The three little volumes on that Republic of Childhood, the
kindergarten, of which this handbook, dealing with the gifts, forms
the initial number, might well be called Chips from a Kindergarten
Workshop. They are the outcome of talks and conferences on Froebel's
educational principles with successive groups of earnest young women
here, there, and everywhere, for fifteen years, and represent as much
practical work at the bench as a carpenter could show in a similar
length of time. They are the result of mutual give and take, of
question and answer, of effort and experience, of the friction of
minds against one another, of ideas struck out in the heat of
argument, and of varied experience with many hundred little children
of all nationalities and conditions. They are not theories, written in
the seclusion of the study; and if perchance they have the defects, so
should they have the virtues, too, of work corrected and revised at
every step by the "child in the midst." If it is objected that many
things in them have been heard before, we can but say with Montaigne:
"Truth and reason are common to every one, and are no more his who
spake them first than his who spake them after."
The various talks have been cut down here, enlarged there, condensed
in one place, amplified in another, from year to year, as knowledge
and experience have grown; many of the ideas which they advocated in
the beginning have been eliminated, as being completely reversed by
the passage of time, and much new matter has been added as the
kindergarten principle has developed. They are as much a growth as a
coral reef, though the authors have little hope that they will be as
enduring.
The kindergarten of 1895 is not the kindergarten of 1880, for the
science of education has made great strides in these past fifteen
years. Many things which were held to be vital principles when we
began our talks with kindergarten students, we now find were but
lifeless methods after all. It is not that time has reversed the
fundamental principles on which the kindergarten rests,--these are as
true as truth and as changeless; but the interpretation of them has
greatly changed and broadened with the passage of years, and many of
the instrumentalities of education which Froebel devised are destined
to further transformation in the future. For this reason, the last
book on the kindergarten is sometimes the best book, since it
naturally embodies the latest thought and discovery on the subject.
These talks on the kindergarten have purposely been divested of a
certain amount of technicality and detail, in the hope that they will
thus reach not only kindergarten students, but the many mothers and
teachers who really long to know what Froebel's system of education is
and what it aims to do. They will never of themselves make a
kindergartner, and are not intended to do so; but they certainly
should shed some light on Froebel's theories, and establish a basis on
which they can be worked out in the home and in the school.
We shall attempt no defense of the kindergarten here. It has passed
the experimental stage; it is no longer on trial for its life; and no
longer humbly begging, hat in hand, for a place to lay its head. As an
educational idea, it is a recognized part of the great system of
child-training; and to say, in this year of our Lord, one thousand
eight hundred and ninety-five, that one does not believe in the
kindergarten is as if one said, I do not believe in electricity, or, I
never saw much force in the law of gravitation.
True, Froebel's ideas are often misinterpreted and misapplied; often
espoused by ignorant and sentimental persons; often degraded in their
practical application; true, the ideal kindergarten and the ideal
kindergartner are seldom seen--(though they are worth traveling a
thousand miles _to_ see)--all this is true, and no one knows it better
than we; but that a divine idea is wrongly used does not invalidate
its divinity.
That kindergarten principles are gaining ground everywhere; that every
year more free and private kindergartens are established, more
training schools opened, more students applying for instruction, more
books written on the subject, more educational periodicals seeking for
kindergarten articles, more cities adding it to their school systems,
more normal schools giving courses in kindergarten training, more
mothers and teachers seeking for light on Froebel's principles,--all
these are matters of statistics which any one may verify by
consulting the Reports of the Commissioner of Education and the
various educational magazines.
Our modest volumes, of which the second will deal with the
occupations, the third with the educational theories of Froebel, do
not claim to be deeply philosophic, nor even to be exhaustive. They
are, in a sense, what is called a "popular" treatise on a scientific
subject; and though some scientists decry such treatises, yet there
are many persons to whom a simple message carries more conviction than
a purely philosophic one.
It is hoped that the psychologic principles on which the talks rest
are at least measurably correct, though when doctors disagree on vital
points, how shall the layman know the extent of his own ignorance?
The authors have always been of a humble and docile spirit, and in the
earlier years of their work with children, looking upon all treatises
on education as inspired, tried faithfully to make the child's mind
work according to the laws therein laid down. But sometimes the
child's mind obstinately declined to follow the prescribed route;
it refused to begin at the proper beginning of a subject and go on
logically to the end, as the books decreed, but flew into the middle
of it, and darted both ways, like a weaver's shuttle. If, then, any
one of the theories we enunciate does not coincide with your
particular educational creed, we can only say that ours, we fear,
has sometimes been a "rule of thumb" psychology, and that in our
experience it has occasionally been necessary to turn a psychologic
law the other end foremost before it could be made to fit the child.
We have endeavored not to be dogmatic in any of these talks, for we
do not claim to have seen and counted all the facets of the crystal
of truth. We humbly acknowledge that we have often been wrong in the
past, and no reason has latterly been given us to believe ourselves
infallible; but these disputed points in the kindergarten are, after
all, of no more vital importance than the old theologic controversy
as to how many angels can stand on the point of a needle. If the
occupations are found to be based on incorrect psychologic principles,
do not use them; if a similar objection is made to the gifts,
substitute others. These are all accessories,--they are of no more
importance than the leaves to the tree; if time and stress of weather
strip them off, the life current is still there, and new ones will
grow in their places.
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.
NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH.
_August_, 1895.