Chapter VI: Instinct and Instincts (2)

In talking of the mother’s play with an infant he says that she accompanies every action with words, “even if obliged to confess that there can be no understanding of the spoken word,” as “the general sense of hearing is not yet developed, still less the special sense of hearing words.” Froebel says she is right:

“for that which will one day develop and which must originate,
begins and must begin when there is as yet only the conditions,
the possibility thereof. Thus it is with the attainment of
the human being to consciousness, and the speech required and
conditioned by consciousness.”--_P., p. 40._

Words, says Froebel, first separate the child from the world outside him.

“Up to this stage (the beginning of speech), the inner being
of man is still an unmembered, undifferentiated unity. With
language, the expression and representation of the internal
begin; with language, organization, or a differentiation with
reference to ends and means sets in.”--_E., p. 50._

Both in the earlier “Education of Man,” and in his later writings Froebel uses the strong expression that “the word creates the thing” for the child, and in one passage he adds that by language the idea is defined and retained.

“This period is pre-eminently the period of the development of
speech. Therefore in all the child did, it was indispensable
that what he did should be clearly designated by words. Every
object, every thing became such, as it were, only through the
word; before it had been named although the child might have
seemed to see it with the outer eyes, it had no existence for
the child. The name, as it were, created the thing for the
child; hence the name and the thing seemed to be one.”--_E., p.
90._

“Through her little rhymes the mother will make clear to the
little one what he has done, and so his accidental productions
will become a point of departure for his self-development. Word
and form are opposite and yet related. Hence the word should
accompany the form as its shadow. In a certain sense, giving
a form a name really creates the form itself. Through the
name, moreover, the form is retained in memory and defined in
thought.”--_P., p. 192._

Of very early speech Froebel says that it shows:

“the peculiarity and requirement of the human mind to render
itself intelligible to clarify itself by communication with
others.”--_P., p. 56._

Having investigated his surroundings, near or far, and collected what seems to him attractive, the child, whether older or younger, arranges his treasures in some way, and this arrangement implies some comparison. “Like things must be ranged together and things unlike must be separated,” says Froebel of the child “scarce able to walk,” who has collected “the small, smooth, pebbles washed out of the sand by the rain.” This “arranging objects of each kind singly in a row” is at first no doubt only a recognition of the like and unlike, but Froebel notes that it is also one way in which the child may arrive at “the capacity for counting” by which his sphere of knowledge is again extended.

“The knowledge of the relations of quantity adds much to a
child’s life.… At first he places together similar objects.…
Who has not had frequent opportunity to observe how the child
arranges the objects of each kind singly in a row. Let the
mother supply the quickening word, saying Apple, apple, apple,
etc. All apples. Pear, pear, pear, etc. All pears.… One pear,
another apple, another apple.… Instead of the indefinite word
“another” the mother subsequently uses the numerals, counting
together with the child, thus: One apple, two apples, three
apples, etc.”--_E., p. 80._

To many children, however, counting may come through efforts to draw. I have seen a child of four-and-a-half, in drawing a man, make a line for the arm, then lay down her pencil to count her own fingers and then draw five lines for the man’s hand. Froebel says:

“The representation of objects by drawing, and the exact
perception conditioned and required by the representation, soon
leads the child quickly to recognize the constantly repeated
association of certain numbers of different objects--e.g. two
eyes and two arms, five fingers, etc. Thus the drawing of the
object leads to the discovery of number.… By the development of
the capacity for counting, the child’s sphere of knowledge, his
world, is again extended.… He was unable to determine relative
quantities, but now he knows that he has two large and three
small pebbles, four white and five yellow flowers,” etc.--_E.,
p. 80._

Yet another mode of Investigation is that of Experimenting; every normal child is what Froebel calls “a self-teaching scientist.”

