germinal. And as it is involved within the mothers at the beginning, it
must be cherished _sympathetically_ by her removing all occasion for
self-care and self-defence, and thus prevent the sense of individuality
from degenerating through fear into inordinate self-will and self-love.
The child should be treated with unvarying tenderness and consideration,
without having his senses pampered into morbid excess by
over-indulgence, but above all things, never wounding nor frightening
his heart, nor repressing the simple and healthy expression of his
feelings and thoughts. For enforced repression tends to produce ugly
temper, baseness, or subtlety, according to the child's temperament,
which is also in imperfect social harmony, if not absolutely
quarrelsome. It must be her work, therefore, not only to complete the
child's organic education, but to take him, as it were, into her own
affectionate spirit by using the methods which Froebel has suggested to
the mother for the discipline of her infants. (I use this word
_discipline_ in its true sense of teaching; not in the sense of
_punishment_. That the word _discipline_ should ever have come to mean
punishment is a severe commentary on the ideas and modes of education
that have hitherto prevailed in Christendom.)
The kindergartner, as well as the mother, must be thoroughly grounded in
the faith that God has done His part in the original endowment of
children; and that He is truly present with her, helping her to remedy
the effects of the mother's shortcomings. She will certainly succeed in
her work if she studies His laws with an earnest purpose to carry them
out, first in the government of herself, and then in leading the
children to self-government. Wordsworth in his _Ode to Duty_, sings:--
"There are who ask not if Thine eye
Be on them, who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth.
_Glad hearts!_ without reproach or blot,
Who do Thy work, and know it not!
And blest are they who in the main
This happy faith still entertain,
Live in the spirit of this creed,
Yet find another strength according to their _need_.
May joy be theirs while life shall last,
And _Thou_, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast."
Little children certainly, of all persons, are oftenest found in this
condition when
"Love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security."
And that "other strength," which must come by reflection on and study of
the unfolding nature of the child in the felt presence of the Inspirer
of Duty, will certainly be needed by the kindergartner who will receive
children not always from the hands of natural and faithful mothers, but
of uncultured servant-maids. (It is but justice to the latter to say
that there are occasionally found among the Irish nurses those who could
teach many mothers. The Irish nature is not altogether bad material for
the production of good motherly nurses; but it must not be left _wild_;
it needs a great deal of discipline; and I hope the time may come when
schools for the education of children's nurses, such as Froebel
established in Hamburg, which still exist, may be founded in all our
cities.) Though I think the education of _mothers_ is still more
important and the first thing to aim at, as it would render nursery
maids comparatively unnecessary. It is so short a period of a mother's
life when she _has_ young children, and the book of nature which these
few years open to her _is so rich_, that, for her own being's sake as
well as for the children's, it seems to me a terrible loss for her to
delegate her maternal cares to others during the nursery period. On the
other hand, when the age for the kindergarten comes, the mother needs to
be relieved of the increasing care; and children, in their turn, need
other influences than can be had in a family, especially in families
where parents have work to do outside of their homes. It is, indeed, "a
consummation devoutly to be wished," that the time may come when labor
may be so organized that no mothers may be obliged to leave their
children's souls uncared for in order to get the wherewithal to sustain
their bodies.
The deepest reason why a child should be taken care of in its earliest
infancy _by its mother_ rather than by a person comparatively
uninterested in its personality, is this, that _only_ a mother can
respect a child's personality sufficiently. All others regard the child
for its manifested qualities; but with the mother, it is the child
itself that she loves, quite irrespective of any qualities that he
manifests. Phenomenally, a little child is a complex of self-assertion
and generosity (or a desire for union with its kind); a desire or a
feeling of finiteness in strange contrast with that instinct to "have
dominion" which gives vitality to self-assertion. We call this primal
desire for union his heart, and this primal self-assertion his will. The
will expresses itself in efforts to change its environments, putting
what is at rest in motion, knocking down, tearing up, because it does
not yet know how to put in order, or to change things artistically. The
child acts without external motive,--doing things merely because it
_can_. Even after a child is old enough to think and talk, and has done
some act for which you see no reason or motive, when you ask him why he
did it, he not unfrequently will say, "_because_." I remember when I was
a child of six or seven, that I would give this answer with a perfect
sense of satisfaction that it was _an answer_; and when it would
sometimes be said, "_because_ is no reason," or "_because_ is an old
woman's reason," I recollect my feeling of surprise. I seemed to myself
to have given the most substantial reason. The word meant to me a great
deal. And I now think I was truly philosophical in this, for I affirmed
the primal truth, that a self-determining person in spontaneous action,
if only of some instinct, is a first _cause_[4]--an _absolute cause_--to
the extent of consciousness. It was an intuition.
