The child, its nature and relations; an elucidation of Froebel's principles of education

Front matter

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Its Nature and Relations;

Preface

This little book appears in answer to many inquiries addressed to me, by letter and personally, concerning Frgebel’s system. When in Berlin, where my daughter pursued her study of the system under the Baroness Marenholtz, I communicated to one of our American friends, a gentleman of high culture, who was greatly interested in the Kindergarten method, our intention of introducing Frcebel’s system into America. He heartily approved, but when I suggested that the best way to do this might be to translate or write a book on the subject, he objected: ‘^No,” he said, would not do that; you know that our people are eminently practical; you must first show them practically what it is, this will excite interest and inquiry, and then people will be ready to read something on the subject. Anything written about it now would fall dead to the ground.”

We have followed this friend’s advice. We have exemplified Frcebel’s method in a Kindergarten, have trained teachers to spread the system, and, by the aid of an enthusiastic and devoted friend of the cause. Miss E. P. Peabody, who years ago became interested in the subject and has in lectures, conversations, and writings given glimpses of Frcebel’s ideas, the Avav lias, we think, been well prepared for the advent of this book.

Instead of relying entirely upon my own interpretation of Frgebel’s ideas as I have gathered them from his works, I have taken my clew from one of his personal friends and disciples, the noble and highl}' gifted Baroness Marenholtz-Buelow,* and have followed her as closely as I deemed her presentation of the subject adapted to the American mind and mode of thought.

Frcebel himself was not happy in the expression of his thoughts in writing, and therefore the personal, friendly intercourse which the Baroness had with him, her intuitive understanding of his often hidden meaning, make her worksf and teaching of the greatest value.

A French author, M. Guyard, wrote to the Baroness in 1851 when she was in Paris as follows:

Accept my warmest and most sincere wishes for the propagation of Frcebel^s method. He is perhaps the greatest philosopher of our time, and has found in you what all philosophers need, that is: a woman who understands him, who clothes him with flesh and blood, and makes him alive. I think, I believe indeed, that an idea, in order to bear fruit, must have a father

* The Baroness is now in Florence, Italy, where she was invited by the Minister of Public Instruction to introduce Feoebel’s Kindergarten and Normal Schools for training teachers.

t “ Das Kind und sein Wesen^\ of which this book is a free rendering, and Die Arbeit und die neue Erziehung'\ are the most important.

and a mother. Hitherto ideas have liad fathers only. As Frcebel’s ideas are so likely to find mothers, they will have an immense success. AVhen the ideas of the future shall have become alive in devoted women, the face of the world will be changed.”

So I confidently send forth this little volume, and trust that mothers anxious to do the best for their little ones, teachers who are truly and earnestly trying to fulfil their mission, philanthropists whose thoughts are busy in devising means to diminish vice and crime and to lift humanity upon a higher plane, philosophers who are searching for the cause of things, clergymen who do not believe in faith without works, — in short all intelligent persons, may find some helpful suggestions in its pages. It may perhaps be said, there is nothing new in these ideas; — we knew all this long ago. But is not the fact that the truth announced by Frcebel has long been latent in the minds of all, just the evidence we need that it is a truth ? In one sense there is nothing new under the sun; but a great many apples had fallen before Newton discovered the law of gravitation ! A great truth, a great discovery, is not the special property of any one individual, nor is it for any one nation alone; it is for the whole human family and must be of universal application.

In my anxiety to have Frcebel’s principles, those on which he based the Kindergarten, rightly understood, and to have many misapprehensions corrected, I may have unduly hastened the publication of this book, and for any defects in form or expression I ask indulgence.

Those familiar with German should not fail to read the original as well as many other very interesting and instructive books on the subject. May God speed the good cause in spite of all human imperfections !

Matilda H, Kriege,

Boston, May, 1872.

Preface to the Second Edition

It is highly gratifying to the publisher tliat a second edition of this book is so soon and suddenly called for. The absence of the author abroad prevents, however, any alterations being made in the new edition, and to meet the demand it is issued tliercfore as a literal reprint of the first.

New York, October 1872.

Chapter I. The New Education

The process of remodelling society, the reforms that have been going on in the last century, make a reform in education an absolute necessity.

