Chapter VI: Part 6

"Our children will attain," he says, "to a far more fundamental insight into language, if we, when teaching them, connect the words more with the actual perception of the thing and the object.... Our language would then again become a true language of life, that is, born of life and producing life; while it threatens otherwise, by merely outward consideration, to become more and more dead."[82]

[82] _Education of Man_, page 145.

From the first the child should be led to voice his small observations on the gifts in clear language and in approximately complete sentences, brief though they be. He can as easily say, "I would like a blue ball, please," if asked what color he prefers, as to jerk out a monosyllabic "Blue!"

After a little practice he will use a short sentence when comparing two objects, for instance, but as he naturally moves along the line of least resistance it is hardly to be expected that he will take the trouble to form complete sentences unless gently stimulated to do so. The stimulus must be gentle, however, and given at the right time, for any feeling that his words are criticised will lead him to self-repression, not expression.

In gift work, too, he explains to the kindergartner what he is inventing, and for what purpose; he weaves gossamer threads of fancy about the objects constructed, or describes the forms of beauty and knowledge he has built by dictation.

There is and should be constant interchange of conversation during the gift plays, and the kindergartner who directs them like a drill-sergeant, requiring her recruits only to be silent and obey, has entirely misconceived Froebel's idea.[83]

[83] It is a difficult thing to find the _via media_ between
complete silence on the part of the children save when
answering questions and a confusion of tongues like that at
the building of Babel, but there is such a _via media_, and
it can be found by those who seek it diligently.

It is undeniably much easier for the teacher to do all the talking, the children serving as audience, but the ideal to be reached is that she shall be the audience herself, or rather the chairman of the meeting, guiding the conversation, asking suggestive questions, and making wise comments.

Our language teaching, however, is not confined to the cultivation of greater powers of expression, for there is a direct gain in the child's vocabulary consequent upon his kindergarten experience. He absorbs many new words from his teachers, but many others he learns through his daily work and play, and these are his absolute possession,--the thing and the word together. An interesting series of experiments was once made in the San Francisco free kindergartens relative to the number of new words which the child had mastered and used easily and freely after three years in the child-garden. These included terms of dictation, geometrical terms, names of tools, colors, materials, plants, animals, buildings, and places, new and poetic words of songs, games, and stories, etc., and the experiments established the fact that the child's vocabulary was fully as great as that of his parents and decidedly more choice.

Relation of Word to Object.

It should be said here that there is great value to the child in learning to name things correctly from the very beginning. If the new word is a simple one, he can learn it with perfect ease, and then the object is properly labeled, so to speak, for future use.[84] Familiar names are sometimes used in the kindergarten when the correct term would be quite as easy to pronounce. This practice often arises from a false conception of symbolism, and is continued with an idea that it is pleasing to the child. Sometimes the pseudonyms are absolutely misleading, as in the frequent speaking of squares as _boxes_, which must, of course, confuse the child as to the real nature of a plane. There are many cases where the geometrical name of a form can easily be taught if it is given _after_ the object is clearly understood.[85]

[84] "At all stages of learning the mother tongue, the purely
verbal exercises are more or less accompanied with the
occupation of the mind upon things. If we suppose the child
to become acquainted, in the first instance, with a variety
of objects, the imparting of the names is a welcome
operation, and the mental fusion of each name and thing is
rapidly brought about. If the objects are in any way
interesting, if they arouse or excite attention, their names
are eagerly embraced. On the other hand, if objects are but
languidly cared for, or if they are inconspicuous or confused
with other things, we are indifferent both to the things
themselves and to their designations." (Alexander Bain.)

[85] "Language is the necessary tool of thought used in the
conduct of the analysis and synthesis of investigation." (W.
T. Harris.)

"What we are really seeking is the meaning _and_ the word.
One is of no value without the other in the education of the
child. There is no such thing as a valuable observation and
investigation of natural objects without language in which to
embody the results at every step." (Geo. P. Brown.) _Report
on Correlation of Studies by Committee of Fifteen_. With
annotations by Geo. P. Brown.

There is a distinction here as to age, which should be noted. Though with babies of three years it is not only delightful, but necessary, to use objects symbolically, to give play-names to the lines they make, etc., with older children who are nearing the age of school instruction and therefore passing away from the "sense relations of things," it is just as essential to begin a more scientific nomenclature.