Now to retain the sense of this causal personality is at the root of
all stability of character, all nobleness of manifestation. But
self-assertion in an ignorant child is more apt than otherwise to be
disorderly, discordant, and perhaps destructive; it therefore provokes
resistance in the unthinking, but challenges the thoughtful to give
guidance. It is of life-and-death importance to the child whether this
force shall meet mere hard resistance, which shall utterly crush it or
increase it by reaction, or whether it shall meet with a genial
sympathetic guidance to which it will voluntarily and gladly surrender
itself. A mother _loves_ this little ignorant force of self-will and
wants it to have free course. She cannot help desiring to have her child
have its own way. She does not want it to be opposed by others. She
will, as far as possible, further or humor it, as we say. And when she
finds it necessary to control it, she will try to do it by awakening the
child's affectionateness, and so captivating its fancy as to make it
feel it is doing as it likes, though it be something different from what
it was impelled to do at first; in short, she inspires him to will the
better thing, and so educates the blind instinct of self-assertion into
a harmonizing and beneficent power, and preserves the child's dignity
and nobleness instead of crushing its personality. We hear of "breaking
the child's will." A child's will should never be broken, but opened up
into harmony with God's will through a lower harmony with the will of
its loving and loved mother or kindergartner. But a mother will be more
sure than any one else to bring about this result, because she acts from
an impulse of the heart deeper than all thought, while the kindergartner
by thought must cultivate in herself the impulse.
There are those who deprecate motherly indulgence as if it were the
greatest evil. Doubtless it will become a great evil if it be not
properly subordinated to the wisdom which appreciates the divinity of
order, or if it is alternated with capricious severities; in short, if
the indulgence proceeds from indolence or self-love instead of love of
the child. The indulgence that really comes from the last is a
recognition (unconscious, it may be) of the divine possibilities of the
child,--a spark of the divine creativeness! Of the two evils, extreme
indulgence is not so deadly a mistake as extreme severity. Indulged
children return from afar. The prodigal of the Gospel story may have
been over-indulged, perhaps, in being allowed to take his portion of
goods, and go off by himself, out of the reach of his father's counsel
and authority, and left to his own uneducated self-will. But the sinner,
when he _came to himself_ (observe that expression), recognized the
self-forgetting, fatherly love in that very indulgence; and it was the
immeasurableness of that love that revived his self-respect and hope,
and saved him; for the hope was not disappointed. Love giveth,
"upbraiding not."
The one fatal thing is to wound the child's heart. It is better to give
up the point of controlling its will to righteousness for the moment,
than to do that; and a parent is the least likely of all persons to
wound his child's heart.
When nothing can be done without wounding, the parent who trusts his own
heart will leave the rebel to the consequences which God holds in his
gracious hands for the final salvation of every one of his children.
Besides, to _choose_ to give up one's own will is the only complete and
salutary giving up, enabling the soul to mount up spiritually like the
eagle and renew its strength. There are families in which the act of
disobedience is absolutely unknown, in earlier or in later life; where
there is no necessity for uttered commands, because expressed wishes are
enough. The most perfect, if not the only real, obedience I have ever
seen, has been that of strong men to an unexacting, tender mother.
This is a subject on which I feel very strongly, for it seems to me that
the greatest social disorders that exist in the nations among which the
"order that reigns in Warsaw"[5] is foremost, is the consequence of
_unreasoning obedience_ to wills _not_ infinitely wise and good. The
worth and duty of obedience is precisely in ratio with the validity of
the command; and a command is valid only so far as it is inspired by a
disinterested and proper respect for the being who is commanded.
Children should only obey their parents, _in the Lord_; and parents
should never "provoke their children to wrath."
I may be told that the important element of self-assertion (which gives
strength to character) may be weakened by being always disarmed, and
killed by the mother's sympathy; and that to provoke it into conscious
strength, direct antagonism is necessary. But the best antagonism is
that quiet, inevitable one, that comes from the inexorableness of
material nature which the child must needs feel, the more disorderly he
is, but which he sees is insensate and impersonal; whose antagonism,
therefore, does not grieve his heart, and disappoint his hope as human
oppression does, making him sad or bitter, but stimulates his mind to
conquer and subdue it, or develops a dignified patience. The appointed
domain for kingly man is not the brotherhood, but material nature; and
gradually he is to learn that nature's inexorable laws are the
expression of a Supreme Personality as benignant as it is august, who
takes up His human child into Himself, not without his concurring will;
for mankind mounts on the nature which he gradually subdues into a
stepping-stone, by knowledge, and the use of it. The mother must
remember that though the first, she is not the only instrumentality by
which the Divine Providence works. The time comes when she is compelled
to deliver her cherished darling up to other influences; when the child
bursts out of the nursery, not only self-asserting and affectionate,
but putting forth energies, and seeking satisfaction of sensibilities
that cannot be met within that narrow precinct.
