her mind that this æsthetic soul exists in children as a primary fact;
for, unless she believes in it, she will not respect it, and take
advantage of it in what she does for them. It is to be respected and
brought out into the understanding of children, by means of the
beautiful things which she leads them to do and make, and with which she
surrounds them; for, as Allston says, this consciousness "requires as
its effective condition, the widest intimacy with things external." When
children are continually in squalid surroundings, these seem at length
to strike in and paralyze the spontaneous action of the æsthetic being,
who is pre-existent to consciousness of the power which compares and
judges and makes up a theory of colors. And, as has been shown, this
feeling of beauty, this power of appreciating harmony and unity, this
æsthetic nature, distinct from and above the understanding, which some
people idly think to be all of man beside his body, is not all of the
soul, for the moral sentiment has the same pre-existence.
We have brought together these paragraphs taken from Allston's lectures
on Art, for the consideration of practical kindergartners, all the more
confidently, because they were not written as theory of education, but
were parts of a practical inquiry after the standard of judgment for
pictorial and plastic artists and the spectator of their works. He
sought to deliver them from the benumbing effect of inadequate
science,--for science must always be inadequate, as Newton so forcibly
expressed, when he defined it "gathering a few pebbles on the shores of
the infinite ocean of truth." The object of the lecturer was what the
kindergartner's first object should be,--to awaken the self-respect of
the eternal soul within us all, making the life of our individuality--our
personality--which, in its mysterious depth and independent
pre-existence to the finite understanding, is the image of the Divine
Personality, whose spoken word is the material universe, but clothed in
flesh becomes MAN. It is no part of the kindergartner's duty to
give--she can only awaken--the feelings of harmony, beauty, unity, and
conscience. She is to present the right order of proceeding, in all that
the child shall do, thereby assisting him to form his own understanding
so that his bodily organization may be properly developed; to let in
upon his soul _nature_ in its beauteous forms and order, and his
fellow-creatures, in their legitimate claims upon him. Then he shall
come forth from the sleep of unconscious infancy, into a progressive
consciousness of all his relations, with the blessings and duties that
belong to them. This forming of the understanding, this marrying of
finite thought to infinite love, is Froebel's Education; and cannot be
accomplished, unless the kindergartner clearly sees what God has done
for the child absolutely, and what for an ineffable purpose,--most
gracious to the human race,--He has left to be done by human providence,
whether of the mother or kindergartner, or some other fellow-creature.
It makes a heaven-wide difference whether the soul of a child is
regarded as a piece of blank paper to be written upon, or as a living
power, to be quickened by sympathy, to be educated by truth.
UNDERSTANDING.
WE have spoken of the evidences of the æsthetic being found in the
mysterious depths of human personality, pre-existent to the individual
understanding (which is a growth in time); and that, without there were
this æsthetic being, underlying all _individual_ consciousness, there
would be no standard of human virtue or art.
This æsthetic person has also (previous to the development of the
understanding, which makes the synthesis of himself and nature) an
impulsive force, instinct with the desire to change his conditions. Man
does not appear in the world merely as sensibility to enjoyment and
suffering; but as veritable force, as well, whose action must produce an
effect either orderly or disorderly.
The material universe is composed of forces, limiting in a measure
personal force. All material forces are uniform and necessary and
correlative in their action, which is impressed upon them from without
themselves. Man alone is self-active, and may clash with the other
forces to his own pain, and he will often do so, until by knowledge of
them he can harmonize with them, and make them his own instrumentality
to satisfy his æsthetic nature. We call this self-activity of man, which
is in such vital union with his sensibility, the human will, and it
makes the personal life of every one to learn this self-activity of his,
in its differences from and relations to all other forces, as he can
only do perfectly by keeping in intellectual and sympathetic social
relation with other æsthetic persons. In every individual case, he finds
himself in these relations with fellow-beings who have more or less of
the knowledge he has not; and some of them have all the responsibility
of his actions until he has begun to know himself in discrimination from
the material universe and its fixed relations and laws, which serve as a
fulcrum for his own effective action among them. The one central unity
whose æsthetic being and will are inclusive of himself and fellow-beings
as subject, on the one hand, and of the material universe as object, on
the other, is God.
The absoluteness of man as a force, is no less certain because he is
finite and not omnipotent. God is the omnipotent maker of the material
universe, but man is not absolutely made; he is a cause, that is,
_created to make_, if we may credit the ancient prophet, whose hymn of
creation is the most wonderful expression of human genius, unless it be
surpassed by the proem of St. John's Gospel, which is a correspondent
poem, with God for its theme instead of man and nature.
It was not till the embryo man had become, in one instance at least, the
fully developed man, that this hymn of the Creator was possible. God's
word (revelation of himself) was in the world, embodied in the things
made from the beginning; but until it was embodied in a man, free to
will, it was truth in the form of law only (_regulative_), not yet in
the completer form of love (_creative_). In short, before St. John could
sing that divine song, he must have seen God in a man, full of grace and
truth, dwelling among men as a fellow-man, and overflowing with a power
at once sympathetic and causal.
God created man, male and female (that is, giving and receiving
equally), to be keepers of each other, and to educate each other. They
may tempt and fail each other by presumption as Eve, and want of
self-respect as Adam, are represented to have done, at the beginning; or
may save and redeem one another, as the cherished son of Mary
historically did in a measure, and is doing forevermore, by inspiring
all who know him, to educate and redeem each other.
In coming into relation with infant man, to educate him, it is
indispensable to appreciate his freedom of willing, which is a primeval
fact, as much as his susceptibility of suffering and enjoyment. The
educator ought to embody God in a measure, and treat the will of the
child that is to be educated, on the same grand system of respecting
individual freedom, as must needs flow from Infinite love. Let him
clothe law in love, and instead of rousing fear of opposition, awaken
the hope of becoming a beauty-creating and man-blessing power.
This is the _rationale_ of Froebel's method of government. He assumes
that the child is--not to be made by education a sensibility, but--an
infinite sensibility already, and to be vivified into individual
consciousness thereof, by the knowledge of nature to which you are to
give him the clue;--not to be made by your government of him, a power of
creating effects, but already an immeasurable power of creating effects
(that is, causal)--which you are to make him feel responsible for, by
helping him to get experimental knowledge of the laws that obtain in
God's creation.
For it is knowledge of laws that is the first thing attainable--not
knowledge of objects. A child's senses are the avenues of the knowledge
of objects; his self-activity is the avenue of the knowledge of laws. He
must have experimental knowledge of laws before he can begin to have
knowledge of objects, because his impulsive activity is the means of
developing his organs of sense, by which he becomes capable of receiving
impressions from objects of nature; and his own effective action
produces the objects outside of his organs which first command his
interested attention, and rouse his powers of analysis, or by which his
powers of analysis are roused through your educating intervention.
It is the maternal nursing of body and mind which educates the free
force within to produce transient effects, and finally objects,
agreeable to the sensibility. Even before the will is educated to
causality, it exerts itself, because exertion is agreeable to human
sensibility; but when left uneducated, the will brings about effects
that prove disagreeable ultimately, if not immediately, to the æsthetic
being, paralyzing it more or less, if the organization be feeble; and
perverting it when it is strong; in either case, whether crushing or
exasperating it, producing selfishness, the germ of all evil.
Thus evil begins in the social sphere, in the disorderly action or in
the neglect of those who have in charge the æsthetic free force of the
child, compelling it to revolve on its own axis in a vain endeavor to
obtain the satisfaction of its æsthetic nature, which it ought to obtain
through the generous cherishing action of others' love, carrying it
round the central sun in human companionship. The soul instinctively
expects love, and to do so, and to act out love intentionally, is its
salvation, its eternal life. There is no signature of immortality so
sure as the immeasurable craving for love on the one hand, and the
immeasurable impulse to love on the other hand, which characterizes man;
for the satisfaction of the craving is no greater joy than the
satisfaction of loving.
It is because death _seems_ the cessation of relation with our kind,
that it is the king of terrors. When the disease or decay of the body
curtails relations and makes us solitary, or incapable of enjoying
relations, death is not dreaded, but craved as relief. To whomever it
seems the beginning of wider relations, it is hailed as the revealing
angel of God. Isolation is the horror of horrors. It was one of the
primal intuitions that "it is not good for man to be alone." The nurse
should remember this, and not leave the baby to feel lonely. Every
mother and real nurse knows that when the baby begins to be uneasy and
gives a cry of dissatisfaction,--to come near with a smile, to make
one's presence felt by a caressing tone, or to take the infant in their
arms, will comfort it, bringing back the joyful sense of life--a word
which signifies active relation;--and, in its highest sense, spiritual
relation. _Life_, _love_, and _liberty_ are identical words in their
radical elements. There is no love without liberty, nor fulness of life
without love.
The liberty of man, or his freedom to will, though it gives him the
power to dash himself against antagonizing law, is the proof of infinite
love to man in the Creator,--a love which must needs outmeasure all the
evil he can do himself or others; for evil provokes others' love for our
victims, and is self-limited, by reason of the pain it brings, sooner or
later, on him who does it, and the desire for infinite love which it
defines and stimulates.
Man and nature are the contrasts which God connects and harmonizes. He
presents nature to the mind as immutable law, but before the
understanding is formed to apprehend law, He emparadises the child in
the love of the mother. In short, the human race embodies love to the
soul, before the universe (which embodies law) is yet apprehended. The
heart that apprehends love, is older than the mind which apprehends law;
and it is because it is so, that man _feels free_. When man becomes mere
law to man, instead of love, he feels he is enslaved.
These are the most practical truths for the kindergartner. If these
propositions are truths (and their evidence is the explanation they give
of the mysteries of sin and redemption, both of which are unquestionable
facts of human history, according to the testimony of all nations), then
let her see to it, that in her relation with the children of her charge,
she never so presents the law, as to obscure the love, which it is the
primal duty of men to embody and manifest to each other.
But, on the other hand, do not keep back the law; for the law, too, is
one expression of the Creator's being. What is law? It is the order of
the beauteous forms of things, which, when appreciated as God's order,
becomes a stepping stone to his throne. For God proposes to share his
throne with us, if we may trust another primeval intuition of the human
mind, viz., that God commands man, male and female, that is, men in
equal social relation, to "have dominion" over all creation, below man.
The human being not only craves liberty and love instinctively, but law
also; he "feels the weight of chance desires," and "longs for a repose
that ever is the same." This is the _rationale_ of Froebel's method in
the occupations; he suggests the child's action, sometimes by
interrogation merely, instead of directing it peremptorily. He asks the
child, when he has done one thing, what is the opposite? which itself
suggests the combination of opposites, that immediately produces a
symmetrical effect. The child enjoys the symmetry all the more, if he
feels as if he personally produced it. This is the secret of his love of
repetition. He wants to see if by the same means he can again produce
the same effect. He does the thing again and again, till he feels that
he does it all of himself. He does not want you to help him even with
your words (and you never should help him _except_ with words). If a
child acts from a suggestion, he feels free,--but if he produces the
same effect, or a similar effect, without your suggestion, he has a
still more self-respecting sense of power; and his will becomes more
consciously free the more he chooses to put on the harness of order.
The kindergartner will sometimes have a child put under her care whose
will has been exasperated by arbitrary and capricious treatment, or who
has been made to act against his inclination till he has reacted, out of
pure _contrariness_, as we say. This contrariness proves that he has
been outraged; perhaps in some instances the effect has been produced by
not feeding his mind with knowledge of law. The very violence of the
evil may show that he is an exceptionally fine child, with an enormous
sense of power that he does not know what to do with because the proper
educational influence has failed him. In other cases obstinacy may be a
reaction against the vicious will of another, who, instead of offering
him the bread of law, has presented to him the stone of his own
stumbling. It is indispensable to give the child law, as well as love;
but when you are doubtful whether you can genially suggest the law,--at
all events express the love; and never substitute for the law your own
will. The law which produces a good or beautiful effect, is God's will;
your will is not creative of the child's will like God's; its best
effect is to stimulate the antagonism of the child's, when the latter is
feeble, which it sometimes is by reason of physical mal-organization, or
by having been crushed by overbearing management, or vitiated by selfish
caprice.
I may be told that if Froebel's education is wholly of a genial, coaxing
character, it fails of being an image of the Divine Providence, which is
an alternation of attractions and antagonisms, speaking now in the music
of nature, and now in thunders and lightnings, not only cherishing the
heart with love, but stimulating the will with law; and be warned not to
enervate the character, by producing an æsthetic luxury of sentiment, by
which the personal being shall stagnate in the worst kind of
selfishness--the passive kind. This objection might be pertinent, if the
kindergarten were to be protracted beyond the era to which Froebel
limits it. Certainly the time comes, when the finite will should be
antagonized, if need be, by the law of universal humanity. The purest,
most loving, most disinterested will known to human history, recognized
that there might be a _wiser_ will, not to be doubted as still more
loving; and said, "Not my will, but Thine be done,"--"Into Thy hands I
commend my spirit" (my free causal power). But let the kindergartner
remember she is not infinitely wise and good, and beware of enacting the
sovereign judge. There is no doubt that an exclusively cherishing
tenderness should be the law of the nursery, with no antagonism
whatever, because at that age it is a wise self-assertion which we wish
to develop. We therefore act _for_ the infant, having secured his acting
_with_ us by our genial encouragement. But this is no argument for
continuing to act for him, when he can act with consciousness of an
individual life. We must not prolong babyhood into the kindergarten; or,
at least, we must begin to engraft personal consciousness upon it, by
_playing_ little antagonisms merely. And so, it is no argument against
the play of kindergarten that it does mature men. Let the children play
with complete earnestness, but, as Plato says, "according to laws," and
they will all the more likely seek laws when they come into wider
relations.
The development of the consciousness of man is serial. In the nursery we
coax the child to exercise the various muscles by playfully duplicating
their action; we make him _make believe_ walk, impressing his senses, as
it were, with the whole operation as an object. The child first
experiences the pleasure of movement, then desires to move for the sake
of renewing this pleasure; then enjoys your helping him to do what he
has not yet the bodily strength and skill to accomplish; and finally
wills to take up his body and make his first independent step. This is
the first crisis in the history of his individuality, and every mother
knows it is the cheer of her magnetizing faith that enables him to pass
through it. He then repeats the action intentionally, simply because he
can; enjoying the exertion he makes all the more if, by your care, he
has not begun to walk too soon and experienced the pain of numerous
falls, from want of guardian arms and supporting hands. Such pains
disturb and haunt his fancy, and dishearten him. Courage and serene joy
give strength and enterprise to activity.
The nursery and kindergarten education are the preliminary processes
which foreshadow all the processes of the Divine Providence. Therefore,
even in the nursery we _play_ antagonizing processes. We heighten the
child's enjoyment by making him conscious of isolation a moment, to
restore, as it were, with a shout, the delightful sense of relation; for
the baby likes to have a handkerchief thrown over his head unexpectedly,
and suddenly withdrawn again and again. So we sometimes pretend to let
him fall, and just when he is about to cry with alarm, catch him again
and kiss him.
Froebel in his nursery plays has several of this nature; and as children
grow older they play antagonisms spontaneously, which are beneficial
just so far as they elicit the consciousness of individual power; but
are harmful if, proceeding too far, they show its limitations painfully,
and make the child feel himself a victim.
In the kindergarten season various sensibilities are manifest that have
not shown themselves in the nursery, and which are premonitions of the
destined dominion over material nature, which at first so much dominates
the child, and would destroy his body if you did not intervene with your
loving care. These are to be mothered in the kindergartner's heart till
they become conscious desires, informing and directing his will, which
is encouraged and strengthened--if it is never superseded by your
will--until he shall begin to realize his personal responsibility. Then,
as he took his body into his own keeping when he began to run alone, so
now he will take his character into his own hands to educate, and he
will do it all the more certainly and energetically, if he feels you to
be an all-helping, all-cherishing, all-inspiring friend, which you must
needs be if you are open to feel and wise to know God's love to you, in
making you His vicegerent to give glimpses, at least, of the
immeasurable love of God, in giving the inexorable laws of nature, for
the fulcrum of the power that He pours into His children in the form of
will; and which obeys Him just in proportion as it keeps its freedom to
alter and alter and alter, till there is no longer any evil to be
conscious of, and men shall have got the dominion over nature, which
consists in using it for all generous purposes, in a universal mutual
understanding with one another. To be in the progressive attainment of
this high destiny, is the growing happiness of man; a happiness which
must ever have in it that element of _victory_, which distinguishes the
eternal life of Christ from the nirwana of Buddha.
MORAL SENTIMENT.
WE have been asked by one of the students of Froebel's art and science,
what books we should recommend to help her to a fuller knowledge of the
subjects on which we gave a few hints in our first and second paper of
_Glimpses_.
In reply, we would first say, that it is a needed preparation for any
study of books on intellectual and moral philosophy, to look back on our
own moral history and mental experience, and ask ourselves what was the
process of our moral growth, and the circumstances of the formation of
our opinions; that is, what action of our relatives, guardians, and
companions, had the best--and what the worst--practical effects upon our
characters; what aided and what hindered us? Every fault in our
characters has its history, having generally originated in the action of
others upon us; sometimes their intentional action, which may have been
merely mistaken, or may have been wilfully selfish and malignant; and
sometimes an influence unconsciously exerted. On the other hand, much of
our life that has blest ourselves and others, can be referred to
spontaneous manifestations of others, having no special reference to
ourselves; generous sentiments uttered in felicitous words, generous
acts recorded in history, or done in the privacy of domestic life; great
truths bodied forth in imaginative poetry, over which our young hearts
mused till the fire burned.
This empirical knowledge of the great nature which we share, is a living
nucleus that will give vital meaning to any true words with which
scientific treatises on the mind are written; and a power to judge
whether the writer is talking about facts of life, or mere abstractions,
out of which have died all spiritual substance, leaving only "a heap of
empty boxes." In no department of study are we more liable to take words
for things than in this. Abstraction is the source of all the false
philosophy and theology which has distracted the world. Generalizations
are of no aid--but a delusion and a snare--unless the mental and moral
phenomena, from which they are derived, have been the writer's
experiences, personal or sympathetic. Such experiences are as
substantial as material things, to say the least; and even they do not
do justice to the whole truth, which is--if we may so express it--the
vital experience of God. Hence is the Living Word to which human
abstractions can never do justice; being, indeed, but the refuse of
thought, "a weight to be laid aside" and forgotten, like a work done, as
we stretch forward to the prize of truth, which is our "high calling."
In Book II. chapter vii. of Campbell's _Philosophy of Rhetoric_, there
is a section headed, "Why is it that nonsense so often escapes being
detected, both by the writer and reader?" It explains with great
perspicuity the uses and abuses of our faculty of abstraction, which is
not a spiritual, but merely an intellectual faculty. I would commend
this essay (and indeed, for several reasons, the whole book) to a
student of intellectual philosophy. A great deal may be learned upon
this subject, also, from an Essay on Language, printed a second time
with some other papers, by Phillips & Sampson, Boston, in 1857, and
probably still to be found in old bookstores, if it be not reprinted by
its author, R. L. Hazard.