A better idea of these may be obtained through a manipulation of the
blocks and an arrangement of the geometrical forms in their regular
order.
The child, if he were taught as Froebel intended, would make his first
acquaintance with numbers in the nursery, beginning in a very small
way and progressing slowly. The pupils of the kindergarten are a
little older, and having already a slight knowledge of numbers (though
not of course in their abstract relations) are able to accomplish
greater things.
The child can, with our guidance, make all possible combinations of
the parts of the number Eight. The principles of Addition,
Subtraction, even Multiplication and Fractions, can also be mastered
without one tear of misery or pang of torture. He grasps the whole
first, then by simple processes, building with his own hands, he finds
out and demonstrates for himself halves, fourths, and eighths,
sometimes in different positions, but always having the same contents.
Method and Manner of using the Gift.
Even yet we must not suffer this to become work. The exercises should
be repeated again and again, but we must learn to break off when the
play is still delightful, and study ways to endow the next one with
new life and charm, though it carry with it the same old facts. What
we want to secure is, not a formidable number of parrot-like
statements, but a firm foundation for future clearness of
understanding, depth of feeling, and firmness of purpose. So, at the
beginning of the exercise, we should not ask John if he remembers what
we talked about last time, and expect him to answer clearly at once.
Because he does not answer our formal questions which do not properly
belong to babyhood, we need not conclude he has learned nothing, for a
child can show to our dull eyes only a very tiny glimpse of his
wonderful inner world.
Let our aim be, that the child shall little by little receive
impressions so clearly that he will recognize them when they appear
again, and that he shall, after a time, know these impressions by
their names. It is nothing but play after all, but it is in this
childish play that deep meaning lies.
A child is far less interested in that which is given him complete
than in that which needs something from him to make it perfect. He
loves to employ all his energies in conceiving and constructing forms;
the less you do for him the better he enjoys it, if he has been
trained to independence.[41]
[41] "Probably the chief wish of children is to do things for
themselves, instead of to have things done for them. They
would gladly live in a Paradise of the Home-made. For
example, when we read how the 'prentices of London used to
skate on sharp bones of animals, which they bound about their
feet, we also wished, at least, to try that plan, rather than
to wear skates bought in shops." (Andrew Lang.)
"Complete toys hinder the activity of children, encourage
laziness and thoughtlessness, and do them more harm than can
be told. The active tendency in them turns to the distortion
of what is complete, and so becomes destructive."
"Any fusing together of lessons, work, and play, is possible
only when the objects with which the child plays allow room
for independent mental and bodily activity, i. e., when they
are not themselves complete in the child's hand. Had man
found everything in the world fixed and prepared for use; had
all means of culture, of satisfaction for the spiritual and
material wants of his nature, been ready to his hand, there
would have been no development, no civilization of the human
race."
Pedantry and dogmatism must be eliminated from all the dictations; the
life must not be shut out of the lessons in order that we may hear a
pin drop, nor should they be allowed to degenerate into a tedious
formalism and mechanical puppet-show, in which we pull the strings and
the poor little dummies move with one accord.
Yet most emphatically a certain order and harmony must prevail, the
forms must follow each other in natural sequence, the blocks must,
invariably, be taken carefully from the box, so as to present a whole
at the first glance, and at the close of the lesson should always be
neatly put together again into the original form and returned to the
box as a whole.[42]
[42] "In order to furnish to the child at once clearly and
definitely the _impression of the whole_, of _the
self-contained_, the plaything before it is given to the
child for his own free use must be opened as follows.... It
will thus appear before the observing child as a cube closely
united, yet easily separated and again restored."--Froebel's
_Pedagogics_, pages 123, 124.
And now one last word of warning about doing too much for the children
in these exercises, and even guiding too much, carrying system and
method too far in dictation. We must remember that an excess of
systematizing crushes instead of developing originality, and that it
is all too easy even in the kindergarten to turn children into
machines incapable of acting when the guiding hand is removed.