The kindergarten must, then, succeed by complementing the nursery; and
the child begin to take his place in the company of his equals, to learn
his place in their companionship, and still later to learn wider social
relations and their involved duties. No nursery, therefore, not even a
perfect one, can supersede the necessity of a kindergarten, where
children shall come into cognizance of the moral laws which are to
restrain and guide their self-assertion, and quicken and enlarge their
social affections, leading them to self-denials for the sake of
opportunities for themselves of useful and creative art, beneficence,
and heroism.
The time for transition from the nursery to the kindergarten is
definitely indicated by two facts. Firstly, Divine Providence has so
arranged general family events that every mother must give up having the
child live, as it were, entirely within _her_ life, because she has
other children to nurse, or other social duties to do. And, secondly,
every child's growth in bodily strength and conscious individuality
makes him too strong a force of will for so narrow a scope of relation
as is afforded by one family. While hitherto, to be outside of the
single family influence was an evil, it would now be an evil to confine
the child entirely to it, narrowing his heart and mind, and deforming
his character. He needs to be brought into relation with equals who have
other personal characteristics, other relations with nature and the
human race than his own family. The instinct of the growing child, at
this period, to get out of doors to play with other children, is
unmistakable. To check it vexes or depresses him. In getting possession,
first of his body, and then of his personal and social consciousness, he
has become an object to himself, and feels himself a power among other
powers affecting each other. But he is still more or less consciously a
prisoner (if not a slave) of nature, by reason of his ignorance of the
laws of the universe,--_that body_ outside of his own body,--which he is
destined, in alliance with others, to take possession of, by action
_upon_ and _within_ it, giving him knowledge of it, and enabling him to
make it into instrumentality for the expression and embodiment of great
ideas and a noble will.
All government worthy of the name begins in self-government, a free
subordination of the individual in order to form the social whole.
Subordination is something higher than subjection. We subject mere
animals; intelligent moral agents must be subordinated. It is still the
mother's part rather to inspire; the kindergartner's part is to
subordinate, not to check childish, spontaneous talk, though, of course,
it must be regulated so far as not to let the children interrupt each
other _impolitely_, and to keep it to some main subject. Some
kindergartners begin the session by asking each in turn what is
interesting to him. Mrs. Kraus-Boelte generally receives each one as he
or she comes in. They go to her for the morning kiss, and have something
to say, in which she expresses due sympathy, and later recurs to and
connects with what others say, and thus produces general conversation.
Mrs. Van Kirk is very happy in her introductory conversations.
In playing with the gifts, the teacher dictates certain movements and
arrangements, for the purpose of the children's getting into the habit
of listening and quickly catching the directions given; and the children
should be encouraged to follow _her words_ in what they do, rather than
to imitate each other. In their spontaneous work they often make a new
symmetrical form, which is really beautiful; and then it is well to call
on the child to direct his companions how to make it; for children
delight in the dignity of _directing_, and learn to be very precise in
the use of all the words expressing relation of all kinds,--prepositions,
adjectives, and adverbs,--_precisely_ as well as nouns and verbs.
Language does not merely transfer the outward inward, but soon begins to
transfer the inward outward. Love, and other sentiments of the soul,
good and bad, are named, as well as sensible objects. Even the
instinctive search after proximate causes leads children to infer the
substantiality of _wind_ and the other invisible forms of matter; and
the spiritual senses inherent in the "Me," which is the most essential
of all substances, verifies the ideal world to children, as truly as the
bodily senses verify the material world, and even _more so_; for
children live in God before they _exist_ out of God. The Italian
philosopher Gioberti says that the soul is a _spiritual activity_; that
is, it sees God as the first act of its life. God says, "_Be thou_" and
the soul--before it is put into the sleep of nature (the deep sleep that
came upon Adam)--looks back and says, "_Thou art_." We have the memory
of this primeval vision, and act in our sense of holiness (wholeness?),
right, justice, pure love from the uncalculating delight of loving, the
ideals of beauty, and the sense of accountability to God and man, which
forever haunt us, sometimes giving us pain, as _remorse_, whose sting is
in the comparison of our outward manifested self with our inward sense
of "being increate" (as Milton expresses it). It is this supernatural
pre-intellectual _soul_ which distinguishes man from the animal
creation, and is symbolized by his form, which looks upward to the
symbol of infinity made by the sky, with which the human being
instinctively _communes_, and towards which the child wants to fly,--and
delights in and loves the birds, beyond all other forms of animal life,
because they _can_ fly. Gioberti goes on, in his psychology, to say that
when the soul, which has recognized its Divine Source as the first act
of its life, is put to sleep in nature, it is gradually waked up by the
individual forms of nature, which are so many syllables of the Divine
Word that are echoed in human words, which describe matter and its
evolutions; then the understanding begins, and (which is the point I
want you to observe especially at this moment) the words of even a very
young child soon bring to its understanding spiritual realities. And it
is the office of education to see that the relations of things,--the
laws of order among things,--the adjustment of external cause and
effect, be _accurately worded_; and especially that the _spiritual_
consciousness gets a happy symbolization; that is, that the best words
are used to _do justice_ to the Ideas of God and the sentiments of the
heart of man.
