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INTERNATIONAL khuX?ATI0j$^^-iM$^-. 
 
 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS 
 FOR ALL TEACHERS 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES L. HUGfeES 
 
 INSPECTOR OF SCHOOLS, TOBONTO 
 
 " By and by Froebers educational law will be accepted as 
 distinctly and independently as Newton's law of gravitation.'" 
 Baroness Von Marenholz-Bulow 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1897 
 

 * Copyright, 1897, 
 By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed 
 
 AT THE ApPLETON PrESS, U. S. A. 
 
EDITOE'S PEEFACE. 
 
 The life of Friedrich Froebel falls in the time of 
 the great German movement in philosophy. The birth 
 year coincides very closely with the publication of the 
 epoch-making book of Immannel Kant — The Critique 
 of Pure Eeason. Kant had broken new ground for phi- 
 losophy. He was followed by three giants, Fichte, 
 Schelling, and Hegel, who continued his work and ap- 
 plied his results to the great problems of philosophy, 
 namely, to the questions that relate to freedom, im- 
 mortality, and the Divine Being. Kant uprooted, or 
 supposed that he had uprooted, the old philosophy 
 which had come down from Plato and Aristotle through 
 the schoolmen of the Church. He thought that he 
 had discovered a sound foundation for a new philosophy 
 which could set at rest at least negatively the ultimate 
 problems of life. Before his death, in 1804, he had seen 
 applications of his new principle, first by Fichte, and 
 afterward by Schelling — applications of which he had 
 not had the slightest foreboding. What seemed an en- 
 tirely new view of the world was projected by Fichte and 
 Schelling. In the nature philosophy of the latter, time 
 and space, matter and motion, gravitation and light, 
 magnetism and crystallization, plant life and animal life, 
 were " construed,^^ to use his technical expression, as 
 
 V 
 
vi FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 progressive realizations of mind in the objective pole of 
 the being of the Absolute^ mind being the subjective pole. 
 All objects in nature containing positive and negative 
 phases — like the magnet or electricity, or like chemical 
 opposites — took on an interest for the thinker: they were 
 lower orders of realization or f ar-oif images of the Divine, 
 which was supposed to have the form of mind and also 
 to be the union of mind and Nature. Just as a magnet 
 has north and south poles and an indifference point, so 
 the Absolute is mind (as the subjective pole) and nature 
 (as the objective pole), and it is also the union or indiffer- 
 ence point of these two. 
 
 Just about the time of Kant's death (in 1804) Schell- 
 ing began to change his view as to the nature of the 
 Absolute as the indifference point of the two poles of 
 ideality and reality. He began to draw the conclusion 
 from his premises that the Absolute is not mind but 
 the indifference point between mind and matter. It 
 was at this juncture that Hegel, who had hitherto been 
 his disciple, took final leave of his system. Hegel con- 
 ceived the Absolute as a divine reason, and nature to 
 him seemed to be the process by which the Divine Sea- 
 son eternally creates infinitely manifold new individuals. 
 
 Froebel in the meantime had become fascinated 
 with Schelling's first system, and he, too, like Hegel, 
 adhered to the doctrine that the^A ^^'^^T'^^ is mir^ . In 
 his Education of Man, published in 1826, he expresses 
 this doctrine in the following oft-quoted words: "In all 
 things there lives and reigns an eternal law. This all- 
 controlling law implies as its source an all-pervading, 
 energizing, self-conscious, and hence eternal unity. 
 This unity is God. From God all things have proceeded 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. vii 
 
 and they have their unity in the Divine Unity, in God 
 alone. The divine effluence that Hves in each thing is 
 the essence of each thing. It is the destiny and life 
 work of all things to unfold their essence, or their 
 divine being, and therefore the Divine Unity itself — 
 to reveal God in their external and transient being.'^ 
 Hence Froebel interpreted the special destiny and life 
 work of man " to_become fully\L vividly^ and elearly^^ 
 scious of his essence, of the divine effluence in him, and 
 therefore of God; to become fully, vividly, and clearly 
 conscious of. his destiny and life work; and to accom- 
 plish this, to render it (his essence) active, to reveal it in 
 his own life with self-determination and freedom.^^ 
 
 While Schelling laid great stress on art and litera- 
 ture, inasmuch as the aesthetic unity of mind and matter 
 seemed to him to reach its highest point in sculpture, 
 painting, music, and poetry, Froebel, in this respect, 
 clings closer to the doctrines of Fichte, which make the 
 striving of the human will to realize the good of far 
 more imftortance than the creation of the beautiful. 
 This accounts for the great stress which Froebel lays 
 upon natural objects as the symbols of the mind. He) 
 does much to construct a scale of symbolic terms up 
 which the mind of the child shall mount on its way to 
 clear thinking. All of the categories of pure thought 
 are used in the mind of the child, but not in their purity t 
 — they are incarnated or embodied in symbols or men- 
 tal pictures, and it is the function of the sciences of 
 arithmetic, geometry, grammar and logic, ethics and 
 philosophy, to strip off the sensuous form in which these 
 deep ideas first appear in the mind of the child, and give 
 him ability to use them as tools of thought. 
 
viii ■ FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 The kindergarten as it comes from the hands of 
 Froebel is perhaps the most valuable educational meth- 
 od yet devised for giving the child the first impulse to- 
 ward clearness of thinking and willing. As a bundle 
 of feelings he is not yet clear either in his intellect or 
 his will. One side of his feelings points toward the in- 
 tellect and the other side points toward the will. The 
 former is feeling in the form of sense-perception, the 
 latter is in the form of desires, passions, and emotions. 
 When the child translates his sensations into a knowledge 
 of things and events he comes to his intellect. When he 
 stands between his desires and his action and guides it, 
 he attains to will and is a moral being. 
 
 I have used the word " symbolic ^^ to describe the 
 stage of mind in which the child finds himself at four 
 years of age — to describe the frame of mind which feels 
 the identity of nature and mind; it is a growing iden- 
 tity rather than a realized identity, and in the stage of 
 feeling the child is supposed to have intimations of this 
 profound unity between himself and the unconscious 
 objects of nature amid which he finds himself. I admit 
 that the word " symbol ^^ is oftenest used in a narrower 
 sense than this and signifies the employment of a natural 
 object to convey a spiritual meaning. The philosophy 
 of Froebel sees that all objects contain a kernel of spir- 
 itual meaning, and that it is impossible to think any 
 phase of nature without at the same time bringing into 
 the background of thought that spiritual idea. 
 
 W. T. Hakris. 
 
 Washington, D. C, January IS, 1897, 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 Many teachers have failed to investigate the edu- 
 cational principles of Froebel because they believe that 
 the founding of the kindergarten was FroebeFs only 
 educational work, and that the methods of the kinder- 
 garten are not adapted to the schoolroom. Both these 
 opinions are incorrectr-*^' The principles upon which 
 the kindergarten processes are based are fundamental 
 principles that should guide the teacher in the work of 
 teaching and training the child throughout its school 
 course. 
 
 "The veteran educator of England, Mr. J. G. Fitch, 
 in his able report on training schools, made to the 
 Education Department of England at the close of his 
 long and honourable career, in speaking of the great 
 advance recently made in the primary education of Eng- 
 land and Wales, says: 
 
 " In watching the gradual development of the train- 
 ing colleges for women from year to year, nothing is 
 more striking than the increased attention which is be- 
 ing paid in those institutions to the true principles 
 of infant teaching and discipline. The circular which 
 has recently been issued by your lordships, and which 
 is designed to enforce and explain these principles. 
 
X FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 would^ if put forth, a few years ago, have fallen on un- 
 prepared soil, and would indeed have seemed to many 
 teachers both in and out of training colleges to be 
 scarcely intelligible. Now its counsels will be wel- 
 comed with sympathy and full appreciation. In almost 
 every college a special course of lectures is provided on 
 the teaching of Froebel and Pestalozzi, and on the appli- 
 cation of their doctrines to the work of the infant 
 school. Whatever is true and wise in the Froebelian 
 and Pestalozzian philosophy is, in fact, applicable to all 
 classes of children of all ages. Attempts to treat the 
 kindergarten as a separate institution, having aims and 
 methods of its own different from those which should 
 prevail in other schools, have often in America and in 
 Germany proved unsuccessful. It is as an organic 
 part of a complete scheme of juvenile instruction, as a 
 preliminary training of those faculties and aptitudes 
 which have afterward to be developed when the time for 
 serious application arrives, that the kindergarten is most 
 valuable.^^ 
 
 The kindergarten was FroebePs greatest work, but 
 not his only educational work. The Education of Man 
 was published in 1826, fourteen years before he opened 
 his first kindergarten, yet if he had died in 1827, his 
 contributions to educational thought would have given 
 him a foremost place among educational reformers. 
 
 H. Courthope Bowen, in his admirable work on 
 Froebel and Education through Self- Activity, says: 
 " Froebel was possessed of large and generous views on 
 education as a whole, and on its methods and results 
 as wholes; but it is the work which he did for the edu- 
 cation of infants between the ages of three and seven 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 that chiefly demands our gratitude^ so far as his aims 
 have been realized up to the present; in the future^ un- 
 less I am seriously mistaken, his greatest service will be 
 in the reforms which his principles and methods will 
 have forced on our schools and colleges. '^ And again: 
 " It argues, therefore, an absolute misunderstanding of 
 the whole matter to callously and indifferently admit 
 that FroebeFs ideas are true enough for the kindergar- 
 ten, and at the same time to deny that they have any- 
 thing to do with the school." 
 
 Dr. W. T. Harris, in the preface to The Education of 
 Man, says: " Those who persistently read his works 
 are always growing in insight and in power of higher 
 achievement." This is the best influence one human 
 being can have on another. 
 
 FroebeFs work was to relate grand ideals to each 
 other and to co-ordinate the theoretical and the practi- 
 cal. He transformed abstract principles into realities 
 with consummate skill, and systematized the use of 
 material things as agencies in the spiritual growth of 
 the child to a degree never dreamed of by even the 
 greatest educators who preceded him. He made valu- 
 able discoveries in education, but his grandest work was 
 the crystallization of true ideals into a system. By 
 doing so he made it possible for all honest, unpreju- 
 diced teachers, not blinded by presumptuous ignorance, 
 to see what had hitherto been revealed only to the few 
 whose free minds had swept beyond the range of fettered 
 thought. He reduced to organized objective form the- 
 oretical truths which would have remained incompre- 
 hensible to the vast majority of teachers if he had not 
 made them realities in the kindergarten. He wrote very 
 
xii FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 wisely, but his profound writings would not have dis- 
 seminated truth as clearly in centuries as his system 
 in practice has done in a few years. 
 
 The aim of this book is to give a simple exposition 
 of the most important principles of FroebeFs educa- 
 tional philosophy, and to make suggestions regarding 
 the application of these principles to the work of the 
 schoolroom in teaching and training. 
 
 It has been my good fortune to know the leading 
 kindergartners of America, and to have seen the prac- 
 tical work of most of them. For more than twenty years 
 by the study of their writings, by personal discussion, 
 and by observing their admirable work, I have sought 
 to acquire clear views in regard to FroebeFs philosophy, 
 and to apply it in the work of the public schools. To 
 all of them my indebtedness is freely acknowledged. 
 
 It is but just that I should express specially my grati- 
 tude for inspiration received from Madame Kraus- 
 Boelte, Miss Susan E. Blow, Dr. Harris, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Hailman, and Mr. H. Courthope Bowen, of London, 
 England. Nor would I forget in this connection the 
 constant suggestiveness of my wife, Ada Marean 
 Hughes. 
 
 The quotations from Froebel have been made from 
 Hailman^s translation of The Education of Man, 
 FroebeFs Autobiography, translated by Michaelis and 
 Moore, and Eeminiscences of Froebel, by Baroness von 
 Marenholz-Biilow. It is hoped that the grouping of his ^ 
 thought under topical headings may be of service. 
 
 James L. Hughes. 
 
 Toronto, September, 1896, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The distinctive characteristics of Froebel's sys- 
 
 tem 1 
 
 II. Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Froebel .... 37 
 
 III. Froebel's fundamental law ; unity or inner con- 
 
 nection . . ' 48 
 
 IV. Froebel's fundamental process : self-activity . 84 
 V. Play as an educational factor .... 121 
 
 VI. The harmony between control and spontaneity . 154 
 VII. Nature as the revealer op life, evolution, and 
 
 God 179 
 
 VIII. Correlation of studies 197 
 
 IX. Apperception 212 
 
 X. Individuality and self-expression .... 222 
 
 XI. Objective teaching and manual training . , 248 
 
 XII. Evolution 260 
 
 XIII. Froebel's ethical principles . . . . , 265 
 
 xiii 
 
X^ OF thk' ' '^^ \i 
 
 FROEBEL^S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 As an introduction to the study of Froebel's system 
 it is important to take a general view of the charac- 
 teristics that distinguish him from other educators. 
 
 Child Study. — Froebel made the child the chief 
 agen t in its o wn development. The child was the cen- 
 tral point of his study. One of his mottoes was: " In 
 the children lies the seed corn of the future.^^ He rec- 
 ognised the power and the value of the teacher, but he 
 realized very clearly that the teacher's influence„might 
 be too great. He reverenced the individuality of the 
 child too much to allow the teacher to overshadow it, or 
 prevent its growth by restrictive domination or by neg- 
 lecting to give it the most ample e^if^^rtuniti^s f©r self- 
 development.' 
 
 Other educators have studied the child to learn what 
 the teacher can do for it, what instruction it should 
 receive, when it should be taught certain subjects, and 
 how these subjects should be taught. Froebel studied 
 the child to help it in its self-education, to discover the 
 order of its mental and moral awakening, and the way 
 2 1 
 
2 ' \ ^, *roebeL'4'ed.ucational laws. 
 
 in whicH it becomes acquainted with its environment 
 and enters into its social relationships^ and claimed that 
 all educational methods should be in harmony with the 
 natural processes of the child^s own evolution. He re- 
 vealed the fact that education is a work of growth car- 
 i ried on hy and through the child^ and not merely for it. 
 Froebel valued the work of the teacher as highly as 
 other educators, but he placed a higher estimate on the 
 child's own work than any other writer. His system 
 does not lessen the need for wise and cultured teachers, 
 but demands thorough training and broad culture on 
 the part of all who have the privilege of training child- 
 hood. He does not reduce the work of the teacher, but 
 he makes a radical change in its character. 
 \ FroebeFs study of the child that he might learn its 
 iown processes of self -revelation, self-development, and 
 ■self -enrichment, mentally and morally, laid the founda- 
 tion for the deep interest in child study now shown so 
 tiniversally by teachers. Child study of a definite kind 
 conducted systematically for the purpose of learning 
 how the race should be taught and trained is a modern 
 study. The physiological psychology of childhood and 
 the recording of its spontaneous manifestations have 
 only recently begun to occupy the attention of a few ad- 
 vanced experimental psychologists, but there has been 
 a sudden awakening, and there are already many evi- 
 dences of a widespread interest in these departments 
 of educational investigation. The interest was undoubt- 
 edly aroused more rapidly by the establishment of kin- 
 dergartens. They became objective representations of 
 the great truth that children may be aided in self -edu- 
 cation by supplying them with material to stimulate 
 
CHARACTEKISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 3 
 
 their creative activity. They recognised the sacredness 
 of the child^s individuality. They elevated the child 
 above the mere knowledge which it is intended to use. 
 They made the child the chief agent in its own develop- 
 ment. They aimed to deal with the divinity rather than, 
 the depravity of the child. They helped to make real 
 Emerson^s ideal that the child is the " sun of the world.'* 
 They revealed the fact that the child may be educated 
 for a time most effectively without books. This made 
 teachers think as they never had done of the relative 
 value of the child and knowledge, and showed objective- 
 ly the great importance of studying the child most care- 
 fully at all stages of its growth, so that it might be 
 guided in its education in harmony with the laws of its 
 natural development. 
 
 Unity or Inner Connection,- — Froebel's system is I 
 based on the underlying law of unity. He meant more J 
 by unity than any other writer, either before or since his 
 time. He saw relationships and inner connection with 
 marvellous clearness. He saw unity between man and 
 his Creator, and taught that the chief end of education 
 is to make that unity perf ectj so that humanity may be- 
 come conscious of the unity, and that its consciousness 
 of unity with God may lead it to reverent and co-opera- 
 tive activity with him. He saw the unity between God, 
 ]Nrature, and man, and therefore taught that Nature 
 was the best revealer of God to the child/ He saw the 
 unity in the processes of growth and evolution to higher 
 form in the living organisms of Nature, and thus made 
 natural history and botany studies of the highest moral 
 value. He saw the unity of the inorganic world so "^ 
 thoroughly, and expounded it in such minute details. 
 
4 FKOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 that his explanations sometimes appear fanciful, as 
 in crystallography, for instance; but even when modern 
 science refuses to accept the theories he framed it must 
 recognise in him an advanced scientist for his time. 
 One can not escape the conviction that, if he had been 
 fortunate enough to have had the advantage of the sci- 
 entific development since his death, he would have seen 
 even more clearly the unity of all created things, or- 
 ganic and inorganic, and the universal law working 
 through them. 
 
 He saw the unity between man as an individual and 
 man as a race and thereby laid the broadest basis for so.-^^ 
 cial relationships in the family, the municipality, the B 
 state, and the organic unity of humanity. He saw 
 the unity between man^s physical, intellectual, and 
 spiritual powers, and thus broadened the basis of edu- 
 cational thought and effort, and showed the influence 
 of every conscious act in the formation of character. 
 He saw the unity that should exist between man's re- 
 ceptive, reflective, and executive powers, and on this 
 revelation of unity based radical educational reforms, 
 which have made clear the fallacy of attempting to ele- 
 vate the race by giving it more power to acquire knowl- 
 edge, without at the same time and by the same pro- 
 cesses giving it greater power to apply knowledge, and 
 greater tendency to use it definitely for good purposes. 
 He saw the unity or continuity between childhood, 
 youth, and manhood, and therefore realized the impossi- 
 bility of reaching the highest limit of culture and power 
 in manhood unless the fullest appropriate development 
 has been reached in the preceding culture epochs of 
 childhood and youth. It was this revelation that led 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 5 
 
 him to see the imperative necessity for the kindergarten 
 in order that the basai Vork of education might be done [ 
 in such a way as to prepare the child for its most com- ! ^^^ 
 plete growth in succeeding periods of development. 
 He claimed that the child was usually weakened to such 
 an extent when it came to school that it never regained 
 its lost power or attained the maximum limit of knowl- 
 edge or skill which would have been possible if its mind 
 had been properly stimulated, stored, and exercised. 
 The weakening of the child^s power before the school 
 period he attributed to both positive and negative 
 causes. The child was unduly dominated by its seniors, 
 who had till Froebel's time never studied it sufficiently 
 to understand it and fully sympathize with it; and few 
 children were placed in conditions which were calculated y^ 
 to stimulate and define their own creative self-activity/ | 
 which he regarded as the essential element in physical, ' 
 intellectual, and moral development. On the one hand 
 the child's spontaneity was checked by unreasoning re- 
 pression, and on the other it was dwarfed by lack of 
 opportunity for proper exercise. Such conditions he be- 
 lieved to be a barrier to the highest progress of the 
 race, and he founded the kindergarten in order that the 
 period of mightiest and most unlimited nascent possi- 
 bilities in the child's life might be fully and systematic- 
 ally occupied in awakening and defining the complete 
 circle of its powers. He saw the vital unity between the | 
 different departments of learning, and therefore planned^i 
 a logical system of correlation of studies. He saw the 
 unity between the subjective and the objective, and 
 therefore taught the true inner connection between the 
 sense training of Pestalozzi and the real mental growth 
 
6 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 of the child. He understood the fundamental law of 
 mind development by apperception as thoroughly as 
 Herbart, and made his whole system contribute to the 
 awakening of the inner power and experience of the 
 child which is most directly related to the new ex- 
 perience or to the fresh presentation of knowledge. 
 He saw the unity between knowing, feeling, and will- 
 ing, between analysis and synthesis, between thought 
 and life. He saw the unity or inner connection of all 
 created things so clearly that he made the reconciliation 
 of opposites an important element of his system. He 
 believed this law of unity, inner connection, or vital in- 
 terrelationship to be universal, and made it the funda- 
 mental law and the ultimate aim of all true educational 
 effort. 
 
 Self-Activity. — As unity is Froebe?s fundamental 
 law, so self-activity is his essential educational pro- 
 cess. His recognition and wonderful application of self- 
 activity is the most comprehensive and the most dis- 
 tinctive element in his educational system. It is the 
 most productive educational principle that has yet been 
 discovered. It involves the doctrines of interest and ap- 
 perception not merely as educational theories, but as 
 applied educational principles called into play naturally 
 and forcefully as essential steps in guiding and deter- 
 mining the activities of the child. It makes the child 
 the . centre upon which all true correlation is focused. 
 It is the only process by which the co-ordination of the 
 child^s brain can be made complete. It makes the child 
 an executive as well as a receptive and reflective being, 
 and thereby overcomes the most universal human weak- 
 ness of failing to live and act up to the limit of individ- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 7 
 
 ual knowing and thinking. It reveals the child to its 
 teacher and to itself by making the inner -become the 
 outer life. It defines the feeling and thought of the 
 child and makes it original and progressive. It is the 
 truest basis of self -faith and independence of character, 
 without which the strongest and most cultured intellect 
 is not adequately efficient as a productive or an uplift- 
 ing force. It makes the child not only responsively, 
 but also suggestively co-operative with its teachers and 
 parents, so that it becomes a co-worker, not a follower, 
 and a creative instead of an imitative agent. 
 
 FroebePs ideal of self-activity is distinctively his 
 own. No writer before his time conceived the idea, and 
 few writers since have thoroughly understood it. When 
 it is grasped in its full meaning by educators it will re- 
 move more weaknesses and errors from the methods of 
 teachers, and form the basis of greater reforms than 
 any other educational principle. It must not be con- 
 founded with the activity of the child in performing 
 operations in response to the command or suggestion 
 of its teacher or any other person. It is the spontaneous 
 effort of the child to make manifest to itself and others 
 the inner conceptions and operations of its own mind. 
 In true serf-^ctiyily~'the^ motive or impulse that causes 
 the action originates with the child itself. Other edu- 
 cators saw the necessity for training the child to act; 
 Froebel saw that the child should be trained to act inde- 
 pendently. Other educators aimed to develop power 
 to perform certain operations; he gave power to direct 
 operations in addition to the power to perform them. 
 He trained the will to control the activities of the be- 
 ing. He developed tendency to do, wisdom in deciding 
 
8 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 what to do^ and will to govern the doing, in connec- 
 tion with the operations that have been used by other 
 educators to develop only skill in execution. Other 
 educators gave the child power to do its part well under 
 certain conditions; he not only gave this, but also the 
 power to mould conditions, to see opportunities, and to 
 choose those best suited to individual taste and ability. 
 He increased spontaneity of will action and expertness 
 in execution at the same time; other educators have 
 aimed to develop them separately or have failed alto- 
 gether to give attention to the former. 
 
 Early Training of Sensations and Emotions. — ^Froe- 
 bel endeavoured to place the child in such conditions as 
 to define its sensations and emotions, and prepared for 
 mothers and kindergartners a very complete system of 
 songs, games, and suggestions — The Mother Play — to 
 guide them in stimulating and fostering the sensations 
 and emotions of children. In writing about The Mother 
 Play, he said: " This book is the starting point of a 
 natural system of education for the first years of life, 
 for it teaches the way in which the germs of human 
 dispositions should be nourished and fostered if they 
 are to attain to complete and healthy development.^^ 
 This book he regarded as the most important part of 
 his educational work, because it dealt with a depart- 
 ment of education which had been neglected by all other 
 educators, and because he believed that the strength and 
 the possible development of the mind in after life de- 
 pend on the wideness of range and definiteness of the 
 fundamental emotions and sensations. In one of the 
 remarkable conversations with the Baroness von Maren- 
 holz-Biilow, he said: " The understanding of the uncon- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 9 
 
 scions is the germ and the beginning of the conscious, 
 and so surely as they stand in connection with each 
 other, so surely the one as well as the other has its ori- 
 gin in unity — " God/^ He not only realized that apper- 
 ception was essential in the evolution of mind, he 
 saw that apperception could not take , place unless 
 the mind contained the germ elements correspond- 
 ing to the new knowledge to be communicated 
 to it, and he wished to form apperceptive centres 
 
 in the heart as well as in the mind. He valued 
 
 apperceptive centres of feeling even more than ap- 
 perceptive centres of thought. He reasoned that the 
 more the child's sensations and emotions are defined A^' 
 and varied the greater its possibilities for growth be- | 
 come, and he wisely concluded that the worst period 
 during the life of a human being in whigh to leave his 
 mental and moral evolution to chance is the time 
 when his mind and heart are being organized and 
 charged with the power centres which to so large an 
 extent decide his tendency, his range, and his strength. "* 
 He planned a system of education that would give the 
 child experience as a basis for instruction and for ethical 
 culture, and demanded that the home and kindergarten 
 should send a child to school with "a foundation, a 
 basis, a sum of living germs in the life material it has 
 gathered/' In this department of educational investi- 
 gation he had the widest scope for originality. [N'o one 
 had preceded him, and few have yet been able to follow 
 where he led. There is still need of intelligent study 
 on the part of educators to extend the good work begun 
 by Froebel in order to increase the stock of germ ele- 
 ments in the minds and hearts ol^^i^lSTgg^^etoe they 
 
10 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 go to school — even before they go the kindergarten. 
 The need for this definite training of the child's powers 
 of sensation and emotion in its earliest years has been 
 greatly increased since FroebeFs time by the extraordi- 
 nary recent growth of great cities. Both in Europe and 
 America the number and size of cities and large towns 
 has rapidly increased. The tendency to leave the farm 
 and the forest for the supposed advantages of urban life 
 is one of the alarming social movements of the age. The 
 children are the greatest losers by this change. The 
 child brought up in the country close to the glories of 
 Nature has the opportunity to obtain a much richer-^- 
 mental and moral foundation than the child who lives 
 in the city. If allowed its freedom among the flowers, 
 the trees, the birds, the insects, and the ever-changing 
 growth of Nat.ure in its varied forms of living and trans- 
 forming or evolving organisms, the country child needs 
 little guidance in gaining a wdde experience of sensa- 
 tions and emotions as a basis for its future conscious 
 development. Here the child needs but the perfect 
 sympathy of its mother, in love with Nature and with 
 her child, in order to have its mind filled with a vast 
 store of the germs of mental strength and moral beauty, 
 which are ever freely communicated to the child or the 
 man who can hear what Nature is whispering or see 
 what she is doing. In cities the child is not so fortu- 
 nate. Its range is limited and the conditions are un- 
 natural. Therefore, while The Mother Play is invalu- 
 able to all teachers, kindergartners, and mothers, it is 
 needed especially in the homes of cities and towns to 
 widen and define the experiences of children so that 
 they may have minds full of germ centres to which 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. H 
 
 the varied laiowledgeto^be given in the schools may be 
 clearly related, and hearts in which the emotional 
 foundations of character have been laid. 
 
 Theory of Evolution. — The theory of evolution was 
 not discovered by Froebel, but he first made it a defi- 
 nite element in a system of education. He did not rec- 
 ognise it merely as a philosophical educational theory, 
 he made it a practical reality. One of his distinctive 
 characteristics is his genius for reducing philosophical 
 and psychological principles to definite pedagogical 
 practice. This gives value to all his educational work. 
 He gave to teachers concrete representations of educa- 
 tional theories. He made it impossible to carry out his 
 system without practising the principles involved in it, 
 and thus made the revelation of educational concepts 
 to the minds of teachers conform to the law of " learn- 
 ing to do by doing." By his objective representation of 
 educational principles in practical operation he made it 
 possible for philosophic minds to recognise them better 
 than he did himself. Many of the writers on evolution 
 since his time have been indebted to him for their 
 philosophy of evolution. Throughout The Education 
 of Man, and, indeed, in all FroebeFs works, all his 
 thoughts, methods, systems, and processes are associated 
 with the idea of a natural and a gradual evolution to 
 higher degrees of development. He found evidences of 
 this in individual plants and in plant life as a whole. 
 He noted that care, culture, and full opportunity pro- 
 duced finer individual flowers, and that by the inter- 
 fructification of the best specimens a higher type might 
 be developed, in which even the characteristic struc- 
 ture might be improved. He found in Nature a con- 
 
12 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 tinuity in the ascending stages from the lowest types of 
 organized life through plant and animal life up to man 
 himself. He saw that development in the individual 
 I and in the species is from within^ and that exercise of 
 ' function is the universal law underlying the increase of 
 functional power. He saw that conditions and environ- 
 ment and nurture have a great influence on the charac- 
 ter of the plant or animal, but he saw also that the 
 dominant influence in the development of the plant 
 or animal is its own inner life. He reasoned that all 
 life is subject to the law of evolution, and that the higher 
 the type of living organism the less the influence of 
 material things must be in retarding or accelerating its 
 development, and the greater the possibility of higher 
 evolution. He planned, therefore, a definite system for 
 \ the evolution of humanity through its successive periods 
 i of infancy, childhood, youth, and manhood, the f ounda- 
 ! tions of which he concluded by analogy should be free- 
 '; dom, stimulating environment, ample opportunity, ap- 
 propriate knowledge, and self-activity. He finished the 
 details of the earliest period only, but he had planned a 
 similar definite system for the higher departments of 
 education. He believed that every age should reach a 
 higher stage of culture and power than the preceding 
 one, physically, intellectually, and spiritually. He 
 hoped for new inventions to deal with material things, 
 and grander intellectual and spiritual revelations with 
 each successive era. He taught that education should 
 be one of the most progressive departments of human 
 thought and effort, and tried to lead each iridividual to 
 believe that he had power to help humanity to climb, 
 and that the unselfish use of this power was his highest 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 13 
 
 duty and the source of his most perfect happiness. 
 Thus he made evolution a self -ad justing^ reproductive, 
 progressive process, and education the application of this 
 process in the development of humanity. His whole 
 educational system was an earnest protest against the 
 idea that education could be superimposed on the child 
 from without. He said, in summihg up the essential 
 principles explained in The Education of Man: ^^ God 
 neither ingrafts nor inoculates. He develops ^the most 
 trivial and imperfect things in continuously ascending 
 series, and in accordance with eternal self -grounded and 
 self -developing laws.^' 
 
 His educational law of evolution was based on his 
 belief in the unity between divinity and humanity. 
 He utterly discarded the doctrine of the total depravity 
 of the child. He believed that even, in the most de- 
 praved and uncultivated races and individuals there is 
 an element of the divine, and that all true educati6n is 
 " a conscious growth to-ward the divine.^^ He aimed to 
 reveal God to the child as the unseen power in the natu- 
 ral forces and the natural life around it, in order that 
 a conscious unity might be established between God 
 and the element of divinity in man. This conscious 
 unity he made the foundation of his faith in education 
 as an evolutionary agency. The divinity in the child 
 he regarded -as its individuality, and therefore he de- 
 manded for true individuality the most sacred reverence 
 and perfect freedom. He recognised very clearly the 
 terrible evidences of deterioration and degeneracy in^ 
 human nature through "heredity, but he believed that 
 while the evils- brought^into human nature may obscure- 
 the divinity in it, they can not eradicate it, and that 
 
14 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 when even the smallest element of divinity in the child 
 is brought into activity in acordance with the Creator's 
 law of evolution, it becomes an uplifting, self-develop- 
 ing, and reproductive force, that will gradually triumph 
 over the evils of heredity. The very fact that he found 
 different degrees of development in humanity, as he did 
 in the vegetable and animal world, convinced him that 
 those in the lower degrees must, under proper condi- 
 tions, in conformity to a law which he conceived to 
 be universal, advance to higher conditions, and that 
 those in the highest could rise more rapidly to still 
 higher degrees of development. 
 
 The application of the law of evolution to education 
 has revolutionized the views of teachers in regard to 
 the functions of education. Men and women are now 
 investigating educational forces with the child as the 
 dominant element. There is hope for the teacher in 
 the widening conception of the possibilities of human 
 evolution based on reverence for the child. 
 
 The unfolding of this law is leading to a logical 
 settlement of all questions relating to the studies that 
 should find a place in educational courses. These ques- 
 tions are not yet decided. The best for to-day may not 
 be the best for all the coming days. The discussions 
 are focused now on the child and the effectiveness of 
 different kinds of knowledge as elements in producing 
 the broadest, richest, strongest development appropriate 
 to the successive and interrelated stages of its growth. 
 FroebeFs motto, " The renovation of lif e,^^ is taking the 
 place of the old ideal that " knowledge is power.'' 
 
 Individuality. — Froebel's conception of the sacred- 
 ness of the child's individuality is one of the promi- 
 \ 
 
CPIARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 15 
 
 nent characteristics of his system. He taught that every 
 child has special power^ and that its fullest growth and 
 truest education can not be attained unless this special 
 power becomes the dominant element in its life — ^the 
 central current, to which all its other powers form tribu- 
 tary streams. He made this the guiding principle in his 
 disciplinary agencies. The continued coercion of an- 
 other being, parent or teacher, he regarded as a gross 
 injustice certain to prevent the full development of the 
 child. He condemned all disciplinary agencies which in 
 any way overshadow the child or interfere with its sense 
 of perfect freedom. Free growth is the only full growths 
 He did not advocate giving the child unrestrained 
 liberty to do wrong. He rejected the theory that chil- 
 dren love to do wrong better than right, and regarded 
 the transference of interest on the part of the child 
 from wrong to right as the foundation on which true 
 training is based. The power to transfer interest natu- 
 rally from wrong to right is the greatest power of the 
 parent or teacher in co-operating with the child in its 
 own moral and intellectual culture. His theory rested 
 on the following well-defined, related principles: The 
 child's own self-activity must be the agency of its truest 
 and fullest development. Self-activity is impossible un- 
 der restraint. The child loves to do right better than 
 to do wrong, to be constructive better than to be de- 
 structive. The well-trained teacher can change the 
 centre of interest without coercion, and without inter- ■ 
 rupting the operation of self-activity. Therefore the 
 child's selfhood may be sacredly respected without en- 
 dangering its own moral nature or the rights of others. 
 By the wise application of these principles he estab- 
 
16 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 lished the perfect harmony between control and spon- 
 taneity, and burst the fetters of external limitations to 
 the soul. 
 
 The progress of the ages has been a growth toward 
 freedom. The true ideal of freedom can never be con- 
 ceived by a mind that has been made conscious of sub- 
 jection to another mind. Subordination is an unmixed 
 evil. Froebel stands pre-eminent among educators by 
 his recognition of the child's individuality, and by the 
 success he achieved in providing for its unrestricted de- 
 velopment in his educational system. 
 
 Co-operation.. — FroebeFs recognition of individual- 
 ity did not end in individualism. His universal law of 
 inner connection or unity gave him power to see indi- 
 vidual man in his relationship to the whole of human- 
 ity. He therefore aimed to make each man as perfect 
 as possible in order that he might completely fulfil his 
 duty as a part of the brotherhood of man, knowing 
 that the character of the organized whole depends on 
 the development of its individual elements. His prophet 
 soul saw clearly what has even yet been revealed to few 
 of the leaders of advanced sociology — that there is an 
 essential unity existing beween individualism and so- 
 cialism. When his educational principles have been 
 practised long enough to make them dominant elements 
 in human character there will be an end to the illogical 
 socialism that demands compulsory co-operation in de- 
 fiance of individual rights. His kindergarten or school 
 was a little world where responsibility was shared by all, 
 individual rights respected by all, brotherly sympathy 
 developed in all, and voluntary co-operation practised 
 by all. He denied that good citizenship can be pro- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 17 
 
 duced by knowledge alone^ however carefully it may be 
 selected with respect to its own value and its adaptation 
 to the stages of the child^s development. He insisted 
 that character is formed by Uving the principles of 
 truth, justice, and freedom, and not by learning them. 
 He believed that self-activity is even more essential 
 in the organization of the varied powers of a being into 
 the unity called character than it is in the development 
 of the individual elements of power. So he made his 
 school and his kindergarten conform as far as possible 
 to the conditions of an ideal society in order to qualify 
 the race for greater, truer, purer, more unselfish living 
 in the wider spheres of social and national life. He did 
 not claim that the positive and negative evils wrought 
 into the sensitive organism of human nature by centu- 
 ries of restrictive conditions can be eradicated or over- 
 come completely in a single generation, but he did teach 
 that it can be most effectively wrought out by perform- 
 ing unselfish, loving deeds, and that the true altruistic 
 spirit springs from the recognition of the unity of soci- 
 ety as the supreme element in deciding human rela- 
 tionships. This recognition of social unity, interrela- ; 
 tionship, and duty, Froebel aimed to define in early ) 
 childhood, not by theoretical instruction, but by making ■ 
 his kindergartens and schools essentially social organiza- j 
 tions. He avoided the errors of the Grecian ideal off 
 social unity which dwarfed individual development. He 
 condemned national and social unity based on coercion, 
 and made freedom the essential element in the highest 
 culture of individuality, and the most perfect organiza- 
 tion of society. His social theory was based on the \ 
 belief that individual development can never be com- ' 
 3 
 
18 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 plete until it is stimulated to its fullest limit and high- 
 est effort by the inspiring consciousness of the intimate 
 interrelationship of the individual members of society, 
 and the consequent impelling possibilities of uplifting 
 influence on humanity. This is the highest motive and 
 it gives majesty to individual selfhood, because it frees 
 it from all the narrowness and selfishness of exclusive 
 individualism. Selfishness is always restrictive; social- 
 ism may dwarf individuality. Froebel saw the harmony 
 between egoism and altruism, and saw in the indirect 
 training of the properly organized school the hope of 
 revealing this harmony to coming generations. When 
 a few generations shall have passed through such 
 schools teachers will fully comprehend FroebeFs pro- 
 phetic revelation of the unity between co-operation and 
 perfect individuality, and the war between individual- 
 ism and socialism shall be at an end. 
 
 Nature Study, — FroebePs idea in regard to Nature 
 study was a revelation. He was a passionate student of 
 the life principle in Nature. Even while serving as a 
 soldier he collected new plants discovered during the 
 tiresome marches of the day, in order that he might be- 
 come acquainted with them by the camp fire in the 
 evening. He reverenced plant life too much to destroy 
 it unnecessarily. He preferred to make his observa- 
 tions of plants while they were growing. He saw in the 
 growth and evolution of life in Nature types of the true 
 growth and evolution of life toward higher life. He 
 consequently regarded plant culture as a much higher 
 and more productive study for the child than plant 
 analysis and classification. He made Nature study and 
 Nature nurture an important part of his educational 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 19 
 
 system chiefly on account of its ethical influence. He 
 believed that through the discovery of the life in natural 
 things and by an early recognition of an unseen power 
 in the forces of Nature, the child secured most easily 
 and most thoroughly the germs of spiritual power and 
 a true conception of God as the source of life. He 
 taught the child to plant seeds and water them till they 
 germinated, and then to care for the plants as they grew 
 to maturity, in order to reveal its own power to aid in 
 bringing into existence new life and to help to higher 
 life the life that already exists. The child's action in 
 developing the seed and the plant reveals, by the sym- 
 bolism which Froebel recognised more clearly than any 
 other educator, the possibilities of helpfulness and up- 
 lifting power which the individual man may exercise in 
 the elevation of his fellow-men. He objected to formal 
 lessons on duty, morality, and religion, because he be- 
 lieved it to be impossible to convey knowledge in re- 
 gard to these great questions until their fundamental 
 elements had entered the minds of children through 
 experience. The laws that govern apperception in ac- 
 quiring knowledge in other departments of culture ap- 
 ply with equal force in the sphere of ethics. To try 
 to force moral and religious truth into the child's mind 
 from the outside is certain to prevent true moral and 
 religious growth, and substitute for it a self-deceptive 
 formalism and a destructive hypocrisy. 
 
 He believed that through Nature the child could 
 best get ideas appropriate to its stage of development, 
 relating to beauty, purity, growth, evolution to higher 
 life, the consciousness of an unseen power, of life in 
 life and life behind life, of God, and of co-opera- 
 
20 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 tion with the unseen life — God. He believed that with- 
 out a basis of such germ thoughts and feelings the great 
 principles of religious faith and life could never become 
 vital elements in the life of a human soul. 
 
 Nature study was therefore to Froebel not only the 
 best preparation for botany and zoology, and the cen- 
 tre of educational effort around which he would corre- 
 late all other studies, but the basis of definite and thor- 
 ough ethical training. 
 
 Objective Worh. — Froebel's use of material is des- 
 tined to revolutionize the methods of object teaching. 
 Pestalozzi gave a mighty impulse to objective work in 
 schools. Unfortunately his aim was misunderstood by 
 nearly all the English and American educators of his 
 time. He made his pupils examine and handle real 
 things for the purpose of giving a definite training to 
 their powers of acquiring knowledge, but English and 
 American teachers adopted his objective work as a 
 means of giving knowledge to their pupils more easily 
 and more clearly. N^early all the books on object teach- 
 ing yet published in English perpetuate this error. 
 They are mainly guides in conducting information les- 
 sons, which reveal no trace of Pestalozzi's aim. The 
 English Education Department wisely eliminated ob- 
 ject lessons from the English Code in 1861, and con- 
 tinued the proscription for twenty years, till the prin- 
 ciples of Pestalozzi and Froebel were better under- 
 stood. Pestalozzi^s aim is now more widely understood 
 both in England and America, although there is still 
 a large amount of " object-lesson '^ work of a character 
 inferior to that done by the great founder of the meth- 
 od. Froebel gave material to the child to arouse and de- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 21 
 
 velop its creative faculties and to provide varied and i 
 definite experiences for it. The highest use that can • 
 be made of material is to make it the basis of the en- 
 largement of the mind and the development of original- 
 ity. Froebel used it for these purposes. His aim was 
 not mind storing, nor the increase of strength in the 
 receptive powers of the mind. He recognised the need 
 of mind storing and faculty training, but he saw that 
 he could secure these advantages most definitely and 
 most naturally by making them essential processes in 
 a wider, higher ideal. Creative self-activity was Froe-— - 
 bel^s inclusive ideal. All subordinate ideals are bound- 
 ed by limitations of interest. Mind storing as mind 
 storing loses its charm, faculty training as faculty train- 
 ing ceases to have arousing power, unless it is related to 
 some greater design. Creative self-activity is at once 
 the most natural, the most comprehensive, and the 
 most stimulating mental occupation. Having realized 
 this as Froebel did with great clearness, he used objects 
 not merely for investigation but for rearrangement, re- 
 adjustment, and reconstruction in order to represent 
 and express the conceptions and designs of the child 
 itself. He accomplishes mind storing and faculty train- > 
 ing more thoroughly than Pestalozzi, and at the same 
 time he uses material things as agencies for self-revela- ^ 
 tion and self-expression. Many teachers have used ob- 
 jects to promote learning. Pestalozzi asked. What pow- 
 ers can I define and develop by objects? Froebel said: I 
 shall lead the child to express his own conceptions with 
 real things. Learning, defining, doing, are the three 
 steps in his evolutionary sequence. The third includes 
 the other two. : 
 
22 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Manual Training. — Froebel was the founder of the 
 rational system of manual training. The world did not 
 at first understand his views in regard to manual train- 
 ing. The most advanced schools have yet barely reached 
 his advanced ideals. The utilitarian aspect of manual 
 training has dwarfed the conceptions of educators until 
 recent years in studying the subject. This view did not 
 influence Froebel. He knew that what is philosophical- 
 ly true must be at the same time most practical. He 
 placed manual training on an educational instead of an 
 economic or industrial basis. He made the hand the 
 chief agent in developing the mind. The use of mate- 
 rial things to represent or express the original concep- 
 tions of the child affords the best possible opportunities 
 for developing the child^s creative power and executive 
 ability, for co-ordinating its brain, and for revealing 
 to it the fact that it has power to mould and use the 
 material world around it. For all these ideals in regard 
 to manual training we are indebted to Froebel. He val- 
 ued the inner results of manual training in the child 
 more than the outer material products. 
 
 All the advancement made in educational thought 
 concerning manual training has been made toward 
 rroebel's viev/s, and he is still the leader. From trade 
 schools, which were as far as possible from FroebePs 
 ideal, teachers have slowly passed through the stages of 
 using manual training for economic purposes, till at 
 length the most progressive have grasped his conception 
 — that manual training is thought expression, and an 
 important process in the child's mental and moral devel- 
 opment. 
 
 Froebel differed radically from his successors in re- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 23 
 
 gard to the period of the child's life when manual train- 
 ing is of greatest educational value. Blinded by the 
 industrial ideal^ they gave manual training only to the 
 highest classes, and therefore necessarily to compara- 
 tively few. He prepared a system adapted to the young- 
 est children, and for all children, girls as well as hoys. 
 Here, too, the modern leaders have their faces turned 
 toward Froebel. 
 
 Very few have yet caught a glimpse of FroebeFs 
 highest thought about manual training. He made it 
 the operative basis of spiritual evolution. The revela- 
 tion of the creative power of humanity is the surest 
 basis for the progressive achievement of unity between 
 humanity and God. By manual training the boy is 
 planting in his own nature the germs of the vital 
 thought that he has power " to give body to spirit and 
 form to thought.'' 
 
 The Educational Value of Play, — ^While Froebel was 
 not the first to see the educational value of play, he was 
 the first to make play an essential part of school work. 
 Many educators — Plato, Quintilian, Fenelon, Locke, 
 Eichter, and others — had recognised the educational 
 importance of play, and had written wisely about the 
 subject. A great wave of interest in play as a factor in 
 the physical development of the race swept over Ger- 
 many during the Hfe of Froebel. It was started by 
 Gutsmuths in 1796 and has continued to increase in 
 power for a century. Morel books were written on this 
 subject in Germany during the past century than have 
 been written about play in all other countries since the 
 world began. This remarkable interest culminated in 
 the establishment of public playgrounds throughout 
 
24: FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Germany nearly a century after Gutsmuths began his 
 agitation. These playgrounds are not for mere phys- 
 ical exercise. They are supervised by competent men 
 who have received some training in psychology, and who 
 are therefore able to understand the relation of play to 
 human growth. 
 
 It was perfectly natural that Froebel should be in- 
 fluenced by the great play movement of his time, and, 
 having his interest aroused, he, as was usual with him, 
 at once proceeded to turn his theories into definite edu- 
 cational methods. His extraordinary insight into the 
 law of inner connection enabled him to see the intel- 
 lectual and moral advantages of play as well as its phys- 
 ical benefits, and in his system play became an impor- 
 tant element in the complete development of the child. 
 He utilized the instinctive tendency to play as a factor 
 in the training of the child without robbing the play of 
 its essential element of spontaneity. 
 
 The Harmony hetween Spontaneity and Control,, — 
 FroebeFs educational reforms have been grasped more 
 generally in the department of discipline thkn in any 
 other department of school work. Yet, even here he is 
 only partially understood. The feeling that underlies 
 his work has spread much more rapidly than his 
 thought, but the practice of a more natural and more 
 humane discipline is making the revelation of his 
 thought more complete. 
 
 His recognition of the sacredness of the child's indi- 
 viduality was so clear that restriction, coercion, and the 
 domination of the teacher were at once removed from 
 the list of his disciplinary agencies. Eestriction 
 dwarfs, coercion blights, and domination destroys indi- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 25 
 
 Viduality, and therefore Froebel waged against them a 
 war of extermination. He refused to destroy power and 
 character in the effort to educate. 
 
 His comprehension of the interrelationships ex- 
 isting between all the truly developing processes of 
 Nature made him decide that, even between essential 
 freedom and desirable control, there must be a mediate 
 course that produces perfect harmony, so he sought 
 the " perfect law of liberty ^^ that he might guide child- 
 hood without destroying its spontaneity. 
 
 He believed so thoroughly in the law of evolution- 
 ary development through successive stages of human 
 growth that he did not expect finished character in a 
 child. He was satisfied to allow to little children a con- 
 dition of liberty which shocked the martinets, and 
 shocks some of them still. He denied that anarchy is 
 caused by freedom, but asserted strongly that it is the 
 natural result of enforced control, and that unnatural 
 control, especially during unconscious childhood, makes 
 the child conscious in a weakening sense, and leads to 
 indifference or resistance to constituted authority. 
 
 He found self-activity to be the intermediary pro- 
 cess to produce harmony between spontaneity and con- 
 trol, and interest to be the motive that leads to self- 
 activity when the selfhood has not been made passive 
 by arbitrary control. With loving sympathy as an at- 
 tractive power, making the teacher a friend instead of 
 a domineering autocrat, and with the interested self- 
 activity of the child as the central thought in the teach- 
 er's philosophy, he knew discipline would settle itself 
 in a natural way. He refused to believe that children 
 are happier when they are doing wrong than when 
 
26 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 doing right, and never for a moment doubted that they 
 are happier when engaged in appropriate occupations 
 than when idle. 
 
 Starting with these foundation principles, he con- 
 cluded that the true" inner^lif e of the child can he made 
 to grow, as the inner life of any other living organ- 
 ism grows, by placing it in proper conditions. Thl3 
 teacher^s duty is like the gardener^ s — to supply the de- 
 sirable conditions. The natural conditions of child 
 growth he believed to be love, joyousness, and inter- 
 ested occupation — mainly self-activity. He insisted 
 that when a child is supplied with these conditions it 
 is unnatural for it to misbehave if its health is good. 
 Productivity being, according to his philosophy, the 
 true function of humanity, he reasoned that creative 
 self-activity is the most perfect source of human happi- 
 ness, and the only rational agency in truly developing 
 discipline. 
 
 " But all children do not like to work,^^ answers the 
 objector. Better say, "All children do not like to do 
 the work you choose for them.^^ That is likely to be 
 very true. The wonder is that any of them like work 
 chosen for them by others, and to which they are driven 
 by the authority of the teacher. Even when the per- 
 suasive power is the witchery of loving reverence for 
 the teacher, work chosen by another never has the maxi- 
 mum of power to interest or develop, and can not long 
 hold the attention of the pupil or make the path 
 of duty the path of pleasure. Froebel had no 
 doubt of the love of the children for productive work 
 if they were trained to plan work as well as perform 
 it. " They yield themselves," said he, " in childlike 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL^S SYSTEM. 27 
 
 trust and cheerfulness to their formative and creative 
 instinct/' 
 
 During the early unconscious period of the child's 
 development Froehel would have the control of the 
 mother and kindergartner so thoroughly in harmony 
 with the spontaneity of the child as not to he felt by it. 
 The highest disciplinary skiH of the mother or kinder- 
 gartner is shown by the transference of the child's inter- 
 est from evil to good in so natural a way that the child 
 is not conscious of the external guiding influence in 
 making the change or of its own surrender of one 
 interest for another. To be conscious of the direct in- 
 fluence would make it a follower instead of an inde- 
 pendent agent. 
 
 When the child becomes conscious of its own per- 
 sonality the teacher's duty is still to maintain the har- 
 mony between control and spontaneity.- Now, how- 
 ever, both the control and the spontaneity shoulcj 
 belong to the pupil.' The control should become self- 
 control, and this should be developed, first, by a clear 
 recognition of the rights of others, and, second, by, a 
 realization of the personal advantages resulting froip 
 self-control in subordinating the undesirable to the de- 
 sirable in one's own tendencies. During this period 
 the teacher should be the confidential friend of the pu- 
 pil, and not a mere dictator to whom the pupil should 
 render unquestioning obedience. Exigencies may arise 
 when the teacher may wisely say * Thou shalt " or 
 ^' Thou shalt not," as the result of the " better choice 
 between two evils." Such an incident is always a moral 
 catastrophe, and the wise teacher undoes the evil so 
 far as possible when the conditions that precipitated the 
 
28 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 collision have passed away. During the reaction in the 
 child^s nature after such an unfortunate collision it is 
 often possible for the loving heart of the teacher to find 
 a widened entrance to the heart of the pupil. Such col- 
 lisions are most disastrous when rebellion is aroused 
 by dictatorial authority. 
 
 Froebers idea of a unity or harmony between control 
 and spontaneity is worthy of most careful study. When 
 it is fully understood the discipline of all schools will 
 be placed on a new basis^ and discipline will become 
 what it should be — a most important agency in the 
 formation of character. 
 
 Women as Teachers, — Froebel made a radical reform 
 in educational work by his recognition of woman as the 
 proper educator of childhood. Testalozzi had pleaded 
 for a motherhood of culture and sympathy. Herder 
 had said to women: "Meditate upon and educate (for 
 you alone can do it) a happy posterity.^' Froebel did 
 much more than plead with mothers. He planned a sys- 
 tematic course of training for them to give to their 
 children. With his usual habit of transforming insight 
 into attainment, he first saw that " the destiny of na- 
 tions lies far more in the hands of women — the mothers 
 — than in the possessors of power/^ and he then made 
 practical plans to qualify women for their work and 
 guide them in it. A favourite motto of his, which he 
 frequently emphasized, was: "We must educate wom- 
 en, who are the educators of the race, else the new gen- 
 eration can not accomplish its task.^^ He said to the 
 Baroness von Marenholz-Biilow: "Women are my natu- 
 ral allies, and they ought to help me, for I bring to 
 them what shall relieve them of their inner and outer 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 29 
 
 fetters, terminate their tutelage, and restore their dig- 
 nity with that of still undervalued childhood/^ He 
 repeated the same views to Herr von Wydenbrugk: 
 " Women and children are the most oppressed and neg- 
 lected of all. They have not yet been fully recognised 
 in their dignity as parts of human society. If progress 
 and a greater degree of freedom depend largely upon 
 the degree of universal culture, then it is woman to 
 whom God and I^ature have pointed out the first edu- 
 cational office in the family, upon whom this progress 
 especially depends.^^ In conversation with his dear 
 friend Middendorff, he said: "Women are to recognise 
 that childhood and womanliness (the care of childhood 
 and the life of women) are inseparably connected, that 
 they form a unit, and that God and Nature have placed 
 the protection of the human plant in their hands. The 
 culture of individuals, and therefore of the whole na- 
 tion, depends in great part on the earliest care of child- 
 hood. On that account women, as one half of mankind, 
 have to undertake the most important part of the prob- 
 lems of the time — problems that men are not able to 
 solve. If but one half of the work be accomplished, 
 then our epoch, like all others, will fail to reach the 
 appointed goal. As educators of mankind, the women 
 of the present time have the highest duty to perform, ' 
 while hitherto they have been scarcely more than the 
 beloved .mothers of human beings.^^ 
 
 "Tell women to take part imrtiediately by their 
 educational activity in the destiny of nations; tell them 
 that the recognition of the dignity of the female sex de- 
 pends upon this. The sex must be torn not only from 
 its instinctive and passive, but from its merely personal 
 
30 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 life, in order to live as a conscious member of humanity. 
 The consciousness of its elevated life work, and the ca- 
 pacity truly to accomplish it, will do more to bring on 
 the kingdom of God than all other means/^ 
 
 His Mother Play was prepared for mothers that 
 they might lay in infancy the only sure foundations for 
 intellectual and moral growth by defining the sensa- 
 tions, directing the emotions, and extending the experi- 
 ences of their children. He hoped to have this book 
 intelligently studied by mothers everywhere. The great 
 movement now going on in Europe and America in 
 favour of the establishment of mothers' classes and clubs 
 for the study of The Mother Play gives hope that his 
 plan may soon be realized. 
 
 The greatest step made toward the full recognition 
 of woman's individuality and responsibility since the 
 time of Christ was made when Froebel founded his 
 kindergartens and made women educators outside the 
 home — educators by profession. This momentous re- 
 form gave the first great impetus to the movement in 
 favour of woman's freedom and provided for the gen- 
 eral advance of humanity to a higher plane by giving 
 childhood more considerate, more sympathetic, and 
 more stimulating teachers. 
 
 Symbolism. — One of Froebel's strongest claims to 
 the title of the "psychologist of childhood" is his re- 
 markable insight into the power of children to recognise 
 analogies and resemblances, to clothe even inanimate 
 things with life, to give personality to everything, to see 
 hidden meanings and relationships — ^in short, to see 
 spiritual associations. This led him to give symbol;^sm 
 so prominent a place in his system, and this element Hn 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 31 
 
 his educational work distinguishes him as much as any 
 other principle from the educators who preceded him 
 as well as from most of his successors. By trying to* 
 remember the spiritual insights of their own earliest 
 years and by carefully watching the manifestations of 
 the dawning associations in the minds of very young 
 children, many teachers and educational investigators 
 are beginning to realize the importance of idealizing 
 or spiritualizing things, actions, and stories for the little 
 ones as a part in their highest education — spiritual edu- 
 cation. No one doubts that the spiritual nature is capa- • 
 ble of more limitless development than either the phys- 
 ical or the intellectual. It is impossible to overestimate 
 the good influence of a complete spiritual develop- 
 ment on the culture of the other departments of our 
 natures or the loss to humanity at large resulting from 
 the failure to give definite training to the spiritual pow- 
 ers. We pass through life almost in touch with mo- 
 mentous spiritual problems that are never revealed to 
 us because our spiritual insight has not been developed, 
 or has been weakened by neglect. Froebel's recognition 
 of the law of continuity showed him the importance of 
 laying the basis for future growth in early childhood. 
 He was especially anxious to develop spiritual insight in 
 the discovery of analogies, so as to prepare for the reve- 
 lation of universal unity in manhood. This he believed 
 to be the great purpose of education. This gives the 
 highest reason for the cultivation of the imagination. ' 
 Miss Blow, in her profoundly philosophic work on 
 Symbolic Education, summarizes FroebeFs s3rmbolism 
 in the kindergarten as '' an endeavour through the use 
 of typical facts and poetic analogies to stir the child 
 
82 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 with far-away presentiments of his ideal nature, his 
 spiritual relationships, and his divine destiny/^ In the 
 planning of his whole kindergarten system of gifts, oc- 
 cupations, plays, games, and stories he kept in view the 
 cultivation of the power to discover analogies. The in- 
 dividual gifts themselves and the manifold things they 
 are made to form or represent are used by the children 
 to typify the varied visions of a child's imagination. 
 The continuity insisted upon by Froebel in the use of 
 the gifts by evolving one structure or article or form 
 from another without resolving the first into its con- 
 stituent elements and the perfect rational sequence ex- 
 isting among the gifts themselves were intended to 
 foreshadow in the mind of the child the related con- 
 tinuity between the stages of the life of man. In the 
 plays and games every relationship of the child to its 
 home, society, Nature, and God are exemplified; the 
 occupations and some of the games prepare the child 
 for the comprehension in later life of the interdepend- 
 ence of all grades of society, and lay the foundation of 
 the reverence that one class should have for the honest 
 workers in all other fields of effort; and a still higher 
 kind of symbolism is found in the games that illustrate 
 spiritual truths and ethical principles. His stories, too, 
 are used in a similar way to fill the child's mind and 
 spiritual nature with the germ -structures around which 
 its spiritual insights and ethical character may estab- 
 lish themselves. 
 
 The interpretation of the spiritual through the real 
 is a definite stage in spiritual evolution. It is quite as 
 essential to have apperceptive centres for spiritual 
 growth as for intellectual development and the assimila- 
 
UNIVERSITY- ' 
 CHARACTERISTICS OJ^ROEBEitS SYSTEM. 33 
 
 tion of knowledge. By placing the child in proper con- 
 ditions, bringing it in contact with Nature, directing 
 its activities in lines that will reveal unity, evolution, 
 and logical sequence, it is possible to foreshadow dur- 
 ing the child^s unconscious period the deepest mysteries 
 of its intellectual and spiritual life. FroebeFs greatest 
 work. The Mother Play, is worthy of careful study not 
 only by mothers and kindergartners, but by all teachers, 
 as a philosophical foundation for the complete intellec- 
 tual and spiritual awakening and evolution of child- 
 hood. 
 
 Froebel gave a needed lesson to all teachers in public 
 schools and in Sunday schools by his instructions, that 
 the inner symbolism of the child's work or play should 
 not be brought specifically into the child's conscious- 
 ness by any formal explanations or moralising by the 
 teacher or kindergartner. Evil always results from 
 adult interference with the natural evolution of un- 
 consciousness into consciousness. Symbolism is in har- 
 mony with child nature, and in due time the foreshad- 
 owed spiritual ideals will reveal themselves in the child's 
 mind and life. The function of adult wisdom is to 
 provide the conditions for implanting the symbolic 
 germs of vital principles in the mind of unconscious 
 childhood. The unfolding of the germs into control- 
 ling principles should be the work of later years. The 
 habit of " pointing the moral " of tale or incident is a 
 kindred error to the practice of forcing mature theo- 
 ries of religion or adult practices of the child. Miss 
 Blow admirably expresses this idea in the sentence: 
 " Froebel knows that the mind may be trusted to 
 
 universalize its ideas, and leaves to its own alchemy 
 4 
 
34 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 the transmutation of the symbol into the reality sym- 
 bolized/^ 
 
 Froebel wrote comparatively little under the title 
 " Symbolism/^ but he made it an element in all his early 
 education. What he said is sufficient to show how much 
 importance he attached to it: 
 
 " Childhood can only be led through symbols to 
 the understanding of truth and the understanding of 
 itself. It needs symbolic action.^^ 
 
 " The presentiment of truth always goes before rec- 
 ognition of it.^^ 
 
 " I have not only forms for the child's eyes, which 
 are to make him acquainted with the outer world which 
 surrounds him; I have symbols which unlock his soul 
 for the thought or spirit which is innate, in everything 
 that has come out of God's creative mind. If the 
 ripened mind is to know and understand this thought, 
 its embodied image must make an impression upon the 
 yet unconscious soul of the child, and leave behind it 
 forms which can serve as analogies to the intellectual 
 ordering of things." 
 
 Some attempts have been made, especially in Sun- 
 day schools, to create an unnatural, conventional sym- 
 bolism by establishing a code of material symbols to 
 represent spiritual ideals. It is an error that violates 
 every fundamental principle of evolution and self-ac- 
 tivity to try to fit adult ideas of symbolism to the 
 child's mind. 
 
 The Comprehensiveness of FroeheVs Philosophy. — 
 Those who have been disposed to regard Froebel as a 
 mere enthusiast guided chiefly by his feelings should 
 be led to a due appreciation of his greatness by the 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S SYSTEM. 35 
 
 fact that he first clearly recognised several great truths 
 which since he revealed them have become the central 
 elements in the writings of the most philosophical in- 
 dustrial^ social, and moral reformers. 
 
 Dr. Stanley Hall says: " FroebeFs philosophy of edu- 
 cation is to me, on the whole/ the best we have, in that 
 it brings out more elements and gives them a truer pro- 
 portion. The root and spirit of Christianity are in it; 
 so is the spirit of Bacon and Comenius; so is the chief 
 motif of the German idealistic 'movement with its 
 seasoning of what is now sometimes called the higher 
 pantheism. He recognised in full the value of the 
 empirical and the deductive schools.'^ 
 
 Mr. Bowen has shown that Carlyle's central truths 
 regarding man's social and industrial evolution, the 
 unity of humanity and God and the revelation of God 
 in humanity, were expounded by Froebel; and that quo- 
 tations might be made from Carlyle's works which even 
 close students of Froebel might believe to have been 
 written by him. 
 
 Mr. Hailman notes the similarity of the teachings 
 of Herbert Spencer and Froebel in regard to the law of 
 unification. 
 
 Dr. Harris says: ^^ Froebel is the educational re- 
 former who has done more than all the rest to make valid 
 in education what the Germans call the developing 
 method." 
 
 Mr. Bowen says: ^^ Froebel is the true psychologist 
 of childhood. Froebel alone translates psychological 
 principles into psychological practice.'^ 
 
 Dr. Harris says: " Froebel sees better than other edu- 
 cators the true means of educating the feelings, and es- 
 
36 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 pecially the religious feelings '' ; and Dr. Hall, in speak- 
 ing of FroebeFs recognition of the fundamental nature 
 of feeling as the foundation of intellect and will, says, 
 " It is a great thought that now dominates psychology/^ 
 
 Dr. Harris, speaking of another phase of his edu- 
 cational philosophy — a most important one that Froe- 
 bel really brought into human consciousness — says: 
 " There is no philosophy for the young woman to he 
 compared with the philosophy that Froeiel has put into 
 his work on the mother^s plays and games with her chil- 
 dren/^ 
 
 In the recognition of God in Nature as the life in it 
 and behind it and the evolutionary force in all things, 
 organic and inorganic, Froebel has only one twin seer, 
 Wordsworth, who gave to the world in exquisite song 
 what Froebel a little earlier taught in prose. 
 
 Even the religious teachings that at first led the 
 theologians to consider Froebel unorthodox are now rec- 
 ognised as the most vital truths revealed by Christ. 
 Froebel was among the first to free religion from the 
 formalism and the dogmatism that sapped its vitality. 
 
 The surest proof of true greatness in a philosopher is 
 to find the leaders of the century succeeding his death 
 climbing toward the light he saw and recognising his dis- 
 coveries as everlasting and transforming truth. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PESTALOZZI^ HERBAKT, AND FROEBEL. ' 
 
 The " new education ^^ was undoubtedly revealed to 
 the world chiefly by Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Froebel. 
 If all other educational literature were destroyed, the 
 principles of these three men would reveal all the vital 
 forces that are moulding the educational systems and 
 methods of to-day, both in aims^and operations. The 
 leaders of the epoch to which they belong seemed to be 
 dominated by a similar spirit of investigation into the 
 evolution of the human soul with the view of the gen- 
 eral improvement of the race. A brief comparison of 
 the systems and aims of these prophets of education will 
 aid in understanding the relative value of FroebeFs 
 work. 
 
 With this end in view Froebel should be compared 
 with Pestalozzi and Herbart separately. 
 
 Pestalozzi was instinctive and inspirational, -Froebel ' 
 was philosophical and investigative. Pestalozzi oftenr ■ 
 applied correct principles without being conscious of 
 their underlying philosophy or their adaptation to the 
 nature of the child. Froebel studied the child for thirty 
 years — ^in its mother's arms, on the playground, and as 
 it exhibited its love of the beautiful and the wonder- 
 
 37 
 
38 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 ful in Nature. He also traced the development of the 
 race, and compared it with the progressive unfolding 
 of the powers of the child as it grew to manhood. Hav- 
 ing exhaustively studied the child and history, he used 
 the results of investigation and experience as a basis 
 for his educational system. His foundation ideal was to 
 bring the conscious educational processes of the schools 
 into perfect harmony with the processes by which God 
 develops the child so wonderfully, both in knowledge 
 and in power, during the period of unconscious educa- 
 tion lt>efore it goes to school. 
 
 Pestalozzi aimed to give definite ideas by the use of 
 real things as a foundation for intellectual strength. 
 Froebel provided the means of training the emotions as 
 well as the sensations, and of guiding them in the for- 
 mation of character by right self-activity. 
 
 Pestalozzi^s pupils observed and imitated either with 
 voice or hand; FroebeFs children observed and in- 
 vented. 
 
 Pestalozzi^s pupils were reproductive; Froebel's 
 were creative. 
 
 Pestalozzi^s pupils were trained in expression; Froe- 
 bePs in self-expression. 
 
 Pestalozzi was satisfied with productive activity; 
 Froebel required productive self-activity. Carlyle 
 caught FroebeFs creative idea, when he said to each 
 individual: " Be no longer a chaos, but a world or at least 
 a worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the piti- 
 fullest infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it in 
 God^s name! '' 
 
 Both these great teachers knew that the religious 
 nature of man is the highest; but Froebel realized with 
 
PESTALOZZI, HERBART, AND FROEBEL. 39 
 
 much greater clearness than Pestalozzi the fact that 
 spiritual growth must come from within, and that the 
 spiritual nature of the child finds its satisfaction and 
 growth in the symbolism of the real things around it. 
 In his Mother Play he has given a definite and consecu- 
 tive system, which is marvellous in its comprehensive- 
 ness and beauty, for defining the child^s pure emotions, 
 for enlarging its spiritual view, and for incidentally 
 awakening its conceptions of its relationships and du- 
 ties toward Nature, home, society, and God. 
 
 Pestalozzi was an intuitional philanthropist, who 
 used education to make men wiser and happier. Froe- 
 bel was an educational philosopher, who aimed through 
 education to make men grow forever ^^consciously to- 
 ward God.'' 
 
 Pestalozzi's ideal was, I must do good to the child. 
 Froebel's ideal was, I must increase good through the 
 child. 
 
 Herbart and Froebel were both more scientific than 
 Pestalozzi in their methods of dealing with the subject 
 of education. They worked out their systems logically 
 and constructively; he was emotional and instinctive. 
 
 In their study of t^e child as the basis of a sound 
 pedagogical system, Herbart and Froebel were in har- 
 mony in accepting the parallelism between the progress 
 of the race and theidevelopment of the child. This ide.a 
 was not original with either of them. Many of the 
 ablest philosophers and theologians have held this view, 
 and Rousseau and Pestalozzi had brought it within the 
 range of educational discussion before the time of 
 Herbart and Froebel. Froebel made more use than 
 Herbart of this idea of similarity between the culture 
 
40 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 epochs in the growth of the individual and the race. It 
 aided Herbart to decide what instruction is best suited 
 to the child, the youth, the man, at different stages of 
 his development; to Froebel it helped to reveal not only 
 suitable material for instruction, but proper processes or 
 occupations by which the child, the youth, and the man 
 should define and increase knowledge and power and 
 transform them into character. 
 
 Both Herbart and Froebel studied the child in order 
 to lay down a system of education that would help to 
 ennoble man and enable him to work out his highest 
 destiny. They were fully in accord in regard to the 
 true aim of education. Both made the development of 
 moral character the great purpose of all education, and 
 their study of the child was made to find the surest way 
 to reach this desired end. There was a radical differ- 
 ence, however, in their attitude toward the child. Her- 
 bart studied the child to find the best that could be done 
 for it; Froebel studied it to learn how it could be aided 
 in working out its own best development. Herbart 
 magnified the work of the teacher; Froebel magni- 
 fied the work of the child. Herbart made instruction, 
 and Froebel made self -activity, the source and cause of 
 growth in knowledge and character. 
 
 The difference of view point leads to the chief dis- 
 tinction between the work of these two great education- 
 ists. Herbart discusses the work of the teacher, and 
 shows what should be taught to the child, when it 
 should be taught, and why it should be taught, with 
 occasional suggestions as to how it should be taught. 
 Froebel, on the other hand, considers chiefly the work 
 of the child, and endeavours to lay down a complete sys- 
 
mi 
 
 PESTALOZZI, HERBART, AND FROEBEL. 41 
 
 tern of education by which the child's entire nature may 
 be called into vigorous exercise. Froebel keeps con- 
 stantly in mind the work of the teacher, and he has 
 clearly defined ideas regarding the order in which 
 knowledge should be presented to the unfolding mind; 
 but the basis of his pedagogical system is growth 
 through self -activity of the child. He discusses the 
 same problems as Herbart, but he reveals the child's 
 part in the work of education, and tries to show the 
 teacher how to guide the child in doing its own work 
 without interfering with its spontaneity. Herbart im- 
 proved the work of his predecessors, Froebel revolu- 
 tionized it. 
 
 Herbart summarizes his entire pedagogical system in 
 two brief sentences: "Instruction will form the circle 
 of thought, and education the character. The last is 
 nothing without the first. Herein is contained the 
 whole sum of my pedagogy.'' 
 
 Having laid this foundation, he is naturally led to 
 rely on the doctrine of interest as the central element 
 in his pedagogical system. Interest, desire, action, will, 
 is the order of the sequence of human development in 
 his psychology. The doctrine of interest has been ex- 
 pounded by Herbart in a way that leaves little room for 
 enrichment by his successors. With him interest is no 
 passing fancy, no temporary attraction to things or 
 subjects. It covers the whole ground of knowledge and 
 of sympathy:* "knowledge of the manifold, of its law, 
 and of its aesthetic relations; sympathy with humanity, 
 with society, and the relation of both to the highest 
 Being." He describes interest as " the joy of life and 
 the elevation of soul which knows how to part from 
 
42 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 life." He makes it, in the language of one of his great- 
 est interpreters, Uf er, " the root of volition." He has 
 been severely criticised for making action lead to will, 
 instead of accepting the commonly received idea that 
 will leads to action, but those who dissent most strongly 
 from his views regarding the relationship of will and 
 action may learn quite as much from his pedagogical 
 use of interest as those who are his most ardent ad- 
 mirers. Opponents as well as disciples may have their 
 ideas enlarged and. defined by Herbart's discussion of 
 interest, many-sidedness of interest, proportionate 
 many-sidedness, empirical interest, speculative interest, 
 aesthetic interest, sympathetic interest, social interest, 
 religious interest, absorption, and reflection. 
 
 Herbart^s system made instruction the basis of vir- 
 tue. Ufer crystallizes Herbart's teaching on this point 
 in the sentence: "When instruction has generated 
 knowledge that incites to volition and that is controlled 
 by ethical ideas its task is done." 
 
 It is easy to see how essential it was for Herbart to 
 insist on apperception and correlation or co-ordination 
 of studies. Apperception to Herbart meant more than 
 the accumulation of knowledge, or even of new knowl- 
 edge allied to what was already in the mind. It meant 
 mind awakening, mind activity, mind defining, and 
 mind enlargement, not by accretion but by assimila- 
 tion of the new knowledge with the corresponding mind 
 contents to form a greater mind content which should 
 be a unity and not an aggregation of related ideas. 
 
 The law of unity led Froebel to insist even more 
 strongly than Herbart on the perfect articulation and 
 harmonious correlation of studies. He criticised se- 
 
PESTALOZZI, HERBART, AND FROEBEL. 4.3 
 
 verely the lack of unity in the studies of the school he 
 attended when a boy, and endeavoured to remedy this 
 defect in a school in which he taught while a student 
 in Berlin. In all his after work he made unity an es- 
 sential. He made this law of unity the basis of his 
 kindergarten system. Every detail of his system in the 
 gifts, occupations, games, songs, and stories is related 
 to this central thought. To those who see behind the 
 material and the occupations, the kindergarten is the 
 objective embodiment of true concentration, and Froe- 
 bel strongly urged that this same principle of correlation 
 should dominate the arrangement of school programmes 
 and the methods of teaching in the schools. 
 
 Froebel's view of the human soul was directly oppo- 
 site to that held by Herbart. Froebel believed that the 
 child has within him a self-active soul — an element of 
 divinity, the selfhood or individuality of the child — and 
 that this develops by being put forth in gaining a 
 knowledge of its environment and in performing the 
 duties pertaining to its social relationships. > These opin- 
 ions led him to discover his law of spontaneity or self- | 
 activity, which he made the underlying principle o'f all I 
 his developing and teaching processes in the kinder- 
 garten and in the school. 
 
 He did not mean by this law of spontaneity that 
 the child has to acquire all knowledge by itself with- ■ 
 out the aid of the teacher. He gave instruction its true ' 
 value. He did mean, however, that no instruction 
 really becomes a content of the child^s mind in the 
 highest sense until the child has made a creative use 
 of it in some way. FroebePs lessons always have two 
 parts, the instructive and- the creative. The teacher 
 
44- FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 gives new instruction, and immediately the child makes 
 an original nse or application or modification of it. 
 In this way, by his law of self -activity, Froebel secures 
 to the fullest possible extent active, co-operative inter- 
 est, and the most productive apperception. The child 
 must be more interested and more definitely attentive 
 when using knowledge than it can possibly be in receiv- 
 ing knowledge. Executive attention must be more de- 
 veloping than receptive attention, even if the pupil 
 acts in carrying out the plans of the teacher; it becomes 
 still more productive when the pupil executes his own 
 plan or carries out his own design. 
 
 In discipline and training Herbart was much more 
 coercive than Froebel, although less so than most of his 
 predecessors and some of his successors. He made a 
 much larger use of compulsion, both in forcing atten- 
 tion to study and in controlling the conduct, than Froe- 
 bel. Froebel recognised the selfhood of the child as the 
 true source of interest and the surest controlling force. 
 He would not check effort, because he desired above all 
 else positivity of character. He would not stop the cur- 
 rent of real individual energy, he would change its di- 
 rection when it was wrong by changing the pupil's cen- 
 tre of interest. His constant purpose was to secure 
 1 reform and progress through the child so that it might 
 become self-directing and self-progressive. Herbart 
 recognised with great clearness the necessity for con- 
 trol; Froebel saw the harmony between spontaneity and 
 control, ^^ the perfect law of liberty.'^ Yet Herbart 
 acknowledged the individuality of the child. He wrote 
 many wise things about it. He says, for instance, " The 
 teacher ought to make it a point of honour to leave the 
 
PESTALOZZI, HERBART, AND FROEBEL. 45 
 
 individuality as untouched as possible." He criticises 
 severely those teachers who " dominate the feelings of 
 the pupil, and, holding him by this bond, unceasingly 
 disturb the youthful character to such an extent that 
 it can never know itself." But even his disciples ac- 
 knowledge the fact that there is at least an apparent 
 incongruity between his conception of the mind of the 
 child as built u p_^^ entirely of j)resentation s^" and a true 
 recognition of individuality. Herbart himself saw this. 
 It is clearly impossible to give individuality its full 
 recognition, when the conception of the soul is reduced 
 to the smallest possible degree. The more the soul idea 
 is limited, the less important does individuality become 
 and the more potent does the teacher become as a de- 
 cider of destiny. FroebeFs conception of the soul as an 
 element of divinity of the child gave him a reverence 
 for individuality so profound that he demanded of the 
 mother and teacher two things for the child — freedom 
 and opportunity for creative activity in applying and 
 extending the knowledge gained by experience and in- 
 struction. 
 
 The characteristics of the systems of Herbart and 
 Froebel may be summarized as follows: 
 
 Both Herbart and Froebel made high moral charac- | 
 ter the great purpose of education. Herbart limited the 
 original capacity of the human soul to one power, 
 " that 'of pntpriripr ij^ff^ rplfltin-ns pf Ihp pylprnql wnrTd/^ 
 or, as De Garmo defines Herbart's idea, " He assigned 
 to the soul merely the capacity of self-preservation." 
 Froebel regarded the soul as a germ of divinity, that \ 
 must inevitably develop in power, and that should de- 
 velop by its own creative self-activity. Herbart studied j 
 
46 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. r 
 
 the child to mould it; Froebel studied it to guide it in 
 its growth. Herbart studied the child as a philosopher; 
 Froebel studied it as a sympathetic philosopher. Her- 
 bart^s recognition ' of individuality was limited by his 
 conception of the inherent powers of the soul; Froe- 
 bePs idea of the child soul necessarily led him to rever- 
 ence individuality as the central element in human de- 
 velopment and as the thing that made the increase of 
 human power desirable. Herbart saw the need of con- 
 trol much more clearly than the need of freedom; Froe- 
 bel saw the harmony between freedom and control. 
 Herbart made instruction the basis of virtue; Froebel 
 made morality depend on true living in the home and 
 in the school^ on the awakening of the ideal as a coun- 
 terpoise to the sensual^ and on the recognition of and 
 reverence, for the life principle in and behind Nature. 
 Herbart made will result from action; Froebel made ac- 
 tion result from will. Self -activity developed the will ac- 
 cording to Froebel, but the will increased in power as the 
 result of its exercise in causing creative self -activity.* 
 
 Herbart^s contributions to pedagogy are a matchless 
 discussion of interest, a thorough exposition of apper- 
 ception, and a philosophic foundation for co-ordination 
 of studies so that they may produce the most definite 
 and most beneficial results on character. Froebel re- 
 vealed the law of creative self-activity as the source of 
 growth, including in it the most intense and most cer- 
 tain interest and the most perfect apperception, and 
 the law of universal unity, in which unity of studies 
 (correlation or concentration) was definitely recognised, 
 although it is not the most important part of Froebel's 
 comprehensive idea of unity. 
 
PESTALOZZI, HERBART, AND FROEBEL. 47 
 
 Herbart aimed to produce in his pupils the spirit and 
 the power of co-operative and productive activity. In 
 this ideal he was the peer of all other educators except 
 Froebel, and the superior of most of them. FroebeFs 
 ideal was co-operative, productive, and creative self-ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 Perhaps FroebeFs most distinctive characteristics 
 were his comprehensive recognition of the deepest phi- 
 losophy of the sages in regard to complete human de- 
 velopment and his extraordinary power of translating 
 this philosophy into a practical system of pedagogy, 
 adapted alike to the symbolic period of unconscious 
 childhood and the conscious growth of maturer years. 
 Clear insight is good, high achievement is far better. 
 
CHAPTEE III. 
 fkoebel's fundamental law; unity or inner con-^ 
 
 NECTION. 
 
 Froebel had one universal law to which he related 
 all educational processes, by which he tested all educa- 
 tional methods, and on which he founded all educational 
 principles. He believed absolutely that God created 
 all things in a universal, interdependent, interinflueu- 
 cing, ever-progressive harmony, a living unity of which 
 God himself was and is and shall forever remain the 
 centre and the spiritual essence, the divine source of life 
 and light. No other words meant so much to him as 
 inner connection. The fulness of their meaning it was 
 his highest aim to reveal to his fellow-men, because to 
 him they contained not only the true basis of systems 
 and methods in education, but the philosophical prin- 
 ciple on which the social organization should rest, and 
 in conformity with which the progre&s of civilization 
 must be made. 
 
 As he understood it, unity is the centre oi—sH 
 philosophy and the co-ordinating element in all life 
 processes in the work of Nature and of man. To gain 
 an insight into this vital and universal law FroebePs own 
 words should be carefully studied. These words may at 
 
 48 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL L^W. 49 / ] 
 
 first seem mystical, but when reread and applied to the 
 unities already fixed in the mind by experience they 
 will gradually be understood, and will prove to be the 
 language of a prophet soul who saw beyond his time. 
 The mysticism will disappear with the defining and 
 enlargement of our own apperceptive centres of re- 
 latedness. 
 
 The opening paragraph of his Education of Man ^^ 
 reads as follows: " In all things there lives and reigns 
 an eternal law. To him whose mind, through disposi- 
 tion and faith, is filled, penetrated, and quickened with 
 the necessity that this can not possibly be otherwise, 
 as well as to him whose clear, calm mental vision be- 
 holds the inner in the outer and through the outer^and 
 sees the outer proceeding with logical necessity from 
 the essence of the inner, this law has been and is 
 enounced with equal clearness and distinctness in Na- 
 ture (the external), in the spirit (the internal), and in 
 life, which unites the two. This all-controlling law is 
 necessarily based on an all-pervading energetic, living, 
 self-conscious, and hence eternal unity. . . . This unity 
 is God.'^ 
 
 In other places he writes: "Education consists Jn 
 leading man, as a thinking, intelligent being, growing 
 into self-consciousness, to a pure and unsullied, con- 
 scious and free representation of the inner law of di- 
 vine unity, and in teaching him ways and means there- 
 
 "I would educate human beings who with their 
 feet stand rooted in God^s earth, in Nature, whose heads 
 reach even into heaven and there behold truth, in whose 
 hearts are united both earth and heaven, the varied life 
 
50 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 of earth and Nature, and the glory and peace of heaven, 
 God^s earth and God's heaven." 
 
 " The desire for nnity is the hasis of all genuinely 
 human development and cultivation/' 
 \ " The school endeavours to render the scholar fully 
 
 conscious of the nature and inner life of things and of 
 himself, to teach him to know the inner relations 
 of things to one another, to the scholar, and to the 
 living source and conscious unity of all things — to 
 God/' 
 
 "Never forget that the essential husiness of the 
 school is not so much to teach and to communicate a 
 variety and a multiplicity of things as it is to give 
 prominence to the ever-living unity that is in Jtllj 
 things." ] 
 
 " Every individual heing, if it would attain its des- 
 tiny, in necessary and indispensahle obedience to its na- 
 ture, must manifest and reveal itself in this triune 
 way, in and as unity, in and as individuality, in and as 
 manifoldness in ever-continuing diversity." 
 
 " Nature must be shown to the pupil as an organized 
 and organic whole in all directions." 
 
 " Are not man and Nature the creatures of the one 
 : God? Must we not on this account necessarily find 
 unity and harmony and obedience to the same law in 
 the spirit of Nature and in the spirit of man, in external 
 forms and forces, and in internal formation and 
 thought?" 
 
 "Mathematics is the expression of the inner cause 
 and of the outer limitations of space. As it originates 
 in unity, it is in itself a unity; and, as space implies 
 diversity in direction, shape, and extension, it follows 
 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 51 
 
 that number, form, and magnitude mutually imply one 
 another, and are an inseparable three in unity /^ 
 
 '' The keystone of the kindergarten activity is the 
 transformation of material, and therefore the percep- 
 tion of the mutual connectedness of the various solid 
 forms, their derivation from one another, and the con- 
 nection of all with the primary unity of space/^ 
 
 " Living soul unity sees life as an unbroken whole 
 in all its operations and phenomena/^ 
 
 " The search for details is the more interesting the 
 more fully a relatively greater unit has been previously 
 grasped, though this need by no means be the greatest 
 possible whole/' 
 
 " The firmament, if anything, leads us to recognise 
 the connection of all that is, and leads us up to unity — 
 God. Xo one of the heavenly bodies is isolated, every 
 planet has its centre in the sun of its system. All the 
 solar systems are in relation and continual interaction 
 with each other. That is the condition of all Hfe. 
 Everywhere mutual relation of parts. As above, in i 
 great things, an unbroken connectio n and ha rmony ' 
 rule^so also here below, even in the smallest thing, 
 everywhere is the same order and harmony, _ because 
 the same law rules everywhere, the one law of God, 
 which expresses itself in thousandfold many-sidedness, 
 lut in the last analysis is one, for God himself is the 
 law. . . . Everywhere in God's creation, in the infi- 
 nite manifoldness of phenomena, we always come upon 
 unity, and must infer it where we do not perceive it.'' 
 
 " To reach the unconscious harmony of Nature, with 
 consciousness Tn the sphere, isthe_joal.. which 
 
 V^ OF THE ' r 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
52 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 '' Every productive work^ every work consciously 
 willed^ is conditioned upon the union of parts accord- 
 ing to an idea^ and that is nothing else than organiza- 
 ing/' 
 
 '' The time has come when man must recognise his 
 relations to Nature, to the material world, and at the 
 same time to the Spirit of God which rules in them.'^ 
 
 Dr. Harris, in the introduction to The Education of 
 Man, says: "There must be an inner connection be- 
 tween the pupiFs mind and the objects whicli he stud- 
 ies, and this shall determine what to study. There 
 must be an inner connection in those objects among 
 themselves which determines their succession and the 
 order in which they are to be taken up in the course of 
 instruction. Finally, there is an inner connection with- 
 in the soul that unites the faculties of feeling, percep- 
 tion, phantasy, thought, and volition, and determines 
 the law of their unfolding.'^ ~" I 
 
 Mr. Bowen faithfully interprets Froebel's central 
 purpose when he says: "He [Froebel] pleads for the 
 unification of thought and the unification of life by 
 means of the unification of the materials of thought, 
 and the unification of the preparation for life." 
 
 Mr. Hailman summarizes FroebeFs fundamental law 
 thus: "In his educational work this principle of life — 
 unity — was ever uppermost in FroebeFs mind. With 
 reference to the individual human being, ^ this unifica' 
 Hon of life means to Froebel harmony in feeling, think- 
 ing, willing, and doing; with reference to humanity, it 
 means subordination of self to the common welfare and 
 to the progressive development of mankind; with ref- 
 erence to Nature, it means a thoughtful subordination 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 53 
 
 to her laws of development; with reference to God, it 
 means perfect faith as Froebel finds it realized in Chris- 
 tianity/^ 
 
 Miss Blow, in her work on Symbolic Education, says: 
 " The application of the idea of development to educa- 
 tion has been in large measure the work of Pestalozzi 
 and Froebel. To the former we owe the ideal of edu- 
 cation as the harmonious development of inherent pow- 
 ers; to the latter must be accorded the honour of hav- 
 ing first clearly perceived the manifold implications of 
 this ideal The mind of Pestalozzi was a battle ground 
 between the idea of development and the atomism he 
 had inherited from Eousseau. Over the mind of Froe- 
 bel the new ideal held the sole and supreme sway, and so 
 clear to him was its paramount significance that he 
 could boldly afiirm he would rather win from a tiny 
 sand grain the history of its development than learn 
 from God himself the structure of the universe." 
 
 These are the opinions of FroebeFs best English- 
 speaking interpreters, and they give to him the high 
 honour of revealing to the world in applied form the 
 law of unity, interrelationship, inner connection, " uni- 
 fication of life," development, or evolution. This law 
 as Froebel understood it is too comprehensive in its 
 varied meanings and applications to be fitly named by 
 one word or phrase, or even by a series of words and 
 phrases. It is great enough to form a life study, and it 
 is so truly the basis of the evolutionary unification of 
 life that as each year of progressive study widens the 
 range of intellectual vision it reveals itself in extended 
 applications and more harmonious co-ordinations. In 
 a single chapter it is possible to give only a brief ex- 
 
54 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 position of those applications of the law that should lead 
 teachers to a broader conception of the meaning of edu- 
 cation and aid them in gaining a fuller comprehension 
 of the principles that underlie the art of teaching. 
 
 Speaking generally^ the law is based on the idea that 
 there is a central, co-ordinating, life-producing, life-giv- 
 ing, creative power, which is not only the source of all 
 life and power, but is itself the life and power and evo- 
 lutionary element in all creation; and that as this cen- 
 tral power is itself perfect, the universal tendency of 
 all life is a progressive development toward the divine 
 unity in the evolution of ultimate perfection. " It is 
 the destiny and life work of all things to unfold thLeiF 
 essence, hence their divine being.^^ 
 
 Confining the application of the law of unity to in- 
 dividual man, and especially to his educational growth, 
 Froebel says: ^^It is the special destiny and life work of 
 man, as an intelligent and rational being, to become 
 fully, vividly, and clearly conscious of his essence, of 
 the divine effluence in him, and therefore of God; to 
 become fully, vividly, and clearly conscious of his des- 
 tiny and life work; and to accomplish this, to render it 
 (his essence) active, to reveal it in his own life with self- 
 determination and freedom.^^ As every human being 
 has within himself the divine, the great work of educa- 
 tion is to keep this divine essence in conscious unity 
 with the divinity, so that by free self-activity it may 
 achieve self-revelation, and, having found its own in- 
 dividuality, may define it in creative work for the race, 
 of which greater organic unity it constitutes a complete, 
 a free, but a responsible part. 
 
 Froebel taught that, if man at every stage of his evo- 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 55 
 
 lution receives the training and culture suitable for his \ 
 development at that time and adapted to the interested X// 
 employment of his own powers, his spiritual relation- 
 ship to the universal unity of humanity and God will 
 unfold itself naturally through the symbolism of the 
 material unities that are gradually revealed to him. He 
 saw very clearly the inner connection or life unity ex- 
 isting between childhood, boyhood, youth, and man- : 
 hood, and, applying the universal law, that a perfect 
 organism can only be produced by the co-ordination 
 of individually perfect parts or elements, he decided that 
 the decree of perfection attained by each succeeding 
 stage in the evolution of manhood must depend on the 
 completeness of the appropriate development of the pre- 
 ceding stage or stages. The only possible preparation 
 for a perfect development of boyhood is the complete 
 unfolding of the powers of childhood; the character- 
 istic evolution of childhood and boyhood prepares the j 
 way for the thorough training of youth; and the possi- \ | 
 bility of realizing a true manhood depends on the ful- 1 1 / 
 ness of the fitting preparation made during the three 
 previous stages of development. 
 
 If during the period of childhood the child is de- 
 nied any of the conditions or opportunities of perfect 
 child unfolding, or if it is forced or permitted to do or 
 learn any of the work properly belonging to a later 
 stage, the evil done can not be undone in the future by 
 any process of training, however wise it may be. The ■ 
 dwarfing of omission and the blighting of wrong com- 
 mission are permanent. ^^ The child, the boy, man, in- ) 
 deed, should know no other endeavour but to be at every 
 stage of development wholly what this stage calls for.^' , 
 
56 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 This is the doctrine of Froebel. In its extension this 
 doctrine has led to the important modern investigations 
 regarding nascent periods or Hfe epochs of special apti- 
 tude for the study of certain subjects. 
 
 The violation of this doctrine has led to many of 
 the worst errors in connection with education. The 
 giving of abstract lessons in arithmetic and the attempts 
 to develop mechanical expertness in arithmetical opera- 
 tions before space relationships have been incidentally 
 defined in children's minds by using material things — 
 not for the direct purpose of teaching arithmetic at all, 
 but in carrying out some plan of building or other inter- 
 esting process of self-activity — have made arithmetical 
 dwarfs out of thousands who should have been mathe- 
 matical giants. Arithmetical relationships and pro- 
 cesses unfold themselves as naturally as the power of 
 speech, in the minds of children who are led by their 
 home and school occupations to form concepts of real 
 mathematical relationships before they are asked to deal 
 with mere mathematical symbols. 
 
 Froebel was far in advance even of those who im- 
 agine that they are fulfilling the requirements of peda- 
 gogical laws by using objects to represent number, in 
 order to teach numerical conceptions, combinations, and 
 operations. The lesson to be learned is not the direct 
 object in Froebel's introductory work. The things used 
 by the child are always more than mere number em- 
 blems. To use objects only as counters or as separate 
 units follows the law of atomism or unrelated indi- 
 vidualism, but it directly violates FroebeFs law of unity. 
 Even when the separate units are collected to represent 
 number or combinations of numbers they are not as- 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 57 
 
 sociated in harmony with any law of '^ inner connection." 
 They form an aggregation, not a true interrelated unity. 
 There is no bond of life, no underlying interpenetrat- 
 ing idea around which they are organized. Objective 
 representation of number is undoubtedly better than its 
 abstract presentation to the child mind, but Froebel 
 gave the child organized material which it can use in 
 representing or expressing its own design or thought, 
 and by the use of which it incidentally forms exact 
 mathematical conceptions, which are as clear to its mind 
 as any other conceptions received through its interest- 
 ing plays or occupations. In this way arithmetic be- 
 comes attractive at the proper time, and the solution of 
 problems is a source of stimulating interest. 
 
 The teaching of the formal rules of grammar too 
 early often destroys the joy and the development that 
 should come to the child through self-expression by 
 language; and the attempt to teach botany, entomology, 
 or zoology to young children robs them of the many 
 advantages they should derive from their natural love 
 of flowers, insects, and animals. It is a gross error to 
 try to interest children in the scientific analysis and 
 classification of flowers, insects, and animals, while they 
 should simply be gaining through love of these things a 
 clear recognition of the spirit of life in and behind them, 
 and a consciousness of the ascending evolution of life in 
 them. Their loving interest in these playfellows will 
 form a basis for thorough and practical study of botany, 
 entomology, and zoology in due time. The love of life 
 developed in the child forms the only true basis for the 
 scientific study of life by the boy or the youth. If a 
 young man or woman begins the study of botany with- 
 
68 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 out having had the love and nurture of flower life de- 
 veloped in childhood by living with the flowers and, if 
 possible, by planting their seeds and caring for them, the 
 study will be formal and uninteresting. It will be car- 
 ried on without the apperceiving centre of knowledge 
 and the interest stimulus of love. 
 
 FroebePs principle of stage evolution holds as truly 
 in the department of moral training as in intellectual 
 culture. No greater wrong can be inflicted upon a child 
 than to try to make it exhibit the characteristics of the 
 religious life of maturity, either in profession or prac- 
 tice. The only certain product of such training is a 
 hypocrite — the meanest thing that false training can 
 make out of a being formed in God's image. There 
 are two ways by which it may be made impossible for a 
 man ever to become as true a type of Christian character 
 as under proper conditions he might have been. The 
 one is by starving his sympathies, his poetic fancy, and 
 his artistic instincts while a child and leaving him 
 Avithout heart consciousness of love, formed in the lov- 
 ing home, and head consciousness of life, gained from 
 the life in and behind Nature. The other is by forcing 
 on him the religious principles and dogmas of a ma- 
 tured theology, or requiring from him the Christian 
 service of adults. 
 
 But, although Froebel urges so strongly the abso- 
 lute necessity for adequate and appropriate develop- 
 ment in each stage of growth from infancy to manhood, 
 he protests very forcibly against making '^ sharp limits 
 and definite subdivisions within the continuous series 
 of the years of development.'^ Man's complete life 
 unity must have continuity as well as unity. Indeed 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 59 
 
 continuity is an essential element in FroebeFs concep- 
 tion of every progressive unity. " That which follows," 
 he says, "is always conditioned upon that which goes 
 before." The present, in time or action, is always the 
 link between the past and the future. Continuity is an 
 essential in every progressive process. Man's develop- 
 ment is not to be regarded as a series of distinct steps, 
 but as a closely interrelated series of evolutionary de- 
 grees proceeding from infancy, and each a necessary 
 preparation for the perfection of the succeeding degree. 
 Each intermediate degree depends on its predecessor and 
 prepares for its successor, and thus realizes FroebeFs 
 ideal of unity as connectedness. 
 
 Froebel broadly outlines the process of development 
 in man in the sentence, " To make the internal external, 
 and the external internal, to find unity for both, th is is 
 
 the general external form in which man's destiny is ex-» 
 pressed." To childhood and the home he assigns the 
 work of making the internal external. This includes 
 the kindergarten period, as he hoped to have the kin- 
 dergarten spirit in the homes, and aimed to make the 
 kindergartens themselves in reality co-operative homes 
 for children— homes in which there should be the unity 
 of social conditions among the children and the unity 
 of culture, wisdom, and motherliness in the kinder- 
 gartners. The second and third periods, boyhood and 
 youth, during which the external is to be made inter- 
 nal and unity discovered and defined between the in- * 
 ternal and the external, are to be spent in school (in- 
 cluding college). The^ first perio d he calls the period of 
 life, the second the period of lear ning , the third the pe- 
 riod oi unificatio n. During the first period the child 
 
 J^^t^ 
 
 ir. 
 
60 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 makes the acquaintance of Nature, defines its own pow- 
 ers, and strengthens its selfhood by putting its inner 
 life out in its plays and by gaining constructive con- 
 trol over its material environment in its voluntary and 
 directed occupations. During the second period it 
 should receive a well-chosen and well-organized course 
 of instruction; and during the third it should be led to 
 see itself in its relationships to the material world, to 
 society, and to God. The germ feelings and thought 
 or apperceptive centres for the complete development 
 of the third period should be evolved in the first period 
 and the body of knowledge organized so as to aid in the 
 culture of mind, and the formation of character should 
 be communicated during the second period. Then, in 
 the third period the unification of the internal with the 
 external is consciously revealed, reason is developed, de- 
 sire transformed into will, and ^^ will into firmness of 
 wiiy^ or stability of uptending character. 
 
 These three stages of growth thus_outlined.bX-Eroe«, 
 bel in very general terms correspond closely, first, to the 
 period spent at home before going to school, when spon^ 
 taneity or free life activity predominates in the child's 
 development; second, to school life, when the boy is._ 
 instructed; and, third, to college life, during which the 
 youth should be made conscious of his own individual 
 relationships and responsibility, and trained to reason 
 properly, that he may have a reliable inner guide to di- 
 rect his life work. 
 
 Froebel would make as radical changes in the third 
 stage in the evolution of perfect manhood as he did in 
 the first. He would make a college much more than a 
 higher school for giving instruction in special depart- 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. Ql 
 
 ments of learning. The college should train manhood.^ 
 The chief aim of college training should be coiistruc=_ 
 tive character work, rather than the giving of extended i 
 intellectual culture alone. The best intellectual cul- 1 
 ture would be secured by giving character construction | 
 the first, and mind storing the second place. Young 
 men should not be mere atoms in a great college aggre- 
 gation, they should be responsible, self-directing indi- 
 viduals in a great unity whose "inner connection ^^ 
 should be the fuller comprehension of duty based on re- 
 lationship to their fellow-men and God. The gradual 
 revelation of universal interdependence in the con- 
 sciousness is a mightier stimulus to self-activity or in- 
 dividual effort (the only true productive effort) for 
 culture than the external incentives of competitive 
 examination, class standing, or scholarships. These, ac- 
 cording to Froebel's philosophy, are not only weak, as 
 all purely external incentives are, but destructive of true 
 character, as they develop the immoral competitive spirit 
 instead of the spirit of community. Whatever weakens 
 theJn>oTiHj2fjTumaTi iniitj:Js_ evil; whatever strength gTI^ 
 it is divine in quality and tendency. Froebel would 
 therefore give to youth in the ihird stage of human 
 evolution much more freedom of action than is now 
 given in most colleges and universities, as the only basis 
 .for the natural development of social relationship and 
 responsibility. He understood the harmony between 
 the control of parent, kindergartner, teacher, or pro- 
 fessor and the spontaneity of the child, boy, or youth 
 so fully that he had a sacred reverence for individual 
 freedom. This harmony between control and spon- 
 taneity was part of his law of unity, as was his recogni- 
 
62 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 tion of the harmony between all apparent opposites. 
 He demanded such reverence for individual selfhood 
 as would give more freedom to the pupil in every stage 
 of his development, and in the third stage he would en- 
 large freedom into conscious liberty as the source of 
 conscious responsibility. The old mandatory dominat- 
 ing spirit of college and university control must change. 
 It may be changed safely, when the evolution of child- 
 hood and boyhood is in harmony with the true princi- 
 ples of child and boy development. 
 
 Speaking of his own training at Jena, during his 
 third stage of development, he said : '' My stay at Jena 
 had taught me much; but by no means so much as it 
 ought to have taught me, but yet I had won for myself 
 a standpoint both subjective and objective. I could 
 already perceive unity in diversity, the correlation of 
 forces, the interconnection of all living things, life in 
 matter, and the principles of physics and biology.^^ Ex- 
 amination could test only the least important of these 
 acquirements. 
 
 Writing of his own conscious mental development, 
 he said: " The most pregnant thought which arose in 
 me at this period (aged twenty-five) was this: All is unity, 
 all rests in unity, all springs from unity, strives f or and^ 
 leads up to unity, and returns to unity at last. This 
 striving in unity and after unity is the cause of the sev- 
 eral aspects of human life.^^ Three years later he wrote, 
 " Mankind as a whole, as one great unity, has now be- 
 come my quickening thought " ; and again, two years 
 afterward, he wrote of the lectures of Prof. Weiss, 
 of Berlin, on natural history, " The lectures for which 
 I had so longed really came up to the needs of my 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 63 
 
 mind and soul and awakened in me, more fervent 
 than ever, the certainty of the demonstrable inner con- 
 nection of the whole cosmical development of the uni- 
 verse/^ 
 
 The conception of unity grew more clear to him, 
 till it became the guiding element in his life work . He 
 continued without ceasing to " systematize, symbolize, 
 idealize, realize, and recognise identities and analogies 
 among all facts and phenomena, all problems, ex- 
 pressions, and formulas which deeply interested him; 
 and in this way life, with its varied phenomena and ac- 
 tivities, became to him more and more free from con- 
 tradictions, more harmonious, simple, and clear, and 
 more recognisable as a part of the life universal." 
 
 Filled with this great ideal, the natural step next in 
 order was to plan for making his conception of the great 
 unity clear to his fellow-men. While walking on the 
 banks of the Ehine, where the Main pours in its waters, 
 and surrounded by " Nature at her loveliest and fresh- 
 est," the thought came to him, " There must exist some- 
 where some beautifully simple and certain way of free- 
 ing human life from contradiction, some means of re- 
 storing to man himself at peace iiiierrMJlh^^ To seek 
 out tHis~way became the vocation of his life. 
 
 Seeing the advantages of a living unity so clearly, 
 it is not strange that he should regard unification of 
 knowledge, and conscious interrelationship as the su- 
 preme work of the training of a young man or woman. 
 For this fulle^stpxeparation for _the_. conception of duty 
 and the inde£endent power to execute it, he planned the 
 course of education in the three stages of human evolu- 
 tion. He wrought out in detail only the first, but the 
 
C4 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 foundation law throughout he believed to be unity, and 
 the fundamental process self-activity. 
 
 There is no doubt that the extensive attention now 
 paid to the investigation of the theory of " culture 
 epochs'^ will lead to a much fuller understanding" of 
 FroebeFs law of evolution and a more definite classifi- 
 cation of the stages or degrees or life epochs in human 
 development; but whatever discoveries may be made in 
 this department of pedagogy, Froebel must always be 
 regarded as the first to make the theory of " culture 
 epochs ^^ a part of pedagogical practice. He regarded 
 it as of such supreme importance that he wrote: "If 
 the moment of the natural budding of the new subjec^^ 
 of instruction has been missed, every later attempt arbi^ 
 trarily to introduce the subject lacks interest. . . . The 
 distinctive character of a natural and rational life-stir- 
 ring and developing system of instruction lies in the 
 finding and fixing of this point. For when it is truly 
 found, the subject of instruction grows independently 
 in accordance with its own living law, and truly teaches 
 the teacher himself. Therefore, the whole attention 
 of the teacher must be directed to these budding points^* 
 of new branches of instruction." The most advanced 
 modern investigation has not got beyond Froebel in 
 the theory of nascent periods or culture epochs. 
 
 Froebel applied the law of unity to the development 
 of man^s physical, intellectual, and spiritual powers 
 in harmony. This view of individual unity is now very 
 generally accepted in theory, although still almost uni- 
 versally violated in practice. The usual practice is 
 to make definite and systematic effort to deveIop~Ihe 
 intellectual powers, or at least store the minds of pu- ' 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. ^^"^^^iRK. f 
 
 ■r :ryy^^'^^^ 
 
 pils, but few schools jtnake equally definite and sys- 
 tematic efforts to train their bodies and develop their 
 spiritual powers. Froebel^taught that bodily activity 
 and the condition of the vital organs Iias a direct Influ- r* 
 ence on the development of the brain and nervous sys- 
 tem, and on the co-ordination of the brain, the nerv- 
 ous system, and the body itself. Modern neurology sUs- i 
 tains his theory. He taught that the essential elements 
 necessary to form a strong character are a vigorous 
 active body; a well-developed, well-nourished, co-ordi- 
 nated brain as the organ of a balanced mind; and a 
 spiritual nature sympathetically responsive to truth, 
 purity, and nobility in man, to beauty, life, and evolu- 
 tion in Nature and to the love and inspiration of God. 
 He believed that these elements of true manhood should 
 be trained as a unity; that God had created them in 
 harmony; and that those who train one department 
 only of man's nature at the expense of the other two 
 are producing abnormal beings, out of harmony with 
 God's plan. This is so absolutely true that the tend- 
 ency of Nature is to refuse to reproduce such abnormal 
 men and women. Herbert Spencer says: "A deficiency 
 of reproductive power in women results from overtaxing 
 their brains." Mr. Spencer shows narrowness in at- 
 tributing loss of reproductive power as the result of 
 overtaxing the brain to women only. Mr. Galton found 
 a similar result among men of genius. It is quite as true 
 in the case of men as of women. This result, however, 
 does not necessarily follow from the complete develop- 
 ment of the brain or its vigorous and sustained ac- 
 tion, but from the culture and exercise of the brain at 
 the expense of tJie hody, Mr. Spencer evidently believes 
 6 
 
66 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 that the evil springs from anomalous development, be- 
 cause he holds that " physical labour makes women less 
 fertile/^ although he thinks more evidence is needed to 
 prove this conclusively. It is reasonable to conclude 
 that the destructive or restrictive effects of physical 
 overexertion on fertility, or on any other bodily func- 
 tion, are not so great or so immediately recognisable as 
 the effects of overstimulation and overexertion of the 
 brain. Bodily exertion develops the brain to a consid- 
 erable extent, and so tends to preserve the necessary har- 
 mony of development, but overactivity of the brain pre- 
 vents the proper development of the body and directly 
 interferes with harmonious development or the perfect 
 unity that Froebel desired to restore and perpetuate 
 as a basis for complete happiness and the conscious evo- 
 lution of the race toward the divine. The prolonged 
 intensification of great intellectual effort and the neg- 
 lect of physical training must lead to the weakening 
 of the vital organism, the disorganization of the nerv- 
 ous system, the deterioration of physical energy, and 
 therefore to a " deficiency of reproductive power.^^ The 
 law of unity is so absolute and inexorable that its vio- 
 lation is always followed by appropriate penalty. 
 
 The destruction of the natural harmony between 
 the physical, intellectual, and spiritual powers by over- 
 straining or overexerting any department of human 
 power at the expense of the others is inevitably evil in 
 its effects. There are men and women who have pos- 
 sessed, and do now possess, extraordinary intellectual 
 power, and whose physical culture has been entirely 
 neglected. Some notable instances have occurred in 
 which the brain of a genius has been lodged in a body 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 67 
 
 feeble from birth. These illustrations do not disprove 
 the correctness of the law of unity of development. 
 On the contrary, they confirm it in a most emphatic 
 manner. In every such case the great intellectual work 
 is performed by the aid of the energy stored up by 
 generations of ancestors, and at the expense of the suc- 
 ceeding generation. The second, if not the first genera- 
 tion, in such cases is childless, or the number of chil- 
 dren is small, and those who are born rarely possess 
 much strength either of body or mind. Every teacher 
 who stimulates the intellectual powers of Tier~pupils 
 without~defiffiteTy~ahd systematically training IhFph'ys- 
 
 ical powers and the spiritual powers at the same time is 
 fighting against God. 
 
 The educational aims and methods of the past, by 
 directing attention almost exclusively to the intellect 
 and by training the sensor at the expense of the motor 
 system, have done violence to the law of unity between 
 the physical, intellectual, and spiritual powers. The 
 evil effects would have been much more clearly seen but 
 for the fact that the children have had opportunities for 
 natural development outside of school. They are more 
 easily discoverable in cities, where the pupils have fewer 
 opportunities for free activity and for direct contact 
 with the life and beauty of Nature than are enjoyed by 
 children who are fortunate enough to live in the coun- 
 try. 
 
 Froebel understood the unity between feeling, know- 
 ing, and willing, in the evolution ofTHe TudividuaT" 
 man he recognised not only the continuity between the 
 stages of his development and the unity between his 
 physical, intellectual, and spiritual powers, but, dealing 
 
68 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 with the intellectual powers only, he considered them 
 to be a unity in their action, and by advocating this 
 view he helped to do away with the old theory that the 
 intellectual powers consisted of a number of inde- 
 pendent faculties, each of which required a distinct time 
 and special process for its development. 
 
 But jone of his most important discoveries in regard 
 to the unities of the individual man was that there 
 should be harmony between man^s receptive, reflective, 
 and executive powers. He improved upon the motto 
 of Comenius, " Children learn to do by doing.^^ To Froe- 
 bel growth was always greater than learning. He did not 
 undervalue learning, but he valued it as an aid to 
 growth, so as he interpreted the motto of Comenius 
 it gained increased significance and became, " Children 
 _grow by doing.^^ His process of self -activity is based on 
 the principle that development comes not alone from 
 doing, but from doing under the direct and original 
 guidance of the mind of the doer. The act is the exe- 
 cution of the decision of the mind, based oti the knowl- 
 edge already stored in it. True self-activity does ac- 
 quire knowledge more rapidly than any other process, 
 but it does more than acquire knowledge, it apperceives 
 it and organizes it with the kindred knowledge already 
 in the mind. The only way that the knowledge in the 
 mind can certainly be roused into aggressive expectancy 
 for the reception of new knowledge is by self-activity> 
 which requires the inceptive process of learning to take 
 place in the mind. But Froebel accomplished more 
 than learning by self -activity. He developed the self- 
 hood and made it not only receptive and reflective, but 
 executive. He taught that to destroy the unity that 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 69 
 
 naturally exists between this trinity of power prevents 
 the full development of each individual power, and 
 weakens character by making it negative instead of posi- 
 tive. Eeceptivity and reflection are never so active or so 
 definite in the mere acquisition of an idea as in the ex- 
 pression or representation or execution of the idea. The 
 development of the first two steps in the sequence is of 
 little use to the individual or to humanity unless the 
 third is developed as well. 
 
 The tendency of little children, even after centuries 
 of weakening of executive or motor force by the almost 
 exclusive training of the sensory system, is to carry out 
 their decisions at once. All day long with sand or 
 sticks or stones or improvised spades or other tools, if they 
 are free and have the good fortune to be allowed to " play 
 in the dirt,^^ they experiment with the properties of mate- 
 rial things, and immediately execute their decisions and 
 designs in building, tunnelling, and all kinds of en- 
 gineering operations. Some anxious parents are dis- 
 couraged because at this period their children change so 
 quickly from one plan to another, showing an apparent 
 lack of persistence in work. Persistence is not the qual- 
 ity the child is developing. Its attention flits from plan 
 to plan, but it at least attempts to carry out every plan it 
 forms. The same heap of sand may form the material 
 for a score of plans in a day, but the child makes its own 
 plans and carries them out in its own imperfect way. 
 It is a pity that the unity between decision and action 
 is ever broken. Froebel would strengthen the bond 
 until it becomes conscious and till men cease to form 
 decisions, merely to fail to execute them from lack of 
 will and executive habit. To preserve and strengthen 
 
70 FHOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 this unity by developing the missing link, executive 
 habit, should be one of the primary aims of all teadi — ^ 
 ers. 
 
 Froebel taught that unity was the only possible basis 
 for the development of the race as well as of the^ndivid- 
 ual. " Only humanity as a whole, as a unit, can"! ully at- 
 tain the highest and ultimate purpose of human striving, 
 the representation of pure humanity/^ He believed, 
 with many educators and philosophers who had pre- 
 ceded him, that the race had culture epochs correspond- 
 ing to those he defined in the evolution of the indi- 
 vidual, and that the true culture of the race required 
 similar continuity of development to that of the indi- 
 vidual. But Froebel taught that the evolution of the 
 race depended on a unity between the individual and 
 the race much more intimate and more vital than the 
 mere correspondence of their culture epochs. He be- 
 lieved that each individual should be the ideal of the 
 organized race; or, in other words, that individual man 
 can never be a perfect individual until he has in his 
 mind a clear conception of the perfect type of the total- ■ 
 ity of the race in complete unity; and that race perfec- 
 tion will only be possible when the individuals compos- 
 ing it shall all be race-inclusive unit wholes. This origi- 
 nal, doubly interrelated conception of race community, 
 based on the interstimulating unity of the individuals 
 composing it, and of the unity of the individual as rep- 
 resenting in himself the fullest evolution of the race, is 
 the highest ideal of interrelationship between man and 
 mankind ever conceived. It is still so advanced a 
 thought that the English language contains no word or 
 phrase that adequately expresses Froebel's conception of 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 71 
 
 the race-comprising man, the whole-including unit. 
 How sublimely perfect is the ideal of community that 
 conceives a unity of race-revealing men! How great a 
 thought this is for an educational ideal! 
 
 Froebel fixed no limit of time for the realization of 
 this ideal. He knew that individual and race evolution 
 must be gradual, but he knew also that race deteriora- 
 tion would continue until the effort of the race was 
 made toward a true ideal. His educational aim was to 
 give each individual^iQwertq achieve the best culture of 
 th^race up to date, a matured consciousness of race re- 
 lationship^ and a joyous sense of the highest privilege of 
 a human being — to aid humanity in its upward evolu- 
 tion. This ideal gives a new glory to individuality and 
 adds d ignity to manhood. Already there are evidences 
 to sliowThat it is beginning to revolutionize theological 
 as well as educational ideals. In revealing the majesty 
 of the child and the community of mankind— tlie per-' 
 feet unity between individualism and socialism — Froe- 
 bel is Christ^s truest interpreter. 
 
 Froebel made the inner connection between Ma- 
 ture, man, and God the basis of the early study of Na- ! 
 ture, and the foundation on which he rested the child's ■ 
 first development in the recognition of life and its evo- 
 lution, which in later years was to form one of the main \ 
 centres with which its religious conceptions were to be \ 
 associated. He aimed " to build up a life which should 
 be everywhere in touch with God, with physical nature, 
 and with humanity at large.'' He strongly emphasized 
 the principle that " if man is fully to attain his des- 
 tiny, so far as earthly development will permit this, if ; .. 
 he jsjbo_ become tmlx ^an. unbroken living umt^he must 
 
72 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 feel and hnow himself to he one, not onlyi with God and 
 humanity, hut also with Nature,'' He saw in the umty 
 and evolution of N'ature the best types for the reve- 
 lation of spiritual unity and human evolution to the 
 child. Material environment is the best revealex.of the 
 spiritual to the child^ as it was to the race in its earliest 
 stage of development. Even to the adult whose spirit 
 is responsive to Nature, whose imagination can co-ordi- 
 nate the harmonies of the universe, Nature ever speaks 
 clearly, and is the best visible type of the invisible. 
 
 Froebel was not a pantheist, but he saw God in all 
 things. Through Nature he would lead the child to see 
 unity, and ultimately God as the source and centre of all 
 unity, including itself. By a loving study and nurture 
 of the life in Nature and of its gradual evolution to- 
 ward higher types by culture and by the interfructifica- 
 tion of the finest related specimens to form a unity of 
 the fittest, he gave the idea of life unity and progressive, 
 development toward more perfect form and higher 
 function. By the development of plant life in con- 
 tinuously improving forms he foreshadowed the later 
 conception of the evolution of human life, and finally 
 completed the ever-widening, ever-ascending sequence 
 of life in God himself. 
 
 He believed that if children are brought up amid 
 the life of Nature, in due time they become conscious 
 of a moral strengtjiening from the surrounding nature, 
 as definitely as they become conscious of physical 
 strengthening from the surrounding atmosphere. 
 
 Froebel regarded a tree as the " most expressive sym- 
 bol of all organization, whether of natural or of inteP' 
 lectual life.^^ He found in each tree harmony within 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 73 
 
 itself^ a characteristic similarity between bark and 
 trunk, and branches and leaves; individuality in the dis- 
 tinctive form and foliage of each kind of tree; variety 
 (an essential in perfect unity) in the different parts and 
 distinctions between different kinds of trees; and unity 
 in the correspondences between all trees and all parts of 
 the same tree. His type of unity in the solid was the 
 sphere, and in plane figures the circle. 
 
 In a conversation with Diesterweg he gave perhaps 
 the fullest statement of the interrelationships existing 
 between God, man, and N'ature. "What other objects 
 of our knowledge exist,'' he asks, " but God, man, Na- 
 ture? What other task can our intellect have than to 
 find the relation between these three sole existing ob- 
 jects? The first thing for the human mind is to draw 
 the synthesis God in Nature, Nature from God (the his- 
 tory of creation); then follows the synthesis the Divine 
 Spirit in humanity, the human spirit from God, or the 
 Christian revelation through Jesus Christ (God-man). 
 'Now, there is yet to be drawn the synthesis between 
 humanity and Nature, and thus to recognize the tri- 
 unity which makes up the result of this connection or uni- 
 fying of opposites/' 
 
 Thus he made human life the unifying element in 
 the triunity, the link between the unconscious life of 
 Nature and the " all-conscious mind '' ; between the ma- 
 terial nature and the spiritual God; as man possesses 
 both the bodily and the spiritual natures, becoming more 
 like God as his spiritual nature dominates the material. 
 
 Another and a most important phase of FroebeFs 
 all-comprehending law of unity is the reconciliation of 
 apparent contradictions, the harmonizing of opposites. 
 
74 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 or the connection of contrasts. It constitutes the philo- 
 sophical basis of the law of development or unification. 
 It is sometimes spoken of as the law of mediation. Froe- 
 bel usually spoke of it simply as the " law of opposites/^ 
 and his estimate of its importance may be found in the 
 brief statement, " The first law of all phenomena is the 
 law of opposites.'^ He used the word phenomena in 
 this sentence in its most inclusive sense, as applied to the 
 material, the intellectual, and the spiritual world. 
 " Everything and every being comes to be known only 
 as it is connected with the opposite of its kind, and as its 
 unity, its agreement with this opposite, its equation with 
 reference to this is discovered; and the completeness 
 of this knowledge depends upon the completeness of 
 this connection with the respective opposite, and upon 
 the complete discovery of the connecting thought or 
 link.'^ Large and small, high and low, up and down, above 
 and below, behind and before, inside and outside, right 
 and left, forward and backward, hard and soft, light and 
 heavy, old and young, good and evil, love and hate, 
 beauty and ugliness, strength and weakness, generosity 
 and meanness, health and sickness, freedom and slavery, 
 are illustrations of the truth of FroebeFs theory. It is 
 impossible to conceive freedom without a consciousness 
 of what restriction means. The child learns what free- 
 dom and restriction mean by noting the difference in the 
 lives of animals and birds, and too often by bitter ex- 
 perience. It notes the difference between the free bird 
 or squirrel or fish and those confined in cage or aquarium. 
 The harnessed horse at work guided by the bridle or 
 reins and the colt that roams at will in the field, and 
 many other external illustrations, gradually make it con- 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 75 
 
 scious of freedom and restriction, and the knowledge of 
 the one depends on the clearness with which the other is 
 comprehended. In its own experience it gradually comes 
 to realize the distinction between confinement in the 
 house, or at school, or at work, and the freedom of play. 
 Some of its plays, such as " prisoner's base,'' evidently 
 had their origin in the unfolding of the ideal of freedom, 
 and are a part of Nature's plan for revealing the concep- 
 tion of liberty. Through life everything that makes lack 
 of freedom a more definite conception makes the idea of 
 freedom more clear and complete. The cells in the 
 Tower of London and the triple walls of the innermost 
 dungeon of the old Spanish fort at St. Augustine, with 
 its cruel chains and midnight darkness into which no 
 ray of sunlight ever came, have helped to define the 
 thought of liberty in the minds of all who have ever been 
 in them. 
 
 As the child develops, its idea of bodily freedom 
 gradually evolves into a conception of mental and spirit- 
 ual freedom. 
 
 Health is never understood until sickness reveals its 
 true meaning. Carlyle did not know he had a stomach 
 till he was nearly thirty years of age, and then his dread- 
 ful enemy, dyspepsia, kept him in constant remem- 
 brance of the fact. So throughout the range of our 
 knowledge — of time, space, dimension, colour, etc. — the 
 knowledge is made clear by clear conception rk f-oppo- 
 sites. 
 
 But Froebel considered the concept ion of opposi tes. 
 to be but the first step in true knowledge. The connec- 
 tion of the opposites is the completion of knowleiJg^- The 
 life of the knowledge is in the unification of the opposites. 
 
Y6 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Miss Blow says with much force: " An isolated fact is a 
 dead fact; a fact seen only in its relations is still a dying 
 fact; grasped in its total process it is a living and life-giv- 
 ing fact/^ Organization^ linking together " thought in 
 process/^ sequence^ was the great aim of Froebers edu- 
 cation. The Mother Play abounds in plays which are 
 but types of others, that he hoped mothers or educators 
 would devise for children, and in which the process of 
 linking together, especially the linking of the child with 
 the family, Nature, society, and God is revealed not by 
 words, but by activity; the deed laying the foundation 
 of the thought. This he believed to be the true basis not 
 only for profitable thinking but for logical reasoning. 
 From the result to the cause the child proceeds step by 
 step, learning social relationships and interdependence 
 and the inner connection of all things; and learning to 
 think logically at the same time. Speaking of the pat-a- 
 cake play (baker), for instance, he says: "Does any 
 other connection rule in philosophical deduction than 
 the one I call the child to perceive in this game? The 
 logic is and remains a consecutive thinking and con- 
 clusion, whether applied to the things themselves or to 
 the abstract conceptions of things.^^ 
 
 The so-called object teaching of England and Amer- 
 ica was utterly at variance with FroebeFs fundamental 
 law because it taught isolated facts by material things. 
 He demanded for the child not only knowledge, but 
 knowledge in use as part of a unified process. He used 
 things in his system not that they might be studied, but 
 that they might become a means of expressing the child's 
 conceptions, on the one hand, and, on the other, of de- 
 fining them in such a way under wise guidance as to 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 77 
 
 reveal universal inner connection. The " discovery of 
 the connecting thought or link ^^ as a fundamental prin- 
 ciple in philosophy and as a means of awakening the 
 mind and widening its range of conscious^ activity was 
 FroebeFs educational purpose. 
 
 FroebeFs system, so far as he had completed it, was 
 planned to give every child very early in life an insight 
 into the law of the reconciliation of opposites. Begin- 
 ning with the ball as his first gift, he worked outward 
 from it in a logical sequence through all his gifts. His 
 principle of mediation is exemplified in his second gift, 
 in which the cylinder, possessing some of the properties 
 of both the ball and the cube, forms the connecting link 
 between them. It is admirably revealed to the child by 
 its own activity in his drawing processes, his stick 
 laying, his paper pasting, and tablet and ring work, in 
 each of which the child is led to produce most beautiful 
 symmetrical designs by conforming to the law which 
 unifies by bringing opposites into harmony about a cen- 
 tre or a series of centres. His colour work made the law 
 a part of the child's experience by leading it to mix col- 
 ours to produce other colours, and thereby helping it to 
 recognize the law of unity in colour. 
 
 The play of The Bridge is intended to symbolize 
 the reconciliation of contrasts. This thought is kept in 
 view in all the detailed work he planned. His aim was, 
 without specially directing the attention of the childlo" 
 the fact, to make him live in a well-knit world in which, 
 whatever path he took, he would find closely related ex- 
 periences; so that he would live in an atmosphere of 
 continuity which would prepare his mind for the clearer 
 realization of the philosophy of unity and the unity of 
 
78 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 philosophy in maturer years. " The triple unity of God 
 is obvious in all his works to eyes that can see. Have we 
 not always and everywhere a trinity composed of contrasts 
 and their intermedium?'' 
 
 FroebeFs conception of unity led him to see the 
 need of the correlation of the subjects to be taught in 
 school. This application of his fundamental law will be 
 considered in a chapter specially devoted to itself. 
 
 By whatever name the law of unity may be described — 
 development, evolution, continuity, connectedness, in- 
 terrelationship, interdependence, interstimulation, or 
 life unity — ^it is a vital law of psychology, of pedagogy, of 
 philosophy, of life. Every phase of it is important. All 
 its aspects are really one, in unity with each other, but 
 applications of the same great principle. It applies to 
 individual man in the continuity of the stages of his 
 growth, in the relationships of his varied powers, and 
 in the activity of his intellectual faculties; it applies 
 to the interdependence of individual man in families, so- 
 cial groups, nations, and of all these in the community 
 of the race, and the supreme unity of all in God. It is 
 what he longed to find — " a certain way of freeing human 
 life from contradiction and of restoring man to him- 
 self, at peace internally.^^ It aims to make perfectly 
 free, independent, self-directing, unity-recognizing in- 
 dividuals as the only way of securing a perfect human- 
 ity, an organized unity, perfect because each is a unity 
 having within himself the best elements of racial devel- 
 opment, and yet each possessing a distinct individuality 
 of his own. The individual is never lost in Froebers 
 unity. The more strikingly diverse the individual ele- 
 ments are the more complete the unity. Contrasts and 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 79 
 
 diversities are but complements to each other. Sameness 
 is not unity. 
 
 He made unity the ^groundwork of all educational 
 work^ and his thought is beginning to guide the best edu- 
 cational investigation. He summarizes the educational 
 aspects of the law in a pregnant sentence: " The knowl- 
 Mge of that eternal law^ the insight into its origin, into 
 its essence, into the totality, the connection and intensity 
 of its effects, the knowledge of life in its totality, consti- 
 tute science, the science of life; and, referred by the self- 
 conscious, thinking, intelligent being to representation 
 and practice through arid m.Mm&df, this hecpnies the 
 science of education/' ^ • 
 
 As has been beautifully pointed out by the Baroness 
 von Biilow, Froebel by his law of unity aimed to accom- 
 plish more than is usually comprehended in the word 
 education, although not more than Froebel himself 
 meant by education. " All the domains of human life 
 are necessarily penetrated with one spirit; and since they 
 are linked together as independent organs, they must_ 
 form conscious parts of the whole, which is human soci- 
 ety.^^ a rp^ ^-j^^j. ^^^^ ^^ some future time, science and 
 art, as well as all the active principles of human life, 
 }.ustice and religion (or state and Church), must be pene- 
 trated with the same spirit of truth and with a conscious- 
 ness of the one aim of serving humanity, perfected accord- 
 ing to the thought of God — that is, ^the kingdom of 
 God upon e^h.^ This aim, mutual love, penetrating all 
 individuals, must unite them into a living, self-conscious 
 whole, which then represents a spiritualized or glorified 
 humanity.'^ 
 
 ^uch, indeed, was FroebePs aim, and to mothers and 
 
80 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 teachers he looked for help in the gradual evolution of 
 the race to the complete fulfilment of its high destiny. 
 It is no vain theory. It is more than a pleasing hut il- 
 lusory vision of a transcendentalist. It may become 
 a reality. There is in each child an element of the divine 
 which renders it possible for it to attain a marvellous de- 
 velopment in even a single generation. What limit dare 
 man lay to the cumulated development of a race com- 
 posed of such evolutionary individuals when the child 
 and the myriad and multiplex agencies that mould it are 
 studied so carefully that it may be truly guided in its 
 upward growth by wise and noble teachers? 
 
