CHAPTER X

SOME CRITICISMS ANSWERED

Professor Adams ends the first chapter of his delightfully witty “Herbartian Psychology” with a challenge to all educational thinkers to come out of their caves and defend their idols. Throughout the book, there is many a side-thrust at Froebel, all of a more or less disparaging nature, in spite of the humorous twinkle which has a fairly permanent abode in the eye of the writer.

Some of the accusations are tolerably sweeping, for example, that Froebelianism “as a psychology is simply non-existent”; that Froebel has failed to correlate theory and practice; that although in “The Education of Man” “we have beautiful, if obscurely expressed, truths about education,” yet the Kindergarten cannot be evolved from it, in fact “between the two there is a great gulf fixed, a gulf that Froebel has not bridged.”

But the main contention is that Froebel disapproves in theory of any interference with the natural course of development. The Froebelian teacher is thus, according to Professor Adams, reduced to the position of a “humble under-gardener” who merely watches with interest and admiration, and education becomes “a general paralysis.”

Mr. Graham Wallas, whose objections to Froebel, or at least to Froebelianism[48], as he understands it, are well known, bases these on the ground that because he was a pre-Darwinian evolutionist, Froebel was bound to overrate the importance of the innate as a factor in development, and to undervalue the other factor of environment.

Professor O’Shea disposes of Froebel in one sentence and in much the same way, as an advocate of what he calls “the doctrine of Unfoldment,” where “everything is inner and self-relating,” as opposed to the conception gained from Biology, which “implies that the business of a human being is to get properly related to the world--religious, social and physical--of which he is an integral part.”

If Froebel really believed that development is entirely from within, as stated by Professor O’Shea, or if he failed to realize the importance of the surroundings, as Mr. Graham Wallas expresses it, he would naturally disapprove of any interference, as Professor Adams says he does. The Froebelian, being thus reduced to passive watching, the mere provision of a Kindergarten would be an interference with the surroundings and a contradiction in practice of the theory of non-interference. If non-interference is really the theory propounded in “The Education of Man,” there certainly is a gulf between it and the Kindergarten, a gulf it would be difficult to bridge.

But Froebelians are not prepared to admit the premises of any of these critics. It seems to many of us that these and all similar criticisms are due to misunderstanding. This is sometimes clearly due to careless reading, and consequent want of attention to the context, but even where this is not the case, misunderstandings occur. Few, of late years, have made any real study of Froebel’s writings as a whole, such as is necessary to get at his real meaning, which is often obscured by prolixities and repetitions, and sometimes hidden among apparent trivialities.

Professor O’Shea, for example, does not seem to be aware to what extent Froebel, like himself, derived his educational aim and principles from biology. He has probably never realized the deep interest taken by Froebel in the then all-absorbing question of natural development. Clearly he has no idea that Froebel has given expression to a conception of education, practically identical with that given above which he himself draws from biology,[49] and sets in contrast with the one he unjustly attributes to Froebel.

There is no doubt whatever that Froebel laid much stress on what is innate. In his generation, he tells us the child was looked upon “as a piece of wax, or lump of clay, which man can mould into what he pleases.” Because Froebel was a student of biology he knew better. He knew, as we have seen, that human beings have instincts, innate tendencies or dispositions differing from those of the lower animals chiefly in their indefiniteness. We are not so afraid of the word “innate” nowadays, when both innate ideas and innate faculties are safely buried, and that Froebel had no dealings with these has been amply shown.

But that this stress on innate tendencies implies that the child is to unfold from within, the educator standing by passive[50], or that Froebel imagined that the developing process could go on with little or no reference to the environment, is quite another matter.

Few of Froebel’s critics have taken the trouble to look up the original German before pronouncing condemnation, and this explains part of the injustice that has been done to him. The passage upon which much, perhaps most, of the adverse criticism is based is the one in which Froebel applies to education the term “leidend,” translated “passive” in both the English, or, rather, American editions of “The Education of Man.” The translation of “leidend” as “passive” is not a happy one. Moreover, the translators have endeavoured to help the reader by dividing the text into numbered sections, a proceeding which though often helpful, sometimes tends to break the continuity of Froebel’s thought. This effect is heightened in Hailmann’s translation by the interpolated notes, however valuable as some of these are in themselves. This passage, however, opens with “_therefore_,” and those who take exception to it ought to have considered the preceding argument. Fair criticism looks back to see why and under what circumstances education is to be “passive or following,” as opposed to “dictating and limiting.”

In the first place, absolutely passive education is a contradiction in terms. Froebel begins by stating that:

“Education consists in leading man as a thinking, intelligent being, growing into self-consciousness, to a pure, conscious and free representation of the law of his being, and in teaching him ways and means thereto.”

He defines the _Theory of Education_ as “the system of directions derived from the knowledge and study of that law to guide human beings in the apprehension of their life-work”; and the _Practice of Education_ as “the self-active application of this knowledge in the direct development and cultivation of rational beings towards the attainment of their destiny.”

To go on from this to say, on the next page but one, that the educator is to do nothing, to stand aside and be truly passive, would be absurd.

That our word “passive” is not the equivalent of Froebel’s word “leidend,” is easily proved, for in another passage where Froebel does mean “passive” he couples “leidend” with “inactive,” and puts passive in a bracket beside it. The passage runs: “wo das Kind äusserlich als unthätig, leidend (passiv) erscheint.” In the passage under discussion “passiv” does not appear at all, and “leidend” is coupled, not with “inactive,” but with “following,” and is contrasted with “dictating, limiting and interfering.”[51]

A few lines further we read how the gardener may even destroy the vine “if he fail _in his work_ passively and attentively to follow the nature of the plant.” He cannot surely “work” and be inactively passive at the same time.

A more correct translation of “leidend” here would perhaps be “tolerant” or “suffering” in its old sense of “permitting,” “bearing with,” or having patience with.

As to immediate context, Froebel has just stated that education ought “to lift man to a knowledge of himself and mankind, to a knowledge of God and Nature, and to the pure and consecrated life conditioned thereby.” “But,” he goes on, “education must be founded on what is essential or innermost, and though the real nature of things can only be known by outer manifestations, yet it behoves the educator to be very careful how he judges, for the child that appears good outwardly, is often not really good, i.e. does not will the good from his own determination, or from love, respect for or recognition of it,” while “the outwardly rough self-willed child often has within him a vigorous struggle to do what seems to him right.” Judging from outer manifestations furnishes constant occasion for false judgments concerning the motives of children, for endless misunderstanding between parent and child, and for unreasonable demands made upon children.

And here comes the force of the conjunction: “_Therefore_,” says Froebel, “education, instruction and training in their fundamental principles must necessarily be tolerant, following, not dictating, not limiting or defining, not interfering.”

What is it, then, that Froebel is telling us to follow almost passively, interfering, in our ignorance, as little as possible? Simply the natural order of development, the natural instincts of childhood, which in this very passage he is arguing are as trustworthy as those of other young animals. Here, as everywhere, man can only control Nature _by following_, by obeying her laws.

“As the duckling hastens to the pond and the chicken scratches the ground, so will the human being, still young, still, as it were, in the process of creation, though as unconsciously as any Nature product, yet definitely and surely desire what is best for him. We give plants and animals time and space and freedom to develop, but the young human being is to man a piece of wax, a lump of clay, from which he can mould what he will. O man, who roamest through garden and field, through meadow and grove, why dost thou close thy mind to the silent teaching of Nature?”--_E., p. 8._

Surely we have here a plea to “suffer (leiden) little children,” to bear with the little one, still, as Froebel describes him, “still, as it were, in the process of creation,” nay, more, a plea for the actual recognition and fostering of these instinctive tendencies which Professor Dewey calls “the foundation-stones of educational method,” rather than a recommendation to “gratify every youthful impulse,” or to stand aside altogether. For the context, the whole, is not yet complete.

Froebel goes on to say that if we are certain of any tendency to unhealthy development we are to interfere with full severity (so tritt geradezubestimmende, fordernde Erziehungsweise in ihrer ganzen Strenge ein).

And now comes a sentence apparently quite overlooked by Mr. Graham Wallas, who blames Froebel for underestimating the environment. In the mean-time, until we are sure that our interference is justifiable, “nothing is left for us to do but to bring the child into relations and surroundings in all respects adapted to him.”[52]--_E., p. 11._

In many other passages Froebel shows plainly that he had no thought of the “gratifying of every youthful impulse” in the sense of individual caprice.