“The material must be known not only by its name, but by its
qualities and uses.… For this reason the child examines the
object on all sides; for this reason he tears and breaks it;
for this reason he puts it in his mouth and bites it. We
reprove the child for his naughtiness and foolishness; and
yet he is wiser than we who reprove him. An instinct which
the child did not give himself, the instinct which rightly
understood and rightly guided would lead him to know God in his
works, drives him to this.”--_E., p. 73._

It may well be through his ceaseless experimenting that the little child begins to draw, gains what the late Mr. Ebenezer Cooke called “a language of line,” or as Froebel puts it, notices “linear phenomena, which direct his attention to the linear properties of surrounding objects.”

“A child has found a pebble, a fragment of lime or chalk. In
order to determine by experiment its properties, he has rubbed
it on a board near by, and has discovered its property of
imparting colour. See how he delights in the newly discovered
property, how busily he makes use of it! … but soon he begins
to find pleasure in the winding, straight, curved, and other
forms that appear. These linear phenomena direct his attention
to the linear properties of surrounding objects. Now the
head becomes a circle, and now the circular line represents
the head, the elliptical curve connected with it represents
the body; arms and legs appear as straight or broken lines,
and these again represent arms and legs; the fingers he sees
as straight lines meeting in a common point, and lines so
connected are, for the busy child, again hands and fingers; the
eyes he sees as dots, and these again represent eyes; and thus
a new world opens within and without. For what man tries to
represent, that he begins to understand.”--_E., p. 75._

I have watched a child go through the process of discovering “linear phenomena,” just as Froebel describes it, no doubt from his own observation. A boy of three, having folded a piece of paper for the roof of a house, was colouring it, by rubbing on red chalk, when he called out, “Oh! I’m making lines.” The other children went on rubbing, but Phil made “lines” till the roof was finished.

But Froebel does not leave unnoticed the fact that the very earliest “drawing” is an outgrowth of the muscular action to which his instinct of activity is urged by the stimulus of contact.

“Would you know how to lead the child in this matter? Watch
him, he will teach you what to do. See! he is tracing the table
by passing his fingers along its edges and outlines as far as
he can reach, he is sketching the object on itself. This is
the first and the safest step by which he becomes aware of the
outlines and forms of objects. In this way he sketches and so
studies the chair, the bench, the window. But soon he advances.
He draws lines across the four-cornered bit of board, across
the leaf of the table, or the seat of the chair, in the dim
anticipation that so he can retain the forms and relations of
the surfaces. Now, already he draws the form diminished.

“See! there the child has drawn table, chair and bench on a
leaf of the table. Do you not see how he spontaneously trained
himself for this? Objects which he could move, which were in
sight, he laid on the board, and drew their form on the plane
surface, following the boundaries of the objects with his
hands. Soon scissors and boxes, and later leaves and twigs,
even his own hand and the shadows of objects will thus be
copied.

“Much is developed in the child by this action, more than
it is possible to express--a clear comprehension of form,
the possibility of representing the form separate from the
object, the possibility of retaining the form as such, and
the strengthening and fitting of hand and arm for the free
representation of form.”--_E., p. 77._

Here, perhaps, is the right place to introduce what Froebel had to say about the artistic tendencies of children, since Art, to him, is always expression.

“Absolutely nothing can appear, nothing visible and sensible
can come forth, that does not hold within itself the living
spirit; that does not bear upon its surface the imprint of the
living spirit of the being by whom it has been produced, and
to whom it owes its existence. And this is true of the work
of every human being--from the highest artist to the meanest
labourer--as well as of the works of God, which are Nature, the
creation, and all created things.”--_E., p. 153._

So, when Froebel comes to speak of art as a subject of the school curriculum he says: “Here, art will be considered only as the pure representation of the inner … differentiated according to the material it uses, whether motion, as such, audible in sound, or visible in lines, surfaces and colours, or massive”; and he adds:

“We noticed that even at an earlier stage children have the
desire to draw, but the desire also to express ideas by
modelling and colouring is frequently found at this earlier
stage of childhood, certainly at the very beginning of the
stage of boyhood (from six years old). _This proves that art
and appreciation of art constitute a general capacity or talent
of man_, and should be cared for early, at latest in boyhood.

