stout considers the word “activity” -specially appropriate to cases “in which the return -of a causal process upon itself is especially prominent -or important.” He quotes from Mr. Bradley again -that “Activity seems to be self-caused change. A -transition that begins with, and comes out of the thing -itself is the process where we feel that it is active.” -“Thus,” Mr. Stout comments, “the life and growth -of organisms are specially appropriate examples of -activity; for such processes are in a large measure -immanent or self-determining.”</p> - -<p>The first point that suggests itself is that in the -majority of cases, Froebel may perhaps be said to have -avoided the difficulty by his constant reference not -only to activity but to “self-activity,” a word associated -with the name of Froebel closely as his very -shadow.</p> - -<p>In the second place, we do find Froebel very -markedly referring to the self-determining activity of -organisms, in a passage where he is trying to show -that all instruction should start from the child’s own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -desire and power of will. He says that the mother—grounding -her instruction in her child’s desire to write -to the absent father—acts like the sun, “whose -warmth awakens in every grain of seed, life, impulse, -power, self-activity, self-determination” (die Triebe, -die Kraft, die Selbstthätigkeit und Selbstbestimmung).<a name="FNanchor_60" id="FNanchor_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> - -<p>It is Froebel’s peculiarity that he brings his philosophical -conceptions into the veriest details, and so -even in speaking of how the mother may make a ball -represent a springing kitten, etc., and saying that to -the child the ball is “the uniting object,” yet, he says, -considering the plays as proceeding from the child -(vom Kinde aus), “all activity, though mediated -(vermittelt) by the ball, proceeds definitely from the -child, and though going through the ball, refers back -again to the child, who is himself a unit.”</p> - -<p>There is a particular passage which suggests that -there existed a special definite idea in Froebel’s mind -in regard to the word “activity,” and it is one which -presents a difficulty to an ordinary and unphilosophical -mind, though a possible light is thrown upon -it by Mr. Bradley’s definition. In this passage -activity (Thätigkeit) is very distinctly given as something -higher than impulse (Triebe).</p> - -<p>The working of the primeval Cause, “the uniting,” -is called, Froebel says, “according to the different -stages in development, Force, Impulse, Life, Life-impulse, -Activity” (Wirken, Trieb, Leben, Lebenstrieb, -Thätigkeit).</p> - -<p>This placing of activity so high in the scale is at -least no accident, and conscious self-determination is -constantly attributed to man as “the most perfect -earthly being,” and to man alone.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p> -<p>Mr. Stout proceeds to examine the conception of -self-determining process, with special reference to -changes within the sphere of an individual consciousness, -taking as the most convenient point of departure, -such illustrative analogies as come from the physical -world, and beginning with the simplest form of self-determination, -the law of inertia.<a name="FNanchor_61" id="FNanchor_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p> - -<p>“Conscious life,” he says, “is always in some -degree self-sustaining, this indeed is an indispensable -part of the connotation of all such words as activity, -endeavour, conation, effort, striving, will, attention. -All such terms imply that the process to which they -refer, tends by its intrinsic nature in a certain direction, -or toward a certain end.”</p> - -<p>Now the word “endeavour” or “effort” (Streben) -is a word Froebel constantly uses in speaking of -a child’s activity, and he does more than merely -“imply” that this process “tends in a certain -direction, or toward a certain end” when he affirms -that “In every activity, in every deed of man, and of -the smallest child, an aim is expressed.”</p> - -<p>Professor Stout goes on to say that in conscious -states we can always distinguish between determination -from within and from without, and “it is a point -of vital significance that this distinction coincides with -that between mental activity and mental passivity.”<a name="FNanchor_62" id="FNanchor_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> -With mental passivity Froebel has but few dealings, -if indeed he has any. There is one passage in which -he uses the word passive (passiv); this, however, -merely states that the child, in accommodating himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> -to his surroundings, may outwardly appear inactive -or passive, but only in order to have more scope for -his inner activity (wo es äusserlich als unthätig, leidend -[passiv] erscheint … um so seiner innern Thätigkeit -mehr Spielraum zu verschaffen).</p> - -<p>From what he does say there is little doubt but -that Froebel would willingly have subscribed to Professor -Stout’s dictum, “that to be mentally active is -identical with being mentally alive or awake,<a name="FNanchor_63" id="FNanchor_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> though -in degree the activity may shade off gradually from -that “involving a sense of strain, to that of almost -passivity.” But just as Professor Stout rejects the -idea of purely passive consciousness, so, too, does he -reject “pure” mental activity. “It is impossible to -find any bit of mental process which is determined -purely from within.”<a name="FNanchor_64" id="FNanchor_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a>… “At the same time it is -equally true that no change within is entirely determined -from without.”<a name="FNanchor_65" id="FNanchor_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Mr. Stout does not say that -pure activity—a purely self-determined process—cannot -exist, for “we should, by parity of reasoning, be -bound to reject the second law of motion.”<a name="FNanchor_66" id="FNanchor_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> “But -it rests,” he says, “with the advocates of pure activity, -if there are such, to adduce a case of it, and until such -a case is brought forward we must assume that there -is none.… No portion of matter can be, even for a -moment, outside the sphere of influence of other -portions.”</p> - -<p>We have seen that Mr. O’Shea practically accuses -Froebel of being an “advocate of pure activity,”<a name="FNanchor_67" id="FNanchor_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> -nor is he the only one of Froebel’s critics who does so. -If, however, it be considered an accident that Froebel -should in one passage put “conscious self-determination”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> -at the highest point of life development, and in -another passage give this place to “activity” which -Mr. Bradley and Mr. Stout tell us is to be regarded as -self-determined, is it also an accident that in the very -same passage Froebel should state that “everything -in Nature develops and forms itself under the total -collective influence of all other things”?</p> - -<p>If these correspondences are not accidental, then -it must be allowed in the first place that Froebel -attached a fairly definite meaning to the word “activity,” -including self-determination in its connotation; -and in the second place that the grounds on which he -is charged with being a believer in “pure activity” -are very insufficient. When Mr. Stout says that even -if it is allowable “as an illustrative hypothesis” to -regard the physical universe as an internally complete -system,<a name="FNanchor_68" id="FNanchor_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> it is clear that “the stream of individual -consciousness is no such self-contained unit,” but “the -merest fragment of universal reality, as its correlated -brain process is the merest fragment of the material -world<a name="FNanchor_69" id="FNanchor_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a>”; is this anything but a statement of that -unity, on which Froebel insists in season and out of -season—which appears on almost every page of his -writings, so that the word has become the veriest -“cant” of the half-trained Kindergarten teacher<a name="FNanchor_70" id="FNanchor_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a>.</p> - -<p>The philosophic conception of unity, the belief that -there is no separation in either world, physical or -psychical, or between either world, was always -present to Froebel’s mind. “In Nature,” he writes, -“every phenomenon has its sufficient foundation and -its necessary consequence.” But as every philosopher -would say, so Froebel said, “Separation is permitted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> -for the observing, thinking and comparing intellect, -and the outwardly representing life, and is indeed -required by it, but must by no means on that account -be permitted to appear in the mind which is intended -to grasp and constantly to retain in its original inner -union, that which is outwardly apparently separated -by the thinking intellect, the reason and the life.”