The life of individuals, as of humanity, is not a chance succession of yesterday, to-day and to-morrow; it is no blind game that deals out to generations their lot; it is a connected whole which is ruled by eternal laws of development even as the microscopic world of the drop of water and the countless solar systems of the universe are ruled. Human society is an organism, and its single parts cannot be affected in isolation. What affects one member of this organism, reacts on every other, and therefore on the whole. Great political revolutions, the remodelling of states, social reforms, as well as important discoveries or inventions, the announcement of new truths, deeper insight, — all produce not only changes within circumscribed limits, but necessitate changes, perhaps improvements, progress in all realms of life.

How can Education remain unaffected? Has it not to prepare the coming generation for these altered, 5 improved conditions ? It is evident that it must be progressive too, and the responsibility rests upon it to so train up the young that the activity of each individual of future society may be felt as a blessing and not as a curse. In order suitably to educate the young for a future sphere of usefulness, education must not look at a present order of things merely, but must also consider what higher conditions of society these children may be required to meet, when they reach maturity, and for which they need training. Education should not therefore remain stationary', but should bo reformed according to the demands of the times. The old landmarks are removed not only in politics, but in science, religion, art, and industry; the limits are extended, the conditions for taking an active part, are heightened: and for every individual, in whatever department of human exertion he may choose his lifework, the requirements are greater and the number of duties increased.

The idea of general culture is scarcely fifty years old, and yet what a change in its requirements ! The justice of this demand for general culture in all grades of society is becoming more fully recognized. The common schools in their progressive tendency have acknowledged the rightfulness of the claim on the whole, but have they done all that is needful ? Without underrating the importance of improvements made in public instruction, we may put the pertinent question: have all the requirements that the present time has a right to make regarding harmonious, human development been fully met ? Have the best of our schools, V hilc imparting a knowledge of what is good, just, noble, beautiful and elevated, sufficient to satisfy the demands of a higher morality, also imparted the power to realize in life that which has been recognized ill principle ? Are their pupils fitted to enter upon those moral and social reforms that are needed to bring about a better state of society ? Alas, facts answer in the negative ! Look at the crowded prisons and houses of correction, the numerous hospitals and insane asylums, the increasing number of divorces, the wide spread immorality, the suicides and homicides, the immense increase of pauperism, — in spite of labor and commerce freed from former restrictions, and notwithstanding an enormous advance in the most important branches of industry — and then say what the testimony is in regard to education! Does not irreligion, mocking the highest aspirations of the human soul, itself supported by shallow reasoning and pampering coarse, debasing appetites, increase ? In spite of our many churches, are not fraud and corruption rampant everywhere, and are such the fruits of a true, healthful education commensurate with a high state of culture, the boast of our century ?

Yet all we have said touches only the outside of existing conditions. What misery is revealed, if we look into the hidden folds of society ! Selfishness in its coarsest and most refined forms, meanness of every kind, greed of gain, the barter of principles for money, these are the vices working secretly and claiming to be virtues. Shams of every sort prevail to such an extent that faith in unselfish devotion to principle in good men has almost disappeared, and the best motives of devoted souls are distrusted: they are martyrs doomed to fight against the argument that ^^this state of things has always been and will be as long as there are men and human passions”. Such an assertion merely shows that people have not intelligently and seriously studied the history of human development: for that history shows clearly the difference between the social condition of civilized nations and barbaric hordes and tribes; it shows too how far our culture is in advance of the primitive condition of our forefathers. The really great minds of all times and all nations agree in the belief that the human race is fitted and destined to attain a much higher degree of perfection, and consequently to a state of greater well-being and happiness.

But the solution of this problem, the working out of our destiny, is dependent on the harmonious development of all powers and talents, and on each stage of development it is essential that the degree of intelligence attained be balanced by the degree of morality expressed in life and action. To establish the equilibrium between intelligence and moral power as evinced in the outward life, is in a great measure if not solely the task that Education has now to attempt. The school alone is unable to accomplish it, because it takes into account almost exclusively the intellect, and merely imparts knowledge. But this by itself is not sufficient to prevent or to keep in subordination sin, crime and meanness. If ignorance may be charged with part of the evil, the greater part of it must be attributed to a lack in the cultivation of the heart and conscience, to want of exercise of the moral faculties, — culture which falls chiefly within the province of home, of the family and of society. If it were otherwise, we should not as now And that large numbers of our criminals are intelligent people who have had the advantages of schools. The history of every age shows that a one-sided cultivation of the intellect does not save men from evils of all kinds, and that it even helps them to commit wicked deeds more skilfully. The assertion that crime has diminished in the last century, may be true, but it does not appear that morality has gained on the whole. If the number of open, gross outrages on humanity has been less, yet the sum of more private wrongs, of unjust deeds, of fraud, unblushing selfishness and shame, has greatly increased. Human society bears on its crown the flowers of intelligence, while its roots rot in the swamp of materialism. The enlightened spirit of the age struggles up to the heights of culture, but its feet are fettered with the chains of low sensuality. In the midst of a wide spread but too superficial civilization, individuals everywhere are reaching after conditions which alone can secure their welfare and happiness. The gulf between insight and attainment, between aspiration and accomplishment, between the ideal and the reality, grows wider and wider, as the evils of society are more clearly recognized. The efforts for improvement are too often failures. Let no one accuse us of painting in too dark colors ! If we would reform society, we must first reveal existing evils and point out their consequences, not, however, ignoring the good that also exists, or failing to acknowledge at the same time the progress already made in certain directions. God is the same in all ages, and His light shines everywhere !

