Aids to family government

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

4«

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

Preface To The Second German Edition

The following book has found many kind and indulgent friends ; it has been received by mothers with favor ; indeed has been made a part of the family and household treasures by many, so that they go to it as a friend and counsellor when disquieted by doubt and uncertainty. The wish has been expressed to us orally as well as by numerous letters that it might find a ^yider circulation and be accessible to every mother in every position in society. Therefore the publisher has been moved to prepare a new and cheap edition which can be purchased by every family having the desire to learn from the experience of others, so that instead of subjecting each child to a special experiment they may first form an intelligent opinion as to the best means of aiding it in its full developement.

The first source of these leaves was the author's desire to be a counsellor and help to her own children when the mother's eye could no longer watch over them. If they are destined to go out to a wider circle and it is permitted to them to speak words of consolation to only one mother in a hundred, in the hour of anxiety to stand by her, in the moment of doubt to aid her in finding the correct solution of the nature and disposition of her child • if in homes filled with care for the bodily welfare of her darling, they are permitted to be a quiet, helpful adviser, then will they have

4 PREFACE.

fulfilled their mission. And richly then will the pen he rewarded which has so joyously moved for childhood out of which the new race originates, for the young mother and for parents whose high destiny it is to be the builders and educators of the future race. So go, little book, as in love thou hast been written, and excite and nourish love in the parental as in the childish heart.

Bertha Meyer.

Berlin, Oct. 1876

Contents

CHAPTER. PAGE,

I. The Beginning of Education 9

II. The Care of the Body 22

I

The last century has rightly been called that of humanitarianism, of idealism, — the present that of realism. The humanitarianism of the last century degenerated into sentimentalism, while the realism of our century has degenerated into materialism. The two centuries, however, do not stand in absolute contrast with each other, and our own is not to be regarded as wholly destitute of the higher sentiments. What the idealism of the previous century thought to gain by violent and revolutionary means, the realism of our day is gaining by patient and practical effort, disturbed, indeed, now and then, by volcanic irruptions, but ever with restless energy renewing the work and destined to reap, in' due time, its full fruition.

In the methods of our age the exactness of modern science is combined with the idealism of the past, and what is thus attained should not be, as formerly, the exclusive monopoly of a learned class, but should become the comlO FROM THE CRADLE TO THE SCHOOL.

mon property of mankind. This is true humanitarianism. In it is found the justification of our social struggles and aspirations, and the common bond of union between the two centuries.

II

Woman demands in our day, an increase of human rights, and she may well demand it. Prejudice and narrowness characterize all existing conditions in society, and especially do they -circumscribe the sphere of woman. Her resistance to oppression is therefore justifiable, even if the means employed and at times the end sought are not always the best.

Those who are opposed to the enlargement of woman's sphere advance an argument that is clearly unphilosophical. " If," say they, " the right to enter into public life is granted to woman she will lose her taste for domestic duties and for the training of children." But the natural instincts of woman are too strong to be thus destroyed. Her demand should only be for that enlargement and that liberty to which nature and the conditions of her life impel her. Such freedom can never impair her love of home, or render her less devoted to the sacred duties of the wife and mother whenever these may devolve upon her. Above all should woman be guarded against the necessity of entering into a repulsive marriage for the sake of a home, because the means of an -independent existence have been denied to her, and protected also should she be from the lonesomeness and neglect that are so often the lot of those who remain unmarried.

The right to choose her occupation should therefore be granted to woman. If her highest aspirations in life must remain unfulfilled, then let no social prejudice, no legal restriction, prevent her from seeking in another sphere that which shall make her at least a useful and honored member of society.

For woman, then, as for man, let increased culture, the evolution of character, be the common right. Here let the aspirations of our age find their justification and their strength.

We are thus brought to our real subject, one which, even if as old as human nature, is nevertheless intimately associated with the highest and holiest efforts of the present time.

A broader culture, a more perfect education, is the demand of our age. To promote these, numerous associations have been formed among workingmen in all parts of our German Fatherland. Our adult youth are thus seeking improvement and preparing for the exercise of higher rights and duties.

But how does the teacher of these adults find the soil which he would cultivate prepared ? Has it been made sensitive and receptive to the golden seed which he would implant therein ? O, here must we do violence to our pen in order not to speak of the evil which is inflicted on our youth. The imperfect education which ends in their fourteenth year, before boys and girls are old enough to understand the real value of life, and what it may justly demand of them, does not give to them all that their future will require, and in this deficient education we have the beginning of many evils which cloud our social state and threaten us with many dangers. Unprincipled demagogues take advantage of this half culture in order to pervert the teaching of the wisest and best friends of the people. What land does not afford abundant example of political and social error directly traceable to this source. The teachings of the great and noble leaders of thought carried out to their full extent cannot fail to elevate the physical and moral condition of the race, but, perverted by the imworthy, they plunge the right-minded but half cultivated man into an abyss of degradation, out of which he can rise only with the greatest difficulty. Therefore, no call is more urgent than that for an improved education from the very birth of the child, continually developing until the youthful soul is fully grown and ripened into harmony with the demands of our age. And here we find not only the calling of woman great and powerful, but joined and interwoven with all those movements towards human welfare which our age has undertaken. She will not be turned aside from her duties by the enlargement of her sphere, but will enter upon them only more earnestly and wisely.

III

There is a popular prejudice against the systematic training of very young children, a feeling that with the child the loving mother, however young and inexperienced she may be, receives intuitively the wisdom necessary to its care and development. The motherly instinct is relied upon as all-sufficient, while scientific culture is regarded with aversion. This prejudice among the people is a serious obstacle to human progress.

A large proportion of children die in the first year for want of proper physical care, but how much moral injury is thus done to those who survive no one can estimate. There are great evils in society which have their origin in the mismanagement of childhood.

Nevertheless we hear it said even by some highly cultivated persons that during the first years of life nature should be left to its own developement, and that all that is imposed upon it from without during this period is at best mere ornamentation, or may even be an injury to the innate powers.

But let us examine more exactly before we judge. Is there any thing more helpless or more worthy of sympathy than the new born child ? No animal appears so insignificant, or would, if left to itself, so quickly perish. And yet how sweet, how touching, is the sight of this feeble creature ! How it appeals to the heart for care and love, and how much, for it, depends upon the wisdom that is blended with that love ! In the first year of its life the child increases in weight threefold ; in no later year so much. But in this first year a very large proportion of children perish, partly from misguided love, partly from ignorance of the laws of physical health, and partly from neglect.

Love is as the breath of life to the young child, and happily this is wanting only in rare cases. But as it needs more than breath for its existence, so it needs more than love for its perfect welfare. The care of the little body must be not merely affectionate ; it must be intelligent, more so than can always be expected of the young mother, who, perhaps for the first time, holds in her arms so young and helpless a being.

The celebrated children's physician. Dr. Ammon, says : " It is a well-known fact that in no other period of human life are there so many fatal diseases as in childhood. A fourth part of all the children born die during the first year. This sad death-rate has its cause partly in the natural susceptibility of children to disease, and partly in the prevailing ignorance of physical law. Unsuitable nourishment and the long-continued breathing of impure air are the most common causes of early death. Toward the end of the first year the death-rate decreases, but remains very great until about the fifth year."

Let us now further consider the child with regard to its mental and moral developement during the first five years of its life. In no other equal period will it ever learn so much as in this. Shall, then, the uninstructed instinct of the mother suffice here for its complete care and culture ? When its little body is so completely dependent upon others shall its mind be thought capable of selfsupport and self-developement ? Jean Paul, in his Levana, says : " The first three years of life are the academic triennium, after which the gate of the soul, language, is first opened, A right training within these three years would render an after period of unlearning, of the correction of errors, unnecessary. For the child, — yet in its native innocence, speechless and inaccessible to verbal contamination, — the most essential things are, in these three years, determined. The parental hand may cover and shade the bursting germ, but not the blooming tree. All first errors are, therefore, the greatest, and mental diseases are the more dangerous the earlier they appear. Each new teacher effects less than his predecessor, and regarding the whole life as a period of culture we dare assert that he who, in mature age, journeys over the whole world, derives less from all that he sees than he did from his nurse," In another place he says : " Upon the earliest years of life should be bestowed the utmost care since here a little strength wisely employed may accomplish more than the greatest skill in after years when habit and the complexity of all the conditions have rendered the mind less plastic and receptive.

