Adult and child; how to help, how not to hinder. A study in development by comradship

Front matter

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HOW TO HELP HOW NOT TO HINDER

Contents

I Training the child for power.... 9

III The ideal of unity 29

IV Kindling the child 39

Chapter I

What should adulthood do in developing the child's power and character?

In the old methods of training the child, the adult was the direct and active agent; the child himself should be the chief agent in his own true development. His vital character must be based on the development of his own selfhood or individuality, and his selfhood can be developed only by his own self-activity. Adult interference, adult coercion, and adult lack of sympathetic reverence for the child as a thought of God, and a plan of God, have in the past dwarfed the child's true individuality.

Adulthood has done too much of the training of the child, and it has trained along irreverent and coercive lines, so that the development of the image of God in the child has been prevented instead of promoted.

Shotdd adulthood cease to train the child? No. It should value the vital character training of the child, and study its fundamental principles more than it has ever done. It should first, learn clearly the profound truth, that positive training produces power, and that negative or coercive training essentially weakens power. Power in every element of human development, physical, intellectual, and moral, increases by use and is weakened by interference with its use, or by nfeglect to call it into activity. Adulthood should learn, too, that vital character growth must be from within and not from without. A child cannot be "sand-papered into a saint".

Froebel's supreme and all-compf ehending ideal of character training is "A conscious growth towards the Divine' ' . What should adulthood do to aid the child in the achievement of this most productive growth?

Training for power 11

1 As the child is created in the image of the Divine, the supreme ideal of all teaching and training should be the development of this image; the selfhood, or individuality of each child, as the most essential preparation for his own happiness and true character growth, and to qualify him to do his own special work in promoting human progress.

2 It should, by providing appropriate life experiences, gradually develop in the child a consciousness of the fundamental law of unity in Nature, in humanity, and in the universe; and between himself and these elements of his environment. He should especially grow into a consciousness of the greatest unity — partnership between him and a universal power unseen which he will ultimately know as God. This is not merely an ideal, beautiful but not effective. It is a fundamental and universal principle, on which human progress largely depends.

3 It should kindle him by revealing to him by operative and other processes, a vision of his special power to achieve for humanity in some department of progress. Kindling and vision training are of great importance in securing his own fullest development, and in the promotion of a progressive civilization.

4 It should develop his achieving tendency. He reveals this tendency as soon as he can consciously perform any operative process. He does not merely try to store his ideals, he tries to achieve them. The loss of this tendency, or its weakening as a dominant element in character, robs life of its most productive growth in power; and virtue of its highest effectiveness in character.

5 It should guide in the true development of his physical, his intellectual, and his spiritual powers in harmony.

6 It should train him to search earnestly, intelligently, and persistently for knowledge, and to use it wisely for culture, and in qualifying him for more efficient service.

7 It should cultivate in him a productive love of music, art, and literature,

Training for power 13

that he may be inspired by the sublime ideals revealed in them, in order to pre-' serve in him the character balance necessary to his happiness, and to qualify him for higher visions yet unrevealed, so that he may add his most vital revelations to enrich the ideals of the race.

8 It should definitely train his emotional powers, so that they may become permanent, propelling, moral battery powers in his life. Knowing right, even willing right, does not always lead men to make prompt and vigorous efforts to achieve right. Froebel was the first great educator to understand the importance of emotional training, and to introduce in a systematic way plans to promote it. Well trained emotional power preserves through life the tendency that is so strong in early childhood; the tendency to endeavor p'ropip'tly to achieve the best we know and see. This is man's only sure way to develop higher pbwer and clearer vision.

9 It should develop his natural respect for law in the games he plays into conscious respect for the laws of the home, of the school, of the state, of society, of his own life, and of God. Law should be revealed to him as a directive force that multiplies his power and his efficiency, and not merely as a restraining force which interferes with the achievement of his plans. Law has, in the training of the past, been made to the child the bondman of coercion; it should be the free guide of his creative and achieving powers. The perfect harmony between law and liberty, between control and spontaneity, between guidance and freedom, should be revealed to him. What the Bible calls "The perfect law of liberty", should become to him the true basis of enlightened and considerate lawrespecting liberty. This attitude to law and to liberty is one of the most essential elements in vitally moral citizenship.

10 It should not rest satisfied with revealing to the child his responsibility for the evil he does; he should become conscious of his supreme responsibility for the achievement of the good he has power to do.

Training for power 15

These revelations and developments embrace the essential elements of vital character and power. They were all considered by Froebel, and definite and comprehensive plans were made by him for their natural, organic growth in the kindergarten, and for their continuous growth throughout life. His philosophy and the operative processes in good kindergartens, are worthy of careful study by every man and every woman who has the responsibility for the character development of even one child. His ideals in regard to what adulthood should do in developing a child may be summed up as follows :

1 It should develop his selfhood by operative processes.

2 It should relate his selfhood to the universe, to humanity, and to God.

3 It should kindle his selfhood with high ethical ideals to qualify him for wider and higher vision.

4 It should make his selfhood intelligent and progressive, by training all the elements of his intellectual power through the three stages of receptivity, reflection and creative achievement.

5 It should enrich his selfhood with art, music, and literature.

6 It should energize his selfhood by developing his emotional nature into a self-acting battery to impel him to the achievement of his ideals.

7 It should preserve his natural respect for law, and reveal to him by life experiences "The perfect law of liberty", the harmony between control and freedom.

8 It should reveal to him clearly and attractively his responsibility for achieving the good he has power to achieve.

9 It should develop his powers in harmony; physical, intellectual and spiritual powers.

10 It should make him conscious of his power, ,not of his weakness.

11 It should preserve his natural interest in knowledge, and train him to search for more knowledge, and use it independently.

Chapter II Developing the individuality of the child

Froebel's ideals in regard to individuality or selfhood are expressed in the following quotations:

"The spirit of God and of humanity is revealed most purely and perfectly by man, if he unfolds and represents his own being as much as possible in accordance with his individuality."

"It is the special destiny and life work of man, as an intelligent and rational being, to become fully, vividly and clearly conscious of his essence, of the Divine efHuence in him."

"I will protect childhood that it may not, as in earlier generations, be pinioned as in a straight-jacket, in garments of custom arid- a;ncient prescription that have become too narrow for the new time, I shall show the way, andi, I hop'ej the means that every human soul may grow of itself out of its own individuality."

"All progress, all culture is the result of the original creativeness of the minds of every age which have been able to increase the sum of existing intellectual and material wealth by producing something new."

All modern educational development is based on a reverent recognition of the value of the individual soul. Froebel in his kindergarten system first planned a related and progressive series of illuminating experiences, and of operative processes in performing which each child is a free, independent, self -active being; in order that he may develop his special department of original power, and thus be able to do his most effective work in aiding humanity in its upward progress. Reverence for the individual soul, and the vital importance of the conscious unity of each soul with the soul of humanity, are two of Christ's most vital revelations.

Froebel was the first to work out, after many years of study and thought, a system of training all children so that each one may become conscious of his own power, and eventually of his responsibility for using this special individual power, in doing his special work in aiding the race to make progress toward the Divine.

The processes of character training in their evolution have passed through three stages: coercion, co-operation, and creativity. In the coercive stage, adulthood recognized two duties — ^to stop the child from doing wrong, and to compel him to do right — ^right planned for him by adulthood. Mrs. Pipchin achieved a wide reputation as a child trainer by forcibly carrying out her fundamental principle — "To make children do everything that they did not like to do, and permit them to do nothing that they did like to do."

Every form of coercion is essentially dwarfing in its influence on the development of individual freedom. Comptilsion, either in doing or in not doing, robs the child of both freedom amd choice, and complete growth of individual power is not possible without both freedom and choice.

Co-operation, the second step in the progressive ideals regarding character training, is much higher than coercion. It recognizes the right of childhood to a kind of partnership with adulthood, but it is a one-sided and only partially productive partnership. It gives the child the right to co-operate with adulthood in carrying out the plans of adulthood. This may develop the child's skill, but it does not develop his power to plan, or to achieve his plans. It does not even consider the development of his original or creative power.

The child's individual power increases, when he performs operative processes to achieve his own plans. Individual power and achieving power develop truly only when the child makes the plans and tries to achieve them. Sometimes the child plans beyond his power of achievement. When his vision is greater than his skill, adulthood has a vital opportunity for productive partnership with the child,, by coming to his aid in successfully achieving his plans.

Creativity is infinitely more productive than mere co-operation in defining and developing the child's individuality. It is, of course, important that the child be trained so that he may have power to co-operate in achieving the plans of other people; but in achieving plans he makes himself, he has more joy in planning, more growth in achieving power, and more complete development of skill. He therefore develops a higher type of manhood in originality, in happiness, and in achieving tendency and power.

Froebel said "Man is a creative being — We must launch the child from its birth into free and all-sided use of its powers." Miss Susan E. Blow, one of Froebel's greatest interpreters, said, "Knowledge is food', but creation is life." "Creation" in its educational sense means original planning.

The motive or planning power of character is even more important than achieving power, and it should be trained even more definitely. As motive power is higher than operative and achieving power, it is susceptible to higher training. The element of greatest character value always develops most rapidly, when the child is creative in his work. The child's power of initiating original motives to activity, is one of the most vital elements of his selfhood or individuality.

Froebel's fundamental process in child development and training is self-activity. Self-activity means the activity of the child in achieving the plans of the child. Other educators have seen the value of activity in the training of operative power. A few have recognized its indirect influence on the will or the controlling power. Froebel was the first to see that training is defective at its most vital point, if the originating element of character is left undeveloped. Formerly men tried to develop the power of self-expression through expression. Wise men know now that this cannot be done. It is equally impossible to develop self-activity by activity alone. Under the old training only those whose selfhood was strong enough to recover from the dwarfing influence of coercion, became self-active in life. • In the work of the true kindergarten the child is not made a conscious imitator. Unconscious imitation is natural to the child. This fact is the basis of the law that demands that the child should have good models in the adults with whom he associates at home and at school; good models in deportment, in language and in life. If, however, he is trained to be a conscious imitator, he fails to develop the highest element of his character, the basis of his powers of vision, of planning and of achievement.

In every department of the work, in a good kindergarten, the child is trained to be independent, self-reliant, self-revealing, self-active and self-achieving. In the paper pasting, for instance, when under the guidance of his trainer he has folded his square of colored paper in definite ways,, and used his scissors to cut it as directed,, he is then free under the directive law of opposites, which has been revealed to him, to create out of the resultant square and.

triangles a design of his own. He cannot fail, if he follows the law of harmony of opposites, to produce a harmonious, balanced "form of beauty".

The child may do this on his first day in the kindergarten, and, when he does it, he has taken one of the most important steps in his development. He has taken the first step in learning by actual experience, not by information imparted by some adult, that he has power to be original and independent. He had, when he made his first cut, five pieces of paper, and independently guided by a definite law, he has produced a harmonious design. He knows that it is his own design. He learns soon that with other squares cut as he cut his first, he can make other patterns no two of which will have the same design. This day is surely one of the epoch days of his life.

Freedom and choice are wrought into his character, when he is allowed to choose the game to be played, the song to be sung, the story to be told, as he is allowed to do in his turn. In the games requiring partners he is trained to choose his own partner or partners. He, of course, gets his turn in being chosen, when tomorrow the chosen of today are the choosers.

It may be objected that the child is not sufficiently developed to choose wisely. The answer is that the only way to develop his power of choice, or any other power, is to use the power in regard to problems or conditions stiitable for his stage ®f development. The duty of the adult is to reveal fundamental principles gradually, to guide the child in making future choices more wisely. Principles for his guidance should always be revealed as enlightenment, never as a substitution for his own choice. Principles should qualify for wiser choice, but they should never destroy or weaken the power of choice on the part of the chjld. The development of the power of individual choice and independent decision rests on the regular exercise of individual choice and independent decision.

It matters comparatively little whether the child chooses harmonious colors for the mat he is making, or for the picture he is to make tomorrow, but it is of vital importance in his character training that he should become cbnscious of the right to choose, and of the duty of choice. Artistic principles should be revealed gradually to guide him to wiser choice, and to more perfect design. This is true of dl\ departments of the child's transforming work. In this way only can he become conscious of his power to transform independently, and to transform in ha;rmony with law. Law should supplement and direct individual power, but never interfere with its development.

The ideal of absolutism in national life naturally led to absolutism in child training. As the true ideal of democracy becomes clearer, men see more clearly that the freedom of the child under law, is one of the basic elements in his training. Absolutism requires the subordination of the individual to the nation; democracy develops a higher national life by producing more completely developed and more free individuals.

Every agency that robs a child of his individuality, and prevents the free output of his creative self-activity, dwarfs or warps the image of God in him. We should change the direction of the child's out-flowing selfhood when it is flowing in wrong directions by guiding him to other interest centres, but we should never turn it back or stop its current.

When the child is doing wrong, we should secure a change in his centre of interest, and keep his achieving and transforming powers in operation. Even doing wrong develops his individual power. His doing is right eyen though his aim or his plan be wrong. His doing is an effort to achieve his plan. It is the supreme way to develop his power, his skill and his character. It is the only way yet revealed of vitally increasing his power of vision, and his productive individuality. The worst character destroyers are "The child quellers".

Froebel's ideal was "to train free, thinking, independent men", and in order to achieve this great aim he believed "that training should rest on life itself, and on creative effort". He studied thirty years to work out an educational system in which, mainly by operative processes, the child may be developed in harmony with his philosophy, and he called it the kindergarten.

Chapter III Revealing the ideal of unity to the child

No other words meant as much to Froebel as "Inner connection". He beHeved that all things were created in universal harmony, and that growth should be ever progressive through inter-dependent and inter-influencing elements.

The law of unity or inner connection, he regarded as the philosophical basis of man's development socially, nationally and religiously. It is the central ideal of hope for man's growth to a higher civilization.

He knew that no great fundamental principles can become conscious, vital, and productive elements in a man's life, unless the apperceptive centres of these principles are started to grow in early childhood. He founded the kindergarten really to start the growth of the centres of every department of the child's power. In this 29 way only can the roots of the elements of highest human development be vitalized in the life of a child. Unless the apperceptive centres of power and of character are started to grow in the child's being in early life, he has nothing in his experience to which in later years the great elements of power and character may be vitally related.

Froebel, therefore, by the child's experiences in the kindergarten planned to relate him to God as his Creator and his Father ; to growth in the universe in Nature, in his environment of flowers, trees, streams, lakes, hills, and mountains, and living things such as butterflies, birds and anitnals; and to humanity in the home, in the school, in the church, and in its wider unities socially and industrially. He did not hope to make the little child conscious of unity in its fullest sense, between himself and humanity, between himself and Nature, between himself and God; but he did plan to start to grow in the life of each child the centres to which all these ideals of unity would naturally

The ideal of unity 31

relate themselves in later years, and without which vital, productive, character developing relationships, could never be perfectly effected. Indeed, if one had to express the philosophy of the kindergarten system in a single sentence, the briefest and most comprehensive sentence would be: the kindergarten aims to develop in the life of every child apperceptive centres of the most essential elements of power, skill, and character, so that th,ey m^y grow individually and i'n unity throughout his life.

A tree was Froebel's ideal type of unity, in which the centre is related to every branch, and twig, and leaf, and root; in which the life of the trunk develops the life of each part; and in which the fuller and richer growth of root, and leiaf, and twig, and branch, contributes to the growth of the trunk and of every other part.

In the garden each flower is shown to contribute its part in color and form to produce the beauty of the whole garden. Each one has its own individual beauty, and the lack of the individual beauty of one would mar the ge'neral effect of the whole. So in the woods, the hemlocks and the beeches, the pines, and the maples, the elms, and the birches have special majesty or beauty for each individual tree, and the unity of all produces the harmonious beauty of the forest. In the landscape the lack of hill, or mountain, or lake, or river, or green valley, or forest background, would impair the general beauty of the scenp. Gradually the little ones are led to recognize these elemental facts, and ultimately they become vital life principles, revealing the unity of life, and the duty of each life to beautify and strengtheai each other life.

When children are older, community work, in which children are grouped for united effort to make forms of beauty, or to construct forms with blocks or tablets in the "gift" work, may be planned to make children conscious of the need of each individual's share in the making of the perfect whole, and also to reveal the larger and more vital thought that human work is complete in the home, in society,

The ideal of unity 33

in the nation, or in the race, only when each individual does his part truly in harmony with all the rest.

For instance, in the first cut of the paper cutting occupation explained in Chapter II, the teacher may place the square on the centre of a small table at which four children sit, one on each side of the table. Each child takes one of the four triangles produced by the cut. In turn one of them places his triangle near the square at the side or at a corner, and the one sitting opposite places his triangle on his own side directly across the centre of the square, and in the same relationship as the first triangle to the side or the corner of the square. A third then repeats with his triangle at the side or corner next to him. A pause is then made and the children are asked to decide whether the form of beauty is complete or not. Having already learned by operative experience the law of opposites, and each one having already made many "forms of beauty" for the purpose of revealing his own independent individuality to his kindergartner, and of becoming conscious of it himself, they all recognize that the form is incomplete, until the last child lays down his triangle in a position of harmony with the others.