 There are many indications to show that Froebel's 
 idea of unity, Christ^s idea of unity, is really becoming 
 a dominant thought in human progress. Social, educa^ 
 tional, and religious organization and co-ordination have 
 been the greatest movements of the second generation 
 since FroebeFs death. Not only are these different ele- 
 ments uniting in leagues of various developing kinds 
 within themselves, but a much higher kind of unifica- 
 tion has begun by the co-ordinating of all the forces of 
 human progress. FroebePs work will always plead for 
 this co-ordination of effort around " the little child/' 
 The mothers' classes now being organized in all civilized 
 countries by kindergartners are revivals of the confer- 
 ences begun by Christ, when he " set a little child " in 
 the centre of his group of students nineteen hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 The rapid development of socialism__and trades 
 unions proves that the human mind is being penetrated 
 with the thought of rising together. " In union is 
 strength," is a part of the truth that Froebel taught. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 FROEBEL'S FUND^^^^^^JJ^ 81 
 
 Even the spread of individualism as opposed to socialism 
 is a hopeful evidence of aTnoVement toward ultimate 
 right. It is the outcome of the realization by humanity 
 of the dignity and the sacredness of its individuality. 
 This must precede the final triumph of the race. Perfect 
 individualism is the only basis for perfect soci alism. 
 Eace-including men will unite to form a man-respect- 
 ing race. ^jL*, 
 
 FroebePs law of unity is of practical -value to teach- \ 
 ers in many ways. It teaches the hopeful law of devel- 
 opment, and therefore gives teachers a higher ideal and 
 a more encouraging outlook. They are no longer in- 
 structors merely, they are character builders, who 
 should be mighty agents in accomplishing the final unity 
 of humanity, and of humanity with God. They no 
 longer value 'Ehowledge more than the child who is to 
 receive it. 
 
 It reveals the great importance of the study of child- 
 hood, boyhood, and youth, in order to learn definitely the 
 nature of the culture epochs and nascent periods of each, 
 and the best means of revealing knowledge, life unity, 
 and duty at 'each stage of development. It specially 
 shows the need of the preparatory symbolic education 
 of the first period of child evolution. 
 
 It teaches that isolated knowledge is unproductive, 
 and that it will not remain in the mind, even when rela- 
 tionship is shown by explanations or illustrations by the 
 teacher. The living process' of relationship must be 
 thought out, and, if possible; wrought out by the pupil 
 himself, in order to make the knowledge a positive ele- 
 ment in character. This was Froebel's idea of appercep- 
 tion — active, positive apperception. It was also the basis 
 7 
 
82 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. | 
 
 of his law of correlation. IsTot only are '' isolated facts 
 dead facts/^ separated subjects have only a partial vital- 
 izing power. Isolation always leads to death. 
 
 It teaches that it is wrong to give formal knowledge 
 before laying a foundation for it by establishing apper- 
 ceptive centres for it by experience. All teachers admit- 
 that the work of the teacher in educating a child must 
 be based on the content of its mind. It is admitted also 
 that the experiences of some children are wider and more 
 productive of rich content than the experiences of 
 others. Froebel would not leave any child^s experiences 
 to chance. He planned a comprehensive system of ex- 
 periences to develop not only apperceptive centres of 
 knowledge, to which other knowledge could be joined 
 in vital unity, but also apperceptive insights of relation- 
 ship and apperceptive motives of interest. Formal 
 mathematics should not reveal space relations, but result 
 from them. Science study should be based on a rever- 
 ent love for the life of Nature. The science of language 
 can not be profitably taught until conscious expression 
 has become a joyous experience. Formal morality will 
 deaden moral feeling, unless the concepts of life and love 
 have been developed by the life of Nature and the love of 
 home. Teachers should learn from the law of unity to 
 value physical and spiritual development more highly, 
 so highly that they will make as systematic efforts for 
 their development as are now made to give intellectual 
 culture. Until they do so the law of unity will be vio- 
 lated. 
 
 They should also learn the importance of training 
 executive power as the only certain source of thorough 
 training for the receptive and reflective powers, and the 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL LAW. 83 
 
 only means by which these powers can be made of service 
 to the individual or to humanity. 
 
 The law of reconciliation of contrasts or opposites 
 should enable teachers to understand the harmony be- 
 tween control and spontaneity. They should make this 
 the foundation law of discipline. It is the " perfect law 
 of liberty." Perfect spontaneity and complete submis- 
 sion to law are fond lovers. Every teacher should per- 
 form the ceremony of uniting these lovers in the life of 
 the child. No teacher is fully qualified until prepared for 
 this high service. 
 
 Silently cherish your baby's dim thought 
 
 That life in itself is as unity wrought. 
 
 Make paths through which he may feel and may think 
 
 That of this great whole he, too, is a link. 
 
 Froebel, 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 feoebel's fundamental process: self- activity. 
 
 " Man is a creative being." — Froebel, 
 " Knowledge is food, but creation is life." — Miss Blow. 
 " We must launch the child from its birth into the free and 
 all-sided use of its powers." — Froebel, 
 
 When Froebel's law of creative self-activity is un- 
 derstood so thoroughly as to become a fundamental 
 element in the practical work of teachers, it will be 
 recognised as the most important law of method ever 
 discovered. It is the universal test for good teaching 
 and the unfailing revealer of bad methods. " Self- 
 activity " and " spontaneity ^^ become dead words unless 
 the principles they represent are practised. All truth 
 dies in the mind unless it is lived out in practice. No 
 truth is clear to any individual until he has applied it. 
 There are thousands of teachers who can define " self- 
 activity^^ who never give their pupils an opportunity 
 to be self-active. 
 
 One of the most important lessons for teachers is the 
 distinction between activity and self-activity, between 
 expression and self-expression, as revealed by Froebel. 
 FroebeFs law of self-activity meant much more than 
 the law of Comenius as commonly understood, that 
 
 84 
 
FliOEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 85 
 
 " children learn to do by doing/^ or the common maxim, 
 " Practice makes perfect/^ He distinguished very clear- 
 ly between the activity of the child in response to the 
 suggestion or instruction of its parents or teachers and 
 activity in carrying out its own impulses or decisions. 
 This distinction is the basis of the most comprehensive 
 law of method in child development. 
 
 Froebel knew that the activity of the child itself, 
 even when directed by the teacher, is better, infinitely 
 better, than receptive passivity; but he believed that 
 selfhood or individuality, like all other powers, must 
 be developed by activity or " exercise of function," and 
 he therefore gave to selfhood its rightful place as the 
 guide of the child^s powers when they are being exer- 
 cised in learning. Other educators had developed cer- 
 tain of the child's powers by practice; he did this, but 
 much more, by his law of self-activity. At the same 
 time that he trained the individual powers of a child 
 he developed its individuality. Individuality and the 
 individual powers should be clearly distinguished. In- 
 dividuality is the originating and controlling element 
 that starts the individual powers to act, and guides them 
 while at work. The power to work and the wisdom 
 that enables us to work effectively are not enough to 
 insure productive activity in character. The motive 
 power of character is even more important than the 
 operative power, and should be trained even more defi- 
 nitely. As motive power is higher than operative power, 
 it is more susceptible to training. 
 
 Mr. Hailman, one of the most sympathetic of Froe- 
 bePs interpreters, distinguishes Froebel's self-activity 
 from the restricted ideal of other educators: " Self- 
 
86 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 activity, in FroebePs sense of the word, implies not 
 merely that the learner shall do all himself, not merely 
 that he will be benefited only by what he does; it im- 
 plies that at all times his whole self shall be active, that, 
 the activity should enlist his entire self in all the phases 
 of being. The law of self -activity demands not activity 
 alone, but all-sided activity of the whole being, the 
 whole self. FroebeFs self-activity applies to the whole 
 being; it would have all that is in the child self-actively 
 growing, simultaneously and continuously.'^ ' 
 
 FroebePs law of unity led him to believe that if the 
 motive power and the operative power are not trained 
 at the same time, neither can attain its best develop- 
 ment. He did not think it wise to train the various 
 operative powers separately, and then trust to chance 
 for the development of the originating and directing 
 powers to guide them. He taught that the originating 
 and controlling powers must be developed by free exer- 
 cise just as all other powers have to be developed, and 
 that the operative powers act with greater vigour in re- 
 sponse to internal than to external stimulation. In this 
 way he saw that true self-activity, activity that origi- 
 nates in the mind of the individual who licts, is the 
 most productive kind of activity in the development of 
 operative power, controlling power, and originating 
 power. 
 
 Several educators have seen the advantages of activ- 
 ity for the training of operative power; a few have noted 
 its influence indirectly on the will or controlling power. 
 Froebel alone saw that education is defective at its most 
 vital point if the originating element of character is 
 left untrained. 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 87 
 
 The development of educational aims has heen a pro- 
 gressive series of advancing steps, first through the par- 
 tial culture of the child^s self, and later by a partial 
 training by activity. Froebel aimed to give a complete 
 training to self and the activity of self by the law of 
 self-activity. 
 
 The child's powers may be classified as receptive, 
 reflective, and executive. The receptive powers accumu- 
 late knowledge, the reflective powers classify knowl- 
 edge and prepare it for use, the executive powers apply 
 or use the knowledge gathered by the receptive powers 
 and classified by the reflective powers. Executive power 
 means more than administrative ability. It means 
 power to execute well what we know, to do what we 
 plan, to be in progressive action all we are in matured 
 thought and defined feeling. It means man's power 
 to control circumstances and mould them in harmony 
 with great original purposes. It enables him to repre- 
 sent his best conceptions in productive activity. It is 
 the power that impels a man to " do noble things, not 
 dream them all day long." It decides his influence on 
 his fellow-men as a co-operative agent working in har- 
 mony with God. 
 
 The history of educational progress may be divided 
 into three periods based on the attention paid to the 
 three classes of the child's powers. At first only the 
 receptive powers were trained, then the reflective, and, 
 finally, the executive powers or the activities. In the 
 evolution toward complete self-activity there has been 
 in each of the periods named a passive and an active 
 stage. Whether educators aimed to develop the recep- 
 tive, the reflective, or the executive powers, they began 
 
/ 88 y^6^'^^^E^EI^'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 in each case by keeping the pupil in a passive or de- 
 pendent position. This makes six distinct steps in the 
 V evolution of educational ideals. 
 JW In passive receptivity the pupil received knowledge 
 from the teacher. Good teaching comprised good tell- 
 ing and good listening. The aim was the communica- 
 tion of knowledge. The ideal teacher was the one who 
 could give most information in the shortest time and 
 in the most interesting manner. The model pupil was 
 the one who could listen longest and remember best 
 what he heard. Good pupils were those who^ while in 
 school, could seem dead in all powers save hearing, re- 
 membering, and repeating what was told them by their 
 teacher. They had to keep their eyes open, too, not 
 that they were required to see much, but as an evidence 
 that they were awake. Bad pupils were those who were 
 alive beyond the prescribed limit, and those most fully 
 alive were considered the most rebellious and least hope- 
 ful pupils. When books were used, the pupils were ex- 
 pected to memorize the words in their text-books as 
 answers to questions set by their teachers. 'No change 
 was made in the form of the question and no variation al- 
 lowed in the words of the answer. The comprehension 
 of the meaning of the answers and the relationship to 
 knowledge already in the mind often received little con- 
 sideration. 
 
 ^ In active receptivity the pupil became an independ- 
 ^ent accumulator of knowledge. He was trainedrto~m^ 
 vestigate for himself. He dealt with things as well as 
 words. When he used books for the purpose of study 
 he was emancipated from the slavery, of memorizing 
 and repeating the exact words of the text-book, and 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 89 
 
 trained to search for truth as recorded by the wisest 
 of his predecessors. 
 
 In passive reflection the pupils were led by their 
 teachers through the steps of logical processes, but they 
 were not trained to think independently. It gradually 
 became clear that "allowing other people^s thoughts 
 to run through our minds " is not really thinking, and 
 that such a process weakens originality and tends to 
 make men subservient to existing conditions as estab- 
 lished by custom and conventionality. 
 
 Active reflection trained pupils to think independ- 
 ently and to respect their own opinions. This step was 
 a great advance in intellectual training and toward the 
 complete liberty of the race. 
 
 A still greater advance was made when educators 
 began to realize that knowledge and intellectual power 
 are of value onl;^ as they are used, and that the ability to 
 use knowledge^and apply power may be trained, and 
 must be trained, if trained at all, by being exercised. 
 This soon revealed the important truth tha^ the training 
 of the executive powers is the only certain method of 
 storing the mind with clearly related knowledge and 
 giving the power to think definitely. Eeceptive power, 
 reflective power, and executive power form a sequence, 
 which should be developed as a unity. The lower steps 
 of the sequence are not complete in themselves. They 
 find their logical completion in the highest step, and 
 therefore they can reach their true culture only in di- 
 rect relation to and connection with that step. 
 
 But even in the training of the executive powers 
 the domination of the teacher retained its blighting 
 influence until the time of Froebel. Montaigne and 
 
90 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Eousseau had seen the evil influence of adult interfer- 
 ence or overshadowing, and had dimly outlined the need 
 of freedom for true individual growth by individual 
 activity. Froebel grasped this germ of thought in its ful- 
 ness, and made it the fundamental principle underlying 
 the practical methods of his system. He made a vital 
 distinction between activity and self-activity, between 
 expression and self-expression. There is more differ- 
 ence between the results of passivity and self-activity 
 on the part of the pupils in the training of the executive 
 powers than in the culture of the receptive or reflective 
 powers. The higher the educational process, the weaker 
 does passivity appear, and the more limitless do the 
 possibilities of activities become. 
 
 The old educational processes are largely responsi- 
 ble for the fact that there are so many men like Mr. 
 Leigh described by Canon Kingsley as one of those men 
 "who possess almost every gift except the gift of the 
 power to use them.^^ Every so-called educated man 
 who fails to use his powers wisely and fully, because his 
 selfhood has not been revealed to him and trained to 
 perform its proper function by directing his energies 
 independently, is an unripe apple falling to set educa- 
 tional Kewtons thinking. 
 
 Every child has individual power. This power is in- 
 tended to guide the child^s energies. It does guide them 
 until the child is weakened by misdirection or by the 
 substitution of the teacher's authority as a motive power 
 stimulating the child's action. Then selfhood grad- 
 ually weakens from lack of opportunity for exercise, 
 and the child becomes listless and indifferent. An indo- 
 lent child is an unnatural child. Children are made 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 91 
 
 indolent by failure to develop their motive character 
 power. Energetic effort at productive work gives them 
 pleasure when it possesses the elements of self-stimula- 
 tion and self-direction. The child^s__pawera..-Q£- self- 
 stimulation and self-direction are dwarfed by lack of 
 opportunity for activity, and in such conditions the 
 child ultimately becomes inert, and acts mainly in re- 
 sponse to external stimulus. There is little use in train- 
 ing the child^s receptive powers or its reflective powers 
 unless its personality is trained at the same time to set 
 them in motion and guide them aright. 
 
 Power is given to man that it may be used in co- 
 operation with God. Power so used always increases. 
 The highest ideal of human duty is co-operation with 
 Divinity. The grandest conception of human destiny" 
 is growth toward the Divine, and destiny is reached 
 through duty. The truest conception of duty is action 
 for truth and justice in which the inception as well as 
 the execution of the act bears the stamp of individuality. 
 Co-operation means more than acting in concert in 
 obedience to a single leader. The perfect co-operation 
 is that in which each individual has a common purpose, 
 toward the accomplishment of which he works as a free 
 man. Mankind should be co-operatively, independently 
 self-active. Froebel did not aim to make the masses 
 mere followers of a few leaders. H e believed in a 
 democracy in which every man was really free and pro- 
 gressively strong and true. Such a democratic brother- 
 hood he hoped to form out of the whole of the human 
 race by universal conformity to the principles of his 
 educational system. 
 
 Froebel regarded as one of the chief weaknesses of 
 
92 FKOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 humanity the lack of harmony between its powers of 
 insight and attainment. Men know better than they 
 do, and this necessarily leads to moral deterioration. 
 The consciousness of neglect to perform duty as we con- 
 ceive it produces the humiliation that leads to enfeeble- 
 ment of character. It is a serious mistake to give a 
 child more power to think without giving it at the same 
 time a correspondingly increased power and tendency 
 to execute its good decisions. The child should be in 
 harmony with himself. The desire of accomplishment 
 should follow naturally as the result of the power to 
 conceive. This essential harmony between insight and 
 the desire for attainment is greatest in young children. 
 That this should be so is not creditable to teachers. 
 Greater power to do should not destroy the tendency 
 to do. Froebel maintained that the desire to accom- 
 plish will increase with the ability to accomplish when 
 the pupil is trained in accordance with his law of self- 
 activity. Clearness of conception, definiteness of altru- 
 istic purpose, and success in its achievement he regarded 
 as essential steps in universal human happiness. 
 
 " The only rest 
 Is labour for a worthy end." 
 
 " He is crowned with all achieving 
 Who perceives and then performs." 
 
 "Whenever the teacher gives the child additional 
 knowledge without at the same time increasing its ex- 
 ecutive force and tendency, he is helping to destroy 
 the harmony that should exist between its receptive, 
 reflective, and executive powers. Froebel's law of self- 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 93 
 
 activity requires complete unity between the three 
 classes of powers. 
 
 Froebel recognised the value of play for many rea- 
 sons, but no other reason had so much weight with him 
 in leading him to determine to make play an organic 
 part of lu& -educational -work , a&^-the fact that in play 
 the child^s activities are put forth energetically in re- 
 sponse to its own personal decision. In play the child 
 is perfectly self-active. In play alone is the child de- 
 veloped as a unity, physically, intellectually, and moral- 
 ly. The whole being then acts in harmony with motives 
 originating in the child^s own mind, and free play is 
 therefore a perfect type of true self -activity. 
 
 Without self-activity the fullest cerebral growth is 
 not possible, and the co-ordination of the different de- 
 partments of the brain does not become complete. The 
 free self-activity of the country child gives it, as a rule, 
 a more energetic and better co-ordinated brain than 
 the city child. The country child usually has much 
 greater freedom than the city child, and a much wider 
 and more stimulating range of objective life and ex- 
 periences. The city child is restrained by convention- 
 alities, and limited by the circumstances of city life. 
 The country child has few conventional restrictions, 
 and usually has the complete equipment of Nature's 
 storehouse to lead him on day by day in a continuous 
 series of interesting investigations and experiments. 
 This is ideal self-activity. No adult accompanies it to 
 suggest the problems it is to investigate. ISTo intermed- 
 dling senior says, " See, see! '^ and thus seals its eyes 
 or trains them to open at the dictation of others. It 
 sees and hears and examines the things appropriate to 
 
94 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 its stage of development and to its selfhood. Its every 
 act proceeds from selfhood^ and therefore reacts on self- 
 hood to produce a greater selfhood. This free self- 
 activity, under proper conditions, produces in the coun- 
 try child a stronger, more vigorous, and better co-or- 
 dinated brain than it could have developed under less 
 favourable conditions. If children were compelled to 
 submit to the conditions and processes of most schools 
 during the whole of their waking hours for the first 
 twenty years of their lives, their physical, mental, and 
 moral development would be stunted. The race has 
 been saved by the shortness of the school hours and the 
 persistent recuperative elasticity of the individuality of 
 childhood. Froebel would make the school hours as 
 productive of self-determination as any other part of 
 the day by bringing into schools the fullest opportuni- 
 ties for the interested, energetic self-activity of ea<3h 
 child. He rejected the theory that mind storing and 
 the training of the reasoning powers necessitated the 
 obscuring of selfhood, and taught that self-expression 
 is the most effective way of enlarging and storing the 
 mind, of training the reasoning powers, and of defining 
 the personality. 
 
 Froebel believed that the true process in the evolu- 
 tion of life is ^^from life, through life, to life.^^ He 
 saw this process in plant life, from inner life, through 
 functional life, to perfection of the characteristic life 
 of the plant. In the human being he saw the corre- 
 sponding process from inner life (individuality or self- 
 hood), through the life of self-activity to the perfect life 
 of a harmonious and balanced individuality. He says: 
 ^' man, who roamest through garden and field, 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 95 
 
 through meadow and grove, why dost thou close thy 
 mind to the silent teaching of Nature? Behold even 
 the weed, which, grown up amid hindrances and con- 
 straint, scarcely yields an indication of inner law! be- 
 hold it in Nature in field or garden, and see how 'perfectly 
 it conforms to law ! What a pure inner life it shows, har- 
 monious in all parts and features — a beautiful sun, a 
 radiant star, it has burst from the earth! Thus, par- 
 ents, could your children, on whom you force in tender 
 years forms and -aims against their nature, and who 
 therefore walk with you in morbid and unnatural de- 
 formity — thus could your children, too, unfold in beauty 
 and develop in all-sided harmony! ^' 
 
 Froebel demanded that the child be self-active in ^ 
 school, in order that it might reveal itself fully in its^^^'^ 
 greatest powers to its teacher and, what is of still greater^ ^ 
 importance, to itself. Self -revelation is one of the most " ^^ 
 im portant d epartments of training. Few, very few >/^ 
 adults are conscious of their own highest powers. 
 Among the thousands of teachers who have applied to 
 me for positions I have not found one who could defi- 
 nitely answer the question, " What is your greatest 
 power? ^^ Free self -activity is the only way in which 
 self -revelation can be made complete. 
 
 Self-activity,^ doing in response to the child^s own * 
 originating mental activity, reveals the extent of the 
 child's knowledge as well as its powers, and is the surest 
 way of making knowledge clear to the child's own mind, 
 and of establishing the relationships of varied kinds of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Self-activity is the highest method of developing 
 the executive power of the hands in response to the di- 
 
96 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 rection of the child's mind. Eesponsive activity alone 
 develops the motor brain to a limited extent; but such 
 activity does not secure the essential co-ordination be- 
 tween the sensor and the motor brain. It is very impor- 
 tant to have a well-developed sensor brain and a well- 
 developed motor brain, but the perfect co-ordination 
 of the sensor with the motor brain is the most important 
 element in brain development. The perfectly trained 
 individual is the one who has physical organs trained 
 to their fullest limit in power and skill to respond defi- 
 nitely and promptly to the suggestions of a well-devel- 
 oped brain in which the sensor and motor elements are 
 balanced and perfectly co-ordinated. N'o other process 
 but self-activity can produce such mental and physical 
 development and co-ordination, and make each indi- 
 vidual self -directing in originating motive and in execu- 
 tive effort. 
 
 A very distinct advantage of education by self -activ- 
 ity is the strengthening of the power of self-education. 
 The lack of energetic tendency toward persistent self- 
 education after the period of school life has passed is 
 the most manifest weakness in the influence of educa- 
 tional forces. That this weakness exists should not 
 cause surprise. It would be surprising if any other re- 
 sult were produced by a system of education that makes 
 the pupil dependent on the teacher for the stimulus to 
 study — ^usually a coercive stimulus — and fails to de- 
 velop the power of choice on the part of the pupils in 
 regard to certain departments of study. If a boy's self- 
 hood has not been trained to act with spontaneity in re- 
 gard to study before he leaves school, it is unreasonable 
 to expect it to act with much energy when school life 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 97 
 
 is over. It would be very remarkable if an internal 
 stimulus did control him when his teacher had de- 
 liberately trained him through his formative years to 
 respond only to external stimulus. It is doubtful whether 
 two per cent of all who pass through the public schools 
 persistently and systematically follow any definite course 
 of study after they leave school. Only a small propor- 
 tion of professional men regularly study the new de- 
 velopments even in connection with their own profes- 
 sion. The-schools- prevent. tlie. development of the habit 
 of independent study by failing to make provision for 
 the exercise of self-activity in study during the forma- 
 tive years of childhood. Pupils who throughout their 
 school life study only in response to the dictation or 
 compulsion of their teachers naturally stop studying 
 when they leave school. Their own motive power- of 
 self-acting interest has not been developed, and they 
 have lost the external power that impelled them to 
 study. 
 
 A few quotations from FroebeFs writings will help 
 to make clear his own conception of the law of self-ac- 
 tivity and its paramount importance as a fundamental 
 principle in educational practice. 
 
 He wrote with some bitterness of the opposition of 
 the German Government to his system because it tend- 
 ed to give men new conceptions of freedom: 
 
 " As a state machine I should have been engaged in 
 cutting out and modelling other state machines. But I 
 — I only wanted to train up free, thinking, independent 
 men." 
 
 " In order, therefore, to impart true, genuine firm- 
 ness to the natural will activity of the boy, all the ac- 
 
98 FEOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 tivities of the boy — his entire will — should proceed from 
 and have reference to the development, cultivation, and 
 representation of the internal 
 
 ^' As the plant grows through its own vital power, so 
 also must human power become great through its own 
 exercise and effort/^ 
 
 "Man is developed and cultured toward the fulfil- 
 ment of his destiny and mission, and is to be valued 
 even in boyhood, not only by what he receives and ab- 
 sorbs from without, but much more by what he puts out 
 and unfolds from himself. Experience, and history too, 
 teach that men truly and effectively promote human 
 welfare much more by what they put forth from them- 
 selves than by what they have acquired. Every one 
 knows that those who truly teach gain steadily in 
 knowledge and insight; similarly, every one knows, for 
 Nature herself teaches this, that the use of a force en- 
 hances and intensifies the force. Again, to learn a 
 thing in life and through doing is much more develop- 
 ing, cultivating, and strengthening than .to learn it 
 merely through the verbal communication of ideas/^ 
 
 " The purpose of teaching and instruction is to 
 bring out of man rather than to put more and more 
 into him; for that which we can get into man we already 
 know and possess as the property of mankind, and every 
 one, simply because he is a human being, will unfold and 
 develop it out of himself in accordance with the laws of 
 mankind. On the other hand, what yet is to come 
 out of mankind, what human nature is yet to develop, 
 that we do not yet know — that is not yet the property 
 of mankind; and still, human nature, like the Spirit of 
 God, is ever unfolding its inner essence/' 
 
 I 
 
FKOEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 99 
 
 " However clearly this might and should appear 
 from the observation of our own and all other life, even 
 the best among us, like plants near a calcareous spring, 
 are so incrusted with extraneous prejudices and opin- 
 ions that only with the greatest effort and self -con- 
 straint we give even limited heed to the better view. 
 Let us confess at least that when, with the best inten- 
 tions toward our children, we speak of their develop- 
 ment and education, we should rather say e^ivelopment 
 and tnducation; that we should not even speak of cul- 
 ture, which implies the development of the mind, of the 
 will of man, but rather of stamping and moulding, how- 
 ever proudly we may claim to have passed beyond these 
 mind-killing practices." 
 
 In speaking of one of the occupations used in the 
 kindergarten, he said: "It gives the boy easily and 
 spontaneously, and yet at the same time imperceptibly, 
 precise, clear, and many-sided results due to his own 
 creative power.'^ 
 
 "We find the human being, even at the earliest 
 stages of boyhood, fitted for the highest and most im- 
 portant concern of mankind, for the fulfilment of his 
 destiny and mission, which is the representation of the 
 divine nature within him. To secure for this ability 
 skill and directness, to lift it into full consciousness, 
 and to exalt it into a life of creative freedom is the busi- 
 ness of the subsequent life of man in successive stages 
 of development and cultivation." 
 
 " Training and instruction should rest on the foun- 
 dation from which proceed all genuine knowledge and 
 all genuine attainments: on life itself and on creative 
 effort, on the union and interdependence of doing and 
 
100 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 thinkmg, representation and knowledge, art and science. 
 They should be based on the pupiPs personal efforts in 
 work and expression, making these, again, the founda- 
 tion of all genuine knowledge and culture.'^ 
 
 " To stir up, to animate, to awaken, and to 
 strengthen the pleasure and power of the human being 
 to labour uninterruptedly at his own education, has be- 
 come and always remained the fundamental principle 
 and aim of my educational work." 
 
 " The time has now arrived when men are coming 
 to the consciousness of their own being and of the law 
 which rules them, and according to which they are ac- 
 tive, therefore the earliest childhood must be guided 
 according to this law, and at first in the activity of play. 
 Consciousness of the law is only prepared for by action 
 and the application of the law. Unconsciousness is 
 raised to consciousness chiefly hy action/' 
 
 '' The will is strengthened only by voluntary activ- 
 ity. By striving to create and produce the beautiful and 
 good the feelings are developed, and ly all lawful, 
 thoughtful, free activity the mind is cultivated. But 
 such activity sets aside all extraneous education, and 
 that outside indoctrinating that is not in unison either 
 with the nature of the child or with his actual state of 
 development, and it puts self -education and self-indoc- 
 trinating in their place." 
 
 " Freedom can not be bestowed upon us. God him- 
 self can not bestow it upon us, since it must be the 
 product of our moral and intellectual unfettering, which 
 it is possible to attain only hy self -activity. '' 
 
 Froebel based all real development on the revelation 
 of the inner in the outer. To him the universal law of 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMR:NTiL' PROC:a^.>; ',' i?)t''' 
 
 human growth consciously toward perfection was: Inner 
 growth is the only real growth, the internal dominates 
 the external, and inner growth springs from the reflex 
 action of the inner on the outer, and not from the direct 
 action of the outer on the inner. The inner power 
 increases by its own activity. Education was to him 
 a unity in every respect, and therefore he insisted that 
 increase in knowledge should be accompanied with in- 
 crease of power of the inner life, of originative as well 
 as executive power. His doin§ was always the result of 
 seeing, and his seeing was made clearer through doing. 
 
 He believed that the divinity in the child — its in- 
 dividuality, its distinctive characteristic, its originality, 
 its selfhood — is the element of power that should be; 
 most definitely trained, because it is the element of most 
 importance to the child and to the race. On its devel- 
 opment rested all his hope for the child itself, and for 
 its uplifting influence on its fellow-men. Therefore he 
 made its training the central element in his system. 
 Self-activity as a law means the definite training of the 
 individuality, the originality, the distinctive character- 
 istics, the selfhood, by calling it into energetic activ- 
 ity in a natural way through spontaneity of interest. 
 
 By making the- training of selfhood the central ele- 
 ment in educational effort he liad no intention to neg- 
 lect the training of the receptive and reflective powers 
 and the communication of wide and thorough knowl- 
 edge. He believed that the| education, of the child 
 should be carried t)n as a unity, and that unless t^e 
 highest human power was d( finitely trained no other 
 power could be developed to i ts fullest limit, nor could 
 the mind be properly storec with knowledge. The 
 
ii)2°.;i V ^ J^'O^^E^'? V^^CATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 highest act in the educational sequence includes the 
 operation of all related^ subordinate activity. He ob- 
 jected to every system that magnified knowledge at the" 
 expense of the child, and his whole life was a protest 
 against the " stamping and moulding ^^ processes of 
 teachers, who failed to recognise the sacredness of the 
 child^s individuality. What he valued was not power, 
 but creative power. He aimed to make something bet- 
 ter of his pupils than mere " machines/^ and, as he so 
 well said, to make them ^^free, thinking, independent 
 men,^' always keeping in mind the germ thought that 
 "the fulfilment of man^s destiny is the representation 
 of the divine nature within him.^^ This idealinHde- 
 creative freedom a logical conception. Without it 
 creative freedom would lose its educational value; the 
 suggestion of creative power to human beings would 
 be absurd, and spontaneity might lead to anarchy in- 
 stead of harmonious growth toward truth, justice, and 
 perfect freedom. He knew that harmonious growth 
 did not require the sacrifice of individuality. His con- 
 ception of unity was not homogeneity, but an organic 
 unity of dissimilar elements or forces. His theory was 
 unity from diversity, and his aim the reconciliation of 
 opposites. The source of unity and of reconciliation was 
 the vital power of the divine essence in each individual. 
 The more completely he could develop this vital power 
 of selfhood, the more quickly he expected to unite the 
 universal brotherhood of man in a progressive advance. 
 The apparent contradiction between individualism and 
 social unity vanishes as individuals rise to higher 
 ground and broader vision — as their selfhood becomes 
 more fully developed. 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 103 
 
 The greatest modern educational philosophers of 
 England and America are in harmony with Froebel in 
 regard to self-activity as the basis of growth and real 
 progress. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton says: " The primary principle 
 of education is the determination of the pupil to self- 
 activity, and that teacher who fully recognises the ac- 
 tive agency of the pupiPs mind in acquiring knowledge 
 and experience and in applying them to the affairs of 
 everyday life, will be the most useful to his pupils. 
 In the training of youthful minds we regard formation 
 as of more importance than information, the manner 
 in which work is done as of greater consequence than 
 the matter used in the work. All true education is 
 growth, and what we grow to be concerns us more than 
 what we live to know.^^ 
 
 Herbert Spencer, who is in his philosophy often 
 strikingly like Froebel, says: "In education the process 
 of self -development should be encouraged to the fullest 
 extent. Children should be led to make their own inves- 
 tigations and to draw their own inferences. They should 
 be told as little as possible, and induced to discover as 
 much as possible. Humanity has progresse d solely ly 
 se If -ins truction'^ 
 
 H. Courthope Bowen writes: "The answer comes 
 from every part of creation with ever-increasing clear- 
 ness ^d emphasis — development is produced by exercise 
 of function, use of faculty. ... To produce develop- 
 ment most truly and effectively the exercise must arise 
 from and be sustained by the thing^s own activity 
 — its own natural powers, and all of them (as far as 
 these are in any sense connected with the activity pro- 
 
104 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 posed) should be awakened and become naturally ac- 
 tive/' 
 
 Prof. John Dewey summarizes the basal principle of 
 all educational method as follows: " The fundamental 
 principle is that the child is always a being with activ- 
 ities of its own, which are present and urgent and do not 
 require to be " induced/' " drawn out/' or " devel- 
 oped/' etc.; that the work of the educator, whether 
 parent or teacher, consists solely in ascertaining, and in 
 connecting with, these activities, furnishing them appro- 
 priate opportunities and conditions." 
 
 The law of self -activity is now recognised as funda- 
 mental by all educational leaders. How can it be made 
 the basis of the general work of the school? The philo- 
 sophical recognition of the law will do little good un- 
 less it is applied. The pupil may be made receptive, 
 reflective, or executive by the life he is compelled to 
 lead in school. If he is made receptive and reflective 
 only, his natural motor character has been weakened. 
 There is a clearly defined tendency in children to execute 
 what they conceive. Expression is the natural result of 
 impression, and the weakening of the character power 
 of the race results from the destruction of spontaneity 
 in the energetic accomplishment of decisions and pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Teachers should test every method and school pro- 
 cess which they practise by the attitude of the pupil's 
 selfhood in relation to it. Is the pupil's selfhood passive 
 or active? Is his activity responsive to the suggestion 
 or order of another, or is it the effort to accomplish a 
 purpose originating with himself? Does it result from 
 outer stimulation of inner motive? If action results 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 105 
 
 from outer stimulation, what is the nature of the in- 
 ducement to activity? Is it mandatory or reasonable? 
 Does the external influence coerce the pupil or simply 
 guide him? Does it develop interest or weaken it? Is 
 it a temporary motive which logically tends to make 
 the pupil self-active and gradually gives place to inner 
 motives and interest that continue the activity spon- 
 taneously, or does it leave the pupil inert when the 
 external stimulus is removed? Can activity induced 
 by commands, or by the personal power, will, magnet- 
 ism, or other influence of the teacher or parent, be made 
 as energetic and as definitely productive as true self- 
 activity, in the acquisition of knowledge, in the devel- 
 opment of the brain, both in its motor and its sensor 
 departments, in the co-ordination of these departments 
 of the brain, or in defining the individuality of the 
 child? 
 
 If these questions are asked by teachers in regard 
 to the methods of most schoolrooms to-day, candid 
 answers will convince them that the principle of self- 
 activity has yet received but slight recognition. It 
 is only by thus honestly testing their own work that 
 teachers can be aroused to the energetic mental condi- 
 tion that leads to reform and discovery. In revealing 
 the weakness or evil of present methods, and in discov- 
 ering the new and better way, the central law of teach- 
 ers should be self-activity. 
 
 In all efforts to reform the methods practised in 
 schools it is well to study the processes by which the 
 child develops before it goes to school. This is one of 
 the most important departments of child study. One 
 definite result of such study must be the clear recogni- 
 
106 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 tion of the natural ability of the child to discover its 
 own problems. Whatever may be its condition in life, 
 whether its environment be the narrow limitations of 
 city life, or the full and stimulating richness of Nature 
 in flower, tree, bird, or insect life, or in the wealth of 
 inanimate material, the child, if it be left to itself, finds 
 problems for the occupation of its mind and hands inex- 
 haustible in number and unfailing in interest. In the 
 discovery and solution of these problems lies the true 
 source of the child^s mental growth. No other prob- 
 lems aid in the development of its mind so completely 
 as those discovered by itself. 
 
 The power to discover new problems is much higher 
 than the power to solve them. Children are naturally 
 problem finders, the schools make them problem solvers. 
 Before the child goes to school, unless it is dwarfed 
 by the blighting interference of unwise guides, it finds 
 its own problems. It lives in a paradise of wonders 
 and revelations. If brought up in the country, where 
 it is surrounded by myriad forms of living, growing 
 things (birds, bees, beetles, worms, trees, and flowers), 
 and where it has plenty of material (water, sand, stones, 
 and sticks) with which to develop its building, con- 
 structive, and transforming instincts, it is occupied dur- 
 ing all its working hours in making new discoveries or 
 in performing new experiments. It needs no guide to 
 direct it to the new revelations or to instruct it in mak- 
 ing its experiments. The interference of adults de- 
 stroys the central element of life both in the discovery 
 and the operation. 
 
 A very clear distinction should be made between 
 the aid given to children in the solution of problems 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 107 
 
 discovered by themselves and help given in the discov- 
 ery of problems. Aid in solution may be perfectly 
 proper^ because the child^s desire to do at first is usually 
 in advance of its power of attainment, and failure to ac- 
 complish will lead to discouragement and inertness of 
 character. Help in finding problems makes the child 
 dependent upon others for the perceiving power in 
 seeing new conditions, upon which independent origina- 
 tive power is based. 
 ^ Originative power is more important than operative 
 
 ^power, because it should be the motive to stimulate 
 operative power to action. Without originative motive 
 power operative power is purely mechanical. Both 
 powers should be given opportunities for their fullest 
 development. The one is the complement of the other. 
 Neither can reach its most complete development un- 
 less the other progressively develops with it. Opera- 
 tive power should be the expression of the originative 
 power of the individual who operates, and not merely 
 the agency for carrying out the aims or plans of others. 
 
 *The executive power increases in definiteness most 
 naturally through the accomplishment of original pur- 
 poses and plans. Man should be a creative being. Crea- 
 tive power grows as all other powers grow — by free use. 
 Interference by adults prevents the higher development 
 of the child most completely when it provides a substi- 
 tute for its creative power, the originating or discov- 
 ering element in the child^s own nature. To arrest the 
 complete development of the power of independent 
 problem recognition weakens the child at the centre of 
 its intellectual nature by checking its natural tendency 
 to self-activity. 
 
108 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 The child comes to school from its sphere of inde- 
 pendence in problem finding, and is at once set to work 
 at problem solving alone. In every subject the teacher 
 brings the questions and assigns the lessons. The essen- 
 tial unity between insight and accomplishment, between 
 discovery and achievement, between originating and 
 operating, between self-active interest and executive 
 power, between seeing and doing, between problem rec- 
 ognition and problem explanation, is destroyed. The 
 teacher does the important part of the work. The vital 
 and interest-producing part of the process of learning 
 is not performed by the child, and so the child^s inter- 
 est is inevitably weakened. Day by day it becomes less 
 interested, less positive, and more negative. Its nature 
 adapts itself to its new conditions. Its function in 
 school is to solve problems and answer questions, and it 
 soon learns to wait for its problems and questions. 
 
 By such teaching the child is made dependent on the 
 teacher in the most essential department of its intel- 
 lectual power. The highest success in life can not be 
 achieved by solving the problems of life that are forced 
 upon us by circumstances. Maai should be more than a 
 conqueror of conditions that thrust themselves in his 
 pathway. He should be able to choose his pathway. 
 He should have power to see new pathways that lead 
 to higher life work. The men who have lifted their 
 fellow-men to better conditions, either physically, intel- 
 lectually, or morally, have been those who saw new 
 problems of life and helped to find their solution. Few 
 great discoveries have been the result of accidents. 
 They have been made by men who had power to see 
 new relationships between scientific forces already un- 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 109 
 
 derstood or to recognise unexplained problems as evi- 
 dences of yet unknown forces. Every man should be 
 a discoverer within his own sphere. Every man would 
 possess independent power of discovery if his natural 
 wonder power had been developed properly. It is not 
 possible to give all men equal power to discover new 
 forces or new relationships. As the power to see new 
 problems is the highest intellectual power, it admits of 
 a wider range of development than any other intellec- 
 tual power, and there must naturally be great diversity 
 between its highest and lowest degrees of development. 
 But every degree of this natural power of problem dis- 
 covery is capable of culture, and the source of this 
 culture is opportunity for free self-activity. ^ ^ ■ 
 
 The natural "wonder power" of childhood should^^-c< 
 continue through life to be the pioneer element in char- "^' 
 acter, looking ever ahead, around, and upward for new 
 physical, intellectual, and spiritual worlds, to compre- 
 hend and to conquer. The curiosity shown by the child 
 in its effort to understand the wonders of the material 
 world and its relationship toward it is its leading in- 
 tellectual power. It was intended to increase in strength 
 and insight during the child^s whole life. The very 
 power that interests the child in the mysteries of the 
 natural world around it, organic and inorganic, should 
 in later years make the mind reach out aggressively in 
 search of the subtler problems of intellectual and spir- 
 itual life. We are in touch with an infinite number 
 of unsolved intellectual and spiritual problems of which 
 we are totally unconscious. We might recognise them 
 and aid in their solution, and thereby aid in the con- 
 scious progress of the race to wp^=iht^ i^*^**^ ^^ ^^^ 
 
u 
 
 110 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 wonder power had been developed fully. It usually dies 
 out from lack of opportunity for exercise. 
 
 Mr. McChoakumchild said: "Bring to me yonder 
 child just able to walk and I will engage that it will 
 never wonderj'^ Few deliberately set themselves the 
 melancholy task of the destruction of wonder power, 
 as did Gradgrind and McChoakumchild; but the dwarf- 
 ing of the power goes on in most homes and schools, and 
 the race in consequence creeps laboriously in the shad- 
 ow, instead of soaring in ever-brightening light. The 
 power to see new problems should be cultivated more 
 carefully than any other power, because it discovers the 
 most productive fields for the operation of all man's 
 other powers. True self-activity is the only educational 
 process that can fully develop this power. 
 
 In arithmetic the pupils are usually asked to solve 
 problems from books or those collected or prepared by 
 their teachers. It is a much more developing exercise 
 to allow pupils to prepare problems than to confine their 
 attention to the solution of problems. Problem mak- 
 ing affords wider scope for originality and leads to a 
 more intimate conception of mathematical relationships, 
 numerical combinations, and arithmetical processes than 
 problem solution. The making of a problem involves 
 the logical principles underlying its solution. Pupils 
 are more interested in discovering new problems than 
 in solving those already made. They are more inter- 
 ested in those made by their fellow-pupils than in those 
 prepared by their teachers or found in text-books. 
 
 In Euclid, physics, and botany there is a wide field 
 for the development of the problem-finding habit and 
 the cultivation of wonder power. 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. m 
 
 In history it awakens interest and promotes the fix- 
 ing of facts in their relationships in the memory, to as- 
 sign a portion of the subject to be studied with a view 
 to the discovery of the most important events of the 
 period; making it the duty of each pupil to decide what 
 they are, and to prepare a series of questions to be 
 answered by the rest of the class. In this way the 
 searching interest in knowledge is kept alive and devel- 
 oped, each pupil has his conception of historical values 
 broadened and defined, and the history is very thorough- 
 ly considered and discussed. The pupil is not a mere 
 gatherer of facts to answer questions assigned by the 
 teacher or to be given at examinations. He is not a 
 passive student following along paths marked out by 
 his teacher; he is an independent searcher viewing his- 
 torical questions from his own standpoint. Better than 
 all else, he is being trained to study history intelli- 
 gently after he leaves school. This is really the chief 
 purpose of teaching history. Dr. Arnold said the duty 
 of the teacher in teaching history is to show " that his- 
 tory contains gold, and to train the pupils to dig for it.^^ 
 All pupils can not be trained to dig for historical gold 
 in original sources, but they may be trained to dig in all 
 available sources. 
 
 When geography is studied, not as a means of fixing 
 the names and positions of places in the memory, but to 
 learn from the earth the story of its own evolution, and 
 its influence on the development of man, and to under- 
 stand its relationship to the heavenly bodies around 
 it, no subject affords better opportunities for the culture 
 of the questioning attitude of the mind. Even in the 
 study of literature the mind of the child should be kept 
 
112 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 independently aggressive in the recognition of the 
 beauty and the profundity of the language and thought. 
 
 The questioning, wonder spirit is natural to the 
 child, and, if not destroyed positively and negatively 
 by the schools, it should increase in power and remain 
 a dominant influence in the mental growth of the man. 
 Given full opportunity for exercise in regard to objects 
 and subjects appropriate to the stage of development 
 of the pupil, it will grow rapidly in intensity, power, and 
 range; and led by it the man should have as much en- 
 joyment in dealing with new revelations in the intel- 
 lectual and spiritual worlds as the child has in solving 
 the wonder problems of the material world. 
 
 It is quite true that problem making and question- 
 ing by pupils may deteriorate into formalism. All 
 subjects and processes, however great, degenerate in 
 the hands of mechanical teachers. This fact does not 
 prove the inherent weakness of the subjects or the pro- 
 cesses. 
 
 One of the fundamental reforms most needed in 
 school work is the adaptation of the environment of the 
 child in school to its stage of evolution, so that it may 
 stimulate the child's wonder power and continue its 
 experience as a discoverer of problems, making conscious 
 a higher form of its development before going to school. 
 It is sometimes said that " the duty of the teacher is to 
 set the child going." The child goes before it is sent to 
 school, too often faster than afterward. The teacher's 
 duty is to keep him going as a discoverer and solver of 
 problems and not as a solver only. 
 
 The race should be definitely progressive, and each 
 individual should be independently self -progressive. 
 
FBOEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 113 • 
 
 There must always be leaders — freer, mightier men and 
 women who step out and up in advance of their slower 
 fellows, but all the race should be free and should in- 
 crease in might. All can not advance at the same rate, 
 but each one should advance by individual effort. In- 
 dividual effort does not prevent our taking the most 
 complete advantage of the discoveries and accumulated 
 knowledge of others. Every child has for its inheritance 
 the stored knowledge and the developed sovereignty . jf^ 
 acquired by man over Nature during all the centuries Q ^ 
 before its birth, but each man and woman should in- 
 crease the store and extend the sovereignty. ^ ->" 
 
 One of FroebeFs essential principles of true self-ac- ^ 
 tivity is, that the activitylnusf nut degenerate into me- \<^^^ 
 chanical drudgery. By creative productivity he hoped 
 to make children and grown people happy at work. 
 Work should never be slavery. In the ideal society as 
 he saw it, when humanity becomes truly a unity work 
 will be joyous, productive activity. He would prepare 
 for this condition by making children love work, which 
 to them he made the external manifestation of the 
 inner, creative life. To make a child conscious of its 
 own original power is an important step in its religious 
 evolution. Creative self-activity is a religious exercise, 
 because it lays the foundation for the clear conscious- 
 ness of unity with God by revealing to the child the 
 fact that it possesses, in however small a degree, one of 
 his attributes. 
 
 It is well to point out that Froebel did not intend 
 that free self-activity should mean unrestricted liberty. 
 Freedom within law he regarded as the only true free- 
 dom. The gifts, occupations, and even the games in the 
 9 
 
114 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 kindergarten were intended to foreshadow and reveal 
 the great truth, that even creativity must be subject to 
 definite law. 
 
 Self -activity should be one of the most important 
 words in a teacher's vocabulary. It should be written 
 \ on the top of every page of his notebook and printed 
 in letters of gold on the wall of the schoolroom toward 
 which he looks, to keep him in remembrance of its 
 value and of his tendency to overshadow his pupils. 
 Nearly three hundred years ago Comenius announced 
 as one of the great aims of educational progress: " To 
 search out and discover a rule in accordance with which 
 teachers teach less and learners learn more.'' We are 
 yet striving toward the ideal of Comenius. 
 
 Self-expression is infinitely more productive both in 
 acquiring knowledge and in developing power than ex- 
 pression. Accumulation, expression^ self-expression, are 
 three advancing stages of educational power. They 
 form a progressive sequence. The highest stage in- 
 cludes the powers of the other two developed to a 
 higher degree of potency as a means of cultivating 
 power or acquiring knowledge. " What man tries to 
 represent or do he begins to understand." "If any 
 man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine." 
 Many emotions, sentiments, and thoughts vanish from 
 our lives " for lack of expression." The effort of self- 
 expression defines the emotions, sentiments, or 
 thoughts, and language forms an objective representa- 
 tion or body for them. The inner life is co-ordinated 
 and classified, emotion and thought are related, and 
 propulsive power is developed by the process of con- 
 scious self-expression in any form — language, music. 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 115 
 
 drawing, modelling, or construction. The aroused 
 inner life is worse than wasted if it finds no means for 
 expressing itself in outward form. It leaves in the 
 mind a record for indistinctness and confusion and a 
 habit of inertness, of conceiving without bringing 
 forth, of planning without producing. 
 
 Expression in which there is no selfhood leads to 
 enfeeblement of character. The more fully expression 
 is self-revelation the more it develops selfhood and the 
 more it defines and classifies knowledge. 
 
 There are two clearly defined though related stages 
 in self-expression: the enrichment and enlargement of 
 the self and its representation. The inner should be 
 increased and improved as well as expressed. Some of 
 Froebel's disciples have exposed Froebel and them- 
 selves to ridicule by failing to recognise fully the value 
 of regular additions to the knowledge stored in the 
 mind by the pupils. They do not overestimate self-ac- 
 tivity or self-expression, but they do underestimate the 
 enrichment of that which demands expression. Froe- 
 bel never forgot the increase of knowledge, but he made 
 the child an active agent in the enrichment of its own 
 mind; never a mere passive receiver of knowledge chosen 
 and given by the teacher in content and form. 
 
 Each of FroebeFs lessons included, so far as possible, 
 the double process of new revelation to the child and 
 of new revelation by the child. Led by the teacher in its 
 earliest efforts, it took the new steps necessary for secur- 
 ing the new element of inner power, either of knowl- 
 edge or of process; and then it used the new power in 
 unity with the powers previously accumulated to reveal 
 its new and greater self. As the child grows older it 
 
116 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 does more and more of the accumulation of knowledge 
 and the enrichment of mind independently and needs 
 less guidance as to the character of the new study or 
 work, or the method of using it or doing it. In this way 
 his proper acquisitive attitude toward knowledge is re- 
 tained through life, and his natural impulse to execute 
 his own plans in an ever-improving self -activity becomes 
 a part of his character. 
 
 In all the work of the school the teacher should aim 
 to preserve the true balance between revelation of 
 knowledge and its use in some original form by the 
 pupils. In this way only can knowledge become part of 
 the personal power of the child. 
 
 In drawing, for instance, there are really not a great 
 many principles to teach. Skill results from the intel- 
 ligent practice of these principles. This practice may 
 be imitation or expression. Formerly it was almost ex- 
 clusively imitation. It should be almost exclusively ex- 
 pression. Expression in drawing represents the child's 
 own conceptions. These conceptions may be objective 
 or subjective. The representation of objective concep- 
 tions is now generally practised, but the child is usually 
 restricted to objects selected by the teacher. This de- 
 velops representative power but not selfhood. Self-ac- 
 tivity in object drawing requires the child to choose 
 its objects. By doing so its interest will increase and its 
 special taste develop and reveal itself. There are higher 
 kinds of self-activity in drawing which are rarely prac- 
 tised yet. The representation of imaginative concep- 
 tions requires a comprehensive exercise of selfhood, 
 and therefore is more completely self-activity than any 
 other kind of drawing. Imaginative conceptions de- 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 117 
 
 velop the central power in creativity. The content of 
 the imagination may be designs^ plans, or pictures to 
 express ideals or symbolic representations of Nature or 
 human life or any department of the spiritual realm. 
 Self-expression in any of these departments, the ex- 
 pression in design or plan or picture of original concep- 
 tion, is true self -activity, and the teacher's work in draw- 
 ing is unfinished unless it leads to this. -No subject 
 is truly educativa. jill it enlarges or enriches the self-" 
 hood. 
 
 There should be a great deal of subjective repre- 
 sentation by drawing in connection with history, litera- 
 ture, and composition. In history, allegorical pictures 
 may be drawn to represent the course of events, or real 
 pictures may be made as illustrations of events. Occa- 
 sionally the whole class may be asked to illustrate the 
 same event, but true self -activity leaves each child free 
 to select the most important event, or the one in which 
 it is most interested. In literature the child should 
 express in drawing its conceptions of the most beauti- 
 ful pen pictures of the authors. As in history, the whole 
 class may be asked to give pictorial form to the same 
 thought. This affords large scope for individuality, but 
 the complete self is not active, unless the selection of 
 the subject to be illustrated is left to the child. The 
 illustration of the pupil's own compositions is a type of 
 perfect self-activity. 
 
 The child should be encouraged not only to choose 
 its own objects or subjects in each department of draw- 
 ing, but also to select with the aid of the teacher's 
 judgment the department in wliich it has greatest spe- 
 cial power. 
 
118 FEOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Composition is the self-active use of the child's lan- 
 guage, its power to write, and its knowledge of the sub- 
 ject about which it writes. It also exercises its logical 
 power, and its consciousness of the interrelationship of 
 the parts in a complete whole. It is a pity that the 
 subjects for composition are usually assigned by the 
 teacher. True self-activity requires that the child shall 
 choose its own subject. Then the selfhood originates 
 the process. There is no educational reason requiring 
 that every child should be compelled to write on the 
 same subject. Of course the power to write definitely 
 should be constantly developed by writing answers or 
 opinions in regard to the other subjects on the pro- 
 gramme of study or in reporting the results of investi- 
 gations made by the pupils themselves. 
 
 Brief exercises may be properly written in composi- 
 tion to develop power or elegance of expression on the 
 same subject by all the members of a class; but each 
 pupil in writing a regular composition should express 
 the fulness of his mind in regard to a subject which he 
 chooses for himself. Composition is shorn of half its 
 glory unless the pupil believes that he can by writing 
 reveal new thoughts to those who are to hear his com- 
 position read. A composition should not merely ex- 
 press what the pupil knows about a subject, it should 
 express thought that he believes to be in some sense of 
 study or original application peculiarly his own. If 
 pupils are defective in power of selection or in the self- 
 faith that gives reverence for their own thought, it 
 clearly proves that their teachers have failed to develop 
 in them the central element of character. Self-faith 
 and self-reverence will develop naturally if afforded op- 
 
FROEBEL'S FUNDAMENTAL PROCESS. 119 
 
 portunities to do so by the employment of the selfhood 
 in originating as well as in operating. 
 
 In all other forms of expression the same principles 
 explained in connection with drawing and composition 
 should be carefully carried out. The pupils should ex- 
 press the leading thoughts of their own minds^ the 
 clearest pictures in their own imaginations. They are 
 not alike by nature, and the school does a great wrong 
 by every practice that tends to make them alike, and 
 by every method which assumes that they are possessed 
 of exactly the same powers and tendencies. The greater 
 the diversity the more perfect the unity. 
 
 It is not enough that pupils should be trained to 
 choose the department of each subject in which they 
 have special power. They should be at liberty to con- 
 centrate attention more specifically on the subject in 
 which they have greatest power to excel. This subject 
 or class of subjects represents the selfhood or indi- 
 viduality, and while all subjects of culture and power 
 should be studied faithfully, it should receive special 
 attention, as it undoubtedly indicates the direction in 
 which the individual can do his best work for the race. 
 If voluntary selec t ion is encouraged, voluntary atten- ^ j 
 tion will become a vital element in the development of ^^^ 
 the child, as it will be constantly impelled by active per- 
 sonal interest. 
 
 Self-choice should be exercised to a large extent in 
 connection with the study and work to be done by pu- 
 pils at home. In school, where each teacher usually 
 has a large number of pupils in the same grade, the pu- 
 pils must necessarily be taught together during the day. 
 This is one of the child^s greatest misfortunes. There is • 
 
120 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIOKAL LAWS. 
 
 no reason for continuing the dwarfing part of the edu- 
 cational process during the evening. If pupils can not 
 choose wisely, or if they do not work at all, except 
 under the compulsion of class standing or some other 
 external stimulus, the teacher's highest duty is to de- 
 velop in the defective or delinquent pupils the power 
 of choice and the love of work. These are much greater 
 elements in character than accuracy and rapidity in 
 solving mathematical problems, or a memory well 
 stored with facts relating even to the most important 
 subjects. True self-activity in connection with the 
 subject of a pupiPs greatest special aptitude is the 
 best correlative agency to form the natural bond of 
 unity between all the subjects of a school course. The 
 outcome of all discussion as to the subject through 
 which all others may be correlated, will be the recog- 
 nition of the fact that each child can correlate most 
 fully through the subject most directly related to its 
 own greatest power. 
 
 Self-activity, including the origination as well as 
 the execution of the motives, was well chosen by Froe- 
 bel as the fundamental process of his system. It 
 arouses the only perfect interest and attention; it makes 
 the mind aggressively active in regard to new knowl- 
 edge, and therefore secures the most thorough appercep- 
 tion; it leads to the most complete correlation of the 
 subjects of study; it develops selfhood, and reveals it 
 to both teacher and pupil; it encourages self -faith and 
 self-reverence by giving a consciousness of original, 
 creative power; it makes productive work an expression 
 of joyous gratitude; it is the elemental law of human 
 growth. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 
 
 In describing Pestalozzi's school at Yverdun, Froe- 
 bel says: " I also studied the boys^ play, the whole series 
 of games in the open air, and learned to recognise their 
 mighty power to awake and to strengthen the intelli- 
 gence and the soul as well as the body. In these games 
 and what was connected with them I detected the main- 
 spring of the moral strength which animated the pupils 
 and the young people in the institution. The games, I 
 am now fervently assured, formed a mental bath of 
 extraordinary strengthening power.^^ The value of play 
 as an educational influence became more clear to him 
 year by year until he made it an organic part of his 
 educational system. His views in regard to play may be 
 found in the following quotations from his writings: 
 
 "Even if I have brought no new thoughts to the 
 subject, as some will maintain, even if the goal and aim 
 of this education has long been known, 7 have_ given^ 
 something new in my childish plays, for they show 
 how we must begin to give activity to the powers of 
 childhood in order that they shall neither rust and 
 be lost for want of use nor overstrained by too early 
 study.^' 
 
 121 
 
122 . FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 " Child's play strengthens the powers both of the 
 soul and the body provided we know how to make the 
 first self-occupation of a child a freely active, that is, a 
 creative or productive one/' 
 
 " The plays of the child contain the germ of the 
 whole life that is to follow; for the man develops and 
 manifests himself in play, and reveals the hobiesTapti=^ 
 tudes and the deepest elements of his being." 
 
 " Play is the highest phase of child development — of 
 human development at this period; for it is self -active 
 representation of the inner from inner necessity and 
 impulse." 
 
 " The plays of childhood are the germinal leaves of 
 all later life; for the whole man is developed and shown 
 in these, in his tenderest dispositions, in his innermost 
 tendencies." 
 
 " It is the sense of sure and reliable power, the sense 
 of its increase both as an individual and as a member of 
 the group, that fills the boy with all-pervading jubilant 
 joy during these games. It is by no means, however, 
 only the physical power that is fed and strengthened 
 in these games; intellectual and moral power, too, is 
 definitely and steadily gained and brought under con- 
 trol. Indeed, a comparison of the relative gains of the 
 mental and of the physical phases would scarcely yield 
 the palm to the body. Justice, moderation, self-control, 
 truthfulness, loyalty, brotherly love, and again strict 
 impartiality — who when he approaches a group of boys 
 engaged in such games could fail to catch the fragrance 
 of these delicious blossomings of the heart and mind, 
 and of a firm will; not to mention the beautiful, though 
 perhaps less fragrant, blossoms of courage, persever- 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 123 
 
 ance^ resolution, prudence, together with the severe 
 elimination of indolent indulgence ? ^^ 
 
 These quotations from the writings of Froebel prove 
 that he recognised the value of play as an educational 
 agent more clearly than any other educational reformer. 
 Other writers before his time, especially Plato and Eich- 
 ter, had noted the benefits of play in mind development 
 and character formation as well as in physical training, 
 but Froebel saw its advantages much more clearly than 
 any *of them. He revealed to the world the essential 
 function of play in the evolution of the child in every 
 department of its power, and to him alone belongs the 
 credit of making play a definite and important part of 
 the scholastic education of a child. He was not con- 
 tent that any educational force should be left to chance 
 opportunity in securing its proper influence in the de- 
 velopment of the race, and therefore he organized play 
 as a vital part of his educational system for the training 
 of young children. If he had done no more for educa- 
 tion than this he would have been a great educator. In 
 regard to play, he did for education what the greatest 
 inventors have done for the industrial evolution of hu- 
 manity. They revealed practical plans for utilizing rec- 
 ognised forces. They deserve the gratitude of the race 
 not because they discovered new forces, but because 
 they made these forces subservient to civilization. Froe- 
 bel did not discover play as an influence in the evolution 
 of man's physical, intellectual, and spiritual power. He 
 understood its dominant influence on each of these de- 
 partments of human power more fully than any other 
 educator, but he was not satisfied with clear seeing, nor 
 with giving to his fellows a full exposition of the phi- 
 
12i FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 losophy of play as revealed to him. He transformed his 
 insight into practical reality^, and made play a vital ele- 
 ment among the organized educational forces, that 
 should be used in the physical, intellectual, and moral 
 culture of humanity. 
 
 The introduction of play as a fundamental element 
 in his kindergarten work made play culture objective, 
 and forced the consideration of its educational value on 
 teachers everywhere. The result of this has been of 
 incalculable benefit in two ways: teachers are awak- 
 ening to the ' importance of play as an educational 
 agency, and a truer ideal has been established in regard 
 to the aim of education. The old idea, that the mere 
 storing of the memory was the highest work of the 
 teacher, made it difficult for teachers to believe that any 
 one could seriously suggest that play should be made an 
 organic school process to be systematically carried on as 
 a regular means of educating children. At first the 
 suggestion met with ridicule only; then leading minds 
 acknowledged that play might be of advantage as a rest 
 and a change from severe mental work; next it dawned 
 on a few progressive teachers that play was really bet- 
 ter than formal physical exercises for training the child 
 physically in varied activity and in natural graceful- 
 ness; until now the world is beginning to understand 
 that Froebel made play an organic part of his educa- 
 tional system not alone for recreation and relaxation, 
 nor for physical culture only, but as the most natural 
 and most effective agency for developing the child's 
 physical, mental, and moral nature, and for revealing 
 and defining its individuality. Play is so entirely differ- 
 ent from the old-school processes that the recognition 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 125 
 
 of play as a means of educating children has completely 
 altered the standpoint of educational thinkers, and has 
 done much to free them from the dogma that " knowl- 
 edge alone is power/^ 
 
 FroebeFs work in undertaking to systematize play 
 and direct it so as to make it most effective as an edu- 
 cational force was a difficult and delicate task. He knew 
 that spontaneity must not be sacrificed to system, as the 
 great value of play intellectually and morally depends 
 on the freedom of the child in expressing its own pur- 
 poses and carrying out its own decisions. It is because 
 play enables the child to act independently within the 
 limits of certain laws, that it is especially valuable as 
 an educational agency. It affords the child the best 
 possible conditions for revealing its inner characteristics 
 in outward form and action, and is therefore the best 
 way to strengthen and define its selfhood. Froebel's 
 task was the systematizing of play under the leadership 
 of adults, without robbing play of its freedom or the 
 child of its perfect spontaneity and independence of ac- 
 tion. He knew, however, that reasonable law is the 
 surest foundation for perfect liberty, and that the child 
 loves its plays none the less because they are gov- 
 erned by definite rules, and he took care that so far as 
 possible the kindergartner or teacher should not re- 
 strict the freedom or check the spirit of the children. 
 There is no more lifeless exercise than a game played 
 by children when they are not interested in it on their 
 own account. The teacher's part is to suggest a change 
 when joyous interest is beginning to wane, to arouse 
 interest on the part of the unsympathetic, to encourage 
 the timid to undertake new duties and assume new 
 
 \ 
 
126 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 positions, occasionally by skilfully assigning them lead- 
 erships which they can assuredly fill successfully, and 
 to applaud the effort to succeed even more than the 
 achievement of success. In all her connection with 
 the playing of childhood the teacher must be governed 
 by a genuine sympathy with child life, and all her sug- 
 gestions must be given in the spirit of helpfulness, so that 
 no child may ever be conscious of the shadow of inter- 
 fering domination, which blights its joyousness, checks 
 its freedom, or dwarfs its individuality. 
 
 Confining the consideration of the advantages of 
 play to the physical nature only, it is now generally ad- 
 mitted that play gives greater variety of activity and in- 
 creases the power of the vital life-producing organs 
 more than any formal exercises. No other process can 
 increase lung and circulation power so rapidly and so 
 effectively as running to accomplish a clearly defined 
 purpose in connection with a game or play. Dr. F. A. 
 Schmidt, of Bonn, says: ^^ In the running game lies for 
 the youth a healthy development of the lungs which 
 can not be produced by any other method. Not to give 
 the children the desire to run about freely means that 
 one sins against the health of the rising generation.'^ 
 Dr. Hamilton, after an examination of the British sol- 
 diers at Aldershott, in which he found them defective in 
 chest capacity, wrote: "There can be no doubt what- 
 ever as to the great benefit of the habit of deep breath- 
 ing — full inspiration, deep expiration — in ordinary life. 
 Children ought to be regularly trained in this, as under 
 ordinary circumstances at ten years of age they have 
 lost nearly nine inches of chest girth." 
 
 The element of joyous interest in play has an im- 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 127 
 
 portant influence on the physical advantages resulting 
 from it. The joyousness is almost, if not quite, as bene- 
 ficial as the exercise to the health of children. Play is 
 the perfect co-ordination_of joy and activity. The ac- 
 tivity of play is itself the chief source of joy in the early 
 stage of a child's life. Another decided advantage of 
 play is the fact that the fatigue point is not reached 
 in play as soon as in formal exercises. A boy will run 
 all day without becoming tired, if he is running to ac- 
 complish his own purposes in play. The same boy 
 will tire very quickly of formal exercises, although he 
 makes much more energetic efforts in playing than when 
 engaged in the formal exercise. 
 
 Froebel was so profoundly impressed by his founda- 
 tion law of unity or interrelationship that he aimed to 
 develop the whole being of a child by every school 
 process, so far as it is possible to do so. This law of 
 unity made him the prince of correlationists and led 
 him to value play more than formal physical culture, 
 because its good effects are more directly felt in every 
 department of the nature of the child. He did not 
 underestimate the work of formal education either in 
 physical training or any other department of culture, 
 but he insisted on the application of his law of self -ac- 
 tivity in physical education as fully as in mental or 
 moral education. He gave direct instruction in all 
 subjects and departments of training in order that the 
 child might have new elements of power to use in ex- 
 pressing its own individuality. 
 
 Formal physical culture he did not regard as an 
 end in education any more than the formal teaching of 
 the process of writing or drawing. Writing and draw- 
 
128 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 ing he taught^ that the pupil might have new methods 
 of self-expression, and so by formal physical training he 
 would define and strengthen the power of the muscles, 
 improve the posture of the body, increase the functional 
 power of the heart, lungs, and other vital organs, and 
 especially remedy any constitutional or hereditary physi- 
 cal defects, in order that the body might become 
 mightier and more perfectly responsive in executing the 
 decisions of the mind in a definite and persistent man- 
 ner. In physical education, as in all other education, he 
 demanded that the child should originate as well as exe- 
 cute the idea in order to make its effort completely edu- 
 cative, and therefore he advocated play instead of for- 
 mal physical culture, because interest stimulated effort 
 and action expressed the thought and feeling of the 
 actor. Mr. Bo wen says: "Physical exercise should in 
 the main be the expression of ideas and feelings, how- 
 ever simple; and that is why school games, when order- 
 ly and free, are found in practice to be of much greater 
 value than school gymnastics, especially such as are 
 merely acrobatic.^^ 
 
 Froebel saw the interrelationship between the body 
 and the mind so clearly that he believed the brain it- 
 self was largely dependent on the action of the body for 
 its growth. The investigations of physiological psy- 
 chology have proved his theory to be correct. He gave 
 a new dignity to physical culture by showing it to have 
 an important influence in the development of the brain 
 and the complete co-ordination of the entire neuro- 
 logical system. The whole body in its voluntary 
 and involuntary action is directed by the brain 
 and other parts of the neurological system, and there 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 129 
 
 is no doubt that the body is influenced by the mind; 
 but it is also true that the mind is influenced by the 
 body. They are parts of the same unity and they rise 
 or fall together in physical quality. The interdepend- 
 ence between body and mind is so complete that the 
 body^ in its modes of action and even in the form of its 
 executive parts, reveals the character. The unity is so 
 perfect that body and mind react on each other, so that 
 the body not only reveals the mind but helps to form it. 
 The improvement of the body aids in the develop- 
 ment of the brain in many ways. No physical training 
 is worthy of the name of true culture that does not pri- 
 marily aim to improve the condition and increase the 
 functional power of the vital organs. The brain feels 
 the advantage of better digestion, circulation, and respi- 
 ration more quickly than any other organ. The quality 
 of the brain^s action depends on its organization, but the 
 energy of its action and the length of time during which 
 it can act without fatigue depend on the way it is nour- 
 ished. Perfect nutrition repairs the waste caused by 
 intellectual effort, and enables the brain to sustain ener- 
 getic action without loss of renewal power. External 
 stimulus is always dangerous to the brain unless it is 
 well sustained by the internal stimulus of good nutri- 
 tion. Thousands of teachers still blight the intellects 
 they aim to develop and store by applying external stim- 
 uli to overworked and poorly nourished brains. The 
 more earnest and enthusiastic such teachers become 
 the more dangerous they are. The teacher who by his 
 personal enthusiasm spurs tired brains to work beyond 
 the fatigue point is the enemy of his pupils. He weak- 
 ens them at the centre of their educational power. It 
 10 
 
130 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 is unfortunately true that the weakest and most nerv- 
 ous children are most liable to yield to the inspiration 
 of the teachers whose educational motto is " Bring 
 them on! ^' The robust boy who plays vigorously and 
 eats well, laughs and sleeps on, indifferent to the urgent 
 appeals of his teacher to work hard at his lessons; the 
 delicate girl whose nervous system is already too sensi- 
 tive, and whose brain is already too active, is easily led 
 to study too hard and too long. Shattered health and 
 loss of power are usually the result of over-effort on the 
 part of the students whose nervous and nutritive sys- 
 tems are weak. Ambitious parents and " high-pres- 
 sure " teachers are responsible for many of the ills^that 
 increasingly afflict civilized communities. 
 
 The difficulty arises from the narrow misconception 
 of what education really means. The general view con- 
 fines education to the storing and culture of the intel- 
 lect, and takes no account of the body. From the pri- 
 mary school to the university intellectual tests alone are 
 taken as the standard by which educational progress is 
 measured. The primary pupil is promoted and the uni- 
 versity student is graduated on the basis of intellectual 
 accomplishment and the remembrance of his stored 
 knowledge. Teachers and professors ignore the fact 
 that the human being is an organic unity, and that 
 whatever tends to destroy the balance of the individual 
 elements in the unity must be evil in its influence. 
 Many graduates from schools and universities go forth 
 to the battle of life with honors in their hands and 
 weakness in their bodies. They owe both to their school 
 or university training. 
 
 The most necessary improvement in scholastic work is 
 
PLAY AS A:^ educational FACTOR. 131 
 
 a recognition of the urgent need of bodily training. It is 
 beginning to receive recognition in many schools and 
 some universities, but the recognition so far given is 
 more negative than positive. The body should receive 
 definite, systematic training because it is the executive 
 agent of the mind; because energetic and sustained 
 mental action depends on the support of healthy, well- 
 developed vital organs; because good health is essential 
 to the highest success in the business of life; and be- 
 cause the bodily activities directly influence the devel- 
 opment and organization of the brain and the rest of 
 the neurological system. The body deserves the recog- 
 nition which Froebel gave it, as a part of the interre- 
 lated, interdependent unity, man. A man can not be 
 considered properly educated so long as any part of his 
 nature is undeveloped or untrained. No one depart- 
 ment of human power can be educated at the expense of 
 another department without injury to the organic 
 whole. This is one of Froebel's fundamental principles, 
 which has so far received only partial recognition. 
 When it is fully understood, physical culture will be 
 more universally adopted as an essential part of scholas- 
 tic training, and physical development will be taken into 
 consideration in awarding graduation diplomas and de- 
 grees. There is as much objection to the course of the 
 college undergraduate who ignores his physical life in 
 a mad strife for what are called scholastic honours as 
 to that of the student who entirely sacrifices mental cul- 
 ture to athletics. The word " scholastic " will yet have 
 a wider meaning, which will include the development of 
 the physical nature as well as the storing of the mind. 
 The schools and universities will soon break the bonds 
 
132 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 of mediaevalism and extend the meaning of terms that 
 have limited the range of vision of educators for centu- 
 ries. No definition of education now limits its meaning 
 to mind storing, or to mind storing with power to re- 
 produce at examinations what is in the mind; but the 
 schools in giving diplomas, and the universities in grant- 
 ing degrees, still act in conformity with this narrowest 
 of all definitions of education. If on the staff of a uni- 
 versity there were one fifth as many professors to train 
 the bodies of students as there are to develop and store 
 their minds, it would be easy to discover a system of 
 ranking students physically on a basis as absolutely fair 
 and just as that now adopted in marking them for their 
 intellectual acquirements. In some way every element 
 that has a dominant influence in deciding a student's 
 fitness for a successful and noble life should be consid- 
 ered by the faculty of his school or university in award- 
 ing him a diploma or a degree. The full comprehension 
 of FroebeFs law of unity will make clear the duty of all 
 educators to train the body as the agent, and at the same 
 time the developer, of the mind. 
 
 The activities of the body have a direct influence 
 on the growth of the brain itself. Physical exercise can 
 not increase the number of cells in the brain, but it does 
 develop cells that without it would have remained dor- 
 mant or only partially developed. The muscular sys- 
 tem of all parts of the body has corresponding brain 
 areas to direct its activities. If even the little finger be 
 not trained to act with as much force, grace, and variety 
 of movement as it is capable of, there is a certain part 
 of the brain that has not reached its highest possible 
 development. Neurologists claim that there is a natural 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 133 
 
 order in which muscular activity should be developed, 
 and that unless the natural order be followed, perfect 
 brain development and complete neurological co-ordi- 
 nation can never be attained. They claim also that 
 school processes in writing, drawing, and other forms of 
 manual work, have violated the natural order of devel- 
 opment by training the finger movements before the 
 movements of the shoulder and elbow have been prac- 
 tised sufficiently to develop the parts of the brain corre- 
 sponding to them, and define the nerve channels which 
 connect them with the brain. Undoubtedly the evil 
 results of this error would be much more clearly seen if 
 pupils were in school all the time, and if their activities 
 were limited to the schoolroom. Fortunately, how- 
 ever, children usually get a fair amount of exercise out 
 of school. If it were not for this fact many of their 
 brain areas would remain undeveloped throughout their 
 lives. Teachers and experimental psychologists have a 
 wide field for research in order to learn not only how 
 writing, drawing, and manual work of all kinds should 
 be taught without changing the proper order of neuro- 
 logical development, but in what order physical exer- 
 cises should be performed to aid the growth of the 
 brain in conformity with the laws which govern its per- 
 fect natural evolution. 
 
 Physical activity not only develops the brain itself, 
 it stimulates the growth of the extensions of the cells 
 throughout the nervous system, the neurons and the 
 dendrons, and thus completes the organization of the 
 nervous system with the muscular system. It accom- 
 plishes the still higher work of co-ordinating the sensor 
 and motor systems and establishing the necessary defi- 
 
134 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 nite reactions between the sensor and motor brain 
 areas. Froebel believed that plays were much more 
 effective in the achievement of these purposes than 
 formal physical exercises, because the motor stimulus 
 in executing an independent decision in a game is more 
 definite and more forceful than in carrying out an 
 instruction from a teacher, or imitating a leader; and 
 because while playing the child has to perform such an 
 infinite variety of movements. The unexpected calls 
 to new duties that continually come to each player in a 
 game give the highest opportunities for the perfect co- 
 ordination of the entire neurological system. The senses 
 must act with accuracy in reporting the exigencies of 
 the game to the brain; the brain must decide promptly 
 the proper course to be taken; the motor system must 
 receive and conduct the message from the brain to the 
 muscles definitely, and the muscles must respond freely 
 and execute the work assigned to them unerringly, if 
 the player is master of the position he fills. Every es- 
 sential element and condition required to perfectly co- 
 ordinate the controlling department of a human being 
 is fully supplied by a good game. The ever-varying con- 
 ditions require alertness of sense, active attention, quick 
 judgment, strong reaction of brain on motor nerves, and 
 perfect responsiveness of muscles. Every part of the 
 delicate machinery of a perfect manhood is called into 
 developing activity by a good game. 
 
 One of the chief advantages of all physical culture, 
 and especially of plays, is the training given to the 
 motor system. For centuries the schools have culti- 
 vated the sensor at the expense of the motor system. 
 Whether as a result of this one-sided training or not, it 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 135 
 
 is a fact that the sensor system is now stronger than the 
 motor, and there is no -danger of developing the motor 
 power and tendency too much. The greatest weakness 
 of humanity is the lack of power, often the lack of re- 
 active tendency, to do as well as it knows; to execute 
 its decisions; to accomplish its designs; to complete its 
 insight in attainment. Most teachers omit executive or 
 motor training, being satisfied with storing the minds of 
 their pupils with the culture products of the ages, and 
 neglecting to use these culture products to stimulate 
 motor or executive reactions in their pupils. Executive 
 tendency is a needed force, and education should de- 
 velop this tendency in the race. Few of the ordinary 
 school processes require the development of motor re- 
 action. All mere study dwarfs motor power by bring- 
 ing to the brain new impressions that do not stimulate 
 motor activity. Even such executive subjects as writing 
 and drawing as usually taught do not aid much in estab- 
 lishing executive reaction between the brain and the 
 motor system. The writing and drawing must be self-ex- 
 pression, the manifestation of original thought, in order 
 that the individual shall receive the fullest motor devel- 
 opment. All physical training aids in the development 
 of the motor system. However a purpose is formed 
 in the mind, it is immediately carried out in physical 
 exercise. The instruction to perform a certain move- 
 ment may be given by the teacher's command, or by 
 signal, or by a leader whose actions are to be imitated, 
 but, however it is communicated, it is acted upon as 
 soon as it is received. This must aid in developing the 
 executive tendency in a child, because it helps to form 
 the habit of motor reaction. 
 
136 FEOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Playing is more effective than any other form of 
 physical exercise in developing motor power and tend- 
 ency. In other forms of physical exercise the mind 
 merely conveys the message of some other person to 
 the motor system. The mind of the individual acting 
 does no original thinking. The activity is the result 
 of a suggestion received from outside the mind. The 
 process is responsive activity instead of true self-ac- 
 tivity, and it therefore lacks fulness of educative force, 
 as responsive activity always does, when compared with 
 self -activity. Activity in response to the teacher's com- 
 mand or signal develops a motor character that acts well 
 under the guidance or leadership of another. Such a 
 character makes a useful member of society, but he is 
 not the most perfect character. The aim of education 
 should be to make self-directing men and women with 
 positive characters. There are three types of character: 
 those whose motor systems are not developed, who are 
 trained to receive knowledge and to reflect without ac- 
 quiring a tendency to execute their decisions; those who 
 are trained to act in response to the suggestions or 
 orders of others; and those who think independently 
 and try to carry out their conclusions. The first char- 
 acter is negative, the second responsively positive, and 
 the third independently positive. The third is the ideal 
 character which the schools should aim to develop. 
 The rapidly changing conditions of a good game, and 
 the complications incident to a keen struggle, afford per- 
 fect opportunities for motor development. Commands 
 are sent at the same moment for instantaneous execution 
 to the muscles of the arms, legs, and body, to run, to 
 spring, to catch, to throw, to lean forward, backward, or 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 13 7 
 
 sideward. The whole body is called upon to perform 
 the most unexpected feats of agility, and to do them 
 promptly and definitely. In the game of lacrosse, for 
 instance, the ball is thrown and the players on both 
 sides start to gain possession of it when it falls. He 
 who exercises best judgment as to the place at which 
 the ball will drop, and whose fleetness is equal to his 
 judgment, secures the ball; but his opponents are 
 within a few feet of him, straining every nerve to reach 
 him before he can deliver it. In a fraction of a second 
 his eye must sweep the field to discover what disposi- 
 tion he should make of the ball. He always has a choice 
 of several plays. It may be best to throw to one of his 
 own side, who is " uncovered ^^ or free in front, or to his 
 right or left, or behind him; or it may be wisest to make 
 a long throw on the flags; or he may decide to " dodge ^^ 
 his opponents by the " over-drop " " or the under-drop," 
 or to pass them by feinting and sweeping past them; 
 but the important educational development results 
 from the fact that his choice must be made in an 
 instant, and his decision executed at once. No other 
 process so completely develops the mastery of the mind 
 over the body and so fully trains the body to respond 
 perfectly to the mind as a good game. The brain, the 
 motor system, and the entire body are co-ordinated in 
 their action, until the expert player performs feats of 
 agility or skill which to the unpractised appear to be al- 
 most impossible. 
 
 This infinite variety of motion, in which all the 
 muscles of the body are called upon to participate to the 
 fullest extent of their power and activity, gives to play 
 a double value. It gives a symmetrical and compre- 
 
138 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 hensive physical culture^ and it calls every part of the 
 motor brain into action and therefore aids in its de- 
 velopment. 
 
 There are two classes of games that are especially 
 important for young children: the running games and 
 the throwing, bowling, and quoiting games. Eunning 
 is the great developer of lung power. The heart, too, is 
 strengthened by the increased exercise caused by the 
 greater demands made on it during a running game. 
 Full development of heart and lungs depends largely on 
 the running games of childhood and boyhood. Teachers 
 neglect one of their most important duties if they fail 
 to give specific attention to running games for pupils 
 from seven to twelve years of age. There may be chil- 
 dren whose hearts are organically diseased, who may be 
 injured by running exercises continued too long. It is 
 therefore important to guard against overexertion at 
 first. 
 
 The throwing, bowling, and quoiting games are of 
 the highest value in co-ordinating the neurological sys- 
 tem, and in developing motor control of the muscles of 
 the executive parts of the body in proper order. In all 
 such games the ball or other plaything used is held 
 in the closed hand, and so the fingers are not called into 
 action. The muscles of the shoulders and arms are 
 trained to respond to the decisions of the brain, and in 
 this way the nerve connections are established with these 
 muscles and the proper neurological centres are first de- 
 fined. It would be well if all children were trained in 
 accuracy of throwing at a target as men are trained to 
 shoot. In bowling every child should be trained to de- 
 liver the ball straight at a wicket. Sides may be chosen 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 139 
 
 and each child allowed to deliver the same number of 
 balls at a target or an unguarded wicket; the aim being 
 to see which side can hit the wicket most frequently. It 
 would be an advantage to have children trained to throw, 
 bowl, and pitch with the left as well as the right hand. 
 
 The moral effects of play are most important. The 
 play of a boy corresponds to the work of a man. Every 
 quality that is requisite in the man to make him com- 
 .pletely and honourably successful is necessary to com- 
 plete success in the plays of the boy.* 
 
 The weakening self-consciousness of childhood, the 
 most restrictive influence in a child's life, is overcome 
 by social intercourse on the playground under the 
 stimulating conditions of co-operative effort to achieve 
 success. 
 
 Self-control, positive as well as negative, is acquired 
 by the independent performance of the varied and un- 
 expected duties incident to games, which requires each 
 player not only to restrain but to direct his own powers. 
 Too often the only self-control that is developed in 
 character forming is the restraint of power. Self-di- 
 rection is the highest self-control. 
 
 What splendid opportunities the boy has to de- 
 velop energy of character! As Froebel says, there is 
 no room for " indolent indulgence " on the playground. 
 The goal can not be reached unless a supreme effort is 
 
 * The girl should play quite as much as the boy, that the moth- 
 ers of each succeeding generation may become more physically 
 perfect both in body and brain. Froebel's work is aiding in over- 
 coming the foolish conventionality that objects to allow girls the 
 fullest freedom in play. The same classes of plays are suitable 
 for both girls and boys under thirteen years of age. 
 
140 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 made. The ball can not be caught unless he runs at 
 his best speed and finally leaps forward, impelled by the 
 concentrated energy of his whole nature. " Every nerve 
 must be strained ^^ to gain even half an inch in jumping 
 or vaulting. The winning half inch has done much 
 to mould mighty men. Froebel wisely said: "A child 
 that plays thoroughly, with self-active determination, 
 perseveringly, until physical fatigue forbids, will surely 
 be a thorough, determined man, capable of self-sacrifice 
 for the promotion of the welfare of himself and others/' 
 Courage is required in play, especially in football, 
 lacrosse, and other games in which team competes con- 
 tinuously against team for the possession of a ball. 
 There is no use for the coward on the football or la- 
 crosse field. The " scrimmage '' calls for as much cour- 
 age as the field of battle. Personal fear goes out of a 
 boy's life aiter he has had a few years' experience amid 
 the inspiring struggles incident to outdoor sports. He 
 learns to think only of his predominant aim, and loses 
 his personal, weakening self-consciousness in the desire 
 to achieve the end directly in view. Self is thus sub- 
 ordinated, and the unconscious subordination of self in 
 a purpose is the basis of courage. Courage is not mere 
 spasmodic daring under specially trying circumstances. 
 Courage of the sternest kind is the spirit that enables 
 one to bear defeat bravely, and to persevere hopefully 
 even in the face of defeat or disaster. The boys who 
 after defeat practise faithfully to qualify for future 
 victory are developing true courage, courage based on 
 resolution that will yield to no defeat. Such courage 
 lays the foundation for the perseverance that " removes 
 mountains," and triumphs over life's fiercest opposition. 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 141 
 
 'i Self-faith is one of the most essential elements of 
 strong character. j^The playground is the place where 
 teachers can do most to develop it in their pupils. Step 
 by step a boy can measure his progress among his fel- 
 lows and relatively compare his strength of to-day with 
 his weakness of last year, and at each step in advance 
 there comes into his life a consciousness of new power. 
 He notes how earnest effort and persistent practice en- 
 able him to achieve victory, and each new triumph adds 
 to his faith in himself. 
 
 One of the most essential qualifications for good 
 citizenship is reverent submission to law. The boy^s 
 first training in obedience to law under the circum- 
 stances of full citizenship is obtained on the playground. 
 There he is among his equals, and the rules of the game 
 are the laws by which every player must be governed. 
 The habit of obedience to rules in boyhood is the surest 
 foundation for co-operative submission to laws in man- 
 hood. Plato said: "If children are trained to submit 
 to laws in their plays, the love for law enters their 
 souls with the music accompanying their games, never 
 leaves them, and helps them in their development.^' 
 The ancient Greeks had a clear comprehension of the 
 unity between the body and the mind, and of the in- 
 tellectual and moral advantages of physical training. 
 
 On the playground, too, the boy learns by experience 
 the two greatest lessons of human responsibility and 
 relationships; of individuality and community. The 
 member of a baseball or a cricket club learns that each 
 player has special duties belonging to his position that 
 can be performed by no other player, revealing special 
 power and special responsibility; that unless he does 
 
142 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 his part faithfully and skilfully his club is weakened; 
 that the more perfectly each individual plays the more 
 successful the club will be; and that, however excellent 
 each individual may be, failure must result unless the 
 club as a whole works as a unity with a single purpose. 
 In all his plays he is a member of a community in 
 which he has to recognise and respect the rights of the 
 other members, and in which he co-operates with his 
 own side for the accomplishment of a definite aim. 
 Thus experience forms in his mind apperceptive cen- 
 tres of individuality and co-operation around which may 
 be grouped in later years the profoundest philosophy 
 of individualism and socialism and their harmonious re- 
 lationships. 
 
 Play and all methods of wise physical culture in- 
 fluence character by making the body more erect and 
 well-poised, and by making its action more definite, 
 more forceful, more graceful, and more free. The im- 
 proved attitude of the body reacts on the character in 
 two ways: The functions of the vital organs are more 
 fully performed, because they are more free, and char- 
 acter therefore gains in force; and the consciousness of 
 erectness and poise brings with it an added conscious- 
 ness of self-faith, dignity, and integrity. The body 
 becomes in time an external manifestation of the char- 
 acter. The motions of the arms, the step, the habitual 
 attitude, the poise of the head reveal to the experienced 
 observer the character behind them. To a certain ex- 
 tent it is equally true that the body by its attitudes 
 and its modes of action influences the mind. Body and 
 mind are so intimately interrelated that the one neces- 
 sarily reacts on the other. Make the sweep of the arms 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. I43 
 
 more free and the conception of freedom is widened; 
 and the new conception is registered in the brain and 
 nerve centres by changes effected in their development, 
 their structure, or their paths of action to correspond 
 with the new movements they have been required to di- 
 rect. Change that boy's step from his shuffling gait, and 
 make a definite, free step habitual and you have helped 
 to change his character. That boy whose knees bend 
 weakly as he stands lacks moral fibre as well as physi- 
 cal definiteness. Leave that listless boy in his present 
 condition and he will do little to stir the world around 
 him; but by the persistent use of attractive plays and 
 other wise physical culture give him more power and 
 make energetic motor activity automatic in his life, and 
 he may leave his mark, not on the sands of time only, but 
 on the everlasting rocks of eternity. In all cases trans- 
 formation of bodily attitude or activity is accompanied 
 by a gradual change in moral quality and force, which 
 is based upon an improved mental quality and mental 
 force that is recorded in the brain and other parts of 
 the neurological system. Thus the body not only re- 
 veals the character but helps to form it. 
 
 It is true that the spiritual nature controls the physi- 
 cal, but the physical nature also influences the spiritual. 
 It is easier for evil influences to corrupt and destroy the 
 character of young men with weak, untrained, inactive, 
 imperfect bodies than it would be if they had vigorous, 
 well-developed, well-trained bodies. Paradoxical as it 
 may seem, there is much truth and force in Eousseau's 
 epigrammatic statement that, "the weaker the body 
 the more it commands; the stronger it is the more it 
 obeys.'^ There is a direct relationship between moral 
 
144 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 and physical perfection. The spiritual, the intellectual, 
 and the physical form a closely interrelated unity, each 
 element of which affects and is affected by the others. 
 
 Play is of service in preventing periodic attacks of 
 lawlessness in children and young men, which result 
 from overcharging with unused physical vitality. Play 
 gives a natural outlet for the energy, and increases the 
 capacity of the body for energetic action without mak- 
 ing it a " storage battery/^ Energy should be used as 
 it is generated. The storing of energy either of mind 
 or body weakens the power to create energy. Eest is 
 needful, but its benefits result from the restoration of 
 the power to produce energy and not from the accu- 
 mulation of energy. Unused power is always danger- 
 ous, and produces an evil effect which is the opposite 
 of the good it should have accomplished. The aim of 
 the educator should be to develop the power to create 
 energy as it is required for use. A playing school is 
 easily controlled. Wise teachers use play or other forms 
 of physical exercise as one of their best agencies in se- 
 curing discipline naturally and effectively. It is the 
 surest and quickest way to secure order, system, and co- 
 operation in a disorderly, irregular, and indifferent 
 class. 
 
 Play is better than gymnastics or any formal physi- 
 cal exercises, because it is more natural, because it is 
 true self -activity, because it is the child's real work, be- 
 cause the benefits derived from it are incidental and not 
 the direct object of the effort made, and because it de- 
 velops the entire nature of the child at the same time. 
 
 Play is natural. The universal tendency of healthy 
 children is to play, and this love for play was given 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 145 
 
 because energetic effort is essential to the fullest growth 
 of a human being, not only physically, but intellectually 
 and morally. 
 
 Play is true self-activity, because the child^s actions 
 in playing are the result of its own decisions in response 
 to its own motives for the accomplishment of definite 
 purposes in connection with the game, and not in re- 
 sponse to the teacher^s command or signal. 
 
 Play is the child^s real work. Some educators hesi- 
 tate to admit the wisdom of a system of education which 
 makes play an important element in the child^s develop- 
 ment even in its early years, fearing that the love of 
 play may prevent the love of work afterward. But 
 play is the real work of childhood, and the love of play 
 in the child should become the love of work in the 
 man. Every characteristic of excellence in playing — 
 quickness, alertness, enthusiasm, persistence, energy, 
 and independence — is a characteristic of a good worker 
 at maturity. 
 
 Play is the only complete means of self-expression 
 the child possesses. It is the agency by which it defines 
 and strengthens its powers and learns to use them in- 
 telligently as a self -directing, self -revealing being in the 
 accomplishment of its own aims. Active physical play 
 is but one department of the child^s play life. It very 
 early shows a tendency to play with the material things 
 around it. It is filled with a passionate desire to modify 
 the conditions of things. Unfortunately, most of us 
 lose this aggressive attitude which is the foundation of 
 all progress as we grow older, and passively accept con- 
 ventional conditions as we find them. The very same 
 tendency that too often makes a child destructive in its 
 11 
 
146 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 play should make it constructive and self-reliant. Play 
 with material things is the highest possible means for 
 making an original and intelligent worker^ and outdoor 
 games and sports are the best agencies for developing 
 physical power and the concentration of energy for the 
 achievement of clearly defined purposes. 
 
 The benefits of play are incidental. This is a most 
 important advantage. Incidental results are most last- 
 ing in all educational work. The unconscious tuition of 
 life and school is the best. The teacher whose ideal is 
 highest and whose art is most perfect values least the 
 direct results of his teaching. The man who takes exer- 
 cise for the benefit of his health never improves so 
 much as the man who takes the same exercise for some 
 other purpose. The old-fashioned doctor said to his 
 patient^ whose system needed the toning of invigorat- 
 ing exercise, '' Take a walk of four miles every morn- 
 ing before breakfast ^' ; or " Eide for an hour every 
 morning ^^ ; or '^ Buy a pair of clubs and swing them.'^ 
 The wise physician learns the tendencies of his patient 
 and gets him interested in some work or game which 
 involves the necessary exercise in the accomplishment 
 of some ardent desire. He leads him to take an inter- 
 est in gardening, or botanizing, or boating, or lacrosse, 
 or tennis, or baseball, or cricket, or curling, or skating, 
 or cycling, for the interest or pleasure connected with 
 the work or the game. Yonder are two men walking to- 
 ward a high hill. One is a dyspeptic ordered by his 
 doctor to take exercise for his health, the other is on his 
 way to visit the woman of his choice. The glories of 
 the hour in sky, meadow, bird song, flower, and land- 
 scape unconsciously fill the soul of one with irritation 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATll 
 
 and the other with exhilaration. The first on reaching 
 the foot of the hill looks despairingly up, and turns 
 back with the feeling that he is too weak to climb the 
 hill to-day, thus losing the part of the walk that would 
 have done him most good. The second goes bounding 
 up the hill confident that just beyond its brow she who 
 is all of life to him will be watching for him, and wait- 
 ing to welcome him. To the first the physical exercise 
 of walking is drudgery; to the second it means joy and 
 life. 
 
 But the highest educational value of play rests on 
 its influence in developing the selfhood of the child, and 
 on its beneficial effects in the training of the physical, 
 intellectual, and moral natures. 
 
 Froebel regarded play as the child's natural prepara- 
 tion for work in maturity; as its best means for develop- 
 ing its physical, intellectual, and moral powers; as its 
 chief source of joy; as its highest means of self-expres- 
 sion and self -revelation; as a safeguard against the in- 
 dulgence of destructive desires and mere sensual pleas- 
 ures. He considered play a kind of religious exercise for 
 children. A lady who was visiting his kindergarten said 
 after seeing the children at their play: " It seems as if 
 I were in church, it sounds so devotional." Froebel re- 
 plied: " That is the uniting power of play, which blesses 
 and exalts children and even grown-up people." Midden- 
 dorff, one of his life-long associates, and the man who 
 was most fully in sympathy with him, caught his rev- 
 erent spirit in regard to play, when he said: " This is 
 like a fresh bath for the human soul when we dare to be 
 children again with children." 
 
 The plays of childhood satisfy two desires of all 
 
148 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 healthy children — the longing for activity and for joy. 
 Activity and joy are very important elements in true 
 religion. Perfect soul growth in childhood is the only 
 sure foundation for perfect soul development in ma- 
 turity, and the child soul gains strength chiefly through 
 joyous activity, therefore Froebel longed to increase the 
 play sphere of childhood, and give all children the full- 
 est opportunities for the joy, the activity, the self-ex- 
 pression, the mind culture, and the moral development 
 of play. 
 
 The influence of Froebel's course in making play a 
 part of his educational system has been felt in every 
 part of the world. The German people have been 
 convinced that formal physical culture in school and 
 gymnasiums will not develop a strong and enduring 
 race. The greatest educational advance made in Ger- 
 many during the closing decade of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury is the movement conducted by the educational de- 
 partment of Prussia in favour of public playgrounds. 
 FroebeFs educational play system is producing a deep 
 impression in his native land. It has made the Prussian 
 Government do what Dr. Wiese, in his German Letters 
 on English Education, published in 1877, declared to be 
 quite impracticable. In speaking of English school- 
 boys he said: ^^ Most of them, with the fresh colour of 
 health on their countenances, their bright eyes, firm 
 gait, without a trace of constrained behaviour, were 
 to me often a refreshing picture of blooming youth." 
 He proceeds to describe the causes that have produced 
 such a grand result, and says: "As among these causes, 
 physical exercises and games, such as cricket and oth- 
 ers, which aim at adroitness and strength of body, oc- 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. 149 
 
 ciipy a prominent place among the customary means 
 of education, one might perhaps think of transplanting 
 such things into Germany. The wish that this might 
 be done has been expressed to me during my present 
 stay in England by Germans who were able to compare 
 the two countries in regard to the physical training of 
 youth; and, in fact, German teachers have repeatedly 
 agreed to study these games in England in order to in- 
 troduce them among themselves. The attempts have 
 been made in vain. The conditions of life are too differ- 
 ent in the two countries, and we shall never be able to 
 make up our minds to devote as much of the time of our 
 school hours as seems requisite for games which, after 
 all, would not be a proper substitute for gymnastic 
 exercises.'^ 
 
 Dr. Wiese made two mistakes. He ventured to re- 
 strict the development of the future. He asserted that 
 the Germans " would never make up their minds to de- 
 vote much time to games ^^ ; and in fourteen years the 
 Germans did exactly what he said they never would do. 
 The grandest achievements of the race are those that 
 have been proved impossible. He erred also in assuming 
 that games should be considered a substitute for gym- 
 nastic exercises. The one should be the complement of 
 the other; neither can be a substitute for the other. 
 The leaders in athletic sports are usually most active in 
 gymnastic practices. The general introduction of plays 
 into Germany has increased the attendance in the gym- 
 nasiums. 
 
 Outside of Germany play education has awakened a 
 deeper interest in physical education and broadened 
 educational ideals generally. It has aided especially 
 
150 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 in the comprehension of the interrelated unity of the 
 physical, intellectual, and spiritual natures, and this is 
 revealing two great principles. First, the threefold na- 
 ture should be trained as a unity, as no department can 
 reach its fullest perfection without the adequate devel- 
 opment of the other two. Second, the weakest depart- 
 ment of a child's nature requires most careful training 
 and nurture. This is especially true when the physical 
 nature is weakest. Dickens taught the world many edu- 
 cational lessons in his own inimitable way. One of the 
 most valuable of these was the lesson taught by the dis- 
 astrous results that followed the irrational cramming of 
 Paul Dombey. Paul was killed by his father and Dr. 
 Blimber. His aunt, Mrs. Chick, told his father that 
 " Our darling is not altogether so strong as we could 
 wish. The fact is, his mind is too much for him. His 
 soul is a great deal too large for his frame." Notwith- 
 standing these facts Mr. Dombey took Paul to Dr. 
 Blimber's school and gave instructions that he was to 
 learn " everything." Dr. Blimber accepted the com- 
 mission, ordered Miss Cornelia " to bring Dombey on," 
 and his mind and spirit, already too strong for his weak 
 body, were strained to their utmost limit. His feeble, 
 overtaxed body soon yielded to the strain, and his prema- 
 ture death resulted from the ambition of his father and 
 the ignorance of his highly learned teacher. Learned 
 he was in the "deceased languages," but completely 
 ignorant of the most important educational principle, 
 that the human being is an organic unity of interde- 
 pendent elements. Paulas mind and spirit were rela- 
 tively too active for his body, yet no attempt was made 
 to develop his body. The departments of power already 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOK. 151 
 
 too active were wrought at high pressure; the weakest 
 department was utterly neglected and robbed of its 
 share of nutrition by keeping the brain in an abnormal- 
 ly active condition, while the body had no opportunity 
 for the increasingly energetic exercise so essential for its 
 proper development. The law to determine the amount 
 of special culture for the individual elements of power in 
 human character should be: give most careful culture to 
 the weakest element. 
 
 There is an inviting field for teachers in the work of 
 improving the plaTys of children. The best teachers 
 and the wisest physicians and neurologists will yet de- 
 vise new games to accomplish specific aims in the devel- 
 opment of childhood. So important an agency in the 
 evolution of the race should not be left to chance. Froe- 
 beFs organization of children's plays was the work of a 
 master genius. With wondrous skill he arranged a 
 comprehensive system of games that call into play the 
 physical and mental powers, strengthening, defining, 
 and co-ordinating them; that give the child the first 
 steps in manual training, and the control of the mate- 
 rial world for the purposes of utility and beauty; that 
 reveal the family and social relationships in the home 
 and society; that awaken a sympathetic interest in the 
 work of the labourers in the industrial world; that de- 
 velop the child's energy, courage, self-faith, and execu- 
 tive power; that make him conscious of individual 
 power which he delights to use creatively, and which, 
 he also learns through play, is given to him that he 
 may use it to make the organic unity of the race more 
 perfect; that appeal to the aesthetic nature by the pro- 
 duction of beautiful forms and by the accompaniment of 
 
152 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 music in time with which the games are played; that in- 
 troduce the child to Nature and through Nature to the 
 unseen forces behind and within Nature; and that sym- 
 bolize the work of a perfect life. Yet, perfect as Froe- 
 bePs system of plays already is, there is a need for an 
 evolution in games in connection with actual school 
 work, and under the direct control of teachers and peda- 
 gogical neurologists after school hours. In some re- 
 spects the most remarkable evolution of modern civiliza- 
 tion is the enormous increase in the percentage of the 
 population of civilized countries who reside in cities. 
 The children of the cities lack many of the opportunities 
 for physical, intellectual, and moral growth enjoyed by 
 the children of the country. One of the greatest needs 
 of city children is opportunity for free, energetic play- 
 ing. Scientific, educational. Christian philanthropy has 
 no better field of operation than in providing ample 
 playgrounds in cities, and in equipping them with the 
 necessary materials for playing the most developing 
 games. The child of the fourth generation brought up 
 in a large city is a pathetic study. It is one of the 
 saddest sights in the world, because it is almost with- 
 out the instinct of play. Slavery left behind it the evi- 
 dence of its terrible nature in a race of children who 
 do not know how to play, from whom the tendency to 
 play has been almost eliminated. Eev. William Gillies, 
 the veteran educator of Jamaica, reports that ^^ one of 
 the greatest difficulties to be overcome in the physical, 
 intellectual, and moral evolution of the negro race in 
 Jamaica is the fact that the children have lost the 
 play spirit." This is a most interesting and suggestive 
 fact to teachers. 
 
PLAY AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR. I53 
 
 The recent German playground movement should 
 become universal. Froebers appeal to fathers and 
 mothers may be adopted with profit by the teachers and 
 philanthropists of the world: "Play is not trivial; it is 
 highly serious and of deep significance. Cultivate and 
 foster it, mother; protect and guide it, father! To 
 the calm, keen vision of one who truly knows human 
 nature, the spontaneous play of the child discloses the 
 future inner life of the man.^^ As Schiller said: 
 
 " Deep meaning oft lies hid in childish play.^^ 
 
CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE HAKMONY BETWEEN CONTEOL AND SPONTANEITY. 
 
 As Froebel's fundamental law is unity, and his fun- 
 damental process is self-activity, so his fundamental 
 principle in discipline is the harmony between control 
 and spontaneity. This principle is based on his law' of 
 harmony of opposites. 
 
 Dr. Harris says: " Careful students of the history of 
 education have noticed the fact that its reforms swing 
 from extreme to extreme. At one time it will become 
 the fashion to lay great stress on the training of the will. 
 Schools will accordingly become places where children 
 are submitted to semi-mechanical processes of discipline 
 to the neglect of individual insight and ability to think. 
 Gradually the pendulum will swing to the other extreme, 
 and discipline will be neglected for the intellectual self- 
 activity of the pupils. 
 
 " The intellect grows by mastering for itself the 
 thoughts of others, and by investigating causes and prin- 
 ciples. But the will grows through self-sacrifice for the 
 sake of wider and wider interests. It is possible, there- 
 fore, to have two lines of educational reform antagonis- 
 tic each to the other.^^ 
 
 Froebel was the first educator to see the perfect unity 
 154 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 155 
 
 between these two lines of educational reform, and to har- 
 monize control and spontaneity, direction and freedom. 
 In doing so he claimed to secure more perfect development 
 of both than had been achieved before. He saw the tend- 
 ency " to swing from extreme to extreme/^ and he knew 
 that it was caused by the principle of separation or atom- 
 ism, or extreme individualization. With wider intel- 
 lectual vision he discovered the law of unity, and saw 
 the philosophical oneness of apparent opposites. 
 
 FroebeFs views on this question may be gathered 
 from the following extracts from his writings: 
 
 " Education in training and in all instruction should 
 be by far more passive and following than categorical and 
 prescriptive; for, by the full application of the latter 
 mode of education, we should wholly lose the pure, the 
 sure, and steady progressive development of mankind — 
 i. e., the free and spontaneous representation of the di- 
 vine in man, and through the life of man, which, as we 
 have seen, is the ultimate aim and object of all educa- 
 tion, as well as the ultimate destiny of man.^^ 
 
 " In accordance with the laws of Divine influence, 
 and in view of the original soundness and wholeness of 
 man, all arbitrary (active), prescriptive, and categorical, 
 interfering education in the forms of instruction and 
 training must of necessity annihilate, hinder, and de- 
 stroy/^ 
 
 " Therefore education as instruction and training, 
 originally and in its first principles should necessarily be 
 passive, following (only guarding and protecting), not 
 prescriptive, categorical, or interfering.^^ 
 
 The words " passive ^' and " following '^ in the pre- 
 ceding quotations refer to the teacher, not to the child. 
 
156 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 The child should be the active agent in its own educa- 
 tion. Froebel had such unbounded faith in the right 
 tendency of humanity, and such abhorrence of the idea 
 of the "total depravity ^^ of childhood, that he taught 
 in all his works that the teacher^s duty is to place the 
 child in proper conditions, and supply it with material 
 adapted to its stage of development. Having done these 
 things, he should reverently " stand from between the 
 child and God," and watch it grow, using his developed 
 wisdom to study each individual child and adapt spe- 
 cial conditions to guard it from evil and stimulate its 
 best and fullest growth. These quotations relate to the 
 training of children whose inner life is not warped. He 
 knew that conditions must be met as they exist. He saw 
 the possibility of the need of prescription, but taught 
 that " all prescription should be adapted to the pupil's 
 nature and needs, and should secure his co-operation. 
 This is the case when all education in instruction and 
 training, in spite of its necessarily categorical charac- 
 ter, bears in all details and ramifications the irrefutable 
 and irresistible impress that the one who makes the de- 
 mand is himself strictly and unavoidably subject to an 
 eternally ruling law, to an unavoidable eternal neces- 
 sity, and that, therefore, all despotism is banished.'' 
 
 " Between educator and pupil, between request and 
 obedience, there should invisibly rule a third something 
 to which educator and pupil are equally subject. This 
 third something is the riglit, the lest, necessarily condi- 
 tioned and expressed without arbitrariness in the cir- 
 cumstances. The calm recognition, the clear knowledge, 
 and the serene, cheerful obedience to the rule of this 
 third something is the particular feature that should 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 157 
 
 be constantly and clearly manifest in the bearing and 
 the conduct of the educator and teacher^ and often 
 firmly and sternly emphasized by him/^ 
 
 The fact that he recognises the need of categorical 
 teaching and training, and the firm and stern emphasis 
 of justice, does not contradict the theory previously 
 quoted, which presents the ideal education for children 
 without defined evil in their natures. 
 
 " The kindergarten is the free republic of child- 
 hood/^ 
 
 " The aim of my kindergarten is to prevent the chil- 
 dren of the masses from growing up like little savages, 
 and also to save the schools from a lawlessness which is 
 miscalled liberty/^ 
 
 '^ If national order is to be recognised in later years 
 as a benefit, childhood must first be accustomed to law 
 and order, and therein find the means of freedom/^ 
 
 His great interpreter, the Baroness von Marenholz- 
 Biilow, brings out prominently this phase of his teach- 
 ing. She says: 
 
 " Nothing is left, then, but to set free obedience in 
 the place of blind obedience, and to render the masses 
 through cultivation capable of seeing that only the self- 
 restraint of individuals and their voluntary subjection to 
 law make greater freedom in society possible. That 
 mode of education which can solve this problem may 
 justly be called education for freedom.^^ 
 
 ^^ Certainly the application of a given rule or law 
 must, by the formative and creative productiveness of 
 the kindergarten pupils, awaken their sense of law and 
 order, and call forth the beginning of an opposition to 
 all disorderly and anarchical action.^' 
 
158 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 ^^ Froebel's system aims to smooth the path for the 
 future free and conscious obedience to law^ and thereby 
 lead at the same time to the highest possible degree of 
 freedom. 
 
 '' By means of kindergartens a place of education is 
 created which represents a miniature state for children, 
 in which the young citizen can l^arn to move freely, but 
 with consideration for his little fellows/' 
 
 The aim of Froebel was to make, the school the " free 
 republic of childhood," in which the child should be a 
 self-active agent, guided by a teacher wise enough to 
 direct it without making it conscious of interference, 
 and to place it in conditions to define its recognition 
 of law, and at the same time give ample scope for its 
 originality. There may be life under law or deadness 
 under law. Froebel wished to have law always and 
 everywhere, but with it he demanded the right of the 
 child to free life, positiveness, and self-direction, instead 
 of coercion, negativeness, and mechanical following. He 
 reverenced the individuality of the child, and he knew 
 that spontaneity was the only perfect basis for the 
 growth of individuality; he aimed to give individuality 
 the power of self-direction, and therefore he insisted 
 upon freedom of will action as the only foundation for 
 the growth of the will; but he recognised the universal- 
 ity of law, and he made it the duty of the trainers of 
 childhood to reveal law in its beneficence, and not in its 
 enslavement. Like every good, law may be a blessing or 
 an evil. Froebel aimed to make law aid in developing 
 constructiveness instead of destructiveness; in guiding, 
 not merely in restraining. The coercive teacher or par- 
 ent recognises only the restrictiveness of law. That is 
 
CONTROL AISTD SPONTAKEITY. 159 
 
 its dark side. The highest art of the teacher may he 
 shown in revealing "the perfect law of liberty^'; in 
 guiding the child through its years of weakness to com- 
 plete self-control, so that no step may interfere with the 
 development of selfhood, and yet every step lead to a 
 consciousness of law. The outer control should grad- 
 ually vanish as the inner develops. 
 
 The Scotch lad is usually controlled by his father's 
 iron will. His duty in childhood and youth is unreason- 
 ing submission to law. There is power even in such dis- 
 cipline. In the boy's soul dread of parental authority 
 becomes in time a solemn veneration for the majesty 
 of law; and reverent submission to the human father 
 rises into devout subordination to God, and forms the 
 granite in Scotch character individually and nationally. 
 Such training makes men strong, but narrow. It places 
 law above liberty, and recognises the power of the Cre- 
 ator more than his love. It values individual rights 
 more than individual growth. This is control with- 
 out spontaneity. 
 
 In too many homes there is spontaneity without 
 control. The results are usually disastrous. Control 
 alone is better than spontaneity alone for perfecting 
 strength of character; better even for the development 
 of productive spontaneity. Uncontrolled spontaneity 
 would be the ideal educational condition if all natural 
 tendencies were toward truth, or if all children had 
 from their earliest years enlightened consciences, devel- 
 oped wills, and a recognition of the rights of others so 
 clear as to make them unselfish, and so strong as to be a 
 controlling force in their lives. 
 
 Control and spontaneity have been regarded as an- 
 
leo FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 tagonistic forces in the development of the child. They 
 are really twin powers that should work in harmony. 
 Truth can never he at variance with other truth. There 
 are no irreconcilable contradictions, no chasms that 
 clearer insight shall not span. Man can not always see 
 the harmony between principles that appear to be in con- 
 flict, but infinite wisdom sees the mutually strengthen- 
 ing interrelationship of apparent contradictions. Na- 
 ture rejoices in the equipoise of opposing forces. As 
 man grows consciously toward the Divine, he sees har- 
 monies more clearly, and the revelation of new har- 
 monies between the controlling laws of the universe 
 makes the sweetest music that ever lifts his soul to higher 
 joy. After the battles of past ages, the veterans who 
 fought for opposing principles have joined hands in lov- 
 ing unity, when they have climbed through the clouds 
 of error, and clearer, wider vision has dispelled illusions 
 and shown the essential oneness of truths which partial 
 insight had supposed to be at variance. Each party saw 
 a single truth, and in the brighter light on the hilltop 
 the two truths were blended into one. 
 
 Eightly understood, control and spontaneity work in 
 perfect harmony. Spontaneity does not mean freedom 
 from law, but freedom through law, in accord with law. 
 Productive spontaneity can not be at variance with law; 
 it can exist only in conformity with law. Law and lib- 
 erty are indissoluble. They are giants whose union pro- 
 duces life and gro.wth. The " law of liberty ^^ is the per- 
 fect law. David spoke wisely when he said: " So shall 
 I keep thy law continually for ever and ever, and I will 
 walk at liberty." ' " To the truly free man, freedom co- 
 incides with control." Spontaneity is the essential con- 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 161 
 
 dition of individual development; law defines relation- 
 ship of the individual to the universal; control is the 
 application of law. There is no wrong to the child in 
 the exercise of wise control by parents and teachers. 
 Such control is absolutely essential to the full develop- 
 ment of character. We should control childhood in 
 order to define respect for human law and reverence for 
 Divine law. The perfect work of Christianity will be 
 accomplished when all mankind is consciously, rever- 
 ently, responsively, co-operatively submissive to the 
 Divine will. This condition can never be reached until 
 the child in the home and in the school lives a life of 
 co-operative obedience to its parents and teachers, and is 
 thus qualified for conscious co-operative submission to 
 the authority of the state, and beyond this to a cheerful 
 recognition of Divine authority and the progress result- 
 ing from CO working with God. 
 
 Children should be controlled because wise and defi- 
 nite control by a superior will develops the will power of 
 the child, and qualifies it to direct its own life when it 
 reaches maturity. If unchecked, the feelings and pas- 
 sions of a child sweep in an unrestrained torrent over 
 its undeveloped will; lack of control becomes habitual; 
 selfishness and self-will act automatically, and character 
 power is lost. More than half the energy of humanity 
 is dissipated. Character -energy must be controlled and 
 directed by an enlightened will in order to become an 
 executive force for good. The child's y^U is neither suf- 
 ficiently strong nor sufficiently enlightened to guide its 
 activities and control its powers. Uncontrolled forces 
 lead inevitably to ruin and disaster. It is a lamentable 
 fact that so much of Nature's physical force remains 
 12 
 
162 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 yet unmastered^ but the saddest sight in the world is an 
 uncontrolled soul. 
 
 But, while control by a superior will is essential and 
 natural, it should never prevent the full development 
 of spontaneity of character. It is not necessary to dwarf 
 a soul by controlling it. The child^s individuality can 
 not be weakened without fatal consequences. Each 
 child has an individuality of its own. It is a sacred power 
 intended to grow for ever. It is the divine in the child. 
 It can not be marred or misdirected without interfering 
 with God's plan. God's will is never a substitute for 
 man's will; neither should the will of the teacher be in 
 any way a substitute for the will of the child. The 
 teacher's will may direct the child's will, but never safely 
 act in its stead. The teacher's personality should never 
 intervene between the child and the light. 
 
 To be truly beneficent, external control must stimu- 
 late as well as restrict. It should be exercised with a 
 constant consciousness of the child's selfhood, and in 
 harmony with several clearly defined laws. 
 
 Control by external agencies should last for the short- 
 est possible time. Self-direction should be our aim for 
 our pupils from the first. 
 
 Human control, like Divine control, should be 
 prompted by love, based on love, and exercised in love. 
 Human love is man's strongest controlling force, as well 
 as his greatest life-giving power. Divine law is often 
 necessarily restrictive of wrong, but it is lovingly re- 
 strictive. It is stimulating and growth-giving; never 
 destructive. 
 
 Control should never degenerate into coercion. Plato 
 said, " A free mind ought to learn nothing as a slave." 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 163 
 
 There is no life-giving power in coercion. There is no 
 growth in mere negation. God meant our characters to 
 be positive, not negative. One " do ^^ is worth a thou- 
 sand " don^ts ^^ in the destruction of evil or the produc- 
 tion of good. Coercion may repress evil; it never eradi- 
 cates it. It can only repress the wrong for a limited 
 time, and in doing so it restricts the good. Coercion 
 never made a child creative, and the growth of crea- 
 tive power is the central element in its education. Co- 
 ercion does more than restrict the power of a child; 
 it corrupts its ideal. The common and unnatural 
 dread of Divine authority arises from the degradation 
 of human authority into unreasoning, unloving coer- 
 cion. 
 
 The terrorism of the unknown is the most dreadful 
 form of coercion. Attempts to secure passive submission 
 by threats of punishment by the mysterious interference 
 of imaginary monsters have done as much as any other 
 cause to destroy the true spontaneity of childhood. It 
 is impossible to conceive the fulness of the evil influ- 
 ence of such threats at a time when the child's imagina- 
 tion is most active. The imagination itself is perverted, 
 and often becomes a corrupting instead of a purifying 
 power. The child's activity becomes passivity; its in- 
 stinctive interest in the great unknown dies out, and its 
 spiritual development is thus prevented. The unknown 
 land should be filled with angels, not demons. Many 
 parents and teachers degrade even the Father of light 
 and love into a sort of goblin to terrorize their children. 
 With sacrilegious impudence they dare to say to chil- 
 dren, " God won't love you if you are bad," till the child 
 gets its little heart filled with misconceptions of God and 
 
164 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 irreverence for him, and these false ideals often keep out 
 the truth for ever. 
 
 The child should not be conscious of the restraint 
 of external control through the personality of the teach- 
 er. The assertion of the personal will of the teacher in- 
 evitably leads to conflict and conscious resistance on the 
 part of the child. This is the root of great evil. Through 
 unconscious responsiveness the child should grow to con- 
 scious recognition of authority and obedience to law; 
 and up to the highest condition of will culture, perfect 
 self-control, and self-direction. The Divine will guides 
 our wills in many ways that we do not understand or 
 even recognise. Our control of childhood should be like 
 Divine control in this respect. 
 
 External control that reveals its personality inevita- 
 bly weakens the child^s self-control, as external aid given 
 unwisely necessarily destroys its self-reliance. Most 
 children are injured by being helped too much. The 
 child whose foolishly fond mother rushes to pick it up 
 when it falls is usually hurt more by the picking up than 
 by the fall; so the child who looks to parent or teacher 
 as its only controlling agency will never fully develop 
 its own self-control. Self-control develops in the same 
 way as all other powers of self-expression or self-direc- 
 tion — by regular and progressive exercise. The child 
 should be led to feel its individual responsibility, for a 
 child's duty not a man's, as early as possible, and al- 
 lowed to direct its own powers toward the accomplish- 
 ment of its own purposes, limited by the law defining the 
 rights of others. Eeverence for the majesty of the law 
 is a mightier force in character-building than yielding 
 to the will of a teacher. Submission to law is an element 
 
. CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 165 
 
 of true manhood; mere subserviency to a human being 
 is a characteristic of a slave. The child who is forced 
 to submit passively and continuously to the personal 
 domination of its teacher can never have true concep- 
 tions of liberty and individual responsibility. 
 
 It is utterly degrading to give pupils the idea that 
 they are naturally expected to do wrong and that the 
 teacher's constant duty is to check their natural tend- 
 encies. We should have faith in children. They deserve 
 our faith, and if they do not, we may make them worthy 
 of faith by trusting them. Let a boy understand that 
 you expect him to do wrong, and he will usually fuljfil 
 your expectations. Boys love the right better than the 
 wrong. They prefer the true to the false. They like 
 to do good (not to be lectured about doing good) better 
 than to do evil. They would rather produce than de- 
 stroy. They love activity because it gives life; they hate 
 passivity because it leads to death. Even if a boy is bad, 
 inspiration is a grander controlling force than coercion. 
 The most complete belief in the depravity of a child's 
 nature does not justify the destruction of its spontane- 
 ity. Natural tendency may not always be toward the 
 divine; natural power is always divine, and may become 
 the controlling agency in correcting wrong tendency. 
 Bad tempers and evil dispositions are defined in the con- 
 sciousness of a child by criticism and coercion. Such de- 
 fining is necessarily evil. The wise teacher is never sad- 
 dened by the exhibition of strength and force by a child, 
 even if they are manifested in selfish forms. The child 
 with most power for evil should become strongest for 
 good with wise training. The teacher's skill is shown 
 by transforming power, not by destroying it. Teachers 
 
166 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 should remember that when the child comes to school 
 it is in an advanced stage of its training. Human agen- 
 cies by improper control or by equally improper free- 
 dom^ or usually by a dreadful mixture of both^ have been 
 destroying the true spontaneity of the child. 
 
 All control is wrong that attempts to fetter the child 
 with a man's thoughts, a man's motives, or a man's 
 creed. Herein lies the greatest danger. It is a fatal 
 blunder to rob a child of its childhood. We interfere too 
 often with a child's spontaneity by checking its plays 
 or by rousing it from its reveries. Teachers should re- 
 member that what would be folly or indolence in them 
 may be absolutely essential for the highest development 
 of the child physically, intellectually, and morally. A 
 child may be injured morally by stopping its play with the 
 sand on the seashore, or its ramble among the flowers, or 
 its apparently idle dream as it lies looking at the clouds, 
 to force it to listen to religious exercises it does not un- 
 derstand. The music of the birds and bees is more likely 
 to arouse its spiritual nature than the music of an organ. 
 He is the best teacher who most clearly remembers the 
 feelings and thoughts of his own boyhood. We can not 
 force maturity on a child in feeling, motive, thought, 
 or action without making it a hypocrite, and we can 
 make nothing worse out of it. The darkest hour in a 
 child's life is the hour when it draws a curtain over the 
 windows of its heart to shut out mother or teacher, and 
 deceit usurps the place of honest frankness. It is easy 
 for a child to degenerate when those in authority over it 
 make it a hypocrite, and turn the life-producing waters 
 of its free, responsive nature into a stagnant pool. Evil 
 habits are poisonous growths springing from the trunks 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 167 
 
 of decaying powers, and nourished By the sap intended 
 to develop holy inspirations. 
 
 The motives of men and women are not those that 
 stir children's lives to activity. The child rises from 
 high to higher motives if properly guided. 
 
 Growth can not be forced, and the attempt to force 
 it checks spontaneity and weakens individuality. Teach- 
 ers often try to be power for their children, instead of 
 guiding the powers already existing in the pupils. They 
 try to force growth, or to restrict growth instead of pro- 
 viding the best conditions of growth, and reverently 
 allowing growth to proceed in accordance with Divine 
 law. They try to improve the flower queen by opening 
 the rosebud instead of strengthening the rosebush. How 
 grandly Nature's laws act! The sun never commands 
 the flower to grow, nor does the rain say chidingly, 
 " Drink or you shall not grow." The rain falls gently, 
 the sun shines brightly, and the flowers become strong 
 and beautiful. 
 
 Between opposites, Froebel always sought to find the 
 mediation. Between control and spontaneity he discov- 
 ered the mediation to be productive self -activity. Chil- 
 dren love to work with material in harmony with their 
 stage of development. Froebel used this love of work 
 to develop the creative instinct, and at the salne time 
 to have the work done in accordance with limitations, 
 or rules, or laws. He saw by careful study of childhood 
 that children must have outlets for their energy, and he 
 provided play and work to give them this outlet. He 
 recognised the universal fact that " evil springs from 
 unused good." Unused good becomes misused good, and 
 produces evil. The same power that is intended to make 
 
168 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 the child constructive makes it destructive if wrongly 
 used. The same tendency that undirected makes the an- 
 archist will make a law-respecting citizen if guided 
 wisely. 
 
 In the planning of the work to be done in the kinder- 
 garten, Froehel never forgot to lay down limitations 
 within which, and rules by which, the child should do 
 its work. These limitations and rules, however, did not 
 interfere with the child^s spontaneity. Within the lim- 
 its and under the rules there was wide scope for varia- 
 tion, and each child was free to represent its own ideals 
 as soon as, by working under the direction of the teacher, 
 it had grasped the process of using the material supplied 
 to it. The limitations and rules instead of interfering 
 with its spontaneity, defined it, made it easier to exer- 
 cise it consciously, and directed it into productive and 
 therefore joy-giving channels. 
 
 The child, by its use of every gift and occupation of 
 Froebers system, is made a free agent, but it is free with 
 the restriction of necessary law — law to which the kin- 
 dergartner herself submits. In perforating, sewing, and 
 drawing what Froebel called the " forms of beauty ^^ or 
 design, the child is restricted by the network lines used 
 as the basis of the designs and by the law of symmetry. 
 In most of the work done in these departments there is 
 the additional restriction to lines limited in number, 
 length, and direction. Definite law and logical order 
 are followed even in the additions made from day to day 
 in the number of lines and the variations allowed in their 
 length and direction. 
 
 In mat-weaving, the pupils, even when they make 
 their own designs, have to follow a regular plan, or com- 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 169 
 
 bination of plans, in regard to the number of strips over 
 and under the strip they are weaving in. Method, law, 
 order, sequence are followed in all the steps made from 
 the simplest " one up, one down,'^ to the most complex 
 combinations. 
 
 In colour-work, whether in mat-weaving or brush- 
 work, the child is limited in the number of colours to be 
 used. 
 
 In paper-folding there is a definite order to be fol- 
 lowed in getting the foundation forms, and a regular se- 
 quence of transition from one form to another. 
 
 In paper-cutting there is a logical sequence for the 
 preparatory folding and creasing of the paper, and for 
 the cutting also; and the pasting of the resulting cor- 
 responding forms must be done in accordance with the 
 law of symmetrical arrangement about a centre. 
 
 In making designs or objective forms, houses, 
 bridges, tunnels, towers, stoves, sofas, etc., with the gifts, 
 more than one law must be followed. The whole of the 
 material must be used, and the various objects and build- 
 ings must be evolved. One structure must not be de- 
 stroyed that another may be constructed from the ruins; 
 the new one must be made by making a change from the 
 one already made. 
 
 The law of unity, continuity, and harmony of oppo- 
 sites must be kept in mind in all the work of the child, 
 so that it comes to recognise freedom within rule, liberty 
 under law as a foundation principle, as something nat- 
 ural and necessary which becomes a part of its code of 
 essential guiding principles. 
 
 In FroebeFs plays the same submission to controlling 
 laws is a part of the child's experience. Each child in 
 
170 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 playing is a free agent within the limits assigned to it 
 and under the governing rules of the game. It performs 
 its duty in the game as an independent individual, but 
 is compelled to respect the rights of the other individ- 
 uals composing the society to which it belongs. It could 
 have no better training as an active member of society 
 when it reaches maturity. In both its work and its play 
 it finds itself under the reign of law which is beneficent 
 and not cramping. Throughout FroebeFs whole system 
 he maintained the same perfect unity between control 
 and spontaneity, and thus made the " perfect law of lib- 
 erty'^ a part of the personal character of each child. 
 When self -activity is carried out with a complete recog- 
 nition of the supremacy of law, it becomes the surest 
 basis for a conscious love of liberty. 
 
 He revealed the universality of law to the child by 
 showing it that every plant grows in harmony with an 
 inner law. Each variety of tree, shrub, and flower has 
 its own method of branching, its own peculiar type of 
 root, trunk or stalk, leaf and flower. Each member of 
 any species is governed by the same law of growth. Ex- 
 ternal conditions may modify the shape of the plant, 
 but whether it grows to harmonious proportions in un- 
 impeded freedom or is dwarfed and deformed by obsta- 
 cles that interfere with its growth, it possesses the char- 
 acteristic peculiarities of its class; it is stamped by the 
 dominant law of its species. 
 
 By making self-activity within law the fundamental 
 process in his system Froebel secured the perfect har- 
 mony between spontaneity and control. Selfhood and 
 law are constantly respected in his system. They are 
 never put at variance. The child is always self-direct- 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 171 
 
 ing, although at first it is guided in its self-direction. 
 Self-effacement is never made the basis of self-control. 
 From the first the child^s will is active, because activity 
 is the source of growth. The theory of stage develop- 
 ment applies to the will as fully as to any other power. 
 The will in the first stage should not be allowed to do 
 the work it is expected to do in the higher stages of the 
 evolution of its complete control. It may be guided and 
 even aided, but it must be self -active if it is to grow to 
 conscious power. 
 
 Anarchy is not the fierce son of freedom, but the 
 cruel son of coercion. True freedom leaves the child 
 no need for anarchy in FroebeFs system, because it is 
 joyously occupied at productive work. Mere freedom 
 is not FroebeFs mediation between control and sponta- 
 neity. He calls into complete development two dominat- 
 ing principles in the life of a well-balanced child — ^love 
 of freedom and productive activity. The union of these 
 forms the complete bond between the apparent opposites, 
 and makes an organic unity of diverse elements, which is 
 the most perfect type of unity according to Froebel. 
 
 Productive activity is the chief source of joy to child- 
 hood, and should be man's greatest fountain of pleasure 
 if his training has given proper development to his nat- 
 ural tendency. There is no room for anarchy in the ex- 
 perience of a child or a man whose life is filled with op- 
 portunities for self-expression in any form of productive 
 activity. Anarchy results chiefly from the overflow of • 
 repressed energy, which demands relief from coercion 
 and finds relief in unnatural outlets. It is another illus- 
 tration of the truth of Euskin's aphorism, "All evil 
 springs from unused (misused) good." The right use 
 
 /^^^^^^^^^^ 
 
 f r^^ OF THE ^"K\ 
 
 I UNIVERSITY 1 
 
172 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 of the elements of character that make the anarchist 
 would make of the same man a good member of society. 
 Froebel would never let law and selfhood become di- 
 vorced. His entire system aims to keep them in har- 
 mony, and to unfold this harmony more and more clearly 
 till it becomes a controlling element in character. 
 
 One of the greatest powers the parent or teacher can 
 exercise in the direction of children is the power to 
 change the centre of interest from evil to good. Froebel 
 refused to believe that children love to do wrong better 
 than to do right. He believed that their dominant de- 
 sire was to do. Whether to do right or wrong at first 
 depends on environment and experience; afterward on 
 habit and judgment. He knew that, even though they 
 may become happier in doing right than in doing wrong, 
 little children are not wise enough to decide what is 
 right and what is wrong, and that they prefer to do — 
 rather than not to do — even if they have to do wrong. 
 He separated the doing from the thing done, and in this 
 he was wiser than other educational philosophers. He 
 said to teachers in effect: The child loves doing — activ- 
 ity. It loves better doing work that is the expression 
 of its selfhood — self -activity. It loves best of all doing 
 work that is the expression of its selfhood, and at the 
 same time produces something of use — productive self- 
 activity. Our duty as teachers is to guide the child so 
 that its natural tendency to do may develop in manhood 
 into the habit of productive self -activity. This will make 
 the race most happy when engaged in productive work; 
 not alone with material things, but in the higher realms 
 of intellectual and spiritual work. Therefore he de- 
 plored most of all the fatal blunder that has been the 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 173 
 
 leading characteristic of all discipline, both in the home 
 and the school, of checking activity, because it was di- 
 rected to wrong ends. 
 
 Activity results from a divinely implanted tendency 
 which the Creator meant to be used energetically 
 through life, and which is the motive power that impels 
 man to labour in the conquest of N^ature and in achiev- 
 ing the higher victories over evil. Triumph is the re- 
 ward of conscious struggle. The power to struggle per- 
 sistently lies at the foundation of grand character. 
 Truly great characters are those who struggle most ear- 
 nestly and most selfishly for the achievement of right. 
 Childhood loves to encounter difficulties in play or in 
 work. It is a natural instinct that leads it to exercise 
 its powers to qualify it for a life work of overcoming. 
 The teacher who checks activity in a child does a griev- 
 ous wrong. The activity is right, even though its aim 
 be wrong. Interest should lead to activity. It opposes 
 the natural evolution of a child's powers in the most 
 positive and the most pernicious way to permit its in- 
 terest to be aroused so thoroughly as to lead it to definite 
 activity, and then dogmatically and coercively check the 
 activity and block the way to the accomplishment of its 
 purpose. Nothing can contribute more to the destruc- 
 tion of character power, and the substitution of inert- 
 ness for activity and negativeness for positiveness, than 
 the persistent stopping of activity. It weakens interest 
 and the tendency to achievement, and thus robs the 
 child of both the motive and the power to act. 
 
 " Stop,'' " Don't," and " Be quiet," have been the 
 leading words in a teacher's vocabulary of discipline. 
 Before Froebel revolutionized discipline commands were 
 
174: FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 enforced by terrorism. The teacher was a tyrant and 
 the pupil a slave. Authority was founded on force^ and 
 respect for it on fear. These were the conditions best 
 calculated to develop selfishness, hatred of law, disre- 
 spect for authority, and therefore to foster the spirit of 
 anarchy. 
 
 But the chief evil of the system of repression is the 
 destruction of force of character. The lessening of the 
 child^s interest in life, and the weakening of its tendency 
 to execute its plans and decisions. The very powers on 
 which intellectual development and storing and execu- 
 tive achievement depend most, and which the teacher 
 should aim most to cultivate, are those which were 
 checked continually before rroebeFs time. 
 
 Froebel's separation of the love of doing from the 
 end of the doing enabled him to solve the greatest prob- 
 lem in discipline by the substitution of a change in the 
 interest centre in place of the old and still too common 
 practice of stopping the child's activity. The power 
 to change the centre of interest from wrong to right 
 constitutes the highest disciplinary ability a teacher can 
 possess. The skilful teacher never requires to say 
 " Stop " or " Don't.'' The world is so full of wonders 
 and of beautiful, attractive things that the teacher should 
 always be able to turn the interested attention from 
 wrong to right, or to revive exhausted interest and list- 
 less attention by changing the centre of interest. It 
 may require close study of children's interests to do this 
 effectively, but no study will pay better. To destroy the 
 child's interest saps its intellectual life and energy. This 
 is a crime against the individual and the race. It is little 
 better to distract attention by temporary expedients or 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 175 
 
 by greater energy and enthusiasm on the part of the 
 teacher. This still leaves the child in a negative condi- 
 tion, because it makes attention the end of the process. 
 Attention that ends in attention can not be long sus- 
 tained. Unless it leads to independent, progressive, in- 
 tellectual activity, interest soon dies, and the child is left 
 in an inert mental condition. The teacher can not long 
 remain the centre of interest to the child. No adult 
 should assume to control the interest of even a single 
 child. It is impossible to sustain real interest in a class 
 by talking, by exhibiting pictures or objects, or even 
 by performing experiments. To listen, to look, or to 
 observe leaves the child in a receptive condition. Sus- 
 tained interest demands more than this. True character 
 growth intellectually and spiritually calls for more than 
 this. Interest must lead to activity in some form on the 
 part of the child itself. Even when changing the centre 
 of the child's interest the teacher should lead to the new 
 interest without making the child conscious of interfer- 
 ence. The tactful teacher usually gets the suggestion 
 of new interest centres from the pupils. 
 
 Productive self-activity sustains interest and prevents 
 the inattention and the mischief-making so common in 
 the schools of former times. There should be no occasion 
 for the scolding and checking still too often practised. 
 Many teachers still check the natural tendency to activ- 
 ity till their pupils become idle, and then scold them 
 for being idle. When the harmony between control and 
 spontaneity is thoroughly understood and based on the 
 child's productive self-activity, there will be no need for 
 what has been called discipline in the schools. " There 
 is no need of any constraint or any command for that 
 
176 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 activity which is in harmony with the being of man in 
 general^ and at the same time with his individual dis- 
 position. It will act freely with love^ and not overstep 
 the measure of the powers at different ages.'^ Activity 
 under law produces harmony and development; inert- 
 ness under law leads to anarchy and deterioration. 
 
 Spontaneity in productive self-activity develops ac- 
 tive instead of passive obedience, co-operation instead of 
 obstinacy and stubbornness, activity instead of inertia of 
 character, energy instead of indolence, positiveness in- 
 stead of negativeness, cheerfulness instead of dulness, 
 and independence instead of subserviency. 
 
 The extensive recognition of the universality of the 
 principle of human liberty demands that all children be 
 trained under such conditions as will develop a conscious 
 recognition of the perfect harmony between law and lib- 
 erty. Such an education Froebel planned to give. Dur- 
 ing its stage of unconscious imitation the child should be 
 directed within the limitations of necessary rules and 
 principles in the accomplishment of its own purposes. 
 The direction of the superior mind does not weaken the 
 child's selfhood unless the teacher makes the child 
 conscious of the direction. When it becomes "per- 
 sonal or arbitrary," direction becomes destructive. Direc- 
 tion followed without consciousness of subordination 
 should gradually lead to conscious recognition of law, 
 and responsibility, and individual power and freedom. 
 This is the true ideal of unity between control and spon- 
 taneity. It is impossible to give a young man a clear 
 comprehension of this unity, and its full meaning in de- 
 veloping self-government, self-restraint, self-direction, 
 and self-reliance, coupled with a definite conception of 
 
CONTROL AND SPONTANEITY. 177 
 
 the relationship between individual and universal human 
 rights^ and of law as the most complete expression of 
 these rights, by a theoretical exposition of its principles. 
 Courses in colleges and universities on social science and 
 political economy can never truly become vital elements 
 in a man^s character unless he has apperceptive centres 
 of experience to correspond to them. 
 
 Froebel, by his fundamental principle of discipline 
 or child guidance, has in two generations revolutionized 
 the schools. They are no longer places for the exercise 
 of tyrannical coercion and passive obedience. Kind- 
 ness has taken the place of severity, and sadness has been 
 driven out by the sunlight of joyousness. The twentieth 
 century will make schools what Froebel wished them to 
 be — "Free republics of childhood.'^ How much that 
 phrase means! 
 
 The truest educational progress of the ages has been 
 toward harmony between control and spontaneity, guid- 
 ance and freedom, obedience and independence, submis- 
 sion and liberty. Freedom is the only basis broad enough 
 on which to rest a system of education. We should aim 
 to secure free growth; not the wild growth of the jungle, 
 but the free, assisted growtli of the best cultivated gar- 
 den. ^' No man is free who is not master of himself,'^ 
 said Epictetus. It is self-evident that no man can be 
 master of himself who is not free. Only through free- 
 dom can he fully know the self he has to master. 
 
 The Baroness von Marenholtz-Biilow wisely says: 
 '^ Childhood's unconscious lesson to us is that what is 
 undeveloped can without guidance never be free, but, 
 left to itself, must inevitably fall into caprice. Guidance 
 capacitates for freedom. It is a dominant error of our 
 J3 
 
178 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 age to demand freedom where the capacity for freedom 
 is still lacking/^ This truth may lead to error unless the 
 corresponding truth that freedom means nothing to un- 
 developed selfhood is as clearly recognised. We should 
 prepare our pupils for fruit-bearing at maturity, but we 
 should never try to make them "bear to pattern/^ as 
 Dr. Blimber did. The child should be controlled, but 
 control should consist in letting the sunshine into its 
 life, that it may be stirred to action, and through action 
 grow to greater life. 
 
 The proper use of power in all stages of a man's de- 
 velopment is the most certain way of revealing true free- 
 dom and preventing its misuse. Froebel condensed this 
 central educational thought into two short sentences: 
 " The will is strengthened only hy voluntary activity. 
 By striving to create the beautiful and the good, the 
 feelings are developed, and by all lawful, thoughtful, free 
 activity the mind is cultivated.'' 
 
 By lawful, thoughtful, free, productive self-activity 
 from childhood to maturity man is prepared for the 
 struggle of each soul "to break its fetters and lead to 
 freedom — that is, to that freedom which recognises law 
 as its first principle, and submits to it consciously/^ 
 
 Froebel's work has influenced the work of discipline 
 more than any other department of school work, but 
 the improvement has resulted chiefly from the objective 
 lessons in loving kindness and sympathy given in the 
 kindergarten. The underlying philosophy of the law of 
 harmony between control and spontaneity is not yet fully 
 understood by teachers. When it is clearly compre- 
 hended universally, all schools will become "Free re- 
 publics of childhood." 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 KATURE AS THE REYEALER OF LIFE, EYOLUTION', AND 
 p GOD. 
 
 Some educators yet maintain that Nature study has 
 no influence on moral education. Froebel made Nature 
 the chief agency outside of the home in laying the 
 foundation in the child^s mind for the comprehension 
 of religious truth, as through it he revealed to the child 
 life, evolution, power to help other life to better life, 
 and God himself. He says: 
 
 ^^ Education as instruction should lead man to see 
 and know the divine, spiritual, and eternal principle 
 which animates surrounding Nature, constitutes the es- 
 sence of Nature, and is permanently manifested in Na- 
 ture/'^ 
 
 " Indeed, life in and with Nature, and with the fair, 
 silent things of Nature, should be fostered at this time 
 by parents and other members of the family as a chief 
 fulcrum of child life.^^ 
 
 ^^ The Spirit of God rests in Nature, lives and reigns 
 in Nature, is expressed in Nature, is communicated by 
 Nature, is developed and cultivated in Nature — yet Na- 
 ture is not the body of God.'' 
 
 "As we study the works of man, how much more 
 179 
 
180 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 then should we endeavour to know Nature, the work of 
 God^ to acquaint ourselves with the objects of Nature 
 in their life, their significance, in their relation to the 
 Spirit of God/^ 
 
 " Nature and man have their origin in one and the 
 same eternal Being, and their development takes place 
 in accordance with the same laws, only at different 
 stages/^ 
 
 " The observation of Nature and the observation of 
 man are mutually explanatory, and naturally lead to 
 deeper knowledge, the one of the other/^ 
 
 " Man — particularly in boyhood — should become in- 
 timate with Nature, not so much with reference to the 
 details and outer forms of her phenomena, as with refer- 
 ence to the Spirit of God that lives in her and rules over 
 her. Indeed, the boy feels this deeply, and demands it; 
 for this reason, where love of Nature is still unimpaired, 
 nothing perhaps unites teachers and pupils so intimately 
 as the thoughtful study of Nature/' 
 
 " The boy — the learning human being — should at an 
 early period be taught to see Nature in all her diversity 
 as a unity as a great living whole, as one thought of God. 
 The integrity of Nature as a continuously developing 
 whole must be shown him at an early period. Without 
 a knowledge of this unity in the activities and forms of 
 Nature, it is impossible to attain or to impart a genuine 
 knowledge of natural history.^' 
 
 ^^ The things of Nature form a more beautiful ladder 
 between heaven and earth than that seen by Jacob; not 
 a one-sided ladder leading in one direction, but an all- 
 sided one leading in all directions/' 
 
 " All that is told in Genesis of the history of creation 
 
NATURE AS THE REVEALEE, OF LIFE. 181 
 
 is lived by the child in his kindergarten education. In- 
 stead of words he needs his own experience; his garden 
 work teaches him that the growth of plants does not de- 
 pend upon himself or upon human power, but that an 
 invisible power governs it. This teaches him almost 
 without words to find the Creator." 
 
 " I can still see my hazel buds, like angels, opening 
 for me the great God's temple of Nature." 
 
 "I have ever thankfully enjoyed what Nature has 
 spread before my eyes, and she has always been in true 
 motherly unity with me." 
 
 " Living cheerfully and joyfully in the bosom of Na- 
 ture with my first pupils, I began to tell myself that the 
 training of natural life was closely akin to the training 
 of human life." 
 
 " Man is compelled not only to recognise Nature in 
 her manifold forms and appearances, but also to under- 
 stand her in the unity of her inner working, of her effec- 
 tive force. Therefore he himself follows Nature's meth- 
 ods in the course of his own development and culture, 
 and in his games he imitates Nature at her work of crea- 
 tion." 
 
 "Every contact with Nature elevates, strengthens, 
 purifies." 
 
 " As I wandered on in the sunlit, far-stretching hills, 
 or along the still shore of the lake, clear as crystal, 
 smooth as a mirror, or in the shady groves, under the 
 tall forest trees, my spirit grew full with ideas of the 
 truly Godlike nature and priceless value of a man's soul, 
 and I gladdened myself with the consideration of man- 
 kind as the beloved children of God." 
 
 " When I was consulted by others, I looked to Na- 
 
182 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 ture for the answer, and let Nature, life, spirit, and law 
 speak for themselves through me/^ 
 
 These quotations from Froebel's writings prove that 
 he was one of the prophet souls of Nature. The symbol- 
 ism of Nature as a revealer of life, unity, development, 
 human evolution, and God, illuminated Froebel's mind 
 and made him a true poet. Though he wrote not in the 
 rhythmic metre of the poets, the rhythmic melody filled 
 his life, and made him the poetical philosopher of Na- 
 ture as Wordsworth was her philosophical poet. Mr. 
 Bowen has shown how much alike Froebel and Words- 
 worth were in their love for Nature and their interpreta- 
 tion of her symbolism. These two were Nature^s deep- 
 est philosophers. They reached the great Nature heart 
 about the same time (Froebel a little earlier) and inde- 
 pendently. To Froebel may be given the honour of see- 
 ing first '' that the training of natural life is closely akin 
 to the training of human life,^^ and of working this 
 thought out practically as a part of his educational sys- 
 tem. Of the writers before Froebel, Pope had the clear- 
 est conception of the unity between Nature, man, and 
 God. In his Essay on Man he says: 
 
 All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul." 
 
 Wordsworth expressed the same thought over and 
 over again: 
 
 Happy is he who lives to understand 
 Not human nature only, but explores 
 All natures, to the end that he may find 
 The law that governs each ; and where begins 
 The union, the partition where, that makes 
 Kind and degree among all visible beings ; 
 
lilATURE AS THE REVEALER OF LIFE. 183 
 
 The constitutions, powers, and faculties, 
 Which they inherit — can not step beyond — 
 And can not fall beneath ; that do assign 
 To every class its station and its office, 
 Through all the mighty commonwealth of things, 
 Up from the creeping plant to sovereign man. 
 
 To every form of being is assigned 
 An active principle ; howe'er removed 
 From sense and observation, it subsists 
 In all things, in all natures, in the stars 
 Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds, 
 In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone 
 That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks, 
 The moving waters, and the invisible air. 
 
 Since the time of Froebel and Wordsworth many 
 great thinkers have learned the symbolism of Nature, 
 and have woven it into song or story. The fact that 
 these advanced leaders of a developing race have had 
 their minds filled with this vital thought indicates that 
 the race itself is nearing the stage in its evolution when 
 it will comprehend the thought and make it an impelling 
 force in its upward progress. 
 
 Longfellow, in writing of flowers, says: 
 
 In all places then, and in all seasons. 
 
 Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings; 
 
 Teaching us by most persuasive reasons, 
 How akin they are to human things. 
 
 And with childlike, credulous affection 
 We behold their tender buds expand. 
 
 Emblems of our own great resurrection : 
 Emblems of the bright and better land. 
 
 Tennyson beautifully expresses the same thought: 
 
184 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of your crannies, 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 Little flower — but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is. 
 To Froebel the active principle in Nature was God. 
 He saw this active principle in all things — the stars, the 
 sky, the clouds, the flowers, the trees, the brooks, and 
 even in the rocks. He believed that to every child Na- 
 ture speaks clearly and tenderly of this life. Even 
 though the child may not be conscious of the fact, its 
 life is enriched by an intimate acquaintance with Na- 
 ture as it can be in no other way. Nature was to Froebel 
 a stimulating atmosphere in which the whole intellec- 
 tual and spiritual being is invigorated, and through 
 which God makes to the child manifold revelations. 
 Therefore he said to parents: " Take your little children 
 by the hand; go with them into Nature as into the house 
 of God. Allow the wee one to stroke the good cow's 
 forehead, and run about among the fowl, and play at 
 the edge of the wood. Make companions for your boys 
 and girls of the trees and the banks and the pasture 
 land.'^ He meant a great deal by companionship with 
 Nature. The living principle in Nature was so real to 
 him as to give personality even to inanimate things. Na- 
 ture was not the body of God to him, but God was the 
 living principle in all things. He did not expect the 
 child to become conscious of God at first, but he did wish 
 it to recognise life in all the growing things around it, 
 in order that it might when older know God as the source 
 of life, and as the universal life essence. Loving com- 
 panionship with the life of Nature in unconscious child- 
 
NATURE AS THE REVEALER OF LIFE. 185 
 
 hood becomes loving unity with God in the conscious 
 life of maturity. 
 
 Froebel would have the child live amid the life of 
 Nature for many reasons. He did not believe it possible 
 to develop the religious nature of man fully if childhood 
 has not received through association with Nature con- 
 ceptions of life, of life stimulation, and of invisible life 
 behind life, as the source of life and the guide of life. 
 Such experience qualifies for the recognition of spiritual 
 life and of a spiritual Creator. The reawakening of the 
 trees and flowers in spring, and the development of a 
 butterfly from the worm through the chrysalis stage, 
 make it possible to conceive the idea of man's resurrec- 
 tion, and by analogy reveal death as a joyous transition 
 into a broader, freer life, and not as the end of life. 
 Even the thought of the love of the Creator grows grad- 
 ually in the mind of a child who sees the loving attention 
 of the mother birds, and recognises through this the lov- 
 ing kindness of its own mother. There is a natural pro- 
 gressive sequence in the recognition of the love of bird 
 or domestic animal, of mother and of God. The highest 
 ideal in relation to any subject is never possible unless 
 the groundwork for the mature ideal is laid in corre- 
 sponding experiences of a kind adapted to the ages pre- 
 ceding maturity. This is especially true of abstract 
 ideals. They can not find a sure resting place in the 
 mind imless there are already in the mind symbolic repre- 
 sentations corresponding to them. Nature is a wondrous 
 field for constructive symbolism. The purest men and 
 women are those who retain through life their responsive 
 susceptibility to the symbolic teaching and companion- 
 ship of Nature. 
 
186 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Froebel hoped to reveal progressive evolution to high- 
 er life to the child through Nature. Beginning with the 
 least developed forms of vegetable life, Nature presents 
 a continuous, ascending series of steps, each step reveal- 
 ing wider, freer life as we rise through the vegetable 
 kingdom and animal life to man himself. It is perfectly 
 natural to carry on this progressive evolution at the 
 proper time beyond man and up to God, the invisible 
 spiritual life, that has manifested itself through the unity 
 and the life of Nature. 
 
 He urged very strongly that all children should be 
 trained to cultivate plants, partly in order to gratify 
 their natural tendency to work in the earth, and to use 
 their interest in productive activity and the nurture of 
 living things, especially plants or pets. But he had 
 higher reasons for making every child a little gardener, 
 both at home and at school. Careful culture in the 
 preparation of the soil and its proper enrichment, cou- 
 pled with due attention to watering, weeding, hoeing, 
 and, if necessary, to pruning, produces plants of grander 
 proportions, greater beauty, and richer fruitfulness. By 
 these results the child not only learns to recognise evolu- 
 tion, but it also sees that it may become an active agent 
 in promoting evolution. It gains a conception— at first 
 symbolic, afterward conscious — of the greatest of all 
 truths — that it has power to help other life to grow to 
 grander life. By sowing the apparently dead seed, which 
 afterward bursts into life and beauty, it learns that it 
 has power to start life to grow that without its aid might 
 have remained for ever undeveloped. The teacher or 
 parent does not require to point the lesson. The sym- 
 bolism of the unconscious stage of childhood will natu- 
 
NATURE AS THE REVEALER OF LIFE. 18t 
 
 rally become transformed into conscious character in due 
 time. It is impossible to overestimate the advantages 
 of a training that, through the self -activity of a child, 
 reveals to it the two vital truths — that it may aid all 
 life — ^human life as well as plant life — to reach a higher 
 condition of life, and that it may bring into existence 
 new elements of living power, material power, intellec- 
 tual power, or spiritual power, to aid in unifying and up- 
 lifting the race. The formation of these apperceptive 
 centres in a child^s mind qualifieB it for the highest edu- 
 cation it can ever receive. The life must remain com- 
 paratively barren in which these ideals have not been 
 implanted. The time to implant them is the symbolic 
 period of childhood, and the process is the nurture of 
 life in Nature. The phenomena of Nature in their 
 everyday manifestations provide most appropriate sym- 
 bolism for children. They are thrice blessed whose early 
 life is stimulated and enriched by free life in sympathy 
 with Nature's life. 
 
 FroebeFs fundamental law, as we have seen, is unity, 
 inner connection, or interrelatedness. The perfect rev- 
 elation of this law as the basis of the social organization 
 of the race by the union of consciously responsible in- 
 dividuals he made the chief work of college and uni- 
 versity training. The symbolic foundation, or appercep- 
 tive centres for such a perfect revelation, he claimed 
 must be gained in childhood and partly from Nature. 
 He regarded a tree as the most perfect material symbol 
 of unity. 
 
 The objects and processes of Nature are, in FroebePs 
 opinion, the best agencies for the development of the 
 imagination. They supply the greatest variety of ele- 
 
188 fro'Bbel's educational laws. 
 
 ments for the imagination to nse^ and they stimulate the 
 child's creative faculty in many lines of work, laying 
 the foundation for constructive imagery in maturity in 
 artistic, scientific, mathematical, literary, and ethical 
 work. The elements of life and progressive evolution in 
 Nature have an influence on the imagination, and sug- 
 gest to the mind the constructive readjustment of its 
 store of knowledge. Nature is nowhere a mere store- 
 house of elements. She transforms inorganic matter 
 into organized life, and the mind is roused to similar 
 organic work by familiarity with Nature's processes. 
 
 The beauty, the symmetry, the harmony, the life, 
 the freedom, the purity, the majesty, and the invisible 
 forces of Nature fill the mind with images that elevate 
 and ennoble character. When these pure images are 
 photographed on the sensitive nature of childhood, they 
 can never be eradicated. When the pictures are devel- 
 oped by whatever experiences or circumstances, they are 
 still pure, and help to counterbalance the evil that may 
 come into our lives. What better thing can the parents 
 and teachers of a child do for it than to train it so that, 
 as Wordsworth said, it may become in maturity — 
 
 One whose heart the holy forms 
 
 Of young imagination have kept pure. 
 
 Wordsworth expressed in many exquisite lines the puri- 
 fying and strengthening influence of Nature on the im- 
 agination. The Excursion teems with rapturous refer- 
 ences such as these: 
 
 ... Nature fails not to provide 
 Impulse and utterance. The whispering air 
 Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights 
 And blind recesses of the caverned rocks ; 
 
NATURE AS THE REVEALER OF LIFE. 189 
 
 While, free as air, o'er printless sands we march, 
 And pierce the gloom of her majestic woods. 
 Roaming or resting under grateful shade. 
 In peace and meditative cheerfulness ; 
 Where living things, and things inanimate. 
 Do speak, at Heaven's command, to eye and ear, 
 And speak to social reason's inner sense, 
 With inarticulate language. 
 
 . . . For the man 
 Who, in this spirit, communes with the forms 
 Of Nature ; who, with understanding heart, 
 Doth know and love such objects as excite 
 No morbid passions, no disquietude. 
 No vengeance, and no hatred, needs must feel 
 \ So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught 
 
 Less pure and exquisite, he can not choose 
 But seek for objects of a kindred love 
 In fellow natures and a kindred joy. 
 
 The child's first questionings are about Nature if it 
 lives close to her. The spirit of investigation, the won- 
 der spirit, the power of problem discovery, is aroused 
 and developed more fully by her myriad mysteries than 
 in any other way. She has unsolved questions adapted 
 to early childhood, and continues to reveal new phe- 
 nomena to match man's unfolding powers. 
 
 There is a never-failing field of intense interest to a 
 child in friendly association and intimate acquaintance 
 with birds, butterflies, bees, beetles, ants, and worms. 
 The child attaches a personality to each of them, and 
 will spend hours in watching them at their work. It 
 needs little tact on the part of mother or teacher to 
 make their interest reverent instead of destructive, as it 
 too often is. Mother's example is better than her pre- 
 
190 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 cepts. A wise mother will promise the little one a visit 
 to-morrow to new friends, and, when the child has been 
 prepared for a visit as carefully as if going to visit at a 
 friend's house, will take it by the hand and lead it per- 
 haps to an ant's nest, and, seating herself with her child 
 where they will not disturb the ants, will say, " Good 
 morning, little ants; we have come to see you at work/' 
 The child will be more interested in such a visit than 
 in going to a neighbour's house. Mothers, too, may 
 learn many interesting things from their insect neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 After a few such visits, the child may be trusted to 
 go alone among its flying or creeping friends, and it will 
 often spend several hours each day in loving companion- 
 ship with them, sometimes talking to them as if they 
 were able to understand all it said. Who can tell what 
 symbolic representations of life and work are taken into 
 the child's unconscious life during these visits? How 
 the imagination grows as each nest is filled with im- 
 aginary characters! What tales are told to the child 
 even by the worms! That ant performing its allotted 
 task preaches a sermon to the child better for it than 
 the formal theology of the minister. What songs of joy 
 and merriment the birds and crickets sing! How con- 
 tentedly the bees hum at their work! These stories 
 and sermons and songs weave themselves into the fibre 
 of the child's nature, and give sweetness and vigour and 
 charm to its whole life. The simple fact that by such 
 association the child is trained to love birds, animals, 
 and insects, and to be kind to them instead of cruel, 
 makes a marked difference in its character. 
 
 Froebel urged parents and teachers to take their 
 
NATURE AS THE REVEALER OF LIFE. 191 
 
 children and pupils regularly for walks into the coun- 
 try and, if possible, into the heart of Nature in the woods, 
 and by the speaking waters of stream, or lake, or sea. 
 "It is so important,^' he says, "that boys and adults 
 should go into the fields and forests together striving to 
 receive into their hearts and minds the life and spirit of 
 ISTature, which would soon put an end to the idle, useless, 
 and indolent loafing of so many boys." 
 
 In all such excursions, and in all the child's experi- 
 ence with Nature, he taught that the life in Nature 
 should be reverenced. He would not allow animals or 
 insects to be tortured, or plant life to be recklessly de- 
 stroyed, for the gratification of misguided interest or of 
 a passionate love for flower beauty. He aimed to make 
 love of flower life develop into a desire to help flower 
 life to better, stronger, higher life by attention and cul- 
 ture, as a revelation of power to aid all life, instead of 
 leading to selfishness and sensuality by allowing the 
 child to destroy the life of the flower to satisfy his pas- 
 sionate love for it. Love that becomes mere desire for 
 possession is always debasing. The greater the power of 
 any element of character to elevate, the greater its power 
 to degrade if misused. 
 
 If children are allowed to pull the wild flowers in 
 the woods without restraint, they will do so to gratify the 
 desire for possession of the thing that gives them pleas- 
 ure. Persistence in such a course must lead to evil. The 
 children will become careless about the destruction of 
 life, and reverence for life is a most important part of a 
 child's training. They will learn to believe that desire 
 should always lead to possession — a most immoral prin- 
 ciple that all training should counteract. Liberty to the 
 
 I 
 
192 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 child in the gratification of desire for beautiful things 
 leads to libertinism in the gratification of desire for 
 beautiful things in manhood. Flower love is a sacred 
 feeling, but when it degenerates in childhood into mere 
 selfish desire for possession, as it is nearly always allowed 
 to do, it becomes a sure germ for sensuality in manhood. 
 Sensuality is but the debasement of sacred feelings. 
 The boy who is allowed to destroy flower life to satisfy 
 defeire is being trained to sacrifice other life and beauty 
 for his selfish gratification in manhood. Self-restraint 
 is one of the most essential moral forces; self-indulgence, 
 even in pure and beautiful things, is always destructive 
 of character. This is especially true when life of any 
 kind is saved by the self-restraint or sacrificed by the 
 self-indulgence. 
 
 Froebel made it a special aim to lead children to ad- 
 mire beautiful things without developing a desire for 
 their possession. In his light songs the foundation for 
 this important character development is laid. In deal- 
 ing with flowers and other beautiful things in ^NTature 
 the same principle is carefully followed. What a change 
 would be effected in the character of the race if FroebeFs 
 principle were universally carried out in the training 
 of childhood! 
 
 Keverence for life developed through the nurture of 
 life should receive careful attention in all primary 
 schools. Children should sow seeds in boxes in the 
 school windows and in beds in the schoolyards, and the 
 children themselves should be trained to supply the 
 needs of the flowers. The plants grown by the children 
 will form the most interesting basis for observation les- 
 sons, and for language and reading lessons; but by far 
 
NATURE AS THE REVEALER OF LIFE. I93 
 
 the most important lesson to be learned from the flowers 
 is reverence for life, and a consciousness that each child 
 has power to help other life to better life. 
 
 The study of Nature has greatly enriched school 
 courses in material for thought, and has also led to an im- 
 provement and extension in the form studies. Making, 
 modelling, and painting are finding a place in schools as 
 means of expression largely through the attention paid 
 to Nature study. 
 
 Throughout England many societies have recently 
 been organized to protect flowers, and to extend the love 
 of flowers by sowing seeds and planting bulbs and roots 
 in waste places. Another aim of the societies is to awaken 
 an interest in window gardening in the homes of work- 
 ing people. These societies are called " Mary's Meadow 
 Societies,^' and they are named after Mrs. Evans's charm- 
 ing little book, entitled Mary's Meadow. Every school 
 in the world should be a " Mary's Meadow Society." 
 The training in love of flowers, in reverence for flower 
 life, in flower nurture, and in desire to add to the happi- 
 ness of others by increased attention to flower culture 
 would be a most important element in moral training. 
 Schools in different continents or widely separated parts 
 of continents might exchange wild-flower seeds, and thus 
 the range of beautiful wild-flower groAvth ' might be 
 greatly extended. 
 
 In his letter to the Duke of Meiningen, Froebel wrote 
 very strongly about the advantages of the study of Na- 
 ture. After describing his joyous experiences in the 
 classes, and especially in the museum in Berlin, where 
 he found that " what he had recognised in things great 
 or noble, or in the life of man, or in the ways of God, 
 14 
 
194 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 as serving toward the development of the human race, 
 he could recognise also in the smallest of these fixed 
 forms which Nature alone had shaped/^ he goes on to 
 say, " Nature and man now seem to me mutually to ex- 
 plain each other, through all their numberless, various 
 stages of development; ^' and concludes by saying that 
 he became " penetrated and absorbed by the thought '^ 
 that the "foundation for and the guidance toward a 
 knowledge of himself and of life, and a preparation for 
 the manifestation of that knowledge ^^ which man re- 
 ceives through sympathetic love and study of Nature, 
 " is beyond all else vital to man's culture and develop- 
 ment, to the sure attainment of his destiny and fulfil- 
 ment of his vocation/' 
 
 Froebel pleaded in a hundred ways for the " tender 
 fostering of the primitive and natural inclinations of 
 every human being in the germ " in childhood. Unless 
 they are so fostered he has no hope of perfect develop- 
 ment in manhood. In his own life, he says gratefully, 
 they were satisfied by " the influence of Nature, of use- 
 ful handiwork and religious feelings." His friend Dies- 
 terweg recommends a similar course of early training for 
 childhood. Speaking of his own training, he says: 
 "From my youth I loved the woods and mountains. 
 We boys spent more time in the mountains, the woods, 
 and the f ounderies than we did in the schools." Words- 
 worth describes himself as one — 
 
 , . . Whose favourite school 
 Hath been the fields, the roads, and rural lanes. 
 
 All three make Nature the best friend of childhood, the 
 atmosphere which nourishes the germs of pure and noble 
 character. 
 
NATURE AS THE REVEALER OF LIFE. 195 
 
 Wordsworth, the philosophic poet of Nature, so ap- 
 propriately complements Froebel, the poet-philosopher 
 of Nature, it seems fitting to allow him to be the final 
 interpreter of FroebeFs views in regard to the subject 
 they both understood so well: 
 
 . . . Nature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her. 
 
 Come forth into the light of things, 
 Let Nature be your teacher. 
 
 Sweet is the lore which Nature brings. 
 
 To me the meanest flower that blows can give . 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 
 
 . . , What good is given to men, 
 More solid than the gilded clouds of heaven, 
 What joy more lasting than a vernal flower, 
 
 . . . For I have learned 
 To look on Nature, not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth. 
 
 And I have felt 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns. 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
 A motion and a spirit, that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
 A lover of the meadows, and the woods, 
 And mountains ; and of all that we behold 
 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 
 
196 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Of eye and ear, both what they half create, 
 And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise 
 In Nature and the language of the sense 
 The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
 The guide, the guardiaii of my heart, and soul 
 Of all my moral being. 
 
CHAPTEK YIII. 
 
 COKRELATION OF STUDIES. 
 
 Correlation is defined as ^^ mutual or reciprocal 
 relation^ or the act of bringing under relations of union 
 correspondence or interaction/' * 
 
 Froebel regarded unity or inner connection as the 
 most important law in education, and comprehended it 
 more fully than any other educator. He did not write 
 so much about correlation as Herbart under the title cor- 
 relation, but he made it a foundation law of his system, 
 not alone in regard to studies, as we have seen in Chapter 
 III, but in regard to the stages of man's development; 
 the training of his physical, intellectual, and spiritual 
 nature; the culture of his receptive, reflective, and ex- 
 ecutive powers; the relationship of Nature, man, and 
 God, and of the individual and the race; and the har- 
 monizing of apparent opposites. He wrought unity into 
 every part of his system so far as he completed it. The 
 kindergarten is still the most perfect educational type 
 of correlation. In every good kindergarten there is a 
 clearly defined central purpose in the work of every day 
 to which every song, story, occupation, and game is re- 
 
 * The Standard Dictionary. 
 197 
 
198 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 lated. This is equally true of the work of each week or 
 month. The v/ork of the year should be an organic 
 whole, and in the outline plan of the kindergartner the 
 work of each month, and week, and day should be log- 
 ically related to this whole. While sufficiently elastic 
 to admit of infinite variety, and to take advantage of 
 incidental occurrences and circumstances, the kinder- 
 gartner's plan should be definite, and framed with a con- 
 scious purpose. There can be no haphazard work in the 
 kindergarten if it is conducted in accordance with Froe- 
 beFs principles. Each year should accomplish a certain 
 part in the child^s evolution, and each month, and week, 
 and day should have its part in the natural evolution. 
 It is admitted that the kindergarten is the best educa- 
 tional type of correlation, and, as an objective repre- 
 sentation of correlation, it is helping to make the im- 
 portance of the subject known and its principles clear. 
 It is to be regretted that Froebel was unable to organize 
 his system more fully above the kindergarten. 
 
 His most distinctive characteristic as an educator 
 was his organization of every fundamental principle into 
 educational methods. His ability in thus reducing theo- 
 ries to practice was so marked that Mr. Bowen says of 
 him: " All the ideas which he used may in a sense be 
 called his from the way in which he organized them and 
 applied them to education.'' 
 
 While a boy at the school in Stadt-Ilm, where he 
 went to live with his uncle when he was ten years of age, 
 he noticed the utter lack of interrelation or connected- 
 ness between the studies. Writing of his experiences at 
 that period, he says: " In physical geography we repeated 
 our tasks parrotwise, speaking much and knowing noth- 
 
CORRELATION OF STUDIES. 199 
 
 ing; for the teaching on this subject had not the very 
 least connection with real life, nor had it any actuality 
 for us, although at the same time we could rightly name 
 our little specks and patches of colour on the map, I re- 
 ceived private tuition in this subject also. My teacher 
 wished to advance further with me; he took me to Eng- 
 land. I could find no connection between that country 
 and the place and country in which I dwelt myself; so 
 that of this instruction also I retained but little. As 
 for actual instruction in German, it was not to be 
 thought of; but we received directions in letter writing 
 and spelling. I do not know with what study the teach- 
 ing of spelling was connected, but I think it was not con- 
 nected with any; it hovered in the air,'' 
 
 While attending lectures in Berlin he maintained 
 himself by teaching in a private school. Here, too, he 
 noted the fact that there was a lack of ^^ unity in the 
 course of instruction. Everywhere I sought for recog- 
 nition of the quickening interconnection of parts, and 
 for the exposition of the inner all-pervading reign of law. 
 Only a few lectures made some poor approach to such 
 methods, but I found nothing of the sort in those which 
 were most important to me, physics and mathematics. 
 Especially repugnant to me was the piecemeal patch- 
 work offered to us in geometry, always separating and 
 dividing, never uniting and consolidating." 
 