Consider first, morality. In adult life the greatest examples of virtue pass before us without affecting our conduct more than a flying comet affects the motion of the earth ; but in childhood the first impressions made from without, as by love, injustice, etc., exert an influence upon all the future. As it was Adam's first sin only, that, according to the old theologians, cursed the world, so it is the wrongs inflicted upon childhood that determine the destiny of the man ; for in childhood the Eternal works the second miracle — the gift of life was the first. It is in childhood that the divine is born of the human. In the self-consciousness that makes man a responsible being exists the divine conscience, and unblessed is the life in which the unfolding of self is always attended with the unfolding of evil, that is, in which a Judas always enters to betray the Saviour at his appearance. There has been too little attention given to this critical period of life, to its surroundings and its results. There are some who can recall to mind the hour when this consciousness of existence and of responsibility burst upon them and revealed the true glories of the universe. Life, especially the moral life, has first a flight, then a step, and finally rest. With each advancing year human nature is less easily changed, and a missionary can effect less in a wicked sexagenarian than an auto-de-fe." In another place he says : " All first impressions are long retained by the child, — the first bright color that it sees, the first music, the first flower, exist as a deep background to its future life. The child should therefore be guarded from violent and even from very delightful early impressions. Its tender, unprotected and excitable nature may be impaired or distorted by some misapprehension and the plastic form of its life may harden with some hideous false impression upon it."

And further he says : " The fruits of right training cannot be at once harvested, and you will often wonder that after doing so much, so much yet remains to be done ; but in after years the results of your labors will richly appear, for that which is planted must first germinate and break through its rude coverings before it can rise to rejoice in the sunlight and, in its turn, bear fruit."

Whoever doubts these words of this great master has but to look more carefully into the nature of children. Examine thine own heart, reader, and ask thyself whether the faults of thy child are not the reflection of thine own ; whether its obstinacy is not caused by thine own unreasonableness, by commands, uttered only with reference to a temporary convenience, — ask thyself whether its disobedience is not due to the inconsistency with which thou to-day commandest what thou to-morrow forbiddest ; whether its selfishness has not its origin in thine own selfishness, its lack of respect for adults in the uncharitableness with which thou speakest in its presence of thy friends and relations, perverting thus its otherwise trustful and loving spirit. Consider, also, how much of weakness and even cowardice in after life are due to the practice of terrifying children and of governing them by false threats, and by mysterious sights and sounds, which to them are such terrible realities. What countless errors, indeed, originate in our ignorance of the new-born soul, in our indolent neglect of its necessities, in the indifference that leaves all to go as it will, and finally in that merely impulsive love by which the child nature is so much harmed. Let us now pass to consider the practical means of imjDrovement.

IV

The greatest teachers of children and the best friends of their welfare have thought and written much concerning the problems of education, and many words of wisdom are to be found in their writings and discourses. Of all, however, Pestalozzi and Froebel have shown the clearest insight into the nature of children. Jean Paul says, prophetically : " The conditions under which the character of the child are to be formed, and the ideal according to which it is to be fashioned, may be demanded of me. But to this end one book among the endless multitude of books would not serve. Moreover, the books must possess the rare qualities of being able to understand and rightly interpret the closely folded characteristics of the child, for we do not see them as the full grown man, but only its embryo, and its nature is as difficult to discovei as the butterfly in the chrysalis to all who are not naturalists." Friedrich Froebel was this gifted prophet of the hidden nature of children which is such an enigma to parents and teachers, and for which Jean Paul demanded a solution. As the fortune-tellers of the olden time prophesied by means of the songs of birds, so Froebel disclosed in the unfolding nature of the young child its capacities, and found the way to understand and develop them in all their purity, fulness and beauty. He is the great teacher of children who has created and marked out the way for regenerating and elevating education so that it shall be able to prepare the young for the increased demands of our age.

Friedrich Froebel has made the German name celebrated in all the countries of Europe and carried it even to America, and his new educational system, and the institutions which have been established by his enthusiastic disciples, have borne everywhere the German name. Kindergarten. The child-buds, like flowers in a garden, under the care of the new teaching, should unfold into affectionate variegated human blossoms, delighting the eye of the beholder by the joyous brightness radiated from its own. And yet, long after Froebel's Kindergarten system had been introduced into other parts of Germany, and even into foreign lands, by his gifted and, self-sacrificing disciple, Frau Von Marenholtz Bulow, and spread its blessings in these places, it was forbidden in the city of Berlin as revolutionary and dangerous ! Forbidden ! One is astonished at this. The future generations will not believe it. To the exertions of this previously mentioned highly gifted woman permission was given by the Government, in 1859, to establish Kindergartens in Prussian cities and especially in Berlin, and incitement given to form a Woman's Union which assumed the task of establishing Kindergartens. A seminary was also established for the training of Kindergartners, as had been done by other cities. In the year 1869 the same woman established a second Union : " The Union for Family and Public Education," which had a wider aim, namely, v/ith the help of Froebel's methods to effect reforms in public and family edifcation.

