Froebel and education by self-activity

Preface

For many years I have been a student of Froebel's principles and methods, not only in books, — Froebel's own and those written by others, — but also in actual practice in the kindergarten. My attention was first called to his system when, as headmaster of a large London school many years ago, I had occasion to notice the extra brightness and teachableness of some little boys who had been, at least partly, trained on Froebel's plan. Some years after this, when under the direction of a small band of public-spirited educational reformers, I endeavored to establish a training college for schoolmasters in secondary schools, my attention naturally was drawn with redoubled force to Froebel. The attempt failed ; partly through lack of funds (one of froebel's constant troubles), and partly through lack of support in the schools. But my four years' labor taught me many things ; and amongst others it taught me to sympathize keenly with those who, in furtherance of new ideas, struggle to found educational institutions. What is more to the present purpose, however, is that during that period I learned to see clearly that Froebel's system is the only system in which the details of actual practice are the real outcome of sound psychological vi PREFACE

principles, and in their application are continuously governed by those principles. As our knowledge of psychology grows, the principles will certainly require some modification; and in consequence the practice will have to be slightly changed here and there. But if ever the practice ceases to be the distinct expression of the psychology, the plan will cease to be FroebePs.

Ever since the period I have mentioned I have been a frequent observer of kindergartens and of the children in them ; and of late years I have had much to do with the examining of students who are trained to be kindergarten teachers. Naturally enough I have often been led to speak and lecture on FroebePs principles and methods, in London, at Cambridge, and elsewhere ; and through the courtesy of the editor of the (London) Journal of Education some of my lectures have from time to time appeared in his pages. And now, again through his courtesy, I am allowed to freely use such parts of those printed lectures as seem to me useful for my present purpose. They were indeed written with the idea of their some day forming part of a book; but, as they stand in the following pages, they are much altered, added to, and abridged. The chapters of which they form parts are chaps, iii, iv, vi, and viii.

The plan which I have adopted for expounding my subject, will, no doubt, reveal almost at once a certain amount of repetition. This I am quite aware of; though I may say that the amount of repetition is not great. I have chosen this mode of treatment because I have learnt from long experience that it is

PREFACE vii

the one best suited to students. After giving a brief life of Froebel in chaps, i and ii, I plunge at once into The Education of Man in chap, iii, — but only to deal with such of its leading principles and views as are fundamental and at the same time are likely to offer difficulties to beginners. In chap, iv I enter more into the details of the Mutter- unci Kose-Ueder, and restate some of the principles already spoken of, but now in connection with the games and songs which the book sets forth. It is not until I come to chap v that I attempt any complete statement of Froebel's principles and methods, as far as they refer to physical and intellectual training, — leaving the ethical training for chap. vi.

When through a long period of time one has been a constant student of some particular subject, it becomes extremely difficult to attribute to their right sources all the ideas concerning it in possession of which one happens to find oneself, — and quite out of the question if the possible sources are numerous. Besides, in common politeness to oneself one must consider some of the ideas home-grown, even though they resemble ideas to be found elsewhere. I have, however, done my best to acknowledge all conscious borrowings ; and if it is to be my unhappy fate to have others brought to my consciousness later on, I apologize beforehand, and will make due reparation in other editions.

I have added two appendices at the end of the book ; one giving a chronological list of Froebel's writings, and the other giving the names of such books on Froebel and his system as I myself have found valuable. To have given a complete bibliography of Froebelviii PREFACE

literature would have doubled the size of this volume. I am conscious that there must be many American books on Froebel which I have not mentioned. But though several of these are known to me by name, I have been unfortunate enough never to have seen them.

While the pages of this book were passing through the press they had the very great advantage of being read by Madame Michaelis ; and the Index at the end is due to the chivalrous help of my friend Mr. G. F. Bridge. To both I offer my sincerest thanks. The book will always be associated in my mind with the memory of their kindness.