<a name="FNanchor_71" id="FNanchor_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> -So Professor Münsterberg, writing as a professed -scientist, says, “Science is to me, not a mass of disconnected -information, … but the certainty that -nothing can exist outside the gigantic mechanism of -causes and effects, but Science is not and cannot be, -and ought never to try to be, an expression of ultimate -reality.”<a name="FNanchor_72" id="FNanchor_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p> - -<p>It would never have dawned on Froebel, nor would -it have appealed to him, to separate his philosophy -from his science, but there is no more contradiction -in Froebel’s “self-activity” which is influenced from -without, than there is in Professor Stout when he -speaks of self-determination as included in the connotation -of “activity,” and adds that until a case of -“pure activity” is brought forward, we must assume -that there is none.</p> - -<p>Of all his “means of play,” Froebel says:</p> - -<div class="blockquote"> - -<p>“In order, therefore, on the one hand to -introduce the child to the handling of his play -material, we gave him the ball, … but each of -these means of play summons the child in return -to self-activity, to free self-activity; to movement, -to free independent movement” (zur Selbsthätigkeit, -zur freien Selbsthätigkeit; zur Bewegung, -zur freien, inabhängigen Bewegung).<a name="FNanchor_73" id="FNanchor_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="APPENDIX_II">APPENDIX II<br /> -<span class="smcap">Comparison of Plays noted by Froebel with -the Enumeration given by Groos</span></h2> - -<p>Much that is given in Groos’ more elaborate -classification can also be found in Froebel’s -suggestions, particularly where younger children are -concerned. For plays coming under the heading of -Playful Activity of the Sensory Apparatus, Froebel -has a parallel for every kind except that of Temperature, -and for this Groos has not himself found anything -that can fairly be called play.</p> - -<p>For Sensations of Contact there is the Kicking -Play, and Taste and Smell are also represented in the -Mother Play book. For Hearing play we have the -wooden ball, “a plaything for the child liable to -produce noise by its movement,” as well as the Tic-tac -and Finger Piano plays, and for receptive play, the -mother is told to speak, rhythmically if possible, or to -sing with every play. For Sensations of Brightness -we have “Mother you want to foster this delight in -all things that are sparkling clear and bright” of the -“Fish in the Brook,” as well as “The Lightbird,” which -Froebel has “found over and over again in all grades -of the culture that makes up social life in village and -in town.”</p> - -<p>Sensations of colour are well provided for. In -“The Two Windows” we have: “See the beautiful -coloured circles and rays, just like rainbow and dew-drops, -see how beautifully the colours play through -each other.” Colour is a feature in Gift I, in beadwork,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> -in the tablets, in paper folding, cutting and plaiting, -and besides these there are crayons and paints, -and frequent reference is made to the child’s pleasure -in the colour of flowers.</p> - -<p>Froebel also makes much play depend on perception -of form: “Attention to the form and figure of -the object can also be utilized for the child in play,” -or, again, “Early in life the child delights in round and -varied pebbles, he seeks and collects them, he takes -pleasure in the straight edged and right angled.” He -has found “The Target” play very widely spread, -“plainly because it contains, as I see it, the first trace -of an endeavour to make a child notice position and -form.”</p> - -<p>For perception of movement, to which Froebel -would have added perception of change of position, -there are many plays with the ball as well as “Tic-tac,” -“The Child and the Pigeons,” “The Lightbird,” “The -Fish in the Brook,” etc.</p> - -<p>Groos’ next class is Play with the Motor Apparatus -and under this comes first Playful movement of the -Bodily Organs. Here we have Froebel saying: “The -first toys and occupations of the child come from -himself: he plays with his own limbs.”—<cite>L., p. 108.</cite> -“The child at this stage begins to play with his -limbs—his hands, his fingers, his lips, his tongue, his -feet, as well as with the expression of his eyes and -face.”—<cite>E., p. 48.</cite></p> - -<p>Under playful locomotion, Groos actually quotes -Froebel’s description of the child learning to walk, -and we have also marching, running, and racing games; -“the large majority,” says Froebel, “I have created -simply by watching the children at play.… Thus -I have prepared a limping-game because I see my -boys always limping and hopping.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p> -<p>Next comes Playful Movement of Foreign Bodies, -and under this heading Groos gives “Hustling things -about, pushing, pulling, shaking, seizing and pushing -away, dabbling in water, handling sand and clay, -kite-flying, and capture of insects.” Of these Froebel -mentions pushing of carriages, kite-flying, hobby-horse -riding; he makes much of play with water, sand and -clay, and he speaks of the catching of insects, etc., -desiring that it should be wisely checked by directing -the activity into other channels.</p> - -<p>As to Destructive or Analytic Movement Play, -Froebel notes that: “The child wishes to know all the -properties of the thing, for this reason he examines it -on all sides; for this reason he tears and breaks it; -for this reason he puts it in his mouth and bites it.”—<cite>E., -p. 73.</cite> “The cruel treatment of insects and other -animals originates in the little boy’s desire to obtain -an insight into the life of the animal.”—<cite>E., p. 164.</cite></p> - -<p>Of Constructive or Synthetic Movement Play, so -much has been said already, that it is not necessary -to dwell on it. Froebel, in fact, gives a far more -inclusive account of this than Groos himself, not -omitting his “simplest form,” viz. moulding new forms -with sand, etc., nor the collecting and arranging in -rows which to Groos and to Froebel is a more primitive -form of construction. Of Exercise of Endurance, too, -we have spoken, in quoting passages where Froebel -shows the boyish desire to measure and to increase -strength. Throwing and Catching Plays have their -place in the “Apprentice and Master Workman” -game.</p> - -<p>The important third class, the Playful Use of the -Higher Mental Powers, includes according to Groos -a good deal that he has dealt with under other heads, -e.g. Memory Play includes (<i>a</i>) Recognition and (<i>b</i>) -Reflective Memory. Under the former comes that -pleasure in recognition of form which has already been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> -dealt with, the pleasure given by pictures, often, says -Groos, greater than is given by the reality. Froebel, -too, says that if the father makes a sketch, “this man -of lines, this horse of lines, will give the child more -joy than an actual man, an actual horse will do.”—<cite>E., -p. 77.</cite> Froebel, too, notes the pleasure it will -give a child to name flowers through recognition of a -form: “Spurred like a rider, circled like a snail, umbrellas, -wheels, he’ll find the names.”—<cite>M., p. 181.</cite> -There is also the recognition of animal and other -noises, as in Froebel’s Yard Gate. Rote learning as -a play Froebel hardly mentions.</p> - -<p>As to the two groups which Groos brings under -the heading of Imagination, viz. “Illusion either playful -or serious,” and “the voluntary or involuntary -transformation of our mental content,” these receive -full recognition. Froebel notes how the stick becomes -a horse or the knotted handkerchief the baby, as well -as the play of listening to and inventing stories.</p> - -<p>Under the head of Attention comes such games as -Hide and Seek, because of the alternate stress and -relaxation, and Froebel noted before Darwin did the -pleasure of the baby in Bo-peep. Groos also brings -curiosity under this heading, and we have seen that -Froebel deals fully with such play as the outcome of -the instinct of investigation, or the instinct for self-teaching.</p> - -<p>Froebel would certainly not draw the line where -Groos does, when he says “the true characteristics of -play are in inverse ratio to the intensity of the desire -for knowledge,” and if this rule were strictly adhered -to, a good deal of what Groos does call play might have -to come out.</p> - -<p>The plays which fall under the head of Reason -have two bearings, says Groos, first causality, and -second inherence. There are various references to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -the “joy of being a cause” from the child “whose -capacity for speech is as yet undeveloped,” but who -draws away the support and as the cube falls “turns -to his mother in joyous triumph,” up to the pride of -Keilhau boys, who “might not have accomplished -their fortresses without the sapper,” but “who believed -that if cast on a desert island, each could build -a hut of his own.” Froebel also brings in intellectual -games such as draughts, and he notes how children -will invent their own words and their own alphabets -in play. Of the making and solving of riddles I think -Froebel never speaks.</p> - -<p>As to what Groos says of Experimentation with -the feelings, the parallels in Froebel are surprise plays -such as Hide and Seek, adventure and hunting games -where there may be play with fear, and the legends and -stories.