The selection of a name is very important, especially to an
organization or institution that aims to exert a wide influence among
classes of citizens who are absorbed with the affairs of every-day
life to the exclusion of new ideas.
A name should, as far as possible, indicate its object without further
explanation. The names, "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals," and "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children,"
accomplish their aim by means of rather cumbrous titles but the object
justifies the handicap.
We have adopted the name "Quarantine" for our purpose for the reason
that it has only one meaning and that meaning is understood by everyone
to relate to the _keeping out_ of germs of imported disorder at every
gate of possible entry.
The origin of the name "Quarantine" is traced to republican Venice at
the time when she was mistress of the Adriatic and of the outside
world of commerce as well. It referred to the period of forty days
prescribed as a term of probation during which vessels, men or
merchandise coming from infected ports should not enter the harbor.
Names of institutions often stimulate the efforts of those employed
under the title in the direction of the aims of the institution, and
names given to children sometimes seem to determine their occupation
or in other ways to influence their character or career.
Students of Child-Life find in the lives of Ulysses S. Grant, William
Tecumseh Sherman, and many others who have achieved military glory, a
steady inclination to be worthy of the heroic names they bore, and
some go so far as to associate the patriarchal qualities of President
Lincoln with the subtle suggestion insisted on by the name of Abraham.
It is reasonable to suppose that names in constant use carry strong
suggestion with them and for that reason we have adopted the names
"Character-Building and Habit-Forming" by which to designate the
several schools that are intended to fit children for the independent
individual employments of mature life.
For the same reason we have adopted--invented, if you like--the name
"Quarantinist," to apply to such as share our sympathy for health and
harmony in all branches of social and individual economy, and the name
"Neglectist" to apply to all others, not by imposition, but by
inference.
Who is there that would like to be known as a neglectist, and who is
there, having joined the ranks of the quarantinists, that would not
constantly be reminded to apply the suggestion to matters of
individual care?
"Kindergarten" is a beautiful name, with fine poetic significance, but
unfortunately is not quite sufficiently descriptive of its high
purpose. In common acceptance it means a something intended
principally to "amuse children and keep them out of mischief until
they are old enough to learn something useful."
The method of analysis and training that has ripened out of the wise
suggestions of Saint Froebel is the most important acquisition to
pedagogy that has ever been discovered and is applicable to any branch
of education and also to the use of industrial institutions in
improving the condition and status of employees as well as
establishing cordial relations between employers and their employees.
A splendid example of the latter application has been carried to
success by the National Cash Register Company, of Dayton, Ohio, whose
happy and enthusiastic employees number nearly two thousand persons of
all ages and both sexes, scattered in every part of the world where
commerce reaches, but the subject of this institution and its methods
is worthy of a special treatise. It is an "object lesson" which should
be known to everyone within the whole range of contact between
directors and directed in industrial pursuits.
The first aim of all education should be Character-Building and
Habit-Forming in order to prepare a fertile and weedless soil in which
to nurture seeds of intellectual attainment, manual skill, and
religious intuition, all of which are the certain product of character
cultivation. These insure industry and growth which never fail to
produce blossoms of religious yearnings.
Intellectual and manual training are themselves most useful
instruments in establishing character and habit, but their first and
best mission is sometimes overlooked, and intellect and skill are
frequently taught to children without reference to poise, honor, order
and harmony, in which case the instruction is like building upon sand,
without adequate foundation.
Character is really the chief object and recognized mission of the
kindergarten and no disrespect is intended by suggesting the names
"Character-Building" and "Habit-Forming" to include it in a wider
scope of application.
All great world-movements in the evolution of civilization are
modestly started. Froebel was undoubtedly unconscious of the
tremendous impetus toward reform that his "_Mutter Werk_" had put
in motion. Like all great movements it started in the warmth of a
simple and spontaneous love impulse, but has spread a wave of true
charity that more nearly satisfies the Christ ideal than any that has
before covered the world. In the simplicity of its inception it
received the blessed name of "Kindergarten," unconscious of its wide
mission in the cause of general reform and harmony.
That the mission of the kindergarten is a very broad one is proven by
the fact that more victims of hopeless and hardened criminal mania
have been touched and reclaimed through kindness to the children of
these unfortunates in kindergartens, as related elsewhere, than by
direct effort.
Until the time of Froebel educational methods left character and habit
forming to parents and religion. These are not sought to be replaced
by the Froebel method, but they are powerfully supplemented by it;
and, when character and habit schools for young children, followed by
an adequate number of manual-training and parental farm schools to
test older children for preference of occupation, have come to be
appreciated as the _most important functions of government_, as
well as of education, as they must do to keep up with the present
acceleration of progress, the Science of Government will rest on the
Science of Child-Care, and will have been simplified to the position
of greatest effectiveness.
Herein will woman find the sphere of her greatest usefulness and of
her natural inclination.
Wherever a great light appears to enrich literature, or art, or
science, or philanthropy, or invention, or discovery, or whatever
branch of usefulness it may bless with its potential energy, it is
easy to trace much of the excellence acquired to the teachings of a
mother. To the mother impulses and instincts we owe much that is good
in our treasury of thought, but opportunity for the best mother
influence has been, and still is, a matter of chance, with few good
models available for the parents of those poor and oppressed
innocents, "The Hopelessly Submerged Ten Per Cent" of ignorant and
cruel tradition.
The "_Mutter Werk_" of the kindergarten, pursued anywhere, upon the
common, by the wayside, in a wood-shed, or in a shabby but tidy room
in the midst of a city slum, carries the opportunity of profitable
lessons in life to all, and fulfills the mandate of the Christ in the
spirit, as well as in the letter, of His command.