One of the evils of the present day we find to be the want of a true education, such as is required fora generation sound neither in body nor soul. This youthful generation is perhaps the least happy in many centuries. Precociousness of intellect, love of criticism, of excitement and self-gratification, are not the signs of a healthful, hopeful youth cherishing noble ideals which, realized in manhood, would bring about a purer state of society.

Only new and better men can create better conditions. These men must be the outgrowth of a new and better system of education equal to the demands of our present state of culture. The school must assume part of this work, but only a part, by enlarging its sphere, by incorporating fresh life elements. As all the activities of life make use of, or take advantage of, the discoveries in every branch of science, so the school must include the activities of real life, in order to prepare its pupils to combine theory and practice, thinking and doing. It should no longer be merely a place in which to acquire learning, it ought no longer to teach sciences apart from their application to life, but should prepare the young for the practical everyday work of their existence. Above all it ought to give its pupils opportunity for the exercise of moral powers. For this, free activity is requisite; only a free choice of the true and good gives to our actions the stamp of a higher morality. The study of historical examples, of elevated thoughts, of noble deeds, does not suffice for a truly moral education; we must furnish a field of action, in which our youth can exercise themselves in noble and generous deeds. Besides this they need conditions favorable to the acquisitions of good hahits as a basis for all virtues. No one can become a master in any great art by merely committing its theories to memory. Education must furnish more than verbal instruction. The Bible tells us to work and pray; that is, approach in thought, in aspiration, to the Most High, and show forth this spirit of communion in deeds. Mere verbal instruction is, of course, easier for teacher and pupil, but therefore hurtful to the latter. He gets used to a mere reception of facts into the memory without thinking or investigating for himself. But healthy, normal development proceeds differently. The young mind can receive properly only a very limited amount of instruction, can only slowly assimilate and make it its own. It at first only truly receives that which is presented in a tangible, a concrete form. But even in the contemplation of the concrete, of the object, it depends upon the organization of the pupil, whether by his own observation he gains a clear mental image which will make a lasting impression and be wrought into a perception, or whether the image is vague, the impression transient, and so the perception wanting.

The young mind feels, moreover, a desire to reproduce the images and perceptions it has acquired; to embody them in an external, concrete form, in order to make them more definite and clear to itself. This strongly defined need of the child’s nature, is suppressed by mere verbal instruction that comes far too early to load the mind through the memory with a burden of facts, weakening and destroying its higher faculties.

It is of the greatest importance to the well-being and happiness of all men, that each one should occupy that place in society, for which he is, by his organization and peculiar talents, best fitted. It is necessary therefore to recognize this natural inner bent at an early period, in order to bring outer conditions into harmony with it. In the realms of nature harmony prevails, because everything is in the place for which it is by its peculiar characteristics adapted; it does not strive to be something or somewhere else. What produces harmony in unconscious nature, must also produce harmony in the world of humanity, if a conscious obedience be rendered to the same law. The only means to secure this obedience and promote this harmony, lie in the recognition, even in childhood, of an inner vocation, for the fulfilment of which Education may then proceed to prepare the child.

Man will and must seek for happiness. He finds it onl}" when, in work, in the fulfilment of duty and general usefulness, he gives expression to his inner life. By no other means can he attain true happiness and contentment. If the way to this can be made smooth from earliest childhood, if education can guide in the right direction, and impart power to fulfil the individual vocation, thousands of missteps may be saved each one who otherwise will blindly follow natural impulse and seek happiness where it is not to be found. Human passions, which always lead astray, can only be counterbalanced by giving the higher aspirations of every human being opportunity for spontaneous expression, by so developing them that under all circumstances they can make their mark. Well-being thus secured through the higher moral powers, through the fulfil, ment of duties, and of a calling which exercises all the personal, ideal life-elements, is a strong safeguard against temptation to seek happiness in low sensual pleasures. Inner and outer harmony of existence will be thus attained, and strength gained to overcome discords in the conditions of the world.