H. COURTHOPE BOWEN.

3 York Street, Portman Square, London, W.

September 15, 1892.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. Introduction — Early Days — Education at

School and University. 1782-1816. . . 1 II. Froebel's Experience as a Teacher and Educational Reformer. 1816-1852 . . .22

Chapter I Introduction — Early Days — Education At School And University

1782-1816

Some writers on education, like Locke and Rousseau, direct their attention mainly to the rearing of individuals of a particular class, or at any rate individuals separated from other individuals ; others, like Milton and Rabelais, dwell most on the results of education ; others again, like Mulcaster, Hoole, and Brinsley, are chiefly busied with the work of a school ; others, like Comenius and Pestalozzi, taking a wider view, bring forward the question of popular instruction, and endeavor to found a philosophy and a science of education — though Pestalozzi remains to the end more of a philanthropist than a philosopher. Of all these Froebel most resembles Pestalozzi. Indeed, in more senses than one Froebel is the disciple of Pestalozzi. Not only did he receive his first impulse as a teacher from a study of the writings of the great Swiss philanthropist, but for two years he attached himself to the institute at Yverdon in order to acquire

l a personal knowledge of Pestalozzi and his work and methods. Moreover, apart from this, and from his often expressed admiration, his able and enthusiastic exposition of The Book for Mothers in his letter to the Princess Regent of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt would alone suffice to show that, in his earlier years at least, Froebel looked upon Pestalozzi as his master. But Froebel is more than a disciple. He is himself an original thinker and an original worker; and in one department of education — and that by no means the least important — he stands by himself, without a rival.

The old, unsound and narrow traditions of the Renascence lingered on in the latter half of the eighteenth century — as indeed they linger still here and there both in England and America. Except to fond, and not always wise, mothers the child remained supremely uninteresting until he could be put to his book ; and when he was old enough for this, " putting him to his book " was all that education meant in fact as well as word.

There had been some improvement in the curriculum of schools used by the less rich classes of the community, an example of which will be found in the school to which Froebel was sent as a boy ; but beyond this by no means general reform of the curriculum things had changed but little anywhere.

With all his enthusiasm for education and his desire to found it on a scientific basis, Comenius had had but little scientific knowledge of child-nature, and troubled himself not at all to acquire it. He constantly insisted, it is true, upon the exercise of

INTRODUCTION 3

the senses, and an education in accordance with nature ; but his exercise of the senses soon reduced itself in the main to the use of pictures with a view to a readier and more intelligent acquirement of language, and even in his ergastula liter aria, or literary workshops, the manual and other work introduced was intended to aid poor children in partly getting their own living while at school, rather than to exercise faculty ; while his "nature" was as quaint and conventional as that in a pre-raphaelite picture. None the less, however, Comenius was the true founder of educational method. Locke's psychology was based on a knowledge of adult mind, not child mind. He knew little about children under the age of ten or eleven. He wrote about education in a common-sense, man-ofthe-world manner rather than as a man of science; and so his book, though highly suggestive and stimulating, does not always help us, and is at times unsound. Eousseau was the first to show us where and why we were all blundering, when in his brilliant, incisive way he declared that we did not understand children; that knowledge of child-nature and child-mind was the prime requisite for every teacher ; that we made far too much of books, and introduced them far too soon; and that we were in such a hurry to force children out of childhood and into manhood or womanhood that we ran great risk of hurrying them into their graves. " Let childhood ripen in children " is the keynote of the new gospel. But when he turned to sketch a practical plan, Eousseau's love of paradox, the disgust he felt for the artificialities of society, the tendency which was in the air to separate the individual from the general mass and to proclaim his rights, and probably also the example of Locke — all this led him to propound a scheme as fantastic and impossible as ever entered the wayward mind of a madman — to separate the child from his fellows, and set him in a wilderness.

But Eousseau inspired Pestalozzi — to such an extent, indeed, that Pestalozzi actually tried to carry out the plan with his own son. The folly and danger of the attempt, however, soon became apparent, and it was dropped and never resumed. The best of Eousseau's doctrines, nevertheless, were not abandoned ; and it was through Eousseau's admirable and convincing exposition that Pestalozzi was persuaded to base everything in his own system on intuition, that is, on the effect produced in the mind by direct intelligent perception of real things, — to which Pestalozzi himself added a simultaneous training in language as the means to express the mental activity produced by intuitive exercises. This was a service of great importance to education ; and on it his reputation as an originator will always chiefly rest. The department of language-teaching benefited immensely by the plan; but, unfortunately, the study of common objects suffered in proportion, for only too frequently the object itself was not in any true sense observed or made to produce an intuitive exercise, but was simply employed as something about which more and more elaborate statements might gradually be built up. Still, this was not always so, and the applications of the principle of intuition to the studies of form and of number by Pestalozzi's colleagues

