E. R. Murray

“ Surely it is another touch of genius that makes Froebel spring to the nascent idea of self as the reason for the child’s craving for tales of all kinds.
“Knowledge of a thing can never be attained by comparing it with itself. Therefore the boy cannot attain any knowledge of the nature and meaning of his own life, by comparing it with itself ... everybody knows that comparisons with somewhat remote objects are more effective than those with very near objects. Only the study of the life of others can furnish such points of comparison with the life he has himself experienced.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ How has the child developed himself especially through the toys—the means of play and employment—which have thus far been given him? The brightening light in the child’s mind illuminates the objects around him. In proportion as the inner light increases, the nature of external objects grows clear to him ... the law of development is that of progress from the unlimited to the limited, from the whole to the part, from an undifferentiated to a membered totality ... the outer world comes to meet the inner world, it does not hinder, but helps the inner world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But when he speaks of the infant, he slips into the mistake of saying that the infant, even though active, “amuses” itself. To the ordinary observer the whole life of a young child is play, but it would be as correct to say that it is all work.
Professor Stout, true to what he calls the tendency of the moderns to see in the little child what is writ large in the adult, allows “purely intellectual curiosity” on the part of the infant. We have no right to call an infant passive and therefore amused even when the mother shakes the rattle for his edification. ”

“ It is impossible to make plain how Froebel regarded play, until it is known how he regarded work, work, too, not only for a child but for a human being. What he desired for all was work which produces joy; he calls it “a debasing illusion that man works, produces, creates, only in order to preserve his body, only to secure food, clothing and shelter.” ”

“ The baker cannot bake if the miller brings him no flour, the miller can grind no flour if the farmer brings him no corn, the field can yield no crop if Nature does not work towards it in harmony, and Nature could not work in harmony if God had not placed in her power and material, and if His love did not guide everything to its fulfilment.”—M., p. ”

“ Women’s work in education must be based not upon natural instinct, so often perverted or misunderstood, but upon intelligent knowledge.... Some mothers level the taunt at me that I, a man, understanding nothing of a mother’s instinct, should dare to presume to instruct mothers in their dealings with their own children.... How could such a thought enter my head as to attempt anything against the course of Nature? My whole strength is exerted on the contrary, to the work of getting the natural instinct and its tendencies more rightly understood, and more acknowledged ”

“ To raise activity of will to firmness of will, and so to arouse, and form a pure, strong and enduring will, for the representation of a characteristic humanity, is the chief aim, the main object of the school.... The starting-point of all mental activity in the boy should be energetic and healthy, the direction should be simple and definite, the aim certain and conscious, and worthy of his effort. Therefore to raise the natural activity of the will to true genuine firmness of will, all the boy’s activities should have reference to the development and accomplishment of what is within him. ”

“ Mothers and Fathers, is it not almost incredible how early the child appears to distinguish inner intellectual and loving gifts from outer bodily ones, or, rather, to be conscious of the heart and mind of the giver to feel the giving spirit? Who does not see this in the effect of a friendly glance, of a sympathizingly spoken word, of a tender care which often affords little more than sympathy and companionship?... It is a remarkable fact that the mere love for the outward person, the mere bodily care, does not satisfy him ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At this age the healthy boy, brought up simply and naturally, never avoids a difficulty, never goes round a hindrance: no, he seeks it out and overcomes it. ‘Let it lie,’ calls the vigorous youngster to the father, who offers to remove an obstacle; ‘Let it lie: I can get over it.’ ... As activity gave pleasure to the child, so work gives pleasure to the boy. Hence the daring feats of boyhood.... Easy is the most difficult, without peril the most adventurous, for the impulse comes from the innermost nature, from his heart and will.”—E., p. ”

“ It is too cheap a jibe to throw at Froebel and his educational theories that he makes little distinction between work and play. It ought never to come from any one who has made even a slight study of psychology. The sting is meant to lie in the suggestion that play is trifling and easy and that it requires no exertion, while work is serious and demands concentrated effort, but this view will not bear any consideration. ”

“ Justice, moderation, self-control, truthfulness, loyalty, brotherly feeling and again, strict impartiality—who, when he approaches a group of boys engaged in such games, could fail to catch the fragrance of these delicious blossomings of the heart and mind and of a firm will ”

“ Froebel writes:
“As the ball stirs, moves, goes, runs and rolls, the child who is playing with it begins to feel the desire to do likewise.... The smallest child moves joyfully, springs gaily, hops up and down or beats with his arms when he sees a moving object. This is not merely delight in the movement of the object before him, but it is the working of the inner activity wakened in him by the sight of outer activity. Through such vision the inner life has been freed.”—P., p. 239.
We have seen that according to Froebel the earliest consciousness is a kind of self-consciousness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Froebel’s conclusion, that only as this unconscious or blind craving for action is satisfied does the child become “conscious of the nature, direction and ends of his own activity,” is but another way of stating Professor Stout’s conclusion, that the grouping of cognitions, which is the gradual acquirement of knowledge through experience, is “the way in which the conation itself grows and develops.” So, cognition and conation are developed simultaneously, or, to repeat Froebel’s own phrase, “Thought forms itself in action, and action resolves and clears itself in thought.” ”

“ And, in the Mother Songs, he says:
“You can see how his bodily activity, the movement and use of his limbs, like the activity of his senses, all turn towards one point: Life must be grasped, experienced and perceived ... he wants to appropriate the outer and to re-embody it ... his susceptibility for all that gives and takes up life will strike you as something that elevates his life in every way; even as young plants and animals are susceptible to the faintest workings of light and warmth, or the impressions of their environment, however delicate. ”

“ Man, humanity in man, as an external manifestation, should therefore be looked upon not as perfectly developed, not as fixed and stationary, but as steadily and progressively growing, in a state of ever-living development, ever ascending from one stage of culture to another toward its aim, which partakes of the infinite and eternal. ”

“ To satisfy that need is the most imperative need now set before the human race, ... you will realize that the strengthening of character which we all agree to be a necessity of the age, is to be gained not only by stimulating and elevating the soul and the emotions, but by raising the whole mind, by training the intellect and the will.... Then the heart would acknowledge and esteem the intellectual power, just as the intellect already recognizes feeling as that which gives true warmth to our lives ”

“ Mankind is meant to enjoy a degree of knowledge and insight, of energy and efficiency, of which at present we have no conception; for who has measured the limits of God-born mankind! The boy is to take up his work which has now become his calling, not indolently in sullen gloom, but cheerfully and joyously.”—E., pp. ”

“ We have in this a new confirmation of the law of development in crystals, the passing from special-sidedness to all-sidedness, from imperfection to perfection as the law of all development in nature. Man, then, appears as the most perfect earthly being, in whom all that is corporeal appears in highest equilibrium and in whom the primordial force is fully spiritualized, so that man feels, understands, and knows his own power. ”

“ As Froebel shows so much insight into the paramount importance of action in the development of self-consciousness, it is not surprising to find that he recognizes also its special importance in the development of feeling.
It is probably to the late Professor James and his sparkling paradoxes that the educational world owes its grasp of the importance of expression in connection with feeling; we feel because we act, we are told, we do not run away because we are afraid, but we are afraid because we have run away. ”

“ The baby to whom the activity of throwing is new, and who spends full twenty minutes in throwing a tram ticket on the floor of the car—which the patient mother restores each time—throwing, too, with such force and evident purpose, cannot properly be said to be playing. Nor can the infant who stares with such concentration at the lighted lamp and who, when the mother moves out of the direct range of the light, strives with all its feeble strength to readjust its position to that entrancing brightness. ”

“ The deepest craving of this inner life, this inner activity, is to behold itself mirrored in some external object. In and through such reflection the child learns to know his own activity, its essence, direction and aim, and learns also to order and determine his activity in correspondence with the outer phenomena. Such mirroring of the inner life, such making of the inner life objective is essential, for through it the child comes to self-consciousness, and learns to order, determine and master himself. ”

“ He likes to change his relationship to different objects, and through these changes he seeks self-recognition and self-comprehension, as well as recognition of the different objects which surround him, and recognition of his environment as a whole. Each little walk is a tour of discovery; each object is an America—a new world, which he either goes around to see if it be an island, or whose coast he follows to discover if it be a continent.”—P., p. ”

“ In the beginning these sentiments and feelings will only manifest themselves as an effect, a fullness without word or form, without any adequate expression of what they are, merely as something that uplifts our being and fills the soul. At this juncture, it is most beneficial, strengthening, and uplifting for the boy to receive words—a language for these sentiments and feelings—so that they may not be stifled in themselves, vanish for lack of expression.”—E., p. ”

“ The life of the boy has, indeed, no other purpose but that of the outer representation of his self: his life is in truth but an external representation of his inner being, of his power, particularly through plastic material. In the forms he fashions, he does not see outer forms which he is to take in and understand ”

“ 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 [204] in progressive connection with the common life whole; so activity and action are the first phenomena of his awakening life. ”

“ To say that circle or ring games help a child to gain an idea of unity—Ring a Ring of Roses may give the first dim idea of corporate unity—is a very different thing from saying that a circle is to the child a symbol of unity. This is the kind of thing, however, that Froebel is supposed to have said, but after careful investigation one is surprised to find how little there is, and to what extent Froebel’s disciples and translators seem to have read in their own interpretations. ”

“ Such anticipations are due to the fact that the idea of development then new to the scientific world possessed his very soul.
“Humanity, which lives only in its continuous development and cultivation, seems to us dead and stationary, something to be modelled over again and again in accordance with its present type. We are ignorant of our own nature and the nature of humanity....”—E., p. 146.
“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. ”

“ I was informed by a mother that a heavy sandbag which she accidentally found became her most cherished doll, because it had in it the weight of an actual child, and so she gave herself up to the illusion and imagined herself to be carrying a real child. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the contrary, in many pure exercise of strength and measuring of strength predominate, and many have no further aim than the display of strength. Yet the play of this age has always its peculiar characteristic, namely, as during the period of childhood, the aim of play consisted simply in activity as such, so now its aim is always a definite conscious purpose, which characteristic develops more and more as the boys increase in age. This is observable even with all games of bodily movement, of running, boxing, wrestling, with ball-games, goal, hunting, and war games, etc. ”