that is didactic and denominationally doctrinal. Their object is not to
teach any science, whether intellectual, moral, or theological; but to
express childish joy in existence, or quicken the original childish
faith, which in all ages and nations has expressed itself in music and
the dance. Nor should the singing of hymns in kindergarten be ever
perfunctory or a thing of course. A good kindergartner begins the day
with bringing all the children into company for preliminary
conversation, and asking each in turn what is in his mind; or the class
as a whole may be asked some general question, perhaps about the
weather, which always has something beneficial that can be brought to
the attention; then they could be asked, "Could you have made this
weather? Who made it? and would you not like to thank the Heavenly
Father for it?" Something similar to this should precede all the hymns
to rouse their sense of free activity, and prevent routine, and then
they will sing with the heart and understanding also. I remember going
one day into a kindergarten with Mr. Alcott when such a preliminary
conversation was going on, which was followed by this song of the
weather, the children making the illustrative gesticulations with their
arms. They began with the weather of the day, and continued with several
varieties, for it is not often the whole song is sung at one time. The
intense delight of the children when themselves personifying the
weather, poured itself out in the chorus, which they had first learned
to sing with a will,--
"Wonderful, Lord, are all thy works,
Wheresoever falling.
All, their various voices raise;
Speaking forth their Maker's praise
Wheresoever falling."
(See Appendix, Note F.)
Mr. Alcott, with his eyes full of tears, turned to me, and said, "This
must have an immense influence upon character." In religious
conversation children have the advantage of us in their as yet
uneclipsed original vision of GOD, and we have an advantage of them in
knowledge of outside things and the adaptation of means to ends. By this
knowledge of ours we can generally guide them to accomplish their
purposes when they are such as will really give them pleasure and do no
harm to any one else. They get our knowledge by confidingly doing as we
direct, and a confidence in the method which brings about the results
they have instinctively foreseen. We save their minds from getting lost
or bewildered in the chaos of particulars by winning their attention to
the orderly connections of things, and leading them to realize how they
connect little things in order to make larger things, and how opposites
are connected in the world around about them. To recognize their own
little plans and open their eyes to GOD's methods and plans; and because
they cause new effects, they realize that all effects have causes, and
in the last analysis realize one personal cause. They must believe in
themselves as a preliminary to believing in GOD. Let them with things
create order; and you will have influence with them in proportion to
their feeling that you respect their free will, and divine in a genial
way what they want; and this you can do if you inform yourself of what
is _universal_ in human desire, keeping your eyes open to what
modifications _their_ individuality suggests; and it is your cognizance
of these individualities which makes your part of the enjoyment. If
there are no two leaves alike, much more are there no two human
individuals precisely alike, and human intercourse is made refreshing by
these various individualities playing over the surface of the universal
race-consciousness. If you respect the individuality of a child, and let
it have fair play, you gain its confidence. Nothing is so delightful as
to feel oneself understood. It is much more delightful than to be
admired. But to give a child's individuality fair play in a company of
children, you must open children's eyes to one another's
individualities, and you will find that if you suggest their respecting
each other's rights in the plays, there is something within them that
will justify you. The consciousness of individuality is the correlated
opposite to the conscience of universality. Justice is an intuition. The
opposite poles of a human being are self-assertion or personal
consciousness on the one side, and generosity or _race_ consciousness on
the other.
We have seen that the maternal instinct, which the kindergartner is to
make her own by cultivating it, cherishes the indispensable innocent
self-assertion (which is only changed into selfishness by lack of that
social cherishing which keeps generosity wide awake to balance
self-assertion). We must sympathize with the play instincts of the
child, so that it may get knowledge of its body in its parts and its
powers of locomotion, manipulation and speech, giving self-respect to
the consciousness of power, while the simultaneous knowledge of
limitation is prevented from becoming fear by experience of the
motherly providence, which is the first comprehensible form of that love
which in due time calls forth ideal worship of the Infinite GOD, if GOD
has been adequately named in natural sympathetic conversation with an
earnest self-persuasion but without sanctimonious affectation. Unless
you have unaffected spontaneity of faith yourselves, you should not dare
to talk about GOD to the child.
