“attracted by the bright round smooth pebble, by the quaint brilliant leaf, by the smooth piece of wood, and he tries to get hold of these with the help of the newly acquired use of his limbs. Look at the child that can scarcely keep himself erect and that can walk only with the greatest care—he sees a twig, a bit of straw; painfully he secures it.… See the child laboriously stooping and slowly going forward under the eaves. The force of the rain has washed out of the sand small, smooth, bright pebbles, and the ever-observing child gathers them.”—E., p. 72.
The boy, still only from six to eight years old, keeps up the collecting habit with more method and with a wider range, and he demands assistance.
“Not less full of significance, nor less developing, is the boy’s inclination to descend into caves and ravines, to ramble in the shady grove and in the dark forest. It is the effort (Streben) to seek and find the new, to see and discover the hidden, the desire to bring to light and to appropriate that which lies concealed in darkness and shadow.
“From these rambles the boy returns with rich treasures of unknown stones and plants, of animals—worms, beetles, spiders and lizards, that dwell in darkness and concealment. ‘What is this? What is its name?’ etc., are the questions to be answered; and every new word enriches his world and throws light upon his surroundings. Beware of greeting him with the exclamation, ‘Fie, throw that down, that is horrid!’ or ‘Drop that, it will bite you!’ If the child obeys, he drops and throws away a considerable portion of his power.”—E., p. 104.
This quotation brings us to another mode of investigation, that of asking questions, which Froebel was not likely to miss.
“The child, your child, ye fathers, follows you wherever you go. Do not harshly repel him. Show no impatience about his ever-recurring questions. Every harshly repelling word crushes a bud of his tree of life.… Question upon question comes from the lips of the boy thirsting for knowledge—How? Why? When? What for? and every satisfactory answer opens to him a new world.”—E., p. 86.
Professor O’Shea has an interesting section on what he calls “The Sense of Location,” which he says is “at the bottom of one of the most interesting and important phenomena of adjustment—the questioning activity.” So it may be worth while to notice that Froebel, whom the Professor has dismissed with one slighting reference, has been beforehand with him here, and has dealt with this same early beginning in one of his earliest Mother Songs, viz. “It’s all Gone,” where he says to the mother:
“How can the child understand that anything is “all gone,” yet he must see sense in it or he will not be satisfied. What he saw just now is there no longer, what was above is below, what was there has vanished.”—M., p. 18.
Questioning implies language, but Froebel has no language instinct. He does, however, call speech immediate (unmittelbar), usually translated “innate,” and he does say that because others talk to him, the child’s capacity for speech will develop of necessity and will break forth spontaneously.
It is in connection with the child’s earliest investigations that Froebel brings in the learning to speak. In “The Education of Man,” he notes how the young child brings all his discoveries, “his treasures,” to the mother’s lap, and she is warned to give the right kind of help and at the right time.
“It is the longing for interpretation that urges the child to appeal to us, it is the intense desire for this that urges him to bring his treasures to us and to lay them in our laps. The child loves all things that enter his small horizon and extend his little world. To him the least thing is a new discovery; but it must not come dead into the little world, nor lie dead therein lest it obscure the small horizon and crush the little world.”—E., p. 73.
All the help the mother need give at first is to supply names, since as Froebel says, “the name, as it were, creates the thing for the child.” Later she must help him to compare and classify.
“How little is needed from those around the child to aid him in this tendency (to seek for knowledge). It is only necessary to name, to put into words what the child does, sees and finds.”—E., p. 75.
“It is as well while the child is making these first experiments (at walking about the room) to name the objects—e.g. There is the chair, the table, etc.… The object of giving these names is not primarily the development of the child’s power of speech, but to assist his comprehension of the object, its parts and its properties by defining his sense-impressions. By a rich store of such experiences the capacity for speech develops of necessity, and speech breaks forth of itself, as it were, through heightened mental self-activity in accordance with the nature of mind.”—P., p. 242.
Expression, of course, of which speech is but one form, is to Froebel all-important. “Speech,” he says, is “required and conditioned by the attainment to consciousness,” and as self-consciousness is the characteristic of humanity, so speech is “the first manifestation of mankind.” In his “Autobiography” Froebel writes:
“Mankind as a whole, as one great unity, had now become my quickening thought. I kept this conception continually before my mind. I sought after proofs of it in my little world within and in the great world without me; I desired by many a struggle to win it, and then to set it worthily forth. And thus I was led back to the first appearance of man upon our earth, and to the first manifestation of mankind, his speech.”—A., p. 84.
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.”
To write even a small book on Froebel without directly touching on the subject of play would be impossible, though in dealing with instincts and the carrying out of natural activities we have necessarily considered much that comes under this heading.
On the educative value of play, Froebel is recognizedly original, and his views have influenced and are influencing schools for young children in most civilized countries. Indeed, it would be difficult to show that modern writers on play, in spite of the scientific thoroughness of their investigations, classifications and terminology, have made much advance upon Froebel’s theories. Rather do they tend to show how remarkable was his insight, and how surprisingly well grounded his theories.
Nothing, however, has yet been said as to the relation of play to work, no direct definition has yet been given, nor has any reference been made to the now familiar theories of play.
In Froebel’s day, these, as clearly formulated theories, were non-existent. His work was that of a pioneer, and his theory might have been called that of “Preparation through Recapitulation.” He would, however, have allowed that play is sometimes, though not always, recreative, and he makes clear the necessity for what he calls “healthy vital energy” (gesunden Lebensmuthe), but he would never have called this mere “surplus energy,” because he thought it was not more than was required: