Part 13

When, later, my studies with a great philologist gave me a little light upon the subject, and showed me that English had the misfortune to be written by an inadequate alphabet, whose result was to confuse the phonography entirely, by obscuring the original principle of having but one letter for one sound, and a letter for every different sound, I realized the positive disadvantage of children's being forced through a process which baffles all their natural instincts of classification; and it was then I invented a method of separating English words into classes, the phonographic ones to be first made familiar, and the exceptions classified. Yet I could not be insensible to the unnaturalness of beginning with spending so much of the time of very young children upon this work of the _imperfect mind of man_, as languages are, rather than on the works of Infinite Wisdom. I was therefore well prepared to accept Froebel's method of first sharpening the senses by examination of things that charm children, and of developing the understanding by first making things according to the laws which constitute the mind, and then naming them in all perceptible relations. First let us form a mind which can apprehend nature as the standard of truth, before we undertake to _in_form it with what embodies the confusions and errors of men; as, for instance, in a considerable degree the written English language does. For language stands in the same relation to man as nature does in relation to God. The eternal word of Truth makes _things_ before it is made flesh. The confusion of tongues was the inevitable consequence of the fall of man out of that communion with God in which children are born, and our written language is an image of this confusion, especially the English, whose so-called orthography is the most anomalous of all languages; and the acquisition, therefore, ought to be postponed, at least until the understanding is fairly developed by some recognition of so much of the Word of God as is alive in the things we see and can handle. The time comes when the children can understand that exceptions prove the rule, and then those irregularities and anomalies of English writing may be made even entertaining lessons to children; because if its laws and rules are apprehended first, there is something amusing to them in contradictions of law that so many words seem to be. It is the pleasure in the grotesque; children enjoy the _funny_, as they call it, but it is a different enjoyment from that of the beautiful, and the latter is the highest element for human activity. A predominance of the _funny_ even demoralizes intellectually as well as morally, but it has its own subordinate place in healthy child life.

My little friend had a slate and pencil, and immediately inclined to draw from real objects, but we did not know how to give him any other help than to guess at what were the things he was trying to represent. If we could not guess, I remember he would blush, and go away, saying he would "_fix it a little_." I had the instinct that he could only be effectually encouraged by success, and I would endeavor to divine what he meant, by looking to see what were the surrounding objects when I saw him drawing, and would point out to him with congratulation any part in which he had at all succeeded, letting the rest go. But without adequate and legitimate guidance he necessarily became discouraged with his failures. What children do not succeed in, becomes distasteful to them, and they turn their attention from what has disappointed them, and thus their natural tastes die, or are starved out. As they have no knowledge of materials, nor judgment in using them, they undertake _the impossible_, and being baffled, lose courage to undertake the possible. So young artists accumulate difficulties by their unwise choice of subjects, not realizing the limitations of their own powers. It is the part of the educated kindergartner to supply this want of judgment and analysis until the pupil catches the secret of gradualism and the law of opposites. Froebel's plan of giving the squared slate and paper to ensure straightness of line in children's drawing is like the leading strings by which the mother helps the child to develop his limbs for walking, which cannot be done without his own personal effort. So Froebel's plan of having the kindergartner suggest a symmetrical drawing of lines in opposites, vivifies the sense of symmetry into a thought, whence springs a plan of making still another symmetry. For by suggesting opposites, and then the connecting of them, the child delightedly sees orderly forms that grow under his hands, and feels that he is acting from his own individual personality (which _he is_, though the thought was suggested by the words of another). What he _does_ gives him confidence in his own mind, whose fanciful movement suggests other symmetries; for though fancy is a spontaneous play of the free will among impressions passively received, it is amenable to the laws whose exponents are presented to it by nature's works and human suggestion.

F. liked to watch my sister Sophia at her drawing and painting, but its very perfection discouraged efforts on his own part. It is bad not to _do_ really at once what we conceive of ideally. It was only in the moral and religious sphere that we really lived with him, and he was properly educated by us. We always answered all his questions about what we were doing, and how, and why (I wish now I had asked him more questions).

My sister Sophia had a rare talent for talking with children, whose purity and innocence she comprehended by a sympathetic intuition, and to whose imagination her Christian faith gave ample scope, for it was hampered by no human creeds. We had a circle of acquaintances who were only too much inclined to pet him, and who, knowing something of the history of his mind, liked to talk with him. His mother had been very much beloved by this circle, and I used to tell him that _for her_ sake, they cared for and attended to _him_, which interested him immensely, and perhaps prevented his considering himself as a person of too much importance comparatively. He would talk of going to see his "MOTHER'S FRIENDS." If new persons spoke to him kindly, he would ask me immediately if they knew and loved his mother; at all events, the element of personal EGOTISM did not appear, and the affection he at first poured out on me, now freely flowed out in every direction. I remember his saying to me, one day, with an accent of great self-gratulation, "I think I have a great many friends," and in a moment after added, "my mother was so beautiful!" (as if that were the reason of it). A young husband and wife became inmates of our house, and brought a beautiful infant. This was a perennial fountain of delight to F. The singular beauty of the little one was a constant subject of observation. One day he was looking at her, as she lay on her mother's lap, and presently he burst out, "Oh, Ellen, your little bright eyes are shining themselves into a _sun_!" He was equally delighted with the musical sound of her crowing. His ear for sounds was fastidiously delicate. One day my mother was in the garden, looking at some wild flowers which had been brought to her for transplanting. As she looked at them she said to F., "Run into the house, and get my--" He interrupted her eagerly with, "Don't say that ugly _word_! I know what you mean," and he ran into the house, and brought back Bigelow's _Plants around Boston_ (_Bigelow_ was the ugly word). But let me hasten from these details, to redeem my promise of telling you how _prayer_ became a thought of his mind, and his spontaneous practice.

It was very early a question of great interest to his mother, and also to me, whether prayer _would_ become spontaneous with him; that is, whether he would think of speaking to God _in human words_. His intense realization of God's _presence_ seemed to be a cause of his _not_ doing so, and I feared to put GOD _at a distance_ by suggesting what, in ordinary cases, is a means of bringing Him near. If prayer be defined as a communion of the finite and Infinite, as personal as that of _children_ with earthly parents, _his_ whole conscious life was a prayer; for truly God was in all his thoughts from the day he first accepted Him so joyfully as the Substance and Giver of _goodness and love_, which involved to the natural logic of his innocent mind the corollary that He was the Giver of everything outward, as well as inward, which gave him any happiness. I did not dare to meddle with the natural evolution of thought in so happy an instance, but watched to learn the true method of life of the little child, as Christ suggested to his disciples to do. One day when his grandmother, who was at the house on a visit, dropped her needle, she called to F., "Come, and look with _your little sharp eyes_ for my needle." He did so, with his usual alacrity in service, and soon found it. Then he ran to me, and said, "When I go into the sky, I shall thank my good Friend for giving me such sharp eyes." I said, "What do you wait so long for?" He gave me a glance of recognition, as it were, and laughed (as if he had been convicted of saying something silly); but he said no more _then_. From that moment, however, he often came to me to say, "When I go into the sky, I shall thank my Heavenly Father for giving me" this or that; and I would always answer him as before, "Why do you _wait_?" which would always bring out the same complete expression of satisfaction on his face, showing that he loved to renew the occasion for my uniform reply, "Why do you wait _till then_?"

On one of these occasions he turned from me, and said very tenderly, "_I thank you, God_." One day, after he went to Salem, he had been suffering from a bad earache, and my sister had relieved it by putting a little tuft of cotton dipped in arnica into his ear. Then she asked him to go to the window and look out into "the green garden," and she took up a pencil to draw. Very soon he began, "GOD, I thank you for making this green garden to put away the dead bodies _in_. GOD, I thank you for making these beautiful trees grow out of the ground. GOD, I thank you for making all the pretty wild flowers grow." He paused between each complete sentence, and my sister, having a pencil in her hand, wrote down his words till she had covered a sheet of letter paper with his thanksgivings; for he went on naming everything he could think of; and it was quite wonderful to hear the minuteness of his grateful appreciation of life.

One sentence was: "I thank you, GOD, for making medicine to put into my ear when it aches." He also thanked GOD for his father, and his father's letters to him, for his mother in heaven, for many friends whom he loved, naming them. I hope that sometime I shall find my sister's paper, which I have mislaid with the other memoranda of this interesting psychological observation. The pauses between the thanksgivings became longer and longer, and at last, after one for which he seemed to have searched his inmost mind, in despair of finding anything else, he closed with, "My dear GOD, I love you very much."

You will observe that in all this spontaneous act of devotion, there was no _petition_. In the fulness of his happy life, and, as I think, in the faith that God was giving him everything needful, and more, he never thought of _asking_ for anything.