This Union undertook to accomplish this by establishing jDublic Kindergartens in all parts of the State, by converting all institutions for the care of children into Froebel-nurseries, by the erection of common play-grounds for the young, by making the Kindergarten a part of the system of public instruction, by the dissemination of correct educational views in tracts and by lectures for the enlightenment of the public, and by many other similar means. This Union established a seminary for the training of Kindergartners, whose pupils are spread all over cultivated Europe, and some of these have established Kindergartens in America. They take charge of public Kindergartens, or the training in institutions for children is given over to them, or they take charge of the education of children in private families. Naturally they follow Froebel's methods. The parents first give their children over to the care of Kindergartners in the fourth or fifth year. About the same age they are admitted to the Kindergarten. The great importance of the correct treatment of children in the early j^ears of their life we have already shown. To further this end, the Union established another institution for the training of children's nurses, and for the still better preparation of Family Kindergartners in accordance with Froebel's methods. They are made familiar with the physical education of children from the earliest years of their lives, educated to domestic work, and taught how to take affectionate care of children in their plays and occupations. The younger pupils are permitted the care of children only after their third year.

BEGINNING OF EDUCATION.

but the older ones are honored by the care of even the youngest suckling.

An older institution is found in Hamburg, under the guidance of Madame Johanna Goldsmith. Its excellence is well known, and it renders valuable service in the establishment of Unions for family and public education, but it does not train children's nurses, but only family Kindergartners who do not wholly assume the care of children until after their third year. We maintain that the training of children's nurses is everywhere important and would not dispense with it in the Berlin institutions, and * the public seem to have recognized this, for it has served as a pattern for many similar institutions and orphan asylums both in Germany and Switzerland. But the efificacy of this institution extends much farther than temporarily giving to girls occupation as nurses and placing them in better social positions. It fits them to become better wives and more capable educators of their own children, and thus makes them aids in the regeneration and broadening the life of the race. This is the moving thought of all these Unions inspired by Froebel's spirit. They have not merely a temporary object in view, important though this may be. The whole race should receive from them a higher culture, and the maiden, the woman, be consecrated by them to the future holy calling of motherhood. Their mission will not be fulfilled until every girl, after she has completed her allotted time in school, receives also a course of training in an institution arranged according to Froebel's principles, and is made familiar with the care and education of children after the Kindergarten method.

We now come to the following closely-related points : — The young child is received by the Kindergarten, where its training is continued until it is of the proper age for the school. The latter carries forward the work by object lessons and spontaneous activity in accordance with

Froebel's system. After the instruction of the school is ended, the boy dedicates his future life to some art or trade with more highly developed senses, for his inventive and thinking faculties have been well prepared for his future use ; or, if he enters the paths of science, his thinking will be more intuitive and his intellectual resources more abundant than now, where mere cramming of the memory with scientific ballast has a narrowing and stifling influence on the expanding intellect. The girl, however, completes her education in higher departments of Froebel's institution, so that she may become capable of rightly developing and guiding children in families, and later her own, until they can be received into Kindergarten and school, where her work is not neutralized, but continued in the same manner and spirit.

In Hamburg the Kindergarten school, and an institution for higher culture, established twenty years ago by a Woman's Union, have admirably co-operated and supplemented one another and excellent results have been attained.

By the general application of these great principles, what a revolution in education may we not expect. What better prepared minds will our popular educators find than when they enter the halls of our societies for popular culture to announce to the listening thankful hearers the new era in education so long the subject only of prophecy.''

Fortunately, Froebel's ideas have penetrated our social fabric. His enemies can now only be designated as the enemies of human progress. The Kindergarten is a much sought institution, rich in blessings, and our school-men can hardly fail to see that it gives to its pupils physical, moral, intellectual and industrial culture. The demand of families for Kindergartners trained in Froebel's methods, and for nurses who have had training in the same methods, is so considerable that our institutions have not been able

BEGINNING OF EDUCATION. 2 J

to supply them in sufficient numbers. We cannot pressingly enough urge that more pupils be sent to these training schools, for only through them can Froebel's education impart its greatest blessing to all the people.

