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KINDEBGABTEN MANUALS. 
 
 HAND WORK & HEAD WORK; 
 
 THEIR RELATION TO ONE ANOTHER, 
 
 AND THE REFORM OF EDUCATION, ACCORDING 
 
 TO THE PRINCIPLES OF FROEBEL. 
 
 EY 
 
 THE BARONESS BERTHA VON MARENHOLTZ BDLOW, 
 
 ii 
 
 Author of " The Child and Child Nature," <5rV., 
 
 BEING A TRANSLATION OF "DIE ARBEIT UND DIE NEUE ERZIEHUNG.' 
 
 BY 
 
 ALICE I. CHRISTIE, 
 
 Translator of " The Child and Child Nature," &=c. 
 
 (uhivsrsity; 
 
 W. SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., 
 Paternoster Row. 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ... ..; ... ... ... ... iii 
 
 I. On Labour and Kindergartens for the People... 1 
 II. The Establishment and Organisation of Kinder- 
 gartens for the People 26 
 
 III. The Training of Kindergarten Teachers and the 
 
 Science of Mothers ... ... ... 40 
 
 IV. Froebel's " Transition Classes " 55 
 
 V. The Kindergarten System and Industrial 
 
 School 73 
 
 VI. Schul and Jugend Garten ... ... ... 101 
 
 VII. Objections to the Kindergarten System ... 132 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 The writer of an original book may feel a natural desire to 
 explain to the public his reasons for disclosing to them his 
 thoughts and opinions on any particular subject ; but this done 
 he has nothing more to say, and he must be prepared to stand 
 to all the opinions he has published, and he must take upon 
 himself the whole responsibility of his book for good or for evil* 
 
 "With translation, however, it is a different matter. From 
 responsibility, indeed, a translator cannot escape, especially when 
 the book translated (as in the present case) deals with many of 
 the widest and deepest problems of life ; but as no two people 
 ever agree entirely on all points, there must always be more 01 
 less divergence between the opinions of the author and translator 
 of any book, and though the latter may fully agree with the 
 general scope of the book he ii translating, and conscientiously 
 desire its reproduction in other languages, there will always be 
 more or less which he would have left unsaid, or said differently, 
 had he been speaking from himself. 
 
 Other considerations, too, enter strongly into the question of a 
 translation of the nature of the present one, the chief object of which 
 is to promote the introduction into a foreign country of new edu* 
 cational theories. What was written originally for German 
 readers, is not necessarily best suited, either in matter or form, 
 to an English public : it might sometimes be that ideas which 
 would most rally commend themselves to the German mind and 
 character, would tend rather to prejudice English readers against 
 the cause which it is hoped they will take up. The question then 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 suggests itself, whether a certain amount of adapting and modi- 
 fying — here and there too, perhaps, some omissions — is not 
 desirable ? This was so strongly my feeling with regard 
 to the present translation, that on the Baroness von Billow's 
 refusing her consent to have her writings in any way abridged 
 or modified, I gave up at one time all idea of finishing the trans- 
 lation. There seemed to me also to be much in this book which 
 had already been said at length in " Child and Child Nature" 
 (a book by the same author, which I had translated not long 
 before), and I feared that beyond a small circle of enthusiastic 
 disciples, another large dose of Kindergarten principles was as 
 likely to prove prejudicial as beneficial to the cause. 
 
 Some months ago, however, and just when the question of the 
 new code was before the public, and much discussion going on 
 concerning elementary education in general, my thoughts 
 turned again to this book of Frau von Bulow's. I felt that 
 there was much in it which exactly met the imperfections and 
 difficulties of education for the working classes, and I was 
 anxious that so much of the book,, at any rate, as bore specially 
 on this subject, should appear in English in some form or other. 
 I wrote again to the Baroness, asking her if she would not 
 reconsider her decision with regard to an abridged translation, 
 at the same time expressing my opinion that an appendix of 
 more than 100 pages in length, consisting chiefly of letters to 
 herself and to newspapers of different countries, praising 
 Froebel's educational theories and system, had better be 
 omitted from the English version, as the publication of it 
 would add to the expense of the book, without, as I thought, 
 increasing its value either for the general public, or as a 
 manual for Kindergarten teachers. Her answer was, that 
 she could not give her consent to any alteration being made 
 in the body of the book ; but that one or two letters, which she 
 specified, and which covered about ten pages, might be omitted 
 from the appendix. 
 
 I could sympathise thoroughly with her objection to having 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 her own thoughts and opinions subjected to the pruning-knife, 
 and her fear lest what she most valued might disappear in the 
 process ; but the appendix was an independent matter, and the 
 more I thought about it, the more confirmed I was in the 
 opinion that it had better be omitted. Mr. Sonnenschein, the 
 publishing firm which brings out this book, whom I consulted 
 on the matter, was of the same opinion ; and as the term of 
 copyright had expired, and the Baroness had no real authority 
 in the matter, we determined to use our own judgment with 
 regard to such parts of the book as were not either an expression 
 of the Baroness's own opinions on the Kindergarten system, 
 or her interpretation of Froebel's theories. 
 
 The appendix, accordingly, has been entirely left out, and 
 also the chapter immediately preceding it, and headed 
 " Educational Associations." The purport of this chapter is 
 to recommend the formation of associations for the promotion 
 of the Kindergarten system, and to show how desirable it is that 
 women should be included in such associations. This is 
 obviously foreign to the primary intention of the book, and 
 however much such preaching may have been needed ten years 
 ago in Germany, there is certainly no call for it at the present 
 day in England. 
 
 For the rest, there is little need to justify the appearance of 
 this volume, for its chief practical object is to promote the in- 
 troduction of the Kindergarten system into the education of 
 the working-classes, and it is very generally acknowledged that 
 for the children of the poor this system is admirable — the great 
 obstacle to its adoption being expense and government codes. 
 
 "The idea of the universe struggles dark and painful in me, 
 which I must deliver out of me, or be wretched." In this 
 utterance from Carlyle's journal, we have the key-note of his 
 life and labours, and sufferings, and it is the key-note also, in 
 a somewhat different sense, of the labours of the man whose 
 educational theories are explained in the following pages. It 
 was Froebel's leading idea that " to express the idea of the 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 universe," to reflect, i.e., in his life, his work, himself sa 
 much of the universe as is revealed to his inner being, is in a 
 greater or less degree, according to the measure of liis nature 
 and capacities, the mission of every individual born into the 
 world, and that to give to each individual the utmost possible 
 help in fulfilling this mission (not merely to cram with 
 knowledge), is the true business of education. 
 
 11 But how ? how ? Carlyle continues in the same breathy 
 and how? how? is the great cry of the day concerning this 
 work of life, and the best mode of training or education for it. 
 Froebel's answer to the question has, at any rate, the merit ot 
 being definite and detailed, so far as it goes. It may, of course, 
 be objected that Froebel deals definitely only with a short 
 period at the beginning of life (seven or eight years at the outside), 
 and gives nothing but general principles for guidance later on, 
 when the problem has become a more complex one. But that he 
 has not done more than he has is surely not a reason for not pro- 
 fiting by what he has done. Is it not felt that the paramount 
 difficulty in drawing up a satisfactory programme of education 
 (elementary education especially), is the shortness of the 
 available time compared with the amount of work and learning, 
 that it is considered desirable to accomplish ? And what, 
 broadly speaking, does Froebel say on this point. That seven 
 or eight years of this time (in the case of the working classes, 
 therefore, more than half the time) are worse than wasted. That 
 the result of the ordinary ways of teaching young children is, that 
 faculties, which, according to the order of nature, should have 
 been called out and developed at this period, and sharpened 
 into good tools for the sendee of other and higher faculties, 
 which will assert themselves in their due order later on, have 
 been allowed so to rust and stiffen for want of opportunity of 
 development, that no amount of after care can ever make them 
 what they might have been ; whilst other powers, which were 
 not yet ripe for use, have been weakened and damaged by pre- 
 mature exercise. If this be so, and while this state of tilings 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 .continues, it is obviously impossible to force any true estimate 
 of how much more might be done in after years. 
 
 There is, we think, little doubt that the substitution of the 
 Kindergarten system for the ordinary methods of infant school 
 teaching would go far to meet one great difficulty of national 
 school education, viz., the due combination of manual and intel- 
 lectual work. It is felt strongly, on the one hand, that the train- 
 ing of children of the working classes should have some practical 
 bearing on the manual and industrial work which will fill up the 
 greater part of their after days, and on the other hand that they 
 have minds as well as bodies which cannot be wholly ignored 
 without injury to the individual and to the community. They 
 will have little leisure later on for the culture of their minds ; 
 therefore as much as possible must be done for them in their 
 school- days, and out of this very short period there is great re- 
 luctance to spare much time for industrial work. Hence, in 
 great measure, the universal complaints of clumsy, inefficient, 
 inaccurate work-men and women. Frau Von Bulow has well and 
 exhaustively shown in the following pages how exactly Froebel's 
 theories, embodied in the form of Kindergarten schools for young 
 children, and variously applied throughout the education of later 
 years, meet this great difficulty. How the manual dexterity, the 
 insight into a variety of industrial arts, the general development 
 •of the physical organs, the artistic sensibility, the love of work, 
 the power of observation, the methodical habits, &c, &c, which 
 are produced by the Kindergarten occupations, will stand the 
 children in good stead in their after vocations of manual and 
 industrial labour, while at the same time they will enormously 
 facilitate their acquisition of knowledge, practical and intellectual, 
 as also their mastery of the mechanical means to knowledge, 
 during the intervening school period. 
 
 It is the general testimony of those who have had much ex- 
 perience in the matter, that when children who have attended 
 Kindergartens up to the age of seven or eight begin lessons pro- 
 rperly so called, they get on much faster than other children-— 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 reading, writing and needlework, for instance, are said to be 
 learnt in a very much shorter time. The present government 
 regulations need not, therefore, be so great an obstacle as is 
 supposed. Three or four years of the infant school period might 
 be wholly given up to Kindergarten training, and one year 
 would probably amply suffice for bringing the children thus 
 trained up to the standard of examination prescribed in the New 
 Code for scholars over seven years old. But, as Frau Von Bulow 
 emphatically insists, it is not mere Kindergarten classes in con- 
 nection with ordinary schools, or a few of the games and occu- 
 pations introduced into the old routine, which will produce the 
 desired result : but thorough-going Kindergarten Schools, with 
 all the necessary appendages, and conducted by efficient teachers. 
 We hope it will soon be generally realised that the outlay 
 entailed by the proposed reforms in education would be more 
 than repaid in a variety of ways. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 There is a question which is day by day asserting itself more 
 loudly, and compelling more universal attention. It may be 
 called the "society " question, and its solution is closely bound 
 up with the improvement of national education. National 
 schools, as at present constituted, are insufficient to meet the 
 demands made now- a- days on the working classes. 
 
 The chief of these demands is that all workmen and work- 
 women should be thoroughly initiated in the natural laws or 
 system of procedure, which underly their work. Now these laws 
 must be the same in each special case as the universal law of all 
 creation and production, which has hitherto remained a hidden 
 mystery. This means to say that there is need for the discovery 
 of a new truth in this field, and that this truth concerns human 
 nature and its development, and it is in ths sphere of education 
 that its application lies. , 
 
 Now, the fact that this new truth forms the kernel of Froebel's 
 educational theories is not yet recognised ; the Kindergarten 
 system is too apt to be looked on as mere child's play, and rarely 
 is it understood to be based on advanced knowledge of human 
 development. 
 
 The great in the little is always overlooked at first, and every 
 age first despises or condemns its prophets, before the voice of 
 truth is recognised in them. All, however, that is new in any 
 given epoch, all new thoughts and new discoveries are needed 
 by that epoch for the fulfilment of the tasks allotted to it ; if 
 they are set aside and unheeded, the human race must suffer, 
 either in the present or the future. It is not a question whether 
 the truths which those prophets declare concern great things or 
 little — for truth is always great, in whatever form — the only 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 important question is whether they correspond to the needs of 
 the time. 
 
 Froebel, too, shared the fate of both great and small prophets ; 
 he, too, was condemned or unheeded when, with the words 
 " Come ! let us live for our children," he appealed to his contem- 
 poraries so to train the rising generation that they might he 
 equal to the problems which awaited them — problems which the 
 present generation will never be able to solve. 
 
 " And it is by means of children's games, forsooth, that 
 Froebel would have this new generation trained to play their 
 part in the world's history ! It is in a Kindergarten that the 
 heroes of the future are to be reared ! " exclaims the irony of 
 the day, smiling pitifully at the enthusiasm of Froebel's 
 disciples. 
 
 And have not all the world's heroes and benefactors been 
 infants in cradles ? And all the great and good qualities which 
 come to maturity in the world — and they are few enough in 
 number, considering the millions of beings who are born with 
 them — are not all these the result of careful nurture and educa- 
 tion ? Is it not true, as a rule, that " great men have had good 
 mothers ? " 
 
 One great feature of our age is the study that is bestowed on 
 the laws of growth and development, and by this means we 
 should learn.how to go on to further progress. 
 
 " How did political institutions arise ? " our politicians are 
 asking. " What was the origin of the habits and customs of 
 races ; how did they acquire and increase their possessions ? " 
 asks the sociologist and the political economist. And the 
 natural philosopher takes the microscope, and penetrates into 
 the minute invisible world, sees the working and striving of 
 nature from its beginning, and investigates the forces which cause 
 the growth of a blade of grass, and set the telegraph in motion. 
 Human life, too, must be investigated in its earliest beginnings ; 
 we must go back to the fountain-head if we wish to gain the 
 knowledge which will help us to advance in the science of the 
 development of human nature, or, in one word, of education. 
 All great men were once little children, and as the sapling, so 
 will the tree be ; as the child, so the man. 
 
 All the many inventions and discoveries which history records 
 have had mostly to do with man's outward surroundings only— 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 tlie satisfaction of his material wants, the increase of his enjoy- 
 ments — they have seldom conduced to the improved welfare of 
 his actual self. The science of the human mind and soul — or 
 psychology — is the youngest of all sciences, and has not yet 
 advanced beyond the ABC, notwithstanding that physiology has 
 dissected and investigated the human body in its minutest parts. 
 The sciences of psychology and anthropology have hitherto dealt 
 almost exclusively with grown-up people, and they have remained 
 stationary in the region of abstractions, whilst schools and 
 schoolmasters have regarded the cultivation of the understanding 
 as their sole business. These sciences, however, have really to 
 do with man from the first day of his birth ; infants should be 
 the first objects of their labours. To understand the child and 
 train it up in accordance with its destiny is to understand and 
 train up the man. It is on what human beings are, not on 
 what they have, that the happiness of individuals and the happi- 
 ness of nations depends. However rich a fund of material 
 wealth science may open up to the masses, real happiness will 
 never become universal without inward elevation and increased 
 morality. And nothing, however small and seemingly insigni- 
 ficant, which can contribute to this end should be despised ; not 
 even Kindergartens. It is not on one truth, one thought, one 
 deed, however great, that the welfare of the world depends — all 
 contribute something. 
 
 The leading spirits of the day have always had tor their task 
 to emphasise what had hitherto been unconsidered, to advocate 
 in all departments of life the opposite of prevailing notions. 
 Rousseau, in order to reform the educational systems of his day, 
 had to uphold the rights of the individual and the claims of the 
 individual nature. Fichte, on the other hand, had to fight 
 against individualism, which had degenerated to egotism, and he 
 therefore became the advocate of the social side of the question — 
 education in and for the community. Pestalozzi took up the 
 cause of the oppressed and neglected classes, laid the foundation 
 of modern national education, and substituted the concrete 
 method, or instruction through observation, for the abstract 
 method which had prevailed before. 
 
 Froebel gathered into one all these different aims, had regard 
 both to the individual and the social side of the question, desired 
 that family life and public life should have equal educational 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 influence. For his chief coadjutors in the cause he looked to 
 the female sex as the mother and true educator of humanity, 
 and appealed to them to master the art and science of the work 
 to which he had been called. His hopes for the reform of society 
 were founded on the reform and sanctification of the family. 
 
 The present generation is diseased through excess of know- 
 ledge, and it is only by action that it can be restored to health. 
 The youthful vitality, which, in the earliest ages of mankind, 
 found vent in struggles with the forces of nature, the monsters 
 of the forest ; later on in battles, tournaments, or crusades, is 
 now too often wasted or suppressed at the school desk, in order 
 to break out afterwards in Philistinism or empty pleasure-seek- 
 ing. Childhood needs a larger playground for the exercise of its 
 faculties — youth, some substitute for the heroic deeds of an- 
 tiquity — for power winch is not turned to good, will vent itself 
 in evil. 
 
 Youth has other forces besides those which schools and school- 
 masters take into account. It is only the slow method of per- 
 sonal labour, personal experience, which can obviate that fatal 
 precocity which acts as a blight on every bud that blossoms in 
 the child's soul, and destroys original thought — for the thoughts 
 of grown people learnt by heart, choke up and destroy all the 
 natural produce of the young soil. 
 
 But it is to the moral powers that most detriment is caused 
 by neglecting to use them, for the mere knowledge of right 
 and wrong can never give the power to do right, and to con- 
 quer the passions, and the sin is only the greater if there be 
 knowledge without right action. Rousseau has truly said : 
 4 * All premature insight into evil sows the seed of vice." 
 
 It has been the common endeavour of our latest educational 
 reformers to introduce a method of education for work, or at 
 any rate to utilize work as a help to education. Pestalozzi, 
 Fellenberg, Fourrier, Lancaster, Owen, &c, have all laid it 
 down as an essential principle, and introduced it into their 
 educational institutions, that learning and work, mental and 
 bodily training, must always be combined during the periods of 
 childhood and youth. But there is one point which until 
 Froebel's time had not been recognised. 
 
 In all the institutions founded by the above-mentioned 
 educationists, or on their model, physical and industrial 
 
INTRODUCTION. VII 
 
 exercises alternated with mental instruction, but they were 
 not made the medium of this instruction, consequently an 
 undue proportion of time was taken up in giving the pupils the 
 necessary mechanical dexterity, and those amongst them who 
 were destined for learned professions, and the higher official and 
 political appointments suffered from this system, and too often 
 failed in their examinations for want of sufficient abstract 
 knowledge. 
 
 There are two conditions which must be fulfilled if practical 
 work is to become an educational factor in all classes of society. 
 The first is : So to organise all such work that it shall constitute 
 intellectual and mechanical exercise at the same time, and, so 
 to say, combine mental with physical gymnastics. The second 
 condition is : That the limbs and senses should not only receive 
 a general cultivation in early childhood, but that technical skill 
 and dexterity should also in part be acquired during the first 
 years of life. And this will be the case if children are not 
 allowed to be merely mechanically active, but are encouraged 
 to exercise their mental faculties at the same time ; for at no 
 age is it so pernicious to set the physical and mental powers in 
 separate action as in earliest childhood, when, whilst the 
 physical being has to make its demands most prominently 
 heard, the soul is all the time unfolding itself through the 
 physical organs. 
 
 Froebel has solved this problem by means of his Kindergarten 
 system, in which the gymnastic play exercises all the powers 
 and organs in a natural manner, while the rules and laws ol 
 nature applied in the simplest way in the games lead the 
 children on to original creation. Thus, work, play and in- 
 struction (self- instruction) are fused into one, and are made the 
 preparation for all the calls of after-life. And there need be no 
 fear that the simplicity and spontaneity of childhood will be 
 injured by this means — on the contrary, the essential con- 
 ditions and atmosphere needed at this stage of life are thus sup- 
 plied. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be asked : " How can such contradictions 
 be harmonised ? " Nevertheless they are harmonised by 
 Frobel's method — as, indeed, many seemingly hopeless contra- 
 dictions have been done away with by men of genius. 
 
 If a Newton could discover the law of gravitation, which 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 regulates the movements of the heavenly bodies, why should 
 not Froebel have discovered the law of gravitation of mental 
 movement ? 
 
 There must be a law underlying human activity as well as 
 the activity of nature — for have not man and nature one and 
 the same Creator. The organism of our bodies works in a 
 strictly systematic way — all their functions are subject to one 
 fundamental law, whatever different names may be given to 
 this law. Whether it be called " action and re-action," 
 " inspiration and expiration," or " the law of opposites," is im- 
 material. It is after the model of our bodily limbs and organs, 
 — our natural work -tools — that all our artificial work-tools are 
 consciously or unconsciously, constructed ; and both are moved 
 by the self-same laws — as the study of mechanics teaches us. 
 
 Now, if there is a close correspondence between human action 
 and its necessary organs and tools, the two must of necessity be 
 subject to the same system of laws. And as in all conscious 
 action the co-operation of the mind with the body is indispen- 
 sable, mind and body must be acted on by the same laws — 
 and this just as much in the case of the individual as of man- 
 kind in general. 
 
 Philosophy has sought much and variously after the law of 
 human development, and has formulated it in many different 
 ways, but has never reduced it to practical application, there 
 where alone it can find it& application, viz., in education. But 
 education will always be wanting in reason and basis as long as 
 the laws of the development of the object it has to deal with are 
 unknown. Just as the gardener can only rightly tend and rear 
 his plants when he is thoroughly acquainted with their natures 
 and the conditions under which they flourish, i.e., with the 
 laws of their development, so the educator or " children's 
 gardener" will only thoroughly accomplish his end when he 
 understands the nature of his human plants and knows how to 
 secure freedom of development to each according to its special 
 needs. 
 
 That all industries, all arts — in short, all work of whatever 
 kind — must begin with the primary elements of imiversal know- 
 ledge, is known to everybody, but what these elements are is 
 not so generally known. If we want to learn to read we must 
 first master our ABC; and before we can work in any produc- 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 tive manner, we must have mastered the A B C of material 
 substances, i.e., the ABC of things, since all things consist of 
 material substances. But this A B C of things includes their 
 universal characteristics : i.e., form, colour, size, number, sound, 
 and so forth. Whether the particular work come under the 
 head of art or industry, it must always have to do with forms, 
 colours, relations of size, &c, and the working organs must be 
 developed and exercised if they are to succeed. Long before 
 " instruction in observing " begins at school, objects and their 
 characteristics have been perceived by the child — taken in as 
 impressions, that is to say, not really understood. But this 
 merely hazy perception does not produce a clear and definite 
 apprehension of the A B C of things, any more than the mero 
 gazing at books teaches a child its letters. 
 
 Now this A B C of things which ought always to precede the 
 A B C of letters, since abstract symbols pre-suppose the concrete 
 facts for which they stand, this fundamental primer of all 
 knowledge had not yet been discovered. Objects and their 
 attributes are indeed around us, and are perceived by every 
 child with healthy senses, but they are not so ordered and 
 systematised as the stamp themselves in their simplest elements 
 irresistibly on the child's soul. The discovery of the means of 
 doing this, and that in the form of childish play — is the great 
 work of genius we owe to Froebel, and this is the new and the 
 important part of his method. In no other way is it possible 
 for a young child to evolve its whole personality by means of 
 its own work, i.e., by its original activity, and to take in the 
 only nourishment suited to its young mind. The materials, 
 which represent this A B C of the qualities of things, of all 
 things, can be much more easily adapted to the unexercised 
 organs of children, than the letters of words as yet unintelligible 
 to them, and the figures and images constructed by themselves 
 are a better expression of their inner beings (to themselves as 
 yet a closed book) than words could be ; just as the artist 
 can express his ideas only in works of art. 
 
 But the invention of what we may call a plastic A B C is not 
 only an introduction to the knowledge and mastery of matter, 
 it contains also the principles of the free handling of matter — or 
 of the systematic treatment of all work — by which alone the 
 workman arrives at an understanding of his business. A 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 philosophy of the science of work is quite indispensable in an 
 age in which work plays such a prominent part. The labour 
 question and the education question of the present day coincide 
 closely, and can only be solved the one through the other. 
 Only when the relation of human activity (or work) to the 
 nature and destiny of man has become perfectly understood — 
 when the history of the development of humanity and its psycho- 
 logical and historical aspect, has become the rule and 
 standard of education, will it be truly capable of training human 
 beings for the work of life. Considered in this light, however, 
 work will not only need to be carried on scientifically, it must 
 also be made the means of raising the moral standard and the 
 dignity of human nature. The first step towards the increase 
 of morality must be the overcoming of selfishness. Love which 
 can practice self-denial for the welfare of others, and the good 
 of the community, must be the chief factor in reforming society. 
 And work carried on with the consciousness of serving the 
 community, and springing from love to one's fellow creatures — 
 work transformed into art, and labouring in the service of 
 beauty, will become a strong moral lever. And in this ideal 
 sense it is the most urgent need of an age in which realistic, 
 industrial, and material influences tend to engross the mind 
 exclusively with outward things. Without some such counter- 
 acting force, the young generation would sink into an abyss of 
 the grossest egotism and naturalism. In this respect Froebel's 
 educational idea may be of use to all classes of society, not 
 only to labourers in the ordinary sense of the word, and to the 
 lower orders who are not yet emancipated from the trammels 
 of coarseness and want of culture. For all, without exception, 
 will be trained to work for all — to accomplish deeds which shall 
 bring about the renovation of society — or the solution of the 
 social question. 
 
 One of the principal features of this new method of education 
 concerns the earliest religious development of children, which 
 in the present day is so much neglected, or at least carried on 
 in an altogether wrong way. Froebel's book on " Human 
 Education " reiterates at almost every page that religion (which 
 means, according to Froebel, "union with God ") is the ultimate 
 and highest end of human culture. In order to reach this goal 
 with certainty, preparation from the beginning of life is 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 necessary, and other means are needed than mere verbal 
 instruction, which does not appeal to the mind in earliest 
 childhood. Here the mother must fill the office of Priest, and 
 Froebel presents her with the means for awakening in her child 
 the yearning, innate in every human soul, to find out its Creator. 
 Froebel's system proceeds by the right road : from the works to 
 the Creator ; from the visible world to the invisible ; from the 
 concrete to the abstract ; from the physical to the spiritual. 
 Before any real knowledge of the Highest is possible, the 
 religious feeling must be awakened in the young heart, and that 
 sense of love stirred up in it which will prompt it to seek after 
 the source of all good, and point the way to the knowledge of 
 God. Only when the soil is prepared in such a manner can the 
 religious instruction, which follows later, sow the seed of 
 Christian truth. 
 
 In the present treatise it is not proposed to give a full 
 exposition of the religious side of Froebel's educational method ; 
 winch in view of its great importance demands separate 
 treatment ; our intention is only to offer a modest contribution 
 to the interpretation of a great thought — for the present viewed 
 only in one of its aspects — and to excite a desire to penetrate 
 further into a region of thought so little explored, and in which 
 Froebel has contributed much to the labours of his predecessors. 
 
 Not educationalists only, but men of science, philanthropists, 
 sociologists, have an equal interest in the solution of this 
 question, and they will all readily acknowledge that without a 
 new and better foundation in human nature itself there can be 
 no improvement in any direction. Scientific discoveries, and 
 political and social institutions cannot accomplish their purposes 
 so long as the rude force of the uncultivated masses hinders 
 progress. If, however, human power is to be made a more 
 efficient agent, the powers of childhood must be developed. 
 Millions of forces still slumber unawakened, and countless 
 germs wither untended in souls of children — the full meaning 
 of childhood is not yet grasped, and no one even knows what 
 may have been wasted in himself or herself in the budding-time 
 of life. If society in these days has new and higher duties to 
 fulfil towards itself, there is certainly no higher one than that 
 of training the powers of childhood, and of all the obligations 
 which insight, knowledge, and power impose on individuals, 
 
 5l> v of rat? 
 
Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 none can outweigh that of arousing in growing humanity a new 
 impetus, which shall drive men to fashion a new and better 
 organisation of society. Freedom in political, social, and moral 
 respects rests on the same divine law which Froebel takes as the 
 pivot of his educational system. 
 
 The men of like spirit to Froebel have yet to arise, who, 
 rethinking his thoughts, shall light up his dark and imperfect 
 utterances, fill up the gaps he has left, and supply the clear and 
 popular commentaries which all new systems require. And 
 although it is to women that he has bequeathed the larger share 
 in carrying on his work, it cannot be done without the co-opera- 
 tion of both sexes. May those men therefore who, either by 
 their thoughts or their actions influence their age, the friends of 
 humanity who devote their love and their labour to the work 
 of progress, may these not pass unheeding by the field in which 
 the seed of futurity is germinating ; but may they fulfil their 
 duties to childhood, the inheritor of their labours ! 
 
 Froebel entrusted the carrying out of his work to women, but 
 women must summon men to their assistance, for all truly 
 human work needs the co-operation of both sexes. To awaken 
 in the young generation the moral force and insight which are 
 needed in order to select from the two currents of the age the 
 one which tends to moral and spiritual elevation, according to 
 the will of the great world-ruler, and to resist that which must 
 lead to an abyss of hopeless materialism ; to fit them for this, I 
 say, the united labour of mankind is needed. 
 
 Froebel's call, " to found educational unions in every com- 
 munity ; to train the people also for a share in tins noble work,' t 
 fell unheeded on the ears of his indifferent contemporaries. 
 May he be listened to now, and may future ages succeed in 
 gaining many disciples to the cause. 
 
fOiriVERSITY; 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On Labour, and Kindergartens for the People. 
 
 M Hohere Ausbildung und erhohte Tiichtigkeit des Arbeiter ist 
 der Anf ang zur Losung der socialen Frage." — Schulze-Delitzsch. 
 
 Higher culture and higher qualification of the working classes 
 is the first step towards the solution of the social question. 
 
 Keal national liberty can only be brought about by real national 
 culture. The watchword of our age : " The People's Eights," 
 implies also the cry, " Education of the People," for there must 
 be increased capacity in proportion to the increased duties which 
 are involved in these " rights." 
 
 There is no department of life in which a new basis is 
 rendered so imperative by the reforms of the age, as in the 
 education of the working classes. For in no other sphere of 
 society has there been a more thorough revolution of conditions, 
 nowhere are so many new demands made, so many new claims 
 put forward, as among that class of society the emancipation or 
 which constitutes the chief question of the day. 
 
 The new position which labour — and, therefore, also the 
 labourer — is gaining in human society, renders new conditions 
 of national education indispensable. It is not merely a question 
 of better and higher scholastic training, of intellectual culture in 
 the ordinary sense, of substituting for the ordinary day-labourer 
 the intelligent workman, who is destined to become the ruling 
 sovereign of the slave of our days — machinery; the problem 
 which calls for solution is, above all, how to awaken as much as 
 possible, in each individual, inventive and creative powers. 
 Manual work must be raised to the level of science. 
 
 B 
 
2 ON LABOUR, 
 
 The higher degree of perfection attained in almost every field 
 of work necessitates higher intelligence in the workman, and a 
 mastery of materials, and freedom of technical manipulation, 
 bordering on artistic power — and artistic power means always a 
 certain amount of creativeness, or intellectual productiveness. 
 
 This demand for intellectual culture in connection with, and 
 for the improvement of, manual work coincides in part with the 
 demands for intellectual culture generally, but is not entirely the 
 same. The best informed chemist, for instance, might not be 
 capable of applying his knowledge to this or the other industry. 
 The special knowledge of the workman must always stand in 
 relation to application, to practical life ; but it will be none the 
 less a means towards his general human culture, just as his 
 special branch of science may be so to the scientific man, 
 although it does not include in itself general culture. The 
 working classes need to know the elements of the sciences, and 
 to be familiar with their results in application. 
 
 It is more necessary now than ever that national education 
 and national schools should take into account and cultivate the 
 elements of practical work, and also the theory of work ; for now, 
 more than in any previous age, has it become a recognised fact, 
 that the education of the people must be a training for after-work 
 as well as a means of general culture — i.e., of producing good 
 and reasonable beings. 
 
 One and the chief reason why education is still so generally 
 imperfect is that the nature of children is far from being rightly 
 understood. The special training for after- work such as our age 
 so greatly calls for, and which should form a part of general 
 education, may to all intents and purposes be said not to exist. 
 For children cannot be said to have received a training for work 
 if directly they leave school they have to begin learning this or 
 that business. When a boy enters a workshop as apprentice the 
 handicraft which he is expected to learn is taught to him merely 
 by mechanical action, which he has to imitate without having 
 any idea of its why or wherefore. Moreover, the majority of ap- 
 prentices are treated more like job-boys or servants than as 
 pupils whose own training is thought of. And it must in justice 
 be owned that considering the entire absence of preparation with 
 which most children — those of the poorer classes especially — 
 enter on their apprenticeship, the master would be compelled to 
 
AND KTifDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. * 3 
 
 devote the greater part of his time to them if he attempted to 
 teach them their business in the true sense of the word. 
 
 And the boys and girls who enter industrial schools, though 
 as a rule they stand higher with regard to general culture, bring 
 with them scarcely more preparation for manual work. In 
 these industrial schools they receive, indeed, a scientific ground- 
 ing for the several vocations they are to enter on, and they are 
 made to study the theory of their business, but they have no 
 opportunity given them for practical exercise, even of the me- 
 chanical kind which apprentices get in workshops. 
 
 There is but one way of meeting the higher demands which 
 the present age makes on handicrafts, and of raising the latter 
 to , the sphere of intellectual activity : the workman must be 
 taught to understand the theory of his work, and must be able 
 to give an account of the why and the wherefore of his procedure. 
 In view of this something more is needed than the ordinary 
 training of schools, even when — which is not always the case — 
 this training supplies the necessary general cultivation of the 
 senses and powers of understanding. All, therefore, that is 
 needed to insure an adequate education for industrial work 
 would not be gained by a reformed organisation of national 
 schools as centres of learning, however desirable such remodel- 
 ling unquestionably is with regard to general culture. " Labour 
 must be spiritualised," is one of the cries of modern times. 
 And this can mean nothing else than that it must be transformed 
 into creative work — raised, so to say, to the level of art-work. 
 In all genuine works of art, i.e., works that are really individual, 
 original creations, the artist himself, not only his conception, 
 but his mental and spiritual personality, is reproduced, or 
 mirrored. And it is because he can thus express himself in his 
 works — represent his inner being in a concrete form — that his 
 art affords him real satisfaction. Human beings are intended, 
 in one way or another, to give outward expression to their 
 inner beings — to impart their own individuality to the most ob- 
 jective representations. It is only by individual form that man 
 can represent the universal. Kaphael and Michael Angelo were 
 undoubtedly objective in their works, but every connoisseur can 
 accurately distinguish in each one of their creations, the individ- 
 ual stamp of the one or the other. 
 
 Industrial handiwork can only produce satisfaction and eleva- 
 
4 ON LABOUR, 
 
 tion similar to that afforded by art, when the workman gives an 
 individual character to his work, when he puts into it some 
 portion of his own inventive spirit. 
 
 But what an immense amount of preparation does the artist 
 need for his vocation ! Must he not, in the first place, be 
 thoroughly acquainted with the materials he has to work with ? 
 "Without a knowledge of colours there can be no painter ; no 
 sculptor, no architect, without a knowledge of marble, of differ- 
 ent kinds of stone, of matter generally. In like manner no 
 handicraftsman can attain to excellence until he have acquired 
 thorough familiarity with his materials ; almost every kind of 
 work requires a certain power of controlling or managing mate- 
 rials, for which practical, experimental knowledge is essential. 
 In trades and handicrafts, as well as in the fine arts, some 
 degree of technical proficiency is indispensable, and every variety 
 of technical skill requires the development of certain nerves and 
 muscles — those of the hand especially. 
 
 Without a sense of form and a perception of symmetry and 
 harmony, without a knowledge of the relations of size and num- 
 ber — in short, without the elements at least of drawing and 
 mathematics, very few handicraftsmen can attain to the degree 
 of excellence which is akin to artistic work. 
 
 In the present day it is only those who are pre-eminently 
 gifted or who have been fortunate in their education, especially 
 that of early childhood, who attain to excellence in their voca- 
 tions. And even with these it is at the cost of their general 
 culture, as little time and strength remains for anything outside 
 the special training. 
 
 The great bulk of the working-classes consists of day-labourers 
 who are little better than beasts of burden, or machines, without 
 human dignity or self-respect. What is to become of these ? 
 How are they to earn then* bread when all the rough, unintelli- 
 gent work on which at present they depend for existence, comes 
 to be carried on by machinery ? 
 
 Not until capacity for all the different branches of industry 
 has been developed by industrial exercises begun and carried on 
 from earliest childhood, not till the training for work is made 
 to begin and proceed simultaneously with general education, not 
 till then will it be possible to combine a more thorough prepara- 
 tion for special work with a higher general culture. 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 5 
 
 In the existing condition of the working classes any such 
 early preliminary training is out of the question. If unhealthy 
 dwelling places and bad food do not ruin the health of the 
 children of the poor, they lack at any rate the means for that 
 systematic exercising of the limbs which is essential to the 
 development of the full working powers of human beings. In 
 the country, and in small towns, there is at least opportunity 
 for the natural exercise in woods and fields, which conduces to 
 physical health and strength — albeit only that rude animal 
 strength which becomes of less and less value with regard to 
 industrial work, the more machinery increases. But in large 
 towns the greater number of children are, physically speaking, 
 failures. If they are to be guarded from the dangers of the 
 street, there is ordinarily no alternative for them but to sit still 
 in stuffy, dirty rooms, whilst their parents are out at work. It 
 is asserted that in great cities — such as Paris, for instance — 
 only four generations, at the outside, will retain a certain degree 
 of health and vigour, and that the succeeding ones tend invariably 
 to become weak and puny, and this is in great measure the 
 explanation of the fact that the greater number of geniuses who 
 have sprung from the people have been born in villages or small 
 towns. Another reason may well be the absence in great cities 
 of those influences of nature which are necessary to the develop- 
 ment of the artistic faculties. Moreover, genius requires an 
 atmosphere of stillness and self- concentration which is im- 
 possible in great towns. 
 
 If human beings are to be placed in full possession of their 
 physical force and to attain to complete development of their 
 limbs — and this is the only way of producing industrial 
 capacity corresponding to the modern stage of development — 
 educational measures must be set on foot, such as have hitherto 
 not existed, or at any rate only in an isolated and unsatisfactory 
 manner. It is to be hoped that gymnastics will soon be the 
 common property of the whole nation, and by this means an 
 enormous impetus will be given to the working forces ; but before 
 the period of life when gymnastics, properly so-called, should 
 be included in education — for quite young children they are 
 not suitable — care must be taken to provide a subtitute. Nature, 
 like a provident mother, has instilled into children that they 
 must not sit still for any length of time ; that movement, and 
 
D ON LABOUR, 
 
 movement of all kinds, is of the greatest importance to them. 
 Educators cannot do better than let themselves be guided by 
 nature — for nature always points in the right direction, and her 
 teaching is far from being sufficiently considered. 
 
 If we would find out what is a really natural mode of 
 development for children, we must study the utterances of 
 human nature during the childhood of the human race, and see 
 in what manner the development of the race proceeded. The 
 nature of the individual is similar to that of his race, and 
 the expression of the being and the nature of universal humanity 
 is the measure of the being and nature of the individual. 
 
 As nature has given to children this instinct of perpetual 
 movement in order that their limbs may be developed and 
 strengthened, so likewise has she implanted in them a desire to 
 touch and examine all the objects surrounding them in order 
 that by this means, they may collect experiences concerning 
 the qualities of materials, and learn to distinguish between hard 
 and soft, brittle and pliable, &c. But the educational guidance 
 which shall turn these instincts to their destined purpose is 
 indispensable. 
 
 Nature supplies children with the faculties for all branches 
 of human culture. These faculties reveal themselves in chil- 
 dren as impulses which drive them to this or that kind of ac- 
 tivity. The young child experiences a constant need of using his 
 hands in all manner of ways, which develop technical dexterity. 
 If these impulses be left without guidance they will lead to 
 a spirit of mischief and wanton destructiveness, instead of to the 
 formation of the creative power. Systematic training of the 
 senses according to Pestalozzi's theories, forms now-a-days — or 
 at any rate is expected to form — the basis of every properly 
 constituted school. The senses, however, begin to awaken long 
 before school-time, but until this time has come there is little 
 or no provision for any methodical training — for the first years 
 of life education is left pretty much to chance, and so the 
 faculties run to waste, and the discipline of school, however 
 good it may be, can never fully make up for the time that has 
 been lost. 
 
 In the greater number of schools for the people, however, we 
 find but little of this discipline and training of the senses which 
 are so essential for the work which the pupils will be called on 
 later to do. 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. f 
 
 Schools then, as they exist at present, however much good 
 they may do in other ways, and however much they may have 
 advanced in themselves, do not supply the necessary preparation 
 for work in the actual sense of the word, but only a very 
 general and unsatisfactory education for the vocations of after 
 life. 
 
 As in all things it is necessary to begin at the beginning in 
 order to produce a good result, so, too, here — the preparation 
 for work must begin in childhood. Only thus will adequate 
 time and strength be gained, and only thus shall we be follow- 
 ing the plan of nature. 
 
 The principle that we must learn in childhood in order that 
 we may be able to practice in after life, is in itself a right one, 
 but it is apprehended and applied in a one-sided manner. Why 
 should we not also in childhood, according to our ability, work 
 at the same time that we are learning — work in order to learn. 
 Childhood is undoubtedly the season for the unfolding and 
 development of all the forces, bodily and mental, the spring- 
 time of the human buds which cannot yet produce any fruit. 
 Children cannot, and must not, be made to work for the sake of 
 results — work should be for them only a means of development. 
 Are we not all ready to cry out in indignation at the abuse of 
 childish activity in manufactories, workshops, mines, &c. ? And 
 a similar evil exists too often in the homes of the poor where 
 children of seven or eight years old are often obliged to nurse and 
 carry about younger brothers and sisters all day long, or to 
 fulfil domestic duties requiring exertions far beyond their 
 strength. 
 
 There is only one right kind of work for children, viz., that 
 which conduces to the unfolding and cultivation of their 
 strength and faculties. And during the first years of life there 
 is only one right form which this work should take, and that is 
 play. 
 
 The development of the human race did not certainly begin 
 with learning in the sense of sc&ooZ-learning. Before human 
 beings had books and schools, they were obliged to procure for 
 themselves the satisfaction of their immediate necessities — 
 shelter, food, and clothing. The beginnings of human know- 
 ledge were the result of the experiences which our ancestors 
 thus collected together. Voyages of discovery in their own neigh- 
 
ON LABOUR, 
 
 bourhood, observation of the products of nature, investigations 
 concerning the properties of things, and accidental discoveries, 
 and inventions by the way — these were the ways in winch the 
 culture of our race began, this was its first educational work, 
 the preparatory school out of which science and art have arisen. 
 
 Our present systems of education have certainly deviated 
 very far from the natural method by which the Divine Edu- 
 cator has led the human race, or they, too, would begin with 
 Work and not with learning — work, i.e., in the sense in which 
 all development may be said to be a species of work, viz., 
 movement, activity, exertion, which result in the letting loose 
 of bound-up forces and progress towards the fulfilment of 
 destiny. 
 
 This law of development is the same in all the organisms of 
 nature from the tiniest plant up to the higher races of animals. 
 In one and all there is an innate striving after growth which 
 conduces to the progress of the universe. 
 
 But this inward striving must be assisted by ou^vard condi- 
 tions, if its purpose is to be fulfilled. The growth-impulse of 
 the plant requires corresponding warmth, light, moisture, &c. 
 The animal needs the food, the exercise ; in short, the general 
 satisfaction of all its natural wants. 
 
 The principle of spontaneous activity, long ago recognised by 
 educationalists, is the law of development throughout creation ; 
 only there is this difference between the kingdoms of nature and 
 of man, that in the former the object of this activity is reached 
 without fruitless endeavours and experiments. The swallow 
 can build its nest without going through a period of apprentice- 
 ship, the bee without previous practice constructs its cells with 
 mathematical exactness, the spider spins its web with greater 
 regularity than any weaver is capable of. Man alone is deficient 
 in the unerring instinct which never fails to accomplish its 
 object ; his knowledge has to be earned by toil and trouble, his 
 progress and culture must be the result of patient endeavoui 
 and experience, of slow and gradual progress. 
 
 Man has been an apprentice from the beginning of his exis- 
 tence, and the surrounding world is his workshop. This 
 apprentice-time of humanity is in a certain sense repeated in 
 the case of every individual, of every child. It begins, however, 
 with the life of the individual, not with school-time, or with 
 instruction in any form. 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 9 
 
 It is, comparatively speaking, only of late years that the ques- 
 tion of education prior to the regular school, or lesson-season, 
 has been seriously considered, and Pestalozzi may be looked on 
 as its first advocate. Before Ins time the processes of childish 
 development were more or less undiscovered land. 
 
 We can no more know what is going on in the hidden recesses 
 of a child's soul — how its slumbering life is being awakened by 
 the first impressions from the outer world, and how images and 
 sensations are laying the foundation for ideas — than we can 
 understand how the bud of a flower unfolds itself. We know, 
 however, that all development in nature proceeds systematically, 
 that a tree cannot bear fruit first and afterwards buds ; that 
 spring always, without exception, precedes summer ; and so 
 forth. That a like systematic regularity must be the rule of 
 intellectual development follows of itself, but of the laws of this 
 system we know as yet very little. 
 
 The study of child-nature begun by Pestalozzi and his pre- 
 cursors, has been continued by Froebel, by whom an important 
 advance in this knowledge has been made. This is not the 
 place — I must reserve it for later consideration — for entering 
 more deeply into Froebel's pschychological studies of human 
 nature in the period of childhood. 
 
 Pestalozzi and Froebel, both of them geniuses in the field of 
 education, agree in asserting that there can be only one true 
 index to education, viz., the child's own nature. Pestalozzi, 
 like Froebel, based his educational method on the first instinc- 
 tive utterances of the child's nature, on its natural impulses. 
 Both distinguished between the instincts of the soul and those 
 of the body, and both recognised their mutual interaction, and 
 the analogy between the two. Both, too, differed from Fourrier 
 in requiring not merely that the natural instincts and incl'nation 
 of the child should be satisfied, but that they should be used as 
 means to a true discipline of the senses and impulses, by which 
 the lower ones may to a certain extent be early subjected to the 
 higher. 
 
 Pestalozzi, like Froebel, insists that there should be no such 
 thing as instructing children without giving them corresponding 
 sense-impressions, and without affording them opportunities of 
 observation and demonstration — in short, no mere word-teaching. 
 Here, however, Pestalozzi stops short of Froebel, who insists 
 
13 ON LABOUR, 
 
 still fuither that children should learn by means of original 
 productiveness. Exercise of the limbs and organs merely as 
 such, followed later by purely mechanical handiwork, does not 
 satisfy Froebel, who demands from the very first some result 
 of this childish activity, and moreover a kind of activity which is 
 never purely mechanical, but which exercises the mental powers 
 at the same time as the bodily ones. 
 
 I have alluded above to the desirability of discovering a 
 method by which the gymnastic exercises carried on by adults 
 may be applied to different branches of labour, so that the time 
 spent in the development of the muscles may be doubly fruitful. 
 
 The method discovered by Froebel, and by means of which 
 children, while seemingly only at play, are going through a com- 
 plete course of gymnastics not only for the limbs and senses, but 
 for the collective mental and spiritual organs, has so far solved 
 this problem, that the greater number of these childish exercises 
 leave a result behind. The play-work is productive. And, how- 
 ever small the produce may be, the work conduces to the child's 
 development through the experiences gained concerning materials, 
 form, size, symmetry, &c, &c. It affords, moreover, the satis- 
 faction which follows from all useful activity, and is to the child, 
 on a small scale, what his art is to the artist, a mirror of his 
 inner being and a measure of his powers. 
 
 In this respect Froebel's system is of incalculable benefit as 
 regards the development of child-nature in general, but most 
 especially would it be so in training the children of the working- 
 classes for their callings in after-life. 
 
 Notwithstanding that Froebel's system is entirely based on 
 the natural dispositions of children, the very meagre knowledge 
 which exists of the philosophy of the system, have resulted in 
 the frequent assertion that it is not in harmony with nature, 
 that it robs childish play of its freedom, and introduces artificia- 
 lity into the innocent period of early childhood. 
 
 No one thinks ot questioning the naturalness of giving young 
 children the food which their bodies require, but it does not 
 seem to occur to people that these little beings already have 
 mental and spiritual needs, and that their budding minds require 
 food as well as their bodies. To satisfy their children's bodily 
 wants, and help them to wile away their time in play and 
 amusement, is considered by most people enough during the few 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 11 
 
 first years of life ; then comes the school to develop their 
 minds. 
 
 In nature all things have their transitions, the fruit does not 
 grow out of the leaf — the bud and blossom comes between. Can 
 it be considered to be according to nature that after letting the 
 first years of childhood be idled away in aimless play, after 
 leaving a child entirely to its own impulses, its unexercised 
 mental powers should suddenly be taxed with abstract learning ? 
 That is to say, occupied with ideas for which the previous years 
 of its life have given no preparation. Because it has long been 
 felt that such a mode of proceeding is unnatural, instructive 
 games have been invented, and play-schools (Spiel-schule) in- 
 stituted, in order to assist in some degree the earliest develop- 
 ment of the mind. Something, indeed, but very little, has been 
 accomplished by these means, and were it not that the teaching 
 of life itself, both in and out of the house, has co-operated with 
 these small attempts, still less would have been effected. The 
 children of the poor, however, do not even get this much 
 preparation. 
 
 Again, it is considered quite in accordance with nature that 
 those who are gifted with a poetic genius should write poetry, 
 that those who have a talent for painting should paint, &c, and 
 nobody expects that these talents should folly develop themselves, 
 without the assistance of any instruction. But these talents, 
 when their owners came into the world were only germs 
 which went unfolding gradually, until at last the full- 
 grown talent disclosed itself. The lives of great artists in- 
 variably show that favourable outward circumstances assisted 
 the inborn faculties. If Mozart had grown up in a thoroughly 
 unmusical atmosphere, his genius would certainly have been 
 more or less stunted. 
 
 It is still, very generally assumed that methodical training 
 is fatal to freedom of movement, and yet the simplest child's 
 game is based on rules: not only those which more especially call 
 out mental activity, such as chess, and games of cards. In 
 dancing and gymnastics, which are taught methodically, freedom 
 of movement is not interfered with. On the contrary, the 
 better the rules of these arts are learnt the greater freedom will 
 there be. And the freer the movement, the greater the enjoyment. 
 In like manner, every handicraft, every art, and every science 
 
12 ON LABOUR, 
 
 must be learnt methodically, if success is to be attained, and 
 enjoyment derived from them. 
 
 When a child who wants to build a house has suitable 
 materials given to it, and is shown the proper way of handling 
 them, its freedom of action is not really impeded — it is 
 only helped to carry out its own wish and to afford itself satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 If it were proposed that children should be incessantly 
 superintended and helped at their play, people would be quite right 
 to object ; but according to Froebel's principle the child's own 
 independent efforts and original experiments are to be called 
 out as much as possible. Just as the directions of the master 
 workman to his apprentice make it possible for the latter to 
 execute his work with facility and freedom, so in superintend- 
 ing children's games the teacher's object should only be to 
 stimulate their inventive spirit and make them more capable of 
 original effort. If children are kept at systematic play for a 
 few hours daily, the greater part of the day still remains for all 
 the independent, original kinds of amusement which they 
 should certainly not be deprived of. 
 
 The child's instinct of activity or work makes it hammer, 
 pinch, cut, or in other ways pull about whatever its hands come 
 in contact with. The business of education is to meet and 
 assist these natural efforts. This has not been possible 
 hitherto in any adequate degree, for want of a right method as 
 well as of right materials, arranged in proper serial order, and 
 corresponding to the natural stages of development. 
 
 This is what Froebel has given to us. 
 
 The same succession of stages which takes place in the 
 development of the organisms of nature may be observed in the 
 gradual unfolding of the child's nature. The different senses of 
 the human being awaken one after the other in a certain order ; 
 and, as they awaken, they require satisfaction. Before a child's 
 eye perceives colour it has already begun to take in form ; it 
 can distinguish the size of objects before it has any apprehen- 
 sion of the relations of number: and so forth. Froebel has 
 taken all these points into account in the choice and arrange- 
 ment of his " gifts." 
 
 For instance, the simplest form — the sphere — is the beginning 
 of a sequence of systematic or primary shapes which lead up in 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 13 
 
 succession from the simplest bodies to more complex forms, all of 
 which result from the subdivision of the preceding ones 
 (arrangements of material) . The subdivided bodies lead on to 
 planes (material planes) , or to pictures of planes The surface 
 of the disc cut up into strips gives a picture of hues ; little round 
 balls (peas, for instance) represent points. Thus a transition is 
 obtained through which, starting from the concrete bodies we 
 arrive at the forms they can be divided into, and at relations 
 of size, and lay the foundation of a knowledge of its mathemati- 
 cal relation (abstraction) by means of impression and images — 
 nothing more ! Pestalozzi, too, insists on the necessity of 
 supplying the child with systematized impressions, because 
 every conception, every thought, arises out of images 
 which have been awakened in the child's mind by impressions 
 made on the senses by the objects around it. 
 
 Kindergartens furnish for the bodily and mental develop- 
 ment : — 
 
 1. A series of gymnastic games called " movement games,'* 
 whose object is the most harmonious development that is 
 possible of the limbs and muscles. The greater number of 
 these games are at the same time imitations from the life of 
 nature, or from professional life, &c, and thus lead the child to 
 observation of its surroundings. With them, as with many 
 other games, songs are connected, which form the first exercises 
 in music. 
 
 2. Plots of ground in which the children are encouraged to 
 cultivate plants, by which means their physical strength is 
 developed, and they acquire the habit of observation of nature 
 so beneficial to their culture. 
 
 3. Hand-gymnastics, in the form of games which at the 
 same time direct the child's imagination to practical life, and 
 afford the necessary exercises for producing firmness and 
 flexibility of hands and fingers. 
 
 4. By every variety of occupation with different kinds of 
 material children learn to know the qualities of materials, and 
 obtain a mastery over them. And here, too, there is an orderly 
 sequence starting from the raw material of solid bodies, and 
 going on gradually to finer and finer materials. 
 
 5. By a series of hand movements and manipulations 
 performed in the little industries which the children carry on in 
 
14 ON LALOUR, 
 
 play, a foundation is laid for the simplest technical handling 
 in all the ordinary handicrafts and arts. The greater number 
 of these are based on the same elementary principles, which 
 the pliable little fingers easily learn to master, by means of 
 Froebel's exercises in building, plaiting, folding, cutting-out, 
 pricking, laying figures, pea-work, modelling in clay, &c, &c. 
 
 6. The simple hymns which are sung at the opening and 
 closing of the Kindergarten, the little prayers, for which the 
 children's minds are attuned by being directed to the manifes- 
 tations of God's goodness and wisdom in the life of nature and 
 of man, these all serve to awaken the religious feeling. 
 (Eeligious training is the beginning and end of Froebel's 
 system, as it always must be with every true educator ; this 
 subject requires separate consideration, which will be given it 
 elsewhere). 
 
 7. With the above-mentioned industrial exercises a method 
 of linear drawing is connected, which enables every child by 
 the age of seven to draw straight and curved lines correctly, 
 and by combinations of these lines to produce original figures. 
 These exercises in drawing, as well as many oi the other 
 occupations, are at the same time a great help to the perception 
 of the relations of size and number, and of the elements of 
 mathematics generally — perception only, let it be clearly 
 understood, not conception, and there must yet be no attempt 
 at formulae. For instance, the young child learns the truth 
 of the Pythagorean doctrine through the simple action of piling 
 bricks one upon another. 
 
 Objection may be made to Froebel's method of using concrete 
 symbols for mathematical relations and conceptions ; but is not 
 the same thing done by every mathematical teacher, who, to 
 make himself more easily understood, draws mathematical 
 figures on a slate ? The science of mathematics, like all the 
 other sciences, is based on experience. There could be no 
 question of abstract relations of size and number, if these 
 relations did not exist in the objects themselves. If there 
 is any truth in the principle universally recognised by modern 
 educationalists, that nothing exists in the mind but what is 
 produced by impressions of the senses, the child's mind must 
 be supplied with images before it can form mathematical con- 
 ceptions. This cannot be done more effectually than in the 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 15 
 
 manner Froebel has devised of letting children, in their play, 
 make combinations of primary shapes, which shall represent 
 mathematical truths. To awaken anything like a conception 
 in the child's mind is not contemplated — this would be impossible 
 at such an early stage of development — but only to produce 
 perceptions on which later mathematical instruction may be 
 based. Eminent mathematicians — Buchez de Cubiere, of Paris, 
 for instance — have been especially enthusiastic in their appre- 
 ciation of Froebel's system in this respect. 
 
 8. All the exercises enumerated consist in the construction of 
 shapes and figures, and they may be called constructive 
 exercises. They cultivate a sense of form, symmetry, and 
 harmony ; the combination of forms, colours, &c, further 
 exercises the inventive powers and the taste ; and the imagina- 
 tion, the sense of beauty, is continually active. A love of the 
 artistic, of the aesthetic, of the ideal generally, is awakened 
 in the child's soul : and not merely theoretically, but in a 
 thoroughly practical way by the child's own action. 
 
 It is surely of the greatest importance for the workman that 
 the realm of the beautiful should be opened to him in his 
 childhood. If the artistic feelings be not kindled early in life, 
 there is little chance for them later, when the cares of material 
 existence, and the noise of the workshop, are too apt to shut 
 out everything higher. 
 
 If work is to be something higher than a means of earning 
 bread, it must be capable of satisfying the aesthetic sense : if it 
 is to be carried on as a duty to the community, it must appeal to 
 something beyond the small egotistical circle of personal gain. 
 The children of the poor seldom learn this lesson in their 
 homes. " You must work in order to earn your bread," is the 
 maxim instilled into them from their birth, and for the majority 
 it is the only incentive to work. 
 
 9. In a community like that of a Kindergarten, there is no 
 place for this idea. In the first place the great stimulus to work 
 is delight in the work ; and secondly, all that is produced by it 
 is either for the gratification of others, of parents or play-fellows, 
 or for the benefit of the whole community, either by enlarging 
 its collection of pretty things, or by increasing the funds of the 
 school by the sale of the little articles manufactured. Children 
 should never earn money for themselves ; the greed of gain, 
 
1G ON LABOUR, 
 
 that terrible moral disease of our days, should be kept as far as 
 possible removed from them. 
 
 These different stages may be summed up thus : — 
 
 1. Observation of surroundings. 
 
 2. Observation of nature. 
 
 3. Exercises in manual dexterity, combined with lessons 
 
 from actual life. 
 
 4. Elements of the knowledge and mastery of materials. 
 
 5. Elements of technical knowledge. 
 
 6. Keligious training. 
 
 7- Elements of abstract thought and understanding. 
 
 8. Elements of practical art. 
 
 9. Elements of work as moral discipline. 
 
 For the great mass of the children of the lower classes who 
 know little of family love, of domestic order, and above all of 
 loving companionship with friends of their own age, for these 
 the Kindergarten life would be an inestimable blessing. In 
 such a little community, where they take their own place, have 
 their rights and their duties, they would learn the lesson of 
 loving surrender to something greater and higher than the 
 individual ; they would be prepared for the duties of citizenship, 
 however lowly their position on the social ladder. 
 
 It is a phenomenon, again and again observable in national 
 revolutions, that community of interest has the power of rousing 
 a spirit of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice, even in those who as 
 individuals are narrow-hearted and egotistical. Fellowship 
 awakens the instinct of the ideal, and raises the feelings of the 
 individual to the best level of the universal. 
 
 We are very far still from realising the conditions in which 
 our children and young people have full opportunity afforded 
 them of learning to fulfil the virtues of communal life, the duties 
 of citizenship. There is only one way, however, of making a 
 beginning out of which a wider development may grow at a later 
 stage. It is a farce to imagine that love of one's country can be 
 awakened in the years of childhood and youth, when these 
 years are spent in selfish isolation, and under the influence, it 
 may be of parents who, actuated by sordid avarice, set their 
 children an example of defrauding their neighbours! The 
 proverb, " He has drunk it in with his mother's milk," which so 
 forcibly expresses the tenacity of first impressions, is very 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 17 
 
 applicable in this respect. The social sense can only be 
 awakened by early membership in a community. For this, in 
 the full sense, there is no provision in any class of society ; but 
 the children of the poor have no companionship outside the 
 school except that afforded by the street. 
 
 The advantages which gymnasiums afford in later childhood 
 and youth as places of common concourse, are also needed in 
 early childhood. But something more is needed at this age 
 than means for strengthening the body — scope must also be 
 afforded for exercising the mental faculties — i.e., for productive 
 work as a means of mental culture. 
 
 It is because Froebel's method fuses together bodily and 
 mental exercise, work and learning, in the games of children, 
 that it affords the only kind of training suited to this period of 
 life. For children ought neither to learn nor to work in the 
 absolute sense of the word, but their free natural action, which 
 we call play, should be turned to the end intended by nature, 
 viz., the exercise of all the powers and dispositions. 
 
 By gradual transitions, as years go on, learning as well as 
 work should be detached from play, until both are carried on 
 independently for their own sakes, and then special hours should 
 be set apart for play as pure recreation. 
 
 This complete fusion of learning, work, and play in one, is 
 only possible if the objects which serve the child as play-things 
 leave room for original, mental, and physical activity, i.e., if they 
 are not finished toys. If mankind had found everything in 
 the world ready and finished to their hands, if all the arts and 
 objects of civilisation which give satisfaction to the material and 
 spiritual necessities of human nature had existed from the 
 beginning, there would have been no such thing as culture and 
 development of the human race. The care and labour required 
 by natural products in their cultivation, transformation, and 
 combination, were the first means of awakening in man the 
 impulse to activity. 
 
 Finished toys spoil the child's natural activity, encourage 
 idleness and want of thought, and are infinitely more hurtful 
 than people think. The active impulse vents itself in breaking 
 and pulling to pieces, and becomes at last a mere destructive 
 instinct. 
 
 The purely mechanical work, too, which children are so much 
 
18 ON LABOUR, 
 
 set to do, and which is performed without any exercise of the 
 imagination or the mental faculties, is in like manner injurious. 
 
 According to Froebel's method no finished toys, but only 
 materials for play are given to children. The shaping and 
 combining of these materials, in which the play and work of the 
 Kindergarten consists, goes on in a productive, inventive fashion, 
 according to rules and laws. The mature conscious mind, with 
 all the fruits of knowledge gained from experience, comes to the 
 help of the unconscious fumbling activity of the child, and saves 
 him from many errors and bye-paths on the road to culture. 
 
 This work of constructing with given materials begins with 
 imitation. The materials consist of bricks (obtained from 
 cubes divided systematically on all sides), of different coloured 
 papers cut in strips or shapes, of little sticks for laying figures of 
 clay, sand, straw, ribbon, peas, &c. The inventive faculty is 
 exercised by the combination of parts into a whole, according to 
 the children's own ideas. 
 
 But children need some guide to help them in the production 
 of new combinations. All human works consist of parts which 
 are combined in a certain order to produce a whole. This order 
 requires symmetry and harmony of the parts, that they should be 
 suitable to each other, &c. Whether it is a house to be built, or 
 merely a table or chair to be constructed, or some article of 
 clothing, there must always be separate parts which have to be 
 put together according to certain fixed rules, not merely in an 
 arbitrary fashion. 
 
 One great merit of Froebel's system is that he furnishes chil- 
 dren with a fundamental rule, according to which they will 
 infallibly discover new combinations and constructions. There 
 is nothing that a child grasps so easily as contrasts. It will have 
 no difficulty in distinguishing size if it sees great and little things 
 placed side by side ; it will learn the difference of colours from 
 dark and light objects ; of position, from the upper and the 
 under, the perpendicular and the horizontal, and so forth. 
 
 Even a child of three years old will easily apply Froebel's 
 rule of " doing the opposite to what it has seen done." For in- 
 stance, suppose the child to have laid his figures on a piece of 
 paper divided into squares by perpendicular and horizontal lines. 
 The middle is marked out for him by one of his counters ; the 
 child then places a second counter on the fourth square, above 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 19 
 
 the middle, and a third on the fourth below. This is what the 
 rule enjoins. Above and below he has thus got opposites of 
 position. The rule further directs : to connect together the 
 opposites. Two other counters will then be laid right and left, 
 which will connect the upper and under ones on each side. Or 
 else the child has constructed a shape with his bricks in such a 
 manner that the surfaces of the bricks are opposed to one 
 another ; and the next shape, to form an opposite, must have the 
 corner edges facing each other. In drawing, the horizontal and 
 perpendicular lines form opposites of position, and the slanting 
 lines (half perpendicular and half horizontal), are the means of 
 connection. 
 
 It is almost impossible, without practical demonstration, to 
 show what an endless number of combinations may be produced 
 by the application of this simple rule. What the alphabet is to 
 language, in the endless combmations that can be made out of 
 its twenty-four letters, or the seven tones of the scale to music ; 
 such is Froebel's law of reconciliation of opposites in plastic 
 construction. He may be said to have invented an ABC of 
 construction. 
 
 This, too, is what Pestalozzi sought after, but he was obliged 
 to confess that it remained yet to be discovered. This discovery 
 is the key to all artistic work, and must therefore form the basis 
 of all training for work. The arrangement of the separate parts 
 of a whole in a systematic way is to a certain extent organisation 
 such as all creative work implies, whether it be mental or 
 practical work. 
 
 Now this principle of the reconciliation of opposites which 
 has hitherto been considered as limited to philosophy, is just as 
 much the law of combination of the natural world as of the 
 human mind. 
 
 All natural processes go on by means of opposite movements 
 or actions : for instance, inspiration and expiration, contraction 
 and expansion, ascending and descending. The mental process 
 of thought is of the same nature : it consists in comparing differ- 
 ent things — things which are more or less opposites — and con- 
 necting them by conclusions. Pestalozzi requires " that the 
 mechanism of manual dexterity should follow the same course 
 as the mechanism of intellectual knowledge." 
 
20 ON LABOUR, 
 
 In this way the child works according to the law of its own 
 nature. 
 
 Whatever it applies itself, it learns to understand and grasp ; 
 at first only through observation and as impressions, but little by 
 little its actions come to be conscious and intelligent. Children 
 must be made cognisant of the why and wherefore of their 
 actions, not by a reflective process, but by direct experience. 
 According to the present fashion they are introduced to the 
 thoughts of grown-up people much too early. According to 
 Froebel's plan (which follows the empiric road), the first elements 
 of knowledge are instilled by means of the child's own experi- 
 ences, and it learns afterwards to make its own abstractions, 
 and to think about things in its own way. It is only when a 
 personal knowledge of tilings has been acquired through individ- 
 ual observation, that the instruction imparted afterwards, the 
 truths conveyed to the mind by others, can really be appropri- 
 ated, absorbed so to say into the flesh and blood. A real and 
 immoveable conviction must have its roots in the first personal 
 perceptions of the individual. 
 
 The kernel of Froebel's system is that it affords a means by 
 which the individual character of every human being can unfold 
 itself in perfect freedom. " Let each one," says Froebel, M be a 
 free growth in himself, let him develop naturally, like the blade 
 of corn with the ear, blossom and fruit." 
 
 " When shall we cease to fetter, to enslave, or at any rate to 
 stunt humanity, nations and individuals? " and his answer is, 
 " As soon as Kindergartens have become the property of the 
 people." 
 
 This is the point which has hitherto been the least recognised. 
 People think because method and rule are so much insisted on 
 that the children are trained according to a stereotyped pattern. 
 But it is just because Froebel's method gives a universal prin- 
 ciple as guide that it is able to call out individual action, i.e., 
 creativeness in the child. Just as nature by the one law of ex- 
 pansion and contraction develops an endless variety of plants, 
 so the child by means of the law of connection of opjposites, can 
 go on for ever producing new combinations and constructions. 
 Without the help of this principle the children would either 
 stick at mere imitation, or else depend on chanee in their con- 
 structions. And though all start from the same law there is the 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 21 
 
 greatest variety and individuality in the results. Any one who 
 doubts this may convince himself by a visit to a Kindergarten, 
 that each single child with the same materials and by application 
 of the same principle, will produce the most different results. 
 
 If it be acknowledged that without law freedom is impossible, 
 either in society, or in the different domains of art and handi- 
 craft, the same must be granted with regard to the actions ot 
 children. Their imaginations will soar aimlessly about if not 
 kept in and controlled by rules. 
 
 The concentration of mind, which all original work necessitates, 
 tends to form a stability of character and a habit of inward col- 
 lectedness which not only controls the imagination, but conduces 
 to the strengthening of the moral powers generally. Hence 
 arises the inward satisfaction produced by all right activity. 
 And the fact that children are satisfied and made happy by 
 Froebel's method is the most convincing proof that it corres- 
 ponds to the nature of children. 
 
 And as the individual endowments manifest themselves in all 
 this constructive work, so the individualities of character are 
 called out by action in a community of children. Through their 
 occupations and individual productions they reveal themselves 
 as the draughtsman or the painter, the sculptor or the architect, 
 the poet, musician, or mathematician of the future : through 
 associated work and play, through free, communal life in a little 
 world of children, which should be a pattern of the great world, 
 and through the consequent friction of characters, scope is given 
 for all the individual qualities to be called out and develop 
 themselves by contact with others. 
 
 We must not allow ourselves to underrate the importance of 
 all the seemingly trifling points which are here being considered, 
 with regard to the after- development of character. To accustom 
 oneself early to give expression to one's inner being in some 
 form or other, to learn to assert one's individual claims and 
 opinions against one's equals, and to take one's place actively in 
 the midst of a community which has equal rights and duties, is 
 undoubtedly of immense importance for the cultivation of indi- 
 vidual character. Neither the home nor the school can afford 
 adequate scope for this purpose. In the first the young child 
 does not not share an equality of rights and duties with the 
 other members of the family, but stands, on the contrary, in 
 
22 ON LABOUR, 
 
 more or less passive and subordinate relations to them, and i3 
 seldom called on to take the initiative ; and in schools the intel- 
 lectual powers are exercised far more than the moral ones. In 
 the play-hours, it is true, there is room for free action, but then 
 it is not regulated. In the Kindergarten free and regulated ac- 
 tion arecombined in the same manner that they are in actual life. 
 
 There is no question but that the children and young people of 
 the present day are suffering from premature straining of the 
 intellectual powers, and from want of opportunity for the exer- 
 cise of that practical energy which calls out the powers of will 
 and action. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the majority of children now-a-days 
 are condemned to lead artificial lives, entirely antagonistic to 
 their nature, and which are fatal both to physical and moral 
 welfare. Premature instruction, and too much instruction, i.e., 
 too much in proportion to the capacity of the learner, the pre- 
 ponderance of cramming, with an almost complete absence of 
 production, the want of opportunity for learning through prac- 
 tice ; all these causes make a fresh, harmonious, natural exis- 
 tence, such as is fitting in childhood and youth quite impossible. 
 " Tins is not a right state of things," say the majority of on- 
 lookers, " but how are we to alter it ? " For the sum of know- 
 ledge, i.e., all that must be learnt with a view to culture and to 
 professional work cannot be diminished or dispensed with. 
 
 A beginning has already been made towards simplifying all 
 the collected mass of human knowledge ; and for this work it 
 was necessary to go back to the origin of things, to sort out the 
 elements of all the different branches of knowledge in order to 
 get rid of all superfluous matter. 
 
 Froebel went back to the origin of origins — to the first begin- 
 nings of human life — in order that he might there discover 
 the points of contact at winch childish activity must begin. 
 
 The child aquires its first knowledge of things by action, by 
 touching and feeling with its hands. Objects must be such as a child 
 can handle in order that it may obtain, so to say, the first data from 
 which its conceptions must start. If a child, for instance, were 
 merely to look at the things surroundmg him, it would be im- 
 possible for him to gain any notion of their weight, of their 
 substance, of whether they were hard or soft, and so forth. 
 This handling of things, this analysis and combination of 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 23 
 
 their separate parts, which Froebel's system comprises, forms 
 the first childish work, and combines mental with bodily 
 activity. And because this process of knowing things through 
 impressions on the limbs and senses corresponds to the nature of 
 the children, as it does to the nature of humanity, it affords 
 them enjoyment. And in this first enjoyment of activity we 
 find the only solution to the difficulty of overcoming the indolence 
 of nature — the inertness of unspiritualized matter. 
 
 In the human soul opposites of all kinds are found united. 
 If this or that inclination is not cultivated and turned to a good 
 use, it will degenerate into evil. If the instinct of activity is not 
 awakened and gratified, it will give place to a spirit of indolenco, 
 which is so great a hindrance to development and to virtuer— -— ■/ 
 
 This earliest childish work begins — as in the development of 
 humanity — with the moulding and shaping of the work-tools, 
 through cultivation of the senses and organs. All the littlo 
 objects of childish construction serve to awaken the first feel- 
 ings of delight in order and regularity, symmetry of form, in 
 harmony of colours, &c, and thus to kindle a love of the 
 beautiful in the child's soul. With the child, as with humanity, 
 the elements of art are the means of awakening the mind and 
 spirit. 
 
 If the soul of man is to attain only to the dimmest perception 
 of the organic continuity of the universe, he must master the \ 
 conditions of organism in the least. Wherever there is a y 
 co-ordination of parts to form a whole, in a systematic manner 
 or according to rules, and in obedience to a dominating idea, we 
 have a pattern of the organic. This is true of the smallest 
 work of art, because through harmonious co-ordination of parts 
 it represents an idea as a whole. It is only by absorbing into 
 and reproducing outside himself the combinations of the outward 
 world that man can arrive at a true conception of the organic 
 universe. 
 
 This is the idea which underlies Froebel's plan of making 
 almost all the occupations of children consist in breaking things 
 up into separate parts, and putting them together again, accord- 
 ing to given rules. Eousseau, too, has preached that the child's 
 surroundings should be its first lesson-book : but if this book 
 is to be an intelligible one the surroundings must correspond, 
 must be adapted to, the requirements of the child's mind. This 
 
 4 
 
24 ON LABOUR, 
 
 is what Froebel aims at by providing children with pictures of 
 things which they can, mora or less, construct for themselve 
 by combination and alteration. The results of then* activity 
 remain as impressions on the senses and symbols of truths. 
 
 Observation and original construction are there combined, 
 and action (art) leads to knowledge. Schiller says, concerning 
 the development of humanity : — 
 
 " "Was wir als Schonheit hier empfunden, 
 Wird einst als Wahrheit uns entgegen geh'n."* 
 Human culture began with the blind instinct of activity in 
 an age of unconsciousness, and rose in gradually ascending 
 steps from the lowest to the highest conditions. Pictures and 
 symbols of the beautiful, the good, and the true, are just as neces- 
 sary to children as were the mythological symbols of the forces 
 of nature to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Through con- 
 structive imitation of the works of creation the child gains a 
 knowledge of their organic laws which will help him later in 
 life to grasp the fundamental idea which governs them. He 
 learns to know the Creator through creation. 
 
 In order to impart a first general notion of history, it is 
 customary in schools to put before children pictures representing 
 the chief historical events and personages. But pictures alone 
 are not enough. "Children," says Rousseau, "easily forget 
 what has only been shown, still more easily what has only been 
 told to them, but what they have themselves made they never 
 forget." Mankind, too, had to go through a long course of 
 apprenticeship in the work-school of the world before the present 
 stage of industiy and art could be reached. Beginning from 
 the first arduous contests with raw materials, from the toilsome 
 slavery of Egyptian Pyramid-builders — of whom only a single 
 individual was a master builder and an artist — onward to the 
 time of Greek temple-building, when the majority of the work- 
 men were artists also — men have alwaj r s been compelled to 
 labour in the sweat of their brow. 
 
 The progress of the development of humanity, though inter- 
 rupted by frequent casualties, has been on the whole systematic 
 and orderly, and the development of the individual must be 
 
 * " Whatever we have felt as beauty here 
 
 We shall one day as highest truth revere." 
 
AND KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 25 
 
 systematic and orderly too. The human educator cannot do 
 better than seek to discover the plan by which the Divine 
 Educator has led mankind. It is this plan that Froebel has 
 taken as his guide. The following is his point of departure, 
 " Man, as the image of God, is a being possessed of creative 
 powers : first and foremost, then, he must be trained to create." 
 
 In the history of mankind work was at first a means to 
 knowledge ; now-a-days, knowledge or science, has become the 
 means to work. With children also, therefore, work first and 
 afterwards knowledge, must be the order of development. 
 Work is the schoolmaster to form the mind, science gives the 
 theory by which to work. By this means the curse of labour 
 is turned into a blessing. The love of work, work done out of 
 free-will, restores to the workman his freedom, and establishes his 
 dignity as a human being. 
 
 Does it not seem to be in accordance with the Divine system 
 of world-government that in an age when the conditions of 
 labour among civilised humanity have become quite new, 
 when there is a growing demand for intelligence in the 
 labourers, and along with it a cry for the mental emancipation 
 and elevation of the labouring classes, does it not seem, I say, 
 to fit in with the whole plan of the universe, that in such an 
 age a discovery should have been made whereby children, 
 unconsciously and even while at play are fashioned into work- 
 men. Has not every discovery, every invention in the history 
 of the world, come just at the time when mankind had need of 
 it. But many a one, alas, to the detriment of general progress, ' 
 has remained unheeded, even when its application had become 
 an urgent necessity. May such not be the case with Froebel's 
 educational system. 
 
 Can any one be blind to the fact that, keeping pace with the 
 brilliant culture of our days, with the gigantic and rapid 
 progress in the fields of industry, there is a dark and growing 
 shadow ? What sort of a society will the rising generation 
 develop into, if the greed of gain, the love of money-making, 
 and of low enjoyments, which threaten more and more to 
 destroy all the higher aims of life, are allowed to grow up with 
 them and extend their poisonous influence. 
 
 For the uncultivated, intellectually undeveloped human being, 
 there is only one bridle by which the lower passions can be 
 
26 THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ORGANISATION OF 
 
 restrained, and that is physical work. " Labour in the sweat 
 of the brow " becomes his salvation. It would not be easy to 
 discover a more demoralising process than the idleness of 
 convicts in prisons. Either hard, strenuous toil, as the com- 
 panions of poverty and want, or education and culture, must 
 be the means of saving the masses from crime and immorality. 
 As, however, there is no power which can prevent thousands, or 
 even millions, of these masses from enriching themselves and 
 thus escaping from the severer kinds of labour, the only thing 
 to be done is to provide for their education and culture, and 
 thus pay off the debt which for centuries past the cultivated 
 classes have owed to the uncultivated ones. 
 
 However various the conditions may be which are conducive 
 to the suppression of pauperism, ignorance and vice, the chief 
 of these will always be right and healthy education, by which 
 from the beginning of life the soul is directed to the nobler and 
 higher aims. No amount of after-schooling and instruction, 
 however good it may be, can fully make up for neglect during 
 the first years of life. 
 
 Only let Froebel's Kindergartens for the people become 
 universal property, and the first foundation will have been laid, 
 on which a true method of national education, such as the 
 present age requires, may be built up. 
 
 A 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Establishment and Organisation of Kindergartens fob 
 
 the People. 
 
 The greater number of existing Kindergartens have boon estab- 
 lished for the children of the well-to-do classes, and have therefore 
 been kept up entirely by the school-fees, and have been a source of 
 greater or less profit to their founders. The number of children 
 received at a time into one of these schools varies from thirty to 
 sixty, or at the highest eighty, and the hours of attendance are, 
 penerally speaking, three hours in the morning, very rarely two 
 more in the afternoon. If the number of children exeteds 
 
KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 27 
 
 tliirty the " Kindergarterian," is obliged to have one assistant- 
 teacher ; if more than sixty, two assistants. The school fee? 
 amount according to the means of the district from 2s. to 4s. 6d. 
 a month, and in large towns to 6s. 
 
 Now that Kindergartens have become to a certain extent 
 domesticated in Europe, and their advantages in part at least 
 recognised, the difficulties of starting them for the well-to-do 
 classes are not great. A well-trained Kindergarten teacher has 
 only got to hire two good-sized rooms with a little plot of 
 ground (if possible) to furnish the rooms with tables, benches 
 and cupboards, and to buy the necessary materials for the 
 occupations and games (this can be done at cost of from .£10 to 
 £12 for fifty or sixty children), and, provided she can get pupils, 
 she can at once set her school going. 
 
 But the establishment of Kindergartens for the people presents 
 far greater difficulties. The expense alone is a serious considera- 
 tion. These institutions are to afford refuges and places of 
 education where the children of the working- classes, and of the 
 very poorest of them, may spend the greater part of the day — 
 in fact, they are to take the place of pauper institutions. The 
 pupils can only be expected to pay very small fees, and many of 
 the very poorest will have to be received quite gratuitously ) five 
 guineas per month may be set down as the highest estimate, two 
 guineas as the lowest, and the chief share of the expenses will 
 have to be defrayed by the parish, or by private generosity. 
 The expenses will further be increased by the necessity of pro- 
 viding dinner for those children whose parents go out to work, 
 and do not come in in the middle of the day. These, of course, 
 would be expected to make a slight contribution in proportion to 
 their means. All these conditions and provisions exist in the 
 majority of pauper institutions, and the simpler and easier plan 
 would obviously be to turn these institutions into Kindergartens : 
 but there are great difficulties in the way of such a measure — 
 difficulties arising chiefly from the strong party-prejudice against 
 Froebel and his Kindergartens, and the act of inhibition which 
 prevailed against them for several years in Prussia, the effects 
 of which are still felt. \J 
 
 Another obstacle has been the strong conservative spirit of 
 most of the managers of these institutions, who, as a rule, are 
 antiquated people unable to take in new ideas, and averse to all 
 
28 THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ORGANISATION OF 
 
 innovations. Still there have been some exceptions to this rule, 
 and in some of these institutions the first beginnings have been 
 made towards the introduction of Froebel's system (I have met 
 with like cases, too, in several abroad — in Belgium, France, Hol- 
 land, &c.) and the gradually spreading conviction that we cannot 
 always cling to old ideas, and that the demands of the age must 
 be considered, encourages us to hope that more may soon be 
 done. 
 
 The people's Kindergartens, then, as Froebel conceived them, 
 ' have not yet come into existence. They will differ from the 
 Kindergartens of the richer classes not only in the fact that the 
 children will spend the greater part ol the day in them and pay 
 smaller, or even no fees : they will also have greater demands 
 made on their educational resources as they must supply the 
 education of family life which the children of the educated classes 
 get — or at least should get — in their homes. If the latter spend 
 four or five hours a day in a Kindergarten the greater part of the 
 day still remains during which they are under the educational 
 influence of their homes, and above all of their mothers. To 
 these, almost exclusively, Froebel addresses his warnings and 
 instructions, and without their co-operation his ideas cannot be 
 carried out. Only when mothers shall have learnt to understand 
 them, and to apply them from their children's birth — to make 
 their homes into Kindergartens — then only will they bear full 
 and perfect fruit. So much cannot at first be hoped for from 
 the mothers amongst the working-classes, both because their work 
 does not allow them the necessary time, and because they are 
 generally wanting in the necessary qualifications. The people's 
 Kindergartens, therefore, in addition to all that ordinary ones 
 offer, must afford scope for the practice of those little domestic 
 exercises for which there is such abundant opportunity in the 
 homes of the better-off classes. By means of such exercises 
 children will be trained for the enjoyment of what is their 
 greatest pleasure, viz., helping grown-up people. 
 
 The formation of habits of order and cleanliness, which 
 should be the basis of early education, is by no means sufficiently 
 attended to, nor is its moral influence properly estimated. 
 The children of the poor seldom see examples of these virtues 
 in their homes, or have them instilled into them by their 
 parents. The Kindergarten must help them in this respect 
 
KINDERGARTESN FOR THE PEOPLE. 29 
 
 also, and its communal life and organisation affords all sorts of 
 opportunities for little household exercises, such as helping 
 to clean up the yard and garden, dusting the rooms and furniture, 
 washing up the plates, and knives and forks, clearing out the 
 bird-cages, &c. Another advantage of this household work is 
 that it would prevent the over- straining which children would 
 suffer from if they were to spend the whole of the day at the 
 actual Kindergarten occupations, which are also to a certain ex- 
 tent a strain on the mental faculties. There must also be a slight 
 modification in these occupations in the People's Kindergarten 
 in view of the bread- winning contemplated in the future. The 
 mat and basket-plaiting, the ribbon-weaving at a little loom 
 adapted for children, the modelling in clay, the paper-work and 
 paper-cutting for confectionery and book-binding purposes 
 would all be useful in this respect. All these articles, too, may be 
 turned to a little profit for the benefit of the school, but as far as 
 the children are concerned they must only be a means of show- 
 ing their love for their parents, brothers and sisters, friends, 
 &c. The idea of actual money-making, of earning for oneself, 
 must be kept out of sight at this age. 
 
 Household tasks, too, of this more or less rough description 
 would prevent the risk so often urged as an objection to sending 
 the children of the poor to Kindergartens, that it would spoil 
 them for their station in life, that all the little delicate occupa- 
 tions they learnt there would make the rougher work which they 
 will have to do later, distasteful to them, and that the burden 
 which they will one day have to bear would be made heavier for 
 them instead of lighter. There are examples showing that the 
 parents of the children have themselves entertained fears of this 
 kind, and have consequently refused to send their children to 
 Kindergartens, or else taken them away again very speedily. 
 A poor charwoman, for instance, objected that her child " had no 
 clothes fit for playing with the little ladies in, and that she would 
 be ashamed of her appearance, and want to be rich, and perhaps 
 in the end would grow ashamed of her mother." A day-labourer 
 who had taken his two children away from a Kindergarten gave 
 as his reason, "that the children would not do anything now at 
 home." If the mother told the eldest girl to carry the slop-pail 
 into the yard, or to scrub the floor, she answered that it would 
 make her dirty ; or, if she asked her to run to the baker's, or the 
 
30 THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ORGANISATION OF 
 
 butcher's, she would retort that the children at the Kindergarten 
 were not obliged to do such things, and so forth. The poor man 
 added that his children would have some day to earn their 
 bread and to work hard, and that if they became accustomed to 
 playing like fine ladies and gentlemen, they would never be able 
 to turn to regular work, but would always want to be smartly 
 dressed, and he could not afford to buy Iris children " kid-gloves," 
 which was what one of his boys now wanted. 
 
 Such objections are the expression of a healthy popular 
 feeling, which must not be overlooked. The school in question, 
 however, was not a " People's Kindergarten," but a so-called 
 "mixed Kindergarten," such as in Hamburg are called 
 "Burger Kindergartens," and which receive a certain number 
 of poor children gratuitously. This kind of charity is very 
 commendable if managed with discretion, but these schools 
 cannot fill the place of national Kindergartens, and the latter 
 must be so organised as to prevent this dreaded result of 
 over-refinement. 
 
 It is one of the most difficult points in the question of 
 national education, whether the children of different classes 
 should be united, or kept apart. The liberal spirit of the day 
 would gladly give its verdict in favour of the mixing of classes, 
 and would pronounce separation as a sign of exclusiveness no 
 longer in conformity with the times. The so-called democrats 
 whose opinion is based on anything but personal conviction 
 and knowledge of the true relation of things, who neither 
 understand, nor really care for, the great ideas of the age, but 
 view them srmply as a means of exalting their own importance ; 
 these naturally advocate blind, indiscriminate mixing, and here 
 a« everywhere would have all things levelled. No thoughtful 
 person, however, can fail to recognise that in this matter there 
 are still many rocks ahead, and that it would certainly be a 
 doubtful kindness to run the risk of spoiling children for their 
 after-lives, and preparing them in childhood to be set against 
 the work they will have to do later. 
 
 Firmly as Froebel believed in the eventual drawing together 
 of the different classes of society through the union of their 
 children by the bond of an education shared more or less in 
 common, and firmly as he held by this principle in his 
 educational efforts, he had nevertheless too thorough an 
 
KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 31 
 
 appreciation of the force of existing circumstances, and of the 
 bias of society, to think of tearing down partition walls suddenly 
 and recklessly. In his scheme for a " Pauper educational 
 institute," he makes it clearly understood that his method is to 
 be adapted to the after-condition of life of the pupils, and 
 lays special stress on the fact M that in the education of poor 
 children, the practical application of what is taught must never 
 be lost sight of." Froebel's aim and object is to train children 
 for the demands of real life, not for an utopia of the imagination, 
 though at the same time he sets out with the idea of continual 
 progress to the goal of "universal brotherhood." The lower, 
 rougher classes can only be raised to a higher degree of culture by 
 gradual steps, by slow transitions extending through generation 
 after generation ; not suddenly and all at once. 
 
 If Froebel had recommended an indiscriminate mingling oi 
 children of all classes, it would be impracticable for the present, 
 for the upper and wealthy classes would protest against it more 
 even than the lower and poorer ones ; and there would be right 
 and reason in their objecting to their children being thrown 
 into close, daily contact with coarse manners and habits. 
 
 But however little politic, or even possible, an indiscriminate 
 mixing of classes may be at present, a complete sei^aration of 
 them should not be tolerated, and it is undeniably the great 
 task of modern education to bring about through our children 
 a closer union of all grades of society, and to overcome empty 
 prejudices and haughty exclusiveness. In our general Kinder- 
 garten for the middle classes, where children of all ranks of 
 society, except the very highest and the very lowest, meet 
 together on a common footing, this end is accomplished. For 
 the lowest classes the people's Kindergarten will meet this 
 want ; for the highest class, the nobility, there is the so-called 
 ' l Family Kindergarten," i.e., a certain number of friendly 
 families join together to share a Kindergarten teacher in 
 common, or else to pay higher school fees on condition that the 
 teacher is only to receive a limited number of children, chosen 
 with the consent of the members of the union. 
 
 In time, however, people will come to see that the social 
 nature of Kindergarten life is in itself a safeguard against the 
 formation of bad habits and manners; for the games and 
 occupations have an ideal character which tend to repress all 
 
32 THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ORGANISATION OF 
 
 that is common in the children, and draw them up to a higher 
 level : just as the influence of society produces good manners 
 in grown-up people. The imitativeness of the children is 
 directed towards the nobler rather than the commoner elements 
 of life, whereas when they are left to themselves in the streets 
 and public play-grounds without guidance or elevating 
 occupations, the reverse is generally the case. Later on, when 
 Kindergartens have become more universal, and their influence 
 has toned down the coarseness of the children of the lower 
 classes, it might be easy to carry out Froebel's idea of assembling 
 all classes of society together at children's festivals, held from 
 time to time in the course of the year. Out of these there 
 might grow family and national festivals, whose moral influence 
 would be very extensive. Even now it would be possible for 
 the different Kindergartens of certain quarters of great towns 
 to join together in walks or little excursions, and this practice 
 might lead to association between ordinary Kindergartens and 
 People's Kindergartens, or reformed pauper institutes. 
 
 The aim of People's Kindergartens should be as follows : — 
 
 (1) To receive the children of the very poor, who get as good 
 as no education at home ; and in cases where it is advisable, 
 to remit their school fees. 
 
 (2) To keep the children for the whole day, and, according as 
 the case may be, to feed them gratuitously. 
 
 (3) That to the ordinary occupations of other Kindergartens, 
 should be added exercises in domestic work ; and that the 
 necessity for the children to earn their livings in the future 
 should be kept in view, without in any way abusing the 
 children's working powers or awakening in them the greed 
 of gain ; and — 
 
 (4) To observe the greatest possible simplicity and economy 
 with regard to the internal arrangements, and to avoid all risk 
 of making fine ladies and gentlemen of the children. 
 
 It would be a good thing to adopt in all these Kindergartens 
 the custom which prevails in orphanages and other charitable 
 institutions, of making the children wear a sort of uniform : 
 for instance, they might all have blouses alike, which they 
 would put on when they arrived at school, and which would 
 serve the double purpose of keeping their frocks clean and 
 doing away with all distinctions of finer or shabbier clothes. 
 
KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 33 
 
 Pauper institutions as they exist at present — not to speak of 
 the one-sided and extreme sectarian influences which prevail in a 
 great number of them, hindering the natural treatment of 
 children, and influencing them in the most pernicious manner — 
 are by no means so constituted as to give the children brought 
 up in them an adequate preparation for the work of their after 
 lives. The excessive amount of sitting still, the prevalence of 
 learning by rote, the want of occupations which call forth real 
 activity, more especially of all those little household services 
 which we have recommended; all these are evils calling for 
 reform. All modern education must be based on work, i.e., 
 individual activity, but most emphatically is this true of the 
 actual working-classes. Not till a start has been made in this 
 direction shall we have any true idea of what children are 
 capable of doing and producing. School-boys in all classes of 
 society would perhaps get on better and quicker with their 
 learning if part of their time was spent in workshops, in out- 
 door labours, in making roads, &c. 
 
 It was part also of Pestalozzi's plan to make the children in 
 his pauper schools, even the youngest of them, occupy them- 
 selves with household pursuits. The instinct for these is just 
 as much born with children as are the instincts of art and 
 industry. Children will sweep, and dust, and clean with all the 
 zest that they throw into their play. This instinct should be 
 developed just as much as all the others, and equally needs 
 help and direction ; and it is the greatest kindness that can be 
 conferred on poor children, to foster in them by means of their 
 play a taste for the kind of work they will have to do in after- 
 life, instead of creating an aversion to it. In childhood aversion 
 to this sort of work is unknown : nothing delights children 
 more than to do whatever they see grown-up people doing; 
 there is a kind of halo surrounding the work of their elders, 
 whatever it may be, which excites in children the longing to be 
 "grown-up." This comes from the innate impetus in man to work 
 and be useful, to find a vent for his natural powers and energy. 
 
 Inspired by the same love of his fellows which actuated Pes- 
 talozzi, Froebel, too, strove to teach the poor and needy how, in 
 the midst of their toiling and moiling, they might still maintain 
 human dignity and elevation of character. 
 
 It is only when the labourer has learnt to look on the coarse, 
 
 D 
 
/ 
 
 34 THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ORGANISATION OF 
 
 repulsive tasks fron which machinery has not yet released him, 
 in the light of their necessity and usefulness to human society, 
 that higher culture and education will not cause him to feel 
 ashamed of and degraded by them. 
 
 The menial exercises of the Kindergarten should be a school 
 in which human beings are trained to be ashamed of no work 
 whatsoever, and to feel that the lowliest drudgery will not 
 detract from their actual worth, if carried on for the benefit of 
 the community. 
 
 A mistaken philanthropy which should allow of no distinction 
 in the education of the poor and of the well-to-do, would bestow 
 a perilous dowry on the former, and engender the most painful 
 discord between their duties and their inclinations. 
 
 The Kindergarten with all its provision for training for every 
 kind of work, affords at the same time opportunity and means 
 for calling out and developing, according to special conditions of 
 age and circumstances, every single individual endowment. 
 And this is what is so much wanted for our lower classes, so 
 that geniuses born in humble cottages — and how often is this 
 not the case — should not have to strive in vain to develop them- 
 selves, and, in nine cases out of ten, be wasted for want of 
 opportunities. But this is a very different thing from giving 
 the masses indiscriminately an education similar to that of the 
 cultivated classes ; we should then have the melancholy result 
 of men of learning condemned to the carpenter's shop, and 
 artists turned into chimney sweeps. 
 
 The advocates of this sort of equality lose sight, in their ideal 
 soarings, of practical realities, whose claims are not so easily 
 put aside. Any one who has visited much in pauper institutes, 
 still more one who, like the writer, herself introduced Froebel's 
 method among them, knows well in how entirely different a 
 manner the children of the poor must be treated to those of the 
 cultivated classes. The hands and fingers of these children are 
 generally speaking so stiff and clumsy that they often take three 
 times as long as the other children to go through the first stages 
 of Kindergarten work. Some of the uncouth little creatures whom 
 I instructed in these schools, were not much better than idiots. 
 If a ball was put into their hands they could not even keep 
 tight hold of it ; for weeks they would persist in tearing up the 
 strips of papers that were meant for plaiting, and everything 
 
KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 85 
 
 that was given to them was thrust into their months. I had 
 the greatest difficulty at first in waking them out of the half- 
 dormant state, which made it impossible to keep their attention 
 fixed for more than a few minutes at a time. Out of doors, 
 when they were set to play at the movement games, they gener- 
 ally sat down on the ground and refused to get up, or, after a 
 very little play, they would actually fall asleep. 
 
 On inquiry into the cause of this unnatural state of things, it 
 was found that when the mothers went out to work they were 
 in the habit of shutting their children up for the whole day, 
 leaving them their food to eat, but no means whatever of occu- 
 pying themselves, and that the children generally slept the 
 greater part of the day. This kind of treatment is much more 
 frequent than many people would think. But at any rate the 
 great want of sensibility amongst these children is very general, 
 and they must be treated accordingly. Even if there were no 
 question of their probable future employment, it would still be 
 necessary to have more recourse to physical and partly me- 
 chanical occupations in their case than in that of children whose 
 surroundings have awakened their energies and sensibilities. 
 Moreover, when once their natural laziness has been overcome, 
 they much prefer this rougher kind of work to the quieter 
 sedentary occupations. If the choice is given them they always 
 choose household tasks. I used often to ask them which they 
 would rather do, sweep the yard or clean up something, or else 
 plait, build, &c, and the majority were always in favour of the 
 domestic work. Not but what they derived great pleasure from 
 the other occupations also, and any one who wished might soon 
 convince himself that the more they pursued them the better 
 they learnt to like them. 
 
 In the London ragged-schools, in which I tried to introduce 
 the Kindergarten occupations, the inspector told me that the 
 little ones of the lowest division used to look impatiently at the 
 door, to see if the " Lady with the sticks " (this was the name they 
 gave me because I showed them how to lay together little sticks) 
 was not coming, and that they always became happy and ani- 
 mated when the Kindergarten occupations began. It was very 
 natural that letters and numbers on a slate, the catechism and 
 the history of the creation, should convey less to the minds of 
 these little ones of from three to six years old than the building, 
 
8C THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ORGANISATION OF 
 
 plaiting and stick-laying in which they constructed their figures 
 according to their own taste, and so were using their own 
 powers. 
 
 If only people could be brought to see how entirely unadapted 
 to this early age is the cramming system of education in vogue 
 in these pauper institutions, and what infinitely greater 
 mental development is produced by Froebel'e occupations, while 
 at the same time childish hilarity and physical health are pre- 
 served. The chief requisite in moral education is to make 
 right and duty pleasant to the child ; if only the love of what 
 is good has been awakened there will be strength to conquer the 
 difficulties and disagreeables of life. 
 
 If once a proper sense of the necessity for the reform of these 
 institutions can be awakened, xhe very trifling difficulties in the 
 way of transforming them into " Peoples' Kindergartens " will 
 easily be overcome. 
 
 The first requisite is that the directors of these institutes — 
 who, by the way, should always be women — should learn the 
 Kindergarten system, or else they should have a trained Kinder- 
 garten teacher as assistant to help in organising the games and 
 occupations. 
 
 To come down to matters of practical detail, in addition to the 
 usual benches and desks with which the schools are supplied, 
 there should be tables at which the handiwork exercises may be 
 carried on ; these should only be large enough to accommodate 
 ten or twelve children, as it would be difficult to superintend a 
 greater number. 
 
 It would also be necessary to increase the too scanty space 
 allotted to the children ; and in cases where enlargement of the 
 building was out of the question the number of children would 
 have to be diminiehed. 
 
 A mode of ventilation common in schools in France and 
 Holland might also advantageously be adopted. In every room 
 there is an air-trap on one side in the ceiling, and on the other 
 side, just opposite, in the floor, and by opening these for a few 
 minutes, the air becomes thoroughly purified. Kegulations of 
 this sort, which are so essential to health, are nearly everywhere 
 lamentably neglected. The heating apparatus, too, of most 
 schools is very far from what the laws of health require. 
 
 The number of children in a People's Kindergarten should 
 
KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 37 
 
 never exceed 100. They should be divided, according to their 
 ages, into three or four divisions, in the same number of rooms, 
 or at the very least into two divisions in two rooms, and 
 instead of only one, or at the outside two officials, there should 
 be at least three for 100 children, i.e., a directress, an assistant, 
 and an attendant. It would be better to have two assistants. 
 
 In places where there are training colleges for Kindergarten 
 teachers it would be easy to obtain assistance, for the pupils 
 would be glad to give some of their time daily in the people's 
 schools for the sake of the practice. Or young ladies who have 
 plenty of time to spare, and wish to make themselves useful, and 
 who possess the necessary qualifications, might render valuable 
 assistance. 
 
 The introduction of the Kindergarten method in existing 
 pauper schools would be greatly facilitated if at first only a small 
 number of the children, say twenty of the older and more intelli- 
 gent ones were initiated into it. When these had learnt a few of 
 the games and occupations they might be distributed among the 
 other children to help in their instruction. If at each table of 
 twelve children, there were four of these little pupil teachers, 
 the Kindergartener would find it very easy to direct and manage 
 them. 
 
 The directors of these pauper schools, strongly impressed with 
 the restlessness of young children, generally refuse at first to 
 believe in the possibility of keeping fifty or a hundred of them 
 quiet and orderly at these games and occupations. But quiet 
 And still- sitting, so difficult a problem in ordinary infant schools, 
 is by no means so in Kindergartens, and the reason of this is 
 that the children's attention is kept fixed by their hands being 
 employed as well as their minds. The ordinary way of getting 
 infants to be quiet and attentive is to make them fold their 
 hands behind them, or put their arms by their sides. Nature 
 impels children to be constantly using their hands ; we resort 
 to this unnatural method, to prevent the perpetual " playing 
 with the hands," which takes off the attention from the lessons 
 to be learnt. But anything that is antagonistic to the child's 
 nature is hurtful to it. And in this very instinct to use the 
 liands, if we would only believe it, we have the best possible 
 means of arresting the attention of the child. Froebel has 
 taken this lesson fully to heart, for in aliJais-ie^BOns^pr young 
 
38 THE ESTABLISHMENT AND ORGANISATION OF 
 
 children there is always accompanying action of the hands. 
 The child's nature requires that head-work and hand-work 
 should be combined ; that all its knowledge should be obtained 
 by action. 
 
 The length of time, too, during which children are often 
 compelled to sit still is entirely contrary to nature. The 
 youngest children — those from two to four years old — should 
 not be kept at sedentary occupations for more that a quarter, or 
 at the outside half an hour, and the eldest not more than one 
 hour. This is the rule of Kindergartens. Fresh air and exercise 
 are the most necessary elements in the life of children, and they 
 are much too sparely allowed in pauper-schools, especially in 
 those of great towns. In many of these, even in summer, the 
 children spend scarcely more than two hours out of ten in the 
 open air. As for anything like gymnastic exercises there is no 
 provision whatever. It is impossible in this way to educate 
 men and women who shall have an enthusiastic love for work. 
 
 Add to all this that the hands, the work-tools, by means of 
 which the bread will one day have to be earned, are scarcely 
 exercised at all. Consider only how stiff and awkward these 
 children's hands generally are. How is the dexterity necessary 
 for hand- work to be acquired afterwards ? The small amount 
 of manual occupation occasionally carried on, consists chiefly in 
 picking lint and knitting. But these are purely mechanical 
 tasks, which are incapable of affording the children real pleasure 
 and gratification, because the child's nature needs to put out 
 its mental powers also. Love for work cannot be awakened in 
 this manner. 
 
 As the greater number of pauper-institutes are supplied with 
 play-grounds, it would not be so very difficult to mark off a 
 small place for a garden, which might be divided into little beds, 
 and where a few bushes and trees might be planted. Should 
 this not be practicable, it would at any rate be possible to place 
 along the walls of the yard boxes filled with earth in which the 
 children could grow plants. 
 
 Froebel holds it to be one of the greatest obstacles to healthy, 
 moral development, that children should be allowed to grow up 
 without any intelligent contact with the phenomena of nature, 
 or any opportunity for observing nature. And how indeed are 
 they to find out the Creator, if they never become acquainted 
 
KINDERGARTENS FOR THE PEOPLE. 89 
 
 with His works, never learn to see Him in the visible world ? 
 To provide the children of towns with gardens should be the 
 first care of the managers of pauper institutes. 
 
 In Paris, where it is more difficult than in any other great 
 city to find gardens for this purpose, on my first attempt to 
 introduce Froebel's method — in a Salle d'Asyle, 10, Kue des 
 Ursulines — a plot of garden ground adjoining the courtyard of 
 the building was bought immediately by the committee, who at 
 once recognised that gardening was one of the best means of 
 education for children. Several members of the commission 
 appointed by the ministry of education to examine into Froebel's 
 system, gave it as their opinion that the universal introduction 
 of Kindergartens would have the effect of re-Mndling in the 
 people the love for agriculture, which was dying out in many 
 districts, in consequence of the number of peasant land-owners 
 who now devoted themselves to industrial occupations in the 
 towns. And I can certainly myself witness that at a property 
 in Tourraine, the labourers at harvest time had to be fetched by 
 rail from a distance of thirty or forty milles, and though three 
 times the ordinary wages were offered, a quantity of the grain 
 was left ungathered for want of hands. There is no doubt that 
 by awakening early a love for cultivating the soil, the balance 
 would be maintained between the industries of town and 
 country. 
 
 If only the salutary reforms we have suggested could be 
 begun in pauper-institutes, many difficulties would one by one 
 vanish, till at length the road would be prepared for their com- 
 plete re-modelling in accordance with the demands of modern 
 times. 
 
 One of the first conditions towards the attainment of the end 
 in view, is to develop the necessary educational forces for the 
 management of these institutions. 
 
 Froebel will have none but the female sex employed in his 
 Kindergartens. Young children are essentially the charge of 
 mothers ; when a mother's care is wanting it must be replaced 
 by what is most akin to it. Young girls are naturally inclined 
 to be fond of children, and have generally a taste for games and 
 dancing ; they are, therefore, the best fitted for teaching in 
 Kindergartens. Pauper institutes, however, require also 
 experienced and thoughtful management ; the best plan, there- 
 
40 THE TRAINING OF KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS 
 
 fore, would be to place an older directress at the head with two 
 or more young assistants under her, according to the number of 
 the children. 
 
 What is necessary for the true advancement of the Kinder- 
 garten cause as regards the children of the poor, is that independent 
 People's Kindergartens should be founded, which should servo 
 as models for the pauper-schools to shape themselves after. It 
 is especially desirable that such a model institute should be 
 erected in every great city. Only, the term " Model Institute " 
 must for the present be understood relatively ; for many con- 
 ditions are still wanting to the foundation of a really model 
 Kindergarten, in Froebel's sense of the word. 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 The Training of Kindergarten Teachers and the Science 
 
 of Mothers. 
 
 One of the chief reasons why Froebel's system has hitherto been 
 so imperfectly carried out, is the lamentably deficient training of 
 the teachers. The greater number of these — even of Froebel's 
 own pupils — have engaged in the work more from external reasons 
 than from any inward sense that they were called to it. The 
 true Kindergarten teacher, however, must to a certain extent be 
 a born one ; she must have a strong love for children, she must 
 herself be of a childlike nature, and must possess a certain 
 amount of that intuitive power which is able to penetrate 
 straight to the child's soul. Nature, it is true, has more or less 
 endowed the whole female sex with this intuitive power, this 
 educational instinct, but it is by no means equally distributed 
 among them, and too often it is perverted, or suppressed by 
 circumstances or education. This instinct, moreover, though it 
 awakens in a greater or less degree — often, alas, in a very small 
 small one — in every woman who becomes a mother, is often 
 entirely dormant in young girls. Every human instinct needs to 
 be stimulated and developed by outward influences ; but in the 
 present system of education for girls of all classes, most attention 
 is paid to that very instinct which is of the greatest importance 
 for the human race, viz., the maternal and educational one. 
 
AND THE SCIENCE OF MOTHERS. 41 
 
 It happens, consequently, that out of all the students who 
 enter Kindergarten training colleges only a few are qualified in 
 this respect. But as regards their school- training, and general 
 culture also, there remains much to be desired. In order to 
 understand Froebel's system in its theoretical as well as its 
 practical aspects, to thoroughly grasp his educational principles, 
 something more than a receptive disposition is required — there 
 must be also a cultivated mind, a capacity for clear thought, and 
 an aptitude for assimilating the theoretical and scientific instruc- 
 tion given in these training colleges. 
 
 These different branches of instruction are as follows : — The 
 elements of anthropology, physiology, dialectics, mathematics 
 (i.e., the first principles of morphology), a little natural science, 
 psychology, universal pedagogy, Froebel's special educational 
 theories, singing, infant gymnastics, lessons on the management 
 of health during the first years of childhood, and finally the 
 movement games and Kindergarten occupations with practical 
 execution. All the scientific part of the instruction is of 
 course imparted in a thoroughly elementary and popular manner. 
 Nevertheless, the nature of the curriculum would justify the 
 expectation of a proportionate degree of culture in the pupils, who 
 would vary from the ages of sixteen to perhaps thirty. 
 
 It is frequently objected that if Froebel's system of education 
 requires so much culture, capacity, and knowledge in its teachers, 
 its universal introduction is out of the question. It is not to be 
 expected that ladies of this high degree of culture will undertake 
 the management of pauper- schools or the care of little children 
 as governesses. 
 
 To this and similar objections we can only reply on the one 
 hand that any such idea as that the care of little ehildren is a 
 menial occupation, for which the least capable and instructed 
 women are fit, should be rooted out as soon as possible ; and that 
 we look forward to a time when it will be generally recognised 
 that there can be no higher work for the female sex than the 
 care of children in all senses of the word ; that to woman is 
 committed the education of humanity, which comprises 
 necessarily attention to every stage of bodily and mental develop- 
 ment, no one of which is unimportant. On the other hand, 
 that concessions must be made in view of existing circumstances, 
 and of the facts of life, and different degrees allowed in the 
 
42 THE TRAINING OF KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS 
 
 culture of Kindergarten teachers. Those who contemplate 
 undertaking the management of Kindergartens for the upper 
 classes, or entering private families, must be able to satisfy all 
 the above requirements. The heads of pauper institutes are at 
 present so badly paid, that it would be difficult to obtain the 
 more highly cultivated women for such posts, though the 
 importance of the position makes a no less degree of culture than 
 is needed in other Kindergartens desirable here too. Then as 
 regards another class of attendants on children — nurses and 
 nursery-maids — these too, should all, in different degrees, be 
 taught something of the practical application of Froebel's 
 method. For the latter it would be already a great gain if they 
 only learnt the games and occupations in such a way as to be 
 able to teach them to children. To this purely mechanical task 
 all girls are more or less equal, though they may not necessarily 
 be fit for so great a responsibility as the entire charge of quite 
 little children during their mother's absence. Such incom- 
 prehensible blindness prevails in this respect, even amongst the 
 most sensible mothers, that one can only set it down to complete 
 ignorance of the nature and proper treatment of children. How 
 many hundreds of mothers does one not know who will entrust 
 their children for hours at a time to girls who are entirely 
 uneducated, and of whose character they know next to nothing. 
 This is the reason why education gets a wrong bent at the very 
 beginning, and the after stages are hampered and spoilt. Apart 
 from the deficiency in educational capacity so common to 
 mothers, this want of nurses and nurse-naaids fitted for their 
 calling, is an evil which cries urgently for reform. Here Froebel's 
 method again comes to our aid ; nursery-maids, too, must be 
 Kindergarten teachers, though a lower grade of training will 
 suffice for them, than for the managers of Kindergartens. 
 
 Instruction in Froebel's system might easily be subdivided 
 into three classes or degrees, the first of which should include 
 those cultivated women who wish to prepare themselves for 
 their future maternal duties, or to be conductors of Kinder- 
 gartens, or teachers in families. 
 
 The second : Assistants in Kindergartens and pauper 
 institutes, nursery-governesses, and nurses, for whom actual 
 scientific instruction would not be necessary, but who should be 
 thoroughly grounded in the theory and practice of the system ; 
 
AND THE SCIENCE OF MOTHERS. 4tf 
 
 and the third, nursery-maids, who in addition to general 
 instruction in the care of children, should learn the practical 
 part of Froebel's method. 
 
 Even though this practical part cannot he perfectly carried 
 out without a knowledge of the underlying principles, girls who 
 have learnt the practical part will certainly be better fitted for 
 nursery-maids than those who are quite ignorant of it. Froebel, 
 moreover, has to such an extent embodied his educational ideas 
 in his " play-things and occupations," that the child cannot 
 help imbibing from them the impressions intended to be conveyed, 
 even though the teacher be incapable of understanding their 
 intention. To expect of all Kindergarten teachers, or even of all 
 the more highly cultivated ones, that they should understand 
 Froebel's philosophy of the nature of children and of mankind in 
 all its breadth and depth, and fully grasp the physchological 
 basis of his theories, would be to expect an utter impossibility ; 
 for not only are Froebel's written expositions couched in a very 
 unintelligible form, but bis anthropological deductions rest on a 
 basis, which is only beginning to obtain recognition, and which 
 upsets many old established opinions. Besides which the female 
 sex is still little prepared for the comprehension of philosophic 
 ideas. 
 
 All that we can hope to accomplish for the present is to lay 
 the foundation on which a complete system of education accord- 
 ing to Froebel's ideas may be built up later. 
 
 The first and most essential condition for the production of 
 thorough Kindergarten teachers, is that a sufficient length of 
 time should be allowed for their training. The short period of 
 six months hitherto allotted for the purpose is decidedly not 
 enough, and it is a great step in advance that in the majority of 
 existing training colleges, at Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, and 
 Gotha, the time has been extended to a year. Froebel, who only 
 succeeded in the last years of his life in establishing a self- 
 supporting institute for the training of Kindergarten teachers, 
 could very seldom, chiefly for want of funds, manage that his 
 pupils should remain at the college more than six months. This 
 was a matter of constant distress to him, and he reiterated 
 continually, that even a year was scarcely enough for an 
 adequate study of both theory and practice, even when there 
 wero some preliminary knowledge and culture; but that six 
 
44 THE TRAINING OF KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS 
 
 months could under no circumstances be sufficient. Nothing 
 has been more prejudicial to the system than these incompetent 
 teachers who are neither able to conduct their schools according 
 to Froebel's ideas, nor to give any explanation of the principle of 
 the method. The very small number of really efficient teachers, 
 especially of those acquainted with foreign languages, has been 
 the cause that many a projected school in foreign countries has 
 not been able to be started, or has been discontinued for want of 
 proper direction. 
 
 It would be well for the female sex, and for our children, if it 
 were to become generally acknowledged that there is no more 
 beautiful and recompensing work for unmarried women, or 
 women who have no special occupation, or who need to make a 
 livelihood, than to devote their power and energy to the welfare 
 of the rising generation, and through improving their education 
 to contribute to the general elevation of mankind. Many a 
 woman, cast down by adverse fate, has found in such work 
 comfort and fresh courage, many an one leading an aimless, 
 joyless existence has found in it the most satisfying channel for 
 her latent activity, and many in want of a livelihood the 
 necessary means of existence. At the same time every woman 
 who chooses this vocation must test herself as to whether, in 
 addition to the external, and by no means blameworthy 
 motives, the inner vocation be not wanting, whether she be fond 
 of children, be capable of sacrifice and endurance, and have the 
 good of humanity at heart. In such a case Froebel's grand idea 
 of a new and better education for humanity will awaken in them 
 the holy fire of enthusiasm, without which nothing great or good 
 is carried out in the world. 
 
 Side by side with the understanding of Froebel's theories and 
 principles, it is no less necessary to be perfectly master of the 
 practical details. A child should never be able to discover 
 uncertainty in his teacher, or he will lose his sure confidence in 
 her power to help him, and will himself become uncertain. 
 After a thorough grounding in the occupations, a certain length 
 of time should still be devoted to practice and independent 
 application in the training colleges. Every Kindergarten 
 teacher, before she undertakes the independent direction of a 
 school, should act as assistant for a year, or six months at least. 
 
 The great fault in most existing Kindergartens is that there is 
 
AND THE SCIENCE OF MOTHERS. 45 
 
 too much of mere imitation, and but little invention on the 
 part of the children — except such as comes by chance. The 
 figures which they construct, the patterns which they plait 
 together, are shown to them, and they imitate them mechanically, 
 instead of arriving at original combinations by means of the law 
 of opposites ; often, too, they are taxed beyond their strength 
 with the most difficult and complicated patterns, in order that 
 they may have fine results to show, and reflect credit on their 
 teachers. The stories that are related to them are often not 
 adapted to their understanding, or else are not put before them 
 in a sufficiently simple manner; the youngest children grow 
 tired and restless because they are kept too long at one occupa- 
 tion after another ; or else the necessary discipline is wanting, 
 and consequently also the necessary freedom, for the two always 
 go together. Such a Kindergarten is not according to Froebel's 
 conception. Nevertheless, even in these inefficiently conducted 
 establishments, the pupils gain more real good than in the 
 ordinary " Spiel-schulen," so thoroughly are the Kindergarten 
 occupations adapted to satisfying the claims of child-nature. 
 The more cultivated women devote themselves to the cause of 
 Kindergartens the more will these imperfections tend to dis- 
 appear, and a right understanding of the founder's meaning 
 will spread more and more. 
 
 There is another reason, however, which at present makes it 
 impossible for the best and most thoroughly trained Kinder- 
 garten teachers to impart to their pupils the full benefits of the 
 system, and it is that the training of children which goes on in 
 the family before the Kindergarten age, and also simultaneously 
 with the Kindergarten teaching, is not carried on in Froebel's 
 spirit. Mothers are not yet Kindergarten teachers ! However 
 much Kindergartens may supplement, and even to a certain ex- 
 tent take the place of, and improve home education, they can 
 never be a complete substitute for it. The greater part of the 
 day will always be spent by children in their homes (except in 
 the case of poor children), and only when the home influence 
 and training has come to be in harmony with that of the 
 Kindergarten, and the work accomplished there is no longer 
 spoilt or undone by foolish parents, or ottier members of the 
 household, only then will the full advantages of the system be 
 seen. 
 
46 THE TRAINING OF EINDERGARTEN TEACHERS 
 
 But there are many obstacles to be overcome, before the 
 universal establishment of Froebel's educational method will be 
 possible in the family, before mothers can learn what is neces- 
 sary for them to learn in order to be educators — and learn it, 
 moreover, before they are married. There are still a great 
 number of men, and these often the most cultivated, who will 
 hear nothing on the subject, and who declare that the feminine 
 and maternal instinct will discover the right way of treating 
 children without any instruction. If these men were to study 
 the fundamental principles of Kindergartens, they would see 
 that a woman has a great deal to learn before she can be fit for 
 the management of one, and what proof can they give that 
 mothers who have a like work to do, viz., to train and develop 
 their own children properly, have nothing to learn? If the 
 maternal instinct sufficed with human beings (as it does with 
 animals), even for the physical care of their offspring, would 
 a third of the children who are born die before their tenth year, 
 and the greater number of those who survive grow up weak, or 
 sickly, or crippled ? Certainly not ; whatever other causes may 
 combine to produce this state of tilings, it is surely not saying 
 much to assert that half of mankind would be stronger and 
 healthier if the physical care and training of children were what 
 it might and should be. 
 
 And how infinitely easier is the physical than the mental 
 training, which has to do with the invisible sealed book of the 
 inner being. There is scarcely a single human being who does 
 not feel that he would have been quite different, and would have 
 acted quite differently, both morally and intellectually, if there 
 had not been so much wanting, so much that was amiss and 
 perverted in his early education. If it is true that one-third 
 of mankind falls a victim to physical death in childhood, it is 
 scarcely too much to say that two-thirds of the productive 
 mental force of humanity is lost for want of proper develop- 
 ment. How large a proportion of this waste is caused by 
 neglect of early development no one perhaps can yet fully esti- 
 mate, but that very much of it w, no thoughtful person will 
 doubt. Neither is there any doubt that the incapacity and 
 ignorance of mothers with regard to their educational calls is 
 the chief cause why so many faculties remain undeveloped, or 
 turn to a bad use, and why there is «o much immorality which 
 
AND THE SCIENCE OF MOTHERS. 47 
 
 might be prevented. How many more great men would there 
 be, if the greater number of us had good mothers ! 
 
 A really good mother should be to a certain extent her 
 children's doctor, she should understand the diet of children, 
 and she should beware of following blindly — as most young 
 mothers do — the instructions of old " experienced " nurses and 
 niidwives. Medical knowledge does not come by nature to 
 mothers any more than to doctors, however much insight their 
 maternal love may give them. And how infinitely more 
 difficult is it to be a physician of the soul ! Whoever would 
 rightly guide the human soul must have some knowledge of its 
 nature and laws, and neither is this knowledge inborn in mothers 
 or in any one else. 
 
 Every mother who strives to do her duty by her children and 
 to throw herself into their lives knows how difficult it is to keep 
 them occupied, and at the same time interested and amused — 
 to keep away dulness and ennui. The same games repeated 
 over and over again become tedious, both to the children and to 
 the mother ; and the latter cannot always, and at any moment, be 
 ready to direct her children's amusement with the freshness and 
 spirit necessary to make them really beneficial. What a help it 
 would be to her in this respect, with how much keener interest 
 would she fulfil her task, if these games and occupations had for 
 her, too, a higher meaning, if they helped her to gain a surer in- 
 sight into her children's nature, and to understand and observe 
 their development on all sides ? This has hitherto been only 
 possible in a very small degree, because the results of childish 
 activity are so trifling and insignificant. It was necessary that 
 some method should be discovered by which, as by a magic rod, 
 the treasury of the child's soul should be unlocked and brought 
 to light. This Froebel's method has fully accomplished — the 
 child's soul stands forth in its little creations, and in them the 
 mother's eye can trace the gradual stages of its development 
 and observe its growth. What more delightful task, what nobler 
 enjoyment could a cultivated, thoughtful woman find, than to 
 watch for, tend and foster in the young soul the sparks of 
 awakening genius, the seeds of future greatness. 
 
 But how, it may be asked, is it possible that all young girls 
 should become Kindergarten teachers before their marriage ? In 
 the simplest manner possible. All that needs to be done is to 
 
48 THE TRAINING OF KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS 
 
 introduce the teaching of Froebel's method — both in theory and 
 practice — into all girls' schools. But the school-regulations and 
 the want of time ! If the school regulations no longer meet the 
 wants of the times they must be altered. And if there is not 
 sufficient time some of the other branches of instruction must be 
 reduced. Can there be anything more important for girls to 
 learn than what concerns their most natural and most immediate 
 duties ? Is it of greater importance for them to know the 
 geography of China and Japan, or the names of the Egyptian 
 and Persian kings, than to have some understanding of the 
 laws of physical and mental health, of the development of the 
 organs, and the means by which this development should be 
 assisted ; to know how a child should be treated from the 
 moment of its birth, how washed, and clothed and fed, &c, in 
 what manner its mental and spiritual needs express themselves, 
 and how they may be satisfied ? All this makes up the science of 
 mothers, and therefore the science of the female sex, as the 
 mother of humanity. 
 
 And this science demands from those who can cormnand the 
 means of the highest culture, far more real work and study than 
 is at present dreamt of in schools or private school-rooms. If 
 the learning carried on in these has for its object general intellec- 
 tual culture, this may unquestionably be attained in a far higher 
 degree by scientific instruction in the laws of mental and physical 
 organisation, and in Froebel's educational method which reflects 
 the life of nature and of man in its relation to childhood, which 
 uses history and natural science in the deepest sense as guide- 
 books to the education of mankind, and assigns to women a 
 higher vocation than that of simply continuing the species. 
 
 Study of this sort is the true means of elevating the female 
 sex and emancipating it from the littleness of its existence, and 
 all those petty trifles and vanities which make up the lives of 
 millions of women. 
 
 The artistic element ought to be far moie considered in the 
 education ot girls than has hitherto been done ; the whole pro- 
 gramme of education should be calculated to expand the mind 
 on all sides in the direction of the beautiful, while at the same 
 time practical exercises in all the arts should be carried on from 
 an early age, in order that the particular individual bias may 
 have opportunity of showing itself. Here, too, application in 
 
AND THE SCIENCE OF MOTHERS. 49 
 
 education must "be kept in view as the aim, and Kindergartens 
 should be schools of practice for young girls. The drawing, 
 singing, dancing, gymnastics, modelling, &c, carried on with 
 little children, do more to produce dexterity and agility, than 
 embroidery, crochet-work, or knitting, while at the same time 
 they help to cultivate the mind and heart. It would do no 
 harm — quite the contrary — to devote some of the time set apart 
 for instruction in needlework to teaching the Kindergarten 
 occupations. Every branch of practical female work — house- 
 hold occupations especially — should be practised in childhood 
 much more than has ever yet been the custom. A girl will take 
 much more pleasure in cooking and other household matters at 
 twelve years old than she will at eighteen ; these occupations 
 should, therefore, be made to alternate with school-work, and 
 the time bestowed on them be made up for by extending the 
 period of study for two or three years. Girls of seventeen and 
 eighteen are far keener after scientific instruction than m their 
 earlier girlhood, and it is a great pity that their education should 
 be supposed to be finished just when they are beginning to take 
 most interest in it. Moreover, the pleasures and excitements of 
 this particular season of life would be very beneficially balanced 
 by a certain amount of serious study. The horror of blue- 
 stockings has pretty well died out, but the empty pretence of 
 knowledge without any real foundation, the vanity and ostenta- 
 tion of half-knowledge, the meaningless chatter on all and every 
 subject, are everywhere fostered in girls' schools to the detriment 
 of the highest charm of womanhood ; viz., naturalness and 
 simplicity. It is not real, deep culture, real true knowledge 
 which, as is so often falsely asserted, impairs this simplicity or 
 naivete, but artificial, sham learning, which can never awaken 
 the deep-seated germs of the soul, and which substitutes artificial 
 flowers for real ones. 
 
 To learn to think for themselves is what women need as well 
 as men, and this is best done in youth through experience and 
 application of the knowledge acquired. The reason why most 
 women know so little is that they derive no pleasure from 
 stirring up dead knowledge which will never find its application 
 in a definite object. "With men it is different : their education 
 is shaped more or less with a view to their work in after-life ; 
 thousands of men would not learn the hundredth part of what 
 
50 THE TRAINING OF KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS 
 
 tliey do, if they were not compelled by the necessities of their 
 profession. 
 
 " Why must I study Boman History and Literature, mother?" 
 asked a girl of fifteen years old, " it does not interest me at 
 all." " Because you will hear these things talked about in 
 society when you are grown up, and you will not like to be 
 unable to join in conversation," was the answer of the mother, 
 who fancied she was giving her daughter a first-rate education. 
 
 This sort of talk gives some insight into the mistaken ideas 
 which prevail concerning the education of girls. Very many 
 girls can give no better reason why they should learn tins, that, 
 and the other, but that they hope to shine in society, or at any 
 rate not to appear ignorant and uneducated. 
 
 "With how much greater zeal and interest would they pursue 
 their studies if they could see some object in them, if they 
 could, to some extent, at once apply and make use of what they 
 learnt, and could feel that they really needed this knowledge in 
 order to fulfil their part in life, as every boy feels more or less, 
 that what he is learning at school will apply to his business or 
 profession as a man. 
 
 However important Froebel's plan of instruction by means of 
 personal experience and application, of original activity and 
 production, may be for boys, it is still more so for girls, who 
 have naturally less capacity for grasping abstract ideas, and 
 stand in much greater need of practical execution and application. 
 
 " The Botany-lessons with the children in the Kindergarten 
 are delightful," exclaimed a girl of thirteen years old, " but the 
 classes with the botany master are very dull ! " which means, 
 M to learn about the nature and qualities of plants, by teaching 
 the children and helping them to garden, gives me much greater 
 pleasure and satisfaction, than to learn by rote a string of 
 botanical names and classifications, as I have to do with the 
 botany T master. " 
 
 Our present systems of education are far from meeting these 
 wants of female nature. But it is not in the case of female 
 education only, in that of boys and young men also, much has 
 crept in that is forced and unnatural in the extreme, and since 
 Pestalozzi's time, no method of instruction has been hit upon, 
 which, while maintaining strict harmony with the laws of 
 nature, has made it possible to impart all the knowledge neces- 
 
AND THE SCIENCE OF MOTHERS. 51 
 
 sary in the present age. And this never will be possible unti 
 a different and a better foundation is laid in early childhood. 
 
 Let any school-boy be asked whether he would rather help 
 work in the fields, or in building houses, or making roads, or 
 remain in school over his Latin ; or a school-girl if she would 
 rather go on at her geography or take part in cooking, garden- 
 ing, &c, and there is little doubt what the answer will be. If, 
 however, the child's development has been helped on both at 
 home and in the Kindergarten according to Froebel's method, 
 if the capacity for right observation of the outer world, thorough 
 culture of the senses, and clear mental impressions, combined 
 with healthy development of the limbs, dexterity of all sorts, 
 and love of activity have been reached to a certain extent 
 before school-time, then the hours of study may, without detriment 
 to the pupils, be reduced quite to a half of what they now are, 
 and the other half be devoted to practical work, productive 
 activity, by which the physical powers will be called into play. 
 It cannot be too often repeated that education should begin 
 with doing, not with learning, or rather doing and learning 
 should be fused in one, and for this Pestalozzi opened up the 
 way which £roebel has completed. 
 
 It is now-a-days recommended in many quarters that the 
 education of girls should be the same as that of boys — science 
 and classics perhaps excepted — and it is imagined that this 
 would have a favourable result on the culture of girls. Nothing 
 can be more mistaken. Granted that there are two sexes, and 
 that these two sexes are born with different qualifications, they 
 must be differently educated to fulfil their different vocations. 
 "Wo do not mean to say that girls should not be instructed in 
 the same subjects as boys, but that they should be taught these 
 subjects in a different way, adapted to the female character and 
 disposition. It is an unquestionable fact that all school books 
 are moro or less written for boys, and with regard to what 
 they need for their examinations and professions. For instance, 
 there is not as yet a single history book which is really 
 adapted to young girls. 
 
 This is not the place for entering minutely into the question 
 of the reform of female education, but let me remark in passing 
 that in order to obtain the greater capacity and clearness of 
 thought which are justly demanded now-a-days, we must pro- 
 
62 THE TRAINING OF KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS 
 
 ceed in quite another fashion from what we have hitherto done, 
 and that the only sure way to the desired result is by an increase 
 of spontaneous activity, and by stimulating children more and 
 more to think for themselves. "Whosoever considers how much 
 depends on the emancipation of the female intellect which is still 
 fettered and enslaved, how by this means a new stamp may be 
 given to the whole character of the world — by their educational 
 influence above all — whoever considers this in all its fulness 
 will not fail to own that the question of woman's education is 
 one of the most important of the day, and is not to be dismissed 
 with a few hasty remarks. 
 
 But if there is one thing more than another which will con- 
 tribute to the emancipation of women it is Froebel's system of 
 education. To take one important point, the mathematical 
 grounding received in Kindergartens will make it enormously 
 easier for girl's heads to acquire the logical acuteness which 
 nature is supposed to have denied them. We have, however, 
 yet no right to doubt the intellectual powers of women, or even 
 to rate them below those of men, for women have not hitherto 
 been allowed the training necessary for their complete develop- 
 ment. Single exceptions are only valued as such, and are 
 attributed to exceptional individual powers, without reference to 
 the whole sex. It is still too much ignored that women are also 
 human beings, and that as such they possess all universally 
 human qualities, although these may be modified by the particu- 
 lar form of expression of the sex. To be a human being in the 
 true and full sense of the word is to have conquered all one-sided- 
 nesses, and to have unfolded harmoniously in all directions. 
 Thus the man has to overcome the roughnesses of a one-sided 
 male nature, the woman the weaknesses of her female nature. , 
 But this is only possible when both natures have first developed ' 
 fully in their own special direction ; the man must first be a 
 complete man, the woman a complete woman. It is only by 
 the union of the two natures that the perfect human being is 
 realised. The maturity of both sexes has for its task to express 
 this perfect human nature, which is the climax of both sexes, 
 the relative completion of their development. 
 
 "When once men have fully recognised this truth they will 
 certainly no longer insist that girls should be kept in a state of 
 ignorance, in order that they may continue to be simple and 
 
AND THE SCIENCE OF MOTHERS. 53 
 
 artless. They will understand that youthful artlessness has 
 quite another foundation than ignorance, and that girls should 
 above all things be guarded from growing into grey-haired 
 simpletons or gossiping old maids ! that in so far as women's 
 powers are weaker than men's, more and not less care should be 
 taken to develop them. In the domain of thought, as in all 
 other fields of human work, the two sexes have different tasks 
 to fulfil — both, however, of equal importance, and equally neces- 
 sary for the well being of the whole. Female thought will find 
 for itself different channels, will solve different problems than 
 will male thought. In the reign of the beautiful, of the arts, we 
 specially expect many services from women. 
 
 In our busy industrial age the tide is undoubtedly setting in 
 this direction, though it may not be apparent at first sight. The 
 necessity for affording women increased facilities of earning a 
 livelihood, in order to ward off misery from millions of human 
 beings, and to enable women to acquire the material indepen- 
 dence, without which mental independence is generally very 
 difficult of attainment, is a question which is occupying the 
 philanthropic minds of the day, more even than the intellectual 
 emancipation of women. Trade and industrial schools (Gewerbs-u 
 Handel-schulen) are to be founded for girls as well as boys, and 
 means of employment opened to the women of working-classes 
 which have hitherto been closed to them/ 1 ' All these efforts 
 will tend ultimately to open the way to intellectual fields, but 
 for the present it is to be feared that women will be carried 
 away by the stream of modern realism and materialism ; they 
 are showing evident symptoms of a tendency in this direction. 
 Those women, for instance, who, as in France and Belgium, 
 serve in cafes and confectioner's shops, or manage a tobacco 
 shop, or any other independent business, generally have a 
 peculiar expression of their own, which is certainly more mas- 
 culine than feminine. The one-sidedness of the tendency to 
 exalt the capacity for material gain would certainly ruin all 
 
 * After the first experiments have been made with the industrial 
 schools and other similar institutions contemplated for women, 
 the public will inevitably be led on to see the necessity of pro- 
 viding for other necessities, and will finally acknowledge that 
 these are fully considered and met in Froebel's system. 
 
54 THE TRAINING OF KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS. 
 
 chance of the higher general culture of women, if there were not 
 a counteracting force which calls out the pottical and imagina- 
 tive side of female genius. 
 
 The educational mission to which Froebel summons women, 
 deals with this very force, appeals directly to that side of 
 woman's nature, which is the kernel of her being, and which 
 alone can produce the highest and loveliest fruit of which she is 
 capable ; this force is love, and the holiest of all human loves, 
 the mother's lovs. Whilst the child's soul is revealing itself to 
 the mother, her own soul is at the same time opening out ; while 
 a place in the world of humanity is assigned to her, a place in 
 which she has the highest duties to fulfil towards a growing 
 human being, her own dignity of character is called out, and her 
 heart is directed towards God, under whose eyes, according to 
 whose will, she has to fulfil her office of priest to her child's soul 
 — her own soul expands, and soars to higher regions. In like 
 manner will the whole female sex be raised to the dignity of 
 spiritual mothers and educators of humanity. 
 
 This, the true science of mothers, opens out to women nearly 
 every field of knowledge, and those who are capable enough to 
 go on further by themselves in this direction or that, as their 
 educational duties may seem to call them, will find it a help in 
 their wider efforts to have been as completely as possible fitted 
 for the special duties of their vocation. 
 
 It will depend, in a great measure, on women themselves 
 whether their true emancipation, i.e., their elevation in the 
 sphere to which God and nature calls them, is sooner or later 
 accomplished, and they are placed in possession of the rights 
 which an advanced stage of culture holds out to them. Only 
 through their own higher fitness for their natural duties, will 
 they obtain these rights, and with them the freedom to enter, 
 as far as their strength and capacities permit, the fields of in- 
 tellectual culture still closed to them, and to render intellectual 
 services to mankind. This fitness, however, can only be the 
 result of a better mode of education. Kindergartens (in the 
 widest sense of the word) are the starting point to this goal, 
 and at the same time the sphere in which the older members of 
 the sex may carry out their share in the development of the 
 human race, and in the amelioration of social life. To this new 
 mode of education we look hopefully, for the setting free of the 
 
froebel's "transition classes." 55 
 
 female genius, for the production of the " ewig weibliche," 
 which in the words of the poet, " Himmel anzieht." It is love 
 alone which can do this ; and the highest earthly love is love 
 for humanity. This must be the inspiration of women as the 
 guides and educators of childhood, this the high motive enabling 
 them to call out and to foster the divine spark which is latent 
 in every child. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Froebel's " Transition Classes." 
 
 One great objection to Kindergartens is that they do not fit on 
 to the more advanced schools. There is no connection between 
 the training which a child receives at a Kindergarten and that 
 which he will get when he moves on to another school, and the 
 continuity which ought to exist between the education of the 
 earliest years and that of every successive stage of development, 
 is broken. This is certainly not right, and it is contrary to the 
 natural order of development : nature knows no breaks — or, at 
 ■any rate, only apparent ones — one stage of development always 
 prepares for and ushers in the next. It is obvious that there is 
 no such thing as transition when a child is suddenly taken from 
 its Kindergarten games and occupations and transplanted into 
 the foreign atmosphere of regular school-work. The ordinary 
 playful activity of children affords few, if any, points of contact 
 for instruction, even when this instruction is object teaching in 
 the fullest sense of the word. Learning, whatever be the 
 method pursued, is always first and foremost mental action, and 
 demands a certain amount of original thought, if it is not to be 
 mere learning by rote or cramming. 
 
 The comparatively small number of people who think for 
 themselves, and do not merely reproduce the thoughts of others 
 would be a standing reproach to our schools were it not that 
 there are other causes for this state of things. However widely 
 the capacity for thought may differ in different minds, every 
 healthy child is gifted with some aptitude for it, which may bo 
 
56 froebel's "transition classes." 
 
 cultivated to a certain degree. Thought must have experience 
 for its starting-point, whether it be the philosophic thinking of 
 learned men, or the first simple thoughts of a child. 
 
 So long as children are left to gather their experiences for 
 themselves, by chance, as it were, and in a confused manner, 
 so long will they have a very imperfect basis for after-thought 
 and instruction, and the playtime of the first years of life will 
 be wanting in connection with the later school-years. It is only 
 by carrying the systematic order of school instruction (which 
 has a definite aim in all that it does), to some* extent into the 
 previous treatment of children, by so planning their infant-life 
 that their earliest experiences and impressions shall be clear and 
 definite, and of such a kind as to stimulate the thinking powers, 
 that any such connection can be effected. Where there is con- 
 tinuous connection there must be a certain similarity and 
 analogy ; but the dreamy thoughtlessness of children cannot 
 prepare for real thinking. 
 
 The Kindergarten system affords the means of guiding and 
 sustaining the child's mental development from the very begin- 
 ning of life ; and that, moreover, in such a way that the instinc- 
 tive efforts prompted by nature produce the destined result, i.e., 
 the development of the limbs and senses, and through it the 
 first awakening of the soul. On this beginning depends the 
 after-progress of the mental and spiritual life. Froebel's 
 " Mutter-u-Kose-lieder," with their accompanying games and 
 hand-gymnastics, are intended to serve this purpose during 
 the first two years. In this book Froebel makes use of the 
 mother's instinct of love, which shows itself in fondling and 
 cossetting, which spares no trouble in its work of education, 
 which is endowed with the power of understanding the child's 
 inarticulate utterances, and knows instinctively how to play 
 with it so that the object of childish play may be reached. 
 
 According to Froebel's idea, the mother's part is so to arrange 
 and utilise the objects of her child's surroundings that they will 
 awaken and gratify, i.e., cultivate its senses : and cultivating 
 the senses means rendering them capable of taking in or per- 
 ceiving all objects in the outer world clearly and definitely, so 
 that their images may be reflected in the child's soul, and 
 arouse the power of imagination. 
 
 Now all objects are not equally fitted to accomplish this end. 
 
FROEBEL'S " TRANSITION CLASSES." 57 
 
 Tilings of a very complex nature are not in the least suitable, 
 nor a great quantity of things together. The Kindergarten 
 plan is to begin with quite simple forms, the simplest of all at 
 the very first ; as, for instance, a sphere or ball. As all organisms 
 in Nature are developed out of one original form, viz., the 
 round cell, so the easiest progression for the knowledge of form 
 is from this primary form. 
 
 It is difficult for the unpractised eyes of children to distinguish 
 one form from another, and it is the business of education to facili- 
 tate this process for them ; as, indeed, all education consists in 
 facilitating and assisting the instinctive efforts of nature. This 
 discriminating of form (unconsciously as impressions), can only 
 be facilitated by placing next to the form first perceived one of a 
 very different or quite opposite nature. The cube, for instance, 
 with its flat surfaces, corners and edges, serves as an opposite to 
 the sphere, with its unbroken surface the same on all sides. 
 In crystals, the most elementary form is the sexagon, or cube. 
 Wherever there are two different bodies (separated for analysis), 
 for existing as opposites, there must be intermediary forms to 
 unite them together, so that the connection which is essential 
 to all understanding may not be wanting. Among the inter- 
 mediary links by which all opposites are connected, there is 
 always one principal one which lies at the middle point between 
 the two extremes, and possesses points of similarity to both 
 opposites. The form which connects the opposites of sphere and 
 cube is the cylinder, which unites two flat surfaces by a round 
 one. 
 
 Froebel's playthings, which are constructed on this principle, 
 afford the simplest possible demonstration of tins law of the 
 "connection of opposites," and are thus a help to the distin- 
 guishing of form. But this law is the fundamental principle 
 ofVall knowledge, and of all intellectual activity. 
 
 "And the new-born child is to grasp this philosophical 
 abstraction ! " we hear some of our readers scornfully exclaim. 
 "To expect this would indeed be the height of absurdity!" 
 We content ourselves with asking, in reply, "Is there, or is 
 there not, any connection between the first unconscious percep- 
 tions and the following conscious conceptions and thoughts of 
 the human mind ? " 
 
 There can certainly be no question of understanding in the 
 
58 FROEBEL'S M TRANSITION CLASSES." 
 
 case of the new-born infant, but of perception by means of tho 
 senses there undoubtedly is. Just as surely as the infant is 
 aware of its bodily needs with regard to food, warmth, &c, so 
 does it receive through its senses impressions of the outward 
 world. Light affects its eyes in a different manner from dark- 
 ness, one colour differently from another ; the sound of a musical 
 instrument makes a different impression on its ear than does 
 the howling of a storm, its sense of touch is differently affected 
 by a cold stone than by a warm hand, and so forth. These are 
 sense-impressions or perceptions familiar in earliest childhood, 
 and out of these perceptions the first conceptions and ideas 
 arise gradually. Will any one deny this much ? 
 
 Just as little as it is a matter of indifference for the physical 
 health and development of a child whether or not it is provided 
 with the food and clothing suited to its body, so it cannot be 
 said not to signify to the mental and spiritual growth whether 
 these or the other impressions influence it. And there is little 
 doubt that means chosen with judgment, understanding and 
 insight, will be better adapted to their end than those winch are 
 merely accidental. A child left to grow up without any means 
 of receiving impressions from outside (shut up like Caspar 
 Hanser, for instance, in a dark cellar), will not show any signs 
 of mental improvement. 
 
 If there is continuous connection between the first perceptions 
 of a young child and the thoughts of the mature man, for the 
 reason that the development of the mind like that of all 
 organisms of nature, proceeds systematically, it must be a fact 
 that the beginning and end are linked together. The character 
 of the first impressions received, whether these be vague and 
 misty, or clear and sharply defined, whether orderly or chaotic, 
 &c, must be of great importance as regards later thought, and 
 must exercise an immediate influence on the first stages of 
 more advanced thinking at school. 
 
 If tins thinking is to be original, to be based on the earliest 
 impressions and experiences of the child, the experiences and 
 the thinking must correspond — they must be connected together. 
 
 Experiences can only be based on the things of the visible 
 world. These things are only cognisable and distinguishable 
 by means of their qualities. All things possess qualities, i.e., 
 form, colour, size, number, substance, sound, weight, taste, 
 
froebel's "transition classes.' 59 
 
 smell, <fec, only in different degrees and proportions. In order 
 that the child may later cognise these qualities it must first re- 
 ceive impressions of them — and the character of these impressions 
 will determine the later apprehension of them. Now it is just 
 these impressions which Froebel's playthings are capable of 
 producing with greater clearness and definiteness than could be 
 the result of chance means. These impressions, moreover, must 
 be conveyed in the first period of childhood, when they will be 
 all the more lasting, owing to the smaller degree of resistance in 
 the unconscious soul. 
 
 Facilitating the first perceptions of the qualities of things is 
 not simply to begin with one object, and that the simplest ; the 
 same objects must also serve to make different qualities known. 
 Thus the sphere or ball, while it gives the first impression of 
 form, may serve also for the first lesson in colour. The six balls 
 which are used for this purpose teach the colours of the rainbow, 
 i.e., their ground colours and their mixed ones ; the ground 
 colours are first shown one after another, and then between 
 each of these the mixed colour which they produce together ; 
 for instance, red and blue (opposites), and between them purple 
 as their connecting link. In this way a chord of colour is 
 produced, and a simple chord of sound (the key-note, the fifth 
 and the third) is sung in connection with it. All the balls put 
 together make up the complete harmony of colour, i.e., light. 
 When the child has thus received impressions of all the other 
 common qualities of things, he may be said to have learnt the 
 elements of things, to have acquired a plastic alphabet, by 
 means of which he may learn to read the book of the concrete 
 objects of his surroundings — the first book which children 
 should be taught to read. 
 
 We have not space here to give a complete theoretical 
 exposition of the means which Froebel makes use of in his 
 method ; we shall simply attempt to trace the line of thought 
 which refers the child's first studies back to its earliest 
 impressions. 
 
 The mind of a child, so long as the child remains at the stage 
 of instructive life, will not let itself be forced in this or that 
 direction ; its development follows the course dictated by nature. 
 Now this natural course of development is always logical and 
 reasonable, i.e., systematic. The development of the human 
 
60 FROEBEL'S " TRANSITION CLASSES." 
 
 being, however, requires to be assisted, and this, too, at its very 
 earliest stages — if it were not so, there would be no question oi 
 education in earliest childhood. The weaker and less self- 
 sufficient the powers of a child are, the more do they need help 
 and support, or, as it is commonly called, education. This 
 ABC of things is consequently more necessary in the years 
 before school-time, than is the later ABC of letters for 
 learning to read. 
 
 There can be no danger of artificiality if we follow the course 
 of nature, and, like nature, begin with what is simplest, and 
 proceed in a systematic manner to the more complex. And 
 no reasonable person will, we think, deny that a child's mind 
 must of necessity proceed in this manner, taking in first one 
 thing and then another — not all at once — at first, too, the most 
 simple things, and then the more difficult and complicated. At 
 the same time it must not be forgotten that the child is not 
 deprived by the Kindergarten system of the great and 
 unregulated variety of the objects of his surroundings ; and 
 that the systematised play serves only to guide him in these 
 surroundings. This play, moreover, retains itself the natural 
 character of the unconscious, seemingly aimless sportiveness 
 of infancy. 
 
 The primary shapes observed in the first period of life, and 
 afterwards handled, will leave behind on the child's imagination 
 a series of pictures which will be the basis for a series of 
 thoughts, because the images follow a systematic, logical order, 
 as does all thought. A right and logical development of the 
 organs leads to right observation and comparison, and thus the 
 first elements of all original thinking are mastered, and the 
 Kindergarten system lays a foundation for the continuation of 
 its inductive method. The law or principle of all activity, i.e., 
 the connection of opposites, which is innate in the child, 
 becomes, so to say, stamped on its mind as a sense-impression, 
 which is then made use of to serve the child as a key (see 
 Chapter I.) in its productive occupation, in the construction of 
 forms and the combination of figures. 
 
 The difficulty of arriving at a full understanding of Froebel's 
 method lies in the fact that from ignorance of its practical 
 application, its fundamental principle — which Froebel calls 
 "the connection of opposites" — is always looked upon as a 
 
froebil's "transition classes." 61 
 
 philosophical abstraction only. From this point of view it 
 would certainly seem monstrous to expect young children to 
 understand or apply so abstruse-sounding a law. A few 
 examples may help to show the fallacy of such an idea. 
 
 Our muscular system consists of expanding and contracting 
 muscles, which in their -functions of expansion and contraction, 
 present decided opposites. The connection in which these 
 always exist relatively to the whole organism constitutes tho 
 reconciliation of these opposites. Now in gymnastic exercises, 
 when children are told to stretch out the muscles of their arms, 
 and then draw them in again, would it be impossible for them 
 io understand that these are opposite movements ? The 
 ground-rule of the science of gymnastics, in its whole scope, 
 might especially be referred back to this law in question, for it 
 is the law of all organisms. 
 
 Or, again, is a child incapable of understanding when he is 
 told to place his little sticks and counters at an equal distance 
 from the middle, above and below, and to do the same on both 
 sides, in order to unite the opposites of above and below, and 
 so form a regular shape ? Or when horizontal and perpendicular 
 lines are used to indicate opposites of direction, which can be 
 connected by a slanting line half perpendicular and half 
 horizontal ? Or that in painting the opposites of light and 
 shadow can be connected by the scale of colour. 
 
 The child must follow a rule if he is to construct and combine 
 freely according to his own fancy, just as every artist, and 
 every handicraftsman is bound by rules. But if there is any 
 other rule better fitted to lead to original creation, let some one 
 discover it and prove its superiority. 
 
 Now if children have been accustomed constantly to apply 
 this law in whatever they do or construct, will not the same 
 law be easily grasped by them when it comes before them as 
 the principle of intellectual activity or thought ? For is not 
 the process of thought based on opposites, such as thesis and 
 antithesis connected by synthesis ? Can our minds distinguish 
 and compare without contrasts ? and can we draw conclusions 
 from the things compared without connecting those things 
 together ? 
 
 But if this principle may be set down as the regulator both 
 of physical and intellectual activity, it is essentially tho 
 
62 FROEBEL'S " TRANSITION CLASSES." 
 
 principle of natural activity, and consequently the universal 
 principle of development, which consists in this twofold 
 activity — and consequently also it must be adopted as the 
 principle of all education. 
 
 With the same materials as are used in the earliest play- 
 time, only multiplied and varied in due degree and sequence, 
 the Kindergarten occupations lead on to the elements of labour 
 and of art, and through these by examination and experiment- 
 alising, to the first elements of knowledge. On such a founda- 
 tion a true method of school-instruction might undoubtedly 
 be built up. 
 
 Even at the present day, in spite of the imperfect results of 
 Kindergarten teaching, consequent partly on the imperfect 
 earlier training of the mother, and partly on the want of 
 simultaneous adequate co-operation in the home, even now it is 
 often acknowledged that the children who pass into other 
 schools from Kindergartens make more rapid progress than the 
 other pupils. On the other hand the complaint is also often 
 made that these children are " more restless and difficult to 
 manage, and that they want to be always playing." 
 
 Before, however, condemning the system on the strength of 
 such complaints, it is only fair to assure oneself by careful 
 investigation, whether it is really the system that is at fault, or 
 whether, perhaps, the imperfect carrying out of its principles 
 in badly managed Kindergartens may not be the cause why 
 the children, instead of acquiring the power of attention and 
 concentration, learn to care only for play or thoughtless 
 imitating, which is exactly the contrary of what is intended. 
 It is only by carefully testing the results of a well-conducted 
 Kindergarten, in which the system is rightly carried out, that 
 a just estimate can be formed on this point ; and when we say 
 that the children are better prepared for school, we do not mean 
 that they possess a greater variety of information, and more 
 knowledge learnt by rote, but that their senses are better 
 developed, their powers of observation more awakened ; their 
 practical skill greater ; their sense of beauty more alive — all 
 this, of course, in proportion to their age and natural capacities 
 — and the little that they do know they know well and 
 thoroughly. Their physical constitution, too, is generally 
 better than that of the majority of children brought up in 
 
FROEBEL'S " TRANSITION CLASSES." 63 
 
 towns, owing to the many exercises carried on in the open 
 air. 
 
 It may also fairly "be asked, whether the school itself is not 
 partly to blame, if the free citizen of a little world in which the 
 child's nature and requirements have been considered on all 
 sides, does not at once find himself at home in his new sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 The necessary order and discipline of the school is not un- 
 favourable to him. With all the free movement that he enjoyed 
 in the Kindergarten, he was, nevertheless, obliged to submit to 
 a systematic order and regular division of time, and the 
 discipline of limbs, senses and organs was thoroughly provided 
 for by the systematic exercises. Neither is he wanting in the 
 will to learn, for the desire of knowledge has been awakened 
 in him, and even while at play he was always learning. But he 
 learnt through working, through producing, through handling 
 concrete materials, and he had the satisfaction of seeing at once 
 before him the result of his activity, and he could share, to 
 some extent, the delight of the artist. Now, however much 
 scope for observation his new school may afford him — and the 
 majority of schools do not abound in this — still he has not 
 himself made the things that he sees, and consequently he does 
 not understand their origin and construction ; neither does he 
 know how to use them since he has not made experiments with 
 them. But all this is what he has been accustomed to. All 
 his new occupations are much less vivid to him than when he 
 could carry out his own ideas and fancies in his little works, 
 and his companions, with the same materials, produced quite 
 different results, with which he could measure and compare 
 his own work. 
 
 All instruction that is accompanied by demonstration will be 
 more interesting to a child brought up in a Kindergarten than 
 that which is purely abstract, as, for instance, mental arith- 
 metic, or grammar without concrete symbols, and during such 
 lessons his eyes will be wandering round the room, taking ir 
 the outlines of the objects in it. 
 
 It may possibly be objected by many people, that it is an 
 unanswerable argument against the Kindergarten system, that 
 children who have been trained according to it, care only to 
 occupy themselves with outward concrete things, and cannot be 
 
64 FROEBEL'S " TRANSITION CLASSES." 
 
 got to think. But what if the time for thinking independently 
 of the concrete objects, to which the thinking refers, has not 
 yet arrived for the six or seven year old child ? What if nature 
 does not proceed quite so fast in this respect as school systems 
 assume ? 
 
 It is a well-known fact, that children who are not over, 
 strained in their early years, learn double as much and as 
 easily afterwards. 
 
 But there is another reason which may have something to do 
 with the inattention or inertness which Kindergarten children 
 show when advanced to other schools. Accustomed as they 
 have hitherto been to a great deal ot physical exercise in the 
 open air and at their gardening — the elder children never being 
 allowed to sit still more than an hour at a time, the younger 
 ones not more than half-an-hour without a break — it is not to 
 be wondered at that after sitting still for several hours their 
 limbs should become stiff for want of movement, their 
 blood stagnant and in need of stimulus ? These wants show 
 themselves in restlessness, inattention and drowsiness. And 
 it is just the most gifted and energetic natures which suffer 
 most from the want of sufficient scope for their energy. 
 
 Who would pretend that it is natural for children of any age 
 to sit still for seven hours a day in school ? And sometimes 
 even longer, if the time devoted to preparing for school is 
 counted. 
 
 But it is natural for children of all ages "to feel life beat in 
 every pulse," to want to put forth all their strength and energy 
 in action of some sort or other, to breathe in pure air in full 
 draughts, to exercise the limbs in running, climbing, jumping 
 and swimming, and to hold intercourse with nature through 
 flowers and animals ; they are keen, also, to hear stories o 
 " other children," of foreign lands and people and animals ; or 
 of people who lived before their time, and above all things, of 
 God the Creator of all things. But all the time the hands are 
 longing to be actively employed, the work-tools of the future 
 want to be sharpened, to be cutting, boxing, folding, plaiting, 
 building, &c, and the young souls long to see something 
 beautiful, something useful, produced. 
 
 The best elementary schools, which follow Pestalozzi's 
 method, make use of many of the same materials as Kinder- 
 
FROEBEL'S "TRANSITION CLASSES." G5 
 
 garten's to illustrate their teaching. But they do not go 
 beyond word-teaching — there is no scope for personal ex- 
 perience through the child's own senses, and according to his 
 free inclination, there is not the same joy in the visible fruit 
 of his own labours. The free constructing which goes on in the 
 Kindergarten is missed by children at school ; and for this 
 reason, even the clever, wide-awake ones seem often weary and 
 discontented. 
 
 Froebel's transition classes are intended to bridge over the 
 gap which still exists between the Kindergarten and the school, 
 to supply the needful transition and connection which there 
 should be between all the different stages of development. 
 They carry on the work begun in the Kindergarten with the 
 same materials and on the same plan, but they introduce in 
 addition teaching by words, and lead on gradually to actual 
 abstract instruction. 
 
 In building, for instance (according to the Kindergarten 
 rules), objects are reproduced in their rough outline — objects 
 of utility and elementary architectural forms, as well as 
 decorative forms, " forms of beauty," and the further develop- 
 ment of the elementary architecture class leads to regular 
 architectural forms constructed on right principles and mathe- 
 matical proportions, which the children, their sense of size and 
 number having been already exercised, attain easily to a clear 
 and conscious apprehension of, and they are thus prepared for 
 abstract mathematics. 
 
 The symmetrical architectural forms, which result from a 
 successive series of paper-folding, approach very nearly to the 
 designs of the industrial schools, and are supplemented in the 
 cutting-out class. 
 
 There is no doubt, whatever, that for a boy destined for the 
 profession of architect, or artist of any kind, the habit of original 
 invention which is gained in schools where occupations on the 
 Kindergarten plan are carried on, is of far greater value than the 
 mere drawing from copies in the ordinary industrial schools. 
 And the application of the elements of geometry is the basis of 
 all the handiwork. 
 
 I will here give an example out of Kohler's papers on Kinder- 
 garten occupations. The title of it is, " The Folded Paper." The 
 pupils in the transition class, each have in their hands a quad- 
 
 F 
 
66 FROEBBL'S " TRANSITION CLASSES." 
 
 rangular piece of white paper. In the five lessons that have 
 preceded this one, the sides, edges, corners and lines of the 
 quadrangle (treated both as a square and an oblong), have been 
 examined, named, and fixed in the minds of the children by 
 questions put by the teacher. The sixth lesson proceeds as 
 follows : — 
 
 The teacher: "The measurement of the upper with the 
 
 under side of the square, and of the right with 
 
 left side, showed that they were all equal to 
 
 each other; it now remains to compare the 
 
 right side with the upper side, and the left with 
 
 the under. Now place these sides one upon 
 
 the other, and see if they are not the same 
 
 length. Lay the corners very exactly one 
 
 over the other, and then fold the paper down. You have now 
 
 produced quite another shape. How many sides has it ? 
 
 Count them and show me the number on your fingers." 
 
 " How many corners has this form ? " 
 
 " A form winch has three sides and three corners like this 
 one is called a triangle. Name the sides of the triangle ? In 
 what direction does this slanting line run ? " (The fold in the 
 paper.) 
 
 " Now pay attention to the corners of your triangle. Are 
 they all the same size as they were in the square ? " 
 
 " Which Is the only one of the corners that has not changed 
 its size ? " 
 
 " "What has happened to the other two ? " 
 
 " They have been divided exactly in two halves." 
 
 "As out of one right angle we have made two, each of these 
 two must, of course, be smaller than the right angle. Every 
 angle that is smaller than a right angle is called an acute 
 angle. What, now, do we call these angles that we have got by 
 dividing the right angle ? " 
 
 "Acute angles." 
 
 " And why ? " 
 
 " How many acute angles have we made out of one right 
 angle ? " 
 
 " How many out of two right angles ? " 
 
 "Do you still remember the forms which we obtained by our 
 former divisions ? " 
 
FROEBEL'S "TRANSITION CLASSES." 67 
 
 "What are they called ? " 
 
 " Are these three forms different from one another or not ? " 
 
 "In all the three ways that we folded the square, it was 
 always divided into two equal parts or halves, though each 
 time we got a new shape ; these shapes must, therefore, all be 
 the same size." 
 
 " We will now examine the folded paper a little more care- 
 fully. When I open it, what do you see ? " 
 
 " Right angles and acute angles ; horizontal, perpendicular 
 and slanting lines, squares and triangles." 
 
 " Point out the acute angles, and name them." 
 
 " Count and show me the right angles." 
 
 " How many right angles have we divided into acute angles ?' 
 
 11 How many acute angles have we got out of the right 
 angles ? " 
 
 "Which sides form the square — and which the triangles? 
 How much smaller are the triangles than the square ? " 
 
 "Why? Name some objects in real life which are also 
 triangular ? " 
 
 " Draw on the slate an upright, a horizonal, and a slanting 
 line ; a right angle and an acute one ; a square and a triangle." 
 
 In this way the geometrical figures are developed up to the 
 Trapez, Rhombus, and so forth. 
 
 Tins example shows in a small way how instruction in the 
 elements of mathematics may be connected with manual occu- 
 pation, as, for instance, paper-folding. The attention of the 
 children is kept fixed by their hands being employed, and the 
 mental strain is lessened by the diversion of folding the paper 
 and making the lines, and also by the comparative slowness of 
 the course of instruction. And the fact that the same truths 
 repeat themselves in different occupations and with different 
 materials, gives more life and variety to what is otherwise a verj 
 difficult subject for children. 
 
 It will also, we think, be allowed that the slate or black-board 
 on which the teacher draws the figures, and which is the only 
 means for ocular demonstration which ordinary schools possess, 
 cannot for a moment compete with the system of making chil- 
 dren model and construct with their own hands, by which 
 means continuous attention is compelled, whether the child be 
 looking at the teacher or not. 
 
68 FEOEBEL'S " TRANSITION CLASSES." 
 
 The work of the transition classes, like that of elementary 
 schools is generally to awaken and set free the organs, senses, 
 and mental faculties, and to prepare the way for the future ac- 
 quisition of knowledge, not to impart it ; and before all things 
 they should be careful only to choose such means as are not 
 prejudicial to the physical or mental health. Our existing 
 schools cannot be said to be faultless in this respect. 
 
 The assumption that in Froebel's system of occupations for 
 children, the mathematical element always preponderates is 
 entirely erroneous. In the modelling work, for instance, this. 
 is certainly not the case ; here the artistic element prevails, and 
 the incidental observation of size and number at first occupies 
 the senses alone, and it is only later, after the thinking powers 
 have been developed, that it leads on in regular transitions to 
 more abstract mental effort. 
 
 It is necessary for the harmonious development of all the 
 powers and dispositions that one or other of them should pre- 
 ponderate according to the particular age of the child, but the 
 will, the feelings and the thinking powers must be set in activity 
 from the very beginning. Froebel's system, therefore, also 
 takes into account the nature of the mental powers at the age 
 when fancy and observation prevail, and should be most con- 
 sidered. 
 
 The modelling in clay, for instance, winch in the actual Kin- 
 dergarten is used for representing all kinds of little objects 
 familiar to the children in their surroundings, in the transition 
 classes deals with the elementary forms of crystals (those of 
 stereometry also). The road to a wider artistic culture, for the 
 sculptor especially, is through various series of beauty-forms 
 resembling the customary architectural ornaments, such as 
 rosettes, capitals, leaves, &c. Either potters or sculptors may 
 be the result of this training. 
 
 The occupation of stick-laying prepares the way for drawing 
 straight lines, and laying circles (whole, halves, or quarters), 
 for round lines. The little hands that are still too weak to guide 
 a pen or pencil, can easily, by laying and putting together these 
 little sticks, represent the outlines of different objects, and thus 
 exercise their eyes in seizing form and synnnetry, and their 
 powers of observation at the same time. In the transition 
 classes this occupation is carried as far as to the representation 
 
FEOEBEL'S " TRANSITION CLASSES." 69 
 
 -of landscapes, and the combination of the most manifold objects. 
 The lessons in counting and adding up, which have been given 
 by means of these little sticks, go on to the more advanced 
 elements of arithmetic, to fractions even, which are learnt in a 
 practical way by breaking up the sticks into different parts. 
 Letters are also taught by this means, the children being made 
 to construct them by putting sticks together, and spelling and 
 pronunciation are combined with this lesson. 
 
 It would not be easy to invent any better means than these 
 little sticks for teaching the beginning of arithmetic, writing and 
 drawing. 
 
 The occupation of paper-plaiting, too, which is a universal 
 favourite among children, is of use in drawing and counting, 
 inasmuch as it trains both eye and hand for the construction 
 of all sorts of shapes. The continuation of this occupation in 
 the transition class follows naturally out of the beginning made 
 in the Kindergarten, and may be profitably combined with 
 actual weaving. 
 
 In the occupations enumerated we have seen the first elements 
 of drawing, which is so important for every handicraft, industry, 
 and science, introduced in all manner of ways. In the Kinder- 
 garten this branch is carried as far as drawing on a slate (in 
 the case of the more gifted children, on paper), which is marked 
 with perpendicular and horizontal lines as a guide in linear 
 drawing. The forms and figures — constructed entirely of straight 
 lines — can only give rough outlines of objects. The Kinder- 
 garten drawing lessons could only extend to the first simple 
 series, and original designs embrace only a very limited area. 
 But the transition class, after the first preparation, may lead on 
 to real artistic work, if only there exist any natural capacity for it* 
 Froebel was of opinion that all cultivated people should pos- 
 sess so much skill in drawing as would enable them to appre- 
 hend objects rightly, and to derive enjoyment from art, even if 
 they are not gifted with much power of production. He con- 
 sidered it of the greatest importance that children should acquire 
 -a certain degree of proficiency in drawing before learning to 
 read and write ; he held that the representation of real, concrete 
 .things should precede that of symbols, such as letters and words. 
 For this reason drawing forms an important part of the transi- 
 tion class, which is intended to prepare for every branch of this 
 
70 froebel's "transition classes.' 
 
 art, with special attention to technical drawing. The cutting- 
 out class, too, for the same reason, concerns itself specially with 
 drawing. 
 
 Any one who is acquainted with Froebel's method of lineal 
 drawing will have observed that here, too, mathematical figures 
 (represented by lines in the network) preponderate, and that 
 from these (as the skeletons) he leads up to forms of beauty, or 
 finished artistic forms. Mankind proceeded by a similar course; 
 the drawings of the ancient Egyptians contain nothing but 
 straight lines, and consequently angles and mathematical 
 figures. But in Froebel's opinion there was another reason why 
 in drawing, as in all the other occupations, the first stage should 
 consist in plastic construction, in tHe representation of real 
 objects, and of such especially as by their symmetry and harmony 
 appeal to the artistic sense ; and the reason is, that working and 
 learning are thus closely combined — the intellectual powers are 
 divided between the mathematical principles and the plastic 
 occupation. 
 
 The mental powers, moreover, are kept in constant activity 
 by the combination of parts into wholes, which the invention of 
 figures necessitates. 
 
 By grounding the beginnings of knowledge, and of the first 
 productive work on the method of procedure of nature, on the 
 law called by Froebel " connection of opposites," which prevails 
 throughout nature, the human mind is led to the knowledge of 
 its own and all other activity, and enabled to grasp the principle 
 of all work. 
 
 In a universe which is the work of one and the same Creator, 
 there can only be one fundamental principle, according to which 
 the development of the organisms of this universe must proceed. 
 And as the human mind can of itself discover nothing really 
 new, nothing absolutely different from what the Creator of all 
 things and man's educator has already created and implanted 
 as conceptions in the soul of man, it follows that the works of 
 man, too, cannot be produced on any other principle than that 
 by which the works of nature are produced, and according to 
 which man's own development and activity proceeds. This 
 truth holds good, however various may be the outward embodi- 
 ments in which the principle is expressed. 
 
 If, on the other hand, work, or productive activity, is to be a 
 
FROEBEL'S " TRANSITION CLASSES." 71 
 
 means of mental development, mind and hand must act in 
 unison, according to rules based on the same fundamental prin 
 ciple, and which shall be gradually grasped by the consciousness, 
 and applied consciously to a definite end. Either such a prin- 
 ciple can be discovered and applied, and become the foundation 
 of a true science of work, or it cannot ; in which case no science 
 of the kind is possible. 
 
 Froebel's transition classes provide all the necessary conditions 
 for a thorough education for work ; and one which shall meet 
 the wants not only of every industrial or artistic profession, 
 but of modern society with regard to every cultivated human 
 being. A school based on the above principles would be able to 
 put each one of its pupils in a position to take up any branch of 
 work as a means of livelihood, even in later years, if necessary. 
 And amongst all the provisions which society is called to make 
 for the education of its members, there are scarcely any more 
 necessary than those which secure them the means of maintain- 
 ing existence. There can be no true security for the State in 
 the present day unless each individual awakes to the conscious- 
 ness of his own productive power, and is rendered capable of 
 using it for his own and society's good. 
 
 These transition classes aim, also, at the further cultivation of 
 the feelings and the religious sense by means of songs on the 
 same plan as the early Kindergarten ones, but of a more ad- 
 vanced character, and accompanied by instrumental music. 
 
 The cultivation of the little flower beds is the first preparation 
 for gardening and for agriculture. 
 
 The physical exercises, begun in play, go on to gymnastics, 
 swimming, riding, and dancing. With these are connected regular 
 excursions in the neighbourhood, both for botanical and zoologi- 
 cal studies, as an introduction to geography, for which a know- 
 ledge of localities, of different soils and their products, &c, is 
 useful. 
 
 The study of history begins with narratives selected out of 
 the Bible, and descriptions of prominent events in general history, 
 adapted to the age of the children and illustrated by pictures. 
 
 The religious element — fostered from the beginning of life in 
 the family, as in the Kindergarten, by prayer, by the contempla- 
 tion of nature, by song and narrative, acquires a more positive 
 basis in the transition classes by the addition of Christian 
 
72 froebel's m transition classes." 
 
 truths (Jesus in his childhood being always the central figure), 
 with the reading of suitable chapters from the Bible, and hymns 
 of a more distinctly religious character. More time is also given 
 to worship at the beginning and end of the day's work, and 
 more seriousness thrown into it. This side of education, which 
 Froebel considered the most important, can only be fully under- 
 stood by a more thorough examination of the whole system than 
 is possible here. The true Kindergarten, such as Froebel con- 
 ceived it, is so completely imbued with a religious atmosphere 
 that everything in it helps to lead the mind up to God, to hallow 
 the children's thoughts and feelings, and to prepare them for the 
 reception of the actual substance of the Christian faith. To 
 grepare them, be it noted, not to impart it to them already, at 
 an age when they are incapable of grasping dogmatic teaching, 
 which is to them but empty words. 
 
 People in general have hitherto but little understood how to 
 awaken the religious sentiment in children sufficiently to form 
 a basis for later teaching. Only a few mothers here and there — 
 and rare exceptions they are in the present day — have discovered 
 the true way of leading their children's hearts from the beginning 
 of life to God and the things of God. And it is a task which 
 Froebel assigns pre-eminently to mothers. What the best and 
 truest mothers do by instinct, Froebel would make it possible for all 
 mothers to do, by supplying them with the needful guidance, for 
 understanding and satisfying the soul's needs- in this direction. 
 
 Nearly all the means which Froebel recommends for the 
 spiritual development of the child, lead directly or indirectly to 
 God — but always in a suitably childlike manner. At the present 
 stage of the progress of the human race nothing can or should 
 be left to mere feeling or instinct — least of all the most sacred 
 needs and welfare of the child's soul. Mothers, therefore, must 
 accept in this direction also the necessary instruction. 
 
 Whether Froebel's method of religious instruction is or is not 
 better than the ordinary one pursued in infant schools and 
 other similar institutions may easily be determined by com- 
 parison of the children trained in really good Kindergartens 
 with those belonging to other schools. Where children, at an 
 age when they are seldom capable of dissimulation, are seen 
 to exhibit the most earnestness, reverence and piety, during 
 prayers and singing of hymns, or while contemplating the works 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 73 
 
 of nature there we may be sure that the right method of training 
 prevails. A considerable m mber of parents and teachers have 
 given their verdict in favour of the Kindergarten system, in this 
 respect at any rate. 
 
 It must, however, always be borne in mind that the religious 
 instruction both in the actual Kindergarten and in the transition 
 classes is only preparatory. What is of most importance in 
 early childhood is the general atmosphere of the surroundings. 
 If this be truly religious — as it must be in a Kindergarten or- 
 ganised thoroughly according to Froebel's ideas — the first 
 foundations cannot fail to be laid in a right and natural manner. 
 
 It will be seen from the foregoing remarks that Froebel's 
 transition classes comprise all the principle points of elementary 
 schools, only they deal with them differently, inasmuch as 
 learning is always combined with hand-work. The industria 
 school, and the school properly so-called, are both represented in 
 an elementary stage, and in combination with one another. 
 Later on they will be separated to suit a riper stage of 
 development. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Kindergarten System and Industrial Schools. 
 
 The Kindergarten movement has no need to busy itself with 
 creating industrial schools, for these have existed in different 
 forms for nearly a century. They exist, however, apart from 
 the grammar schools, and are not, as they should be, closely 
 connected with them by means of a similar method. The only 
 way oi properly reforming these two classes of national schools, 
 and adapting them to the modern relations between labour and 
 labourers, is by bringing them into organic connection with one 
 another. But this can only be accomplished by applying the 
 same principle in both ; and this principle must be the one 
 which underlies Froebel's system, viz., the combination of men- 
 tal and physical activity, in practical work as well as in learn- 
 ing. 
 
74 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 The great majority of existing industrial schools, are training 
 institutes for particular professions, and intended for pupils of 
 more advanced youth. Such, for instance, are our trade* and 
 industry schools, agricultural schools, apprentice schools, and 
 many others. The attempts made by Pestalozzi,.Fellenberg, 
 Dehrli, Salzmann, Wilderspin, Lancaster, Owen and others, to 
 turn hand-work to account as an educational means for children, 
 have met with scarcely any support except in " Refuges " for 
 deserted children. The model institutes of this kind are the two 
 1 Mettrays " in France and the Netherlands, the " Bauhe 
 Haus " in Horn, the Institution at Ruysellede m Belgium, the 
 agricultural schools in England, and so forth. The " Pestaloz- 
 zian institutions," which have greatly multiplied of late, have 
 been hitherto the only industrial schools which have ad- 
 mitted quite little children — unless they were deserted children. 
 
 But in all these institutions manual work is not combined 
 with mental instruction. Work-hour3 and lesson-hours are 
 entirely separate. Moreover, work is regarded less as a means 
 of general culture than as an instrument for bread- winning or 
 as reformatory discipline 
 
 In the Mettray, at Tours, as well as at the Mettray in the 
 Netherlands (an institution founded by the well-known philan- 
 thropist Swinzar), the larger number of the working-hours are 
 devoted to agriculture and handicrafts. A very short space of 
 time remains over for mental instruction, and if we take also 
 into account the defective preparation of the pupils entering the 
 schools, it will be seen that these schools cannot possibly afford 
 that degree of intellectual culture which the demands of modern 
 civilisation render necessary, even for artisans. 
 
 In order that manual work may serve also as intellectual train- 
 ing already in childhood, say up to the twelfth year, it must not 
 be made a mechanical occupation in which the mental powers have 
 no share, for up to this age it is essential that the development 
 of soul and body be all round, i.e., no one part should receive 
 more attention than another. And if work is to be a means of 
 general development, it must be capable of application to children 
 of all classes, and be a preparation for any and every position 
 
 * Die Gewerbe-u-Industrieschulen, die Ackerbau-schuleii, die 
 Lehrlings-schulen. 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 75 
 
 in life. Now these ends cannot be attained either by the exist- 
 ing industrial schools, or by industrial schools of any sort, which 
 do not provide that manual and mental work should go hand- 
 in-hand. 
 
 To accomplish this has again and again been attempted during 
 the last hundred years, because it has come to be recognised how 
 unnatural it is to separate intellectual and physical activity in 
 childhood, and how the physical health of children suffers from 
 the increasing strain which school-work makes on their mental 
 powers. On the other hand, the exigencies of poverty have 
 caused the children of the lower classes to be trained with a 
 view to their early gaining a living. This was the principal 
 motive which determined Pestalozzi to make the children in 
 his pauper schools work with their hands. At the same time, 
 however, he was fully aware that such work, however well 
 fitted to cultivate manual dexterity, and to prepare for the prac- 
 tical domestic occupations of life, was not sufficient for general 
 educational purposes, or for moral culture. He, too, sought to 
 discover an universal principle of activity, which might be 
 applied both to physical and mental work, something akin to 
 what he called, " The principle of all organic life; " but he did 
 not succeed in finding what he sought. 
 
 In all the schools in winch it was customary to carry on 
 various kinds of manual work, there was not sufficient time left 
 to get through the amount of book learning which is more and 
 more insisted on, even in pauper schools, and so it came to be 
 recognised that if the children were really to profit by their 
 school years, they must have some preparation also as regards 
 manual dexterity and the technicalities of industrial work, 
 before entering school. The realisation of this idea, viz., by 
 training children through their play, was first made possible by 
 Froebel. 
 
 Fourrier, too, in his " System of Social Beform," places 
 work as the chief educational means, and insists that the 
 earliest games of children should be used as a preparation for 
 it ; and this specially with a view to discovering early the 
 natural capacities of children for particular vocations. 
 
 He recommends, for instance, that quite young children 
 should be taken into different sorts of workshops in order that 
 their bias for one or other of the handicrafts should have an 
 
76 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 opportunity of pronouncing itself. The particular kind of 
 work that any child happened to take a special fancy to should 
 then be regarded as indicating his special aptitude, and he 
 should be made to exercise his powers in this direction with 
 materials and instruments suited to his age. 
 
 The desired end would not, however, be reached in this way ; 
 for the little children not understanding in the least what they 
 were looking at would only be attracted by the outward ap- 
 pearance of the stuffs and products, and their real industrial 
 tastes and inclinations would not be called out at all. More- 
 over, the practising of work beyond their capacity would 
 scarcely produce in them any mechanical dexterity, and the 
 continuous repetition of the same movements at the same work 
 would only call into play some of the senses and organs, while 
 the others would remain uncultivated. 
 
 The harmonious development of all the powers and disposi- 
 tions, which' Fourrier, too, considers of great importance, 
 would thus be checked from the beginning. The young un- 
 practised limbs of little children are wanting in the muscu- 
 lar force necessary, even to imitate, with childish work-tools, 
 the mechanical actions involved in most handicrafts. And as 
 to the mental powers, they would remain completely dormant in 
 all this mechanical work, and not even have the opportunity 
 for collecting a few experimental facts. 
 
 We might give many other instances of the mistaken means 
 by which Fourrier proposes to accomplish his end ; but at the 
 isame time we must not fail to recognise the many great and true 
 opinions, and thoughts of genius very often, which are closely 
 bound up with so much that is erroneous, and also the frequent 
 coincidence between his and Froebel's ideas, although 
 the two men knew nothing of each other. If 
 Fourrier's followers and disciples would take the trouble to 
 make themselves accurately acquainted with Froebel's system 
 they could not fail to be convinced that the Kindergarten 
 affords the right means of carrying out whatever is true in 
 Fourrier's theories. 
 
 In the Kindergarten, for instance, the industries which are 
 to be carried on in after-life are not practised as such, but every 
 limb, every sense, every muscle and every nerve, is set in ac- 
 tion, and the general manipulations common to all handicrafts 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 77 
 
 are practised. The young child cannot fell and saw down 
 trees, or break stones to build with ; and, therefore, beams and 
 bricks are given to him, but he is left to experimentalise with 
 them according to his fancy. He cannot carve wood and stone, 
 but he can cut up paper, leather, and other soft materials ; he 
 cannot chisel in marble, but he can shape soft clay ; he cannot 
 handle a plane, a hammer, and such-like instruments, with any 
 profit or result, but by using a slate-pencil, a pair of scissors, or a 
 pin for pricking out, he may acquire the general kind of handi- 
 ness which is so desirable. 
 
 But the manual dexterity which is necessary for the mere 
 mechanical part of handiwork is only part of the culture which 
 should be given to every child. Unless their sense of beauty be 
 awakened, and their minds opened to elements of art, their 
 work will be of a nature to destroy all intellectual life. The 
 aesthetic culture which, according to Fourrier, is to be arrived 
 at by the mere contemplation of art, and the hearing of music, 
 the Kindergarten effects by means of the pupil's own produc- 
 tions. 
 
 Another of Froebel's fundamerrol principles, viz., the 
 analogy between the development of the individual and that of 
 the human race, had also been struggling to assert itself before 
 Froebel's time. Herbart was one of its advocates. Campe, 
 too, in his " Bobinson the Younger," has represented the 
 efforts of mankind after self-culture, by the inventions, dis- 
 coveries and enterprises of a single individual, and has thus 
 produced the most useful book that could have been written for 
 children. 
 
 But, however useful it may be in many respects for children 
 to re-enact for themselves the events of his life — to build Bobin- 
 son's hut, construct his fortifications, make his fishing-nets, 
 rope-ladders, &c, the general preparation necessary for every 
 kind of work cannot be acquired in this way. And just as 
 little in this way can the earliest stages of human culture be 
 lived over again by the children. But what can be done by 
 this means is to lay a certain foundation for understanding the 
 history of human culture. 
 
 Froebel, too, used to make his pupils at Keilhau act out the life 
 and adventures of Campe's " Bobinson Crusoe," and that possibly 
 in a more complete manner than has ever been effected else- 
 
78 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 where. I was myself witness there of the mimic storming of a 
 city which was a perfect model of one of Robinson's. The only 
 object, however, which Froebel had in view was to enable the 
 childish imagination to practise itself in acting out the stories 
 that are told. Human work in general cannot be practised in 
 this manner, either with a view to technical skill, or to mastery 
 of material, or to theoretical understanding. 
 
 Suppose that different historical epochs were represented in 
 the same fashion, it would still always be a kind of play-acting, 
 not necessarily without any use at all, but certainly not conducive 
 to the desired end. The young child is deficient in any standard 
 whereby to realise historical epochs, and it does not live them 
 over again, however much it may imitate them. It is not 
 possible to enable a child to live through the patriarchal age, the 
 crusades, or the reformation era. 
 
 Taken in Froebel's sense, however, this idea has a very 
 different meaning, and must be carried out in a very different 
 manner. 
 
 The great typical facts of human existence, those facts which 
 have been realised through humanity, i.e., the family, the 
 State, the Church, which make human society what it is, and 
 without which it would not be thinkable, however much these 
 institutions may vary in their outward form of expression, and 
 become modified in the course of their progress, these facts are 
 undoubtedly an integral part of child life. As each simple acorn 
 contains within itself the possibility of an oak-tree, so in every 
 child are found all the characteristics of its race, or of human 
 existence, with this difference only, that the capacity for develop- 
 ment increases with every new generation. 
 
 The instincts of the child must consequently pronounce them- 
 selves in a manner analogous to what has gone on in the case of 
 mankind. As mankind occupied itself at first solely with self- 
 preservation and the gratification of the physical necessities, so 
 is it with the young child, which at the beginning of life is only 
 conscious of itself and its own wants. In the early age ot 
 unconscious, merely instinctive life, the human being is a com- 
 plete egotist striving with all his energies only to keep himself 
 in existence. The instinct of self-preservation presupposes all 
 the instincts which relate to material needs, such as the instincts 
 of habitation, of food and clothing. With the first awakening of 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 79 
 
 the higher or spiritual impulses, humanity first began to 
 recognise the family relations. The child, too, at a correspond- 
 ing stage, and that after a few months of existence, enters into 
 relation with its family, beginning with the mother. 
 
 From the mental development which ensues, result the highest 
 impulses towards the good, the true, the beautiful ; and these lead 
 up to science, art, morality, and religion. 
 
 Out of the instincts of material self-preservation there arose in 
 the stage of consciousness — or civilization — agriculture, and all 
 that it entails with regard to natural products, industry, trade, 
 commerce, &c. Out of the family or social instinct, arose the 
 communal life, the nation, the state, civil rights and all that 
 concerns moral life. Out of the instinct towards goodness and 
 truth, sprang art and science ; and out of the religious instinct 
 resulted the Church. 
 
 These instincts which, in the course of their development, have 
 brought about the civilization of human society, must necessarily 
 manifest themselves in the child from its very cradle. It is the 
 business of education to understand the nature of these instincts, 
 and to help them in the realisation of their endeavours, and thus 
 to lead the child on by gradual development from the state of 
 nature to the highest point of contemporaneous culture. 
 
 The form in which the child's instincts, or its activity, express 
 themselves, is play. And it is this fact which constitutes the 
 great significance of childish play. 
 
 The instinctive life, as such, is confined to the very earliest 
 period ot child-life, and for this very cause this period of existence 
 is the most important as regards education, because with the 
 first development of the instincts, the foundation is laid for all 
 later training. At this stage it is the force of necessity, of 
 natural inspirations, as it were, not personal will which rule 
 supreme ; and therefore Froebel insists that this is the period 
 when education should least of all proceed arbitrarily, but that it 
 should follow the indications of nature which alone point out 
 the right road. 
 
 To what extent the nature of the child is in its normal con- 
 dition, or in an abnormal more or less degenerate state, 
 owing to inherited faults, mental, moral or physical, is a question 
 which cannot possibly be entered into here. But Froebel 
 certainly does not assume — as many people, Fourrier amongst 
 
80 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 others, have accused him of doing — complete purity and perfec- 
 tion in child nature. A child does not bring with it into the 
 world absolute moral health any more than it does perfect mental 
 health. But faculties and dispositions that are still wholly un- 
 awakened cannot be called either good or bad until they have 
 pronounced themselves in this or that direction. And it is 
 because under any circumstances whatever they will naturally 
 manifest themselves imperfectly, and have a tendency to aberra- 
 tion, that education is needed from the very beginning. Instincts 
 which only leant towards what is right and good would not need 
 guiding and educating. 
 
 Those who are of opinion that in the first months, and even 
 years, of a child's life everything should be left to nature — i.e., to 
 chance impressions, must, if they are to be logical in their 
 opinions, believe that every child brings with it into the world 
 only good dispositions ; whereas (strange contradiction !) these 
 are the very people who hold most rigidly to the doctrine of 
 original sin. Another proof of how little human nature, more 
 especially child-nature, is yet understood, and of how much 
 need there is of a clearer light to illumine this dark region ! 
 
 The question is no less a one than of raising the psychology 
 of childish instincts into a science, a science which hitherto has 
 not existed. Froebel has shown a deeper insight into the 
 matter, than any thinker before his time, and he is the only one 
 who has produced a practical method for our guidance. 
 
 But because the ground he goes over is so little known he is 
 perpetually liable to be misunderstood, or not understood at all. 
 With regard to his Mutter-u-Kose-lieder for instance, it seem6 
 to many people almost insane, to seek for a deep meaning in the 
 instinctive utterances of children, and to see in them the germs 
 of future conception and ideas. 
 
 Froebel explains very little in his own writings, and does not 
 once make use of the expression : Psychology of childish in- 
 stincts — nor even of another expression we have often used, 
 "Principle of human activity," but no one who has fully 
 mastered the logical chain of ideas, which at present are only 
 completely expressed in Froebel's system of playthings, can fail 
 to recognise that the elements at least of such a science are here 
 treated of. 
 
 And is it really so utterly absurd to pretend to see indications 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 81 
 
 -of higher spiritual instincts, in such childish utterances as the 
 following. To discover for instance in the tendency, common to 
 all children, to put into their mouths any object that they can 
 get hold of, the first manifestation of a desire to understand the 
 nature of things ? It is an undoubted fact that the so-called 
 utterances which are common to all young children are stimu- 
 lated by one and the same purpose of nature. That in the case 
 in point the desire for bodily nourishment must not be set down 
 as the inspiring instinct is shown by the fact that children will 
 generally throw or push away anything that is given them to 
 eat, if any non-edible object with which they happen to be 
 occupied is taken from them, and will often cry to have the latter 
 given back to them. 
 
 The physiological explanation of this according to Froebel is 
 that while the tongue as the organ of the sense of taste is the 
 first to be developed by means of the process of bodily nourish- 
 ment, this same organ also subserves the instinct of desire for 
 knowledge. Just as blind people endeavour to gain a knowledge 
 of colour by means of the sense of taste, so young children 
 strive by means of the only organ which is as yet to any extent 
 developed to make themselves acquainted with the objects 
 around them. Quite unconsciously, of course, and without any 
 definite object — instinctively or intuitively. 
 
 The assertion that the cultivation of the sense of physical 
 taste is the precursor of the aesthetic taste or sense of 
 beauty, because everywhere there must be analogy between 
 the physical and mental functions and their cultivation, 
 will perhaps be received with equal scepticism, and it may 
 possibly be considered sheer arbitrariness to trace the first 
 instinctive yearnings to investigate causes to the fact that 
 all children try to find out the reason of the motion oi any 
 object, whether it be the pendulum of a clock, a weathercock, 
 a ball spinning on a string, &c, &c. ; or to pretend that their 
 physical sensation of pleasure in light, and m all light and 
 shining objects, such as the moon, clear water, and so-forth, is 
 the forerunner of the spiritual instinct which expresses itself 
 later in love for abstract truth and purity, for all that is highest 
 and most ideal. 
 
 No one doubts for a moment that mind and body act dis- 
 tinctly one upon the other, and are dependent the one on the 
 
 G 
 
82 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 other : but how would this be logically possible if there were 
 not a direct kinship or analogy between their manifestations ? 
 If man is to attain to a knowledge of himself of his innermost 
 being, it can only be through a comprehension of the relations 
 of his organs to the mental and spiritual forces which govern 
 them. That these have only been very imperfectly understood 
 hitherto cannot be a reason why they should never be better 
 understood. It is only a comparatively short time since the 
 sciences of physiology and anatomy have enabled us to under- 
 stand in some measure the working even of our bodily func- 
 tions and organs. 
 
 Were we to deny to the instincts of the child any significance 
 with regard to the later mental development and its influence on 
 the life of society, we could not consistently see in the instinc- 
 tive utterances, movements, &c, of a young animal a prepara- 
 tion for its later existence. The gambols of young animals 
 prepare them for the particular mode of life of their race, just 
 as the instinctive games of children are an expression of the 
 life of humanity ; this cannot be doubted, and is, indeed, self- 
 evident. Thus the instinct of habitation moves children to dig 
 holes in sand-heaps, or, with chairs, &c, to construct them- 
 selves a house in the corner of a room, or to mark off their own 
 little garden with sticks, &c, &c. 
 
 Mankind in its infancy dwelt in holes in the earth or caves, 
 until the instinct of habitation caused the first huts to be erected. 
 Then, after the family — the domestic hearth — had come into 
 being, towns were built, and later still tracts of land were 
 divided amongst different peoples or nations. Do we not thus 
 see family love gradually expanding into the love of country, 
 which is often strong enough to lead to the sacrifice of life ? 
 And shall it be said that there is no connection between this 
 (equally animal) instinct winch drives men to protect and hedge 
 in their own habitations, and which makes those habitations dear 
 to them, and that high feeling and noble sentiment which will 
 give up life itself for the sake of country ? And is it so 
 altogether absurd to try to trace the germ of the man's love for 
 his country in the first childish indication of the instinct of 
 habitation. 
 
 If there is any connection between the course of develop- 
 ment of the individual and that of humanity (and tliis at least 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 83 
 
 cannot be doubted), it must be traced in the direct and 
 universal utterances oi both : and thus in the childish instinct 
 for producing and constructing we have the germ of the 
 artistic sense, as the desire to investigate everything and pene- 
 trate into hidden secrets, leads on to knowledge and science. 
 
 To make one sell acquainted with this child-soul in order to 
 raise it from the very first out of the lower sphere of the senses 
 into the higher one of the spiritual or ideal world, and while 
 gratifying the instincts which conduce to physical maintenance 
 to consider at the same time those of the soul, herein lies the 
 secret of an education in harmony with nature, and the one 
 starting-point of all education. 
 
 The analogy between the course of the child's development 
 and that of humanity can, however, only be taken broadly in 
 its application to education. For instance, the fact that humanity 
 in its infancy had need of great physical exertion, that fighting 
 and wrestling were necessities of life, and that its first achieve- 
 ments were the result of physical labour — this fact should teach 
 us that our children, too, have the same needs, and that plenty 
 of physical movement must be provided for them ; that more of 
 their time should be spent in riding, swimming, gymnastics, 
 gardening, &c, than in sitting still on school benches. 
 
 The fact that infant humanity collected together its first know- 
 ledge from observation of the phenomena of nature, and through 
 experience in the use of the products of nature, should teach us 
 that our children must first be brought into contact with nature 
 in order that by their own observation and experience they may 
 acquire their first knowledge of life and of the world, that they 
 must learn first by personal activity and work, not by word- 
 teaching and study. 
 
 The further truth that it was only after a long period of 
 physical labour and experiences in the use and management of 
 material things, that systematised thought, knowledge and judg- 
 ment came in, should be to us a proof that our children ought 
 not to be crammed with abstract truths and statements before 
 they have acquired some knowledge of life and its realities ; that 
 boys and girls of fourteen or sixteen should not be made to 
 occupy themselves with philosophy, that their thinking powers 
 and their own wisdom must first have attained some degree of 
 maturity before the highest results of human thought are sub- 
 
84 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 mitted to their criticism, and that they should not be encouraged 
 to stand forth as sound and experienced thinkers before they 
 have even mastered the ABC of a world-philosophy of their own, 
 and learnt to deal with truth independently. 
 
 Only in some such general way as this can the historical 
 epochs 01 human culture serve as a guide to individual educa- 
 tion, but the most important point must always be the considera- 
 tion that humanity in its uncultivated condition expressed itself 
 by the works ox its hands, and not by letters : and that conse- 
 quently before our children are instructed in the knowledge of 
 letters, which were not invented until centuries after the first 
 beginnings of human culture, they, too, must have produced a 
 series of works with their own hands. 
 
 First concrete productions, beginning with the simplest and 
 rudest forms, and proceeding to the most developed and compli- 
 cated ; then pictures which shall develop into emblems ; and 
 then finally the symbols for pictures and objects, winch are 
 called letters ; this is the natural course which the history of 
 culture points out. Were not the earliest letters invented by 
 the human race — the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians — pictures ? 
 
 It is only in the utterances of the instinctive life of childhood 
 that education can find its true starting-point, and only in the 
 mode of development of the human race do we find a clue to the 
 right management of these utterances. Nature, too, gives us 
 no other help or guidance for the care and management of her 
 products. If we want to know how to treat any particular 
 plant we must inform ourselves as to the conditions under 
 which its species has developed ; the same course has to be 
 pursued in the case of animals. But not only does the instinctive 
 life of the child afford the best clue to its general development, 
 as expressed in its race or in humanity, the personal, individual 
 life which belongs to each separate human being can only be 
 rightly understood by a study of the outward utterances in 
 which the impulses and inclinations manifest themselves. The 
 Cause of the want of originality amongst human beings — of 
 originality in the highest sense of the word — lies in the sup- 
 pression or hindrance of, or, at any rate, in the little encourage- 
 ment given to, the earliest vtterances of children. If all, with- 
 out exception, are born with the same instincts, these instincts 
 exist nevertheless in different degrees of strength in different 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 85 
 
 # 
 
 individuals, and in the most manifold combinations. The 
 individuality of each one arises from the particular dispositions, 
 talents, and powers which predominate in him, and it is just 
 these which the childish utterances clearly express. If these 
 are not attended to, their development will be either weak and 
 imperfect, or altogether suppressed. 
 
 It is precisely at this point that our modern systems of educa- 
 tion are weakest ; they are wanting in the means of calling out 
 the individual characteristics at the beginning of life. This is 
 only possible when the young child is enabled to express itself 
 through the work of its own hands. It is because Froebel's 
 system makes this possible that it not only does not obliterate 
 the special stamp which each individual receives at birth, but, on 
 the contrary, brings it out with the greatest distinctness. 
 
 Froebel has thus established a new starting-point for education, 
 such as none before him had discovered. How far his prede- 
 cessors had worked in the same direction is beyond our present 
 consideration. Most great discoverers owe their best inspira- 
 tions to the abortive investigations or experiments of prede- 
 cessors ; there must, however, be one who takes the last step to 
 the goal. Here, however, it is not the discoverer, but the thing 
 discovered, which we are concerned with. 
 
 And this discovery, which holds out a means for rightly train- 
 ing the culture -instincts of the human being in the first uncon- 
 scious period of infancy, affords in addition the best help to 
 moral culture. For if the satisfaction of the higher, the 
 spiritual needs, be neglected, a lower and merely sensual gratifi- 
 cation will be sought after. It is a fact of common observation 
 that children who are left without interesting occupation, want 
 to be constantly eating. Or that young people can be drawn 
 away from coarse sensual enjoyment by artistic pursuits and 
 pleasures. Either ideal or else sensual gratification is the 
 alternative. To strive after contentment is the destiny of man. 
 And because it is always assumed that in earliest childhood 
 there are no spiritual needs, but only material ones, and these 
 are the only ones that people attempt to satisfy, the sensual 
 nature easily gains the mastery. A right and healthy discipline 
 of the senses consists in fitting them to serve as organs of the 
 spirit, and by this means sensuality, or the abuse ot the senses 
 for mere physical and material enjoyment, is checked. 
 
86 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 What is it that constitutes morality, but a right balance 
 between the necessities of the soul and those of the body, and 
 the self-mastery which knows how to preserve this balance ? And 
 this self-mastery can only be gained by the acquirement of good 
 habits, the foundation of which must be laid in childhood, in the 
 period when the instinct-life dominates. Morality has always to 
 strive after the suppression of impulses and inclinations which 
 draw us away from a higher destiny, in order to gratify the lower 
 or animal nature. 
 
 Those organs of the human frame which are most set in activity 
 are the ones which will gain strength and predominate. Thus 
 if children are allowed to gratify the desires of the palate unduly, 
 their love of eating will become excessive, and they will develope 
 into epicures. If, on the other hand, the bodily organs are kept 
 more or less in artistic activity, artistic inclinations will be called 
 out and predominate. Activity is thus the chief means 01 
 preserving the balance between the physical and spiritual wants. 
 It is only by a due activity of all the organs and senses, in pro- 
 portion to their importance, that the moral powers can strengthen 
 and attain to perfection. It is the business of primary education 
 to stimulate tins activity, and to exercise the organs with a view 
 to it. 
 
 Froebel's " Mutter-a Kose lieder" supplies mothers with hints 
 how the first little childish games may serve to direct the 
 child's attention to many natural phenomena, to the different 
 handicrafts of men, and to the principal motives of human action, 
 and show how the child's earliest activity may be connected with 
 its play. By such exercises the child's instincts of culture are 
 awakened, and they become strengthened by continued occupa- 
 tions of a corresponding nature, until they develope into 
 capacities for actual work. 
 
 But that work should be voluntary spontaneous activity, i.e., 
 carried on from inclination and love, this is the first condition of 
 its being in the higher sense a means of education and moral 
 culture. The slave who is lashed to his tasks will certainly not 
 derive from them the same moral benefits as the artist who 
 performs his work with the highest intellectual or spiritual 
 eujoyment, or as the father who, out of love for his children, toil! 
 in the sweat of his brow. 
 
 The only hope of making activity, and later on real work, 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 87 
 
 pleasant to children, is by a right and timely gratification of their 
 active impulses in accordance with the requirements of their 
 nature. And this nature will not endure to be strained beyond 
 its powers, or to be compelled to a one-sided and mechanical 
 activity, but requires to work with the forces of body and soul 
 simultaneously, and to see a real and tangible result of its 
 activity. 
 
 To leave the childish instinct to itself cannot produce a 
 satisfactory result, as in the case of animals. The fox builds its 
 hole, the bee its cells, the swallow its nest, with faultless 
 exactitude, and mathematical regularity once and always. And 
 why is this ? Because their natural instinct contains within 
 itself the guiding law, and the laws of nature never fail to 
 accomplish their end. 
 
 The human being, however, destined to conscious knowledge 
 and action, must go through an apprenticeship of error and 
 failure, in order to accomplish his destiny. But the right guide 
 of the childish instinct can be no other than the same law which 
 leads the instinct of the animal unerringly to its goal. 
 
 It is the property of genius, also, that it has an intuit 've sense 
 of the laws of its productive activity, and that it works 
 unconsciously in accordance with them. The improvisations ol 
 musical geniuses accord with the laws of harmony, even though 
 they have never studied thorough bass, just as the notes of the 
 nightingale make harmony and not discord; for the law of 
 harmony rules in nature as well as in the mind of man. But in 
 order to compose an opera or an oratorio the greatest genius 
 needs a systematic knowledge of the laws of music, and must 
 have mastered the science of harmony. 
 
 If a child's powers are to produce the results which its in- 
 stincts crave after — results which will satisfy it — its uncon- 
 scious action must be guided by the law of all production. At 
 the same time, the child will remain quite unconscious of the 
 law — just as the untrained musical genius is — and will work in 
 accordance with it, without understanding its why or its where- 
 fore. 
 
 Every healthily born child brings into the world with it some 
 slight spark of genius — for what is genius but the preponder- 
 ance in greater or less degree, and in whatever direction, of 
 some one power or capacity for production. Every human 
 
88 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 being possesses some special endowment which is the strongest 
 of his powers, and the development of which may lead to 
 original production. The one gifted with a strong sense of 
 form and beauty builds a cathedral which is a masterpiece ; 
 another with the same kind of gift, only in a lesser degree, con- 
 tracts tables, vases, or shoes in a perfect manner. Be it great or 
 small, some spark of productive genius dwells in every living 
 being called by the name of man, for a being formed after the 
 image of the Creator must be destined to create. How much, 
 however, of this human creative power fulfils its end, and how 
 much of it is lost, is a calculation which no statician would be 
 equal to. But what can a state accomplish without cultivated 
 human powers ? 
 
 The feeblest spark of genius may grow into a flame if it 
 receives adequate fuel or nourishment. But this is precisely 
 what is wanting in earliest childhood, because our educational' 
 systems leave out of account the law of all production, the law 
 according to which the artist produces his masterpieces, and' 
 the silk-worm spins. " Forbid the silk-worm to spin," — he 
 will go on all the same ! But not so the human being, who hi 
 thousands and thousands of ways, may be hindered from spin- 
 ning out his particular destiny. " Genius needs no tutor, it 
 bursts through all obstructions and makes itself room to work ir. 
 spite of all ! " This is the universal dictum, and obstacles are 
 looked upon as spurs to action, and their removal as a disad- 
 vantage. But would the gifts of a Beethoven, a Raphael, or a 
 Goethe, left to grow up among the beasts of the forest, or in a. 
 dark cave, far from all intercourse with human beings, have 
 fulfilled their destiny in the world of art ? Certainly not. 
 
 Wherefore, then, is it that checks and hindrances do fre- 
 quently promote the growth of genius? Because energy is 
 thereby awakened and driven to action and labour. Thus 
 hunger may in many cases have been the first cause which has 
 driven men on to the production of great works. Neverthe- 
 less, all that is necessary is that the powers that are to produce 
 certain work should be raised to action. If only this be done 
 the means does not so much matter. It is, however, better 
 that another way should be chosen than that of hunger or 
 misery — SO me way which shall not, as too often happens, destroy 
 the physical powers. 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 89 
 
 Who could undertake to say how much genius, or at any rate, 
 how much endowment, is wasted or lost through causes of 
 whatever kind ? Amongst these there is, perhaps, one chief 
 reason why so much capacity for artistic work comes to no- 
 thing : viz., the want of early mastery of technical difficulties. In 
 order, for instance, now-a-days to accomplish anything of mark 
 in music so much technical training is necessary that it is only 
 when energy, opportunity, and time, are all three at command 
 that the necessary standard can be attained. 
 
 The biographies of distinguished men of all kinds, whether 
 geniuses or examples of moral greatness, show almost invari- 
 ably that they were favoured by circumstances as well as by 
 education. The influence, too, of a great and good mother is 
 generally seen to have had no less a share in their development 
 than other external circumstances, whether of nature, art, sur- 
 roundings, &c. 
 
 As a plant dies or degenerates, if it be not tended, so is it 
 with human beings, whether born with genius or without it. 
 Genius, no doubt, is inborn ; it is the gift of God, and contains 
 in itself in a peculiar manner the power of production. Mere 
 natural genius, however, has never brought forth anything of 
 note, and if left to itself degenerates like a plant. All men 
 need discipline, but most especially those in whom great and 
 various, and oftentimes conflicting, forces strive, as is generally 
 the case in natures which have the stamp of genius. 
 
 To supply such natures in earliest childhooji with the materials 
 which are necessary to draw forth their still dormant faculties, 
 to hold out to them the means of conquering technical difficul- 
 ties, and thereby guide the blind childish efforts to push their 
 way to the destined end ; this is what is needed in order to 
 produce a better and timelier cultivation of every talent than 
 can be done when early education is left to chance circum- 
 stances. Had Goethe grown up among the Hottentots he would 
 not have been " Goethe." Had he not listened in childhood to 
 the narratives of his mother, he would, perhaps, have narrated 
 less well himself; and, on the other hand, with earlier and 
 better instruction in drawing, he would presumably have been a 
 better draughtsman, seeing how much artistic power there was 
 in him ; as it was, he strove in vain to reproduce perfectly with 
 his pencil the clear, well-defined visions of his imagination. 
 
90 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 This law of production, which is inborn in all creatures, and 
 which genius grasps unerringly by its own intuitive power, 
 winch guides the child-musician through the mazes of harmony, 
 and inspires the painter with the right combinations of lines and 
 colours, this law when presented to children as a guide in their 
 little labours is seized with unconscious trust and sympathy as 
 the hand of a well-known friend, and helps them with astounding 
 rapidity to master their first childish difficulties. 
 
 The stimulus to energy which some would look for only in the 
 shape of outward obstacles, may easily be found in the competition 
 of childish powers, which community of work and play naturally 
 supplies. Only let it be remembered that this competition must 
 take place before the young nature has to battle with the demons 
 of passion and sensual desires, to which so many fall victims, 
 especially amongst the best and most gifted beings. The energy 
 of the youthful powers will only fully develop itself under a 
 healthy system of mental and physical diet, and this is not to be 
 had, either in the luxurious, enervating homes of the wealthy, or 
 in those of the very poor. Both these extreme conditions have 
 probably to answer for an equal share of talents nipped in the 
 bud. Under no circumstances can it be considered the business 
 of education to put obstacles in the way of the development of 
 natural talents, under the pretext of awakening energy. 
 
 The Kindergarten system contends with the worst enemy of 
 genius and of morality, in that it seeks, by means of early activity 
 to overcome mental and physical inertness. If it is true that 
 this inertness is a characteristic of all matter, and therefore of 
 man as far he is a material being, it is nevertheless an error to 
 presuppose this quality in children without its opposite — the 
 instinct of activity or movement. One or other of these charac- 
 teristics predominates during childhood, according to the tem- 
 perament of the particular child, but in the majority of healthy 
 children the active instinct, both spiritual as well as physical, is 
 undoubtedly the ruling one. 
 
 Nature implants this impulse of development in sufficient 
 measure in every child ; those, however, who have the care of 
 children do not yet adequately understand how to turn it to its 
 proper end. The first thing necessary is to afford children at 
 an early age the satisfaction of the harmonious activity of all 
 their powers, and that in the only way suited to them, viz., 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 91 
 
 play. The second is the sufficiently frequent repetition ot par- 
 ticular ^>Za#-exercises, in order that habits of activity may be 
 formed. And the third is, that all activity should, as early in 
 life as possible, be made to produce a tangible and lasting 
 result. If strength, and skill, and fixed habits, and at the same 
 time pleasure have been attained for and through activity — and 
 later on actual work^-work will then be loved for its own sake, 
 will produce enjoyment, and will, in many cases, be as good as 
 play And even when it amounts to labour in the sweat of the 
 brow, when it calls for great exertion, youthful strength will 
 seldom shrink from it, if only it leads to some wished-for goal. 
 
 It is the task of education to provide for human powers a 
 training school of this sort ; whatever else is wanted to rouse 
 men out of their apathy and inactivity, fate will be certain to 
 supply through pain and conflict, care and sorrow. 
 
 The idea that genius will develop with greater strength and 
 attain its end more perfectly if left to itself, untrammelled by 
 education, will be seen to be an empty fancy when the Kinder- 
 garten system shall have become everywhere completely domesti- 
 cated. The origin of this idea is no doubt attributable on the one 
 hand to the one-sidedness of school education, which is so apt to 
 stifle with book-learning and cramming all individual capacity 
 for production, or which, at any rate, does nothing to awaken it; 
 and, on the other hand, to the universal experience of how the 
 most ordinary material, and the most accidental opportunity 
 will serve to call out some talent which will attain its destiny 
 apparently by its own unaided strength and exertion. How 
 many great men have there not been whose childhood was spent 
 in minding cattle, and who never went to school? Was it, 
 however, in consequence of the want of education, or in spite of 
 it, because their own endowments and energy were sufficient to 
 them, that these men became great ? And was it not, perhaps, 
 the healthy physical development and the strengthening influ- 
 ences of free nature, combined with the absence of all the pre- 
 mature culture which is so enfeebling and destructive to mental 
 energy, which allowed their genius to awaken and develop ? 
 
 There is still a considerable number of people who are of 
 opinion that it is only mediocrity and stupidity that needs the 
 discipline of education, and that those who are gifted with a 
 Promethean spark may be left to themselves. This is an error 
 
 ? S£> > or tor   
 
92 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 which must be strenuously opposed. It is equally an error to 
 suppose that only a very few have any spark of genius, and 
 that the generality of human beings are sterile plants, or destined 
 by nature for mere Philistinism. 
 
 Formerly when the wider separation between different classes 
 of society prevented any means of mental awakening from 
 reaching by indirect ways the lower ranks, the natural endow- 
 ments of the many remained for the most part dormant, and it 
 was only geniuses of the highest order whose Titaman strength 
 could burst through all barriers, who came forth out of slumber 
 and darkness. Now-a-days, however, when the light of know- 
 ledge penetrates to the darkest comers, if only in such a low and 
 disfigured shape as that of the local press, forces are awakened 
 which if not controlled by proper culture and application will 
 sooner or later explode and will carry a curse instead of a blessing 
 into society, like the ungovemed forces of nature when not 
 brought under the control of man. Now that the respectable 
 stupidity of former days is for the most part replaced by the 
 stupidity of the rogue, owing to its not having been overcome 
 by proper culture, i.e., moral culture, it has become an imperative 
 necessity that all existing powers and talents should be provided 
 with the means of serving society in their different measure. 
 And though centuries may elapse before such a state of things 
 has become a possibility, the demand will continue to make itself 
 heard in a multitude of social evils — until it meets at last with a 
 satisfactory solution. 
 
 Means of education and development are essential for every 
 degree of natural endowment, but most of all in those cases where 
 there is a variety of conflicting powers with one strongly pre- 
 ponderating inclination. In order to preserve the proper balance 
 between these, to cultivate all in the individual which is the 
 common property of humanity side by side with his special 
 characteristics, and to guard against the departure from useful 
 laws and customs, which characters of genius are always inclined 
 to, all this needs careful education infinitely more than does a 
 commonplace mediocre nature. The reason why our present 
 schools are so unsuccessful in the case of their specially gifted 
 pupils — on the course of whose development it is difficult to count 
 and who will always strike out their own paths — is that they are 
 so deficient in means for rightly calling out and satisfying theii 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 93 
 
 productive capacities. It is only original productive work, the 
 conditions for which the Kindergarten system completely affords, 
 which can accomplish this. 
 
 The principal instincts which Froebel's method makes use of 
 in order to give the desired stimulus to education in general, as 
 also to training for special work, in order to satisfy the conditions 
 of the present day, may be summed up under four heads, viz : 
 
 (1.) The grounding of education on the instincts of culture of 
 the child's nature. 
 
 (2.) Consideration of the course of development of humanity 
 in the education of the individual. 
 
 (3.) Application of the universal principle of all activity (the 
 law of the reconciliation of opposites) in childish occupations ; 
 and 
 
 (4.) The making education begin from the earliest age with 
 productive activity. 
 
 Thus a new foundation is laid whereby the one-sidedness of 
 existing schools, whether schools of learning or industrial schools, 
 may be corrected. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that the kernel of Froebel's 
 method consists in simply producing at an early age a capacity 
 for work, although this is a by no means unimportant result of 
 the system. In so far as children's work serves only as a means of 
 culture, it must be primarily considered as such. Manual occupa- 
 tions are intended to hinder the premature and one-sided develop- 
 ment of reason and understanding, and this is the only cause why 
 education should begin with them. It is the immediate destiny 
 of man on earth to transform by his creative power the globe on 
 which he lives, i.e., to make it conform on all sides to his own 
 development, and thus at the same time to work out his own life 
 in harmony with his special individuality, and the individuality 
 of his age. And the only work which is of any value is that 
 which while preserving childish simplicity and spontaneity de- 
 velopes at the same time the true creative power of the human 
 soul ! The great evil of the present day is the premature forcing 
 of the reflective powers, which hinders the growth of feeling and 
 will. 
 
 Practice in producing can alone lead to production, and thus 
 the child must begin with manual exercises before being put to 
 abstract learning. General, and as far as possible, harmonious 
 
94 THE KINDERGAR1EN SYSTEM 
 
 development of all the powers and dispositions is the first thing 
 to be aimed at — training for later remunerative work comes only 
 second in order. Original action prepares for original thought, 
 which it is the business of schools to foster, if they would be 
 the centres of true human culture. The reason why manual 
 work has hitherto been ignored in schools is that it has always 
 been purely mechanical. Before it had been made possible for 
 children's hands and minds to be actively employed at one and 
 the same time manual work could not be a means of general 
 culture. And this again is only then possible when one and the 
 same principle is applied to both kinds of activity, i.e., that the 
 members, or the hands, work according to the same rules which 
 the organs of mental activity obey. 
 
 Although it is a fact which is understood of itself that the 
 execution by the hand of that which the will dictates is only 
 possible when hand and will are guided by the same law ; we are, 
 nevertheless, still in the dark as to the reason of this fact. 
 Presumably for the reason that the two separate kinds of 
 activity seem so entirely one. There are so many things which 
 have never been thought about, because they lie too near and seem, 
 so to say, to be understood of themselves. It is precisely in these 
 things that the universal laws express themselves. Thus, for in- 
 stance, it is the law of opposites which, when the will is striving 
 towards a particular place, causes the feet to go up and down 
 regularly one after the other in order to preserve the necessary 
 balance. Many people before Newton have seen an apple fall 
 from a tree without, like him, being led to the discovery of the 
 law of gravitation. This fundamental law of the universe, 
 which may also be called the law of balance, is the same as 
 Froebel's law of the reconcilation of opposites, for balance is 
 nothing else than the connection of two opposites. Whether 
 this balance be produced by the forces of attraction and repulsion, 
 or be manifested as harmony in the relations of things as regards 
 size, form, colour, &c, is not to our present purpose. It is 
 always connected opposites which produce balance and harmonj\ 
 The hands of a man can only act in accordance with the 
 promptings of Ins mind, and could not possibly execute what he 
 wills and thinks if they did not follow the same laws which rule 
 his thinking and willing. 
 
 Whether the discovery of the cause of this phenomenon be 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 95 
 
 considered possible or not, the fact remains the same, and on 
 the consciousness of this fact hangs indisputably the science of 
 work. We will leave it to men of science to examine into 
 Froebel's discovery in order to convince themselves that he has 
 found out the principle of human activity (both mental and 
 physical), and we look to them to establish the scientific proofs 
 of the matter. All that we are concerned with here is to call 
 attention to the facts, which have hitherto been always com- 
 pletely overlooked. 
 
 All the works of man, let him produce what he will, are in 
 their origin the works of his mind ; and why, then, should not 
 the mental exercises which the school has to provide aim at 
 material work as their result. Or to reverse the matter : why 
 should not manual work be so planned that it may serve to 
 exercise the faculties of the mind ? When once the universal 
 principle of activity shall be thoroughly mastered and applied in 
 all directions, gymnastics, wrestling, and all athletic exercises 
 will lead to practical results in work, and the time spent on 
 them will thus bring double gain. 
 
 Though it is an almost universal practice now-a-days for 
 schools to devote a certain amount of time to gymnastic exer- 
 cises, the balance between mental and bodily activity is still far 
 from perfect, especially in the case of quite young children. It 
 is at last beginning to be acknowledged that the reason of the 
 great proportion of ill-health and physical weakness which shows 
 itself even in childhood and youth, and the growing prevalence 
 of brain and nerve diseases is, in great measure, to be found in 
 the undue and premature strain to which children's mental 
 organs are subjected. Froebel's Kindergarten method and 
 transition classes afford the only efficient means for correcting 
 this evil. The whole reform of educational systems, the need of 
 Which has never been so thoroughly recognised as in the present 
 day, depends on this blending of abstract learning with practical 
 work, and in no other way will our national schools be estab- 
 lished on a right basis. 
 
 School masters and educationalists will easily find out the 
 ways and means of gradually inoculating existing school systems 
 with this new element. When once a beginning has been made, 
 practical experience will teach whatever more is needed. Only 
 it must always be borne in mind that the isolated use of separate 
 
98 
 
 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 parts of Froebel's system, which forms a connected series of 
 links, of which no one is indispensable to the whole, cannot ac- 
 complish the desired end, and will be of very slight advantage. 
 There are many elementary schools, for instance, in which 
 single Kindergarten occupations — such, perhaps, as stick-laying — 
 are taught, and it is a common thing to hear teachers say, that 
 this or that part of Froebel's system is very beneficial, but that 
 they do not believe in going in for the whole. This shows a com- 
 plete ignorance of the fundamental principle of Froebel's educa- 
 tional method ; which, indeed, is in great measure attributable 
 to the want of good commentaries on his writings. 
 
 Froebel's " School of Practical Occupation " coincides perfectly 
 with the art and industrial copies and models already in vogue, 
 and which are daily being improved and developed. But that 
 which these copies and models do not enable those who imitate 
 them to acquire, viz., original invention, Kindergarten pupils 
 bring with them ; and they are, therefore, in a position to make 
 quite a different use of the models in art and industrial schools, 
 and to reproduce them far more perfectly. Moreover, by the 
 use of Froebel's method, the habit of mere imitation is enor- 
 mously decreased. 
 
 As has before been observed, we are only concerned here with 
 the schools for the people, and for the present the combination 
 of manual work with study must stop when we get to a higher 
 grade of culture. How, and in what degree, the Kindergarten 
 principles are to be applied at a later stage of education must be 
 left chiefly for the educational profession to determine. As 
 soon, however, as the first steps have been taken, going on from 
 the foundation already made, the mere fact of practical applica- 
 tion will suggest many hints for a further development of the 
 theory. Has the time come for the separation of learning and 
 manual work, school- workshops, such as already exist in indus- 
 trial schools, might be established, only of course with the sub- 
 stitution of invention for mechanical work. One point of differ- 
 ence between the higher and learned schools, and the schools 
 for the people might consist in making the manual exercises 
 more confined to preparation for artistic work in the first, 
 whereas in the others agriculture and industrial occupations in 
 general should be more taken into account. At the same time, 
 it must not be forgotten that if a foundation be laid in earliest 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 97 
 
 childhood, according to Froebel's method, it will greatly reduce 
 the expenditure of time necessary for the acquirement of indis- 
 pensable knowledge as also of practical skill ; and, moreover, 
 that much will be thereby made possible which otherwise could 
 not be thought of. 
 
 When Froebel first began to carry out his educational princi- 
 ples at Keilhau, he experienced the fact that the defective 
 preparation of his pupils was the reason why so many regulations 
 which he felt to be right could no» be applied, thus rendering 
 the complete carrying out of his theories an impossibility. The 
 scientific studies of his pupils were too much limited by the 
 amount of time which was required to give them the necessary 
 training in all the practical technicalities which it was necessary 
 for them to master in view of then* future callings in lite. 
 
 Meanwhile it is a known fact that, in spite of the impossibility 
 of at once fully carrying cut his ideas, the best kind of men, 
 especially as regards moral character, are those who were 
 trained at the Keilhau institute. 
 
 To Froebel, however, these failures and experiences were only 
 an incentive to strive after a more satisfactory basis for his 
 system by preparation for it in earliest childhood, the want of 
 which seemed to him the principal cause of the incomplete 
 success of his efforts. In order to insure success, he saw that 
 it was necessary to find some means of bringing his pupils to a 
 certain degree of technical proficiency before school-time, 
 without injuring the natural course of mental development. 
 
 This is not the place for following out the course by which 
 Froebel elaborated his system, or for giving particulars concern- 
 ing his institute at Keilhau. Dr. Wichard Lange, of Hamburg, 
 has already furnished us with much information in this respect, 
 and further contemplates an exhaustive treatise concerning the 
 Keilhau establishment and all that bears in any way on 
 Froebel's theory. 
 
 What seems to us here of most importance is to throw some 
 light on that side of the question which concerns training in 
 manual work as a means for satisfying the active instinct of 
 children, and also to exhibit Froebel's discovery as a principle 
 of human activity, the knowledge of which makes it possible 
 to establish a science of work. 
 
 In the Kindergarten the practicability, as well as the truth of 
 
 H 
 
98 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM 
 
 this principle, is clearly demonstrated, and the possibility 
 established of a farther application, which, for the reasons 
 above-mentioned, could not but fail at first. In this, as in all 
 other cases, whatsoever is new and good can only come gradually 
 to maturity, and must pass the crucial test of many abortive 
 attempts. Even the longest human life is seldom sufficient for 
 the complete realisation of an idea. Nevertheless, as the tree 
 grows out of the seed, so out of every sound idea fruit ripens at 
 last. Although it was not granted to Froebel to see his Kinder- 
 garten system, which he only perfected at an advanced age, 
 thorouglily incorporated with school systems, the embodiment 
 of his ideas in the games and occupations which he has left us, 
 together with his written expositions, are nevertheless sufficient 
 for a future perfect realisation. 
 
 The introduction of Froebel' s system of work into schools 
 will necessitate many alterations, both in industrial and other 
 schools. Even professional and training schools will gradually 
 undergo modifications. 
 
 Except in those institutions which depend in great part for 
 their support on the earnings of their pupils, houses of refuge, 
 pauper-schools, and so forth, merely mechanical labour will 
 increase more and more as time goes on. And even in these 
 schools the material gain of purely mechanical occupations may 
 be made up for by others which shall also serve for culture. 
 For instance, why should not Papp-wor~k and book-binding of an 
 artistic kind (such as is often carried on in prisons) replace 
 many of the unprofitable occupations, such as the purely 
 mechanical work of cleaning coffee and spices for grocers, or 
 the fabrication of wooden hoops for barrels, and so forth, 
 occupations which the pupils in these institutions are kept at 
 for several hours daily, and that for the most meagre pittance. 
 
 Such misuse of childish faculties is similar to what goes on in 
 factories. It would be well if the same zeal were shown in 
 fighting against this most pernicious practice, as is expended 
 against many lesser evils. Efforts in this direction would 
 considerably help to diminish the number of our criminals ; and 
 there can be no better means of reducing pauperism than by 
 increasing the number of educational institutions for the poor, 
 and introducing into them the Kindergarten system. 
 
 Not momentary gain, but training for the future, is what we 
 
AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. 99 
 
 have to consider, and a capital of practical industry may be 
 reaped in this way, compared to which the temporary gain 
 acquired by the abuse of childish force dwindles into nothing. 
 The capital, too, in physical strength and health, which may be 
 realised by proper treatment of the children of our poor, is not 
 to be lightly esteemed. The millions of sickly, crippled human 
 beings developed out of factory children, children employed in 
 mines, &c, not to mention those who grow up in dirty, 
 unhealthy homes, cost the State a vast deal more in workhouses, 
 prisons, hospitals, &c, than the expense of properly planned 
 educational institutes. 
 
 It is not only, however, in schools for the people, but in all 
 schools, of whatever class, that suitable manual work should be 
 provided for. If it is of special importance for the children of 
 the poor in view of their future bread-winning, the children of 
 the higher classes have much need of it also for the complete 
 development of their minds and bodies. 
 
 Before these children enter the higher burger schools and 
 gymnasiums, the real schools, and later on art and indus- 
 trial schools, they all have to go through a common 
 preliminary system of learning while they are working, and 
 working while they are learning. That which in actual child- 
 hood must go on simultaneously, in a further stage when the 
 separation of these two educational factors sets in more or less, 
 must be continued side by side. First, manual work in actual 
 combination with school work, then the work-shop side by side 
 with school classes, and in addition to both agriculture and 
 gymnastics. 
 
 The outward obstacles which impede the incorporation of 
 FroebePs system in ordinary schools will be sure to disappear 
 when once the value of it has become generally recognised. 
 
 As regards material difficulties, one of the most serious, 
 especially in large towns, would be the acquisition of suitable 
 sites with room for work-shops and gardens. If, however,, 
 after the invention of railways the necessary space was forth- 
 coming for erecting railway stations and engine factories, we 
 cannot doubt that room will be found for the cultivation of 
 human powers, which; looked at from a money point only, are 
 of higher value than steam power. Where there is no possi- 
 bility of providing gardens to the schools themselves, the fields 
 
100 THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 
 
 outside the gates of towns might be made use of by the pupils 
 for agricultural purposes. Eeformatories, as well as Pestaloz- 
 zian institutions, are supplied with gardens and fields of their 
 own. In the countiy and in the smaller towns the necessary 
 space is not wanting, and in such places fewer difficulties come 
 in the way of supplying children with an elementary training 
 in all branches of industry. 
 
 The other difficulty, viz., to find the necessary time for 
 manual work without encroaching too much on abstract learning, 
 will be got over by the system itself, and by a better early 
 preparation of the children. 
 
 The most difficult of all the conditions to be fulfilled is 
 undoubtedly the supply of adequate teaching power. The 
 present standard of training for teachers is certainly not suffi- 
 cient : those who have to teach any kind of work must not only 
 be able to do the work themselves, but must understand the 
 spirit of it. Neither practise alone, any more than theory 
 alone, is of any use ; both together must have been thoroughly 
 mastered. 
 
 All, therefore, who would be teachers according to FroebePs 
 method, must study its principles as well as its application, and 
 instructors at training-schools and colleges must take up the 
 teaching of the system. The great point is to win the school 
 authorites over to our side, for without their help the scheme 
 can never be realised. Those amongst them who have already 
 pronounced themselves in favour of Froebel's principles, such 
 as Diesterweg, Karl Schmidt, Th. Hoffmann, Wichard Lange r 
 Prof. E. Schwab, Prof. E. Ziller, and others — not to speak of 
 school-men in foreign countries — will chaw others after them, 
 and the pressing need of a reform, against which it is useless to 
 strive, because it is the inevitable consequence of other reforms 
 which have either been carried out or are being carried out in 
 other departments of life will, sooner or later, conquer all 
 prejudices, and bring about the conditions necessary for its 
 complete establishment. 
 
101 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGAETEN. 
 
 If the blending of practical- work with study in the transition 
 classes is the first stage of continuation of the Kindergarten, 
 so it must be " schul-gartens " for the recreation of the pupils, 
 which will carry the system on still further. 
 
 The more seriously work and study has to be pursued as the 
 pupils grow older, the more necessary do play and recreation 
 become, for the mental as well as the physical health. At every 
 progressive stage of childhood and youth, the time that can be 
 devoted to each separate study becomes more and more limited, 
 "because the sum of things to be learnt goes on increasing. By 
 the application of Froebel's educational principles in earliest 
 ■childhood and in the succeeding school-period, it will become 
 possible to increase the hours of recreation without unduly 
 -encroaching on those of study. 
 
 It is now- a- days very generally acknowledged that recreation is 
 of scarcely less importance to general culture than work and 
 .study, and that the influences which can either promote or 
 injure the moral development work most freely in the playground. 
 
 What is it that makes the memory of his childhood so dear 
 •to the grown-up man, that wraps it in a magic halo, that gilds 
 old age with the sunshine of spring ? Is it not the games ot 
 childhood in the home-garden, or in the plaj'ground of the 
 village school, the merry community of play-fellows, or the 
 festivities in the midst of the family circle ? Compared to such 
 memories as these, the recollection of lessons and studies falls 
 into the background, or, worse still, is apt to call forth weary 
 sighs. "Which of us does not retain in Ms heart more lasting 
 and vivid images of Christmas festivities, of the mother's or 
 father's birthday, of out-door excursions, or games and romps 
 in the garden or the playground, than of lesson-hours at school 
 •or at home. 
 
 Aud this, which leaves so deep an impression behind that 
 ■even the grey-haired man delights to feed on the memory of it, 
 and out of all his past life retains perhaps only these images 
 with any freshness, this cannot be without its importance and 
 
102 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGAETEN. 
 
 influence on the character of the man. The moral character of 
 a human being is the product of his actions and enjoyments, 
 not of his knowledge. But knowledge, even, cannot be gained 
 by instruction and books only. A man of great and varied 
 knowledge replied once to the question : To what school he 
 chiefly owed his acquirements ? " Most of what I know I learnt 
 in the holidays." 
 
 Because, however, it is precisely in the free unrestrainedness 
 of childish fellowship during the hours of recreation that the 
 moral faculties acquire strength, while, at the same time, the 
 first dangers to morality and innocence creep in, children and 
 young people should not be carelessly left to themselves in their 
 playgrounds, but this side of their education should receive the 
 same attention as their lessons in school, and be used in equal 
 measure as a means of culture. 
 
 There are, no doubt, many who would make the same objec- 
 tions to supervision in the playground as have so frequently been 
 raised against Kindergartens : that children should be allowed 
 perfect freedom during then* playtime, and that any supervision 
 or interference on the part of grown-up people checks and 
 destroys childish simplichVy. Freedom and simplicity 'are 
 undoubtedly the most essential elements of childish gaiety and 
 happiness ; we ask, however, whether it be not possible to use 
 some precaution in warding off dangers, without spoiling this 
 happy unconsciousness, and whether leaving children entirely 
 to themselves is necessarily the best way of preserving it. 
 
 Young children feel the need of guidance and direction, and 
 soon find out that the success of then* games depends on it. In 
 Kindergarten schools, during the so-called " free hours," when 
 they are left to play, still under the supervision, but free from 
 the interference of, their teacher, the children almost always, 
 of their own accord, invite the teacher to lead their games. 
 With advancing development, and an increased sense of what 
 is seemly and beautiful, this need of order and regularity 
 extends also to play. Even the dances of savages are not 
 altogether wanting in method. The greater the degree of 
 culture in which children are born, the greater store do they set 
 by order and seemliness in their play, and it is not uncommon 
 to see them retire from the games as soon as disorder and 
 riotousness set in. 
 
3CHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 103 
 
 The wild scuffling, fighting, screaming, and bellowing, and all 
 the riotous noise which is made, not only by street children, but 
 even in school playgrounds, cannot possibly be considered a 
 necessary condition of the freedom which children require in 
 order that their individualities may develop. On the contrary, 
 the freedom of childhood needs, more even than that of grown- 
 up people, to be kept within limits, so that it may not degenerato 
 into confusion, caprice, and riotousness. Here, too, the words 
 of Goethe are applicable : — 
 
 "In der Beschr'ankung zeigt sich der Meister 
 Und das Gesetz nur kann die Freiheit geben." 
 
 Much to the disadvantage of society, it is still far too little 
 remembered that the systematic order of" civic burgher life " 
 depends on the habits formed in childhood and youth, and most 
 especially on the influences of those hours in which free action 
 and self-government are allowed to children. Lawlessness and 
 ungoverned caprice during play-hours are the foundation of 
 misuse of civic freedom, and hinder the education of a people for 
 free political institutions ; for the great problem of moral pro- 
 gress demands no less consideration for whatever contributes to 
 the pleasure and enjoyment of human beings at all stages of 
 life, than for the more serious matters of life. It is with the 
 pleasures of life that most of its sins are connected, and one 
 can scarcely wonder at the prevalence of the erroneous idea, 
 that complete abnegation of all enjoyment of the senses is 
 necessary to freedom from sin. 
 
 Man, however, is formed with a need of enjoyment, and 
 happiness in his destined end : but there is a wide gulf be- 
 tween the impulse to sensual enjoyment, and the yearning after 
 that kind of joy which is the " divine spark from paradise." 
 Between these two opposite poles of the lust of the senses, and 
 the higher and nobler pleasures of the mind and spirit, does the 
 moral life of man move on, and in that period of life in which 
 instincts rule almost exclusively, i.e., in childhood, care must be 
 taken to kindle in the heart the divine spark, and to incline it 
 to true and ennobling pleasures. 
 
 But even in this respect it is not so much a question of the 
 particular degree of educational influence to be exercised, but 
 rather that pleasure and delight should as much as possible 
 
104 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 
 
 be used as educational means in order to counteract in the rising 
 generation the love of low pleasure- seeking which prevails so 
 terribly in our days. The climax of this striving after material 
 enjoyment would inevitably lead to complete moral downfall, 
 as with the ancient Greeks and Romans, did not the gigantic 
 tasks in industrial and intellectual enterprise furnish a mighty 
 counteracting influence. 
 
 The more widely intellectual culture spreads among all classes 
 of society the more necessary does it become to maintain an 
 equilibrium between work and enjoyment. The coarser th.e 
 work the more sensual is the enjoyment of it. From the 
 diminution of merely physical and mechanical labour, and 
 the consequent increase of intellectual activity and culture, 
 arises an imperative necessity for elevating and ennobling the 
 pleasures and enjoyments of the least cultivated classes also. 
 All kinds of measures are needed for the accomplishment of this 
 end, but more especially such as concern childhood and youth. 
 
 From the millions of money which go to satisfying the luxuri- 
 ous wants and material enjoyments of grown-up people, the 
 necessary sums might well be spared to provide recreation for 
 the poorer classes during the age when happiness is most 
 essential. 
 
 There is no force in the objection that it is the greatest privi- 
 lege of children that they have so few wants, and that the 
 poorest materials will suffice to satisfy their imaginations, and 
 this happy state should be preserved as long as possible, whereas 
 too much management and supervision is likely to destroy it. 
 Children (in towns especially) are too much exposed to the 
 pernicious influences of luxury and pampering, while nearly 
 everything is wanting which affords true childlike pleasure 
 without destroying the beauty of childish simplicity. 
 
 The free enjoyment of nature is one of the first conditions of 
 true happiness in childhood, but it certainly does not come to 
 them through visits to coffee and beer gardens, where such 
 numbers of town children are wont to accompany their parents. 
 And, on the other hand, country children who have full opportu- 
 nity for enjoying the pleasures of nature too often fail to receive 
 the guidance necessary for initiating them fully into the wonders 
 of creation, and putting them in the way of enjoying the richest 
 fund of happiness and culture. Everywhere, in towns and 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 105 
 
 villages alike, the neccessary conditions are wanting for ulitizing 
 the beauties of nature in the right manner, and in full measure 
 for the benefit of childhood and youth. 
 
 In an ideally constituted family circle, where both father and 
 mother can devote themselves fully to the education of their 
 children, when their station m life leaves them the necessary 
 leisure, and their culture gives them the power, under 
 such circumstances it is possible to afford children those 
 higher pleasures which are derived from nature and art. The 
 mother will go out walking with her little ones, and encourage 
 them to gather flowers and berries in the woods and meadows, 
 to watch the squirrels hopping from tree to tree, to listen to the 
 birds singing, &c, &c. The father will make excursions in the 
 neighbourhood with the elder children, climb up mountains, 
 take them over mills and factories, encourage them to botanise, 
 geologise, &c, and satisfy their childish curiosity by explana- 
 tions of natural and artificial objects. Then in tho evening 
 stories will be told or read out loud, pictures looked over, and 
 many an art or industry practised in play. 
 
 How many of such family-circles still exist in the world ? 
 Compared with life in great cities, it seems an idyllic picture out 
 of by-gone ages. But even here one element would still be 
 wanting which is a necessary condition of education in modern 
 times, viz., fellowship with children of the same age, with- 
 out which the embryo citizen of the State, and member of society 
 cannot become what he must become if he is to respond fully 
 and adequately to the demands which life will one day make 
 upon him. 
 
 The rarity now-a-days of anything like ideal family life, as 
 also the new conditions which an altered social order imposes 
 make it necessary that measures should be taken for supplying 
 all as far as possible with what is needful in this respect. Even 
 those educational institutions in which the pupils board entirely 
 and which from their locality in the country can do much to 
 meet the above-mentioned requirements, even these- are still 
 most of them very far from adequate. 
 
 According to Froebel's method space for a garden and play- 
 ground adjoining, or in the vicinity of the school is an indispens- 
 able condition. Observation 01 the greatest possible simplicity, 
 and absence of all luxury and artificiality are understood of 
 
106 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 
 
 themselves. If the school site does not afford sufficient room, 
 school- gardens, in connection with gymnastic places may be 
 established outside the town gates. A covered space for bad 
 weather should not be forgotten ; in summer a large tent would 
 suffice. 
 
 The physical exercises which are enforced in school as part ot 
 the routine might be carried on here in the form of games, ac- 
 cording to the free choice and inclination of the children. 
 
 The free play of childish merriment would not here be checked 
 and hedged in by all the considerations which recreation in 
 public gardens or promenades entails. The supervision of the 
 teachers would only limit the children's freedom so far as decency 
 and propriety are concerned. Moreover, when the teachers 
 know how to win the love and confidence of their pupils, and to 
 throw themselves into their amusements ; to be, as it were, 
 children with children, without at the same time sacrificing their 
 dignity, then help and direction is frequently asked for by the 
 children themselves. Kindergarten children are accustomed to 
 this sort of supervision, and not in the least suppressed by it ; 
 and, indeed, it is generally the fault of grown-up people if children 
 cannot be happy and unrestrained in their presence. It is of 
 course essential to the physical development of children that 
 they should play and romp freely in their school-garden in spite 
 of supervision, but it is a mistake to suppose that children prefer 
 the wild lawless pastimes that are carried on in the streets to 
 well-regulated play. The former are merely the outcome of in- 
 capacity to organise anything different. 
 
 The school-garden must not aim at doing away with old 
 established games, or even street games. It must absorb into 
 itself all that the childish instinct of play has originated, and what 
 one generation of children has inherited from another, but it 
 must weed out all that is coarse and unseemly. It can only be 
 by a real and full understanding of the hidden meaning and 
 object of children's play that it can be turned to its proper ac- 
 count in the development of childhood. Naturalness and 
 simplicity do not consist in coarseness of outward form, but in 
 the free expression of the child nature. It is only by idealising 
 in some such way the pleasures and enjoyments of children and 
 young people that the way can be paved for elevating and en- 
 nobling the enjoyments of the people in general, and that the 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 107 
 
 pernicious refinements of luxury, and the emptiness and super- 
 ficiality of the pleasures of the so-called great world can be 
 counteracted. The pleasures of life, too, must correspond to the 
 stage reached by science, art and industry. It is the former far 
 more than the latter which express the degree of moral culture 
 of the nation. In order to lessen the gulf between the moral 
 and physical life, between work and pleasure, more activity 
 should be combined with the latter, and work should be converted 
 in some measure into enjoyment by the easy application of ac- 
 quired dexterity and developed inventive power. But the 
 foundation must be laid in childhood, when those habits and in- 
 clinations become fixed which determine later the choice of 
 recreations and enjoyments. 
 
 In Froebel's method, childish play on the one hand serves to 
 train the faculties and dispositions for the work of after-life, and 
 on the other hand, the early strength, skill, and culture acquired 
 by this means help to make the enjoyments of later years fuller 
 and keener. In early childhood, when play is only the expression 
 of childish delight in existence, it exercises the powers and 
 develops the dispositions. Later on, when learning and study 
 claim the energies of the mind, play becomes recreation in the 
 form of free, unstraining activity. In every form, however, it 
 is a preparation for life, as drilling and manoeuvring is the 
 soldier's training for war. Beneficent nature makes work and 
 enjoyment coincide in childhood, but she will not suffer the least 
 measure of strength to go unused. 
 
 Play is many things at once : the imitation of, and the pre- 
 paration for, grown-up life ; the expression of human nature in 
 general, and the expression also of individual characteristics ; 
 sometimes mere exercise of the faculties, and delight in exist- 
 ence ; at once, aimless sporting and significant manifestation of 
 the soul and its capacities. It is only when this multiplicity in 
 the meaning of child's play is fully taken into account that the 
 purposes of nature can be realised, and the ennobling of the 
 enjoyments of the grown-up world be brought about through its 
 means. 
 
 It is in the enjoyment of nature or of art that the higher 
 forms of recreation consist. In the culture of flowers and the 
 care of animals of all sorts, the school-garden affords sufficient 
 scope for the first of these requisites. The artistic tendencies 
 
108 SCHUL-TJND JUGENDGARTEN. 
 
 which all children exhibit in a greater or less degree are raised 
 by means of the Kindergarten and transition classes to a degree 
 of technical proficiency which workshops and studios carry on 
 later. Drawing, painting, cutting-out, building, basket-weaving, 
 pasting, turning, &c, combined with other practical occupations, 
 both of a useful and ornamental nature, already learnt in the 
 Kindergarten," furnish profitable recreation, especially in the 
 winter. 
 
 The songs practised in the Kindergarten prepare for the little 
 choral societies of the school-garden in winch both girls and boys 
 take part, and which are accompanied by instrumental music. 
 The declamatory power acquired in school serves here as an 
 enjoyable recreation, and is made use of also for dramatic 
 representations. 
 
 Many parents and teachers have a great prejudice against 
 dramatic performances for children ; they think that vanity and 
 desire for admiration are awakened by them, especially in the 
 case of girls. But is not all child's play more or less of a 
 dramatic nature ? Do not children always delight in represent- 
 ing this, that, or the other, according to the inspirations of their 
 fancy ? Now they will play with their dolls at the mother and 
 her children, now at friends visiting each other, now at soldiers, 
 ■&c, &c. The dramatic element is the natural element of child- 
 hood, which lives so completely in and with its fancies. 
 Children who are accustomed from an early age to joint play in 
 the presence of grown-up people, are not shy or self-conscious 
 at occasional little dramatic performances. School examinations 
 involve juvenile declamations and recitations which are not 
 injurious to the children. It depends upon proper care and 
 management to avoid these pit-falls. And a right choice of 
 pieces is the principal thing for preserving the innocence and 
 simplicity of childhood. 
 
 These school gardens supply, furthermore, for the benefit of 
 the girls, little cooking- stoves and utensils, arrangements for 
 washing and ironing, brooms and brushes for cleaning, and stuff 
 and working materials for making dolls' clothes. But here, too, 
 supervision is necessary, or there would be nothing but play. 
 
 And this supervision (in order to hold fast by Froebel's 
 fundamental principle, and bring family influence to bear every- 
 where in the child's life), must not merely be given by the 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 109 
 
 salaried mistress, but, where possible, by the mothers of the 
 children also. Many women, doubtless, will laugh at the sug- 
 gestion that they should betake themselves to school-gardens 
 and playgrounds in order to play, make clothes for dolls, cook, 
 &c, with their own children or other's. Supposing, however, it 
 were only asked of them that they should go once a fortnight, 
 or, at the outside, once a week, and that their elder girls, or 
 perhaps other young girls who have the time to spare, should 
 take their place at home during ther absence, would it really be 
 very much to ask of a mother to give up a few tea-parties or 
 other amusements for the sake of playing occasionally with her 
 children ? The majority of mothers, it may be answered, do 
 this already at home, which is far better ; and, this being the 
 case, it is not necessary that they should join in their children's 
 school-games also. 
 
 But even if such maternal direction of children's games were 
 the rule, it would not answer the same purpose, though we would 
 not at aily price, or for any object, do away with the family 
 treat on Saturdays, and holidays, and the family games in the 
 evenings. But we may fairly ask, who can give the necessary 
 supervision when the parents are at dinner, or out at parties, or 
 concerts, or the theatre ? When the parents are in a position 
 to afford tutors and governesses for their children, it is required 
 of these that they should also join in the amusements of their 
 pupils. But are they fit to do so when they are weary and 
 exhausted with their hours of teaching, and are themselves 
 longing for recreation. The only alternative is, then, to leave 
 the children to the supervision of nurses and nursemaids, of 
 whom, in the present day, not one in a thousand possesses 
 sufficient moral culture to prevent their exercising an injurious 
 influence on their young charges. 
 
 The favourite argument, "that such matters are for the 
 children's own mothers and families to consider, and that indeed 
 they are considered by them," has no weight whatever in cases 
 where, under the existing order of society, the circumstances of 
 the family render it difficult or impossible. And who will deny 
 that in very few families (in great cities especially) thousands of 
 reasons interfere with what is desirable in the bringing up of 
 children. In those happy cases where all that is necessary can 
 be done in and by the family, school play-grounds with their 
 
110 SCHUL- UJND JUGENDGARTEN. 
 
 supervised games and occupations may be dispensed with. 
 When, however, as in the majority of instances, this is not the 
 case, let them by all means be instituted, and let an attempt be 
 made to induce some of the mothers, and young girls (who 
 would thus be preparing themselves for maternal duties in the 
 future) to visit the play-grounds from time to time. 
 
 Amongst the necessary conditions for a better system oi 
 education there are many which., like those above mentioned, 
 exist already in an isolated and incomplete manner, but are 
 entirely wanting in anything like comprehensive and connected 
 organisation. For instance, it is highly desirable that arrange- 
 ments should be made for the parents to be admitted, not only 
 to the contemplated school-gardens, but also to the schools 
 themselves, in order that they may get some idea of the 
 instruction their children are receiving, and the progress they 
 are making. How can there be any correspondence between 
 the education of the home and that of the school, if the parents 
 know nothing of the working of the school ? As far as I know 
 there is only one school in America, and that is in New York, 
 which is actually built with a view of enabling the parents oi 
 the scholars to survey what is going on. A large hall divided 
 by partitions for the benefit of the different classes is surrounded 
 above by a gallery, from which all the divisions can be over- 
 looked, and each lesson heard in turn by simply changing place. 
 In a report of this newly- established institution, it is mentioned 
 that this plan has met with much approval, and that the 
 gallery is frequently occupied by the children's parents. 
 
 For the organisation of school-gardens, according to Froebel'.^ 
 idea, there are additional matters to be considered, as for 
 instance, collections of objects from nature, or from the works 
 of art and industry, i.e., museums, the special object of which 
 shall be to satisfy childish desire for information. There are 
 many schools, as for instance, the " Ecoles Gratuites," in 
 Belgium, which possess small collections of this sort for 
 instructional purposes, but these are not sufficient to meet the 
 object of the school-gardens, which would aim at giving by 
 means of its juvenile museums a complete survey of the natural 
 world, as well as of the powers of development in art and 
 industry. 
 
 Public museums with their enormous wealth of objects, are 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGEND GARTEN. Ill 
 
 beyond the capacity of young children ; the most learned and 
 scientific men cannot take in their contents with a rapid survey, 
 much less could children. 
 
 These school-garden museums might also include amongst 
 their contents the little collections of all sorts gathered together 
 by the children when they were at the Kindergarten, dried 
 plants, stones, coins, &c, &c Short written descriptions might 
 also be contributed by the children. 
 
 An important addition would also be a collection of casts, 
 drawings, and photographs of the masterpieces of sculpture and 
 painting, together with a few architectural models — models too 
 of some of the simpler machines — and serial exhibitions of the 
 different products of manufactories arranged in order of 
 succession from the raw material. The children would thus 
 have the opportunity of comparing their own capacities and 
 achievements in art and industry with what they have to strive 
 after. 
 
 An inexhaustible fund of simple joys and interests might 
 thus be created for children, whereas the world of grown-up 
 people's pleasures is too often a perilous school, and a dreary place 
 of pleasure. The play-hours instead of being filled with empty 
 sjort, would be occupied with what might lay the foundatior 
 of ideal strivings in the following years, awaken genius for the 
 baautiful, and sow the seeds of great original works in the 
 future. 
 
 The " days in the country," which the children had been 
 accustomed to while at the Kindergarten, might be magnified 
 in the " schul-garten " into little walking tours during holiday- 
 time ; which, by the way, it is to be desired should come round 
 more frequently for shorter intervals, 
 
 Froebel used to allow the Keilhauer pupils to make excursions 
 with their teachers, of shorter or longer duration according to 
 their ages, regularly every summer. Lessons were not put aside 
 during this time, but transferred to woods, fields, mines, 
 manufactories, glass foundries, museums and art collections in 
 towns, &c, &c, and the knowledge acquired in school thus 
 became real and living. 
 
 The desire for knowledge is most easily and naturally 
 awakened in children and young people by means of the 
 imagination. Images taken from reality awaken thought, and 
 
112 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 
 
 through them the knowledge imparted by words comes to be 
 really understood. It is a fact too little known and considered 
 that the mind, as well as the body, will sicken if fed when it 
 is not hungry. 
 
 The benefit to children of these open air excursions, combined 
 with useful and necessary instruction, cannot be supplied in 
 any other way — certainly not by books. 
 
 What provisions do we make for giving the children of our 
 towns the opportunity of having their hearts elevated by the 
 beauties of nature ? of witnessing now and then the spectacle 
 of a fine sunrise or sunset ? 
 
 Shut out from nature and its enjoyment, human beings 
 cannot be educated into complete men and women. And with 
 all their zeal for learning and instruction, schools in the present 
 day do not provide for this necessity. Gymnastics and staid 
 walks do not make up to children for the free enjoyment of 
 nature, and the free movement in the open air, which little 
 excursions such as I have described would afford them, and 
 which would act as a balance to book-learning, and counteract 
 its tendency to stifle the heart and emotions in proportion as it 
 strengthens the intellect. 
 
 Can anything be equal to the happiness of a town-bred child, 
 almost ignorant of the wonders of nature, when first taken on 
 a visit to the country it tastes the new delights of picking 
 flowers in the meadows, climbing up hills, wandering at will in 
 the woods collecting grasses, stones and mosses ; scampering 
 with the animals in the fields, watching the rising and setting 
 of the sun, &c, &c. If children are unhappy enough to grow 
 up without experiences of this sort, there will always be a 
 something wanting in them, and a greater or less degree of 
 vulgarity of mind. 
 
 The voices of the human soul nearly all find echoes in nature. 
 Every different clime produces different men and women. 
 Each season of the year has its own peculiar melodies. Woods 
 and meadows awaken dinerent feelings in the busy morning, or 
 in the calm, restful evening ; a starry night at sea rouses higher 
 thoughts than does the turmoil of the streets. Infant souls, 
 still possessing undulled their full capacity for impressions, 
 must be subjected to the influence of the beauties of nature and. 
 of art, and then we shall not have to lament so often the 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 113 
 
 premature ageing of the young, and hearts will retain the 
 freshness of youth even in old age. 
 
 Many thoughtful people will no doubt shake their heads and 
 ask "where the money :s to come from to provide for all the 
 thousands of poor children so expensive an education, and 
 schools with gardens attached to them, and frequent country 
 excursions. 
 
 For the present no doubt the expenses will have to be defrayed 
 by the wealthier classes ; but there will surely come a time — 
 though not before many more victims have been sacrificed to 
 the absurdity of the present system of education, and many 
 more eyes thereby opened, we hope — when every State and 
 every community will organise measures by which all their 
 children maybe educated into good citizens. 
 
 Almost all that is essential for this purpose exists already in 
 scattered and isolated forms — much for instance in the admirable 
 educational institutions that are to be found here and there in 
 the country. To perfect these institutions in the ways we have 
 suggested, and to establish similar ones, as far as is possible, 
 in the neighbourhood of great towns, so that the pupils may 
 not be quite separated from their families ; this at least ought 
 not to be classed among impossibilities. 
 
 The carrying out of measures of this kind would be much 
 easier in the case of boys than oi girls, for whom, however, it 
 is equally necessary that something of the same sort should be 
 done in order that they, too, may enjoy the educational 
 influences of nature and social life. Little excursions — with the 
 help, perhaps, of one or two carriages — and in the company of 
 the teachers and some of the mothers of the pupils, would not 
 be impracticable for the girl also. 
 
 There remain yet to be mentioned the children's festivals, 
 such as the Kindergarten system has originated, and which we 
 hope will entirely do away with children's balls and parties, and 
 with all their accompanying luxuries of dress, food, drink, and 
 other externals, whereby vanity and craving for sensual enjoy- 
 ment are encouraged. 
 
 In favourable weather such festivals should always take place 
 in the open-air, in a garden at any rate. One of the customary 
 church-festivals, or an anniversary in history, or, perhaps, some 
 private occasion, might be the motive for pleasant excursions 
 
Ii4 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 
 
 in the neighbourhood, made festive with flowers, wreaths, holi- 
 day clothes, cakes, music, games and dancing. And if the 
 parents and families of the children would join in them these 
 festivals would receive their true consecration, while at the 
 same time, different classes of society, united by the common 
 feeling of parental love, would mix freely together. 
 
 In the winter these out of door festivals would have to be 
 replaced by musical and dramatic performances, or exlnbitions of 
 the artistic works of the children, followed by games and dancing. 
 The best opportunity would thus be afforded the parents of 
 testing the progress and capacities of then children, and that 
 in a much less formal manner than by the customary school- 
 examinations. There might be juvenile theatres in connection 
 with the schools, which might fulfil the great and noble object of 
 the stage, viz. the elevation of morality, far better for the im- 
 pressionable age of childhood, than our modern theatres do for 
 the people. The heroes of history, noble deeds, poetry, fairy 
 tales, all, of course, in a simple childlike form, would work more 
 effectually to the awakening of a loftier tone of mind than the 
 reading of most of the children's books, winch are now devoured 
 in such quantities by the children of the cultivated classes, that 
 children become satiated with romance before they are old 
 enough to understand in some degree the great masterpieces of 
 literature. 
 
 If there is to be no reading at all in the Kindergarten there 
 should be very little in the Schulgarten — for the pupils to read 
 by themselves should be quite an exceptional thing. The 
 necessary practice in the art ol reading, and the knowledge of 
 some of the standard works within the range of pupil's under- 
 standing — but even these should be chosen with great care and 
 within narrow limits— may be gained by general reading in 
 class. Taking the " Swiss Family Eobinson " for the principal 
 book, we might add to this some of the best fables and fairy- 
 tales, selections from Homer, and from Bible history, incidents 
 from the history of the world, selections from poetry, and a few 
 tales of travel ; but everything in the shape of children's noveU 
 should be excluded. Dramatic representations — beginning 
 with a doll's theatre— would fill up this gap with immensely 
 greater profit. 
 
 Even in their hours of recreation children should be as much 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 1]5 
 
 as possible spontaneously active ; but solitary reading is far 
 more likely to lead to vague dreaming, and excited fancies, 
 without clear and definite ideas, than to healthy mental ac- 
 tivity. It is because children are so often shut out from natural 
 and healthy amusements, that they catch at pernicious excite- 
 ment. 
 
 Then, again, the pleasures of children need not always be of 
 the nature of festivities, they must come to them more or less 
 every day in invisible guise, they must permeate the whole 
 atmosphere of their lives, and must minister to the serious as 
 well as the joyous part of their natures. The religious element, 
 too, must not be leit out of them : this must have its place 
 everywhere in the life of children, in nature and in art, as well 
 as in all the occurrences of daily life, for happiness should al- 
 ways be the means of lifting the young soul up to heaven, up to 
 the Giver of all good. 
 
 When, however, we say that religion and piety should enter 
 into the whole hfe of childhood, we do not mean that the actual, 
 ceremonial, service of God is to be given up, and a kind of 
 natural worship substituted for it. It is, however, very gener- 
 ally acknowledged that the church services of grown-up people 
 are not suited to children, and that a form of church worship 
 adapted to their age is much to be desired. Froebel, too, shared 
 this opinion, though at the same time he would not have ap- 
 proved of the attempts that have here and there been made in 
 this direction. For, instance, catechising and questioning 
 concerning facts from the Old and New Testament cannot be 
 called worship of God. Worship should stir the heart and lift 
 up the soul in real devotion to God. When this is not done 
 there is no real worship. As we intend to consider religious 
 education more fully in another place, we will here content our- 
 selves with suggesting that, in addition to the daily mornirg 
 and evening praj^ers, a Sunday service might easily be conducted 
 in the school premises, on the same plan as the church-service, 
 only with a sermon and hymns and prayers suited to the under- 
 standing of children. Churches and chapels, too, might be 
 used for this purpose, between the hours of grown-up services. 
 Now and then, also, when the season of the year and the weather 
 permitted, to choose some spot in the open air as a temple for 
 childish worship could not offend the prejudices of the strictest 
 church-goer. 
 
116 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 
 
 The parents ought not always to be absent at the children's 
 services, and it is their duty to keep up the religious spirit in 
 the home. The example of the reverence of their elders is 
 indispensable in kindling piety in children, and a child's life 
 without the element of piety is not a blessed one, any more 
 than an education from which the worship of God is excluded 
 can be a complete education for human life. The best kind of 
 Sunday services, however, would not be sufficient for awakening 
 religious feelings, if other opportunities did not daily occur for 
 leading the young souls to God. Education and religion were 
 with Froebel almost synonymous, the great end of education 
 being " to lead the human child up to his God and Father." 
 And in this respect, too, the process of human development, with 
 the revelations made to mankind, must be taken as our guide. 
 
 It is not yet thoroughly understood that children must first 
 learn to see the visible world by which they are surrounded in 
 the light of the ideal before they can become capable of rising 
 to the heights of the invisible world and to spiritual communion. 
 Not until the child's outward eyes have been opened to this 
 contemplation of the ideal by loving introduction to the beauties 
 of God's creation will its inward vision be awakened. Before 
 the bodily eyes have learnt to see, the soul does not awaken to 
 apprehend the invisible world, and that kind of belief which 
 looks only at the outward aspect of truth remains for ever dead. 
 The glow of happiness will do more than all teaching and 
 catechising to lift the childish soul to its Creator, provided only 
 it be the right kind of happiness, producing love, gratitude, and 
 devotion to the giver. 
 
 If a foundation for learning has been laid by feeding the 
 emotional part of the child's nature on the noble and the 
 beautiful, seeds will spring up and ripen which will lead the soul 
 into the kingdom of truth. In no way do people sin more 
 against the sensitive spirits of children than by the perverted 
 custom of giving them only words — to them empty and 
 meaningless — when they first put out their feelers to grasp real 
 and tangible things, which things, by the images and impres- 
 sions they leave on the child'6 mind, strengthen it for more 
 advanced learning. 
 
 The Schul-garte?i8 will in their turn be followed by Jugend- 
 gartens, in which the playground for the vent of childish forces 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGfcJNOGARTEN. 117 
 
 and activity will change to the arena for the conflicts of 
 maturer youthful strength. As the youth of ancient Greece 
 derived its beauty from the free development of physical strength 
 and grace which their mode of life was so conducive to, so here 
 we shall aim at producing a strong and beautiful race. It is 
 lamentable how everywhere, now-a-days, in gymnasiums, in 
 ball-rooms, on drilling-grounds, on the railways — everywhere, in 
 short, where strength, agility, and grace of body are needed — we 
 see just the reverse. Weakliness and disease ; nay, more, narrow- 
 ness of heart and mind are too often the consequence of limbs 
 unaccustomed to and unskilled in movement of all sorts ; and 
 that the possibility of such mis-training should exist side by side 
 with the modern advances of science and industry is a crying 
 shame. No amount of luxury, no splendour of clothing can 
 make up for the misery of weak, sickly, deformed bodies : no 
 superfluity of good living can compensate for the pleasures of 
 health. As the improvements and the increase of all material 
 aids should at the present time be devoted almost exclusively to 
 the bettering of the condition of the masses, so should gymnastics 
 be made use of to restore the degenerating strength, health, and 
 beauty of the body. As certainly, however, as gymnastics are a 
 principal condition to the attainment of these benefits, so 
 certainly will they alone not suffice. It was not only athletic 
 exercises of all kinds which produced the physical beauty of the 
 ancient Greeks ; the patriotic wars and battles which awakened 
 the fiery ardour of the soul, had their share, too, in the work. 
 For true physical grace is never the heritage of lifeless souls and 
 coarse, uncultivated minds. For the attainment of perfect 
 health, and strength, and grace there must be gymnastics also 
 for the soul and mind. At the same time, it must not be for- 
 gotten that the gymnastics of the body have their effect also on 
 the soul. 
 
 The object of the jugend-garten would be to afford a place of 
 gathering for boys and girls of riper youth — say from fourteen 
 to twenty years of age — after the serious work and studies of the 
 day are over. The gymnastic exercises already carried on in 
 the schul-garten would here be further developed or added to. 
 If feats of bodily skill are begun to be practised in the first 
 years of life, there will be scarcely any limit to the degree of 
 proficiency that may be attained, as is shown by circus riders, 
 
118 SCHUL-UXD JUDENDGARTEN. 
 
 ballet dancers, &c. Froebel's method, wliich provides an early 
 training for all branches of life, renders what is possible at every 
 succeeding age more easily attainable. 
 
 If the lives of children in the present day are artificial and 
 unnatural, those of young people are not less so. Old people 
 seem young by the side of the young ones of to-day, who, with 
 their soberness, precocity, overmuch knowledge, and weariness 
 of life, despise all the qualities natural to youth, and make 
 life a curse by their despondency, instead of meeting it 
 with the courage of youthful spirit. Instead of poetry and 
 dreams, young people of the present time occupy themselves 
 with philosophy ; instead of pious devotion and enthusiasm for 
 an ideal world, we see pride of knowledge and scepticism ; 
 political, industrial, or commercial speculations take the place 
 of healthy action, and the chief object in life is to grow rich. 
 The things they delight in, their objects of amusement, are not 
 heroic deeds, ideal aspirations, but dogs, horses, hunting, feast- 
 ing, luxury, and comfort in their houses and their dress ; this, 
 at least, is a picture of the well-to-do classes. With a few 
 exceptions, it is only those -who do not possess this world's goods 
 who do any worthy work — those who are compelled to procure 
 the means of existence by hard labour and experience. The 
 latter, however, as well as the former, ruin all the poetry of life. 
 
 Not quite so bad, but still sad enough, is the picture presented 
 by the young women of our day. If, in this case, a more 
 restricted life keeps them more than their brothers from contact 
 with vulgar and demoralising influences, and poetry and 
 imagination find some space in their lives, precocity is neverthe- 
 less, generally speaking, the rule, and the pleasures of vanity 
 undermine scarcely less their youthful purity and enthusiasm 
 for the beautiful. It cannot be denied that a normal youth is 
 the exception for both sexes, though it is more frequently met 
 with among young women than young men. 
 
 Whatever may be the reasons for such lamentable results, 
 however much may be attributable to the transition now going 
 on from one epoch to another, and however much good may 
 still be to be seen side by side with the evil, it is the duty of 
 society, which owes more to its youth and children than merely 
 to provide good schools for them, to do all in its power to 
 remedy these evils. We can ask nothing less of society than 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 119 
 
 that it should provide measures by which its young members 
 may be guaranteed the happiness and pleasures they have a right 
 to, while the dangers, which at no age are so great as when the 
 youthful passions are awakening, be as much as possible kept 
 away from them. 
 
 The further the development of mankind advances, the 
 greater becomes the need, at every stage of life, for the expression 
 of the true self. If the age of stirring, heroic deeds, or of 
 idyllic pastoral life has gone by, if youths and maidens can no 
 longer, as in bygone centuries, dream away their lives together 
 in unconscious innocence, something else must take the place of 
 what we have lost, higher aims and endeavours must meet 
 higher demands. It is owing to the absence of these, that low 
 pleasure-seeking and gratification of the senses has everywhere 
 taken the place of ideal striving. And those who exist in this 
 atmosphere of despair, despairing of life and of themselves, 
 till not unfrequently they are driven to suicide, are certainly not 
 the worst in the ranks of youth, but their soul's ideal has 
 escaped them at the sight of their own or others' degradation. 
 
 The youthful lite of mankind in antiquity was adorned and 
 beautified by art, and so it should be in each age and generation. 
 All cannot be artists, for all are not born with the necessary 
 endowments. Art, as a vocation, is only for the few, but the 
 enjoyment of it is within the reach of every one who is worthy 
 the name of man. Those, however, who would enjoy art must 
 love it, and one can only love that which one knows. 
 
 Formerly there were only a few artists by vocation. Now -a- days 
 everything is becoming more general, and art is no exception. 
 But this tendency to levelling is not the only reason why there 
 are so few great artists in the present day. The want of 
 original creative power has much more to do with it. 
 
 There can be no real enjoyment ol art without a certain 
 degree of personal proficiency, and this must be acquired in 
 youth. We do not want to see precocious juvenile artists, 
 prodigies reared in a forcing-house, soon to wither and die, and 
 rarely grow to be men and women. Not even in later youth 
 should we wish to see art pursued as a vocation by those who 
 cannot give themselves up wholly to it, and can never attain to 
 perfection : of such dabblers in art there are plentiful examples. 
 The vocation of artist requires the whole strength of the 
 
120 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 
 
 mature man, the mental cultivation and the experience of life, 
 winch cannot be the possession oi youth. But to practice and 
 enjoy art as the element in which they live, is what young 
 people should and must do, and means must be provided for 
 their doing so. Life will then yield to all the happiness which 
 is the right of all, and genius and talent will find an atmosphere 
 in which they can ripen. Science, which forms so large a part 
 of the education of youth, will then have a counterbalancing 
 force. Science teaches abstract truth ; art embodies this truth 
 in beautiful forms, and kindles and nourishes the ideal :n the 
 young soul. Without some degree oi artistic training, there is 
 no capacity for really elevated pleasures ; art must, therefore, 
 be one of the essentials of the Jugendgarten. 
 
 Without the Kindergarten, in which grace and dexterity of 
 limbs has been acquired; without the Schulgarten, in which 
 the exercises performed have cultivated the awakened sense of 
 beauty, and enabled the mastery oi technical difficulties, real 
 artistic achievements would be impossible in the Jugendgarten. 
 And art can never here degenerate into mere tickling oi the 
 3enses ; constant personal activity prevents this. 
 
 Where art has been practised irom earliest childhood, in 
 proportion to the inborn capacity, there will always be a ready 
 discrimination between the good and the bad in art ; and there 
 will be no toleration of mere jingling sound, or gaudy shine ancL 
 shimmer. Genius will always be felt and appreciated, even 
 before it can be understood. Accustomed always to what is 
 best, the cultivated taste will be incapable of being deceived, 
 and, having itself penetrated the mysteries of creating it, will 
 know how to separate the kernel from the mere husk. 
 
 But that which reveals to the individual Ins own creative 
 power, which introduces him to the realm oi the beautiful,, 
 which gives him the key wherewith to unlock the gates of 
 nature and of art, is the universal law of activity, the rule of 
 all production, viz., Froebel's law of the " reconciliation of 
 opposites," or the law of harmony. For art is harmony. 
 
 True, it is often s-aid that beauty is bound by no laws, 
 recognises no rules ; that beauty is feeling, and freedom its very 
 essence. But freedom is based on law, and no feeling is without 
 its cause. It would be better to say : The laws of beauty are 
 still unknown and have to be discovered. Art necessitates 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 121 
 
 activity — activity of the limbs as well as of the mind and soul 
 — and hence the law of activity applies also to art. Art has to 
 deal with materials, which can never be treated independently 
 of rules. Law governs the harmony of sound, as well as of 
 colour, and also the symmetry of form. But beauty, as an 
 outward manifestation, conceals all these systems of law, just 
 as beautiful human forms hide the framework of bones, and as 
 freedom hides the laws of morality which it serves — but serves 
 of its own free will. 
 
 The right atmosphere of child-life is nature, that of youth, 
 art. Childish simplicity and spontaneity finds its counterpart 
 % in the images and works of nature in all her domains. Shining 
 pebbles, as well as flower-decked meadows, the twittering of 
 birds, the buzzing of insects, the roaring of waters, and distant 
 landscapes, which carry the glance on into the infinite. Nay 
 more, even bodily food is capable of affording ideal as well as 
 sensual pleasure. The pleasant aromas of fruits prevent the 
 child from dwelling only on the gratification which their taste 
 affords the palate, and the eye is delighted with the beautiful 
 forms and colours. 
 
 Every delight of the senses should be used as a means for 
 loosing the fetters of the child's soul, for ministering food to the 
 spirit, and opening the gates into the region of the beautiful. 
 It is only when this is not done that vulgarity asserts itself. 
 Let us be careful to put lawful unforbidden pleasures in the way 
 of children, that they may not be tempted to snatch at forbidden 
 ones. To call into being the shapes of the fancy, to clothe the 
 real in the garb of the ideal, and to dream the beautiful dream 
 of happiness which earth never realises — this is the privilege oi 
 youth ; this lifts them out of the lower sphere of the senses into 
 a higher atmosphere, and fits them better for the later toil of 
 life than austere dreary surroundings, or dead sermons on 
 morality. 
 
 " Lasst mich scheinen, bi^ ich werde, 
 Zieht mir das weisse Kleid nicht aus." 
 
 Thus does Goethe make his Mignon sing. And every child- 
 soul unconsciously sighs the same words, and longs to be an 
 angel. But their sighs pass unheeded by rude ears, and rough 
 hands too often tear away the veil which covers naked,. 
 
122 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGAETEN. 
 
 unbeautiful reality, and so shatter the dreams of childhood, 
 that in youth illusion is no longer impossible. 
 
 Before truth can be revealed to the mind, a feeling for what is 
 good must have been awakened by the influence of beauty on 
 the senses. The young spirits cannot endure naked truth, any 
 more than young eyes can bear a glaring light. 
 
 All the higher phenomena in the spiritual and intellectual life 
 have their corresponding images in nature : these images 
 impress themselves on the soul of the young artist, and are after- 
 wards given out again by him ; thus he learns to understand life, 
 and, through the understanding of life, the depths of his own soul 
 are revealed to him, and he is brought face to face with naked truth. 
 It is by sanctifying the life of the senses, not by suppressing it, 
 that virtue is produced. By seeking to separate already in youth 
 the spiritual from the sensual life, we get only the semblance of 
 virtue. 
 
 Where do we now see amongst young people real appreciation 
 of art, true artistic sensibility. Beauty only serves as a field 
 wherein their shallow intellects may exercise themselves in 
 criticism. It is above all things necessary to appear cultivated, 
 and consequently to criticise ! If criticism, in the highest and 
 widest sense of the word, is one of the glories of our age, in the 
 hands of the young it becomes a poison which kills feeling and 
 aspiration. 
 
 Premature culture of the intellect, studious days and wakeful 
 nights, rob the young of the best delights of their age, and yet 
 their achievements are not greater, only sooner accomplished, 
 than in former ages, when the natural freshness of youth gave 
 zest to work. Who can contemplate the young people of the 
 present day without being aware that they are not happy ? It 
 is not endowments that are wanting — the present generation is 
 rich in all the heritage of past ones ! but there is a want of a 
 healthy atmosphere, of the natural stages of development which 
 can alone lead to happy fruition. We are impatient for the 
 fruit, before the seasons of bud and blossom are over. 
 
 Amid the dust and dirt of actual life, in the whirr and bustle 
 
 of machinery on the one hand, and of material pleasure- seeking 
 
 on the other, there is no room for our young people to build 
 
 themselves an ideal world — we must set apart a space for them. 
 
 " And after they have dreamt away their childhood and youth 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 123 
 
 in this ideal world, then they are all at once to take their place 
 in the dust and turmoil of everyday life, and work with the 
 vulgar masses ? " will doubtless be asked. , And the question 
 would be justified, were it not that this actual work is not left 
 unlearnt in the ideal world we have been picturing. By the 
 early work in the Kindergarten and in the school workshops, 
 and later in the Jugend-garten, by the activity which goes on in 
 all directions, practical skill and energy will be attained such as 
 have never been known before, and idle dreaming, which 
 produces nothing and only enervates, is entirely banished. The 
 boy or girl, the young man or the young woman who is at home 
 in the workshop, whose limbs and senses are braced by work, 
 and who spends half the day in mental exertion will certainly 
 not be injuriously influenced by recreation amid the beauties of 
 nature or of art, nor made unfit for the labours of life — on the 
 contrary, strength and courage will be gained to meet them. 
 
 The gain of working power to humanity which must ensue 
 from the application of the law of activity to the work of 
 children is, perhaps, not less than the gain from machinery 
 Time and strength saved from labour leaves more room for the 
 enjoyment of life. This, it may again be objected, is a doubtful 
 advantage, seeing that the leisure hours of the masses are too 
 apt to be spent in low, degrading amusements ; we trust, how- 
 ever, that another generation, with a different kind of culture, 
 and different inclinations, will make better use of their hours of 
 recreation. To bring about such a state of things is one of the 
 highest aims of education. 
 
 As in the Kindergarten the whole of human life is presented 
 in miniature, so must it be in the Jugend-garten, only, of course, 
 on a larger scale. More and more room must, by degrees, be 
 given for the free play of natural strength and spirits, and 
 personal supervision more and more give way to self-imposed 
 laws. 
 
 To create new things is the task of the young generation — to 
 improve and to multiply what has been handed .down to it. It 
 bears within itself the hopes, the achievements, the institutions 
 of the future, and feels a strong yearning to fulfil them. If 
 hindered in the use of its powers, if hedged in by such narrow 
 limits that it is unable to organise and reform, it will either 
 give itself up to unworthy pleasure-seeking, or find a vent for 
 
124 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 
 
 its powers in revolutionising. Both these evils must "be 
 hindered. Both for the discipline of the senses, and the 
 ennobling of pleasure, there is no simpler method than hearty 
 activity and free use of the powers. 
 
 If a playground is set apart in the Jugend-garten for the 
 exercise of physical strength and skill, no less provision is made 
 for trials of mental strength. 
 
 In the Schulgarten, it is true, there would scarcely be 
 sufficient room for both these objects. If people's theatres, 
 circuses, music-halls, &c, are built, and public walks and gardens 
 laid out, the necessary conditions for recreation will be afforded 
 young people. The art and science museums which already 
 exist, might lend their halls for the use of schools in their hours 
 of recreation; and games, exhibitions, representations, &c, 
 might be carried on there. 
 
 In the Schulgarten everything would have been practised 
 which could here be needed for artistic representation. Song, 
 declamation, musical and dramatic performances, competitions 
 in speaking and reading; discussions on objects of art or 
 science ; chemical experiments ; exhibitions of juvenile works 
 of art ; dancing and other innocent sports ; this all would be 
 the outgrowth of the foregoing exercises. All these modes of 
 recreation exist, indeed, already in actual life; with this difference, 
 however, that they are not originated and carried out by the 
 pleasure-seekers themselves, but gazed at in idle repose : it 
 makes all the difference whether the higher kinds of enjoyments 
 are gained by personal exertion, or merely taken in passively, 
 in which case they often become dangerous. 
 
 Meanwhile the Kinder and Schulgarten pupil has still other 
 needs, and the organisation of his little world must be carried 
 on still further in the Jugend-garten. What hitherto has only 
 been play now becomes serious work. "Would it not be possible 
 to obtain a small amount of land, a farm here and there, on 
 which intending farmers might experimentalise? Might not 
 laboratories, too, be instituted for the benefit of the embryo 
 chemists and physicists ? All these provisions exist already in 
 the Fachshulen, but they are nowhere the free property of the 
 young citizens who want to experimentalise for themselves. 
 
 Keformers, organisers, or agitators, who already in childhood 
 and youth have known what it is to burn their fingers while 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 125 
 
 making their first experiments ; who early learnt to recognise 
 the impossibility of much that they attempted, as well as their 
 own incapacity, will display prudence and insight in real life, 
 will be inclined to act with moderation, to weigh will and 
 capacity against one another, and to avoid striving after Utopia. 
 They will not enter on life as novices, as in the case with those 
 whose youth and childhood was hedged in with stern and narrow 
 discipline, and who find themselves suddenly plunged into an 
 unknown world with exaggerated expectations and unbridled 
 desires, and with no knowledge of the proportions or relations 
 of things. But neither will they resemble those youthful 
 grey-beards who, possessing a superficial knowledge of most 
 things, satiated with pleasure, have outlived themselves before 
 they had even begun to live, and who despise the world of 
 real life, which has ceased to have any attraction for them. 
 
 It stands to reason that Jugend-gartens should be for young 
 girls as well as youths. The modifications which would be 
 necessary in case of the female sex, present no real difficulty. 
 In the case of both sexes, however, we can only give quite 
 general hints and suggestions until the idea has become a reality. 
 
 In the two first periods of Kindergarten and Schulgarten 
 boys and girls who are separated by lessons mix together freely 
 for play and festivities. The festivities of the Jugend-gartens 
 too, should unite both sexes together, but always in the 
 presence of parents and teachers. How different from what it 
 ordinarily is, how far more beautiful might be the intercourse 
 between the sexes in early youth, if they associated together 
 in the pursuit of the good and the beautiful ! The isolated 
 examples of friendships between young men and women 
 who have grown up together from childhood, would certainly be 
 commoner, if free intercourse under the eyes of their belongings 
 were allowed to boys and girls, and that at the age when the 
 passions are dormant, unless, as is now-a-days too often the case, 
 they are prematurely awakened by perverted education and objec- 
 tionable surroundings. Here, too, activity, and activity in 
 pursuit of an ideal object, is the best protector of youth. 
 
 It is, indeed, high time that some means were thought of for 
 facilitating happy and natural social intercourse between young 
 men and young women. Our present social arrangements make 
 tins less and less possible, and prepare the way for immorality. 
 
126 SCHUL-UND JUGEXDGAKTEN. 
 
 What is wanted is more freedom of meeting for intellectual inter- 
 course in the circle of the family, or at cultivated social 
 gatherings in the company of parents and teachers, so that young 
 people may not only be thrown together at balls and other 
 frivolous amusements, but may meet for more serious and 
 elevated pleasures. 
 
 We should, then, not often see young men seeking distraction 
 in low vulgar society. When they do, it surely is because 
 they have not been subjected to the influence of noble-minded 
 women. It is only through their influence that any improve- 
 ment in social intercourse is possible — this nobody will deny ! 
 But this intercourse must also be reorganised in the new forms 
 which the decree of culture of the present day demands. And 
 it is only with the young, in whom the sense of the ideal is not 
 yet dead, that it is possible to make a beginning. 
 
 What man or woman who has cultivated his or her inner self 
 and learnt to prize an intellectual life, has not grown weary of 
 the puppet show of the fashionable world, and renounced this 
 scene of artificiality, vanity and deceit, whenever circumstances 
 permitted ? The greater is the number of those who cannot find 
 satisfaction for their social needs under the existing order of 
 things, the greater prospect will there be of a new state of society 
 being organised. It is a task, however, which only a young genera- 
 tion entering life with fresh hopes and aspirations, can accomplish. 
 
 The educational problem — consciously or unconsciously — 
 resolves itself now- a- days into the two following questions : 
 whether it is advisable to take into account the human nature 
 in the child, to fasten on the instinctive life of the child as the 
 starting-point in education, to indulge his impulses towards 
 pleasure and happiness, and allow the senses to unfold, and be 
 gratified, while endeavouring at the same time to elevate and 
 idealise them : or else to thwart the child's nature, to 
 subdue its instincts and impulses by force and dicipline, and 
 to cultivate the intellectual and spiritual nature at the expense 
 of a healthy physical life ? 
 
 And on the right solution of the question the whole moral 
 order depends. 
 
 It never can be right to suppress, or indeed to kill, one side of 
 human nature for the sake of the other. The saints of the 
 middle ages were a sublime example of the power possessed b^ 
 
fcCHUL-UND J UGJSND GARTEN. 127 
 
 man over his body ; but if all men were to follow their 
 example, in whatever form, it would involve the ruin of 
 humanity. It was necessary, moreover, that such experiments 
 should be made in the course of the development of humanity, 
 but once made they are no longer wanted, and the knowledge 
 of the wrong path should help to the discovery of the right one. 
 In the present day the opposite error prevails. The asceticism 
 of past ages, the extreme advocacy of the separation of the two 
 sides of human nature, of physical and spiritual dualism, has 
 given birth to the doctrine of the emancipation of the flesh, 
 which finds its support in modern materialism, and would lead to 
 the downfall of all morality, if any extreme tendencies, and 
 which were exactly contrary to human nature, could ulti- 
 mately win the day. In individual cases, indeed, the body maybe 
 destroyed through disregard of its requirements, or through a 
 one-sided spiritual life, just as the body, by one-sided sensual 
 gratification may destroy the soul, but neither of these extremes 
 can affect a whole generation. 
 
 Froebel says : " What God has joined together (body and 
 soul) let not man put asunder!" and it is one of his funda- 
 mental principles that to produce harmony and balance be- 
 tween the physical and spiritual natures should be the aim oi 
 all education. And will not this aim be best accomplished by 
 gratifying both natures as far as possible ? And should not the 
 degree in which each is to be considered vary according to the 
 different ages and degrees of development of the individual 5 
 Should the intellectual nature of the child receive the same 
 amount of attention as that of the mature man ? Nobody would 
 dream of asserting that it should, and no one consciously acts 
 on such a false assumption. But all people who attempt to sup- 
 press the natural instincts of children, to overcome the preponder- 
 ance of the physical nature, in the hopes of thereby increasing 
 and strengthening the mental powers, are making an irra- 
 tional effort to separate what God has intended to be united. 
 
 There is scarcely a greater truth, as regards morality, than 
 that a due and rational gratification of the human instincts 
 is a safeguard of virtue and goodness, while, on the other hand, 
 to leave these unsatisfied does, or at any rate may, lead to vice. 
 For the childish stage of moral development this statement 
 needs no modification whatever. 
 
128 SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEX. 
 
 The following are the successive stages of child-life : first, the 
 period of preponderating animal and physical life ; secondly, 
 the period when the senses begin to awaken ; thirdly, the 
 emotional period ; and, last of all, the intellectual one. Educa- 
 tion, if it is to go on in accordance with the natural powers of 
 development, must correspond to these different stages. 
 
 And if any measures can be devised for ensuring that at no 
 one of these stages, shall either the physical or the spiritual life 
 be fostered alone, but both always together, in their due pro- 
 portions, so as to check from the very beginning the pre- 
 ponderance of the lower over the higher nature, and to prepare 
 the way for the prevalence of the higher nature, such measures 
 would certainly tend to the increase of morality, 
 
 Froebel's playthings and occupations are planned with this 
 object, and they succeed in reahsing it by stimulating the 
 -active impulses, and that in accordance with the law underlying 
 these impulses. 
 
 It is by the recognition and right application of this law 
 that the clue will be obtained for guiding the human being 
 in childhood by means of his own activity in the path of 
 morality. Activity, inward and outward, physical and spiritual 
 is the condition of all development, and more especially of all 
 culture and progress, and it is also the basis of the moral life, 
 which includes labour, action, fulfilment of duty, exertion, 
 devotion, self-conquest, self-sacrifice and love. Work in the 
 sweat of the brow was the first means of human culture, and 
 work transformed to happiness and joy is the goal to which 
 mankind must strive unceasingly. 
 
 Our age, which is aiming at the elevation of work from its 
 debased condition to a worthy height, and also at facilitating 
 and spiritualising work, our age, I say, has to set in motion a 
 new moral lever, viz., the law of activity. 
 
 A system of education which shall afford its pupils pleasant 
 gratification of the senses instead of mere satisfaction of 
 curiosity; intellectual and spiritual pleasures instead of mere 
 gratification of the senses, will undoubtedly preserve them from 
 the abyss of lust and immorality to which the doctrine of the 
 emancipation of the flesh would lure them. The kind of low 
 sensual pleasures which this teaching would lead to is well des- 
 cribed by Goethe in Faust in the song of the toper in Auer- 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 129 
 
 bach's cellar. The pleasures which Froebel's Jugend-garten 
 would afford would certainly oppose the best barrier to such 
 degradation. 
 
 The mistaken virtue which would draw a line between the 
 delights of the senses and the culture of the soul, and which 
 treats nature and religion as irreconcilable opposites, is truly 
 destructive of moral development in childhood. The Puritans 
 who removed all traces of art from churches did not really 
 farther the cause of religion, and the worship of God " in spirit 
 and in truth," has not been brought about by the Calvinists 
 exchanging the grand cathedrals of the middle ages for white- 
 washed rooms. Man remains man ; that is, a being with a 
 sensual nature, and the elevation of his soul must be assisted by 
 outward surroundings and sense impressions. 
 
 To preserve the peace of the child-soul by a wise and discern- 
 ing gratification of all the wants of its nature, means nothing 
 less than to expel or moderate the warring passions. By making 
 young people capable of procuring themselves happiness through 
 their own energy and activity, we shall keep far from them the 
 dangers of pleasure-seeking and sensuality. And by making 
 them at home in the temple of nature, as well as in the temple 
 of beauty, in both of which God's spirit dwells, we shall bring 
 their senses and spirits into harmony with one another. 
 
 Would we once more see divine peace pervade this profane 
 and desecrated world, and childlike simplicity take its place 
 amongst us as the handmaid of true mental and moral culture, 
 we must make use of natural influences and natural science as 
 a means of ethical culture, and the knowledge of God's world 
 must be the foundation of union with God, and religion. Art, 
 in the hands of innocent childhood, will once again learn to 
 fulfil her highest task, viz., to kindle in man's soul a love of the 
 beautiful, which is the same as truth, and which leads to God. 
 The really beautiful is always divine, and real artistic greatness 
 cannot exist without moral greatness. 
 
 It can scarcely, then, be urged as an objection to this new 
 system of education that it aims at the production of aesthetic 
 sensibility through the culture of the senses, if at the same time 
 it recognises and keeps always in view the serious moral part 
 which the physical senses should play in the world as the basis 
 of all spiritual height and greatness, and the first stepping-stone 
 
 K 
 
130 SCIIUL-UND JDGENDGARTEN. 
 
 to the knowledge of God. The constant demands made on 
 their energy and activity ar a sufficient guarantee against their 
 being abused. As friction will produce sparks, even in stone, 
 go does friction of the physical organs kindle the spiritual spark 
 of imprisoned forces and capacities. 
 
 There have been plenty of ideal theories of education, and yet 
 sin and crime have not been done away with, nor an ideal state 
 of society brought about ; people are ready to exclaim at any 
 mention of the power of education, and of new methods, and 
 although it does not require any extraordinary amount of insight 
 to see that a complete regeneration of mankind would not be 
 attained by the realisation of all imaginable educational ideals ; 
 it must, nevertheless, be acknowledged that education has had 
 its share in transforming a herd of savages into a society of 
 civilised men. Educators must not trouble themselves with 
 the reflection that history exhibits the alternate rise and decay 
 of nations and their civilisation — their business is the perfecting 
 of the race in general, and this they must believe in if they 
 would not be reduced to the conclusion that their work is su- 
 perfluous. Their aim must always be the highest, although it 
 may be impossible for them to determine even the imperfect 
 measure of success that they may attain. It is w r orth while, at 
 any rate, to try and see whether the limited amount of moral 
 influence that educational systems have hitherto exercised 
 might not be increased by means as yet untried. 
 
 A thorough organisation of the pleasures and amusements of 
 childhood and youth has never yet been attempted ; at least not 
 in the manner that Froebel's educational theories presuppose. 
 It would be worth while, at least, to make the experiment of 
 whether all the preaching and sermonising about morality, all 
 the threats and punishments, all the torments of discipline at 
 home and at school, might not be replaced by some such organi- 
 sation as the schul- and jugend-gartens offer, where the free 
 action of youthful vigour, combining pleasure and amusement 
 with labour and exertion, would be a valuable moral'factor. 
 
 Activity is the mainspring of enjoyment, as well as of work, 
 in so far as enjoyment does not consist in idleness. Some or 
 other of the senses and organs must be stimulated or set in 
 activity, if there is to be enjoyment, if only the jaws and teeth 
 in eating and drinking. No one will pretend that idleness is in 
 
SCHUL-UND JUGENDGARTEN. 131 
 
 itself enjoyment. The pleasure which is sometimes found in 
 it arises from the need which the exhausted functions have of 
 rest, or else from the musing and contemplation of some sort or 
 other which often accompanies it ; absolute inactivity of all the 
 organs is undoubtedly rather pain than pleasure. 
 
 The most difficult part of the problem is, no doubt, so to 
 organise matters in the case of the children of the lowest orders, 
 who, out of school hours, relapse more or less into the condition 
 of savages, that they may not be spoilt in the schul- smdjugend- 
 garten for their own station in life. Eightly organised People's 
 Kindergartens will supply the best starting-point in this respect, 
 and will lead to the discovery of the class modifications and dif- 
 ferences desirable in the later schools. Children and young 
 people have the same essential needs in all classes of society, it 
 is only a difference in the outward form which is requisite, and 
 this only in order that the privations of after life may not be 
 sharpened by early spoiling. 
 
 Another aspect of Froebel's method which has not yet been 
 dwelt on, and the bearing of which on the bettering of the 
 lower orders is of immense importance to all classes of society, is 
 its practical training for domestic service. And surely here there 
 is great need ot reform, as well for the sake of the servant 
 class itself as for the well-being of society in general. 
 
 Without seeking precisely to establish how far the general evils 
 of society, and the present transformation of social relations are 
 in fault, or the working of natural causes in which all, high or 
 low, must bear their share of blame, one chief cause of the un- 
 satisfactory state of things in this respect, is undoubtedly the 
 defective education of the servants themselves. Schools, as at 
 present constituted, cannot give them the necessary training 
 their parents still less. In the great majority of cases their 
 training does not begin till they are actually in service. Then 
 it is out of the question for them to make up for lost time, or to 
 do satisfactory work, even if their moral character be all that is 
 desirable — which is only exceptionally the case. In no respect 
 do social abnormities work more destructively against the idea 
 of human equality than in this matter. And even with the best 
 wishes on both sides any satisfactory sort of equality is scarcely 
 attainable, unless education has done her preparatory work 
 beforehand. 
 
132 OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 
 
 The practise gained in the parents' home, and which in 
 favourable cases is certainly of some use, is nevertheless in- 
 adequate to meet the quite different and much more exacting 
 conditions of life which the position and means of the upper 
 classes entail. It would besnuch even to expect that servants 
 should only bring with them an adequate standard of order and 
 cleanliness, and moral conduct. Education of the people, how- 
 ever, according to Froebel's theories, would not only accomplish 
 this much, but would at the same time bring within the range of 
 possibility the production of a measure of physical and artistic 
 dexterity which would give general aptitude for every kind of 
 work and occupation would have been practised in particular. 
 And, above all, the effect of healthy, moral, and intellectual cul- 
 ture in facilitating dignity and propriety of conduct, and enabling 
 a right view and grasp of any situation in life would be incalcu- 
 lable. 
 
 It is the same old story over and over again — the benefactors 
 of mankind, from the greatest to the humblest, are invariably 
 repaid with enmity, abuse and condemnation, and every new 
 idea is at once, before it has been tested, subjected to damnatory 
 criticism. A few short remarks, and counter-objections to the 
 objections and prejudices entertained towards Froebel's system 
 may not be out of place in the following chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Objections to the Kindergarten System. 
 
 Most of the objections urged against Froebel's system come 
 from people who are so completely ignorant of it that they have 
 really no weight whatever— indeed what they represent as want- 
 ing in this system is mostly just what is most fully present. 
 By far the greater number of those who make these objections 
 form their opinions from an entirely one-sided party standpoint, 
 blindly rejecting whatever the opposite side advocates. It is 
 only those who have had some opportunity of studying the 
 principles and practice in actual Kindergartens who are in a posi- 
 tion to pronounce judgment on them; and these, as experience 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 133 
 
 proves, will always give a favourable judgment, unless they 
 have been prejudiced by inefficient teachers. 
 
 One of these objections sounds truly comical to those who 
 have any knowledge of the matter. It is this : that Kinder- 
 gartens instil democratic notions ! " The idea that such a re- 
 sult could be directly produced at this early age is too absurd to 
 be discussed seriously. The immediate cause of such an extra- 
 ordinary assumption is doubtless the act of prohibition which 
 prevailed for some years in Prussia (nowhere else) against 
 Kindergartens. 
 
 From a party point of view it is easy to understand that gym- 
 nastics may have been forbidden, as likely to lead to dangerous 
 gatherings and associations of young men, at a time when 
 (after the war of freedom) , the government were trying by all 
 means to put down the demands of the people for greater 
 political freedom. But the gathering together of quite young 
 children could hardly have such terrible results. 
 
 If there are any who still maintain that the well-being of 
 society is compatible with the present rough, uncivilised, ignorant 
 condition of the masses, and that there would be danger in 
 giving them a higher education, with such it would be useless 
 for us to argue, for not only must they be blind to the demands 
 of modern times, but they can have no thought nor care for the 
 good of their fellow- creatures, and what is more they can make 
 no claim to be considered Christians, for they do not recognise 
 the Word of God, which says : "As we have opportunity, let 
 us do good unto all men," do not recognise that God has laid on 
 the rich and the educated the duty of caring for their poor anc 1 
 uneducated brothers. 
 
 But those who fear that the contemplated education and cul- 
 ture of the lower classes will produce in them dissatisfaction 
 with their own position, envy of those more favourably circum- 
 stanced, and, in consequence, revolutionary ideas concerning the 
 order of society ; these may comfort themselves with the reflec- 
 tion that a method of education which teaches work from 
 earliest childhood, inculcates a love of work, and exalts and 
 ennobles work of every kind ; which enables each individual to 
 practice system, order and organisation in his particular sphere 
 of work, and proves the necessity of these for the whole, that 
 such a method of education is far more likely to produce good 
 
13 i OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 
 
 citizens than turbulent socialists, and to prevent rather than 
 produce the evils above mentioned. 
 
 Moreover — as we have over and over again repeated — des- 
 tructiveness of every kind is forbidden by Froebel, who only 
 requires of his pupils creativeness and productiveness. Those 
 who knew him personally, who knew how from the bottom of 
 his soul he hated revolution in any shape, all violent changes 
 and upsettings, and how he always strove to encourage gradual 
 development, natural germination, growth, and ripening, to 
 them it would seem altogether preposterous to look upon Froebel 
 as a revolutionist in disguise ! To such an extent did he carry 
 this hatred of destruction that he could not even bear to see a 
 leaf or a bud unnecessarily broken off, or an insect trodden 
 under foot. " Man has no right to destroy," he would exclaim, 
 sometimes quite angrily; " his business is to build up, and to 
 create." 
 
 The only real way of supplying the State with good and de- 
 voted citizens is by training its children to self-mastery in the 
 full sense of the word, and this is what Froebel sets before him 
 as one of the highest educational aims. Freedom, through self- 
 mastery, through willing subjection to law and social order, 
 this is the banner under which Froebel would lead the rising 
 generation, to a higher stage of civilisation. The unfortunate 
 opinion that rough, uncultivatad masses are easier to govern 
 than civilised, educated men and women, will, we trust, soon 
 be universally recognised as an error. 
 
 The investigation of Froebel's educational institution at 
 Keilhau (which was set on foot at that period of democratic 
 persecution when the noble Jahn became a martyr for his cause), 
 not only revealed no ground for political suspicion, but was 
 itself the cause of warmer recognition and commendation on 
 the part of the inspectors themselves, in their report to the 
 government of Kudolstadt. Looking back to these times Froebel 
 would often repeat : "If only my educational principles were 
 universally carried out, there would soon be no more demagogues 
 in the world, and governors and governed might live happily 
 and peacefully together." 
 
 As far, then, as this objection goes, the staunchest Conserva- 
 tives may send their children to Kindergartens without any fear 
 that they will receive a political bias. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 135 
 
 2. It is feared that by constant supervision at their play, and 
 so much systemised occupation, children will be deprived of all 
 spontaenity. This point, also, has been considered by us in the 
 foregoing pages, and we can only reiterate that occupations of a 
 nature so thoroughly in harmony with child-nature, in which 
 the law of the child's own natural activity is constantly applic d, 
 and in which there is perpetual scope for the vent of childish 
 impulses, cannot have this baneful effect. On the contrary, 
 experience shows that they encourage rather than repress spon- 
 taneity. 
 
 It is, of course, an unfortunate fact that in the hands of un- 
 intelligent and insufficiently trained teachers Froebel's system 
 may be perverted, and that by them, freedom and spontaneity 
 may be hindered, the free application of rules made to seem 
 mechanical, slavish imitation allowed to take the place oi 
 invention — these and many other abuses are of course possible, 
 and alas, too frequent ; but that they are abuses and not 
 necessary consequences of Froebel's system, will be acknow- 
 ledged by all who have studied that system with care. 
 
 More efficient cultivation of Kindergarten teachers, and 
 indeed of mothers also, is the only means of preventing these 
 abuses, and of bringing about gradually the right management 
 of children. Let people first learn to understand the system 
 and its effects, before they blindly pronounce judgment. 
 Instead of keeping their eyes open for all likely abuses, people 
 are only too anxious to overthrow the system by criticism and 
 reproaches. 
 
 3. It is only this spirit of blind opposition and delight in 
 criticism which can give rise to another objection, viz., " That 
 Froebel's mode of education alienates children from their, 
 mothers and families." Could there be a more damning re- 
 proach than this passed on any system of education ? Educa- 
 tion of a human being apart from a family, and without a 
 mother's influence, ceases to be education at all in the true 
 sense of the word. It needs, however, to know very little of 
 Froebel's system, and of his writings, to see the monstrous 
 injustice of such an accusation. 
 
 * See the opinions in the ' • Works of Froebel," edit. W. Langa 
 and the newspaper : Die Erziehung der Gegenwart, 1862. 
 
136 OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 
 
 His book for mothers, Mutter-u-Koselieder, is alone sufficient, 
 proof that if ever anybody fully appreciated the sacred vocation 
 of a mother, and had a high conception of the priesthood of 
 women in the service of humanity, as mothers and educators, 
 that person was Froebel. It borders almost on the miraculous, 
 that a man should have been able to penetrate so deeply and 
 intimately into the feelings of mothers — a man, too, who never 
 had a child. If there was one tiling with which the soul of 
 this man was fully impregnated, it was the importance of 
 motherhood for humanity. To develop, and elevate, and fit 
 women for their highest human vocation — that of mothers and 
 educators of humanity — was one of the dearest aims of his life 
 of ceaseless labour ; and of such a man as this it is said, forsooth, 
 "that he destroyed family-life, by taking away from the family 
 the care and education of its children." 
 
 To whom does Froebel address his call, " Come, let us live 
 for our children ! " if not to parents, to mothers especially ? To 
 whom does he offer his counsels, and his practical help ? 
 From whom does he require the fulfilment of his highest 
 educational theories, but from fathers and mothers, and every 
 member oi the family who has any share in the educational 
 work ? At almost every page of his writings, especially his 
 " Mutter -u-Koselieder" he mentions the mother, and lays on 
 her the care of her young infants, and the responsibility of their 
 right education. Froebel, indeed, exacts more from mothers 
 than the best of them has hitherto been able to perform, for he 
 alone has supplied them with the necessary means for fulfilling 
 these requirements. 
 
 How many mothers are there now-a-days who do as much 
 for their children as Froebel expects of them ? How many are 
 there who feed, wash, dress them — in short, themselves 
 administer all their bodily wants, and also from the first months 
 of their existence, see to it that their spiritual needs are grati- 
 fied, and are able to carry on this education, begun with the 
 first moments of life, not only through the period of childhood, 
 but through their whole youth. How many parents are there 
 who fulfil Froebel's requirement of them to be in the fullest 
 sense the educators of their children ? To live with them, and 
 keep up communion with them at every stage of their growth ; 
 to keep continual watch over their instruction — where they do 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. lo7 
 
 not and cannot do it themselves ; never to entrust their moral 
 and religious training entirely to the hands of strangers ; un- 
 weariedly to share their children's joys and sorrows ; to regulate 
 their own lives with regard to their own children's education, 
 to be in all things an example to them, to lead them as it were 
 step by step into grown-up life, into their future sphere of work. 
 These souls are entrusted to us by God to be trained up as 
 worthy members of His family and kingdom on earth. How 
 many parents are there both able and willing entirely to fulfil 
 these demands ? 
 
 And just because they cannot do all this by themselves, because 
 even in cases where circumstances are favourable, and capacity 
 not wanting, they still need the help and co-operation of others, 
 both in and out of the house, Froebel has endeavoured to supply 
 them with the right means of assistance. Kindergarten teach- 
 ers are not to take the place of mothers ; their duty is to help, 
 and be the complement of, the family. No mother in the 
 world is in a position to devote herself day and night to her 
 children without intermission. All without exception, and in 
 every class, need the help of nurses, nurse-maids, teachers, 
 schools and institutions. The question is, therefore, to prepare 
 these assistants as well as possible for their work, without ever 
 allowing them to take the mother's place. 
 
 If Froebel's educational ideal were realised, there would be 
 no girl's schools in which the mother; of the pupils did not 
 share in the management ; and boys, too, would not be quite 
 separated at school from the family circle. Fathers and 
 mothers would then have learnt their duties, and we should no 
 longer have the melancholy spectacle of children sacrificed by 
 the neglect or ignorant treatment of parents. If ever any sys- 
 tem of education was grounded on family life, that system is. 
 Froebel's. 
 
 This reproach might be made against the modern Spiel- 
 schule (play schools), which relieve thoughtless and indolent 
 mothers of the care of their children for the whole day, but not, 
 indeed, against Kindergartens, which even call for the mother's 
 participation during the few hours when the children are taking 
 walks together, or playing in the open air. The immense 
 advantage to children of playing in enclosed gardens under 
 careful and intelligent supervision, instead of spending grca* 
 
138 03JECTI0NS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 
 
 part of the day in the public walks and gardens under the charge 
 of thoughtless and careless nursery-maids or nurses has 
 more and more influence on such parents as are not otherwise 
 onen to the benefits of the Kindergarten system. 
 
 Those, however, who wish still to limit their children's con- 
 tact with the outer world, have only to start "family Kinder- 
 gartens." Among the well-to-do classes this is easily done. 
 It needs only that a few intimate families should club togethei 
 to provide a teacher, and a room for their children to meet in. 
 The mothers may then take it in turn to superintend the pro- 
 ceedings, and in this way they will fit themselves to carry on 
 their children's education at home ; and they will also see that, 
 however necessary it may be for the system to be introduced 
 into the home life, all that is needed cannot be carried out at 
 home, the companionship which the Kindergarten supplies, 
 is wanting in a family, even when there are many brothers and 
 sisters, owing to the differences in age. 
 
 Neither can the companionship supplied by Kindergartens be 
 made up for by children's parties or by having other children to 
 play with. It is especially seen in these schools how different 
 is the result of companionship for mere pastime and pleasure, 
 and companionship for real work and duty. This does not in 
 any way interfere with opportunities for all sort of little home 
 duties, nor with the moral influence of the family, but these 
 touch other sides of the child's character, and do not afford 
 occasion for overcoming egotism to the same extent as a wider 
 circle does. 
 
 In carrying on the moral training of a human being, whether 
 he be still an infant or have attained to an age of rational 
 understanding, there must be scope for the fulfilment of duties, 
 for self-mastery and self-sacrifice, proceeding from love of others. 
 The nature of these duties, the degrees of self-mastery and 
 effort vary at different stages of growth, but fundamentally the 
 means to virtue are the same at all ages. And if the influence 
 of education is acknowledged to be important, and this influence 
 tells from the beginning of infant life, surely it is a great mis- 
 take to let children waste their first years in mere aimless play, 
 and then suddenly send them to school to be confronted with 
 calls to duties and exertions, for which they have had no pre- 
 paration. We have already dwelt strongly on the fact that 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE ^KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 139 
 
 Froebel considers these first years of life the most important in 
 this respect. 
 
 Those mothers who make a boast of not sending their chil- 
 dren to Kindergartens, because they would not think of trusting 
 them to other hands than their own, do not foresee how 
 heavily these little ones may have to pay in after life for a dull 
 and isolated childhood, passed in the company of grown-up 
 people only, without the happy companionship of playfellows of 
 their own age. Nor do they consider that it is equally hurtful, 
 though in a different way, to accustom them to be alwaj^s 
 seeking the society of other children, simply for play and 
 amusement. 
 
 In the first case they will, in all probability, develop into shy, 
 morose, misanthropical men and women, taking no pleasure in 
 the society of their fellow-creatures, and unfit for useful work in 
 the world, if they do not, which is too often the case, fall a prey 
 to bad habits and vices. In the second, they will run the risk 
 of becoming giddy and superficial, unable to live without dis- 
 traction, incapable of collected thought and earnest work — mere 
 parasites of society. 
 
 Once more we repeat : nothing is of greater importance in 
 view of the improvement of moral training, than the association 
 of children for useful occupations and fulfilment of duties — even 
 when these are carried on under the simple form of play — and 
 this need in no way interfere with the educational influence of 
 family life. 
 
 Educationalists of the present day must never lose sight of 
 the fact that one of the chief causes of revolution in society 
 now-a-days is the greater need for community of labour. The 
 execution of all the great works and schemes of modern times — 
 whether industrial, artistic, or scientific, demands the co-opera- 
 tion and association of a great variety of forces. Personal 
 isolation, or even the isolation of family life, is becoming more 
 and more difficult and impossible for those who, standing on 
 a higher platform of cultivation, feel within them a need to 
 serve the community, and to devote their powers to the good of 
 humanity. 
 
 In order that the whole of humanity may be raised to this 
 higher level of culture, there is need for wider co-operation and 
 agreement among individuals. The associative spirit of our day 
 
140 OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 
 
 should serve to promote general progress and moral culture ; 
 may this spirit, which impels the masses merely as an instinct, 
 not be perverted to selfish and purely material ends — its call is 
 to a higher goal, which must be reached some day, and towards 
 which it is the business of education to lead the rising genera- 
 tion. 
 
 Froebel's way of working towards this goal was not like that of 
 Fichte, and other like-minded thinkers, who insisted strongly on 
 government education, and would have had all education in the 
 family done away with. To Froebel the improvement of 
 family life was the first indispeijsable condition towards the im- 
 provement of mankind. And surely the eminent thinker and phil- 
 anthropist Fichte would hardly have proposed such a measure as 
 the carrying away of tender infants in Spartan fashion from their 
 mothers (among the lower classes at least) had he been able to 
 discover any other means of protecting them from the contagion 
 of popular degradation, and enabling them to be trained up as 
 good citizens. His object was merely to save the young gene- 
 ration from the corruption of their bad homes, not, certainly, to 
 do away with the natural and true foundation of the State, viz., 
 the family. 
 
 Froebel, however, was entirely opposed to any such measure. 
 His ideal was to admit parents, even of the lowest classes of 
 society, to participation in the work of Kindergartens, and so 
 gradually to fit them more and more for sharing in the work of 
 education. It seemed to him entirely contrary to nature that 
 so many women should be prevented by the necessity of work- 
 ing for their daily bread from attending even to their children's 
 bodily wants, and he clung to the hope that the time would 
 come when it would be possible for every mother to fulfil her 
 maternal duties. There is no surer way of realising this end 
 than by the improvement of mothers themselves, and for this 
 no better means than the study and practice of Froebel's 
 system. 
 
 Froebel's educational ideal is at the same time a family ideal, 
 for it strives after the establishment of an intimate bond between 
 children and parents, and consequently regrets everything that 
 can loosen this bond. 
 
 And when parents find their children running joyfully up to 
 them on their daily return from the Kindergarten delighted at 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 141 
 
 seeing them again, and prizing their home and family circle all 
 the more for the short separation, they will certainly not join 
 in the complaint, " that Kindergartens come between parents 
 and children and lessen filial affection." 
 
 4. Another equally groundless objection, and which is con- 
 tradicted by daily experience, is that the excessive mental 
 excitement is prejudicial to bodily health. In answer to this 
 we have only to point to the numberless cases of frail sickly 
 children, who after being sent to a Kindergarten, have rapidly 
 gained health and strength, rosier cheeks, and higher spirits* 
 Why the entire organisation of Kindergartens is ordered with 
 a view to healthy physical development and bracing. Exercises 
 which call out the physical and mental powers simultaneously 
 cannot be prejudicial to physical health, and the mental exer- 
 tion is as necessary to bodily strength as movement and exer- 
 cise of the limbs in the open air. If the mind is starved 
 the body suffers also ; this fact, however, is not sufficiently con- 
 sidered by educationalists. Strengthening of the nerves, and 
 not over-excitement, is the result of well-ordered occupation and 
 trained thought. 
 
 5. Again, it is said that Kindergarten training, far from 
 being a good preparation for ordinary schools, creates a dislike 
 for school- work, and, indeed, for all work. We can only refer 
 our readers to the foregoing pages in which it is strongly insisted 
 that it is not Kindergartens such as Froebel would approve of 
 which make the pupils care only for play, and unfit them for 
 serious learning. It is, one would think, self-evident that 
 orderly development of the senses and habits of inward con- 
 centration, attention, and perseverance in occupations, method, 
 punctuality, &c, are such as are inevitably gained in Kinder- 
 gartens must be a better preparation for school- work, than the 
 idle aimless play which young children's days are generally 
 spent in. The cause of this complaint is again want of careful 
 study and examination of the system. 
 
 6. The most serious of all the objections, however, is that 
 Proebel's system leaves out religious education, and indeed con- 
 tains unchristian doctrines. We can only say that as far as our 
 experience goes all impartial visitors to Kindergartens have been 
 perfectly satisfied with the religious element, and many of them 
 have expressed their astonishment that anything more should 
 
142 OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 
 
 ever be thought necessary for children from three to seven years 
 of age, viz., prayer and simple hymns at the opening and closing 
 of school; religious stories, including such oi the Bible stories 
 as are suitable for this tender age ; a few simple texts, and con- 
 stant reference to the providence of God and to His work in 
 nature. In addition to all this, every Kindergarten which 
 comes up to Froebel's ideal possesses a picture of the child Jesus, 
 and Overbeck's pict are, " Christ Blessing Little Children," so that 
 children may learn to look on Jesus as the friend of children, 
 and also as the ideal child and pattern of all childish virtues. 
 The Christmas festival, too, is made the first means oi introducing 
 children to the Christian doctrines. 
 
 What more can be done in a family at such an early age ? 
 Done with any profit, that is to say ? People who insist on 
 drumming into little children's heads, dogmas, catechisms, the 
 ten commandments, church hymns, &c, &c, may possibly 
 understand everything else, but certainly do not understand the 
 nature of children, or the right way of teaching them religion. 
 Experience has long proved this method to be erroneous, for it 
 has shown that the opposite result from that aimed at is most 
 often produced. 
 
 Healthy-minded people who are not blinded by religious party- 
 spirit know well that the religious sense — which is latent in 
 every human soul — must first be awakened in a child, before 
 anything like religious instruction can be attempted. That, 
 therefore, nothing in the shape of a creed — except in the most 
 universal sense — must be attempted with young children, and 
 that most especially in a community oi children belonging to 
 different creeds. If parents think it well that their children 
 should be early initiated into their own differences of creed, let 
 them take the responsibility on themselves ; but it will certainly 
 not be for their children's welfare, and after- experience may 
 cause them to repent of their folly. It is more than folly — it is 
 sinful — to drag young innocent children into the strifes and dis- 
 cords of religious parties, and to thrust what should be the 
 object of holiest love into the regions oi hatred and contention. 
 
 According to Froebel's idea, the beginning of all religion is 
 that children should learn to love God and man, and be early 
 trained to make this love fruitful in action. Whether he himself 
 belonged to this or the other religious denomination, whether 
 
OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 143- 
 
 his religious belief was of an orthodox or a rationalistic colour   
 is neither here nor there. His writings reveal not only a most 
 pious and believing spirit, the deepest and holiest trust in God 
 but also an insight into the Christian philosophy of the universe, 
 which is seldom found. Education without religion is unthink- 
 able to him, for its highest end and aim, according to him, is to 
 lead man up to God. 
 
 But even if it were otherwise, it would not lessen the value of 
 his discovery and its usefulness in the field of education. The 
 discovery of the principle of human activity, and its application 
 to the education of mankind, must always retain its intrinsic 
 importance even though it were mixed up with much that is 
 erroneous and even objectionable. The principle in itself, and 
 the means of application, may be accepted and made use of even 
 by those whose religious convictions are not the same as 
 Froebel's. It is only religious party spirit which has called forth 
 this mistrust and opposition. Is it rational or right to reject a 
 useful discovery or invention because the inventor does not 
 happen to be of exactly the same shade of belief as oneself? 
 And it needs only a closer acquaintance with the practical part 
 of Froebel's system to convince one of its immense importance as 
 a means of preparation for work of all sorts, and also as a means 
 of moral culture. 
 
 Fully convinced as we are that no educational system has 
 ever been devised which is so completely adapted as this one to 
 lead the child's young soul to its Creator, and to kindle in the 
 rising generation a true religious spirit, we cannot expect this 
 opinion to become anything like universal until the religious 
 conflicts of the day have been brought nearer to a solution, and 
 unprejudiced judgment has become at any rate easier. At pre- 
 sent any attempt to formulate Froebel's religious views would 
 only lead to understanding, with the danger of connecting them 
 falsely with tins or the other extreme religious denomination . 
 
 For this reason we abstain from recapitulating here in detail 
 (as we have done beforehand) the means of religious training 
 which Froebel's method supplies. These few remarks must 
 suffice to overthrow this charge of irreligousness. 
 
 Were it indeed required of every teacher and educator that 
 they should be in perfect sympathy with the religious views of 
 their pupils' parents, very few teachers would find employment, 
 
144 OBJECTIONS TO THE KINDERGARTEN SYSTEM. 
 
 and very few parents teachers for their children. Religious 
 parents roust be content if the people to whose guidance they 
 commit their children are also religious, are not deniers of God, 
 and go along with them in all essentials of their faith. More 
 than this should not be required of Froebel's system either, 
 a fortiori as it has to do with children at an age when they 
 belong entirely to the world of feeling, and are incapable of 
 understanding differences of conception and opinion, in religious 
 or any other matters. 
 
 The opposition to Froebel's system moves between two distinct 
 contradictions. On the one hand it is accused of being over- 
 straining and exciting to children's minds, on the other hand of 
 not affording sufficient food for the mind ! The reason of all 
 this is that there is so much mere superficial acquaintance with the 
 subject, and for this Froebel himself is partly responsible, owing 
 to the difficult and and unpopular style of his writings. There 
 is also a great want of good commentaries on his writings. 
 
 Well might Froebel exclaim : " I would rather there were no 
 Kindergartens at all than that the fundamental idea from which 
 they have sprung should be set aside, and the games and occupa- 
 tions be used without any understanding of their meaning. 
 Once, however, let the idea be really mastered, and the necessity 
 for Kindergartens be acknowledged, and they will spring up out 
 of the ground like mushrooms ! " At other times, when feehng 
 discouraged by the experience of how little he was understood, 
 he would give vent to the opposite desire : " Let Kindergartens 
 only be started, that the tree may be known by its fruits ; for 
 my words will never be understood, and my ideas will go with 
 me to the grave ! " 
 
 Both these pathetic utterances require, of course, to be equally 
 attended to. It was necessary that Kindergartens should first 
 be set going before the merits of the system could be proved, 
 and the ideas grasped by the multitude. Now, however, that 
 they are in a fair way of sinking into mere machines, and that 
 it is very generally considered that a few months' practice in the 
 games and occupations, without any understanding of their 
 meaning, is sufficient training for Kindergarten teachers ; now, I 
 repeat, it has become absolutely indispensable that the philosophy 
 of the system should be more taught and illustrated. 
 
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