CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLIEST CONSCIOUSNESS
It is in the emphasis he lays upon the mental activity of the child from
the very first, that Froebel approaches so closely to the position of the
modern psychologist, and in his account of the earliest consciousness he
distinctly resembles Professors Ward and Stout.
Only to “some of our most distinguished modern psychologists” does
Professor Stout attribute a strong disposition to recognize in the
elementary processes of perception and association, the rudimentary
presence of these mental operations which in their higher form we call
reasoning and constructive imagination.
Now Froebel writes:
“One can recognize and watch, even in the first stages of
childhood, though only in their slightest traces and tenderest
germs, all the mental activities which certainly do not stand
out prominently till later life. Say not, ye parents, How can
such tendencies lie already in the life of the child still so
unconscious and so helpless? If they did not lie in it they
could never be developed from it … for where there is not
the germ of something, this something will never be called
forth and appear.… As man is a being intended for increasing
self-consciousness, so shall he also become an inferring and
judging being (schliessendes und urtheilendes). Man has also a
quite characteristic power of imagination, and--what must never
be forgotten, but continually kept before the eyes as important
and guiding--the new-born child not only will become man, but
the man with all his qualities, and with the unity of his
being, already appears and indeed is in the child.”--_P., pp.
30-49._
Psychologists in general, says Professor Stout, show a tendency, which he
regards as erroneous, “to ignore the constructive aspect of early mental
process, to recognize mental productiveness only in complete and advanced
stages of mental development.”
But Froebel, in speaking of the mother’s play with a mere infant, when
the coloured ball may present “the perception of an object as such,” most
distinctly states that the child’s “first impressions, as it were the
first cognitions,” come to him in these early plays by _means of his own
activity_, an activity of body emphatically, as we shall see presently,
but an activity also of mind, of perception, “durch Wahrnehmen … durch
dunkles Auffassen … durch Selbst-thätigkeit.”[20]
Froebel uses such expressions as “the spontaneous reception” and even
“the critical reception of the outer world,” just as Dr. Ward, in
refusing to recognize an internal sense, says “the new facts … are due to
our mental activity, and not to a special mode of what has been called
our sensitivity.”
The active, rather than the passive attitude, strikes Froebel so forcibly
that he calls the two modes of consciousness, the receiving of, and
reacting upon impressions, a “double expression.”
“The first voluntary needs of the child, if its bodily needs
are satisfied and it feels well and strong, are observation
of its surroundings, spontaneous reception of the outer world
(selbstthätiges Aufnehmen der Aussenwelt) and play, which is
spontaneous expression, or acting out of what is within. This
double expression (Diese Doppeläusserung) of taking in and
expressing outwardly is necessarily grounded in its nature, as
in human nature in general; since the child’s first earthly
destiny is to attain by critical reception (durch prüfende
Aufnahme) of the outer world into itself, by manifold inward
impressions and outward expressions of its inner world, and
by critical comparison of both, to the recognition of their
unity.…”--_P., p. 29._
Professor Stout attributes this ignoring by certain psychologists of
the constructive aspect of early mental process to a false view of the
nature both of association and of construction, the fundamental fallacy
of the associationists lying in their disposition to explain the nature
and existence of a whole by reference to the nature and existence of the
parts which are contained in it, so that “the parts must be supposed
to pre-exist before they are combined, and to pre-exist in such a way
that they need only to be in some manner externally brought together or
associated in order to constitute the whole which contains them.”
In like manner Dr. Ward accuses psychologists of having “usually
represented mental advance as consisting fundamentally in the combination
and recombination of various elementary units, the so-called sensations
and primitive movements, or, in other words, in a species of mental
chemistry.”
That Froebel seems to have avoided the error thus pointed out by those
two psychologists, is surprising enough, but it is even more surprising
to find that this is probably due to the fact that his conception of the
earliest possible consciousness is very much like theirs.
In rejecting “the atomistic view,” Professor Ward maintains that “the
further we go back, the nearer we approach to a total presentation,
having the character of one general continuum in which differences are
latent.”
Froebel’s account, as given in “The Education of Man,” is very similar:
“Although in itself made up of the same objects and of the same
organization, the external world comes to the child at first,
out of its void, as it were, in misty, formless indistinctness,
in chaotic confusion, even the child and the outer world merge
into one another.”--_E., p. 40._
This description reminds us of Professor James’ picturesque expression,
“big, blooming, buzzing confusion,” which is so often quoted, but which
does not really convey so true a picture as Dr. Ward’s account, for where
there is no distinction there can surely be no confusion. But a few pages
further on we find Froebel describing the infant consciousness before
speech begins, as “_still an unorganized, undifferentiated unity_” (noch
eine ungegliederte mannigfaltigkeitslose Einheit). This is identical with
the expression used by Professor Stout, who, in speaking of the stage to
which he gives the name “implicit apprehension,” the apprehension of an
unanalysed whole, uses the phrase “distinctionless unity.” Froebel talks
of the child feeling himself a whole and “so also, though unconsciously,
seeking to grasp a whole, never merely a part as such.” And just as Dr.