The religious nurture which Froebel proposes therefore consists simply
in so living with children as to preserve their primeval joy by tenderly
and reverently respecting it, as that human instinct prompts which is in
the highest power in the mother. Sympathetic tenderness is the first of
all means for moral culture. The child's faith in GOD must be cherished
into self-reliance. There is a self-distrust that is really a distrust
of GOD, and no harm we can do a child is so great as to lead it to doubt
its own spontaneity. The common religious teacher--even a conscientious
mother--sometimes does this, and so far from nurturing the child's
conscious union with GOD, starts a morbid self-consciousness, the
opposite of religious peace. In order not to make this mistake, let the
mother and kindergartner read and ponder Froebel's _Mother Love_ and
_Cossetting Songs_.[12]
If you ask me what aid the moral culture derives from the religious
nurture, I reply, the name Heavenly Father, given to the inmost
consciousness, keeps the heart happy and the will self-respecting, by
preventing those indefinite fears, incident to a sense of helplessness,
which engenders selfishness. Hope and Faith are correlatives, and
conscious or necessary means of goodness (which is enacted thereby),
not agonies of will in the absence of this support. In the majority of
cases moral discouragement is the secret of children's naughtiness; and,
as Dr. Channing used to say, "there is nothing fatal to child or man but
discouragement," which often exists close beside manifestations of pride
and self-will.
When I kept school, in my earlier life, I became the confidante of many
cases of wrong-doing and conscious wrong feeling. Sometimes the
confidentialness was altogether spontaneous on the part of the children,
and in other cases I took the initiative, drawing out the confidence, by
intervening on occasion to console and help, especially when I saw that
the sensibility had been wounded, or there was moral puzzle. And my
experience and observation in this line justified the faith in which I
began to keep school; viz., that children are all _but perfectly_ good,
in all cases, and are never so grateful for anything else, when they
find themselves naughty, as for spiritual and moral help, given as _God
gives_, "upbraiding not."
When they are not grateful for moral help, it is the fault or mistake of
the grown-up counsellor. Even in the worst cases I always took it for
granted that nevertheless they loved goodness better than the naughty
self which for the hour had got the victory over the better self.
Spiritual being, whether finite or infinite, is only to be discerned by
aspiring faith. Yet I do not think it right or wise to suggest to little
children that _their_ wrong-doings, which are more weaknesses than
presumptions, are _sins against God_. Children can comprehend their
relations to each other, and the violation of each other's rights to
happiness, and can be easily led to sympathize with the pain or
inconvenience of those they make suffer, which touches their sense of
justice and generosity; they can appreciate wrong and its consequences
to their equals and to themselves in the _present life_. But GOD is too
great to be injured by them; and to bring GOD to their imagination as
personally angry with them, overwhelms thought, and annihilates all
sense of responsibility, with all self-respect. Children can comprehend
perfectly that wrong-doing, in particular cases, is an injury to
themselves, as well as a harm to their neighbor; also that they forfeit,
for the time being, their privilege of being, as it were, in partnership
with GOD in making others happy, as well as being companions with Him in
making things grow; and an occasional hint of this, when they are very
happy and successful, is well. But to suggest that they are forfeiting
this privilege of divine companionship and partnership, is quite painful
enough, be this forfeiture ever so partial. Old sinners are to be
disciplined, perhaps, by that love of GOD which speaks in the thunder,
the earthquake, and fire, breaking through the crust of selfish habit to
awaken attention to the still, small voice of conscience, in which alone
the Lord is _in person_. But the naughty child, at his worst, needs only
to think of God as sorry for him, and "waiting to be gracious," like the
father of the prodigal son.