Value of Knowledge Gained by Individual Effort.

One of the commonest errors in the kindergarten, as well as one of the most pernicious, is that of assisting the child too much in all his work. This is perhaps more universally true of the plays with the occupations than with the gifts, but even in the latter direction the practice is far too widespread.[86]

[86] "Of course, there is great difference between the
disciplinary value of that study in which the pupil solves
his own difficulties and that teaching in which the teacher
accompanies the pupil, supplying the needed information or
suggestion at every step of his progress. The latter is not
worth much for character building for the reason that it is
not apt to become a part of the organized self.... The school
cannot afford to expend much energy in acquiring such
knowledge." (Geo. P. Brown.) _Report on Correlation of
Studies by Committee of Fifteen_. With annotations by Geo. P.
Brown.

The kindergartner often forms his sentences for the child, over-directs him when he is matching colors, gives names to the objects he constructs without waiting for him to do so, moves his blocks, sticks, tablets, rings into more accurate position, changes his spacing when incorrect, rearranges his inventions, selects the colors for his parquetry work,--and all for what reasons? Primarily, to produce a better effect, it is probable, glorying in the consciousness that the work on every child's table is exactly right, and blind to the truth that uniformity must always be mechanical; and secondarily, to quiet her own feeling of impatience, which sometimes comes from nervous exhaustion and sometimes from an over-eagerness to get a quantity of work done regardless of the method by which it is obtained.

There is a thirdly, too, which is that the inaccurate work, the awkward designs, the unfortunate blending of colors which the little one inevitably makes at first, so offend her artistic eye that she trembles with eagerness to set them right, forgetting that by so doing she is imposing her superior taste upon the child and thereby failing to develop his. We shall never see this matter clearly, nor know how to bear with the crudity of the child's work, until we learn that the crudity is natural and therefore to be respected, and that it is in a sense beautiful after all, for it is a stage of being.

This vice, for it is a vice, of assisting the child too much causes him to lose his own power of bravely and persistently overcoming difficulties, and makes him weak and dependent. It gives occasion for teachers to say, and apparently with justice, that kindergarten children need constant assistance in their school work, that they are always crying out for help, and seem incapable of taking a step alone.

That this is not true of all kindergarten children we know, but that it should be true of any is a disgrace to our interpretation of Froebel's system, which is, in reality, a very treasure-house of self-reliance, of self-development, and of independence of thought and action.

Value of Interrelation in Kindergarten Work.

One of the highest essentials of gift work is that it should not be isolated from other experiences of the child and concern itself merely with first principles of mathematics, with elements of construction, reproduction, and design, and with unrelated bits of knowledge.

Froebel says in the motto to one of the poems in the "Mutter-Spiel und Kose-Lieder,"--

"Whatever singly with a child you've played,
Weave it together till a whole you've made.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Thus it will dawn upon his childish soul:
The smallest thing belongs to some great whole."

And again,--

"Silently cherish your Baby's dim thought,
That Life in itself is as unity wrought."

Nothing is more evident in all his writings, in his more formal works as well as in his autobiography, his volumes of letters and his reminiscences, than that his lifelong struggle was for unity in all things. He would have this unity expressed in simple concrete form in the kindergarten by a complete interrelation of all the activities of the child; and the gifts as "outward representations of his internal mental world" may be trusted to furnish us with an absolute test as to how far we are carrying out this principle in our teaching.

Whether or not the necessity of correlation decreases as age increases we need not discuss here, but that there is absolute need of it in the kindergarten probably no one will deny. If a single aim does not unify the kindergarten day, (or month, or season), it will be a succession of scrappy experiences, of surface impressions, no one of which can be permanent, because it was slight by itself and received no reinforcement from others. Such instruction only serves to dissipate the mind, to blot out the dim feeling of unity inscribed there by its maker, and to render the child incapable and undesirous of binding his thoughts into a whole.[87]

[87] "In the broad view we are safe in affirming that all
truth is congruous, and that truth in one department of human
knowledge will always reinforce truth in any other
department. There is a unity in all truth. While it is true,
as Dr. Harris affirms in his Report on the Correlation of
Studies, that the student does not come into the full
consciousness of this fact before he attains the university,
is it not also true that he can be so taught that he will
_feel_ this unity before he can think it, and that his
feeling it will hasten the development of the power to think
it?"--Geo. P. Brown, "Congruence in Teaching," _Public School
Journal_, Sept., 1895.

What the subjects should be, around which the child's mental, physical, and spiritual activities may crystallize, furnishes a fruitful field for discussion; but, above all, they should be vital ones, for, as Miss Blow says, "Serious injury may be done the mind by developing concentric exercises which belong not to the centre, but the circumference of thought."

It would be fruitless to suggest suitable subjects here, for if they do not, on the one hand, conform to the growing mind of the particular child or class of children, they may either arrest or overtax development, and if, on the other hand, they do not proceed from the kindergartner's insight into principle, it would be but "superstitious imitation" for her to follow them out. No manual, no guide-book, no treatise, no lecture, can supply the want of fine intelligence and judgment in all these matters, and not until the teacher "comprehends the genesis of any principle from deeper principles can she emancipate herself from even the hypnotic suggestion of the principle itself, and convert external authority into inward freedom."[88]

[88] W. T. Harris.

Effect of Froebel's Gifts on the Kindergartner.

Although uninterested and uninitiated persons doubtless regard the various gifts of Froebel as very ordinary objects, made from commonplace materials, yet that this view of the matter is only a peep through a pin-hole is abundantly proven by their effect on the kindergartner. Those of us who have seen successive groups of young women in training-classes approach the first few gifts have noted that interest is commonly mingled at first with a slight surprise that the objects should be considered worthy of so much study, while underneath lies a half-concealed amusement at the simple forms produced. Yet this attitude of mind endures but for a season, for as soon as the gifts are studied and used practically, it is seen that they contain possibilities of indefinite expansion. When they are looked at through the glasses of imagination, it is wonderful how large they appear, and when one has toiled long hours to invent some sequence with them, one wonders at the reality and fascination of the forms produced.

The outsider who glanced at the materials hastily would undoubtedly suppose them capable of only a limited number of changes and combinations, but the fact remains that every year kindergarten students invent hundreds of new forms with these simple, insignificant blocks and sticks and beans.

How, then, does this change come about? How is it that the same student who once half-scorned the gifts, now, upon the completion of her course of training, looks upon them with affection, admiration, and respect? It is that her eyes have been opened, and whereas she was blind, now she sees. Her imagination has been awakened, her literary instinct has been stirred, and she has come to look at things in the child way, which is always the poetic way.

Effect of Froebel's Gifts upon the Child.

The effect of Froebel's gifts upon the child has been shown directly and indirectly through the entire series of talks, and need not now be recapitulated. If they are wisely presented and wisely conducted, "inward and outward, the limits of their influence and scope lie in infinity."

Froebel says in one of his letters: "No one would believe, without seeing it, how the child-soul--the child-life--develops when treated as a whole, and in the sense of forming a part of the great connected life of the world, by some skilled kindergartner,--nay, even by one who is only simple-hearted, thoughtful, and attentive; nor how it blooms into delicious harmonies like a beautifully tinted flower. Oh, if I could only shout aloud with ten thousand lung-power the truth that I now tell you in silence. Then would I make the ears of a hundred thousand men ring with it! What keenness of sensation, what a soul, what a mind, what force of will and active energy, what dexterity and skill of muscular movement and of perception, and what calm and patience will not all these things call out in the children."[89]

[89] Froebel's _Letters on the Kindergarten_, page 145.

It is not that we regard the connected series of gifts as inspired, nor as incapable of improvement, for it may be that as our psychological observations of children grow wiser, more sympathetic, and more subtle, we shall see cause to make radical changes in the objects which are Froebel's legacy to the kindergarten. This we may do, but we can never improve upon the motherly tenderness of spirit with which they were devised by the great pioneer of child-study, nor upon the philosophic insight which based them on the universal instincts of childhood.

By Mrs. Wiggin.

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THE STORY HOUR. A Book for the Home and Kindergarten. By Mrs.
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CHILDREN'S RIGHTS. By Mrs. WIGGIN and NORA A. SMITH. A Book
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FROEBEL'S GIFTS. By Mrs. WIGGIN and NORA A. SMITH. 16mo.

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.

2. The sidenotes are changed to section headings.

3. The word "cyproea moneta" uses an oe ligature in the original.

4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained.