CHAPTER IV

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLIEST CONSCIOUSNESS

It is in the emphasis he lays upon the mental activity of the child from the very first, that Froebel approaches so closely to the position of the modern psychologist, and in his account of the earliest consciousness he distinctly resembles Professors Ward and Stout.

Only to “some of our most distinguished modern psychologists” does Professor Stout attribute a strong disposition to recognize in the elementary processes of perception and association, the rudimentary presence of these mental operations which in their higher form we call reasoning and constructive imagination.

Now Froebel writes:

“One can recognize and watch, even in the first stages of childhood, though only in their slightest traces and tenderest germs, all the mental activities which certainly do not stand out prominently till later life. Say not, ye parents, How can such tendencies lie already in the life of the child still so unconscious and so helpless? If they did not lie in it they could never be developed from it … for where there is not the germ of something, this something will never be called forth and appear.… As man is a being intended for increasing self-consciousness, so shall he also become an inferring and judging being (schliessendes und urtheilendes). Man has also a quite characteristic power of imagination, and--what must never be forgotten, but continually kept before the eyes as important and guiding--the new-born child not only will become man, but the man with all his qualities, and with the unity of his being, already appears and indeed is in the child.”--_P., pp. 30-49._

Psychologists in general, says Professor Stout, show a tendency, which he regards as erroneous, “to ignore the constructive aspect of early mental process, to recognize mental productiveness only in complete and advanced stages of mental development.”

But Froebel, in speaking of the mother’s play with a mere infant, when the coloured ball may present “the perception of an object as such,” most distinctly states that the child’s “first impressions, as it were the first cognitions,” come to him in these early plays by _means of his own activity_, an activity of body emphatically, as we shall see presently, but an activity also of mind, of perception, “durch Wahrnehmen … durch dunkles Auffassen … durch Selbst-thätigkeit.”[20]

Froebel uses such expressions as “the spontaneous reception” and even “the critical reception of the outer world,” just as Dr. Ward, in refusing to recognize an internal sense, says “the new facts … are due to our mental activity, and not to a special mode of what has been called our sensitivity.”

The active, rather than the passive attitude, strikes Froebel so forcibly that he calls the two modes of consciousness, the receiving of, and reacting upon impressions, a “double expression.”

“The first voluntary needs of the child, if its bodily needs are satisfied and it feels well and strong, are observation of its surroundings, spontaneous reception of the outer world (selbstthätiges Aufnehmen der Aussenwelt) and play, which is spontaneous expression, or acting out of what is within. This double expression (Diese Doppeläusserung) of taking in and expressing outwardly is necessarily grounded in its nature, as in human nature in general; since the child’s first earthly destiny is to attain by critical reception (durch prüfende Aufnahme) of the outer world into itself, by manifold inward impressions and outward expressions of its inner world, and by critical comparison of both, to the recognition of their unity.…”--_P., p. 29._

Professor Stout attributes this ignoring by certain psychologists of the constructive aspect of early mental process to a false view of the nature both of association and of construction, the fundamental fallacy of the associationists lying in their disposition to explain the nature and existence of a whole by reference to the nature and existence of the parts which are contained in it, so that “the parts must be supposed to pre-exist before they are combined, and to pre-exist in such a way that they need only to be in some manner externally brought together or associated in order to constitute the whole which contains them.”

In like manner Dr. Ward accuses psychologists of having “usually represented mental advance as consisting fundamentally in the combination and recombination of various elementary units, the so-called sensations and primitive movements, or, in other words, in a species of mental chemistry.”

That Froebel seems to have avoided the error thus pointed out by those two psychologists, is surprising enough, but it is even more surprising to find that this is probably due to the fact that his conception of the earliest possible consciousness is very much like theirs.

In rejecting “the atomistic view,” Professor Ward maintains that “the further we go back, the nearer we approach to a total presentation, having the character of one general continuum in which differences are latent.”

Froebel’s account, as given in “The Education of Man,” is very similar:

“Although in itself made up of the same objects and of the same organization, the external world comes to the child at first, out of its void, as it were, in misty, formless indistinctness, in chaotic confusion, even the child and the outer world merge into one another.”--_E., p. 40._

This description reminds us of Professor James’ picturesque expression, “big, blooming, buzzing confusion,” which is so often quoted, but which does not really convey so true a picture as Dr. Ward’s account, for where there is no distinction there can surely be no confusion. But a few pages further on we find Froebel describing the infant consciousness before speech begins, as “_still an unorganized, undifferentiated unity_” (noch eine ungegliederte mannigfaltigkeitslose Einheit). This is identical with the expression used by Professor Stout, who, in speaking of the stage to which he gives the name “implicit apprehension,” the apprehension of an unanalysed whole, uses the phrase “distinctionless unity.” Froebel talks of the child feeling himself a whole and “so also, though unconsciously, seeking to grasp a whole, never merely a part as such.” And just as Dr. Ward claims for psychology as well as for biology “what may be called a principle of progressive differentiation or specialization,” so Froebel writes:

“The child mind develops according to the law which governs world development, viz.: that of progression from the unlimited to the limited, from the general to the special, from the whole to the part.”--_P., p. 170._

In this, of course, lies the reason for Froebel’s correct apprehension of the infant mind, he was biologist first, and his mind was full of the idea of development.

“At the same time there begins in the child, as in the seed-corn, a development towards complexity.”--_P., p. 172._

“Whether we are looking at a seed or an egg, whether we are watching feeling or thought, what is definite proceeds everywhere from what is indefinite and this is the way in which your child’s life is sure to show itself.”--_M., p. 121._

Professor Ward goes on to discuss what is implied in this process of differentiation or mental growth, saying that if analogies are to be taken from the physical world at all, the growth of a seed or embryo, will furnish far better illustrations of the unfolding of the contents of consciousness than the building up of molecules.

It was the endeavour, and quaint enough it seems to us, to translate this psychological truth into educational practice, that led Froebel to lay so much stress on the fact that the earliest of his so-called “Gifts” are indivisible wholes:

“Let us place ourselves at the nursery table, and try to perceive what the child is impelled to do in the beginning of his self-employment. Let us sit ourselves as unnoticed as possible considering how the child, after he has examined the self-contained tangible object in its form and colour, has moved it here and there and proved its solidity, how he then tries to divide it, at least to change its form.… Thus _after perception of the whole, the child desires to see it separated_ into parts.… Let us stop at this significant phenomenon and try to discern through it what plaything following on the self-contained ball, hard and soft, and the solid hard cube, we should for inner reason and without arbitrariness give to the child.”--_P., p. 117._

Then come directions as to the manner in which the toy is to be presented:

“in order to give the child _the impression of the whole_ (den Eindrück des Ganzen). _From this as the first fundamental perception_ (der ersten Grundanschauung) _everything proceeds and must proceed_.”[21]

Starting from the conception of an undifferentiated totality or objective continuum, Dr. Ward says, “Of the very beginnings of this continuum we can say nothing, absolute beginnings are beyond the pale of science. Actual presentation consists in this continuum being differentiated; every differentiation constitutes a new presentation. Hence the common-place of psychologists: ‘We are only conscious as we are conscious of change.’” …

As to absolute beginnings, Froebel too writes that these are past finding out, but he does so in order to call the mother’s attention to the importance of the very earliest steps:

“Do not say, It is much too early.… Too early? Do you know when, where and how your child’s intellectual development begins? Can you tell when and where is the boundary of existence that has not yet begun, and of its actual beginning, and how this boundary manifests itself?”--_M., p. 154._

Coming now to what Froebel has to say as to how his “unorganized unity” becomes differentiated, we shall not find that his brief account differs in any really fundamental way from that of Professor Ward. Some of his expressions have a very modern sound, such as: “how the outer world begins to divide and analyse itself”; how “out of the indefinite outside and around the child comes the definite”; or again how the child gains “the three great perceptions of object, space and time, which at first were one collective perception.” (“Die drei grossen Wahrnehmungen von Gegenstand, Raum und Zeit; welche anfangs in einer Gesammtwahrnehmung in dem Kinde ruhten.”)--_P., p. 37._

Commenting upon the phrase “We are only conscious as we are conscious of change,” Dr. Ward remarks that the word change does not sufficiently explain what happens in differentiation, for this implies that the increased complexity is due to the persistence of former changes; such persistence being essential to the very idea of growth or development.… At the same time he is careful to point out that neither in “retentiveness” nor in assimilation is there “any confronting of the old with the new,” any “active comparison.” Without change of impression consciousness would be a blank, but “a difference between presentations is not at all the same as the presentation of that difference. The former must precede the latter; the latter, which requires active comparison, need not follow … we must recognize objects before we can compare them.”

