written two books, one published by D. Appleton, in New York, in 1864,
_The Freedom of the Mind in Willing; or, Every Being that wills, a
Creative First Cause_; and in 1869, Lee & Shepard, Boston, published, as
supplement, _Two Letters on Causation and Freedom in Willing, addressed
to John Stuart Mill, with an Appendix on the Existence of Matter, and
our Notions of Infinite Space_.[13]
INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM TO WILL.
IF the spontaneous will of man, and its heart with its latent love,
hope, and sense of beauty and justice, are without date,
"An eye among the blind,
That deaf and silent reads the eternal deep,
Haunted forever by the eternal mind,"
yet there is no doubt that the human understanding, as well as the body,
begins in time, and gradually identifies the individual for
communication with other individuals of its kind. The beginning of the
human understanding is in the impressions of an environing universe,
against which the sensibility reacts, and by this activity develops the
organs of sense, which are the connection of those two great contrasts,
the soul and the outward universe. For perceptions of sense are the
instrumentality by which the will vivifies the heart, so disposing the
particulars of the surrounding universe as to give the definite form of
_thoughts_ to consciousness. The human being has no absolute knowledge
like the lower animals, who are passive instrumentality of God to
certain finite ends below the plane of spirituality. Created for the
infinite ends of intelligence, and free communion with one another and
God, men need to become conscious of the whole process of their own
being, and do so by a gradual conversation with God, who is forever
saying, by the universe, which is his speech, I AM. And here education
begins its offices, by helping man to reply THOU ART, which he does by
his legitimate art. But no one man can utter the _thou art_ of humanity
adequately. It takes all humanity forever and ever to do so; and it does
not do so but just so far as the men who compose it are in mutual
understanding and communion with each other. Therefore each child must
be taken by the hand by those already conscious, and led to realize his
own consciousness by learning that of his fellows.
In the action and reaction of the individual with his special
environment, he comes to distinguish himself from that which gives him
pleasure and pain, and he will be attracted to the former, and repelled
from the latter; and thus come to discriminate outward things from each
other. The observation and discrimination of the particulars of nature
is _thinking_. Sensuous impressions are the raw material of thoughts,
but discrimination and classification of things according to their
similarities, is the _operation_ of thought.
Education has an office in both the accumulation of sensuous impressions
and the operation of thinking. The mother and nurse of each child must
so order the objects about him, that his organs shall be properly
impressed, and not overtaxed, because only so can they grow to be a good
instrumentality for receiving even more delicate impressions. A tender
sympathy for the unconscious little one, who is gradually coming to
identify himself, and love,--such as only a mother can have in the
greatest perfection,--are the special qualifications of the educator at
this stage. Such a knowledge of nature's laws and order, as may enable
the educator to lead the child's activity according to law and order,
can alone help the child to reproduce, on his finite plane, an image of
God's creative action. The educator who should succeed the nurse is the
kindergartner, who, without lacking the sympathetic affection of the
nurse, must add a knowledge of nature both material and spiritual, so
that she may bring these opposites into their right connection with each
other.
She will therefore lead the child to _produce_ something that shall
serve as a ground for the operation of thinking. Instead of letting the
blind will spend its energy in wild and aimless motion, she will present
a desirable aim to attain, which will produce an effect that shall
satisfy the heart, and produce an object that shall engage the
attention, and stimulate to a reproduction of it, until it is thoroughly
known, not only in its natural properties, but in the law of its being,
which was the child's own method of producing the thing.
The genesis of the understanding, then, is, first, sensuous impression,
which, reproducing itself intentionally, becomes, secondly, perception;
and, thirdly, an adapting of means to ends, and thereby rising into
judgment and knowledge. To get understanding precedes getting knowledge,
which is the special work of the understanding when it is developed.
There is another faculty of the individual, besides understanding, and
which is to be discriminated from it--fancy. Vivid and clear sensuous
impressions are the foundation of fancy, as well as of understanding.
But the will, acting among these impressions in a wild and sovereign
way, is fancy; while the will arranging impressions according to the
order of nature, is understanding. Froebel has provided for the
development of the understanding the occupations, as he calls the
regular _production_ of forms, transient and permanent. Nothing can be
produced which satisfies the æsthetic sense, except by following the
laws of creation. To analyze these productions will give experimental
understanding of those laws. In superintending the occupations, the
kindergartner must, therefore, see that the child does things in the
right order, and gives an account of what he does in the right words;
for words, the first works of human art, have a great deal to do with
the development of the understanding, lifting man into a sphere above
that of the mere animal. After a thing is made, or an effect produced
and named, it must be made a subject for analysis; and it can easily be
made so, because children's attention is easily conciliated to what they
themselves have done or produced. Putting their own action into a thing,
makes it interesting to them; and they can make an exhaustive analysis
of it, because, in addition to its appearances, they know the law of its
being, which was their own method, and the cause of its being, which was
their own _motive_. From analyzing their own works, children can, in due
time, be led to analyze works of nature. And here the kindergartner has
great room for the exercise of judgment, in the selection of suitable
objects.
Froebel advised that objects for lessons should be taken from the
vegetable creation; and that children should be interested in planting
seeds and watching growth, becoming acquainted with its general
conditions, observing which are within the scope of their own powers to
provide, and which are beyond human power; thus leading the
understanding through nature, outward and inward, to God.
If we see that the work done is artistic, and that the objects of nature
analyzed are beautiful, this culture of the understanding may refine and
elevate the taste, and beautify the fancy.
For the fancy is to be carefully cherished by the kindergartner. It is
not amenable to direct influence perhaps, but not beyond an indirect
influence. The soundness of the understanding is conducive to a
beautiful play of fancy, which is a peculiarly human faculty; for we
have not a particle of evidence that any animal below man has this kind
of thinking, which delights in transcending the facts of nature in its
creations, and sometimes sets the laws of nature at defiance. But we
must defer to another paper the many things we have to say in regard to
the imagination and its culture.
CONSCIENCE.
WE have given a few hints by way of answering the questions on
psychology, which must come up, to be considered by a kindergartner who
is intent on understanding the "harp of a thousand strings," from which
it is her duty to bring out the music.
We have found that the human being comes into the world with an æsthetic
nature, which is to be vivified by the presentation of the beauties of
nature and art, in such a way as to insure reaction of the will in
creations of fancy; for only so can sensibility to beauty be prevented
from degenerating into sensuality. If the fancy remains wholly
subjective, it loses its childish health and leads astray. It should
have objective embodiment in song, dance, and artistic manipulation of
some sort. Now, artistic manipulation of any kind necessitates the
examination of natural elements and the discovery of the laws of
production, which are, of course, identical with the organic laws of
nature that bear witness to an intelligent Creator.
To excite the human understanding to appreciate names, and classify
things for _use_ and giving pleasure, it is necessary to present things
to children gradually, first singly, and then in simple rhythmical
combinations, so that they may have time to find themselves personally,
and not be overwhelmed with a multitude of impressions. A real lover of
children will quickly find out that they like to take time "playing with
things," as they call it; and that there is a special pleasure in
discovering differences in things; that a new distinct perception of any
relation of things delights the child, as the discovery of a principle
delights the adult mind. The fanciful plays of the kindergarten, whether
sedentary or moving, cultivate the imagination, the understanding, and
the physical powers in harmony, and more than this, they cultivate the
heart and conscience, because the moving plays have for their
indispensable condition numbers of their equals, and everything they
make is intended for others. The presentation of persons, as having the
same needs and desires of enjoyment as themselves, proves sufficient to
call into consciousness the heart and conscience, just as immediately
and inevitably as the presentation of nature and art calls into activity
the understanding and imagination.
Because nature and human kind are so _vast_ that, as a whole they daunt
the young mind, even to the point of checking its growth, it is
necessary that some one, who has had time to analyze it in some degree,
should call attention to points; and it is the consummate art of
education to know what points to touch, so that the mind shall make out
the octave; for, unless it does so, it will not act to purpose. As
exercise of the limbs is necessary to physical development, and the act
of perceiving, understanding, and fancying, with actual manipulation of
nature, is necessary to intellectual development; so is kindness and
justice acted out, to the development of the social and moral nature or
conscience.
But there is something else in man than relations to external nature and
fellow-man. This self-determining being, who moves, perceives,
understands, fancies, loves, and feels moral responsibility to the race
in which he finds himself a living member, is only consciously happy
when he is magnanimous, which he can only be, if he feels himself a free
power in the bosom of infinite love; in short, a son of the Father of
all men! "We are the offspring of God" is the inspiration alike of
heathen poet and Christian apostle.
As the psychological condition of the human love which is man's social
happiness, is that sense of individual want and imperfection which
stimulates the will to seek the mother and brother; so the psychological
condition of the piety which makes man's beatitude, is the sense of
social imperfection, in respect both to moral purity and happiness,
stimulating the will to seek a Father of all spirits. The more we love,
the more we feel the need of God. But is God nothing but "an infinite
sigh at the bottom of the heart," as Feuerbach, the holiest of infidels,
sadly says? or, as in thinking, we discover the entity we name I; so in
loving, do we not discover God, or rather does not God reveal Himself to
us, as Essential Substance? Wordsworth declares that
"Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security;
And blest are they, who in the main,
This faith even now do entertain,
Live in the spirit of this creed,
Yet find _another strength_ according to their need."
"That other strength" is to be found, as he had already sung in that
same great song, in Duty--"daughter of the voice of God,"
"Victory and Law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations doth set free,
And calms the weary strife of frail humanity!"
Conscience, then, is the soul's witness, first of the relation of the
individual to the human race; and ultimately, of the relation of the
human race to God; and it must be inspired with knowledge of the sonship
of the human race to the Universal Father, or human life is bottomless
despair. But with that knowledge which God must give (since man cannot
reach it with his own understanding) he shall be able, even on the
cross, to love the most ignorant brother infinitely; and infinitely to
trust that the Father of all will justify his spirit in acting
accordingly.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] In the first of these last two books, Mr. Hazard has made an
examination of Edwards on the Will, and the only satisfactory reply to
his argument for Necessity ever made. Very early in life, the task of
answering Edwards was given him, by the late William E. Channing, D.D.,
who read his first edition of _Language_, and was so much struck with
the metaphysical genius displayed in it, that he sought out the
anonymous author on purpose to make this suggestion. He found him a
clerk in his father's great manufactory, to whose business he afterwards
succeeded, and he was engaged in it until he was an old man. All his
books are a proof that _business_ may be as good a disciplinarian of the
higher intellect as scholastic education, to say the least.
APPENDIX.
NOTE A, TO LECTURE I.
IN 1872 the first training school for kindergartners was founded in
England by the Manchester Kindergarten Assoc.
To the prospectus is subjoined the following statement:--
The aim of the kindergarten system of training, intended for young
children up to the age of seven, when school-teaching _proper_ should
begin, is to prepare for all subsequent education. A short examination
of the system will show that it is in idea far superior to any other
method of early training, while experience proves that its pupils acquit
themselves well even under plans most dissimilar. The theory of the
kindergarten is that every exertion of the faculties, whether of body or
mind, will be healthful and pleasurable, so long as such exertion takes
place without compulsion, without appeal to selfish motives, with no
more than necessary restraint. The experience of parents and teachers
may be appealed to as proving that children enjoy their employments
most, and learn best, when associated in numbers.
The kindergarten, therefore, gathers children together in numbers, which
vary with class and other circumstances, and proceeds to exercise, on a
plan most carefully reasoned out, all limbs and muscles of the body by
marching, gymnastics, and regulated games; to practise all the senses,
and tastes that depend directly upon the senses, by drawing, singing,
modelling in clay, and many most beautiful "occupations," which in
addition arouse invention--one of the highest human faculties. The
intellectual powers, being in a rudimentary condition, are less directly
called into action; but the faculties of number and form, along with
skill of hand, are so developed that the learning of "the three R's"
becomes incredibly easy. Above all, good feeling is exercised and evil
feeling checked, by happy social life, in which the tender plants of the
kindergarten see that each one's happiness depends upon all, and that of
all on each.
Sedulous attention is paid to the effect of each employment upon
children of different temperaments. Sanitary conditions are most
carefully observed, and unflagging interest is secured by frequent
changes of occupation.
Wherever the kindergarten has been fairly tried, its results have been
lively enjoyment by the little pupils of their "school" hours, and
readiness to receive not as drudgery, but with delight, all
opportunities of acquiring knowledge. This readiness, it is believed,
would less often change into a hatred of lessons, if the subsequent
school-teaching did not too commonly despise those indications of
natural taste and fitness which Froebel, in his system, has carefully
interpreted and obeyed. The kindergartens for the poor, already
established at Queen Street, Salford, and in the Workpeople's Hall,
Pendleton,--where visitors are at all times most heartily
welcomed,--will convince any one that this system is able to give a
truly humanizing and religious training to children of the least favored
class, gathered in large numbers even out of very neglected homes. By
inspecting these schools also, intelligent persons will form an idea of
the ingenuity and beauty of the processes by which this natural and
simple training is effected. Thus too will be understood, that the
kindergarten system, which in relation to its pupils is the simplest and
easiest possible because it travels along, not athwart, their natural
tastes, is, as respects its professors, very far removed indeed from
every-day facility and _rule of thumb_. It demands in those who aspire
to teach, a sincere love of children and an earnest devotion to duties
which bring much pleasure when well performed, and it demands besides
that they be willing to give up sufficient time and labor to become
thoroughly instructed in the principles, and sufficiently practised in
the use, of a machinery which, while beautifully simple in idea, is
complicated in detail. A great and increasing demand for teachers
thoroughly trained in this system exists, as well for families as for
kindergarten schools proper, and for infant schools commonly so called.
To supply this demand is the purpose of the training school.
NOTE B, TO PAGE 81.
_Letter from Michelet to the Baroness Marenholtz von Bülow._
MARCH 27, 1859.
By a stroke of genius Froebel has found what the wise men of all times
have sought in vain,--the solution of the problem of human education.
And again: Your first explanation made it clear to me that Froebel has
laid the necessary basis for a new education for the present and future.
Froebel looks at human beings in a new light, and finds the means to
develop them according to natural laws, as heretofore has never been
done. I am your most faithful advocate, and speak constantly with
friends and acquaintances about this great work that you have
undertaken. Several journalists and writers will mention it in their
papers. Dispose of all my power to aid you. The ambassador of Hayti,
Monsieur Ardoin, minister of instruction, is ready to return to Port au
Prince, and wishes to make your acquaintance. He will come to see you
to-morrow. For the inhabitants of that island, in process of
reorganization, Froebel's method may do a great deal. I have asked
several persons to aid in this work. Niffner and Dolfus are writing, at
present, a great work on education, and will be happy to give a place to
your cause. I send you a letter for Isodore Cohen; you must see him.
You, personally, can do more than all speeches, recommendations, and
writings together. I shall come to you shortly to hear more about
Froebel. I would like to have a comparison drawn between him and
Pestalozzi. Your written communications interest me highly. Let me have
some German works about Froebel. I read German and know how to guess at
incomprehensible things. I would like to know about the continuation of
his method for more advanced years, especially for girls, and await
impatiently the appearance of your manual. The more I investigate the
heads of children of different ages, the more important Froebel's method
appears to me, as it begins in early childhood, when the most important
changes in the brain take place. All my sympathies are with your work.
_Letter from the Abbe Miraud, author of voluminous works, one of them
being "La Democratic et la Catholicisme."_
JULY, 1858.
We have to fulfil a great mission in common. I shall be most happy to
procure for Froebel's theory, _which I accept fully_, a hearing. To
appreciate this theory in all its grandeur, richness, and utility, the
shade of pantheism it seems to contain is no hindrance to me; it seems
inseparable from the German mind. I accept the obligation to work for
the ideas of Froebel according to my ability, of course within the
limits of orthodox Catholicism, to which I am devoted from faith and
reason. You must certainly go with me to Rome, that we may work together
there. If you resolve to do so, I will meet you at Orleans. You would
find in Rome a good opportunity for _propaganda_. My friends there would
aid us, but without your presence nothing can be done. Italy needs a
regeneration by education. Let us work where the most rapid diffusion is
certain.
_Mons. A. Guyard, a Parisian author writes:_
JUNE 14, 1857.
The more I hear you about Froebel's method, the more my interest
increases, and the deeper my conviction becomes that by this means a
basis is laid for a new education for the salvation of humanity. Accept
my warmest and most sincere wishes for the propagation of Froebel's
method. He is great, perhaps the greatest philosopher of our time, and
has found in you what all philosophers need, that is, a woman who
understands him, who clothes him with flesh and blood, and makes him
alive. I think, I believe, indeed, that an idea in order to bear fruit,
must have a father and a mother. Hitherto, all ideas have had only
fathers. As Froebel's ideas are so likely to find mothers, they will
have an immense success. When the ideas of the future have become alive
in devoted women, the face of the world will be changed.
_Lamarche of Paris, philanthropist and writer on
social and religious subjects, after listening to
the lectures upon Froebel given by Madam
Marenholtz in Paris, wrote on:_--
PARIS, March 4, 1856.
Your last lecture has unmistakably shown that Froebel's method, in a
religious point of view, surpasses everything that has hitherto been
done in education. And this is the main point from which a method of
education is to be judged for its aim is to awaken love to God and
man--the foundation upon which Christianity rests. Education has
hitherto done little to awaken this love of man in the young soul, from
which all piety flows. This is the reason we find so much skepticism and
indifference in human society, and which is the source of most of the
existing misery, and of the want of order and lawfulness. These sad
results are the condemnations of those methods of education that
suppress the human faculties, or force them into wrong channels, or
arbitrarily superimpose something instead of aiding free development. It
is the sad mistake of our moralists who, without faith in a Heavenly
Father, do not understand human nature, and replace _revealed_ religion
with human tenets.... Froebel has found the missing truth, in first
awakening the child's senses and capacities by the simplest means, and
making him feel in nature the loving Creator, before he taxes his
intellect with religious dogmas, which are beyond the intellect of
childhood, and only confuse it. To lead it through the love of God, the
Heavenly Father of us all, to the love of the neighbor, by acting and
doing, is the natural and simple way which Froebel has pointed out, and
we shall owe it to him, if before our children are four or five years
old, before they can read books, they learn the great law of humanity,
_Love to God and the neighbor_.