Every self-conscious man needs a centre, round which his deeds, his desires and aspirations may revolve. The want of such a centre causes discord and unhappiness. The higher this central point is placed, the easier it is to discover the relations of personal activity to the life of the community. This relation of the individual to the community is implied when we speak of a higher morality, of true, exalted contentment.

For man is not a single, unconnected being, but a link in the interminable chain of mankind, closely bound to those who live with him, to those who lived before him, and to all who shall live after him.

At present we have only the semblance of such an expansion of individual existence into that of humanity; we have the assent of intellect but not the response of the heart. A semblance can never truly confer blessings; truth only can do that. But this want of reality causes universal discontent. If we would secure true happiness, education must from the very outset make its conditions possible. These conditions are supplied, when the natural impulses are gratified in an ideal manner.

This contentment the child experiences at first through that which is agreeable to him, as in physical sensations; then through the beautiful, in impressions made by external things, and later througli that which is good, in the approval of his own conscience. But in order to reach this goal, he must furthermore acquire good habits and self-activity, which beginning in childish play lead on to moral action.

For the supply of conditions favorable to such development, the child is dependent upon the two mighty agents of Education, the family and the school. As yet both fail to give what is required. Education in the family is left to chance, or is dependent on the natural capability and fitness of the parents, the best of whom have no sure guide in their work, and the greater part of whom deal thoughtlessly and arbitrarily with their children. The school, on the other hand, offers only the means for intellectual growth, and cannot therefore act directly on the moral faculties. It lacks means for promoting free activity, for calling forth the ideal in productions of beauty, and for exercising the full powers of its pupils, without which neither the moral faculties nor the individual vocation can be developed and strengthened.

To meet such conditions, a deeper knowledge of the child’s nature is needed, a knowledge of its original endowments and capacities, which have at first no definite form, no certain tendency, so that the educator may be enabled to direct them toward the true goal, the good, the beautiful and the true. If we can not do this in absolute perfection, still we may demand of Education that it keep this in view as its end, and that every reform in its systems shall regard the improvement of means for the attainment of this end, this ideal goal.

If the pedagogues of former times have expressed similar thoughts, and have attempted to realize them, yet the present condition of society proves that the means they employed were not, or are no longer, effective. A new genius was needed to add a fresh element to the old, to carry it still higher, and this genius we find in Friedrich Frcebel, who was the first to discover the means by which harmony is established between receiving and reproducing, learning and practising, knowing and doing, from the first dawn of conscious life in the child on through all subsequent stages according to their requirements. Here then we have a beginning of the solution of the great educational problem. Education can now proceed in accordance with nature. Body and soul are to be duly cared for, the one is not to be neglected and suppressed for the sake of the other, but the body, by discipline of the senses and cultivation of the natural impulses, is to be raised to an equality with the mind. If perfect union be not immediately attained, at least a more perfect balance will be established in the duality of human nature, and the two forces in it which we have been accustomed to regard as antagonistic, will be brought into harmonious action.

Ercebel does not deny that man has inherent tendencies and inclinations to evil, but he thinks that it is the province of Education to turn such tendencies into good channels, so that evil may become less and less. Who can determine the degree in which sin and evil may be eradicated by education? But unless it strive for this, education is without a true and firm basis.

The belief in salvation from sin through Christ is not here touched, for no one thinks that absolute perfection is to be attained by this mode of education; but a new beginning is needed, so that we may b}^ further development come nearer to the realization of Heaven upon earth, or the Kingdom of Heaven within us.

This new beginning must be made in the family at the commencement of the child’s life, by its natural educator, the mother. The mother must not be guided solely by instinct, for instinct is blind and does not lY suffice for the guidance of rational beings. She needs to understand all the child’s impulses, in order to satisfy them and give them the means to develop spontaneously and rightly. This science, the true science of mothers, Frcebel has put before us. By it the family will be able to exert educational influence, to prepare the soil, and, above all, to develop moral power, a task for which the school alone is not adequate.

No one will deny that education in the early part of a child’s life is eminently a woman question; for does not the duty of the early training of the child devolve upon the mother? And if, for some cause or other, the mother is unable to fulfil her duty, is it not to woman again that she has to intrust the charge ? But is every one of that sex, in virtue of being a woman, fitted by nature to assume such great responsibilities ? or is some previous training required to enable her nobly and conscientiously to fulfil her task, even as a man has to be trained for his avocations in life ? Are the ignorant capable of fulfilling this duty as well as those who have deeply and seriously reflected upon the subject, and have tried to make themselves acquainted with all that appertains to the laws of life and health, to the laws of morals and of mind ? Do our girls receive an education that fits them for the holy duties of maternity? Would not even the most intellectual mothers, if they were honest, admit that they had made grave mistakes in the education of their children, that they knew very little on the subject when they had the first child? Everybody seems to rely on instinct in this most important matter, ignorant that there is, or ought to be, a science of education^ with certain laws as fixed as those of every other science where like causes produce like results. Certainly instinct goes a great way in teaching mothers what to do with their offspring, but should rational human beings trust merely to instinct, with which, as we all know, our Creator has not so perfectly endowed the human race as He has animals? Has He not given us reason instead ? Is it not selfevident then that we should consult reason, and try to acquire knowledge, on a subject of such vast importance, so closely related to the destiny of the race ?

But on looking around us in human society, we must become aware, if we do not blind ourselves to the fact, that our knowledge on this most important point is very limited and crude. If poor helpless children could make an outcry against all the ill-treatment they receive, could protest against the outrages which they suffer, often at the hands of tender but mistaken parents, the world would be startled ! As it is, they have to bear their misery in silence as long as they are able, and often by shortened lives or ruined health do they pay the penalty of physical ill-treatment. Not so readily is the perversion of their souls, the stunting of their minds, traced back to earliest causes, as is their physical condition in later years. Yet it is true that the earliest impressions are the most lasting, and that character is formed, — irrespective of ante-natal influences, which, however, are not to be lightly estimated,— in the first years of a child’s life. Should we not then greet with joy those good and wise men whom Providence has sent and illuminated in such an important matter as the education of the human race ? Should we not be anxious to learn this new science ?

Our own country has had men who devoted their lives to the cause of education. Let us hear what Horace Mann says about physical deterioration: ^^The present generation is suffering incalculably under an ignorance of physical education. The fifteen millions of the United States, at the present day, are by no means the five times three millions of the revolutionary era. Were this degeneracy attributable to Mother Nature, we should compare her to a fraudulent manufacturer who, having established his name in the market for the excellence of his fabrics, should avail himself of his reputation to palm oflT subsequent bales or packages with the same stamp, or ear-mark, but of meaner quality. ***** The old hearts of oak are gone; society is sufiering under a curvature of the spine, and if the deterioration holds out at its present rate, especially in cities, we shall soon be a bed-ridden people.” Further he says on the danger of the Republic: ‘T do not hesitate to affirm that our republican edifice at this time, — in present fact and truth, — is not sustained by those columns of solid and ever-enduring adamant, intelligence and virtue. Its various parts are only just clinging together by that remarkable cohesion,— that mutual bearing and support, which unsound portions of a structure may impart to each other, and which, as every mechanic well knows, will, for a time, hold the rotten materials of an edifice together, although not one of its timbers could support its own weight: and unless, therefore, a new substructure can be placed beneath every buttress and angle of this boasted Temple of Liberty, it will soon totter and fall, and bury all indwellers in its ruins.-’ But of what can this new substructure be formed, save of the children who constitute the coming generation? It is the task of mothers to form their characters.

Pestalozzi has done a great deal to reform education, and was the first in history who called upon the mothers to aid him in his work; he knew well that education consisted not merely in instruction or, even worse, in mere memorizing of facts. He said, will make education the basis of the common moral character of the people, and will put the education of the people in the hands of the mothers.” And so he did, in giving them the Book for Mothers, or How Gertrude teaches her Children,''' If the family is not the holy temple of God, if the mother does not vivify the heart and head of the child, it is in vain to expect a reform in social matters. This was Pestalozzi’s belief, and it was also that of Friedrich Frcebel who devoted his whole life to the study of education, and to the practical embodiment of his ideas on the subject. His system is based so entirely upon the nature of the child and its requirements for development, that, after it is known and applied, people are struck with wonder that all those means which seem so simple and to the purpose, have not long been known and in use. Let us now see what he has to teach us.