“This does not imply that the boy is to devote himself chiefly
to art, and is to become an artist; but that he should be
enabled to understand and appreciate true works of art. At
the same time, a true education will guard him from the error
of claiming to be an artist unless there is in him the true
artistic calling.”--_E., p. 227._

In connection with the mother’s instinctive rhythmic crooning and dandling of the infant, Froebel says:

“Thus the genuine natural mother cautiously follows in all
directions the slowly developing all-sided life of the
child. Others suppose him to be empty.… Thus those means
of cultivation that lead so simply and naturally to the
development of rhythm are lost.… Nevertheless an early
development of rhythmic movement would prove most wholesome.…
Even very small children, in moments of quiet, and particularly
when going to sleep, will hum little strains of songs they have
heard; and this should be heeded and developed as the first
germ of future growth in melody and song. Undoubtedly this
would soon lead in children to a spontaneity such as is shown
by children in the use of speech.”--_E., p. 71._

In the “Mother Songs,” too, Froebel writes:

“Hence it is so very important to rouse at least the germs
of all this (the perceiving of harmony in sound and form and
colour) early in a human being. If they do not develop and take
shape as independent formations in life, they at least teach
how to understand and recognize those of other people. This is
life-gain enough. It makes a person’s life richer--richer by
the lives of others. And how could our earthly life be long
enough to form our being with equal perfection on all sides.
We can only do it by knowing and respectfully recognizing in
the mirror of the lives of others what we should like to carry
out ourselves. And this is as it should be, for it is by means
of knowledge, regard for and respectful recognition of others,
that the whole of humanity ought to represent the whole of a
God-like harmonious human being.”--_M., p. 162._

In what he says of the Interest in Stories, Froebel again seems to show deeper insight than either Mr. Eby or Professor Kirkpatrick. Mr. McDougall does not touch upon the subject. It is still the outcome of the child’s instinctive desire to understand himself and his surroundings. Froebel says very truly that he can only understand others in proportion as he understands himself, and can only learn to understand himself, his own life, by comparing it with that of others. The desire for stories is “a striving, a longing, a demand of the mind” (ein Streben, eine Sehnsucht, eine Forderung des Gemüthes). For the little one, the simplest story of the mother bird feeding her young ones is a help to the understanding of his own life, makes his own life objective; the mother’s “effective story will hold up a looking-glass to the child, especially if it be told at the right time.” For the boy the story does the same and also answers to his instinctive demand not only to understand the present, but the past:

“It is the innermost desire and need of a vigorous, genuine boy
to understand his own life, to get a knowledge of its nature,
its origin and outcome. Only the study of the life of others
can furnish such points of comparison with the life he himself
has experienced. In these the boy, endowed with an active life
of his own, can view the latter as in a mirror and learn to
appreciate its value. This is the chief reason why boys are
so fond of stories, legends and tales; the more so when these
are told as having actually occurred at some time, or as lying
within the reach of probability, for which, however, there are
scarcely any limits for a boy.”--_E., p. 305._

“The existence of the present teaches him the existence of the
past. That, which was before he was, he would know; he would
know the reason, the past cause of what now is. Who fails to
remember the keen desire that filled his heart when he beheld
old walls, and towers, ruins, monuments and columns on hill and
the roadside--to hear others give accounts of these things,
their times and causes … thus is developed the desire and
craving for tales, legends, for all kinds of stories, and later
for historical accounts.”--_E., p. 115._

Even the fairy story seems to have found its legitimate place under the same heading, the instinct for investigation. Froebel sees that it covers for the little child the ground occupied by myth in the primitive consciousness. It explains the otherwise inexplicable.

