to German children, I reply that it seems to me to encounter as great
obstacles in that nationality as in any other. It is not a _national_
method, but the _human_ method; and I would remark in this place that it
strikes me as especially desirable for Irish children. The natural
predominance in them of fancy needs the check of accurate perception,
associated with accurate expression; accurate perception, first, of the
individuality of objects, their form, size, color, direction, their
mutual resemblances and contrasts, and the no less accurate perception
of their relations to each other and to the child. These things can only
be made objects of perception by children's being accustomed to _make_
things, which employ the activities that otherwise will play at random
and divert their attention from the matter in hand. In my observations
of Irish servants, I am struck with their never seeming to see what is
before their eyes, or to hear what is said to them, on account of the
predominance of their creative faculties. Accurate perception of the
things children play with, and successful manipulation of them to
produce effects, would also help them to moral integrity; for order
moralizes just in proportion as disorder demoralizes. Successful action
cures idle dissipation, while unsuccessful efforts discourage and
paralyze industry. Froebel wishes the child to be started at something
he can certainly accomplish, though perhaps not without direction in
words. When the child sees an effect produced by himself, he will repeat
it until he can produce the effect without direction, and, if asked,
will be delighted to show another child how he has done it. It is a
necessary step to put his action into words, and raises it from mere
mechanical into intellectual work; from Chinese imitation into European
and American invention. By and by, when he has learned a little
steadiness of attention by doing successfully what pleases his fancy, he
will make some motion of his own, and proceed according to the law of
symmetry (whose virtue he has learned) to discover and make new forms of
beauty and use; but he should still be carefully overlooked, and saved,
by timely suggestions, from making mistakes. These suggestions he will
crave and not resist, _if they are not peremptory_, but are put in the
form of a question, which seems to respect his power to choose, which is
his _personality_, the image of God within him. In proceeding in this
way, both teacher and child are led more and more to realize that there
is a mysterious third Being present, who is neither the teacher nor the
child, but in whom they meet, through whom they communicate, and who
gives the law they both must respect; that there is, in short, One "in
whom they live and move and have their being"; that is the God who
"worketh in them to will and to do"; that He enables them to create
beauty, not at random, but with a certain freedom which is not
lawlessness. He is the Creator of the Beauty they do not make, and of
the Good they love, and gives the Laws which they obey, and in obeying
become powers of good and inventors of beauty; for the laws of order are
truly God's thought revealed to their thought. To be active powers of
good and beauty is to be religious, and also to be free from
superstition; to love God instead of being afraid of Him; to make their
lives a reasonable service, and thus become free from priestcraft and
spiritual tyranny. Inefficiency, still more than ignorance, is the
mother of fetich worship, and reduces man to slavery; and to be
surrounded by natural and artistic beauty does not cultivate the mind,
unless it is already an active power. Reverie is not thinking. But the
mind can only become active by the electric touch of a sympathetic mind
which is already in motion. It is the destiny of men to become one in
that same sense that the Divine Father and Son are one. God has made
human communion a moral necessity, and does nothing for man, except by
the instrumentality of man. "By man came death, by man also cometh the
resurrection from the dead." In short, education, that "mysterious
communion of wisdom and innocence," is presupposed in reasonable
religion. I once heard an eloquent man, who was speaking of education,
say, "The Archangel is born upon earth; we may know him by the many
difficulties that he has found and surmounted, and his consequent power
to educate; for _education_ is the highest function of humanity in earth
and heaven, cementing the links of the chain of love which binds us all
to one another and to God." We are always either educating or hindering
the development of our fellow-creatures; we are always being uplifted or
being dragged down by our fellow-creatures. Education is always mutual.
The child teaches his parents (as Goethe has said) what his parents
omitted to teach him. Every child is a new thought of God, whose
individuality is significant and interesting to others, though it is his
own limitation; and to appreciate a child's individuality is the
advantage the teacher gets in exchange for the general laws which he
leads the child to appreciate. It is this variety of individuals that
makes the work of education fascinating, and takes from it all wearisome
monotony. Those persons who feel that education is wearisome work have
not learned the secret of it. I have never seen a good kindergartner who
was not as fond of the work as a painter of his painting, a sculptor of
his modelling. Teachers who are not conscious of learning from their
pupils, may be pretty sure they teach them very little.
It is because kindergartning is this true education, which is mutual
delight to the adult and the child, that I have faith it will prevail,
and its prevalence is my hope for humanity. By the infinite mercy of
God, no human being is hopeless of redemption into God's perfect image
at last; but humanity will not be redeemed as a whole,--will not become
the image of God, or live the life of God,--until little children are
suffered to go unto Christ while they are yet of the kingdom of heaven,
and are blessed from the first and continually, by those who shall take
them in their arms to bless them. Those are only perfect kindergartners
who are "hidden in Christ," receiving every child in his name, and
humbly learning of them the secrets of greatness in the kingdom of
heaven, which is to be established on earth. Kindergartning is not a
craft, it is a religion; not an avocation, but a vocation from on High.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] For details of manipulating the gifts and occupations, see _The
Florence Handbook_, published by Milton Bradley; or Mrs. Kraus-Boelte's
_Manual in Eight Parts_, which is being published by Steiger.
LECTURE V.
LANGUAGE.
TEACHING, which in the common sense of the word is the suggestion of
thoughts by words, is not the kindergartner's special work, but the _a
priori_ process of drawing out into the individual consciousness of a
child those latent powers whose free activity gives him conscious
relations, first, with his kind; secondly, with material nature,
including his own body; and, thirdly, with God. He is unconsciously in
this threefold relation already, but to become conscious of these
relations severally, in his own growth builds up the human
understanding, which is not born with him like his sensibility and force
of will. The human understanding, a creation in time of the free will,
creates language as the element of a life not shared with animals; an
intellectual life using the symbolism of nature as a means of
intercommunication, and which is correspondent and bearing a relation to
its creator, man, similar to the relation of the material universe to
God, being in both instances an image, as in a mirror, of what is
necessary and immutable in the self-consciousness, though without entity
itself. Hence, as the material universe expresses the wisdom of God,
human languages express the imperfect wisdom of man. Language is the
element in which the intellectual nature makes a sphere wherein to live
and move and have its being. What breath is to the material body, making
man alive in nature, language is to the social body, making it alive in
history.
A word is both spiritual and material, being an articulate form of the
voice which, as Goethe has happily said, is the nearest spiritual of
our bodily powers, taking significance from the articulating organs,
which are symbolical, like everything else in material nature, which, as
I said before, is but an image, as reflected in a mirror, without
absolute entity, but bearing witness of an entity progressively
apprehended by the finite spirits of men, who are the children of the
Infinite Spirit inheriting creative power forevermore.
The _in_articulate sound of the voice is the scream of pain or the shout
of joy, mutually intelligible to all human hearts; and this aerial basis
of language continues to be more or less intelligible to all souls, when
modulated as in poetry into melody and rhythm by emotion and character.
The first human language was, perhaps, music of the deepest character,
of which phase there is historic trace in the spoken Chinese, which has
been perishing for ages on the lips of a nation whose origin is lost in
the depths of antiquity. This spoken language is monosyllabic, and even
the initial consonant often only a semivowel, while the whole word takes
its significance from the _tone_ of the vowel; thus _lu_ in a low tone
would have one meaning, LU in the tone of a musical third another
meaning, and so on as the tone ascends through the octave. The inception
of such a language implies an original equipoise of a brain not yet
despoiled of its first vigor through moral delinquency which is incident
to the freedom to will of a finite spirit, and consequently the Chinese
language was inevitably lost. It would be interesting to enquire if
those rare individuals among the Chinese who are expert in the spoken
Chinese, are not of finest musical temperament.
Not till after thinking had begun could articulation by the organs of
speech begin. Thinking is the free individual act which associates the
mind's activity and the sensibility of the heart with material things,
and must precede the use of words.
A time comes to every intelligent child when it wonders how words
should express thoughts. Victorious analysis has never yet penetrated
the whole mystery of language to the complete satisfaction of men,
though I think philologists and metaphysicians are on the way to it, and
have reached some fundamental facts. For instance, that _in_significant
sounds and articulations could not make significant words, and that
vocal sounds (vowels) get their meaning from feeling, while
articulations get theirs from the symbolism of the organs of speech.
The organs of speech are, first, the throat,--as the guttural organ is
called in English because through it we take our food and send forth our
voice,--is _out of sight_, _covered up_, _hidden_, the _central_ point
where the voice starts; secondly, the lips, which are obvious, movable,
parallel; thirdly, our teeth, against which the voice strikes, are hard,
stiff, and dead in comparison with the flexible lips, and the tongue
which connects all together, the voice rolling over it and hardly
articulated. Hence the hard _c_ and _g_, and the rough aspirate _h_ are
factors in all words signifying the beginning of self-originating motion
(observe _go_ and _kick_, or _cause to go_), the causal, the central,
covered, hidden; while the labials, _p_, _b_, _f_, _v_, are factors in
all words expressing obviously moving phenomena; and the dentals, _d_,
_t_, _s_, _z_, found in words expressive of stiff, hard, dead phenomena
(the word _death_ is all but identical with the word _teeth_);
separation and number being expressed by _s_ and _z_, which are made by
throwing the vocal breath out between the separated teeth. The liquids
_r_ and _l_, _r_ being also a factor of words expressing indefinite
beginning, (as _original_, _auroral_, _arise_, etc.) are made by the
voice moving over the tongue more or less energetically, to express
movements whose difference of energy is exemplified in the words _fry_
and _fly_, _grow_ and _glow_, _M_ closes the lips without preventing the
continuous sound of the voice from being heard; and _n_, negating
limitation by throwing the breath (or voice) out at the nose, symbolize
respectively the positive and negative aspects of Infinity.
Of course I am giving only a hint in order to define what I mean when I
say significant words are not made out of insignificant sounds, and that
articulated sounds get their meaning from the symbolism of the organs of
speech.
The historical origin of language is lost in the depths of antiquity,
when the human race was yet in that equipoise of mind, heart, and
self-activity, which in the process of evolution is only progressively
recovered by the free agent, it being the office of education to restore
it.
The infant (that is, the _non-speaking_ child) in vision of the Eternal,
only gradually becomes aware of the succession of time. For, as Mr.
Emerson sings in his Sphinx song,--
"The babe by its mother
Lies bathed in joy,
_Glide its hours uncounted_."
And Wordsworth says of "the little child,--"
"On whom those truths do rest,
That we are toiling all our lives to find;"
"By the vision splendid
The youth is still attended;"
and
"Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy,
Yet he beholds the light and whence it flows;
He sees it in his joy:
At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."
But this fall from the Ideal is not what Calvinistic theology declares
it to be, reprobation either intellectual or spiritual!
"Oh, joy that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive."
True education shall lead out the imprisoned spirit, growingly conscious
of individuality, by means of the symbolism of the prison-house itself
which is that correlation of necessary forces we call the material
universe.
The material universe, as I have already said, is the symbolization of
everything in God except his creativeness which is the spiritual essence
that he shares with Humanity, his only-begotten Son. It is the body of
God, and human language is the body of individualized Humanity, whose
imperfections correspond with its various partial developments and
short-comings. And it is ever growing towards perfection in the form of
poetry, bearing witness to the creativeness (or genius) of man
forevermore. As breath is to the material body, keeping men alive in
nature, so language is to the social body, keeping individuals alive in
history and literature; and as the material universe is symbolical of
God's wisdom, so the echoes of the universe tossed from the lips of men
are symbolic images of the wisdom of man. Language, in short, being of
both natures, spiritual and material, makes an elemental sphere for the
intellectual life, beyond the material; in short, makes a metaphysical
world, in which the finite and infinite spirits commune with other
finite spirits and with the Infinite One; for by words every minutest
shade of individual consciousness may be communicated from one finite
mind to another, making not only an immortal communion of men possible,
but a communion of God and Humanity also that shall have no end. Heaven
and earth pass away, but the Word of the Lord endureth forever.
But I must not be tempted into philosophizing farther upon language at
present, precisely because it takes us into the deepest mysteries of
speculative thought, and our business with it now is practical, and
concerns the nursery and kindergarten processes of culture.
Looking at it superficially, speech is an imitative art, and so far as
our experience goes, is always taught by elders to the young generation
empirically. This teaching of the mother-tongue in the nursery is an
immensely important thing, because it carries on the development of the
understanding towards the fulness of Reason (which is seeing particular
things in their proportionate relation to the whole).
In the whole course of a child's education, nothing is done which so
much involves the totality of his activity as his learning to talk. For
to talk presupposes observation, discrimination, memory, fancy,
understanding. The first three (observation, discrimination, and memory)
are nearly passive reactions from sensuous impressions. But fancy and
understanding are creative acts of the human spirit, almost defying
analysis. In fancy, the mind acts quite reckless and even defiant of
nature's laws and order. In understanding, it observes and uses them
subjectively. That children delight in using words to name things in the
order of nature, and to express qualities and relations in connection,
making an echo-picture within of what they see without, is not so
wonderful as the exaltation of delight produced by a story which is, as
it were, triumphant over nature's laws, and reckless of its order; and
the shocks of laughter with which they catch at a grotesque and
impossible combination of images made in their fancy by means of words.
The predominance of fanciful talk to children which seems to be
instinctive with all peoples, everywhere, is an indication that fancy is
as legitimate an activity as understanding, to say the least. It seems
to me to be an evidence of our being begotten directly by the creative
spirit, sons of a divine Father, who is the complex of Infinite Love,
Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Power, of which our human feeling, power
of thinking, and executive ability are the shadow, or rather a living
image.
Both fancy and understanding are developed in time by words. We all know
how children are waked up and delighted by Mother Goose absurdities,
and still more by fairy stories that seem to set at naught the facts and
override the laws of nature. It is a stubborn fact, of which
materialistic positivists afford us no explanation, and which I commend
to the consideration of Mr. Mansell, and whoever else talks of the
limitations of religious thought. And I think it will be found that
children who are talked to by Mother Goose and fairy-story tellers learn
to talk more quickly than others, and have more vivacity of mind
generally, with a power of entering into the minds of others
commensurate with their sensibility, and justifying the human sympathies
which are often a burden to the unimaginative, who are nevertheless
kind. A great deal of the misunderstanding of others which causes
unnecessary pain and social bitterness, checking generous furtherance of
one another's good purposes, arises from want of saliency of
imagination, preventing us from being able to put ourselves in another's
place. And of course it is not without the highest reason that the
Father of our Spirits has given fancy the advantage of the first start
in our mental process. That fancy precedes understanding in our
psychological history cannot be denied by any nice observer. I have
known some parents who would not use Mother Goose or fairy stories with
their children, but substituted therefor amusing experiments in
physics,--the metamorphosis of insects and the classification of plants
according to their differences. Their children became scientific when
they grew up, were fine mathematicians, and were interested in
mechanical inventions and natural history; but took comparatively little
interest in political and moral problems, though not at all wanting in
the social and patriotic affections, which also characterized their
parents, who were themselves brought up on the imaginative system not
well modified by studies of nature's phenomena, which was probably the
reason of their strong reaction from the imaginative method.
But I have known as intimately some other parents who made predominant,
perhaps extreme use of Mother Goose and fairy literature. Their children
much earlier and more completely got command of all the resources of
language, had a tendency to art, especially literary art, in their own
activity, and were earlier interested in human history, and all
varieties of human experience reflected in the literature of nations;
but perhaps were slower in attaining practical ability for life's
labors. Each direction of education has its advantages and disadvantages
in the religious relation, and I think it is the better way to mingle
them, especially at the early period of the kindergarten, where the
objective point is to cultivate the understanding, which needs that we
should appreciate the facts and order of external nature as the exponent
of God's wisdom. This will chasten and give substantiality to the
creative action of the human fancy, which is never to be snubbed, but
gently entreated to be reasonable, or we shall have Caliban instead of
Ariel or Prospero, as I have said before.
I cannot find out whether Froebel has anywhere expressed himself
distinctly on this point. There are certainly no grotesque images and no
fairy stories in the mother's prattle with her children over pictures,
and in the out-door walks which are suggested in the _Mütterspiele und
Köse-Lieder_; but children are led to recognize the poetical symbolism
of nature, and its invisible and impalpable substances and forces; the
invisible forces of air, heat, and light are used to lead them out from
the world of matter towards the more substantial spiritual world where
the soul meets and communes with God, the omnipresent Spirit to be
apprehended only by the spirit within us, whose organs are ideas.[9]
In the kindergarten, as in the nursery, children learn language by using
it empirically. To utilize their love of talking as they play is what is
first to be done by the kindergartner. The things seen and done give a
clear definition and precise significance to the words used, which
become the stepping-stones of the mind, by which it mounts up from the
sensuous ground of the understanding into the heaven of invention and
imaginative art, plastic and heroic; and thence to communion with God.
But before children are put to reading, before proceeding from things
through thoughts, and from spiritual experiences through ideas to their
vocal signs, and from vocal signs to their written or printed
representations, it is wise to consider the signs themselves. I do not
mean to go deeply into etymologies or anything that is abstract. It is
not doing so, for instance, to ask children what is the difference
between the words _see_ and _look_. (Can you see without looking? Can
you look without seeing?) It gives precision to the understanding to
discriminate what are often called synonymes, but which seldom mean
precisely the same thing, unless, in our _potpourri_ of a language they
are mere translations, as for instance _morsel_ and _bit_, respective
derivatives from the Latin _morsum_ and the English _bitten_. The little
English-speaking child should not be troubled with the derivation of
_morsel_, but is pleased to be called to notice that of _bit_. We must
be guided here by Froebel's rule of proceeding from the known to the
unknown, and not endeavor to plunge children into the unknown without a
clue.
That children understand and use figurative language readily, shows that
without going out of their childish world we can define symbolic
expression to some degree, and this is a means of regulating fancy. But
I must take another opportunity to speak of the method of doing
this.[10] I can now only affirm that unless children could signify by
words not merely their impressions of material things and their
correlations, but their feelings and thoughts, it would be impossible
for the religious education to be begun in the nursery, or to be
carried on in the kindergarten, as Froebel proposes it shall be.
It is only by naming to the child his own intuition of creative being or
cause, or rather by leading the child to name it, that the understanding
is started upon the religious thinking which is necessary to keep pure
from superstition his religious feeling, while his blind sense of God is
changing from an undefined intuition of the heart into a definite
thought of the mind, which change Froebel would have take place very
early. But this is the most delicate region of consciousness to enter,
and we must take great care that we do not profane instead of
consecrating the process by what we do and say. Words that are adequate
and living names for the spiritual intuition of a very present God,
generate spiritual thoughts in natural relation with them. And this
reminds me of a circumstance in the mental history of Laura Bridgeman,
illustrative of what I mean.