In his plea for monetary help to establish Kindergartens and training establishments connected with them, he complains that in existing institutions children are either “repressed and their energies crippled, _or else we are confronted with the wild and uncontrollable character which results when children are uncared for and are left altogether to their own impulses_.”--_L., p. 159._

“Life has no room for wilfulness and whims,” he says in his Mother Songs; “Boyhood is the age of Discipline” he states in “The Education of Man.” But, as he himself sums up this discussion:

“All true education is double-sided, prescribing and following, active and passive, positive yet giving scope, firm and yielding.… Between educator and pupil should rule invisibly a third something to which both are equally subject. The third something is the right, the best … the child, the pupil has a very keen apprehension whether what father or teacher requests is personal and arbitrary or the expression of general law and necessity.”--_E., p. 14._

The proof of whether or not the educator has succeeded in rightly adjusting the claims of freedom and authority, Froebel expresses in words recalling Kant’s, “When the ‘Thou Shalt’ of the Law becomes the ‘I will’ of the doer, then we are free.”

“In good education, in genuine instruction, in true teaching, necessity must and will call forth freedom, law will call forth self-determination, and outer compulsion inner free-will.

“Where necessity produces bondage, where law brings fraud and crime, and outer compulsion causes slavery, there every effect of education is destroyed. There oppression destroys and debases, severity and harshness bring obstinacy and deceit, and the burden is more than can be borne.”--_E., p. 14._

To emphasize the fact that Froebel did realize the importance of environment, and to anticipate the criticism that this shortened rendering is an interpretation in the light of modern educational theories, of Froebel’s somewhat cumbrous phrases, we can turn to a passage in his later writing, part of which has been quoted elsewhere:

“Through the child’s efforts to repel that which is contrary to the needs of his life, indignation and discontent are awakened; and on the other hand, from the fact that his normal desires are ungratified, they become inordinate and mischievous. How may parents avoid these evil results? Most satisfactorily through a threefold yet single glance at life. Let them look into themselves, and their own course of development and its requirements, let them recall their own earliest years, then later stages of development, and look deeply into their present life. Next, let them look equally deeply into the life of the child and what he must require for his present stage of development. Having scrutinized what the child needs, _let them scrutinize his environment_, and first observe what it offers and does not offer for the fulfilment of such requirements. Let them utilize all offered possibilities of meeting normal needs; and when such needs cannot be met, let them recognize this fact, and show the child plainly the impossibility of their fulfilment. Finally, let them clearly recognize whatever _in the child’s environment_ tends to awaken antagonism and discontent, remove it if it be removable, and admit its defect if it be not removable.”[53]--_P., p. 167._

It is, of course, true that Froebel was pre-Darwinian in time, but it is equally true that he was post-Darwinian in many of his beliefs.

To find out whether or not his educational doctrines are really based on false or exploded theories of development, as the Criticism of Mr. Graham Wallas implies, we must gather together from Froebel’s various writings, his most important references to the subject.

The key-note to his interest in it lies probably in the yearning for unity and union in all relations, which was a part of his individuality. This may have dated back to the time when, a puzzled little mortal of eight or nine years old, he was most unwisely allowed to hear his father exhorting and rebuking his parishioners. It seemed to the boy that most of the trouble arose from the fact that human beings, and human beings alone, so far as he knew, were divided into two sexes, and he felt that he would have arranged matters differently. Comfort came to him when his older brother, by showing him the male and female flower of the hazel, gave him some idea of a great law of Nature. Strange comfort, too, it seems, for a boy not yet ten years old!

The late Mr. Ebenezer Cooke pointed out long ago[54] that Mr. Graham Wallas had not only overshot the mark in saying that “Darwin transferred the cause of development from within to without,” but that he had himself failed to draw any distinction between the facts of development, as seen in the individual, and the theory of the origin or development of species, which we associate with the names of Darwin and Wallace. Mr. Cooke pointed to Froebel’s connection with Batch, the founder of a Natural History Society, of which Goethe was a member, as showing that he was in direct touch with those who were working out the theory of development of the individual.

Froebel himself refers to this Natural History Society in his Autobiography, saying that “students,” of whom he was one, “who had shown living interest and done active work in Natural Science,” were invited to become members, and that this awoke within him “a yearning towards higher scientific knowledge.” At this time Froebel was but a youth of seventeen, with no idea that education was to be his life work. Three years later, he meets a private tutor, “a young man quite out of the common, with actively inquiring mind,” who was “especially fond of making comprehensive schemes of education.” The year after this we find him reading what he can of anthropology and history, and saying of his reading: “It taught me of man in his broad historical relations and set before me the general life of my kind as one great whole.”

One year more, and while he is looking for a situation with an architect--in spite of uneasy communing with himself as to how architecture was to be used “for the culture and ennoblement of mankind”--Grüner claps him on the shoulder with “Give up architecture, it is not your vocation at all! Become a teacher.”

It is perhaps because Froebel passed thus from interest in biology to interest in education that at this time he gives to his own question, What is the purpose of education?--almost the identical answer that Professor O’Shea puts into the mouth of his biologist[55], and which he sets in opposition to Froebel’s supposed opinions:

“In answering the question, What is the purpose of education? I relied at that time on the following observations: Man lives in a world of objects, which influence him and which he desires to influence; therefore he ought to know these objects in their nature, in their conditions and in their relations with each other and with mankind.… I sought, to the extent of such powers as I consciously possessed at that time, to make clear to myself the meaning of all things through man, his relations with himself, and with the external world … it seemed to me that everything which should or could be required for human education must be necessarily conditioned and given, by virtue of the very nature of the necessary course of his development, in man’s own being and in the relations amidst which he is set. A man, it seemed to me, would be well educated when he had been trained to care for these relationships and to acknowledge them, to master them and to survey them.”--_A., p. 69._

In the very beginning, then, of his educational career, Froebel emphasized rather than overlooked “the relationships amidst which man is set,” but he was to learn more yet about development.

Six years later he is back at a university, and “just at this time,” he says, “those great discoveries of the French and English philosophers became generally known through which the great manifold external world was seen to form a comprehensive outer world.”

The English writer may have been Erasmus Darwin. The French writer was no doubt Lamarck, to whom belongs “the immortal glory of having for the first time worked out the theory of Descent as an independent scientific theory of the first order and as the philosophical foundation of the whole science of Biology.”

From some such source, at any rate, Froebel must have gained “the key-note of development,” viz., that it is always from the undifferentiated to the differentiated. We have already seen that he applied this to mental development and so gained his modern conception of the earliest infant consciousness, “an undifferentiated unorganized unity.”

In “The Education of Man” he speaks of

“the all-pervading law of Nature according to which the general gives rise to the particular,”--_E., p. 167._

and in the Mother Songs he says:

“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.”--_M., p. 121._

Or, again:

“In the child as in the grain of seed, there begins a development proceeding towards complexity.”--_P., p. 172._

Such quotations fully exonerate Froebel from belief in any “pre-formation” theory, whether physical or mental, as indeed Mr. Cooke made abundantly plain.

It is in one of his later papers[56] that Froebel generalizes and states very plainly how everything is developed under the influence of its environment.

“Taking Nature as our guide, let us endeavour to find the essential nature of material objects and the conditions under which this develops, for the process of development shows the essence of the developing object.

“_Firstly_, each thing and each object manifesting existence and life, develops itself in accordance with the highest and simplest, the general laws of life. Thus everything manifests these laws and their primeval cause.

“_Secondly_, each thing and each object in Nature develops itself according to its own individuality and the laws of its being.

“_Thirdly_, everything in Nature develops itself under the collective influence of all things. If any object seems to be withdrawn from this collective influence, such withdrawal is only mediate.…

“In Nature, and in everything, all things develop as members of the world-whole, the universal life, as members of a whole, each perfect in its kind, because each, while standing in the centre of the collective influence streaming upwards and inwards--nay, in a certain sense, as the receiver, yielding itself to this influence--yet also acts (as assimilative and formative) and develops itself, faithful to the indwelling laws of life universal and particular. We must see clearly the conditions of perfect development in Nature, and then employ them in human life. Thus only can we help man to attain, upon the plane of human development--which means spiritual development--a degree of perfection corresponding to that which the forms and types of Nature show upon the plane of physical development.”--_P., p. 196._

When child development is in question, far from minimising, as he is supposed to do, the importance of environment, parents and teachers are told:

“We must hold fast for consideration in life this fact, that in the spontaneous occupation and playing of the child, not the germ only, but the growing point of his life also, is formed _in union with his surroundings, and under their silent unremarked influence_ (im Vereine mit der Umgebung und unter deren stillen unbemerkten Einwirkung).”--_P., p. 108._

Or, again:

“As the new-born child, like a ripe grain of seed dropped from the mother plant has life in itself, and as it spontaneously develops life _in progressive connection with the common life whole_; so activity and action are the first phenomena of his awakening life. This activity bears the impress of what is innermost, it is an inner activity whose purpose is manifestation of the inner through the outer, and, as leading up to this, devoted to consideration of and working with the outer to penetrating the outer and overcoming hindrances as such.”--_P., p. 23._

This account surely makes plain, that whatever Froebel may have believed with regard to the origin of species, he in no way believed that development in general was a one-sided process, in which the environment went for nothing.

In his “Criticism,” Mr. Graham Wallas remarked: “Whoever divorced his educational system from his philosophy, would have seemed to Froebel to have taken all force and meaning out of his work.” This is most true, and it approaches absurdity to attribute so limited a view to a man imbued as Froebel was with the philosophical doctrine of the reconciliation of the opposites.[57] That all development was the result of a harmony between opposites was one of his cardinal doctrines.

“We are living in an age,” he writes, “when we are consciously under a law of development acting by the reconciliation of opposites.”

Mr. Hailmann gives a long footnote where Froebel is quoted as comparing his idea of the law of connection or unification with the ideas of Fichte and Hegel, and saying:

“It is both of these, and yet has nothing in common with either of them; it is the law which the contemplation of Nature has taught me.… And where do we find absolute contrasts that have not somewhere and somehow a connection? In action and reaction the contrasts that we see everywhere give rise to the motions in the universe as they do in the smallest organism. This implies for all development a struggle which however sooner or later will find its adjustment; and this adjustment is the connection of contrasts.”--_E., p. 42._

What Froebel knew of Hegel’s philosophy was probably gained from discussions among his friends, for in the hearing of Madame von Marenholz, he said, “I do not know how Hegel formulates and applies this law, for I have had no time for the study of his system,” and he went on to say of “the philosophical systems of others” that “most of them belong to a theory of the world that is passing away, whose one-sidedness becomes more apparent every day” (Reminiscences, 225). Ebers, too, speaks of Froebel’s ideas as opposed to those of Hegel.

Even Mr. Graham Wallas allows that Froebel’s casual references to the development of species are “surprisingly modern.” No orthodox views as to the exact date of the creation of the world keep him from accepting the newly discovered testimony of the rocks as to “the remains of perished ages.” Ardent as his religious convictions were, they had a philosophic width unusual indeed in his day. The Garden of Eden is to him a parable, repeated “in the experience of every child from the time of his appearance on earth to the time when he consciously (by the help of names) beholds himself in beautiful Nature spread out before him.” In each child he sees “repeated at a later period, the deed which marks the beginning of moral and human emancipation, of the dawn of reason.”

He refers calmly to

“the fall, or, since the result is the same, the ascent of the mind of man, from simple, uniform, emotional development, into the development of externally analytic and critical reason.”--_E., p. 194._

Not Stanley Hall himself insists more that the development of the individual shall follow the development of the race, and this in 1826, two years before Baer, and four years before Comte, to whom Herbert Spencer attributed the doctrine. “Humanity,” he says, “lives only in its continuous development.”

“Each successive generation and each successive individual human being, inasmuch as he would understand the past and present, must pass through all preceding phases of human development and culture, and this should not be done in the way of dead imitation or mere copying, but in the way of living spontaneous self-activity.”--_E., p. 18._

There is certainly no ground for assuming that Froebel held any such pre-Darwinian views as a special creation of each species, for there is no point on which he insists more emphatically than that in Nature development is continuously progressive.

“In God’s world, just because it is God’s world, by Him created, one thing constant is expressed to which we give the name of unbroken progression of development in all and through all.”[58]--_M., p. 154._

“God neither ingrafts nor inoculates, He develops the most trivial and imperfect things in continuously ascending series and in accordance with eternal self-grounded and self-developing laws.”--_E., p. 328._

Mr. Winch makes merry over Froebel’s sentence:

“As Man and Nature have one origin, they must be subject to the same laws,”

and remarks that “this conception is almost completely given up.… Our view now rather is one in which God and Nature are at strife, in which the ethical interest overcomes Nature.…”

But Froebel is far ahead of this. The great law to him is the Law of Development to which Man and Nature, which includes Man, are subject. The ethical interest is not, as Mr. Winch intimates, something transcending Nature, but is itself evolved. Morality, Froebel distinctly tells us, is “rooted” in Instinct, and “human development means spiritual development.”

Professor O’Shea says of the doctrine of Unfoldment which he attributes to Froebel that it “regards man on his spiritual side as an entity set apart from everything in the universe.”[59]

Froebel, however, writes:

“Difficult, very difficult, would it be to define where the purely physical ends and the purely intellectual begins. It is precisely on account of this close welding or flowing into one another of the Physical and Psychical, the bodily and mental, the material and spiritual, the vital (des Vitalen) and intellectual, instinct and morality; it is because of this rooting of the higher in the lower that the training and ennobling of the senses, such as smell and taste, are so important.”--_M., p. 183._

“Training and ennobling,” these words bring us back to the educational doctrines Froebel based upon what he knew of development, physical and mental, from whatever source he may have gained his information.

“From the beginning of the Darwinian reconstruction of the moral sciences,” says Mr. Graham Wallas, “it was absurd, while speaking of ‘environment,’ to ignore the fact that the deliberate care and contrivance of the parent must form a large part of the environment of the child.” Undoubtedly.

But it was because Froebel exalted “the deliberate care and contrivance of the parent” that he wrote “The Education of Man,” to tell his generation how best to care and contrive. It was because he realized that this deliberate care and contrivance must begin from the very first that he wrote his Mother Songs. He tells the mother here that “if she is wise, in all she does a noble meaning lies”; that she must “do nothing aimlessly or she’ll create a child she cannot educate.” He tells her that it is “by watching what makes the child’s eyes bright, that she will know how best to give delight,” and that she must “seek to strengthen power and mind in all things.”

In very truth the Kindergarten itself, with all its imperfections, is nothing more nor less than an attempt to supply that very environment which its founder is supposed to undervalue--an attempt to foster, by providing suitable conditions, those innate tendencies or natural activities, to which Froebel attached infinite importance.

This is why the discovery of the name Kindergarten gave Froebel the pleasure expressed in his cry, “Eureka, I have it! Kindergarten shall be its name.” The original designation contained the actual words “through the culture of the instinct for activity, inquiry and creation, inherent in man,” but this original title spreads over several lines of print. “Garden” to Froebel expresses just what he wanted, “As in a garden under God’s favour, and _by the care of a skilled, intelligent gardener_, growing plants are cultivated in accordance with Nature’s laws, so here, in our child-garden, shall the noblest of all growing things, _men_ (that is, children, the germs and shoots of humanity), be cultivated in accordance with the laws of their own being, of God and of Nature.”--_L., p. 161._

This is why he urges on his pupil, Ida Seele, to retain the name in spite of the prejudices it aroused. It is to her that he writes:

“Is there really such importance underlying the mere name of a system?--some one might ask. Yes, there is: … It is true that any one carefully watching your teaching would observe a new spirit … you would strike him as personally capable, nay, as extremely capable, but you would fail to strike him as priestess of the idea, and of the struggle towards the realization of the idea--education by development--the destined means of raising the whole human race. For, after all, what do we mean by ‘Kindergarten’?… No man can acquire fresh knowledge beyond the measure which his own mental strength and stage of development fits him to receive. But little children have no development at all.… Infant schools are nothing but a contradiction of child nature. Little children ought not to be _schooled_ and taught, they merely need to be developed. It is the pressing need of our age, and only the idea of a garden can serve to show us symbolically the proper treatment of children. This idea lies in the very name of a Kindergarten. … How much better had you been able to call your work by its proper name, and to make evident by that expression, the real nature of the new spirit you have introduced.”--_L., p. 290._

There is no gulf between the Kindergarten, and “The Education of Man,” with its appeal to educators to follow instead of interfering with Nature’s methods, to foster instead of repressing the “instincts of activity and of construction,” to foster play, which though “merely natural life,” yet holds “the seed leaves of all later life.”

Froebel’s gardener is “skilled and intelligent,” and a skilled gardener is supposed to have scientific knowledge of his plants, of the conditions of soil, exposure, etc., best suited to them. Professor Adams says that “to call a child a plant does not advance matters much, and it certainly does not account for the use of the cubes, spheres and such like.” This, however, it does most certainly if these cubes and spheres are the right food material for the child’s mind, as Froebel at any rate believed.

All the employments of the Kindergarten, all the varied materials, the sand and clay, the pencil and paint brush, the building blocks, cardboard, sawdust, moss, nut-shells, etc., for constructive or “representative” play are definitely mentioned and definitely commended in “The Education of Man.” They are commended because they are the employments and the material which children everywhere find for themselves; because Froebel had sufficient knowledge of biology to know that instinctive action must somehow benefit the individual and the race; and also because he had psychological insight enough to see that by such activities children gain not merely skill, but clear ideas and “firmness of will.”

Professor Adams writes: “Not Philosophy, but common sense, experience and loving observation, have led Froebel and his followers to adopt certain apparatus and certain methods, which are excellent in themselves, and which in capable hands produce admirable results. For this he deserves all the honour that has been heaped upon him--but he has not explained John.”

True enough, Froebel has not explained, at least, he has not entirely explained that charming John, the Professor’s own creation and type of all our children. Who has? Still, by his efforts as a pioneer in genetic psychology--the result of his belief that “only by the study of development in ourselves and others, can we learn to understand the child”--and by the two sketches so full of insight into child-life and into boy life, which he has given us in “The Education of Man,” surely Froebel has done at least his share even in explaining John.

No doubt he learnt much from “loving observation.” Nor does he undervalue it, but, in his case, the observation was induced by the Philosophy, as well as by the love. For, as he tells us, “it is a necessary part of me to be irresistibly driven to search out the ultimate cause of every fact in life, to discover its roots.” He learned much from watching both mothers and children, but he says:

“What natural mother wit and human common sense left to themselves, have been doing by chance and piece-meal, ought now to be brought forward by a thoughtful mind, its foundation, connections and deeper meaning recognized, that it may be improved upon by clever and kindly thought.”--_M., p. 147._

An education which “follows” needs shown by the child, which “follows” the laws of development, physical and mental, as far as these can be discovered from history, from introspection, and from observation of children in general and of “each individual child,” that is the “patiently following” education which Froebel puts before us as an ideal. “For,” he says:

“By the full application of the latter method of education, the prescribing and interfering, we should wholly lose the sure, steady and progressive development of mankind, which is the ultimate aim and object of all education.”--_E., p. 10._

NOTE.--The foregoing chapter was written some years ago, but in 1912 there appeared a fresh criticism of Froebel and his work in many ways more adequate than certain others. It appeared as an Introduction to a new translation of “The Education of Man” and of some of Froebel’s lesser writings, by Dr. Fletcher and Professor Welton. In this introduction, important points are granted, for example, that Froebel had “grasped the vital principle that all true development, and consequently all true education, is a self-directed process--that purpose is the key-note of human culture and advance. It was the emphasis which he laid upon this which makes Froebel one of the princes of education and gives him an enduring place in the history of thought.” Or again, that Froebel’s teaching is “not the negation of all human constraint,” but that he sees clearly that “constraint is necessary to train the will to resist impulse and follow purpose”; that with Froebel “Discipline must direct instinctive impulse, not simply oppose and thwart it.” Unfortunately, however, the writers of the book do not seem to have grasped the idea of the Kindergarten as an Institution which had this very end in view, and the second part of the book which is called “The Kindergarten,” never mentions its essential features. So we have the familiar statement that between the Kindergarten and “The Education of Man” a gulf is fixed, a statement which has been already discussed. And we are also told that Froebel attracts us “by his very vagueness.” But Keilhau and Helba and the real Kindergarten are none of them vague. That Froebel attributed too much importance to his Gifts and occupations most of us will readily allow, but that the forms of expression set forth in the Helba plan are to be regarded as merely additions to the Gifts is impossible seeing that the plan for Helba is dated 1829. Besides, all such work had already been very much in evidence at Keilhau (See _p. v_, Preface), and the Gifts and Occupations were an attempt to provide in a similar manner for children very much younger, and as materials are only such as children find for themselves. We claim that Froebel himself is the best interpreter of his own invention, the Kindergarten, and we are content to abide by his own definition of it: _An Institution for the cultivation of the life of mankind through fostering the impulse to activity, investigation and construction in the child; an institution for the self-instruction, for self-education of mankind through play, that is creative self-activity and spontaneous self-instruction_.

APPENDIX I

ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD “ACTIVITY”

Professor Stout is particularly definite in his use of the word “activity,” and as he agrees with Mr. Bradley, from whom he quotes “that the current use of the word activity in the literature of philosophy is a scandal,” it may be well to inquire here whether Froebel used the word loosely or with some degree of definiteness.

Professor Stout considers the word “activity” specially appropriate to cases “in which the return of a causal process upon itself is especially prominent or important.” He quotes from Mr. Bradley again that “Activity seems to be self-caused change. A transition that begins with, and comes out of the thing itself is the process where we feel that it is active.” “Thus,” Mr. Stout comments, “the life and growth of organisms are specially appropriate examples of activity; for such processes are in a large measure immanent or self-determining.”

The first point that suggests itself is that in the majority of cases, Froebel may perhaps be said to have avoided the difficulty by his constant reference not only to activity but to “self-activity,” a word associated with the name of Froebel closely as his very shadow.

In the second place, we do find Froebel very markedly referring to the self-determining activity of organisms, in a passage where he is trying to show that all instruction should start from the child’s own desire and power of will. He says that the mother--grounding her instruction in her child’s desire to write to the absent father--acts like the sun, “whose warmth awakens in every grain of seed, life, impulse, power, self-activity, self-determination” (die Triebe, die Kraft, die Selbstthätigkeit und Selbstbestimmung).[60]

It is Froebel’s peculiarity that he brings his philosophical conceptions into the veriest details, and so even in speaking of how the mother may make a ball represent a springing kitten, etc., and saying that to the child the ball is “the uniting object,” yet, he says, considering the plays as proceeding from the child (vom Kinde aus), “all activity, though mediated (vermittelt) by the ball, proceeds definitely from the child, and though going through the ball, refers back again to the child, who is himself a unit.”

There is a particular passage which suggests that there existed a special definite idea in Froebel’s mind in regard to the word “activity,” and it is one which presents a difficulty to an ordinary and unphilosophical mind, though a possible light is thrown upon it by Mr. Bradley’s definition. In this passage activity (Thätigkeit) is very distinctly given as something higher than impulse (Triebe).

The working of the primeval Cause, “the uniting,” is called, Froebel says, “according to the different stages in development, Force, Impulse, Life, Life-impulse, Activity” (Wirken, Trieb, Leben, Lebenstrieb, Thätigkeit).

This placing of activity so high in the scale is at least no accident, and conscious self-determination is constantly attributed to man as “the most perfect earthly being,” and to man alone.

Mr. Stout proceeds to examine the conception of self-determining process, with special reference to changes within the sphere of an individual consciousness, taking as the most convenient point of departure, such illustrative analogies as come from the physical world, and beginning with the simplest form of self-determination, the law of inertia.[61]

“Conscious life,” he says, “is always in some degree self-sustaining, this indeed is an indispensable part of the connotation of all such words as activity, endeavour, conation, effort, striving, will, attention. All such terms imply that the process to which they refer, tends by its intrinsic nature in a certain direction, or toward a certain end.”

Now the word “endeavour” or “effort” (Streben) is a word Froebel constantly uses in speaking of a child’s activity, and he does more than merely “imply” that this process “tends in a certain direction, or toward a certain end” when he affirms that “In every activity, in every deed of man, and of the smallest child, an aim is expressed.”

Professor Stout goes on to say that in conscious states we can always distinguish between determination from within and from without, and “it is a point of vital significance that this distinction coincides with that between mental activity and mental passivity.”[62] With mental passivity Froebel has but few dealings, if indeed he has any. There is one passage in which he uses the word passive (passiv); this, however, merely states that the child, in accommodating himself to his surroundings, may outwardly appear inactive or passive, but only in order to have more scope for his inner activity (wo es äusserlich als unthätig, leidend [passiv] erscheint … um so seiner innern Thätigkeit mehr Spielraum zu verschaffen).

From what he does say there is little doubt but that Froebel would willingly have subscribed to Professor Stout’s dictum, “that to be mentally active is identical with being mentally alive or awake,[63] though in degree the activity may shade off gradually from that “involving a sense of strain, to that of almost passivity.” But just as Professor Stout rejects the idea of purely passive consciousness, so, too, does he reject “pure” mental activity. “It is impossible to find any bit of mental process which is determined purely from within.”[64]… “At the same time it is equally true that no change within is entirely determined from without.”[65] Mr. Stout does not say that pure activity--a purely self-determined process--cannot exist, for “we should, by parity of reasoning, be bound to reject the second law of motion.”[66] “But it rests,” he says, “with the advocates of pure activity, if there are such, to adduce a case of it, and until such a case is brought forward we must assume that there is none.… No portion of matter can be, even for a moment, outside the sphere of influence of other portions.”

We have seen that Mr. O’Shea practically accuses Froebel of being an “advocate of pure activity,”[67] nor is he the only one of Froebel’s critics who does so. If, however, it be considered an accident that Froebel should in one passage put “conscious self-determination” at the highest point of life development, and in another passage give this place to “activity” which Mr. Bradley and Mr. Stout tell us is to be regarded as self-determined, is it also an accident that in the very same passage Froebel should state that “everything in Nature develops and forms itself under the total collective influence of all other things”?

If these correspondences are not accidental, then it must be allowed in the first place that Froebel attached a fairly definite meaning to the word “activity,” including self-determination in its connotation; and in the second place that the grounds on which he is charged with being a believer in “pure activity” are very insufficient. When Mr. Stout says that even if it is allowable “as an illustrative hypothesis” to regard the physical universe as an internally complete system,[68] it is clear that “the stream of individual consciousness is no such self-contained unit,” but “the merest fragment of universal reality, as its correlated brain process is the merest fragment of the material world[69]”; is this anything but a statement of that unity, on which Froebel insists in season and out of season--which appears on almost every page of his writings, so that the word has become the veriest “cant” of the half-trained Kindergarten teacher[70].

The philosophic conception of unity, the belief that there is no separation in either world, physical or psychical, or between either world, was always present to Froebel’s mind. “In Nature,” he writes, “every phenomenon has its sufficient foundation and its necessary consequence.” But as every philosopher would say, so Froebel said, “Separation is permitted for the observing, thinking and comparing intellect, and the outwardly representing life, and is indeed required by it, but must by no means on that account be permitted to appear in the mind which is intended to grasp and constantly to retain in its original inner union, that which is outwardly apparently separated by the thinking intellect, the reason and the life.”[71] So Professor Münsterberg, writing as a professed scientist, says, “Science is to me, not a mass of disconnected information, … but the certainty that nothing can exist outside the gigantic mechanism of causes and effects, but Science is not and cannot be, and ought never to try to be, an expression of ultimate reality.”[72]

It would never have dawned on Froebel, nor would it have appealed to him, to separate his philosophy from his science, but there is no more contradiction in Froebel’s “self-activity” which is influenced from without, than there is in Professor Stout when he speaks of self-determination as included in the connotation of “activity,” and adds that until a case of “pure activity” is brought forward, we must assume that there is none.

Of all his “means of play,” Froebel says:

“In order, therefore, on the one hand to introduce the child to the handling of his play material, we gave him the ball, … but each of these means of play summons the child in return to self-activity, to free self-activity; to movement, to free independent movement” (zur Selbsthätigkeit, zur freien Selbsthätigkeit; zur Bewegung, zur freien, inabhängigen Bewegung).[73]

APPENDIX II

COMPARISON OF PLAYS NOTED BY FROEBEL WITH THE ENUMERATION GIVEN BY GROOS

Much that is given in Groos’ more elaborate classification can also be found in Froebel’s suggestions, particularly where younger children are concerned. For plays coming under the heading of Playful Activity of the Sensory Apparatus, Froebel has a parallel for every kind except that of Temperature, and for this Groos has not himself found anything that can fairly be called play.

For Sensations of Contact there is the Kicking Play, and Taste and Smell are also represented in the Mother Play book. For Hearing play we have the wooden ball, “a plaything for the child liable to produce noise by its movement,” as well as the Tic-tac and Finger Piano plays, and for receptive play, the mother is told to speak, rhythmically if possible, or to sing with every play. For Sensations of Brightness we have “Mother you want to foster this delight in all things that are sparkling clear and bright” of the “Fish in the Brook,” as well as “The Lightbird,” which Froebel has “found over and over again in all grades of the culture that makes up social life in village and in town.”

Sensations of colour are well provided for. In “The Two Windows” we have: “See the beautiful coloured circles and rays, just like rainbow and dew-drops, see how beautifully the colours play through each other.” Colour is a feature in Gift I, in beadwork, in the tablets, in paper folding, cutting and plaiting, and besides these there are crayons and paints, and frequent reference is made to the child’s pleasure in the colour of flowers.

Froebel also makes much play depend on perception of form: “Attention to the form and figure of the object can also be utilized for the child in play,” or, again, “Early in life the child delights in round and varied pebbles, he seeks and collects them, he takes pleasure in the straight edged and right angled.” He has found “The Target” play very widely spread, “plainly because it contains, as I see it, the first trace of an endeavour to make a child notice position and form.”

For perception of movement, to which Froebel would have added perception of change of position, there are many plays with the ball as well as “Tic-tac,” “The Child and the Pigeons,” “The Lightbird,” “The Fish in the Brook,” etc.

Groos’ next class is Play with the Motor Apparatus and under this comes first Playful movement of the Bodily Organs. Here we have Froebel saying: “The first toys and occupations of the child come from himself: he plays with his own limbs.”--_L., p. 108._ “The child at this stage begins to play with his limbs--his hands, his fingers, his lips, his tongue, his feet, as well as with the expression of his eyes and face.”--_E., p. 48._

Under playful locomotion, Groos actually quotes Froebel’s description of the child learning to walk, and we have also marching, running, and racing games; “the large majority,” says Froebel, “I have created simply by watching the children at play.… Thus I have prepared a limping-game because I see my boys always limping and hopping.”

Next comes Playful Movement of Foreign Bodies, and under this heading Groos gives “Hustling things about, pushing, pulling, shaking, seizing and pushing away, dabbling in water, handling sand and clay, kite-flying, and capture of insects.” Of these Froebel mentions pushing of carriages, kite-flying, hobby-horse riding; he makes much of play with water, sand and clay, and he speaks of the catching of insects, etc., desiring that it should be wisely checked by directing the activity into other channels.

As to Destructive or Analytic Movement Play, Froebel notes that: “The child wishes to know all the properties of the thing, for this reason he examines it on all sides; for this reason he tears and breaks it; for this reason he puts it in his mouth and bites it.”--_E., p. 73._ “The cruel treatment of insects and other animals originates in the little boy’s desire to obtain an insight into the life of the animal.”--_E., p. 164._

Of Constructive or Synthetic Movement Play, so much has been said already, that it is not necessary to dwell on it. Froebel, in fact, gives a far more inclusive account of this than Groos himself, not omitting his “simplest form,” viz. moulding new forms with sand, etc., nor the collecting and arranging in rows which to Groos and to Froebel is a more primitive form of construction. Of Exercise of Endurance, too, we have spoken, in quoting passages where Froebel shows the boyish desire to measure and to increase strength. Throwing and Catching Plays have their place in the “Apprentice and Master Workman” game.

The important third class, the Playful Use of the Higher Mental Powers, includes according to Groos a good deal that he has dealt with under other heads, e.g. Memory Play includes (_a_) Recognition and (_b_) Reflective Memory. Under the former comes that pleasure in recognition of form which has already been dealt with, the pleasure given by pictures, often, says Groos, greater than is given by the reality. Froebel, too, says that if the father makes a sketch, “this man of lines, this horse of lines, will give the child more joy than an actual man, an actual horse will do.”--_E., p. 77._ Froebel, too, notes the pleasure it will give a child to name flowers through recognition of a form: “Spurred like a rider, circled like a snail, umbrellas, wheels, he’ll find the names.”--_M., p. 181._ There is also the recognition of animal and other noises, as in Froebel’s Yard Gate. Rote learning as a play Froebel hardly mentions.

As to the two groups which Groos brings under the heading of Imagination, viz. “Illusion either playful or serious,” and “the voluntary or involuntary transformation of our mental content,” these receive full recognition. Froebel notes how the stick becomes a horse or the knotted handkerchief the baby, as well as the play of listening to and inventing stories.

Under the head of Attention comes such games as Hide and Seek, because of the alternate stress and relaxation, and Froebel noted before Darwin did the pleasure of the baby in Bo-peep. Groos also brings curiosity under this heading, and we have seen that Froebel deals fully with such play as the outcome of the instinct of investigation, or the instinct for self-teaching.

Froebel would certainly not draw the line where Groos does, when he says “the true characteristics of play are in inverse ratio to the intensity of the desire for knowledge,” and if this rule were strictly adhered to, a good deal of what Groos does call play might have to come out.

The plays which fall under the head of Reason have two bearings, says Groos, first causality, and second inherence. There are various references to the “joy of being a cause” from the child “whose capacity for speech is as yet undeveloped,” but who draws away the support and as the cube falls “turns to his mother in joyous triumph,” up to the pride of Keilhau boys, who “might not have accomplished their fortresses without the sapper,” but “who believed that if cast on a desert island, each could build a hut of his own.” Froebel also brings in intellectual games such as draughts, and he notes how children will invent their own words and their own alphabets in play. Of the making and solving of riddles I think Froebel never speaks.