A materialistic educator (or no less a mere dogmatist in religion, who
does not see that the logical formulas and abstract terms of scientific
theology cannot possibly _wake up_ the primeval vision) may do an all
but infinite mischief to the character and heart, by the words he uses
in talking to children; and the theologian a greater mischief than the
materialist, because the forms and evolutions of matter are, as I have
said, _syllables of the Word_ that was in the beginning with God and, in
a certain sense, _God_, while the abstractions of the human mind are the
refuse of finite spirit, infinitely superficial, mere limitations of
thought which become stumbling-blocks to the mind when not used as
stepping-stones to new outlooks, or rather, inlooks. Never should
children be talked to in the language of theological science, but wholly
in imaginative symbolization, and the symbols should be chosen with
great care, and we should be on our guard against rousing the faculty of
abstraction which is a sleeping danger in the nature, whose premature
development is injurious in strict proportion to ignorance and
sensitiveness. The symbols of the spiritual should be human because
human consciousness involves substance outside the physical, and,
therefore, did the Word which had not been comprehended in its creation
of "everything which it had made," though "without it nothing was made,"
take flesh and dwell among us, in order that we might apprehend the
glory of God and perfection of man with our whole nature. That it would
do so, was the insight of the Hebrew genius, whenever by worthy
soul-action the law-giver, king, and whoever entered into "the liberty
of prophesying" was raised to the height of his nature. Now a child is
"on its being's height," "mighty prophet," "seer blest,"
"On whom those truths do rest
That we are toiling all our lives to find,"
and therefore a child can supply a substantial meaning to any name for
God adequate to awaken the living echo of the soul that
"Cometh from afar
Trailing clouds of glory from God,"
whose voice sent it forth, as Gioberti says, "to suffer and to be for a
season on earth."
I hope you follow me in my thought, for I think I am looking into the
child, which is the thing that ought to be done if one undertakes to
teach it. That the child really knows God before God is even named to
him is not a speculative theory with me but a fact of my experience. It
is one of my earliest remembrances, that I was sitting in the lap of a
young lady, whose name and countenance I have forgotten, who was
caressing me, and calling me sweet, beautiful, darling, etc., when all
at once she seized me into a closer embrace and exclaimed, rather than
asked, Who made you?
I remember my pleased surprise at the question, that I feel very sure
had never been addressed to my consciousness before. At once a Face
arose to my imagination,--only a Face and head,--close to me, and
looking upon me with the most benignant smile, in which the kindness
rather predominated over the intelligence; but it looked at me as if
meaning, "Yes, I made you, as you know very well." I was so thoroughly
satisfied, that I replied to the question decisively, "A man."
The lady said to another who sat near us, "Only think! this great girl
does not know who made her!"
I remember I was no less sure of my knowledge, notwithstanding she said
this. Though it was the first time I had thought God and given the name
"man" to the thought, it seemed not new to me. I had felt God before.
I _was_ a rather large girl, more than four years old, as I know from
the fact that we were living in a certain house, to which we went on my
fourth birthday. My next recollection is of going into a room of this
house, where my mother was sitting, working at an embroidery frame that
hung against the wall. I went up to her and said, "Mamma, Eliza asked me
who made me, and I told her a man, and she said he didn't!" I stated
this reply as a grievance and outrage.
Since I came to the age of reflection, I have always regretted the
conversation that followed. It was not judicious, and seems to me a
little out of character for my mother, who was of strong religious
sentiment and quick imagination, and all other conversation on religious
subjects that I remember of hers was very good. She was rather thrown
off her guard by my unexpected theology and lost her presence of mind. I
was her oldest child, and she had waited to see some enquiry raised
before speaking on the subject. I had seemed more stupid than I was, for
I belong by nature rather to the reflective than perceptive class, and
so had very little language. At this distance of time I cannot, of
course, remember the details of the conversation, but I came out of it
with another image of God in my mind, conveying not half so much of the
truth as did that kind Face, close up to mine, and seeming to be so
wholly occupied with His creature. The new image was of an old man,
sitting away up on the clouds, dressed in a black silk gown and cocked
hat, the costume of our old Puritan minister. He was looking down upon
the earth, and spying round among the children to see who was doing
wrong, in order to punish offenders by touching them with a long rod he
held in his hand, thus exposing them to everybody's censure. Of course
my mother said no such thing to me, but what she did say, by subtle
associations with the words she used, gave me this image, which I need
not say rather checked than promoted my spiritual advancement.