</p> - -<p>Under the Impulse of the Second or Socionomic order, -come the Fighting Plays, Love Play, Imitative Play, -and Social Play. Of Love Play, Froebel has none, -but the hunting and fighting were allowed abundant -scope at Keilhau. Of Imitative Play there is much -that can be cited from the playful imitation of simple -movements and sounds in the Mother Songs and the -Kindergarten Games, to the “classic dramas” of the -Keilhau boys. Plastic and constructive play, too, goes -from the simplest sand play, through the Kindergarten -handwork, not only up to the fortress making, but -also to the “boxes with locks and hinges, so neatly -finished, veneered, and polished that many a trained -cabinet-maker’s apprentice could have done no better,” -which were made at Keilhau.</p> - -<p>Of the Social Plays Groos says with feeling that, -however advisable, it is wellnigh impossible to make a -distinct class. He starts, however, with the “need of -bodily association or the herding instinct.” He brings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> -in the child’s eager desire to be with his fellows, and -the importance in adult life of festivals, religious or -otherwise. He mentions the child’s voluntary submission -to a leader, and speaks of play as instrumental -in teaching children submission to law. We have -noticed Froebel speaking of the “combined games, -which will train the child, by his very nature eager -for companionship, in the habit of association with -comrades, in good fellowship and all that this implies.” -He also wants the child to take alternately some special -part in the game and to be merely one of the crowd: -“Each child should have a chance to lead, for it is -especially developing to a child to recognize himself -as independent as well as a member of the whole.” -Among the older boys, the Bergwachts for instance -were carefully organized under separate leaders and -the captain of the first band was director of the whole. -Froebel, too, made much of festivals at Keilhau, and -this has always been a recognized feature of the Kindergarten.</p> - -<p>Enjoyment of the comic never, I think, makes its -appearance at all. Froebel had many gifts, but the -saving sense of humour does not appear to have been -among them.</p> - -<hr /> - -<div class="footnotes"> - -<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Chapter IX</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_X">Chapter X</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> “Froebel’s Educational Principles,” Elementary School Record, -Vol. I, No. 5, or “The Dewey School,” published by the Froebel Society.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Chapter VI, <i>p. 79</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The Philosophy and Psychology of the Kindergarten.—“Teachers’ -College Record,” Nov., 1903.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> It is true that Froebel was pre-Darwinian, but see <a href="#Page_198"><i>p. 198</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> All this is said in connection with the infant’s play with a -woollen ball, with quaint suggestions that the singing tone accompanying -the swinging like a ball affects the feelings, while the -recognition of a change of position is a thing of “dawning thought,” -and that by tic-tac the movement is expressed. See <a href="#Page_176"><i>p. 176</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Dies fesselt die Sinnen- und Geistesthätigkeit des Kindes und -gibt <em>ihm</em> mehrseitige Nahrung.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> In der Mitte seiner wahrnehmenden (empfindenden) seiner -wirkenden und schaffenden, seiner vergleichenden (denkenden) -Thätigkeit.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Die Ausbildung der verschiedenen Richtungen der Geisteskraft -des Kindes.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> “Journal of Education.” Reprinted in “Child Life,” January, 1901.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, <i>p. 152</i> <i>et seq.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, <i>p. 153</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> It is true that Professor Stout complains of the loose way in -which the word “activity” has been used, and that he is careful to -define his own meaning, but Froebel too is careful. See <a href="#APPENDIX_I">Appendix I</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> See also <a href="#Page_82"><i>p. 82</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. II, <i>p. 82</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> “The Conception of Immortality,” <i>p. 58</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Froebel is comparing the child with other young animals, and -somewhat scornfully refers to those who, “notwithstanding the -early manifestation of the instinct to employ himself,” regard the -human infant as inferior to the young of other animals.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> See chapter on Instinct.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> “In dem ersten Sinnenspiele, kommen also dem Kinde durch -Wahrnehmen u. Schauen, durch Kommen, Bleiben u. Schwinden, -durch Wechsel, also auch in gewisser Hinsicht durch frühes dunkles -auffassen … somit von dunkler Vergleichung, die ersten Eindrücke -der Seele, gleichsam die ersten Erkenntnisse zugleich durch -Selbst-thätigkeit, wie durch die sein Leben und dessen Forderungen -in sich tragende Mutterliebe.”—<cite>P., p. 66.</cite></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> It does not, however, follow that this outer object, or this -manner of presenting it, is so important as Froebel supposed; see -Chapter IX.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> See <a href="#Page_66"><i>p. 66</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> See <a href="#CHAPTER_II">Chapter II</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> “Principles of Psychology,” Vol. II, <i>p. 884</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Froebel is too often ignorantly accused of being “soft,” but it is -a mistake to think that he leaves fear out of count. What he insists -on is, that rightly used authority should produce self-control, not -servility.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> See <a href="#Page_90"><i>p. 90</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Macmillan, 1906.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> <a href="#Page_53"><i>P. 53.</i></a></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> “Social Psychology,” <i>p. 61</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Mr. McDougall allows (<i>p. 60</i>) that in the case of an unprovoked -blow, the impulse, the thwarting of which provokes anger, is the impulse -of self-assertion.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> For example, on <i>p. 46</i>, “Hence language provides special -names for such modes of affective experience, names such as anger, -fear, curiosity”; and on <i>p. 94</i>, in connection with the sympathetic -induction of emotion, we have, “Later still, fear, curiosity, and, I -think, anger are communicated readily from one child to another”; -and there are other examples.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> <a href="#Page_51"><i>P. 51.</i></a></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> This is all that can be said, for the passage seems incomplete; -after “entwickelt … der Trieb die Neigung,” comes only “sie -führen zur Gemüths- und Herzensbildung; und aus ihr geht in dem -Knaben Geistes- und Willensthätigkeit hervor.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> For a fuller account of these “Gifts,” see <a href="#Page_148">Chap. VIII., <i>p. 148</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> In the well-known translation by F. and E. Lord:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="verse">“You wonder why a game at hide-and-seek</div> -<div class="verse">Brings a glad flush of joy to baby’s cheek?</div> -<div class="verse">The sense of his own personality</div> -<div class="verse">Is causing all this joy that you can see</div> -<div class="verse">When people call him, say, ‘Where’s Baby been?’</div> -<div class="verse">He feels that it is he, himself, they mean.”</div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> “Social Psychology,” <i>p. 89</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> “The Play of Man,” <i>p. 400</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> “The Play of Man,” <i>p. 382</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> See <a href="#Page_194"><i>p. 194</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> In another place Froebel does say that, “Only on condition -that the genuine spirit of play—i.e. the true spirit of life—lives in -the teacher, can he call it forth in the child.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> See <a href="#APPENDIX_II">Appendix II</a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> See <a href="#Page_93"><i>pp. 93, 94</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> See <a href="#Page_43"><i>p. 43</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Froebel goes on to say: “I believe, that after progressing -through the vast orbit of almost two generations (he was nearly fifty-nine) -I have been carried round to the point of commencement, to -the fountain head of the education of mankind, but <em>with the significant -addition of a full consciousness of my task</em>.