I can illustrate this by anecdotes of a child to whose moral life I was
obliged to call in the aid of the religious sentiment, and even of the
specific Christian revelation of pardon for all past wrong repented. It
was the case of a very sensitive child of nine years of age, whose
mother was gifted with the finest imagination and moral instincts, but
was married to a cold, Dombey-like husband, whom she unfortunately
thought superior to herself, whom she idealized, and endeavored to make
her children satisfactory to his worldly ideal. The result in their
characters was more or less disastrous to each, ending with the suicide
of one. This child's conscience of the duty of satisfying both parents I
soon found to be abnormal; and her sense of her father's contempt for
her intellect, and her mother's painstaking that she should satisfy him,
so worked on her sensibility that it suspended her reasoning powers; and
no matter what it was she failed in, whether in missing an answer to a
question in arithmetic, or in failure of good temper when tormented,
she fell into despair. I endeavored to show her that a mistake in any
school exercise was no crime, but only made an occasion for her learning
more thoroughly the thing in hand, and to show her that, unless she had
fortitude to bear failures, and courage and hope to overcome them, I
could not help her out of them; and I never rebuked any naughty
manifestation of a moral character of any one in her presence, but she
would burst into tears, and tell me how much naughtier she was. One
Monday morning I asked my children, as I was wont to do, if there was
anything interesting that they had heard at church or Sunday-school the
day before, when, almost with a shriek, she cried out, "Oh, don't ask me
that." I said gently, "Come with me into my chamber," which she did,
crying all the while. "Mr. Greenwood preached about the prayers, and he
said we should not look about the church, or think of anything else,
while the service was being read; and I always do, and I can't help it,
because I am so bad." I took her into my arms, and said, "It is a sure
proof that you are not bad, that you are so distressed at the thought of
doing wrong. Bad people do not care, and so they grow worse and worse;
but your conscience seems to forget the Heavenly Father, who did not
give it to you to discourage you, but to help you to see what way you
must not go, and to remind you that He is close by to help your good
resolution, which is the prayer of your will."
"But I read in a hymn that GOD sets down everything we do wrong in a
book; and at the judgment day He will read it all out to the assembled
universe. I told a lie once."
"Did you?" said I, tenderly. "Tell me all about how you came to." "I
cannot," said she, "because then I should have to tell something bad
about somebody else, which I must not." "How long ago was it?" "It was
when we were living at ----." I saw by this that it was several years
before.
She had a little brother, of whom she was very fond. I took hold of a
locket that she wore about her neck, that contained the hair of the lady
for whom she was named, and the memory of whose great virtues had been
impressed on her imagination, and said:--
"What if Edward should take this locket and break it, and take out the
hair and throw it in the fire?" With a great deal of energy she said:--
"He never would do such a naughty thing."
"He might do it without being naughty; he would not know that you never
could get any more of Miss ----'s hair; and he would do it from innocent
curiosity--and what if he should do it, what would you do?"
"Why, I should tell him he was a very naughty boy, meddling with other
people's things, and that he had done something that he could never make
up, for there was no more of that hair."
"Well," said I, "and I suppose you would say that, very likely crying,
and if he seeing that he had given you such pain, should begin to cry,
and should cry all the rest of the day, and cry himself to sleep, and
when he waked in the morning should begin to cry again, and should cry
all day for weeks--what would you do?"
"Why, I should tell him I was sorry to lose my locket, but I could bear
it, and he must forget about it, for he did not know what a mischief he
was doing, and I should take him out to walk, and amuse him, and do
everything to make him forget it."
"Why should you do all this?"
"Because I love him," she said.
"Do you believe you love him better than GOD loves you?"
With a look of surprise, she said, "Does GOD love us the same way we
love?"
"There is but one kind of love," I said, "and I really think He would
like to have you forget that _lie_ you told so long ago, without
thinking how wrong it was, because you were thinking of something else,
just as Edward was only thinking he wanted to see what was under the
glass of the locket."
She looked at me wistfully.
"Did you ever read about Jesus Christ in the New Testament?" said I.
"Yes, and I hate to."
"Why?"
"Because you know everybody says we must be like Him, and He never did
anything wrong, and I cannot be like Him, for I do wrong of all
kinds--beside that _lie_, and you know how cross I am."
"O," said I, "I do not wonder you feel discouraged if you think that you
must be as good as Jesus Christ right away, to begin with; but Jesus
Christ came into the world to say a word that is the most important word
in the New Testament, and if He had not said it, He would have done us
more harm than good with His perfect example, discouraging us entirely."
"What was that word?" she asked, with the most eager interest.
"_Pardon_," said I, "for all past wrong-doing that you are sorry for."
"Oh, Miss Peabody, I never thought of the meaning of that word before."
"Yes, darling," said I, "and that is the reason of all your trouble. Now
think of it always; and thank GOD that He sent Jesus to say it. That
_lie_ of yours GOD has pardoned long ago, just as you would have
pardoned little Edward. We all do wrong things when we are children, and
learn by doing them not to do them again. Now from to-day begin all your
life over again. When you miss in your lessons, instead of crying, just
let it go, and ask me to help you try again. So in making other
mistakes, and when you feel cross, which comes in your case because you
are so easily discouraged,--for that makes you have dyspepsia,--just
forget it as soon as possible and go and do something pleasant, and
think that GOD loves you, and only lets you do wrong to show you that
you need to be getting wisdom all the time, and you will grow stronger
continually, and the older you grow, the better you will understand."
I never knew a moral crisis in any child's life so marked as this was.
She had a very hard path in life to walk and suffered much, but she
never again lost the hope by which we live, and at length, full of
years, joined "the Choir Invisible," from which commanding standpoint
she doubtless sees the end from the beginning, and how GOD's redeeming
Providence completes His creation of a free agent. What I insist upon
is, that a child should never be left to doubt, but should always be
helped to feel _sure_ that GOD is loving him better than he loves
himself; is sorry far more than angry with him when he has done wrong,
and therefore it is that He will not let him succeed in doing wrong, but
has so arranged things that the wrong always gets checked; that GOD is
especially good precisely because He "makes the ways of the transgressor
hard." Never let the Infinite Power appear to the naughty child's
imagination as punishing, but only as encouraging, inspiring, helping!
It is recorded as characteristic of the highest manifestation of GOD and
Educator of man, who appeared to His most spiritual disciple as the
"Eternal Word made flesh," that He did not "quench the smoking flax or
bruise the broken reed," but distilled upon humanity--especially in its
flowering stage--the gentle dews of blessing,--taking little children in
His arms to bless them.
You may ask, But what if a child proves in some instances incorrigible
to the method of love? What shall we do then? I think it will be
sufficient to ask any _Christian_, What did Jesus do when the Jews
proved insensible and incorrigible to his long-suffering, brotherly
love, making it the occasion of their own capital crime? Did he abandon
the method of love when they nailed him to the cross, or even doubt it?
Let us dwell on this a little. Was it not the special trial of Jesus
Christ's human life, the last temptation through which he was
constrained by his apparent failure of accomplishing the work of
redeeming Israel, by leading them of their own selves to judge and do
what is right to cry out, My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me? For
instead of their _coming to him_ to get the waters of life he offered,
they had made it the very act of their _religion_ to murder him as a
blasphemer. I ask, Did he, even then, exchange his method of _forbearing
love for cursing_? Did he not, _even then_, hold fast to the principle
of brotherliness by commending his spirit (which was his work) into the
hands of the Father, with the words: "Forgive them, for _they know not
what they do_"; showing that he felt that this ignorance was infinitely
more pitiable than his own apparently forgotten bodily agonies? And, in
this great _humane_ act of forbearance, and _divine_ act of faith did he
not reveal in its fulness the loving character of God, whom he had
always called _Father_, and with whom he proved himself _one_ by this
very token, which converted the Jewish thief and the Roman centurion on
the spot; and which, step by step, is slowly but surely (by inspiring
his disciples with the same spirit and method of dealing with their
fellow-beings) _converting the world_? The moment of despair of an
immediate spiritual good we are trying to do, is often the moment of our
doing a higher and greater good.
As Jesus resigned his own finite will, as the son of David, which was
fixed on bringing the Jewish nation to fulfil its national mission of
"_blessing_ all the families of the earth," which he understood to be
the motive inspiration of Abraham's emigration from Babylonian
civilization into the wilderness; and as he accepted the will of his
Father, which seemed to be that the privilege to do this patriotic duty
was not granted to him as he had grown up thinking, _the will was
lifted_, and he found himself doing _more_--becoming the Saviour, not of
the _nation_ of the Jews merely, _but of all men_, and so sat down on
the right hand of GOD. For he proved himself to the _heart of all
humanity_, GOD's Son, _loving_, not for the sake of men's
_reciprocation_ and appreciation of himself, but for the sake of _the
salvation_ of humanity. Therefore Christ's method is the one for every
man and woman on all planes of activity, however humble. I have heard
more than one mother say, that when they had tried every method they
knew of to influence their child to give up some wrong object on which
the irrefragable free will was bent, and all tender and violent measures
had failed, the _irrepressible_ tears of their despairing love had most
unexpectedly melted the hardness of self-will at _once_, and _effected
the cure_. LOVE, _when it is understood_, is _irresistible_. Our sacred
oracles teach us that the origin of evil is in a doubt of GOD's love. In
Eden it was a suspicion that He had some selfish ends in forbidding even
one thing in a world of free gifts.
The conquest of evil, on the other hand, they represent, was in Jesus
Christ's trusting _God's love_, in a lost world, amidst the physical
agonies of his cross, and the moral anguish of a disappointment of the
grandest aim that ever one born of woman had set to himself for his
life-work. In faithfully trying to do the lesser good just at hand, he
developed the power to _save all men from their sins; not merely his own
people_.
To the training class of kindergartners I would say, _your_ special work
is rather to _prevent_, than to conquer sin, in the objects of your
care; therefore you should, in your own imagination, associate yourself
with _God creating_, first leading children to realize that all He has
made is _very good_ and must be kept so, which is giving the religious
nurture.
That great word of Froebel, _man is a creative_ being, has said in the
world of education, whether religious, moral, or intellectual, "Let
there be light," and is never to be forgotten in its uttermost meaning.
In this truth you will find an infinite resource of hope and successful
energy. You may think that you apprehend and accept the scope of this
pregnant word, because you do not reject it as a proposition; but
partial knowledge is often deluding, and _not doubting_ is far from
_efficient conviction_, which a comprehensive and penetrating
understanding of a principle gives. Let me illustrate this illusion of
thinking we comprehend when we do not, by some of Froebel's gifts.
Think of the four last gifts of Froebel in their wholeness of form, _as
cubes_. When these cubes are uncovered and you recognize them as eight,
or twenty-seven, or thirty-six wooden, solid, six-sided, eight-cornered,
twelve-edged units, and see the relations of their properties in nature,
it may seem to you as if you exhaustively knew the cube; but you do not
if you have omitted to notice one property inherent in it, more
important because pregnant with more consequences than any other
property,--I mean its _divisibility_ by means of which its possible
transformations are innumerable, every transformation presenting the
symmetry of the original in a new variety of beauty, so that if you will
give to a child one of these divisible cubes and suggest to him the clue
of the law of connecting contrasts, which is the law of all production,
he will never tire (except physically) of making the new combinations,
and seeking through each and all, that sense of a _whole_ which was the
first impression. It is by reason of its divisibility, that the cube can
be transformed infinitely. Now you may conceive the nature of man as a
whole, and observe a great many of his attributes, and yet not see the
greatest,--_his creativeness_, whose consequences are infinite.
Educational science has, in fact, generally omitted to do this in the
past, and treated a child according to the attributes it recognized;
but, because before Froebel's day man had not been recognized by the
reflective mind as a creative being, it had not been realized that he
can be transformed, or transform himself as well as his surroundings,
infinitely, ever producing something _new_, and hence that there may be,
in the lapse of ages, as much variety in human production as there is in
God's workings in the Universe.