INTRODUCTION 5

under his auspices, have been the prime cause of most of the improvements in method which have since found their way into our schools, — the prime cause, but needing much modification in the mode of procedure. But what Pestalozzi failed to see — at least to see very distinctly — was that before intuition there is a period consisting mainly of sensation and confused emotions, commencing in the very hour of birth, during which the consciousness of the child is endeavoring to work its way towards clearness and precision. He does not ignore the period, as his Book for Mothers shows. But he fails to grasp its facts and to arrive at any clear practicable method for its treatment. He provides his mothers, as Professor J. H. Von Fichte points out in his Problem of Popular Education, with an ABC of intuitions, whereas what they require is an A B C of sensations and emotions. It is precisely in this period that the genius of Froebel is most at home and most original. Froebel was possessed of large and generous views on education as a whole, and on its methods and results as wholes ; but it is the work which he did for the education of infants between the ages of three and seven that chiefly demands our gratitude, so far as his aims have been realized up to the present ; in the future, unless I am seriously mistaken, his greatest service will lie in the reforms which his principles and methods will have forced on our schools and colleges. What those principles and methods are it is the purpose of this book to make clear. But before entering on my exposition, it will be best, I think, to briefly relate the events of Froebel's life and education and to give a short account of his experience as a teacher and educational reformer, in order that my readers may form some conception of the kind of man he was, and forever put from their minds the idea that h<3 was an enthusiastic but ignorant peasant who was fond of children — an idea which not infrequently seems to haunt the obscurer recesses of the minds of those who even now are bold enough to scoff at kindergartens and their means and methods, and is only too liable to be confirmed by the mere sentimentalities about little children which at times still masquerade as Froebelian doctrine.

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel was born on April 21, 1782, at Oberweissbach, a village in the Thuringian Forest, in the principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. His father, Johann Jacob Froebel, belonged to the old Lutheran Church, and was the chief pastor of the district. 1 His mother died before he was a year old, so that he could not even remember her. Johann Froebel's parish was a large and scattered one, and gave him far too much to do to leave any great amount of time for the proper ordering of his home, or at least for that constant attention which young children need. The consequence was,

1 1 draw my facts in this chapter mainly from Froebel's Autobiography, contained in a letter to the Duke of Meiningen written in 1827, and from a somewhat similar letter to Krause in 1828, and in part also from Dr. Wichard Lange's Reminiscences of Froebel, and Hanschmann's well-known Life of Froebel, together with articles in various encyclopaedias. The Autobiography , though of very great value, was not written till Froebel was forty-five years of age, and some allowance must be made for this when we are considering what he says about his earliest years.

EARLY DAYS 7

that the child was left very much to the care of the servants, who knew how to take advantage of their master's absorption in his work, and in their turn handed the little boy over to the care of his brothers, who were somewhat older than himself. 1 Throughout the whole of his life, he tells us, he was practically a stranger to his father, whose severe religious views hung heavily on the little boy and who never succeeded in understanding the troublesome, dreamy, neglected child. When he was four years old, his father married again, and for awhile the new mother was loving and careful of her stepson. But as soon as she rejoiced in a son of her own, the motherless boy was left once more mainly to the care of his brothers and the servants. That he should become mischievous and unruly, as he tells us he did, was only natural ; for of education he seems for some time to have had none but that which his playfellows, and woods, and flowers, and birds, of which he was always passionately fond, unconsciously afforded. When he could get leave — and probably sometimes without waiting to ask for it — he would wander with the others in the forest on the slopes of the Kirchberger Hill, — which rose from the very churchyard in the front of his

1 These were as follows: (1) August, who died young. (2) Christoph, who became the clergyman of Griesheim after having studied at the University of Jena, and died in 1813. He was the father of Julius, Karl, and Theodor, to educate whom their uncle, Friedrich, settled in Griesheim in 1816. (3) Christian Ludwig, first a manufacturer at Osterode, and afterwards (from 1820) associated with Friedrich, —horn 1770, died 1851. (4) Traugott, who studied medicine at Jena, became a medical man, and was burgomaster of Stadt-Ilm. There were no sisters.

home, — listening to the wind amidst the branches, and watching the movements of the wild animals ; or at times he would work among the plants and flowers of his father's garden. His father taught him to read, but only with great difficulty; and felt too discouraged to attempt anything more ; while very unfortunately, the pastor had some difference with the headmaster of the boys' school, and could not send Friedrich there. So, till his tenth year, the boy received no direct regular education of any kind except what he could pick up in the girls' school of the village, where the work consisted chiefly in learning Bible-texts and hymns by heart.