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> The material can of course be used at any age provided it -conveys suitable ideas in a suitable manner. Some of it is even now -found useful in helping senior classes to realize problems in area -and in volume.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Many years ago, a young teacher came to me for help. She had -been told to give her class number lessons, for a whole term, from -Gift III, which consists of eight little cubes, and the children had long -since grasped 4 + 4, 6 + 2, 5 + 3, and 8 - 4, 8 - 2, etc. I suggested -that she should leave the number out and let the children play with -the blocks. “Oh! I mayn’t do that,” was the answer, “they have -building with Gift IV.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> A really pathetic story has been told me of an earnest teacher in far -Australia, whose educational opportunities had been very limited, but -whose desire for knowledge was most sincere. She had been listening -without comprehension to some glib user of phrases, and was bewailing -her ignorance to an enlightened teacher who knew there had been little -of real value, and who said with a laugh “Never mind, Miss ——, it is -only a case of ‘Mind and Matter glide swift into the vortex of -immensity.’” And the listener said, “Oh please, would you say that -slowly, and I’ll write it down.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> These objections were embodied in a paper entitled “A Criticism -of Froebelian Pedagogy,” which Mr. Graham Wallas read at a -Conference of the Froebel Society in January 1901, and which was -published in the Conference Supplement for Child Life, July 1901.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> See <a href="#Page_200"><i>p. 200</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Few critics are likely to go so far as Mr. Winch, who gave as a -Froebelian conception “that the true destiny of man is to be obtained -by gratifying every youthful impulse.” But, Mr. Winch is perhaps -not to be taken seriously, for in the same paper he took <em>one sentence -out of a passage on the importance of continuity extending over four pages</em>, -and says of it, “This jerky discontinuity (!) has not the slightest -support in biological science, and never had.” (See Memorandum -written for Mr. Graham Wallas in “Problems of Education.”)</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Deshalb sollen Erziehung, Unterricht und Lehre ursprünglich -und in ihren ersten Grundzügen nothwendig leidend, nachgehend (nur -behütend schützend), nicht vorschreibend, bestimmend, eingreifend -sein.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Mr. Graham Wallas said: “The educational task for us is not to -find out how completely we can stand aside, but how far we can so -influence the environment of the child, as to cause those tendencies in -it which we think best, to become permanent.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_53" id="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> Mr. Graham Wallas said: “From the beginning of the Darwinian -reconstruction of the moral sciences, it was absurd, while speaking of -‘environment,’ to ignore the fact that the deliberate care and contrivance -of the parent must form a large part of the environment of the -child.” The passage quoted shows that Froebel was guilty of no such -absurdity.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_54" id="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> “Is Development from Within?” “Child Life,” October, 1904, -and January, 1905.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_55" id="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> See <a href="#Page_192"><i>p. 192</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_56" id="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> “Second Review of Plays: A Fragment,” but part of this has -been omitted in the English translation.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_57" id="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Those who desire a full and scholarly account of Froebel’s -philosophy are referred to that given by Professor Angus MacVannel, -Ph.D., “Teachers’ College Record,” Vol. IV, No. 5. The Macmillan -Co., New York.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_58" id="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> In Gottes Welt, eben weil es die Welt Gottes, durch Gott -Gewordenes ist, spricht sich ein Stetiges, das heisst ungetrennt -Fortgehendes der Entwickelung in Allem und durch Alles aus.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_59" id="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> See <a href="#Page_216">Appendix, <i>p. 216</i></a>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_60" id="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> “Das Pedagogik des Kindergartens,” <i>p. 329</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_61" id="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> According to this principle, the mere fact that a particle is -moving with a certain velocity in a certain direction, is in itself a -reason why it should continue to move with the same velocity in the -same direction.… Now, in so far as continuance of change in a -certain direction is traceable to the pre-existence of change in that -direction, this whole process may be regarded as being in a perfectly -intelligible sense, self-determining (“Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, -<i>p. 146</i>).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_62" id="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, <i>p. 147</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_63" id="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, <i>p. 168</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_64" id="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, <i>p. 155</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_65" id="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, <i>p. 156</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_66" id="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, <i>p. 156</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_67" id="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> <a href="#Page_191"><i>P. 191.</i></a></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_68" id="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> And so to regard “each successive moment of the world-process -as issuing out of the preceding by purely immanent -casuality.”</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_69" id="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, <i>p. 156</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_70" id="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> “Unity and Froebel are synonymous terms,” is one “howler” -from a student’s examination paper.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_71" id="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Ed. by Development, <i>p. 212</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_72" id="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> “The Eternal Life,” <i>p. 14</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_73" id="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> “Das Kindergartenwesen,” <i>p. 330</i>.</p> - -</div> - -</div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span></p> - -<h2 id="INDEX">INDEX</h2> - -<ul> - -<li class="ifrst">A</li> - -<li class="indx">Acquisition, Instinct of, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Activity">Activity, Spontaneous, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Differentiation, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Earliest Activity, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Consciousness and Self-Consciousness, Development of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Nature of First Voluntary Employments, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Expression, <i>see</i> <a href="#Expression">that title</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Foundation of Education, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Fundamental Tendency, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Meaning of, in Froebel’s Writings, <a href="#Page_213">213 <i>et seq.</i></a></li> -<li class="isub1">Self-determination included in connotation, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Universal Impulse, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Adams, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Amusement, Distinction from Play, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Analysis">Analysis of Mind</li> -<li class="isub1">Observation and Introspection, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Order of Investigation of Laws of Mental Process, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Sense and Understanding, Inseparability, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Tri-une Character, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Animal Instincts, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Anticipations of Modern Psychology, <a href="#Page_2">2 <i>et seq.