As to what Groos says of Experimentation with the feelings, the parallels in Froebel are surprise plays such as Hide and Seek, adventure and hunting games where there may be play with fear, and the legends and stories.

Under the Impulse of the Second or Socionomic order, come the Fighting Plays, Love Play, Imitative Play, and Social Play. Of Love Play, Froebel has none, but the hunting and fighting were allowed abundant scope at Keilhau. Of Imitative Play there is much that can be cited from the playful imitation of simple movements and sounds in the Mother Songs and the Kindergarten Games, to the “classic dramas” of the Keilhau boys. Plastic and constructive play, too, goes from the simplest sand play, through the Kindergarten handwork, not only up to the fortress making, but also to the “boxes with locks and hinges, so neatly finished, veneered, and polished that many a trained cabinet-maker’s apprentice could have done no better,” which were made at Keilhau.

Of the Social Plays Groos says with feeling that, however advisable, it is wellnigh impossible to make a distinct class. He starts, however, with the “need of bodily association or the herding instinct.” He brings in the child’s eager desire to be with his fellows, and the importance in adult life of festivals, religious or otherwise. He mentions the child’s voluntary submission to a leader, and speaks of play as instrumental in teaching children submission to law. We have noticed Froebel speaking of the “combined games, which will train the child, by his very nature eager for companionship, in the habit of association with comrades, in good fellowship and all that this implies.” He also wants the child to take alternately some special part in the game and to be merely one of the crowd: “Each child should have a chance to lead, for it is especially developing to a child to recognize himself as independent as well as a member of the whole.” Among the older boys, the Bergwachts for instance were carefully organized under separate leaders and the captain of the first band was director of the whole. Froebel, too, made much of festivals at Keilhau, and this has always been a recognized feature of the Kindergarten.

Enjoyment of the comic never, I think, makes its appearance at all. Froebel had many gifts, but the saving sense of humour does not appear to have been among them.

FOOTNOTES

[1] See Chapter IX.

[2] See Chapter X.

[3] “Froebel’s Educational Principles,” Elementary School Record, Vol. I, No. 5, or “The Dewey School,” published by the Froebel Society.

[4] See Chapter VI, _p. 79_.

[5] The Philosophy and Psychology of the Kindergarten.--“Teachers’ College Record,” Nov., 1903.

[6] It is true that Froebel was pre-Darwinian, but see _p. 198_.

[7] All this is said in connection with the infant’s play with a woollen ball, with quaint suggestions that the singing tone accompanying the swinging like a ball affects the feelings, while the recognition of a change of position is a thing of “dawning thought,” and that by tic-tac the movement is expressed. See _p. 176_.

[8] Dies fesselt die Sinnen- und Geistesthätigkeit des Kindes und gibt _ihm_ mehrseitige Nahrung.

[9] In der Mitte seiner wahrnehmenden (empfindenden) seiner wirkenden und schaffenden, seiner vergleichenden (denkenden) Thätigkeit.

[10] Die Ausbildung der verschiedenen Richtungen der Geisteskraft des Kindes.

[11] “Journal of Education.” Reprinted in “Child Life,” January, 1901.

[12] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 152_ _et seq._

[13] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 153_.

[14] It is true that Professor Stout complains of the loose way in which the word “activity” has been used, and that he is careful to define his own meaning, but Froebel too is careful. See Appendix I.

[15] See also _p. 82_.

[16] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. II, _p. 82_.

[17] “The Conception of Immortality,” _p. 58_.

[18] Froebel is comparing the child with other young animals, and somewhat scornfully refers to those who, “notwithstanding the early manifestation of the instinct to employ himself,” regard the human infant as inferior to the young of other animals.

[19] See chapter on Instinct.

[20] “In dem ersten Sinnenspiele, kommen also dem Kinde durch Wahrnehmen u. Schauen, durch Kommen, Bleiben u. Schwinden, durch Wechsel, also auch in gewisser Hinsicht durch frühes dunkles auffassen … somit von dunkler Vergleichung, die ersten Eindrücke der Seele, gleichsam die ersten Erkenntnisse zugleich durch Selbst-thätigkeit, wie durch die sein Leben und dessen Forderungen in sich tragende Mutterliebe.”--_P., p. 66._

[21] It does not, however, follow that this outer object, or this manner of presenting it, is so important as Froebel supposed; see Chapter IX.

[22] See _p. 66_.

[23] See Chapter II.

[24] “Principles of Psychology,” Vol. II, _p. 884_.

[25] Froebel is too often ignorantly accused of being “soft,” but it is a mistake to think that he leaves fear out of count. What he insists on is, that rightly used authority should produce self-control, not servility.

[26] See _p. 90_.

[27] Macmillan, 1906.

[28] _P. 53._

[29] “Social Psychology,” _p. 61_.

[30] Mr. McDougall allows (_p. 60_) that in the case of an unprovoked blow, the impulse, the thwarting of which provokes anger, is the impulse of self-assertion.

[31] For example, on _p. 46_, “Hence language provides special names for such modes of affective experience, names such as anger, fear, curiosity”; and on _p. 94_, in connection with the sympathetic induction of emotion, we have, “Later still, fear, curiosity, and, I think, anger are communicated readily from one child to another”; and there are other examples.

[32] _P. 51._

[33] This is all that can be said, for the passage seems incomplete; after “entwickelt … der Trieb die Neigung,” comes only “sie führen zur Gemüths- und Herzensbildung; und aus ihr geht in dem Knaben Geistes- und Willensthätigkeit hervor.”

[34] For a fuller account of these “Gifts,” see Chap. VIII., _p. 148_.

[35] In the well-known translation by F. and E. Lord:

“You wonder why a game at hide-and-seek Brings a glad flush of joy to baby’s cheek? The sense of his own personality Is causing all this joy that you can see When people call him, say, ‘Where’s Baby been?’ He feels that it is he, himself, they mean.”

[36] “Social Psychology,” _p. 89_.

[37] “The Play of Man,” _p. 400_.

[38] “The Play of Man,” _p. 382_.

[39] See _p. 194_.

[40] In another place Froebel does say that, “Only on condition that the genuine spirit of play--i.e. the true spirit of life--lives in the teacher, can he call it forth in the child.”

[41] See Appendix II.

[42] See _pp. 93, 94_.

[43] See _p. 43_.

[44] Froebel goes on to say: “I believe, that after progressing through the vast orbit of almost two generations (he was nearly fifty-nine) I have been carried round to the point of commencement, to the fountain head of the education of mankind, but _with the significant addition of a full consciousness of my task_.”

[45] The material can of course be used at any age provided it conveys suitable ideas in a suitable manner. Some of it is even now found useful in helping senior classes to realize problems in area and in volume.

[46] Many years ago, a young teacher came to me for help. She had been told to give her class number lessons, for a whole term, from Gift III, which consists of eight little cubes, and the children had long since grasped 4 + 4, 6 + 2, 5 + 3, and 8 - 4, 8 - 2, etc. I suggested that she should leave the number out and let the children play with the blocks. “Oh! I mayn’t do that,” was the answer, “they have building with Gift IV.”

[47] A really pathetic story has been told me of an earnest teacher in far Australia, whose educational opportunities had been very limited, but whose desire for knowledge was most sincere. She had been listening without comprehension to some glib user of phrases, and was bewailing her ignorance to an enlightened teacher who knew there had been little of real value, and who said with a laugh “Never mind, Miss ----, it is only a case of ‘Mind and Matter glide swift into the vortex of immensity.’” And the listener said, “Oh please, would you say that slowly, and I’ll write it down.”

[48] These objections were embodied in a paper entitled “A Criticism of Froebelian Pedagogy,” which Mr. Graham Wallas read at a Conference of the Froebel Society in January 1901, and which was published in the Conference Supplement for Child Life, July 1901.

[49] See _p. 200_.

[50] Few critics are likely to go so far as Mr. Winch, who gave as a Froebelian conception “that the true destiny of man is to be obtained by gratifying every youthful impulse.” But, Mr. Winch is perhaps not to be taken seriously, for in the same paper he took _one sentence out of a passage on the importance of continuity extending over four pages_, and says of it, “This jerky discontinuity (!) has not the slightest support in biological science, and never had.” (See Memorandum written for Mr. Graham Wallas in “Problems of Education.”)

[51] Deshalb sollen Erziehung, Unterricht und Lehre ursprünglich und in ihren ersten Grundzügen nothwendig leidend, nachgehend (nur behütend schützend), nicht vorschreibend, bestimmend, eingreifend sein.