To make the lesson more definite each child in turn may take his triangle from a perfect pattern or "form of beauty" in order to show that the omision of one triangle, or the failure of one child to do his part truly to the best of his ability, destroys the harmonious perfection of the whole. Blocks and tablets may be used in the same way, and thus by operative processes in which each individual must do his part in harmony with his fellows, there are wrought into the fibre of the child's life two of the fundamental elements of human progress, an,d of high, achieving character-^first, that to make the fulfilment of his life work completely successful, he must become as perfect as possible as an individual; and second, his developed individuality must work in harmony with the individuality of his fellow men in order to promote a higher civilization.

Thus the child will come to recognize

The ideal of unity 35

in time, and to understand, the essential unity that should exist between the individual and the race. True individualism and true community spirit cannot be in opposition to each other. By the more complete development of individuals, is produced a higher community; and this higher community in turn produces a higher and broader race of individuals, who naturally produce a still higher community. Thus civilization advances from generation to generation.

By the "Trade songs and games" in the kindergarten, the child is related to the farmer, the carpenter, the shoe-maker, the weaver, the blacksmith, and the other workers to whom he is indebted for the conditions and supplies necessary for his life and comfort.

By the songs and stories he is led to recognize the inter-relationships necessarily existing between himself and the' other members of his family, between himself and his neighbors in the community, between himself and those whom he has power to help ; and ultimately between his life work and national life, and beyond that to universal life.

Thus day by day during the formative, symbolic peroid of the child's life, the great law of unity, inner-connection, inter-relationship, and inter-dependence, is wrought into the fibre of his nature so that when older he may be able to recognize and to fully understand this fundamental law, as it relates him to humanity, to the universe, and to God. Thus only can he learn that duty may be ever productive of joy. No formal teaching by parent, or teacher, or preacher, can give this law, or an,y other great principle vital, revealing, and productive power.

The law of developing life, and the process by which development may be achieved, must be wrought into life and wrought out of life in ordjer to make them productive elements in character.

Froebel based his educational philosophy on the law of inner connection, and planned the whole of the child's play and work in the kindergarten, in order that the principle might naturally unfold itself to each

The ideal of unity 37

child through life experiences in all the unities described, and also in the unity between man's physical, intellectual, and spiritual natures; between the receptive, reflective, and executive elements of his physical power; between childhood, youth, and manhood; between knowing, feeling, and willing; between control and freedom; and between the various subjects of study in relation to each other and to human development.

Froebel's deepest philosophical view of unity was his conception that the evolution of humanity depends on a definite interrelation'ship of development between the individual and the race. He taught that each individual should in himself represent the unified ideals of the race; that the individual man cannot be perfect as an individual, until be becomes conscious of the perfect type of the totality of the race in complete unity; and that race perfection will not be possible until the individuals composing it shall each be race inclusive.

This doubly inter-related conception of community, based on the inter-stimulating unity of the individuals composing it, and of the inclusive unity of each individual as representing in himself the evolution of the race, is the highest conception of the unity between a man and mankind that has ever been conceived. A unity composed of race revealing men, is a sublime ideal.

When parents and teachers understand the law of unity in its comprehensive relationships, they will be able to aid in its unfolding in the lives of their children.

Chapter IV

To do his best work, his real work in the world for God and for civilization, a man must be kindled in the centre oE his special power. With a perfect system of training there should be no "misfits" among men and women. The training begun in a good kindergarten and continued along progressive lines would reduce "misfits" to a minimum, if the training were universally understood by adults, and practised in the schools and homes of the world. Men and women would find their true spheres, and work would become joy, not labor.

The kindling of a child should not be left to chance. Kindling is so important that regular, systematic, progressively definite methods, and progressively unfolding plans for awakening the child to a stimulating consciousness of his possi- 39 bilities of avhievement in lifting his fellow men and in revealing new and higher ideals should be begun in the kindergarten and continued by operative processes adapted to his stage of development throughout his training.

A child performs operative processes, when in any way he makes his "Inner become outer" by revealing ideals in his mind by oral language, by written language, by art, or by transforming material things into new conditions of beauty, or of utility. He may be operative in revealing his own ideals, or in revealing the ideals of others. Operative processes directed by his own mind in the expression of his own ideals, are the only truly developing processes for self revelation, and for self-kindling.