</i></a>—Summary, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Anthropological Aspect of Psychological Inquiry, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Approbation, Love of, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Arrangement and Comparison, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Artistic Tendencies of Children, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Associationists, Fallacy of, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Atomistic View,” <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Attacks on Froebel, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190-1</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">B</li> - -<li class="indx">Baer referred to, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Baldwin, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ball-Play—Ideas to be gained, etc., <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Batch, Froebel’s connection with, <a href="#Page_199">199</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Biological Studies, Influence on Froebel’s Views, connection with stress laid on Development, etc., <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Blow, Miss Susan—Froebel’s Symbolism, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Bradley, Mr., quoted, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">C</li> - -<li class="indx">Cause, Early Notice of, <a href="#Page_160">160</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Change—Use in fixing Impressions, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Collecting or Acquiring Instinct, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Colour, Sense of, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Community, Feeling of, <i>refer to</i> <a href="#Social_Instinct">Social Instinct</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Comte referred to, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Conation, <i>refer to</i> <a href="#Will">Will</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Connection or Unification, Law of, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Conscience, references to, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Consciousness</li> -<li class="isub1">Development by Action, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> -<li class="isub2">—Movement stopped by Something, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>Earliest Consciousness</li> -<li class="isub2">Absolute Beginnings—Beyond the pale of Science, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Indefiniteness, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>—Undifferentiated, unorganized Unity, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Process of Differentiation, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Reasoning and Constructive Imagination, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Unity of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> -<li class="isub1"><i>See also</i> title <a href="#Self-Consciousness">Self-Consciousness</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Construction, Instinct of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> -<li class="isub1">“Sense of Power,” i.e., Self-Consciousness resulting, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Subserving Instinct of Investigation, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Continuous Development, <i>see</i> <a href="#Development">Development</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Cooke, Mr. Ebenezer, quoted, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Counting, Development of Capacity for, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Criticisms of Froebel, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Culture Epochs” Theory, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">D</li> - -<li class="indx">Darwin, references to, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Development">Development—Froebel’s Theory of Continuous Development, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Biological Studies, Connection with, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Development from within, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> -<li class="isub1">“Harmonious Development,” <a href="#Page_14">14-16</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Individual development of, following that of the Race, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Law of—Unlimited to Limited, Whole to Part, Indefinite to Definite, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Possibilities and Conditions in place of Faculties, <a href="#Page_18">18-20</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Reconciliation of Opposites, Result of, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Self-directed Process, <a href="#Page_212">212 <i>note</i></a></li> -<li class="isub1">Three Stages, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Development of Species, Modernness of Froebel’s View, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Dewey, Prof.</li> -<li class="isub1">Experimental Work at Chicago, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Summary of Froebel’s Educational Principles, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Discipline</li> -<li class="isub1">Adjusting Claims of Freedom and Authority, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Direction of Impulse, not Opposition, <a href="#Page_212">212 <i>note</i></a></li> -<li class="isub1">Non-Interference Theory, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Footnote_50">192 <i>note</i></a>, <a href="#Page_193">193-5</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Doll-Play, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Drawing</li> -<li class="isub1">Counting Capacity, Means of developing, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Origin of Earliest Drawing, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Process of discovering “Linear Phenomena,” <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Duties as a means of realizing Kinship, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">E</li> - -<li class="indx">Ebers—Account of Life at Keilhau, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Eby, Mr., quoted, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Emotion, <i>see</i> <a href="#Feeling">Feeling</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Employment, Instinct of, <i>refer to</i> <a href="#Activity">Activity</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Environment, Alleged Neglect by Froebel, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> -<li class="isub1">—Reply to Critics, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200-4</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Evolution—Froebel’s Post-Darwinianism, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Experimenting—Mode of Investigation, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Exploring Tendency, <a href="#Page_94">94-5</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Expression">Expression</li> -<li class="isub1">Art as, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Feeling, Importance in Development of, <a href="#Page_57">57-62</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Need for, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Play, Definition of, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Understanding, Means of, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>F</li> - -<li class="indx">Faculty Psychology, Criticism of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17 <i>et seq.</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fairy Tales, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Family Bonds, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fear, Froebel’s attitude towards, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> and <a href="#Footnote_25"><i>note</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Feeling">Feeling, Development of, etc., <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Action, Importance of, <a href="#Page_57">57-62</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Family Bonds and Service for the Family, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Fundamental Importance, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Starting Point of Education, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Want of Good Feeling in Children, Cause, <a href="#Page_63">63-4</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fichte, Reference to, <a href="#Page_204">204</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Fletcher, Dr., quoted, <a href="#Page_212">212 <i>note</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Following and Tolerating—Character of True Education, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">G</li> - -<li class="indx">Games, <i>refer to</i> <a href="#Play">Play</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Genetic Psychology preceded by Analytic, <a href="#Page_3">3</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Gifts">“Gifts” and “Gift Plays”</li> -<li class="isub1">Description of the Series, <a href="#Page_159">159-166</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Excessive Importance attached to, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Hailmann’s, Mr., distinction