[52] Mr. Graham Wallas said: “The educational task for us is not to find out how completely we can stand aside, but how far we can so influence the environment of the child, as to cause those tendencies in it which we think best, to become permanent.”

[53] Mr. Graham Wallas said: “From the beginning of the Darwinian reconstruction of the moral sciences, it was absurd, while speaking of ‘environment,’ to ignore the fact that the deliberate care and contrivance of the parent must form a large part of the environment of the child.” The passage quoted shows that Froebel was guilty of no such absurdity.

[54] “Is Development from Within?” “Child Life,” October, 1904, and January, 1905.

[55] See _p. 192_.

[56] “Second Review of Plays: A Fragment,” but part of this has been omitted in the English translation.

[57] Those who desire a full and scholarly account of Froebel’s philosophy are referred to that given by Professor Angus MacVannel, Ph.D., “Teachers’ College Record,” Vol. IV, No. 5. The Macmillan Co., New York.

[58] In Gottes Welt, eben weil es die Welt Gottes, durch Gott Gewordenes ist, spricht sich ein Stetiges, das heisst ungetrennt Fortgehendes der Entwickelung in Allem und durch Alles aus.

[59] See Appendix, _p. 216_.

[60] “Das Pedagogik des Kindergartens,” _p. 329_.

[61] According to this principle, the mere fact that a particle is moving with a certain velocity in a certain direction, is in itself a reason why it should continue to move with the same velocity in the same direction.… Now, in so far as continuance of change in a certain direction is traceable to the pre-existence of change in that direction, this whole process may be regarded as being in a perfectly intelligible sense, self-determining (“Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 146_).

[62] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 147_.

[63] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 168_.

[64] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 155_.

[65] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 156_.

[66] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 156_.

[67] _P. 191._

[68] And so to regard “each successive moment of the world-process as issuing out of the preceding by purely immanent casuality.”

[69] “Analytic Psychology,” Vol. I, _p. 156_.

[70] “Unity and Froebel are synonymous terms,” is one “howler” from a student’s examination paper.

[71] Ed. by Development, _p. 212_.

[72] “The Eternal Life,” _p. 14_.

[73] “Das Kindergartenwesen,” _p. 330_.

INDEX

A

Acquisition, Instinct of, 96, 109

Activity, Spontaneous, 132 Differentiation, 90 Earliest Activity, 1, 9, 34, 126 Consciousness and Self-Consciousness, Development of, 48, 81, 84, 85 Nature of First Voluntary Employments, 135 Expression, _see_ that title Foundation of Education, 6, 84, 142, 210 Fundamental Tendency, 47, 85, 88, 90 Meaning of, in Froebel’s Writings, 213 _et seq._ Self-determination included in connotation, 217 Universal Impulse, 90, 126

Adams, Prof., quoted, 190, 210

Amusement, Distinction from Play, 134

Analysis of Mind Observation and Introspection, 12 Order of Investigation of Laws of Mental Process, 3, 4 Sense and Understanding, Inseparability, 17, 20 Tri-une Character, 13

Animal Instincts, 72

Anticipations of Modern Psychology, 2 _et seq._--Summary, 10

Anthropological Aspect of Psychological Inquiry, 4, 8, 206

Approbation, Love of, 114, 115

Arrangement and Comparison, 101, 166

Artistic Tendencies of Children, 105

Associationists, Fallacy of, 38

“Atomistic View,” 38, 39

Attacks on Froebel, 2, 190-1

B

Baer referred to, 206

Baldwin, Prof., quoted, 50, 52

Ball-Play--Ideas to be gained, etc., 40, 150, 151, 155, 156, 159

Batch, Froebel’s connection with, 199

Biological Studies, Influence on Froebel’s Views, connection with stress laid on Development, etc., 13, 40, 67, 138, 192, 199, 210

Blow, Miss Susan--Froebel’s Symbolism, 179, 189

Bradley, Mr., quoted, 213

C

Cause, Early Notice of, 160

Change--Use in fixing Impressions, 43, 152

Collecting or Acquiring Instinct, 96, 109

Colour, Sense of, 165, 166

Community, Feeling of, _refer to_ Social Instinct

Comte referred to, 206

Conation, _refer to_ Will

Connection or Unification, Law of, 204

Conscience, references to, 116, 117

Consciousness Development by Action, 48 --Movement stopped by Something, 49, 52 Earliest Consciousness Absolute Beginnings--Beyond the pale of Science, 41 Indefiniteness, 39, 49, 91--Undifferentiated, unorganized Unity, 91, 201 Process of Differentiation, 40, 42, 47 Reasoning and Constructive Imagination, 36, 38 Unity of, 26 _See also_ title Self-Consciousness

Construction, Instinct of, 90 “Sense of Power,” i.e., Self-Consciousness resulting, 109, 133 Subserving Instinct of Investigation, 92, 94

Continuous Development, _see_ Development

Cooke, Mr. Ebenezer, quoted, 102, 199, 202

Counting, Development of Capacity for, 101, 102

Criticisms of Froebel, 2, 190

“Culture Epochs” Theory, 129

D

Darwin, references to, 67, 201

Development--Froebel’s Theory of Continuous Development, 10, 128, 140, 178, 179, 206, 207, 209 Biological Studies, Connection with, 13 Development from within, 136, 192, 195, 196 “Harmonious Development,” 14-16 Individual development of, following that of the Race, 206 Law of--Unlimited to Limited, Whole to Part, Indefinite to Definite, 40, 130, 150, 151, 155, 201, 202 Possibilities and Conditions in place of Faculties, 18-20 Reconciliation of Opposites, Result of, 204 Self-directed Process, 212 _note_ Three Stages, 71

Development of Species, Modernness of Froebel’s View, 205

Dewey, Prof. Experimental Work at Chicago, 129 Summary of Froebel’s Educational Principles, 6

Discipline Adjusting Claims of Freedom and Authority, 197 Direction of Impulse, not Opposition, 212 _note_ Non-Interference Theory, 190, 191, 192 _note_, 193-5

Doll-Play, 167

Drawing Counting Capacity, Means of developing, 101 Origin of Earliest Drawing, 103 Process of discovering “Linear Phenomena,” 103, 166

Duties as a means of realizing Kinship, 61, 114, 118

E

Ebers--Account of Life at Keilhau, 123, 147, 168

Eby, Mr., quoted, 7, 79

Emotion, _see_ Feeling

Employment, Instinct of, _refer to_ Activity

Environment, Alleged Neglect by Froebel, 190, 196 --Reply to Critics, 197, 199, 200-4, 208, 210

Evolution--Froebel’s Post-Darwinianism, 198, 205

Experimenting--Mode of Investigation, 102

Exploring Tendency, 94-5

Expression Art as, 105 Feeling, Importance in Development of, 57-62 Need for, 50, 99, 133 Play, Definition of, 124, 125 Understanding, Means of, 92

F

Faculty Psychology, Criticism of, 13, 17 _et seq._

Fairy Tales, 108, 182

Family Bonds, 61, 113

Fear, Froebel’s attitude towards, 78 and _note_

Feeling, Development of, etc., 130 Action, Importance of, 57-62 Family Bonds and Service for the Family, 61, 113 Fundamental Importance, 63 Starting Point of Education, 117 Want of Good Feeling in Children, Cause, 63-4, 112

Fichte, Reference to, 204

Fletcher, Dr., quoted, 212 _note_

Following and Tolerating--Character of True Education, 160, 195

G

Games, _refer to_ Play

Genetic Psychology preceded by Analytic, 3

“Gifts” and “Gift Plays” Description of the Series, 159-166 Excessive Importance attached to, 170 Hailmann’s, Mr., distinction between “Gifts” and “Occupations,” 164, 165 Psychological Aim or Meaning, 40, 149, 150, 164, 169, 178 Selection following Natural Instinct, 169, 170 Tri-Unity of Child-Nature, Relation of Gift Plays to, 14 Weakness of the Series, 166 Two Mistakes, and the Psychological Errors underlying them, 170-6

Groos, Karl, quoted, 90, 125, 126, 130, 132, 136, 137, 145, 147, 219

Grüner, reference to, 200

H

Habit Instinct, Proof of existence of, 76 Outcome of Impulse of Activity, 88

Hailmann, Mr., quoted, 164, 193

Hall, Stanley, quoted, 206

“Harmonious Development,” 14-16

Hegel, Froebel’s knowledge of, 205

Helba Plan, 26, 84, 212 _note_

Herbartians--“Culture Epochs” Theory, 129

Horne, Prof., quoted, 17

I

Imitation McDougall’s, Mr., Three Classes of Imitative Actions, 89 Outcome of Activity and Means of Expression, 47, 88, 126 Results gained, 50, 51, 91