“Even the present in which the boy lives still contains much
that at this period of development he cannot interpret, and yet
would like to interpret; much that seems to him dumb, and which
he would fain have speak; … and thus there is developed in him
the intense desire for fables and fairy tales which impart
language and reason to speechless things--the one within, the
other beyond the limits of human relations. Surely all must
have noticed this if they have given more than superficial
attention to the life of boys at this age. Similarly, they must
have noticed that if the boy’s desire is not gratified by those
around him, he will spontaneously hit upon the invention and
presentation of fairy tales, and either work them out in his
own mind or entertain his companions with them. These fairy
tales and stories will then very clearly reveal to the observer
what is going on in the innermost mind of the boy, though
doubtless the latter may not himself be conscious of it.”--_E.,
p. 116._

“The child, like the man, would like to learn the significance
of what happens around him. This is the foundation of the Greek
choruses, especially in tragedy. This, too, is the foundation
of very many productions in the realms of legends and fairy
tales, and is indeed the cause of many phenomena in actual
history. This is the result of the deeply-rooted consciousness,
the deeply slumbering premonition of being surrounded by that
which is higher and more conscious than ourselves.”--_P., p.
146._

The outcome of the instinct of construction, which is also so closely connected with the instinct of investigation, is that “sense of power” which _is_ self-consciousness. Without this there can be no self-determination, but, says Froebel, “the sense of power must precede its cultivation.” With this growing personality, too, Froebel connects what is called the instinct of Acquisition, which begins when the little child “painfully secures his bit of straw,” and the boy of six to eight shows “the tendency to appropriate what he finds in the darkness of cave and forest.”

“The same tendency that urges the boy to seek knowledge on
the mountain and in the valley, attracts and holds him to
the plain. Here he makes a garden, there he represents the
course of the river, and studies the effect of the presence of
water … here he has dammed up the water to form a pool.… He
is particularly fond of busying himself with clear running
water and with plastic materials. In these the boy who
seeks self-knowledge beholds his soul as in a mirror. These
employments are to him an element of his life, for now, because
of a previously acquired sense of power he seeks to control and
master new material. Everything must submit to his constructive
instinct; there in that heap of earth he digs a cellar and on
it he places a garden and a bench. Boards, branches and poles
must be made into a hut, the deep, fresh snow must be rolled up
to form the walls and ramparts of a fort, and the rough stones
on the hill are heaped together to form a castle.… And thus
each one soon forms for himself his own world; for the feeling
of his own power requires and conditions also the possession
of his own space and his own material belonging exclusively to
him. Whether his kingdom, his province, his estate, as it were,
be a corner of the yard, or of the house, or whether it be the
space of a box, the human being must have at this stage an
external point to which he refers all his activities, and this
is best chosen and provided by himself.”--_E., p. 106._

And here, just when he is emphasizing the fast developing consciousness of self, with its demand for its own space and its own material, Froebel brings out the strength of the social instinct in boyhood. It is here that he points out that this effort to construct has a uniting, not a separating, tendency. Continuous with the last quotation comes:

“When the space to be filled is extensive, when the province
to be ruled is large, when the whole to be represented is
composed of many parts, then brotherly union of those who are
of one mind is displayed. And when those who are of one mind
meet and put their hearts into the same effort, then either
the work already begun is extended or begun again as a joint
production.”--_E., p. 107._

Froebel describes such joint work first in the Keilhau schoolroom--his own phrase is “education room”--where the younger boys are using building blocks, sand, sawdust, and moss, which they have brought in from the forest around and then among the older boys.

“Down yonder by the brook, how busy are the older boys with
their work! They have made canals with locks, bridges and
seaports, dams and mills, each undisturbed by the others. But
now the water is to be used to carry ships from one level to
another, and now, at every stage, each boy asserts his own
rights while recognizing the rights of others. How can they
settle their difficulties? Only by making agreements, and so,
like States, they bind themselves by strict treaties.”--_E., p.
111._

Of games of physical movement, running, wrestling, etc., Froebel writes:

“It is the sense of power, the sense of its increase, both as
an individual and as a member of a group, that fills the boy
with joy, in these games.… The boy tries to see himself in his
companions, to weigh and measure himself by them, to find and
know himself by their help. Thus the games directly influence
and educate the boy for life, they awake and cultivate many
civic and moral virtues. Every town should have its common
playground for the boys. Glorious would be the results from
this for the entire community. For at this stage of development
games whenever possible are held in common, thus developing
the sense of community and the laws and requirements of a
community.”--_E., p. 113._

Froebel had studied boys to some purpose, and he tells us not, however, to expect too much in the way of social virtues. Justice, self-control, honesty, courage and “severe criticism of pleasant indolence” may be expected, but mutual forbearance and consideration for those who are weaker or less familiar with the game, though not entirely lacking, are referred to as “the more delicate blossoms” of the playground. It is here that he says with wise moderation, “The feeling of power must precede its cultivation.”

The social instinct does not suddenly spring into existence in boyhood. It has its roots in what Froebel calls the Feeling of Community which unites the child first with the mother, then with father, brothers and sisters.

“We cannot deny that there is at present among children and
boys little gentleness, mutual forbearance … indeed, there is
much egotism, unfriendliness and roughness. This is clearly due
not only to the absence of early cultivation of the feeling of
community, but this sympathy between parents and children is
too often disturbed, yes even annihilated.”--_E., p. 119._

The sympathy of the little child ought to be trained and is trained by the wise mother always through action.

“Mother love seeks to awaken and to interpret the feeling
of community, which is so important, between the child and
the father, brother and sister, saying while she draws the
child’s little hand caressingly across the face of the father
or of the little sister, ‘Love the dear father--the little
sister.’”--_E., p. 69._

In the Finger Play called “The Nest,” Froebel tells the mother:

“The way lies through our imaginative, tender and emotional
observation of Nature and of man’s life, through the child’s
taking their meaning into his own heart and expressing by
representation what he thus takes in.… The child’s sympathy
is roused by the young creatures’ necessities more than by
anything, and chiefly by their nakedness and softness.”--_M.,
p. 149._

And the action which fosters the growth of sympathy is not to be merely representative; The Garden Song has this motto:

“If your child’s to love and cherish Life that needs him
day-by-day, Give him things to tend that perish If he ever
stays away.”--_M., p. 84._

It is because “the desire for unity is the basis of all true human development” that the child is to be encouraged to help in the work he sees going on around him.

“Family, family--let us say it openly and plainly--you are more
than School and Church, and therefore more than all else that
necessity may have called into being for the protection of
right and property … without you, what are Altar and Church?…
Therefore, Mother, in the little finger game, teach your
child some notion of the nature of a whole, especially of a
family-whole.”--_M., p. 159._

“We have not yet touched nor even considered an important side
of child-life, the side of association with father and mother
in their domestic duties, in the duties of their calling.…
(_E., p. 84_). Do not let the urgency of your business tempt
you to say, ‘Go away, you only hinder me.’ … After a third
rebuff of this kind scarcely any child will again propose to
help and share the work.”--_E., p. 99._

It is an essential part of the Kindergarten to consider the child as a member of the human family. It is described in one place as:

“An establishment for training quite young children, in their
first stage of intellectual development, where their training
and instruction shall be based upon their own free action
or spontaneity, acting under proper rules … such rules as
are in fact discovered by the actual observation of children
when associated in companies. (_L., p. 251_).… Practice in
combined games for many children, which will train the child,
by his very nature eager for companionship, in the habit of
association with comrades, that is, in good fellowship and all
that this implies.”--_L., p. 252._

Among his Group Instincts Mr. Kirkpatrick mentions the Love of Approbation, and this receives special attention from Froebel at a surprisingly early stage. It is in the “Mother Songs,” in connection with his adaptation of an old German nursery rhyme about knights who come to visit “a good child,” that Froebel tells the mother that:

“A new life stage has begun, and you, dear Mother, must use
your best and most watchful care, when first the child listens
to a stranger.”

In the same connection he writes:

“The child must be roused to good by inclination, love and
respect, _through the opinion of others around him_, and all
this must be strengthened and developed.… When, therefore,
Mother, observation as to the judgment of others awakes in your
child--when, separating himself and on the watch _he brings
himself before the judgment of others_, then you really have a
double task to perform.…”--_M., p. 190._

The Love of Approbation cannot be separated from what Mr. Kirkpatrick calls the Regulative, i.e. the Moral and Religious Instincts, for it is both social and regulative, and in the social instincts Froebel sees the foundation of the religious instincts or tendencies, to which we shall come presently. But he also notes a “sense of order,” as Mr. Sully does in his delightful “Studies of Childhood,” and this he traces back to very early beginnings, connecting it with the tendency towards rhythm.

“That disorder and rough wilfulness may never enter the games,
it is a good plan wherever it is possible to accompany each
change in the play by rhyme and song; so that the latent sense
of rhythm and song, _and above all the sense of order in the
human being and child_, may be aroused and strengthened to an
impulse for social cooperation.”--_P., p. 267._

One of the earliest Mother Plays, “Tic-tac,” deals with rhythmic movement, and in “The Education of Man” Froebel takes the beginning of “conscious control” still further back. His ideal mother fosters “all-sided life,” that is, she fosters the cognitive, emotional and conative, the first by calling the child’s attention to his own body and his immediate surroundings, and the second by “seeking to awaken and to interpret the feeling of community between the child and the father, brother and sister,” and Froebel goes on:

“In addition to the sense of community as such, the germ of
so much glorious development, the mother’s love seeks also
through movements to lead the child to feel his own inner
life. By regular rhythmic movements--and this is of special
importance--she brings this life within the child’s conscious
control when she dandles him up and down on her hand or arm in
rhythmic movements and to rhythmic sounds. Thus the genuine
natural mother cautiously follows in all directions the slowly
developing all-sided life in the child, strengthening and
arousing to ever greater activity, and developing the all-sided
life within. Others suppose the child to be empty and wish to
inoculate him with life, and thus make him as empty as they
think him to be.”--_E., p. 69._

It is surprising to find that Froebel, writing so early, has nothing at all resembling any special “moral faculty.” His references to “Conscience” are decidedly interesting, though given in quaint connection with games and rhymes for mere babes. He asks why the “Where’s Baby?” game gives such delight, and shows his psychological insight in the answer he finds, viz. that it is the feeling or recognition of self, of personality, which gives such joy.

“Why, now, is my child so happy over the hiding game? It is the
feeling of Personality which already so delights the child, it
is the feeling of recognition of his own self.”[35]

The game which follows this repeats the hiding experience, but this time with the cry of “cuckoo,” from some one unseen, and this is likened to the conscience call, which is described as “consciousness of union in separation and of separateness, that is personality, in union.”--_M., p. 98._

“In ‘Where’s Baby Been?’ parting and union seem more separate,
as though in order that each may become more and more clearly
conscious of itself; in ‘Cuckoo,’ parting and union are, as
it were, joined. It is parting in union and union in parting
that makes ‘Cuckoo’ such a peculiar game and so delightful
to a child. But consciousness of union in separation, and
of separateness--that is personality--in union, is also the
essence, the deep foundation of conscience.”--_M., p. 197._

Mr. Kirkpatrick’s second Regulative instinct or tendency is that of Religion, but Froebel again, like Mr. McDougall, finds that Religion has its roots in an instinct “not specifically religious,”[36] viz. in the Social Instinct. He says this in “The Education of Man” in the plainest of terms.