between “Gifts” and “Occupations,” <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Psychological Aim or Meaning, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Selection following Natural Instinct, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Tri-Unity of Child-Nature, Relation of Gift Plays to, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Weakness of the Series, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Two Mistakes, and the Psychological Errors underlying them, <a href="#Page_170">170-6</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Groos, Karl, quoted, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Grüner, reference to, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">H</li> - -<li class="indx">Habit</li> -<li class="isub1">Instinct, Proof of existence of, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Outcome of Impulse of Activity, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hailmann, Mr., quoted, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hall, Stanley, quoted, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Harmonious Development,” <a href="#Page_14">14-16</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Hegel, Froebel’s knowledge of, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Helba Plan, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212 <i>note</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx">Herbartians—“Culture Epochs” Theory, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Horne, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">I</li> - -<li class="indx">Imitation</li> -<li class="isub1">McDougall’s, Mr., Three Classes of Imitative Actions, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Outcome of Activity and Means of Expression, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Results gained, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Instincts">Instincts</li> -<li class="isub1">Classifications</li> -<li class="isub2">Eby, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Froebel, <a href="#Page_83">83 <i>et seq.</i></a></li> -<li class="isub2">Kirkpatrick, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> -<li class="isub2">McDougall, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Direction and Training needed, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Divergent Views a matter of Definition, <a href="#Page_67">67-8</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Froebel’s belief in Instinct, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Froebel’s Terminology, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Habit and Instinct, Interaction between, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Indefinite in Man—Proof of Superiority and Capacity for Progressive Development, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Specific and General Tendencies, Distinction between, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Specifically Human Instincts only dealt with by Froebel, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Transitory Nature, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Two Main Lines of Instinctive Action, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>Interdependence of Life, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Intuition of Things—Dr. Ward’s Points, <a href="#Page_154">154-5</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Investigation">Investigation, Instinct of, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90-2</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94-7</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">J</li> - -<li class="indx">James, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73-5</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Jarvis, Miss—Translation of passage <i>re</i> Self-Consciousness, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Joy in Activity, <a href="#Page_136">136-7</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">K</li> - -<li class="indx">Keilhau, Life at, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212 <i>note</i></a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kindergarten</li> -<li class="isub1">Associated Games, Social Training, etc., <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Defined, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Disregard of Froebel’s instructions by his disciples, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> -<li class="isub1">End and Aim of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Gifts and Occupations, <i>refer to</i> title <a href="#Gifts">Gifts</a></li> -<li class="isub1">No gulf between Kindergarten and “The Education of Man,” <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212 <i>note</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx">King, Mr. Irving, quoted, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50-2</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Kirkpatrick, Mr., quoted, <a href="#Page_79">79-80</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">L</li> - -<li class="indx">Lamarck, reference to, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Language">Language</li> -<li class="isub1">Development of capacity for Speech, <a href="#Page_97">97-101</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Earliest Training, Use in—Names the beginning of Organization, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Feeling, Development of, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Location, Sense of, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Source of questioning Activity, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Lodge, Sir Oliver, quoted, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">M</li> - -<li class="indx">McDougall, Mr., quoted, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> - -<li class="indx">MacVannel, Dr. J. A., quoted, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Marenholz, Madame von, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Material of Instruction and Manner of Teaching—Conditioned by stage of Development, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Maternal Instinct, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mathematical Perceptions—Over-estimate of Children’s Capacity, <a href="#Page_170">170-4</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Memory—Froebel’s Description, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mental Activity, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23-7</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Earlier and later Forms, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Possibilities—Difference between Child and Animal, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Sense and Understanding, Close connection, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mental Analysis, <i>see</i> <a href="#Analysis">Analysis of Mind</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Metaphor, Froebel’s delight in, <a href="#Page_187">187-8</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Moral Faculty, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Morgan, Prof. Lloyd, quoted, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mother Wit—Need for Thought and Training, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Movement, <i>see</i> <a href="#Activity">Activity</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Münsterberg, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Music—Importance of early Training, <a href="#Page_106">106</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Mysticism, <i>see</i> <a href="#Symbolism">Symbolism</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">N</li> - -<li class="indx">Naming, <i>refer to</i> <a href="#Language">Language</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Natural Instincts, <i>see</i> <a href="#Instincts">Instincts</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Non-Interference, Froebel’s Theory of, <a href="#Page_190">190-5</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Number, Discovery of, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">O</li> - -<li class="indx">Observation of Children, <a href="#Page_4">4-6</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Order, Sense of, and the Instinct of Rhythm, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>Organization and Language, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45-6</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Outer Factor in Perception, over-emphasized by Froebel, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> - -<li class="indx">O’Shea, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">P</li> - -<li class="indx">Parental Instinct, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Personality, Consciousness of, <i>see</i> <a href="#Self-Consciousness">Self-Consciousness</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Philosophy, Froebel’s, <a href="#Page_10">10</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Physical and Psychical, Close connection between, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Play">Play</li> -<li class="isub1">Amusement, Distinction from, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Biological View, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Classifications (Froebel and