Let us, then, continue to work courageously and hopefully for the upbuilding of the future. " Love and strength, or inner harmony, are the poles of education." They are the poles of every great beginning. Nothing stands higher than the work of early training.

" The secret domestic word which the father gives to his children is not understood at the time, but as in a whispering gallery will it far away and by the future be heard."

Chapter II. The Care Of The Body

There is a popular prejudice against the scientific care and training of young children. We hear it asserted by the aged and thoughtlessly echoed by the young, that the love and instinct of the mother are alone sufficient to guide her in the care of both the body and mind of the child during the unfolding years of its life. This prejudice is so deeply rooted and so injurious that we deem it a duty to oppose it with the facts of experience and with the earnestness of deep conviction, hoping thus to arouse some fond mother from her dream-like life of love and feeling, and to guide her in the earnest and intelligent care of her child.

Fear not, young mother, that this awakening to duty will impair thy love. Rather will love be purified and ennobled by it, and the glory of motherhood, which poets and artists delight to celebrate, and which after thousands of years still makes the name of Cornelia illustrious, will also irradiate thy face and crown thy life with enduring honor.

Let not this anxiety for the care of the body be regarded as excessive, for between mind and body who shall distinguish so exactly as to be able to say what, in human culture, pertains to the one and what to the other ? Let us rather regard every act performed in behalf of the child as important, related as all is to the entire organization and character.

THE CARE OF THE BODY.

Resulting from the excessive reliance upon the motherly instinct there is a prejudice against books that profess to instruct in the care of children, " I would never have believed that you would train your child according to the rules of a book. I thought you too sensible for that," said a cultivated young mother in my hearing to another, in whose hand she saw a copy of Jean Paul's Levana, and she evidently thought herself wise in thus admonishing her friend, but truly it brought the blush of shame to my own face to think that in our highly cultivated and scientific age such a sentiment could find expression, or be deemed worthy of refutation ; and yet it is as often heard as if all our knowledge originated within ourselves ; so completely is it forgotten that we derive it mainly from others.

Do these objectors to book-learning imagine that a thoughtful mother goes to a book for instruction in every trifling detail in the management of her child ? Can they not understand how the thoughts of the wisest may also enrich the mind of the young mother, and may call her attention to things that would otherwise wholly escape her notice, and that thus her deficiencies may be supplemented by the good counsel of those who have had a wider experience ?

Such should the instruction of mothers be — not an exact pattern to be followed in detail, but rather that which shall elevate the feelings, quicken the perceptions, and above all develop a willing and teachable spirit.

Therefore read, young mother, whatever may contribute to thy knowledge of the sacred duties that devolve upon thee. In adult life the child will bless thee, and the author who has instructed thee. Jean Paul says : " Every mother, or still better, every bride should read books upon the management of children, therewith on all sides like a jewel to cultivate and polish herself, in order that the

FROM THE CRADLE TO THE SCHOOL.

motherly instinct may more easily perceive that which is obscure in the child's nature, and when perceived guard, care for, and elevate it." This upon culture in general.

Concerning the bodily care of the child, read, dear mother, before the new life rests in thy arms, and before its heart beats at the portals of thy heart and thrills thee with thoughts of the motherhood that awaits thee. Learn diligently how thou art to cherish and to provide for it, and what, from thee, it may demand and expect. For this study is to be recommended the excellent book of Dr. Von Ammon : " The first duties of the mother, and the first care of the child." Hufeland's old work, "Good Counsel to Mothers," still retains its value, and treats of some things not given by Von Ammon.

If the time of pregnancy is thus employed in learning the sacred duties soon to be imposed upon thee, the higher mental state thus attained will enable thee to pass safely through many things that would otherwise annoy and will give strength to endure all in view of the happiness that awaits thee.

Regard thyself at this time not as ill ; the pains to which thou art exposed are not evidences of disease. A double life pulsates in thee, and that is indeed not easily to be borne. But the more thou regardest it as an evidence of thy health, and hence livest in thy accustomed manner, actively employing thyself, the more will thy intelligent exercise do away with the inconveniences which annoy thee. Yet the new life that is being formed within thee must not for a moment be disregarded. Thou art no longer a young and free maiden, canst no longer seek thine own pleasures, or take violent exercise either in dancing, running, or working -, especially not clamber upon ladders or otherwise and not remain long sitting upon the earth ; in short, reflect that every sudden inclination, every shock, may cause the loss of the being