At the end of 1792, when Friedrich was ten years of age, his mother's brother, Superintendent Hoffman, who had long since lost both wife and child, expressed a desire to have the youngest son of the sister he had loved dearly to live with him for the purpose of education. The wish was granted; and for four years the boy had a free and happy life. Hoffman, who held a position of some dignity in the church at Stadt- Ilm, a little city not far off, was as humane as he was distinguished, and as gentle as he was earnest „and decided. He sent the boy at once to the town school, where he found plenty of companionship, though through his general backwardness and lack of strength and agility, it was some time before he could take his proper share in the games. But the boy felt that in his uncle's home he was loved and trusted, and was perfectly happy. Looking back at the Stadt-Ilm school some thirty years later, he tells us in his Autobiography that the subjects best taught were reading,

EARLY DAYS 9

writing, arithmetic, and religion. " Latin was miserably taught, and still worse learnt. Here, as in so many similar schools, the teaching entirely lacked the foundation of first principles." In arithmetic he made some progress. But in physical geography, he says : "We repeated our tasks parrot-wise, speaking much and knowing nothing ; for the teaching on the subject had not the very least connection with real life, nor had it any actuality for us, though at the same time we could rightly name our little specks and patches of color on the map. I received private tuition, also, in this subject. My teacher wished to advance further with me ; and so took me to the geography of England. I could find no connection between that country and the place and country in which I myself dwelt, so that of this instruction also I retained but little. As for actual instruction in German, it was not to be thought of; but we received directions in letter-writing and in spelling. I do not remember with what subject the teaching of spelling was connected; I think it was not connected with any ; it hung loosely in the air. I had, besides, lessons in singing and pianoforte playing, but without result." Not a bad list of subjects, certainly, had they only been properly taught ; but unfortunately of the two schoolmasters from whom he received instruction, " one was pedantic and rigid ; the other was large-hearted and free. The first never had any influence over his class ; the second could do (or have done) whatever he pleased with us"; but somehow it did not occur to him to make much use of his opportunity.

The consequence was that when Froebel returned to his father's house at the age of fourteen, he had not learned nearly as much as might have been expected; at best, he thinks, he had acquired some elementary notions of mathematics, a subject of which he afterwards grew to be fond and in which he eventually gained considerable proficiency. This, however, is probably in part an exaggeration. It is extremely difficult to describe accurately in middle life the precise origins of the various influences which moulded our early childhood ; and still more difficult is it to assess the precise amount of each influence. Froebel, however, was a dreamy, restless child, who cared little for books, and still less for dry, formal instruction, and so no doubt got less from his school, even such as it was, than he might have done. But he had learnt to love and reverence his uncle — a lesson he never forgot, and his delighted observation of plants and animals had made considerable progress. The time had now come for Froebel to choose a calling and earn his bread. Two of his brothers, Christoph and Traugott, had already devoted themselves to study, and his father's means would not allow of another son at the university. The result was that, with his own cordial consent, he became, on Midsummer Day in 1797, a two-years' apprentice to a forester in Thuringia, who had also a good reputation as a surveyor and valuer. His object was to learn forestry, valuing, geometry, and land-surveying, so that, by the addition of farming later on, he might become a thorough agriculturist — a calling from which, on the continent, much was expected just at this period. The experiment did not prove wholly a

EARLY DAYS 11

success. The forester was too busy to devote much time to his apprentice, and though he gave plentiful evidence of many-sided knowledge, he did not understand the art of conveying it to others, " especially," adds Froebel, " because he had acquired what he knew only by dint of actual experience " ; in other words, his knowledge was empirical and not scientific. Froebel's life for two years in the forest had four aspects, he tells us : the homelier and more practical life ; the life spent with nature, especially forest-nature; the life of study, devoted to mathematics and languages, for which he found a good supply of books ready to hand ; and the time spent in gaining a knowledge of plants, in which he was much helped by books on botany lent him by a neighboring doctor. Botany became a passion with him — so much so that he says, "My religious life now changed to a religious communion with nature, and in the last half-year I lived entirely amongst and with my plants, which drew me towards them and fascinated me." He spent some time in constructing a map of the neighborhood, but a great deal was given to solitary reflection. Slowly but surely an idea of the oneness, the continuity, which underlies all nature began to dawn upon him, but not yet in its entirety. Here too, and afterwards at Jena, he reflected on his previous education, and came to the conclusion that the ordinary school methods, which had failed to reach what he felt was within him, were of little value. Some strolling actors came into the neighborhood, and he was enchanted with them, and afterwards suffered a severe reproof from his father for the wickedness of play-going.