Groos), <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Earliest Childhood, Play in, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Educative Value, Originality of Froebel’s View, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Groos’ Criteria, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Guidance needed, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a> and <a href="#Footnote_40"><i>note</i></a></li> -<li class="isub1">Imitative Play, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Joy in Games, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Recreative Play, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Self-Consciousness, Development of, in Boyhood, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Social Virtues, Development by Games, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Surplus Energy Theory, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Theories of Play—Recapitulation and Preparation, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Work and Play</li> -<li class="isub2">Distinction between—Froebel’s definition, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Earliest Activity—No Differentiation, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Early Boyhood, Differentiation in, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Playgrounds, Importance of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Play-Material">Play-Material</li> -<li class="isub1">Definite prescription impossible, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> -<li class="isub1">First Playthings, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Importance in relation to Development, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Mistake of giving expensive and complex toys, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Number and variety of games noted, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Object of Froebel’s play-material, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> -<li class="isub1"><i>See</i> also title Gifts</li> - -<li class="indx">Poems and Songs, Use in Development of Feeling, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Preyer quoted, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Psychological Basis for Educational Theories, <a href="#Page_2">2</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Pugnacity, Instinct of, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Purpose of Education, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> -<li class="isub1"><i>Refer also to</i> <a href="#Self-Consciousness">Self-Consciousness</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">Q</li> - -<li class="indx">Quantity, Relations of, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Questioning Activity, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">R</li> - -<li class="indx">Reflection, Development of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Religious Instincts</li> -<li class="isub1">Foundation in Social Instincts, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Morality and Religion, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Work and Religion, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Religious Convictions of Froebel, <a href="#Page_205">205-6</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Repetition, Impressions fixed by, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Representation (Darstellung), <i>see</i> <a href="#Expression">Expression</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Rhythm—Importance of early development of Instinct, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Order, Sense of, Connection with, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ribot quoted, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Romanes quoted, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Royce, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">S</li> - -<li class="indx">Seele, Ida, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Self-Abasement and Self-Assertion, Instincts of, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Self-Consciousness">Self-Consciousness, Development of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Early Developments, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> -<li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>Indefiniteness of Instinct rendering development possible, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Purpose of Education and “End of Man,” <a href="#Page_30">30-5</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Tales, Craving for, due to nascent idea of Self, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Self-Determination, <i>refer to</i> <a href="#Will">Will</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Self-Employment, <i>refer to</i> <a href="#Activity">Activity</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Self-Instruction, Instinct of, <i>refer to</i> <a href="#Investigation">Investigation</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sense and Movement, Connection of, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sense and Understanding, Close connection of, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Separation attempted in use of “Gifts”—Psychological error, <a href="#Page_175">175-6</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Service as Expression of Feeling, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Social_Instinct">Social Instinct</li> -<li class="isub1">Development from the “Feeling of Community,” <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110-12</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Early Training essential, <a href="#Page_63">63-4</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Games, Education in, <a href="#Page_111">111-12</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Religious Instincts, Foundation of, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Speech, <i>refer to</i> <a href="#Language">Language</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Spencer, Herbert, quoted, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Sphere and Cube (Gift II)—Material for Comparison, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Spontaneous Activity, <i>see</i> <a href="#Activity">Activity</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stories, Interest in, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Stout, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_3">3</a>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Summary of Froebel’s Educational Principles, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li> - -<li class="indx">“Surplus Energy” Theory, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Symbolism">Symbolism—Froebel’s alleged excessive and far-fetched Symbolism, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179-82</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Exaggeration by disciples and translators, <a href="#Page_183">183-6</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Instances—Practical application usually harmless, <a href="#Page_186">186-7</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">T</li> - -<li class="indx">Tales, Craving for, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Thorndyke, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Time-Relations, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Toys, <i>refer to</i> titles <a href="#Gifts">Gifts</a> and <a href="#Play-Material">Play-Material</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Tri-une Nature of Man, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">U</li> - -<li class="indx">Unfoldment, Doctrine of, <i>see</i> <a href="#Development">Development</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Unification or Connection, Law of, <a href="#Page_204">204-5</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Unity and Complexity, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Froebel’s yearning for Unity, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> - -<li class="ifrst">W</li> - -<li class="indx">Wallas, Mr. Graham—Criticisms of Froebel, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Ward, Dr., quoted, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Welton, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_212">212 <i>note</i></a></li> - -<li class="indx" id="Will">Will</li> -<li class="isub1">Definitions (Froebel and Stout), <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Development</li> -<li class="isub2">Action and Feeling, Development through, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Bound up with Intellectual Development, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Parallel Accounts (Froebel and Stout), <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> -<li class="isub2">Self-Consciousness involving true volition, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Winch, Mr.