Ward claims for psychology as well as for biology “what may be called a
principle of progressive differentiation or specialization,” so Froebel
writes:
“The child mind develops according to the law which governs
world development, viz.: that of progression from the unlimited
to the limited, from the general to the special, from the whole
to the part.”--_P., p. 170._
In this, of course, lies the reason for Froebel’s correct apprehension
of the infant mind, he was biologist first, and his mind was full of the
idea of development.
“At the same time there begins in the child, as in the
seed-corn, a development towards complexity.”--_P., p. 172._
“Whether we are looking at a seed or an egg, whether we
are watching feeling or thought, what is definite proceeds
everywhere from what is indefinite and this is the way in which
your child’s life is sure to show itself.”--_M., p. 121._
Professor Ward goes on to discuss what is implied in this process of
differentiation or mental growth, saying that if analogies are to be
taken from the physical world at all, the growth of a seed or embryo,
will furnish far better illustrations of the unfolding of the contents of
consciousness than the building up of molecules.
It was the endeavour, and quaint enough it seems to us, to translate this
psychological truth into educational practice, that led Froebel to lay so
much stress on the fact that the earliest of his so-called “Gifts” are
indivisible wholes:
“Let us place ourselves at the nursery table, and try to
perceive what the child is impelled to do in the beginning
of his self-employment. Let us sit ourselves as unnoticed as
possible considering how the child, after he has examined the
self-contained tangible object in its form and colour, has
moved it here and there and proved its solidity, how he then
tries to divide it, at least to change its form.… Thus _after
perception of the whole, the child desires to see it separated_
into parts.… Let us stop at this significant phenomenon and
try to discern through it what plaything following on the
self-contained ball, hard and soft, and the solid hard cube, we
should for inner reason and without arbitrariness give to the
child.”--_P., p. 117._
Then come directions as to the manner in which the toy is to be presented:
“in order to give the child _the impression of the whole_ (den
Eindrück des Ganzen). _From this as the first fundamental
perception_ (der ersten Grundanschauung) _everything proceeds
and must proceed_.”[21]
Starting from the conception of an undifferentiated totality or objective
continuum, Dr. Ward says, “Of the very beginnings of this continuum we
can say nothing, absolute beginnings are beyond the pale of science.
Actual presentation consists in this continuum being differentiated;
every differentiation constitutes a new presentation. Hence the
common-place of psychologists: ‘We are only conscious as we are conscious
of change.’” …
As to absolute beginnings, Froebel too writes that these are past
finding out, but he does so in order to call the mother’s attention to
the importance of the very earliest steps:
“Do not say, It is much too early.… Too early? Do you know
when, where and how your child’s intellectual development
begins? Can you tell when and where is the boundary of
existence that has not yet begun, and of its actual beginning,
and how this boundary manifests itself?”--_M., p. 154._
Coming now to what Froebel has to say as to how his “unorganized unity”
becomes differentiated, we shall not find that his brief account differs
in any really fundamental way from that of Professor Ward. Some of his
expressions have a very modern sound, such as: “how the outer world
begins to divide and analyse itself”; how “out of the indefinite outside
and around the child comes the definite”; or again how the child gains
“the three great perceptions of object, space and time, which at first
were one collective perception.” (“Die drei grossen Wahrnehmungen von
Gegenstand, Raum und Zeit; welche anfangs in einer Gesammtwahrnehmung in
dem Kinde ruhten.”)--_P., p. 37._
Commenting upon the phrase “We are only conscious as we are conscious
of change,” Dr. Ward remarks that the word change does not sufficiently
explain what happens in differentiation, for this implies that the
increased complexity is due to the persistence of former changes;
such persistence being essential to the very idea of growth or
development.… At the same time he is careful to point out that neither
in “retentiveness” nor in assimilation is there “any confronting of the
old with the new,” any “active comparison.” Without change of impression
consciousness would be a blank, but “a difference between presentations
is not at all the same as the presentation of that difference. The former
must precede the latter; the latter, which requires active comparison,
need not follow … we must recognize objects before we can compare them.”