Instincts Classifications Eby, 79, 80 Froebel, 83 _et seq._ Kirkpatrick, 79, 80, 81 McDougall, 79, 81 Direction and Training needed, 71, 121 Divergent Views a matter of Definition, 67-8 Froebel’s belief in Instinct, 67, 69, 70, 74, 125 Froebel’s Terminology, 68, 69 Habit and Instinct, Interaction between, 76 Indefinite in Man--Proof of Superiority and Capacity for Progressive Development, 66, 72, 75 Specific and General Tendencies, Distinction between, 68 Specifically Human Instincts only dealt with by Froebel, 82 Transitory Nature, 75, 77, 78 Two Main Lines of Instinctive Action, 83

Interdependence of Life, 62

Intuition of Things--Dr. Ward’s Points, 154-5

Investigation, Instinct of, 88, 90-2, 94-7, 102, 107

J

James, Prof., quoted, 39, 57, 59, 65, 68, 69, 73-5

Jarvis, Miss--Translation of passage _re_ Self-Consciousness, 54

Joy in Activity, 136-7, 139, 143, 145

K

Keilhau, Life at, 111, 123, 143, 147, 168, 212 _note_, 223, 224

Kindergarten Associated Games, Social Training, etc., 114, 146, 147 Defined, 90, 114, 142 Disregard of Froebel’s instructions by his disciples, 147, 170 End and Aim of, 90, 142, 208, 210 Gifts and Occupations, _refer to_ title Gifts No gulf between Kindergarten and “The Education of Man,” 210, 212 _note_

King, Mr. Irving, quoted, 8, 26, 48, 49, 50-2, 54

Kirkpatrick, Mr., quoted, 79-80, 114, 115, 117, 134

L

Lamarck, reference to, 201

Language Development of capacity for Speech, 97-101 Earliest Training, Use in--Names the beginning of Organization, 21, 29, 45, 46, 98, 100 Feeling, Development of, 58

Location, Sense of, 152, 153 Source of questioning Activity, 97

Lodge, Sir Oliver, quoted, 32

M

McDougall, Mr., quoted, 68, 76, 86, 89, 117

MacVannel, Dr. J. A., quoted, 10

Marenholz, Madame von, 205

Material of Instruction and Manner of Teaching--Conditioned by stage of Development, 129

Maternal Instinct, 119, 120

Mathematical Perceptions--Over-estimate of Children’s Capacity, 170-4

Memory--Froebel’s Description, 19

Mental Activity, 3, 4, 13, 23-7 Earlier and later Forms, 30 Possibilities--Difference between Child and Animal, 49 Sense and Understanding, Close connection, 17, 20, 207

Mental Analysis, _see_ Analysis of Mind

Metaphor, Froebel’s delight in, 187-8

Moral Faculty, 116, 118, 207

Morgan, Prof. Lloyd, quoted, 33, 67, 72

Mother Wit--Need for Thought and Training, 120, 211

Movement, _see_ Activity

Münsterberg, Prof., quoted, 218

Music--Importance of early Training, 106

Mysticism, _see_ Symbolism

N

Naming, _refer to_ Language

Natural Instincts, _see_ Instincts

Non-Interference, Froebel’s Theory of, 190-5

Number, Discovery of, 101, 102

O

Observation of Children, 4-6, 8, 9, 29, 74, 87, 92, 94, 96, 103, 104, 109, 111, 133, 162, 165

Order, Sense of, and the Instinct of Rhythm, 115, 116

Organization and Language, 21, 29, 45-6, 100

Outer Factor in Perception, over-emphasized by Froebel, 171, 173, 174

O’Shea, Prof., quoted, 97, 191, 200, 207, 216

P

Parental Instinct, 119, 120

Personality, Consciousness of, _see_ Self-Consciousness

Philosophy, Froebel’s, 10

Physical and Psychical, Close connection between, 17, 20, 207

Play Amusement, Distinction from, 134 Biological View, 138 Classifications (Froebel and Groos), 145, 219 Earliest Childhood, Play in, 124, 125, 128, 130, 147 Educative Value, Originality of Froebel’s View, 122 Groos’ Criteria, 130 Guidance needed, 143, 145 and _note_ Imitative Play, 88 Joy in Games, 133, 136, 139 Recreative Play, 122 Self-Consciousness, Development of, in Boyhood, 56 Social Virtues, Development by Games, 111, 144, 146 Surplus Energy Theory, 123, 144 Theories of Play--Recapitulation and Preparation, 138, 140, 141, 142 Work and Play Distinction between--Froebel’s definition, 124, 128 Earliest Activity--No Differentiation, 130, 131 Early Boyhood, Differentiation in, 131, 132

Playgrounds, Importance of, 143

Play-Material Definite prescription impossible, 167 First Playthings, 153 Importance in relation to Development, 148, 149 Mistake of giving expensive and complex toys, 164 Number and variety of games noted, 147 Object of Froebel’s play-material, 93 _See_ also title Gifts

Poems and Songs, Use in Development of Feeling, 58, 130

Preyer quoted, 52

Psychological Basis for Educational Theories, 2

Pugnacity, Instinct of, 86

Purpose of Education, 200 _Refer also to_ Self-Consciousness

Q

Quantity, Relations of, 101

Questioning Activity, 97

R

Reflection, Development of, 75

Religious Instincts Foundation in Social Instincts, 115, 117 Morality and Religion, 118 Work and Religion, 127

Religious Convictions of Froebel, 205-6

Repetition, Impressions fixed by, 43, 152

Representation (Darstellung), _see_ Expression

Rhythm--Importance of early development of Instinct, 106, 160, 187 Order, Sense of, Connection with, 115, 116

Ribot quoted, 90, 126

Romanes quoted, 68

Royce, Prof., quoted, 31

S

Seele, Ida, 209

Self-Abasement and Self-Assertion, Instincts of, 86

Self-Consciousness, Development of, 52, 53, 56, 84, 109, 116, 117, 153 Early Developments, 54, 55 Indefiniteness of Instinct rendering development possible, 82 Purpose of Education and “End of Man,” 30-5, 53, 178 Tales, Craving for, due to nascent idea of Self, 57, 107

Self-Determination, _refer to_ Will

Self-Employment, _refer to_ Activity

Self-Instruction, Instinct of, _refer to_ Investigation

Sense and Movement, Connection of, 48

Sense and Understanding, Close connection of, 17, 20, 207

Separation attempted in use of “Gifts”--Psychological error, 175-6

Service as Expression of Feeling, 59, 60

Social Instinct Development from the “Feeling of Community,” 91, 110-12 Early Training essential, 63-4, 112 Games, Education in, 111-12, 144, 146 Religious Instincts, Foundation of, 115, 117

Speech, _refer to_ Language

Spencer, Herbert, quoted, 206

Sphere and Cube (Gift II)--Material for Comparison, 41, 159, 161

Spontaneous Activity, _see_ Activity

Stories, Interest in, 57, 107

Stout, Prof., quoted, 3, 4, 12, 22, 23, 24, 26, 36, 37, 38, 48, 73, 135, 213, 215, 216

Summary of Froebel’s Educational Principles, 6

“Surplus Energy” Theory, 123, 144

Symbolism--Froebel’s alleged excessive and far-fetched Symbolism, 169, 179-82 Exaggeration by disciples and translators, 183-6, 188 Instances--Practical application usually harmless, 186-7

T

Tales, Craving for, 57, 107

Thorndyke, Prof., quoted, 180

Time-Relations, 155

Toys, _refer to_ titles Gifts and Play-Material

Tri-une Nature of Man, 10, 32, 34, 89, 116, 126

U

Unfoldment, Doctrine of, _see_ Development

Unification or Connection, Law of, 204-5

Unity and Complexity, 155, 157, 158 Froebel’s yearning for Unity, 199, 217

W

Wallas, Mr. Graham--Criticisms of Froebel, 190, 196, 197, 198, 199, 201, 208

Ward, Dr., quoted, 17, 20, 36, 37, 38, 149, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157, 158

Welton, Prof., quoted, 212 _note_

Will Definitions (Froebel and Stout), 22 Development Action and Feeling, Development through, 35 Bound up with Intellectual Development, 26, 27 Parallel Accounts (Froebel and Stout), 27, 28 Self-Consciousness involving true volition, 30

Winch, Mr.--Criticism of Froebel, 192 _note_, 207

Women’s Work in Education--Intelligent knowledge needed in addition to natural Instinct, 120, 211

Work Condition of best work, 127, 128 Play, Relation to, _see_ title Play Religion and Work, 118, 119

Wundt, Prof., quoted, 68

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