Temptation to wrong-doing had not yet revealed the need that the progressing spirit always feels of _more_ goodness and love, which I had taken care to represent that God gave whenever the soul acknowledged to itself its need and aspired for more of this, its vital substance. For it is my opinion that prayer should always be for spiritual good only, in order that our religion should be pure from self-seeking, and generously self-forgetting in its aspirations for perfection.

A little while after this incident, my sister was reading to him, and came to a sentence in which were the words "morning and evening prayer." He immediately stopped her and asked her, "What does that mean, that word _prayer_?" She said, "Many grown up people, when they wake in the morning, and find that God has taken care of them in the night when they could not take care of themselves, and given them a new day after their good sleep, feel very thankful, and love to tell God so, just as you did the other day when you thanked God for so many things; and besides, remembering that there are a good many things they ought to do, and that He gives _the love and goodness_, they like to ask Him beforehand to give them what they shall need _to be good with_ when the time comes to want it; and at night, after they have got through the day, they like to thank Him for all the joys of the day, and they ask Him to take care of them through the night that is coming, when they shall be asleep and cannot take care of themselves; and this loving talk with God is called the morning and evening prayer." I think she added that when she was little she used to say, when she was going to bed:--

"Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take;"

and that was her evening prayer. "I think it is a very good way," said he, "and I mean to do so this very night when I go to bed." And it was true that when he went to bed, he remembered and made a similar thanksgiving to his former one in kind, and closed with this little verse. And again in the morning he began the first thing to thank God for the new day, etc. Nor did he forget afterwards, night and morning, to give thanks and utter prayers spontaneously, and seemed to enjoy it.

One morning he waked me with his loud singing, and as soon as I opened my eyes, said to me, "Aunt Lizzy, I am _singing_ my morning prayer." I said, "There was a wonderful little shepherd boy once, whose name was David, who loved God as you do, and who always sang his prayers." Immediately he wanted to know all about him, and I told him the story of David in his childhood and up to the time he was sent for to sing to King Saul; and I ended with saying that I would read to him some of David's _psalms_ (as these sung prayers were called); and this I did, and the eloquence of the sweet singer of Israel seemed to vivify his idea of the Heavenly Father, and of His connection with the soul within us all and the world without. Especially I tried on him the effect of the Psalm beginning, "The heavens are telling of the glory of God," whose rhythm had charmed my own childhood, even before I fully comprehended it; and he liked to hear it, too. Before this, I had read considerably from the Bible to him, for he had one day said that he wondered how the world began to be in the first place, and I had said: "_Yes_, everybody wonders about that. But there is a book (pointing to the Bible) where one of the first men told about how it seemed to him, and I will read it to you." So I opened the book and began the first chapter of Genesis, without introductory comment. When I came to the words "_And there was light_," he sprang up and shouted, "Directly when He said 'Let there be light,' there _was_ light _directly_!"

I wished Longinus could have heard the confirmation of his great criticism. Immediately he ran into my father's study, which was across the entry, and burst out, "Dr. Peabody, when it was all dark and there was nothing made, God said, '_Let there be light, and there was light_' directly! directly!" This was not enough; he ran to find my mother and sister, and again repeated the simply sublime words.

Then he came back to me to hear the rest, and I finished the chapter which he wanted me to read to him again and again, day after day. I read afterwards the parable of Jotham, which he liked to hear very much. I cannot help thinking how much more I might have made of that very parable for his moral culture had I then known of Froebel's _gospel of work_. I can hardly bear to think how stupid I was; the effect of not having had the kindergarten education myself.