—Criticism of Froebel, <a href="#Footnote_50">192 <i>note</i></a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Women’s Work in Education—Intelligent knowledge needed in addition to natural Instinct, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Work</li> -<li class="isub1">Condition of best work, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Play, Relation to, <i>see</i> title <a href="#Play">Play</a></li> -<li class="isub1">Religion and Work, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a></li> - -<li class="indx">Wundt, Prof., quoted, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> - -</ul> - -<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap">George Philip & Son, Ltd., London</span></p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Froebel as a pioneer in modern -psychology, by Elsie Riach Murray - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROEBEL *** - -***** This file should be named 54277-h.htm or 54277-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/2/7/54277/ - -Produced by MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet -Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, -set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to -copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to -protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project -Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you -charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you -do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the -rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose -such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and -research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do -practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is -subject to the trademark license, especially commercial -redistribution. - - - -*** START: FULL LICENSE *** - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project -Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at -http://gutenberg.org/license). - - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy -all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. -If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the -terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or -entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement -and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" -or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the -collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an -individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are -located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from -copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative -works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg -are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project -Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by -freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of -this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with -the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by -keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project -Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in -a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check -the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement -before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or -creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project -Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning -the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United -States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate -access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently -whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, -copied or distributed: - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived -from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is -posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied -and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees -or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work -with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the -work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 -through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the -Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or -1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional -terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked -to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the -permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any -word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or -distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than -"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version -posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), -you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a -copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon -request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other -form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided -that - -- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is - owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he - has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the - Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments - must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you - prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax - returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and - sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the - address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to - the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." - -- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or - destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium - and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of - Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any - money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days - of receipt of the work. - -- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set -forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from -both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael -Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the -Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm -collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain -"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or -corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual -property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a -computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by -your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with -your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with -the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a -refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity -providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to -receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy -is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further -opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER -WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO -WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. -If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the -law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be -interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by -the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any -provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance -with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, -promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, -harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, -that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do -or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm -work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any -Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. - - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers -including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists -because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from -people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. -To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 -and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive -Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at -http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent -permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. -Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered -throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at -809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email -business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact -information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official -page at http://pglaf.org - -For additional contact information: - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To -SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any -particular state visit http://pglaf.org - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. -To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate - - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic -works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm -concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared -with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project -Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. - - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. -unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - http://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - -</pre> - -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/54277-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/54277-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index ed267c7..0000000 --- a/old/54277-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null |