But the two years came to an end, and at midsummer, 1799, lie returned home, though the forester would gladly have retained his services. His desire for knowledge — especially for knowledge of mathematics and natural science — had become so great that nothing could turn him aside from pursuing it. He only remained at home a few weeks, and then started for the University of Jena to convey some money to his brother Traugott who was studying medicine there. Through his brother's intercession he was allowed to stay on and finish the term, and then an arrangement was made by which he realized some property left him by his mother, and formally entered the university. He gives a formidable list of the subjects, lectures on which he attended: applied mathematics, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mineralogy, botany, natural history, physics, chemistry, accounts, cultivation of forest trees and management of forests, architecture, housebuilding and land-surveying. He also continued his topographical drawing. " I heard nothing purely theoretical except mathematics," he says, and grumbles at the absence of philosophy. He was dissatisfied. The order of progress in the various courses of study was arbitrary, he tells us, and showed little or no inner connection. He felt this in pure mathematics, still more in applied mathematics, and most of all in experimental physics. The same criticism has been made on other universities outside Germany, and in later times than Froebel's. But the reason for his failing to get all the good he had hoped from his studies lay partly in the fact, which he himself confesses in the case of mineralogy, that " in consequence of his defective preparation he found insuperable difficulties in his way, and perceived thereby that neglect is neither quickly nor lightly to be repaired." Moreover, his mind was too speculative for the definite routine of university work. Instead of studying hard at a few things, he was thinking about unity and diversity, the relation of the whole of nature to its parts, and. of the parts to the whole. His life at Jena, though necessarily frugal and retired, was desultory, and after a year and a half the failure of means brought it to a close. For nine weeks he was detained in the university " career " for debt, but this being at length, after much wrangling, discharged, he returned home, not in the best of spirits.

His stay at home was short ; but during it he found time to begin his acquaintance with G-erman literature ; and as he puts it, he began to know the names of Schiller, Goethe, and Wieland. Winckelmann's Letters on Art he already knew. Soon he went off to Hildburghausen to study farming with some relatives on his father's side. Here he became distressed — not for the first time — at his relations with his hard, but hard-working father, who was now an old man. He recognized in him " a firm, strong will, and that, at the same time, he was filled with noble, self-sacrificing endeavor. He never shirked skirmish nor battle in the cause of what he deemed the better part ; he carried his pen into action as a soldier carries his sword, for the true, the good, and the right." While pondering over the letter he meant to write in order to reveal himself fully to the stern old man, he received (November, 1801) a letter summoning him home. His father was ill and almost bedridden, and wanted his help. It is pleasant to know that what was to have been attempted by letter became possible by word of mouth. Father and son were completely reconciled before the former died in February, 1802.

At Easter in this year Froebel undertook the post of actuary clerk in the Forestry Department of the Episcopal State of Bamberg; and again spent much time out of doors in the companionship of Nature and of educated people. In the early spring of 1803, the Episcopal State having been transferred to Bavaria, Froebel gave up his situation and went to the town of Bamberg, knowing that a general survey was in contemplation, and hoping to get an abundance of work. In this hope he was not deceived ; but no permanent employment resulted. In 1804 he held the post of secretary and accountant of a large country estate belonging to Herr von Voldersdorf in Baireuth ; but only for a short time, as he had already arranged to go in the same capacity to the estate of Herr von Dewitz in Gross Milchow, Mecklenburg. He seems to have had an agreeable time in both posts, and to have been particularly pleased with his experience in the orderly management of large affairs. In 1805 his uncle Hoffmann died, leaving him a small inheritance ; and after consulting with his brother Christoph, Froebel determined to throw his energies into architecture, and to go to Frankfurt-on-Main to study there. In April he set out; and after visiting his brother at Griesheim on the way, reached his destination in the middle of the year. Soon after his arrival the friend he had come to join introduced him to Dr. Gruner, the headmaster of the Frankfurt Model School. It was not long before Dr. Gruner, a disciple of Pestalozzi's, became convinced that Froebel was a born schoolmaster. " Give up architecture/' he said j " it is not your vocation at all. Become a teacher. We want a teacher in our school. Say you agree, and the place shall be yours." For a while Froebel hesitated ; but hearing that his testimonials, which had been sent to some one t® read, had somehow been lost, he accepted this as a sign that providence had broken down the bridge behind him, and so frankly and gladly accepted the offer.