Froebel says that:

“All the development of the child has its foundation in almost imperceptible attainments and perceptions … the first perceptions, in the beginning almost imperceptible and evanescent, are fixed, increased and clarified by innumerable repetitions, and _by change_.”--_P., p. 38._

Froebel, too, goes back to this very earliest stage, the stage when a baby “begins to notice.” He says that this indication of an intellect (Seelenaeusserung) begins when the child is a few weeks old, and is occasioned at first by the movement, that is change in position, of a bright object, “in and by means of the motion the child first perceives the object.”--_P., p. 64._

In another passage Froebel speaks of change as “a dim conception of sequence, and thus of dim comparison.”

“These first impressions come to the child by means of perception and seeing, and by means of coming, staying and vanishing (of the ball); _by means of change_, thus also, in a certain point of view by means of early dim conceptions of sequence, of foundation and result, of cause and effect, and thus of dim comparison.”--_P., p. 65._

A change or difference which does not imply active comparison, and a change or sequence which does imply dim comparison are not very far apart, and Froebel makes his meaning clearer still by using the words “unconsciously comparing” (unbewusst vergleichend).

“By this play his attention is called to the precise shape of the cube; and he will look at it sharply, unconsciously comparing it with the hand, to which his eyes were first attracted.”--_P., p. 84._

Nor does Froebel omit to notice the necessary close connection of the new with the old, which Dr. Ward emphasizes.

“The child very often seeks for something without at all knowing what he seeks; in like manner he repels something without at all knowing why. Yet the child does not for this reason turn away accidentally, neither does he seek the accidental. Generally it is the new for which the child seeks, but not a novelty which has no connection with what has hitherto been, for that, should it appear, would obstruct development. He seeks the new which has developed from the old, like a bud from a branch. He seeks a new unexpected turn, a new unexpected use of a thing, new unexpected properties, new and yet unconsciously anticipated development, a new unexpected connection with his life.… The child indeed seeks for the new that is outside of himself, but not on account of its externality. Really he is seeking the new of which he feels premonitions in himself, in his own development. Since, however, he does not yet know this, and so cannot give an account of it, _the child seeks especially for change_, in order to gain a means of growing up within himself, and of growing forth outwardly from himself.

“Above all, therefore, it is the old within the child which clarifies, unfolds and transmutes itself, thus developing that which is new. The whole process takes place according to a definite law resting in the child himself, in his life, in life as such.”--_P., p. 168._

We have seen that Froebel draws no hard and fast line between sensation and thought. On more than one occasion, he does refer to something less definite than a perception, in one passage using the word “Eindrück,” and in another the term “Vorentwickelung,” translated by Miss Jarvis as “preliminary impression,” of which he says it is “to be raised later, at the right time, by look and by word, to a clear perception.”--_P., p. 86._

In “The Education of Man,” Froebel’s earlier work, he deals with the function of language, “the word,” in differentiating “the misty formless darkness,” the nothing, the mist.

“At an early period there come, too, on the part of the parents, corresponding words which at first separate the child from the outer world, but afterwards re-unite them. With the help of these words, these objects present themselves, at first singly and rarely, but later in various combinations and more frequently in their self-contained definite individuality. At last man--the child--beholds himself as a definite individual object, wholly distinct from all others.”--_E., p. 40._

The function of the name, as calling attention to the thing, seemed to Froebel of so much consequence, that he says, “the name creates the thing for the child.” It is in connection with the development of speech in the stage just following on infancy that he says: “Up to this stage, the inner being of man is still an unorganized undifferentiated unity. With language, organization sets in.”

“This period is pre-eminently the period of the development of the faculty of speech. Therefore it was indispensable that whatever the child did should be clearly and definitely designated by the word. Every object, every thing, became such, as it were only through the word; before it had been named, although the child might have seemed to see it with the outer eyes, it had no existence for him. The name, as it were, created the thing for the child.--_E., p. 90._

“The object of giving names is not primarily the development of the child’s power of speech, but to assist his comprehension of the object, its parts and properties, by defining his sense-impressions.”--_P., p. 242._

Professor Stout also speaks of the casual naming of the object, by those around the child as “a means of fixing the attention of the child on the object when it would otherwise pass unnoticed,” and he guards against the misconception that the name at the outset is a name for the child. He calls it “merely a special sound associated with a special percept in a quite casual and indefinite way.”

Froebel, too, is careful when he says:

“A definite tone is to be connected with a definite perception, and the tone when heard again may recall the perception.”

Though Froebel has little to say about the separate senses, and what little he has is worthless, yet on the other hand he has a great deal to say, especially in his later writings, about the child’s bodily activity, and the experiences and perceptions (Erfahrung-Wahrnehmen) he gains from it. Indeed he makes so much of this, and it is so essentially a modern way of thinking that it has been given a chapter to itself.