“This feeling of Community first uniting the child with
father, mother, brothers and sisters, and resting on a higher
spiritual unity, to which later on is added the discovery that
father, mother, brothers and sisters, human beings in general,
feel and know themselves to be in community and unity with a
higher principle--with humanity, with God--this is the very
first germ, the very first beginning of all true religious
spirit, of all genuine yearning for unhindered unification with
the Eternal, with God.”--_E., p. 25._

It seems quite in accordance with this that Froebel should write that he likes better the German word _Gott-einigkeit_--union with God--than the foreign word religion; and also that he should speak of “developing the sense of kinship with man in every child, and the sense of kinship with God in every man.” So, in his “Mother Songs,” he tells the mother to give her child duties to perform, that so he may “feel his kinship” with her:

“Every age, even the age of childhood, has something to cherish
that is plain, and from doing so no exemption can be procured;
it has therefore its duties. Happy is it for a child if he
be led to deal with them adequately, and for the present
unconsciously. Duties are not burdens.… Fulfilment of duty
strengthens body and mind, and the consciousness of duty done
gives independence; even a child feels this. See, Mother, how
happy your child is in feeling he has done his small duties. He
already feels his kinship with you thereby.”--_M., p. 174._

There is never a separation between Morality and Religion:

“Religion without industry, without work, is liable to be lost
in empty dreams, worthless visions, idle fancies. Similarly,
work or industry without religion degrades man into a beast
of burden, a machine. Work and religion must be simultaneous;
for God, the Eternal has been creating from all eternity.…
Where religion, industry and self-control, the truly undivided
trinity rule, there indeed is heaven upon earth.”--_E., p. 35._

There is only one other instinct mentioned by Froebel, and that is the parental, or, rather, the maternal instinct. He is eager that this should be recognized as an instinct, but he is equally eager that, like other human instincts, its action should be determined by intelligence. In describing the “Plan” for his Kindergarten, Froebel pleads for more careful observation of the child and his relationships, and says that “thereby”:

“Deeper insight will be gained into the meaning and importance
of the child’s actions and outward manifestations and
also into the way of dealing with children which has been
evolved naturally by the mother led by her pure maternal
instinct.”--_L., p. 248._

As to the early beginnings of the instinct in the little girl we can find just a few references, sufficient to show that it did not pass unnoticed, and it seems here legitimate to say that “the girl anticipates her destiny,” as Froebel does in speaking of doll-play, though certainly this does not cover all such play:

“The joy of the child in its doll has a far deeper human
foundation than is generally supposed--a foundation by no
means resting merely in the external resemblance … the girl
anticipates her destiny--to foster Nature and life.”--_P., p.
93._

The boy’s destiny is “to penetrate and rule Nature,” so in the “Mother Songs” Froebel describes how the boy is “cowering that no sign of life in the chicken family may escape him, while the girl starts up, _all her care of things stirred_, in order to beckon or call the hen or cock not to forget their chickens.”--_M., p. 143._

In all his writings, Froebel refers to how much he has learned from mothers: “It was in watching your clever mother-doings that I learnt.” But, as he says of himself, it was “a necessary part of me to be irresistibly driven to search out the ultimate or primary cause of every fact of life,” and so he writes:

“The natural mother does all this instinctively without
instruction or direction; but this is not enough: it is needful
that she should do it consciously, as a conscious being
acting upon another which is growing into consciousness, and
consciously tending toward the continuous development of the
human being.”--_E., p. 64._

“Motherly and womanly instinct does much of its own accord; but
it often makes mistakes.”--_L., p. 63._

“Women’s work in education must be based not upon natural
instinct, so often perverted or misunderstood, but upon
intelligent knowledge.… Some mothers level the taunt at me that
I, a man, understanding nothing of a mother’s instinct, should
dare to presume to instruct mothers in their dealings with
their own children.… How could such a thought enter my head
as to attempt anything against the course of Nature? My whole
strength is exerted on the contrary, to the work of getting the
natural instinct and its tendencies more rightly understood,
and more acknowledged; so that women may follow its leadings
as truly as possible aided by the higher light of intelligent
comprehension, and yet at the same time in all freedom, and
with complete individuality.”--_L., p. 259._

So, in what he says of this last instinct, Froebel is faithful to what he has said of all human instincts.

“Man shall assuredly not neglect his natural instincts, still
less abandon them, but he must ennoble them through his
intelligence and purify them through his reason.”