But he was too soon taken away from my observation, not without my acquiescence, however; for it was to go to his father, who, I thought, needed his companionship. And as it was at a distance that he lived, and, as afterwards my own life was full of vicissitude for many years, I lost the run of him entirely. There was a mutual misunderstanding between his father and me, for several years, from his thinking I wanted to be free from the care of him, and I thinking he did not desire my personal influence on him, and we were both mistaken, as we found out afterwards. When he went to Harvard College, he came to see me, and the interview was very interesting. He had a sweet, though it had become a dim, remembrance of a happy time with us, succeeded, as he told me, by a _lack-love_ experience of years of a dark, gloomy time at a boarding-school, to which he was sent when he was eight years old, because, as he said, his grandmother thought he ought not to be living with his solitary father at a hotel. But the boarding-school proved more than a heart solitude, as the boys were rough and cruel to him in their unguided play. While he was with me, on the occasion of this call, it happened that my sister Sophia's children came into the room where we were. They had a very vivid idea of him from their mother, she having often spoken of him to them, and telling them of his joy in learning he had a Heavenly Father, when he had never thought or been told of it. When I said to them, "This is F.," one of them said, "Is this F.? I thought he was a little boy," looking at him wonderingly, surprised to see a grown-up man. I told him they were well acquainted with his childhood. It touched him very much, and the conversation that ensued touching on several things I have told, brought back the old time more distinctively, and he said he should often come to recall it by my help, and to learn more of his mother, whose beautiful face haunted his dreams. But just afterwards I left Boston for some years, and did not see him again until after his return from Vienna, where he went after leaving college, and remained till he had completed his medical studies. I promised then to show him his mother's letters to me, written in her girlhood, and to tell him how much the early experience of his own childhood had ministered to her a heavenly consolation. But again inexorable circumstances interfered. He became a practising physician in Worcester, and I went to Concord to live, and we procrastinated a promised visit until at last Death mocked our slow affections. I saw him last wrapped in the flag of his country, for when the war broke out in 1861, nothing would do but he must go to it; and he went as one of the surgeons of the 15th Regiment, which was terribly cut up. For a year and a half he did an incredible amount of work, for he would always have his hospital on the field of battle, and the 15th was in a great many battles, and left but few survivors, most of whom are maimed or halt. He took care of those wounded ones who could not be taken from the battle-field, wrote letters for them, and never took a furlough, as every other officer and surgeon did. In the last letter that he wrote to his father, he said that this year and a half was in one sense the happiest time of his life; for it was the only time when he seemed to be of any use. He was killed at last, walking up through the main street of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in the van of the regiment, as was his wont, and his death was instantaneous. His patriotism and his bravery were the fruits of his piety. Every year his father and I met to decorate his grave until his father's death in 1883-4. He is buried at Mt. Auburn by his mother's side, whose body was removed from the tomb in the old burial ground of Cambridge. I have a photograph of him taken at the same age as his mother when she died,--thirty-one years. It was the year before he went to the war, a drooping head, pensive as if marked for early death. But when I saw him dead, his brow was lifted, his whole countenance had become grand and heroic, and it was plain that he had found his ideal vocation. His funeral was celebrated in the city of Worcester with military honors, the wounded soldiers of his regiment following the hearse in carriages, and the sidewalks of the city thronged with the multitude of spectators. A discourse upon the text, "No man can do more than lay down his life for his friends," was pronounced over him at the church, and the beautiful hymn sung, "Nearer my God to Thee," which seemed to me the most appropriate conceivable, though he had never been far from Him, after he knew a name for Him.

After the funeral his father's relatives and friends gathered together, and we talked of him. I told my recollections of his childhood, and all of them expressed the feeling that the life he had led was in perfect harmony with such an early acquaintance made with the Heavenly Father.

LECTURE VIII.

RELIGIOUS NURTURE.

FROEBEL speaks of the child as a trinity, meaning a unity in threefold relation (with God, with man, and with nature), and says that education, to be perfect, or even healthy, must help him to be conscious of all these relations _at once_, in order to ensure the equipoise of heart and intellect with his spiritual power (or freedom to will), in which inheres his just self-respect and natural religion.

Nature (that is, the material universe, as I have said before) is God's expression of mathematical and all correlative laws, the apprehension of which builds up the intellect of the individual who, through his sense perceptions, on which he reflects and generalizes, gains _knowledge_ of his surroundings, beginning with that part of nature which is within his own skin.

It was the grand intuition of Oken which has been splendidly illustrated by Dr. J. Garth Wilkinson in his _Human Body in its Connections with Man_, that the human body is the metropolis of material nature, in which may be found in _vital order_ all the elements of the material universe which are, outside of the human body, in a more or less chaotic state. This development of the individual intellect needs more or less aid from the human environment, simultaneously with that nurture of the _heart_ which means man's conscious relation to man. But though morality, which is the performance of man's duty to man, is not religion, which is man's consciousness of relation to God, it leads to it inversely, because it shows the heart its need of a Father of us all, in order to be happy. All three processes, the intellectual, the moral, and the religious, must go on together, to make a perfect education, for in proportion as integral education is wanting in those about the child, his intellect will be starved, confused, or darkened with error; and immorality and irreligion will more or less transpire in the individual.

Froebel perfectly realized the deficiency of this integral education to be the cause of all the evil that is the present experience of mankind, in spite of Church and State and the optimism which in form of hope "springs eternal in the human breast" (for the pessimist is the exception, not the rule among men, the great mass of whom are pursuing some ideal aim, even though it be a low one, their moral sentiment having been perverted and their religion having become a superstitious idolatry either of material forms or of logical formulas).