Froebel says that:
“All the development of the child has its foundation in
almost imperceptible attainments and perceptions … the first
perceptions, in the beginning almost imperceptible and
evanescent, are fixed, increased and clarified by innumerable
repetitions, and _by change_.”--_P., p. 38._
Froebel, too, goes back to this very earliest stage, the stage when a
baby “begins to notice.” He says that this indication of an intellect
(Seelenaeusserung) begins when the child is a few weeks old, and is
occasioned at first by the movement, that is change in position, of a
bright object, “in and by means of the motion the child first perceives
the object.”--_P., p. 64._
In another passage Froebel speaks of change as “a dim conception of
sequence, and thus of dim comparison.”
“These first impressions come to the child by means of
perception and seeing, and by means of coming, staying and
vanishing (of the ball); _by means of change_, thus also, in
a certain point of view by means of early dim conceptions of
sequence, of foundation and result, of cause and effect, and
thus of dim comparison.”--_P., p. 65._
A change or difference which does not imply active comparison, and a
change or sequence which does imply dim comparison are not very far
apart, and Froebel makes his meaning clearer still by using the words
“unconsciously comparing” (unbewusst vergleichend).
“By this play his attention is called to the precise shape
of the cube; and he will look at it sharply, unconsciously
comparing it with the hand, to which his eyes were first
attracted.”--_P., p. 84._
Nor does Froebel omit to notice the necessary close connection of the new
with the old, which Dr. Ward emphasizes.
“The child very often seeks for something without at all
knowing what he seeks; in like manner he repels something
without at all knowing why. Yet the child does not for this
reason turn away accidentally, neither does he seek the
accidental. Generally it is the new for which the child
seeks, but not a novelty which has no connection with what
has hitherto been, for that, should it appear, would obstruct
development. He seeks the new which has developed from the
old, like a bud from a branch. He seeks a new unexpected turn,
a new unexpected use of a thing, new unexpected properties,
new and yet unconsciously anticipated development, a new
unexpected connection with his life.… The child indeed seeks
for the new that is outside of himself, but not on account
of its externality. Really he is seeking the new of which he
feels premonitions in himself, in his own development. Since,
however, he does not yet know this, and so cannot give an
account of it, _the child seeks especially for change_, in
order to gain a means of growing up within himself, and of
growing forth outwardly from himself.
“Above all, therefore, it is the old within the child which
clarifies, unfolds and transmutes itself, thus developing that
which is new. The whole process takes place according to a
definite law resting in the child himself, in his life, in life
as such.”--_P., p. 168._
We have seen that Froebel draws no hard and fast line between sensation
and thought. On more than one occasion, he does refer to something less
definite than a perception, in one passage using the word “Eindrück,”
and in another the term “Vorentwickelung,” translated by Miss Jarvis as
“preliminary impression,” of which he says it is “to be raised later, at
the right time, by look and by word, to a clear perception.”--_P., p. 86._
In “The Education of Man,” Froebel’s earlier work, he deals with the
function of language, “the word,” in differentiating “the misty formless
darkness,” the nothing, the mist.
“At an early period there come, too, on the part of the
parents, corresponding words which at first separate the child
from the outer world, but afterwards re-unite them. With the
help of these words, these objects present themselves, at first
singly and rarely, but later in various combinations and more
frequently in their self-contained definite individuality. At
last man--the child--beholds himself as a definite individual
object, wholly distinct from all others.”--_E., p. 40._
The function of the name, as calling attention to the thing, seemed to
Froebel of so much consequence, that he says, “the name creates the thing
for the child.” It is in connection with the development of speech in
the stage just following on infancy that he says: “Up to this stage, the
inner being of man is still an unorganized undifferentiated unity. With
language, organization sets in.”
“This period is pre-eminently the period of the development
of the faculty of speech. Therefore it was indispensable
that whatever the child did should be clearly and definitely
designated by the word. Every object, every thing, became
such, as it were only through the word; before it had been
named, although the child might have seemed to see it with the
outer eyes, it had no existence for him. The name, as it were,
created the thing for the child.--_E., p. 90._
“The object of giving names is not primarily the development of
the child’s power of speech, but to assist his comprehension
of the object, its parts and properties, by defining his
sense-impressions.”--_P., p. 242._
Professor Stout also speaks of the casual naming of the object, by those
around the child as “a means of fixing the attention of the child on the
object when it would otherwise pass unnoticed,” and he guards against the
misconception that the name at the outset is a name for the child. He
calls it “merely a special sound associated with a special percept in a
quite casual and indefinite way.”
Froebel, too, is careful when he says:
“A definite tone is to be connected with a definite perception,
and the tone when heard again may recall the perception.”
Though Froebel has little to say about the separate senses, and what
little he has is worthless, yet on the other hand he has a great deal to
say, especially in his later writings, about the child’s bodily activity,
and the experiences and perceptions (Erfahrung-Wahrnehmen) he gains from
it. Indeed he makes so much of this, and it is so essentially a modern
way of thinking that it has been given a chapter to itself.