 When, at the age of twenty-five, he was a teacher of 
 three boys in a private family, his dominant ideal began 
 to define itself more clearly. Writing of this period, he 
 says: ^^ What especially lay heavy upon me at this time 
 was the utter absence of any organized connection be- 
 tween the subjects of education." 
 
200 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 When twenty-six years of age he took his three lads 
 with him to Yverdnn, in order that he might study the 
 system and methods of Pestalozzi. Again he was dis- 
 appointed. He found inspiration and many new methods 
 of teaching individual subjects, but the inner connection 
 for which he longed above all else was wanting. " Each 
 separate branch of education/^ he writes, " was in such 
 a condition as to powerfully interest, but never wholly to 
 content the observer, since it prepared only further di- 
 vision and separation and did not tend toward unity. 
 The want of unity of effort, both as to means and aims, 
 I soon felt; I recognised it in the inadequacy, the in- 
 completeness, and the unlikeness of the ways in which 
 the various subjects were taught.^^ Summing up the 
 results of his two years' study of Pestalozzi's work at 
 Yverdun, he says: " On the whole, I passed a glorious 
 time at Yverdun, elevated in tone, and critically de- 
 cisive for my after life. At its close, however, I felt more 
 clearly than ever the deficiency of inner unity and inter- 
 dependence, as well as of outward comprehensiveness 
 and thoroughness in the teaching there.'' So strongly 
 was he impressed by this conception of the lack of a 
 proper correlation of the subjects of education that he 
 made the revealing of unity as the fundamental law of 
 education the aim of his life. " I became impelled by an 
 irresistible impulse toward the setting forth of unity and 
 simplicity with all the force, both of my pen and of my 
 life, in the shape of an educational system. I felt that 
 education as well as science would gain by what I may 
 call a more human, related, affiliated, connected treat- 
 ment and consideration of the subjects of education .^^ 
 
 To reveal connectedness became the great purpose of 
 
CORRELATION OF STUDIES. 201 
 
 his life. He did not confine connectedness to the sub- 
 jects of instruction. He regarded it as the vital law of 
 human development, and taught that the chief work 
 of the colleges and universities lies in defining man's 
 ideals of social unity and racial interrelationship. The 
 Committee of Fifteen agree with this view. Their re- 
 port says: " For higher education seems to have as its 
 province the correlation of the several branches of human 
 learning in the unity of the spiritual view furnished by 
 religion to our civilization.^' Limiting the meaning of 
 unity, connectedness, or correlation to the subjects of 
 study, Froebel made N'ature the connecting centre 
 through which the child could be most easily and most 
 completely led to study other subjects. He objected 
 strongly to any formal, artificial, or mechanical affilia- 
 tion between the subjects. Each study should be re- 
 lated to the central subject directly and logically as part 
 of an essential process in its complete unfolding. Under 
 the general term " Nature '' he included mineralogy, 
 geology, chemistry, crystallography, botany, zoology, bi- 
 ology, physics, and for the purposes of a central relating 
 study he included objects constructed by man as well 
 as the works of God. 
 
 He related language and grammar to IN'ature because 
 " complete preparation for a thorough Icnowledge of lanr- 
 guage and thorough skill in its use implies three things: 
 First, the observation of the sensuous objects of lan- 
 guage — the observation of the outer world; secondly, 
 the observation of language and objects in connection 
 with one another, passing from the outer to the inner 
 world — exercise in language; lastly, observation of lan- 
 guage as such, without reference to the objects desig- 
 
202 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 nated — ^grammatical exercises/^ As Nature presents 
 concrete objects she gives the child clear conceptions, 
 and clear thinking is the basis of exact language. As 
 she presents such varied forms and conditions it requires 
 an enlarging vocabulary to express the thoughts she 
 arouses. As she reveals her fundamental laws and meth- 
 ods of growth she leads to classification of conceptions, 
 and therefore to logical thought and expression. Lan- 
 guage can be readily and profitably co-ordinated with 
 Nature study. He found it very hard to study a foreign 
 language, especially its grammar, in the fragmentary 
 manner in which it is usually taught, and felt the need 
 of connectedness in some way between his own personal 
 life and purposes and the language he attempted to learn. 
 In describing his efforts to learn Latin, he says: " It al- 
 ways seemed to me as if the mere outer acquisition of 
 a language could but little help forward my true inner 
 desire for knowledge, which was deeply in earnest and 
 was the result of my own free choice. But wherever 
 the knowledge of language linked itself to definite ex- 
 ternal impressions, and I was able to perceive its con- 
 nection with facts — as, for instance, in the scientific 
 nomenclature of botany — I could quickly make myself 
 master of it." The development of the language power 
 has been too artificial in the schools. Composition and 
 oral expression have been divorced from the life of the 
 child. The clear expression of the definite thought in 
 the child^s mind immediately associated with the subject 
 under consideration has received little attention, and 
 composition has been assigned at remote periods, the 
 subjects usually being abstractions of a most uninterest- 
 ing character. Little wonder that it has been one of 
 
fl UNIVERSITY J 
 CORRELATION OW^^^S^^^^^^ 20S 
 
 the least profitable and most formal exercises of the 
 school. 
 
 The leaders in educational work are beginning to 
 learn that the accurate expression of the results of a 
 pupiFs own investigation in science or literature or 
 mathematics or history in the regular work of the school- 
 room, both orally and in written form, is the best way 
 to develop the language power, and define the power of 
 accurate thinking. Accurate thinking leads to accuracy 
 of expression, and accuracy of expression defines accu- 
 rate thinking. This idea of composition in connection 
 with the regular work of the child is Froebel's idea of 
 the true correlation of language with other subjects. 
 He objected to have any of the language departments — 
 reading, writing, spelling, composition, grammar, or lit- 
 erature — "hovering in the air.'^ They should be sug- 
 by the other subjects of study and should react upon 
 them. As Nature in all its forms is deeply interesting 
 to children, and affords infinite opportunities for inves- 
 tigation appropriate to all ages, through which definite 
 ideas may be received, he made the observation of ex- 
 ternal things the basis for language work, especially in 
 earlier years. 
 
 But the observation or study of Nature in any of her 
 departments was never to be made for the purpose of 
 cultivating language. That would be unnatural, arti- 
 ficial, direct correlation. The Nature study — ^botany, 
 zoology, chemistry, or whatever the subject may be — 
 should be studied for itself, and the language develop- 
 ment should arise from the necessary explanation of the 
 ideas discovered or newly revealed. Ideas naturally de- 
 mand expression, and the whole work of the school 
 
204 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 should have the effect of fostering and strengthening 
 this tendency. Ideas are only half alive if they are only 
 conceived^ and they soon die if not expressed in some 
 form. Language should therefore be associated with 
 every subject^ and may for this reason be regarded in a 
 sense as a correlating subject. 
 
 Froebel would correlate mathematics, too, with the 
 study of Nature. " Man needs/' he says, " a fixed point 
 and a safe guide in the study of the inner connection of 
 all the manifold diversity of Nature. What can furnish a 
 more reliable and uniting starting point in this than 
 that which appears as the source from which all diversity 
 develops itself, the visible expression of all law and 
 obedience to law — viz., mathematics?'^ "As a phe- 
 nomenon of both the inner and the outer world, mathe- 
 matics belongs equally to man and Nature.'' " There- 
 fore it is possible to study Nature in her forms and or- 
 ganisms and with the help of the formulated laws of 
 human thought in mathematics." 
 
 "Mathematics is the expression of the inner cause 
 and of the outer limitations and properties of space. As 
 it originates in unity, it is in itself a unity; and as space 
 implies diversity in direction, shape, and extension, it 
 follows that number, form, and magnitude mutually im- 
 ply one another, and are an inseparable three in unity." 
 
 "Mathematics appears as a mediator between man 
 and Nature, between the inner and the outer world." 
 
 He claimed that the study of mineralogy, geology, 
 chemistry, physics, zoology, biology, botany, and even 
 geography, in high schools, colleges, and universities 
 must be to a considerable extent dead formalism if the 
 proper germ centres are not formed in early childhood 
 
CORRELATION OF STUDIES. 205 
 
 by intimate companionship with l^ature. A true study 
 of the sciences at maturity results from a loving appre- 
 ciation of Nature^s processes and a reverent recognition 
 of the life and beauty of Nature in childhood. Interest 
 in the life itself in early years leads in due time to a 
 deeper interest in the origin of life and the infinite vari- 
 ety of its manifestations and their scientific classifica- 
 tions. Study stimulated by such interest is most edu- 
 cative, and it is likely to lead the student to original inves- 
 tigation beyond the limits of discovered knowledge. A 
 really vital education does not leave a man satisfied with 
 truth as already revealed. It arouses a greater wonder 
 power in regard to undiscovered truth, and inspires a 
 determination to add to the treasures of knowledge, that 
 present happiness and future development may be more 
 complete. Here, again, Froebel finds his loftiest inter- 
 preter, his kindred soul, in Wordsworth. After describ- 
 ing the joyousness of true intercourse with Nature, and 
 the elevation of mind and spirit resulting from the 
 recognition of her life, and majesty, and evolutionary 
 development, he says: 
 
 . . . Science then 
 Shall be a precious visitant ; and then, 
 And only then, be worthy of her name. 
 For then her heart shall kindle ; her dull eye 
 Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang 
 Chained to its object in brute slavery ; 
 But taught with patient interest to watch 
 The processes of things, and serve the cause 
 Of order and distinctness, not for this 
 Shall it forget that its most noble use, 
 Its most illustrious province must be found 
 In furnishing clear guidance, a support 
 Not treacherous to the mind's excursive power. 
 
206 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 So build we up the being that we are ; 
 
 Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things, 
 
 We shall be wise perforce ; and while inspired 
 
 By choice, and conscious that the will is free, 
 
 Unswerving shall we move, as if impelled 
 
 By strict necessity, along the path 
 
 Of order and of good. Whate'er we see, 
 
 Whate'er we feel, by agency direct 
 
 Or indirect, shall tend to feed and nurse 
 
 Our faculties, shall fix in calmer seats 
 
 Of moral strength, and raise to loftier heights 
 
 Of love divine, our intellectual soul. 
 
 The visible forms of expression, writing, modelling, 
 painting, and drawing, he would also correlate with Na- 
 ture study. Writing he makes the expression of thought 
 in visible language, so that it receives its connectedness 
 through language as spelling and reading do. The child 
 can not find any things more appropriate for modelling, 
 painting, and drawing than natural objects. Froebel 
 himself says: "To the contemplation of the external 
 world, and especially to that of the plant world, the cul- 
 tivation of the sense of colour and form, which is the 
 introduction to drawing and painting, is closely at- 
 tached.^^ Number he associated in its first steps with 
 these subjects, the child, for illustration, having to count 
 the two eyes, two arms, two legs, five fingers, five toes, 
 in drawing a man, or the six legs of a beetle, the number 
 of petals in a flower, in drawing these objects. Thus the 
 new revelation of the quantitative relationship as ex- 
 pressed by number comes to the child incidentally, and 
 not as a formal lesson on number given with objects. 
 The objects used by Froebel are used always for the ac- 
 complishment of a definite purpose of self-expression. 
 
CORRELATION OF STUDIES. 207 
 
 and not as mere representatives of number. The lessons 
 in number illustrated by objects, as taught by most mod- 
 ern teachers, are very much inferior to FroebeFs ele- 
 mentary lessons in number. He introduced the child 
 to number in many other ways in addition to the number 
 work in connection with modelling, painting, and draw- 
 ing. In his occupations in the kindergarten and in the 
 work with the gifts number, form, and space concepts 
 are constantly defined, and always defined incidentally 
 as an essential and natural part of the work in hand. 
 
 Dr. Harris, in a report on St. Louis schools, in speak- 
 ing of children in the kindergarten, says: " Geometry 
 and arithmetic seem to unfold simultaneously in the 
 minds of the pupils." 
 
 Geography in its elementary study is almost entirely 
 a department of Nature study. In order to make the 
 study intelligible to children, they must have clearly de- 
 fined concepts relating to the varied forms of the. earth's 
 surface, which they have received through their own ex- 
 perience with mother earth. They must have a knowl- 
 edge of the soil of hills and valelys, and of the influence 
 of streams and storms on different kinds of soil. Chil- 
 dren in cities who are without such clear concepts must 
 be made acquainted with them by their teachers in excur- 
 sions to the country or to the suburbs of the city after 
 heavy showers; but even by this plan the necessary con- 
 ceptions required as apperceptive centres can never be 
 given so thoroughly as they are received by the child who 
 has lived in the country always, and who has become 
 acquainted with the features of mother earth almost as 
 fully as with those of its own mother. 
 
 Froebel aimed to define and extend the boy's knowl- 
 
208 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 edge of the conditions of the earth's surface in connec- 
 tion with the study of botany. " Botany/' he writes, 
 " is connected in a perfectly organic way with the knowl- 
 edge of the surface of the earth; for many plants are 
 companions of the water, and grow on the border of 
 brook and river, and give beauty to the springs of both; 
 many plants prefer to deck the turf of the meadow and 
 valley, and many love the clear, fresh, balmy air of hill 
 or mountain top; many the neighbourhood of man, and 
 many the deep recesses of the woodland; many the ocean 
 ships bring us from distant parts of the world.'' Inci- 
 dentally by the study of botany, or indeed any extended 
 study of ISTature, the boy becomes acquainted with the 
 surface of the earth so thoroughly that geograjDhical 
 study may be properly based on the apperceptive centres 
 in his mind. 
 
 Perhaps Froebel's strongest reason for making l^a- 
 ture take a prominent place in the study of childhood is 
 its direct influence on ethical culture. As has been 
 stated in Chapter YII, he saw in Nature the best means 
 for revealing life, the evolution of life, and the source 
 of life to the child. He values history and literature, if 
 properly taught, as aids in the development of the moral 
 nature, but he looked to sympathetic study of Nature to 
 form a large part of the true foundation of character. 
 Without a foundation there can be no development. 
 
 Unfortunately, Froebel was not able to organize his 
 system above the kindergarten, so that his processes of 
 correlation after the kindergarten period are given to us 
 only in general theoretic statements. It is clear, how- 
 ever, that he would make Nature study, as Mr. Bowen 
 beautifully expresses the thought, " take its place as the 
 
CORRELATION OF STUDIES. * 209 
 
 leading object^ till in the school proper it becomes that 
 wliicli reconciles everything and unites the growing cur- 
 riculum into one organic whole.'' 
 
 Yet it is restrictive to FroebeFs view of connected- 
 ness to say that he made any one subject the centre to 
 which or through which the others should be correlated. 
 He did not absolutely limit the mediation to one subject 
 or department of study. In some respects he made 
 mathematics a unifying subject. He says, " Mathematics 
 mediates, unites, generates knowledge.^^ The mathe- 
 matical conceptions of number, quantity, form, and space 
 are essentially connected with Nature, and help man to 
 grasp Nature in a progressively definite and more com- 
 prehensively related way. Chemistry, geology, crystal- 
 lography, physics, and all departments of Nature study 
 relating to inorganic matter and the forces of Nature 
 are intimately related to mathematical study, so that 
 in a sense Froebel was right in regarding mathematics 
 as a mediating or relating study. 
 
 He saw, too, that language should be connected with 
 all other studies, but he considered language as the re- 
 sult, not as the origin of thought, and so did not regard 
 it as a correlating element in a course of study. 
 
 In the last analysis, however, Froebel made the indi- 
 vidual child the correlating centre. The child attends 
 to what interests it. It learns rapidly and easily the facts 
 and principles vitally related to its interests. Nature is 
 the child's universal sphere of deepest interest, and 
 through Nature or in connection with Nature there is 
 ample scope for the interrelated, incidental development 
 of all the powers of the human mind. But the selfhood 
 of the child is, after all, the active, mediating influence. 
 15 
 
210 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 It should be the original basis and source of the interest, 
 and, as its evolution becomes more and more complete, 
 it will, if not dwarfed, yearn for new departments of 
 knowledge or expression or power. Froebel experi- 
 enced this in his own education. Speaking of his efforts 
 to study German literature, he says: " In this, too, it was 
 with me as in so many other things — any influence that 
 came before me I had either to fully interweave with 
 my inner life or else altogether to forego its acquisi- 
 tion.^^ 
 
 The child is the true psychological centre for unity 
 in the course of study. When teachers have fully grasped 
 this truth the studies will be presented to the child as it 
 seeks for them to satisfy the demands of its develop- 
 ing nature. True self-activity will make it possible for 
 the child to do this. In the past, and too often in the 
 present, the teacher has not paid the slightest attention 
 to the present needs of the child as revealed by its own 
 manifestations of interest. Its assumed capacities, and 
 not its real interests, have guided the teacher in deciding 
 what it should study. Its individuality and its nascent 
 periods, when its interests naturally centre about special 
 subjects or forms of activity, have been ignored. Child 
 study will in the end lead to the recognition of the sacred 
 rights of the child in these matters. Unfortunately, the 
 child is yet too often studied to find what the teacher 
 can do to educate it. Froebel studied the child to learn 
 how the teacher can aid the child to educate itself. 
 Froebel's ideal must prevail. The teacher must become 
 "more passive and following," less dogmatic and ener- 
 getically directing. 
 
 When the child is permitted to be self-active in its 
 
CORRELATION OP STUDIES. 211 
 
 own development^ its unfolding interests will be the tru- 
 est guide in the correlation of studies. 
 
 Whether we believe, as nearly every one does, in sim- 
 ple correlation, or interrelation between studies, or in the 
 co-ordination of unified groups, or in the concentra- 
 tion of all studies around one centre, we may find the 
 origin of our thought in Froebel's writings. He may 
 perhaps be best described as a concentro-correlationist. 
 
 He magnified the child as the basis of inner connec- 
 tion much more than Herbart. He insisted on the evo- 
 lutionary stages of human growth as a fundamental and 
 dominant element in all true education, and demanded 
 such consideration for the needs of the child as would 
 secure perfect adaptation of its studies to its stage of de- 
 velopment. In this the best modern exponents of Her- 
 bart agree more fully with Froebel than did Herbart 
 himself. Ziller and Eein are agreed that " the growing 
 personality of the pupil is the centre to which all the 
 multiplicity of interests and new ideas must be related." 
 
 This was Froebel's central thought in regard to con- 
 nectedness in school work. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 APPERCEPTION. 
 
 One of the defects that Froebel noted in the work of 
 Pestalozzi was that he was satisfied with cultivating the 
 power of sense perception without giving consideration 
 to the unification of the resulting perceptions in the 
 mind. Froebel aimed to secure the " inner connection '^ 
 between the knowledge or experience of the child and 
 the new knowledge that was brought to it by the senses, 
 for he knew that without true relatedness, which results 
 in a unity between the old inner and the newly revealed 
 outer, there can be no real advance in knowledge or con- 
 sequent increase in power. One of his mottoes was: 
 
 Always, whatever with a child you do, 
 Remain in touch with its own life all through. 
 
 It is doubtful whether any other educator ever saw 
 the meaning of apperception and its importance in edu- 
 cation as clearly as Froebel did. It is certain that no 
 other educator discovered a law of method which neces- 
 sarily secures such active apperception as Froebel's law 
 of self-activity. That he has not received full credit 
 for his advanced ideas in relation to correlation, interest, 
 and apperception, is largely due to the fact that he is 
 
 212 
 
APPERCEPTION. 213 
 
 known to most teachers only as the founder of the kin- 
 dergarten. He never could have founded a kindergarten 
 if he had not had a profound knowledge of the funda- 
 mental principles of education. His great purpose in 
 founding the kindergarten was to fill the child's life with 
 the germs of true feeling and thought as a basis for its 
 best and fullest development in later years. He saw very 
 clearly that without these germs in the child's mind, 
 as apperceptive centres, the proper intellectual and spir- 
 itual culture of man is impossible. He claimed that 
 " every subject of future instruction and discipline 
 should germinate in childhood/' and he aimed in the 
 kindergarten to provide a comprehensive and scientific 
 system by which mothers and kindergartners could defi- 
 nitely aid this most essential germination by guiding the 
 pupil's own free self-activity. He did not write books 
 about apperception, but he is the only educator who 
 recognised its importance so clearly as to found an elab- 
 orate and well-organized system of education to prepare 
 all children for perfect apperceiving. He not only 
 founded a new system of education, but he adapted it to 
 a stage of the child's evolution hitherto untouched by 
 educators. It is during the period before the child goes 
 to the regular school i^at its mind should be stored with 
 the germs that give vitality and productiveness to feel- 
 ing and thought. The thought content of a child's mind 
 on entering school has a most important influence on its 
 educational development, but its influence is not com- 
 parable to that of the symbolic outlines of feeling and 
 thought that should lie in its mind as formative elements 
 which will spring to vigorous life at the touch of kindred 
 feeling and knowledge during the period of its con- 
 
214: FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. , 
 
 scions education. The recognition of this great truth, 
 and the equally important fact that the implanting of 
 the symbolic germs of feeling and thought must be done 
 during the earlier evolutionary stage of the child's life, 
 and the careful working out of a definite system of edu- 
 cation adapted to the unconscious, symbolic period of 
 the child's development, which fills its mind with centres 
 of intellectual and spiritual growth without making it 
 conscious, make Froebel the greatest exponent of apper- 
 ception. He revealed it in his work more than in his 
 words. Blessed is the man who explains a great principle 
 in words; blessed a thousand times is he who reveals a 
 great principle as an organized force. Without the kin- 
 dergarten to prepare for apperception in school, the 
 teacher's knowledge of the need of apperception would 
 be of little avail. The mind must be stored with what 
 Wordsworth in his ode describes as — 
 
 . . . Those first affections, 
 Those shadowy recollections, 
 
 Which be they what they may, 
 Are yet the fountain light of all our day, 
 Are yet a master light of all our seeing. 
 
 Froebel gradually advanced logically to the great 
 step of his life — the founding of the kindergarten. He 
 first saw that sense perception meant nothing to a child 
 in school unless there was some germ in its mind to which 
 the new perception could in some way be related. His 
 law of evolution led him to see that the time for filling 
 the child's life with formative types of feeling and 
 thought is during the years before it goes to school. His 
 law of self-activity taught him that the child during 
 this period must be left free, so that its interest may 
 
APPERCEPTION. 215 
 
 increase and its selfhood develop. His judgment showed 
 him that woman^s perfect sympathy with childhood made 
 her the natural educator of little children. And so, after 
 years of thought and study and careful planning, he 
 founded a system of education in harmony with all 
 these principles, and named it the kindergarten. It is 
 adapted to the complete evolution of the child, when the 
 earliest efforts should be made to systematize its activi- 
 ties; in it the child's individuality is respected, and 
 woman is its friend and guide; and by its processes with 
 gifts, occupations, songs, stories, Nature investigation 
 and Nature nurture, the child's mind is filled with the 
 rootlets of feeling, thought, knowledge, and skill, which 
 form apperceptive centres for a perfect development of 
 feeling, thought, knowledge, and skill in school, college, 
 university, and life-work. In writing about the kinder- 
 garten seven years after the first was opened, he said: 
 " You see with what a foundation, a basis, with what a 
 sum of living germs in the life material which he has 
 gathered, the child passes from the kindergarten to the 
 intermediate school. . . . All this awaits only develop- 
 ment from unconsciousness through growing conscious- 
 ness to consciousness itself, and this now is the task of 
 the primary school." - Q 
 
 Although he wrote no specific treatise under tla^^^fe= 
 name "Apperception," his definite recognition of the 
 principle is found all through his writings, as well as in 
 his organized system. 
 
 " Even the lucid word of the most lucid teacher fre- / 
 quently has no influence upon our sons, for they are / 
 asked to learn now what they should have learned in 1 
 childhood with the help of our quickening explanations; 
 
216 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 ( what, indeed, childhood meant they should learn almost 
 \ without effort/^ 
 
 " We do not feel the meaning of what we say, for 
 our speech is made up of memorized ideas, based neither 
 on perception nor on productive effort. Therefore it 
 does not lead to perception, production, life; it has not 
 \proceeded, it does not proceed, from Hie." 
 
 " We hear the sound, it is true, but we fail to get the 
 image; we hear the noise, but see no movement.'^ 
 
 " The school should give a conscious communication 
 of knowledge, for a definite purpose and in definite inner 
 connection." 
 
 " It is imperative that parents and teachers should 
 e careful to render the inner life of their children as 
 rich as possible." 
 
 " Of course words must find a response in the boy's 
 life. The child must not be expected to give life and 
 meaning to the words, but the words must give expres- 
 sion to what is already in the boy's soul and find their 
 meaning in this." 
 
 " We should not forget, however, that instruction 
 should start from the pupil's own life and proceed from 
 it like a bud or sprout." 
 
 " Man understands other things, the life of others, 
 and the effects of other powers, only in so far as he under- 
 stands himself, his own power, and his own life." 
 
 " No new subject of instruction should be brought to 
 the pupil unless he at least feels vaguely that it is based, 
 and how it is based, on previous worh." 
 
 " That which follows is always conditioned upon that 
 which goes before. I make that apparent to the children 
 through my educational process." 
 
APPERCEPTION. 217 
 
 " The knowledge before all things necessary for the 
 welfare of future generations is that the human mind 
 is choked in the germ by the burdensome crowd of no- 
 tions heaped up and patched on foreign to it, rooted in 
 nothing within.'^ 
 
 '^ The child must first he something before he can 
 turn to the contemplation of strange things not wholly 
 ahin to his nature.^' 
 
 Froebel's plan for making the outer inner was by 
 making the inner outer. In other words, he taught that 
 the inner should be active in its use of the outer, in 
 order to make the inner greater by the perfect assimila- 
 tion of the new outer. Therefore his universal process 
 of self-activity solved for him the problem of appercep- 
 tion. Having stored the mind with the varied and active 
 formative elements of feeling, thought, knowledge, and 
 skill in the first stage of the child's training, it was ready 
 to proceed with the culture of these elements in school. 
 
 But he realized that it was quite possible to have in 
 the mind the germ centre of knowledge corresponding 
 to the new knowledge to be communicated, and to have 
 the perceptive powers well trained without securing an 
 increase in the amount of knowledge already gained. 
 Knowledge must be related to other knowledge already 
 in the mind if it is to be retained as a vital addition to 
 our present store. Therefore it is essential not only that 
 there shall be knowledge in the mind to which the new 
 information may be related, but this knowledge in the 
 mind must be aroused so that it is ready to apperceive 
 the new information. The more active the knowledge 
 already in the mind becomes, the more complete the 
 fusion of the old and the new will be. Their perfect 
 
218 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 assimilation should be the teacher's aim. In true self- 
 activity the inner centre already developed must be 
 actively alert^ because, led by interest, it becomes the 
 originating power to arouse the activity.' Self-activity 
 requires positive, vital interest as a motive, and a much 
 more aggressive attitude of the inner to the outer, the 
 old to the new, than any form of responsive activity. 
 By making self-activity an organic part of his educa- 
 tional work, therefore, Froebel made it imperative that 
 the mind of the learner should be in the most favour- 
 able condition, and the process of learning should be 
 the most thorough for securing perfect apperception. 
 The spontaneous interest of a self -active child in the 
 subject under consideration necessarily arouses the cor- 
 responding elements in the mind, and prepares them for 
 perfect fusion with the new related elements. 
 
 Self-activity alone forms a sound basis for complete 
 apperception, because it alone demands such vitality 
 of interest in the mind of the learner as will lead to posi- 
 tive and voluntary action to gain the new information 
 or solve the new problem. Increase of knowledge under 
 such conditions does not result from aggregation, but 
 from thorough assimilation, and the resultant unity is 
 characterized by energetic vitality and by an aggressive 
 alertness in regard to the still unconquered and unassimi- 
 lated outer knowledge. This not only keeps interest in 
 the outer alive, but makes it increasingly vigorous as a 
 propelling inner force. True interest is not merely will- 
 ing to receive knowledge; it urges on to the earnest 
 effort to acquire it. If the outer and the inner are to 
 become one, if the subjects and methods of the schools 
 are to aim to modify what is within the child, it requires 
 
APPERCEPTION. 219 
 
 little argument to prove that the chief agent in making 
 the transformation should be the inner itself. It alone 
 can be a sure guide in determining what phase of the 
 outer corresponds with the present development and at- 
 titude of the inner. Questioning may aid the teacher 
 in forming an estimate of the kind of external knowl- 
 edge best adapted to the child's stage of development and 
 of mind-storing; but at best such an estimate is only 
 an approximation. There is but one unerring guide, 
 and that is unwarped and undwarf ed interest, unchecked 
 in its stimulation of self-activity. Teaching that is not 
 directly related to the child's inner life, adapted to its 
 stage of evolution and its culture epochs, and in har- 
 mony with the demands of its immediate interests, is of 
 little value, and may do much harm. The true growth 
 of the mind is effected by its being allowed to assimilate 
 the kind of knowledge it needs, the kind adapted to its 
 present needs. Self-activity seeks the right kind of 
 knowledge to satisfy the demands of interest, which is 
 the concentration of the present needs of the child 
 clamouring for satisfaction, and it immediately assimi- 
 lates the new knowledge into its selfhood and trans- 
 forms it into character. Mr. Bowen says in this connec- 
 tion: ^^N'othing which does not spring directly from 
 the natural primary outfit of the child — which is not a 
 natural outcome of it — should be imported into the child 
 in the first stage, nor indeed in any stage to which it 
 does not naturally and rightfully belong." 
 
 A great deal of the information given in School never 
 truly becomes knowledge. It becomes knowledge really 
 only when it is understood in itself and its inner con- 
 nection so thoroughly that it can be used, and has been 
 
220 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 used. This is the only complete apperception, and Froe- 
 beFs law of self -activity is the only educational process 
 that requires the fulfilment of these conditions by the 
 pupil in learning. 
 
 A mind trained in harmony with Froebel's concep- 
 tion of apperception grows to be an organic unity. All 
 knowledge to such a mind has such varied relations that 
 it stimulates the growth of the complete mind. The 
 more widely inner connection is established in the mind 
 between the facts assimilated, the more interesting and 
 the more comprehensively stimulative to productive ef- 
 fort they become. 
 
 Froebel applied the principle of apperception very 
 broadly and definitely in regard to the training of the 
 moral and religious nature. " If it were possible/^ he 
 says, " that a human being could be without religion, it 
 would also be impossible to give him religion.^^ " Eeli- 
 gious instruction can bear fruit, can affect and influence 
 life, only in so far as it finds in the mind of man true 
 religion, however indefinite and vague." The forma- 
 tive elements must be in the nature of the child. If the 
 apperceptive moral and religious centres are not there, 
 the ears are necessarily deaf and the eyes blind. 
 
 One of the greatest problems teachers have to solve 
 is how to fill the minds of children before they go to 
 school with a rich store of germs of feeling, thought, 
 knowledge, and skill, to which the culture of the schools 
 may be definitely related. This problem grows more 
 important as the population of the world gathers into 
 cities, and childhood is cut off from the information, the 
 inspiration, the symbolic intellectual and spiritual 
 foundations, and opportunities for constructive opera- 
 
APPERCEPTION. 221 
 
 tions afforded by Kf e in the country in touch with natu- 
 ral and objective life. The inner life must be enriched 
 and made creative early if the work of the school is to be 
 effective. There must be a broader real basis for the 
 abstract. There should be no " extraneously communi- 
 cated knowledge heaped up in the memory.^^ Froebel 
 saw the imperative need of this enrichment of childhood, 
 and he founded the kindergarten to provide for it, in 
 harmony with psychological principles. He aimed to 
 fill the minds of all children with so many intercon- 
 nected apperceptive centres that the infinite variety of 
 the external might find in the inner lives the conditions 
 of recognition and assimilation. He dreaded "cram- 
 ming and ingrafting/' because " God neither ingrafts 
 nor inoculates.^' 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 
 
 Individuality or selfhood has necessarily received 
 some attention in Chapters IV and YI, but its impor- 
 tance as the logical basis of self-expression demands that 
 it be still further considered. Froebel made the com- 
 plete development of the social unit the foundation for 
 the progressive advance of organized society, and was 
 the first educator to make this phase of the power and 
 the importance of individuality clear. 
 
 The individuality of the child is the divinity in it, 
 the element whose development should do most for the 
 child and the world. The highest duty of the school 
 is to develop the conscious personality of the child. Eeal 
 personality must be an element of strength. It should 
 be the centre of a man's character. It should be his con- 
 tribution to the general character of the race. Millions 
 fail in life because they are never clearly conscious of 
 their own personal power. Every individual failure 
 retards the race. This is the true basis for the value of 
 individuality. The revelation of the strength of self- 
 hood as an element in the general strength of humanity 
 leads to true self-reverence and self-faith. A man who 
 has self-reverence and self-faith- rarely fails. He uses 
 
 222 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRLo^ciXON. 225 
 
 the intellectual power he possesses. A man with m-. Qf 
 erate intellectual powers and well-developed self-faith 
 usually accomplishes more for himself and humanity 
 than the man who has great intellectual power but little 
 self-faith. It is not possible to give all children great 
 intellectual power^ but it is possible for the school to 
 make each child as it grows to maturity conscious of its 
 own highest power^ and to give it faith in itself because 
 of its consciousness of that power. 
 
 True self-reverence and self-faith are the opposites 
 to vanity and conceit. Self -reverence and self -faith are 
 strengthening and ennobling. They are the elements in 
 character that lead men to do and dare and struggle 
 hopefully. He who is sure he can not succeed has al- 
 ready failed. He who has a reverent consciousness of 
 power in his own personality, and has gained the faith 
 that springs from this consciousness, succeeds always. 
 He does not wait for opportunities, he creates them; 
 he is not forced to act by circumstances, but moulds cir- 
 cumstances and conditions. 
 
 So long as a child or man lacks respect for the prod- 
 uct of his own best effort, his power does not increase 
 rapidly even by use. Self -deprecation may neutralize the 
 beneficent influence of activity or exercise of function. 
 Faith in one^s own power strong enough to lead to its 
 use, and respect for the product of effort honestly made, 
 give every conscious effort a widening and strengthen- 
 ing influence on character. Therefore the development 
 of individuality should be one of the main purposes of 
 every teacher. 
 I Th:u7Scliools have definitely aimed to make the chil- 
 dren as much alike as possible. They should really be J 
 
224: ^xiOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 5?^ue as unlike as possible^ so far as the freeing of their 
 individuality from constraint tends to make them unlike. 
 All true harmony results from the unity of dissimilarity. 
 ISTo two trees or flowers are exactly alike. It would be a 
 pity to have them so. The higher the organization the 
 greater the capacity for variation. Men should see truth 
 from different standpoints, and transform insight into 
 attainment with widely varied powers. Each new view 
 of truth, when revealed by an undwarfed individuality, 
 gives new form or tone to revealed truth. The schools 
 have made mixed characters, part child and part teacher. 
 They have developed self-consciousness which is para- 
 lyzing, instead of selfhood which is strengthening and 
 invigorating. Very few children are allowed to be their 
 real selves, and " live their souls straight out.^^ Men 
 have dreaded the depravity of the child so much that its 
 divinity has not been allowed to grow. In attempting 
 to restrict depravity the light of the divinity in the child 
 has been shadowed, and lives of gloom and stagnation 
 have resulted instead of lives of brightness and advance- 
 ment. 
 
 Each child should feel, when it leaves school or col- 
 lege, that it has some special power that must be used 
 if the progress of the world is to be as rapid and as com- 
 plete as it should be. 
 
 Froebel's lofty ideals of individuality may be gained 
 from a few extracts from his writings: 
 
 " It is the destiny and life-work of all things to un- 
 fold their essence. ... It is the special destiny and 
 life-work of man, as an intelligent and rational being, 
 to hecome fully, vividly, and clearly conscious of his es- 
 sence, of the Divine effluence in him, and therefore of 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 225 
 
 God; to become fully, vividly, and clearly conscious of 
 his destiny and life-work; and to accomplish this, to ren- 
 der it (his essence) active, to reveal it in his own life with 
 self-determination and freedom" 
 
 " The Spirit of God and of humanity is revealed most 
 purely and perfectly by man if he unfolds and represents 
 his own being as much as possible in accordance with his 
 individuality and personality.'^ 
 
 " The child should neither be partly chained, fet- 
 tered, nor swathed, nor, later on, spoiled by too much as- 
 sistance/^ 
 
 " Every human being has, indeed, hut one thought pe- 
 culiarly and predominantly his own, the fundamental 
 thought, as it were, of his whole being, the keynote of his 
 life-symphony, a thought which he simply seeks to ex- 
 press and render clear with the help of a thousand other 
 thoughts, with the help of all he does/^ 
 
 " Only in all-sided, natural, and rational develop- 
 ment of himself and his spiritual power man finds his 
 welfare and the welfare of mankind, and every other 
 course hinders the true development of mankind." 
 
 " We do great violence to boy nature when we re- 
 press and supplant these normal, many-sided mental 
 tendencies in the growing human being; when, in the 
 belief of doing a service to God and man, and of pro- 
 moting the future earthly prosperity, inner peace, and 
 heavenly salvation of the boy, we cut off one or the other 
 of these tendencies and graft others in their places." 
 
 " An education which does not try to raise roses from 
 thistle bushes will wisely use all talents and dispositions, 
 and bring each man into his proper place, out of which 
 he will not desire to go." 
 16 
 
226 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 "I will protect childhood that it may not, as in 
 earlier generations, be pinioned as in a strait- jacket, 
 in garments of custom and ancient prescription, that 
 have become too narrow for the new time. I shall show 
 the way, and I hope the means, tlicd every human soul 
 may grow of itself out of its own individuality.^^ 
 
 His great aim was " to allow a tree of life to ger- 
 minate in each one's own heart, and a tree of knowledge 
 in each one's own mind, taking care for its beautiful un- 
 folding, that it may bring forth fresh and healthy flowers 
 and ripe fruits/' 
 
 He was anxious for individual development as the 
 source of race development. '' All progress, all culture," 
 he said, " is the result of the original creativeness of the 
 minds of every age, which have been able to increase 
 the sum of existing intellectual and material wealth by 
 producing something new. The imitators in a genera- 
 tion who allow themselves to be satisfied with what they 
 have found at hand, and live and do only as they 
 have been accustomed to do, can never bring about such 
 an enrichment of civilization." 
 
 He never aimed to develop individuality for the sake 
 of the individual alone, but aimed to qualify each man 
 I to fill the special place he was intended to occupy in the 
 organic whole of humanity. He saw the perfect indi- 
 vidual as more than an isolated unit. ^^ In every human 
 being, as a member of humanity and as a child of God, 
 there lies and lives humanity as a whole; but in each 
 one it is realized in a wholly particular, peculiar, per- 
 sonal, unique manner." This broad view of the perfect 
 individual cleared his vision in regard to individualism 
 and socialism, and gave him a logical basis for his theory 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 227 
 
 of evolution. The race-including individual forms a 
 perfect combining element in the all-comprehending 
 unity of the race. Gaining strength as an individual 
 from the cumulative development of the race, he in turn 
 adds strength to the race. As the coral insect raises its 
 rock by its death, the truly developed individual raises 
 humanity by his life. 
 
 Froebel recognised in the universal desire of child- 
 hood to help in the work going on around it a race tend- 
 ency to work in co-operation with its fellows; and he 
 repeatedly warned parents and teachers against discour- 
 aging, rebuffing, or checking this very important in- 
 stinct. Creativeness alone is a great power, but co-oper- 
 ative creativeness is a much higher ideal. The true ideal 
 in human education is creativeness fostered and devel- 
 oped by self -activity in as varied departments as possible, 
 and with the general aim of aiding in universal upward 
 progress. With such an education in home and school, 
 it could never be said of children as it can too commonly 
 be said now: " When this child was small and could not 
 help, it busied itself about everything; now that it knows 
 something and is strong enough, it does not want to do 
 anything.^' It is a serious charge against our systems of 
 child training that, although children are born with a 
 desire to help, they have lost this desire by the time they 
 have acquired the power to be helpful. 
 
 Teachers should therefore aim to develop the child's 
 individuality while bringing it into contact with the 
 great stores of knowledge in Nature and in books, that 
 it may become conscious of the divine essence in its 
 nature, and reveal it to others. Teachers may weaken 
 the child's individuality by overshadowing it by the 
 
228 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 domination of their own personality, by overdirecting it, 
 by making it consciously imitative, by giving it too much 
 assistance, and, more than in any other way,- by faiUng 
 to provide sufficiently varied opportunities for the exer- 
 cise of selfhood in complete self-activity in the acquisi- 
 tion and use of knowledge adapted to its stage of devel- 
 opment. The child^s self-determining character can not 
 develop properly; indeed, its development is scarcely 
 possible, if the teacher is the determining agent, if it is 
 trained to imitate deliberately, or if its own activity is 
 prevented either by having its work done by the teacher, 
 or by lack of appropriate work to lead it to interested 
 self-activity. 
 
 The child's individuality is usually dwarfed before it 
 comes to school. Few parents recognise their child's in- 
 dividuality sufficiently to stand reverently aside and let 
 it spontaneously climb toward the light. Froebel said: 
 " Every child brings with him into the world the natu- 
 ral disposition to see correctly what is before him, or, in 
 other words, the truth." 
 
 The most unfortunate children are those whose un- 
 trained nurses or mothers foolishly do for them what 
 they should do for themselves, and point out to them 
 the things they should see for themselves. The child 
 is seriously injured by such treatment. It is trained to 
 believe that its function in the world is to demand and 
 receive attention, and it inevitably becomes imperious, 
 weak, and selfish. Its own power to see new things is 
 lessened if mother or nurse leads it from scene to scene, 
 pointing out each new attraction. "See, darling! '' may 
 prevent the development of the child's power to see in- 
 dependently. No power reaches its best development in 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 229 
 
 any way but by the self -activity of the power itself. The 
 power of seeing does not lie in the eye alone. It depends 
 chiefly on the mind. Thousands of beautiful pictures 
 are formed on the eye that are not seen. The mind sees 
 only those pictures which it selects from the vast number 
 in the ever-changing gallery of the eye. The power of 
 selection and definite examination is the one that should 
 be trained. It acts automatically in relation to those 
 things that are of real interest, and continues to increase 
 in quickness and definiteness unless it is dwarfed by the 
 substitution of some other agency to do its work. In 
 such a condition power always grows less. Training in 
 seeing new things quickly and accurately does not 
 modify the power, or condition, or even the activity of 
 the eye to any considerable extent^ it does influence the 
 power of attention, and makes the mind more active and 
 more investigative along the lines of predominant in- 
 terest. 
 
 The mistake of most parents and teachers lies in as- 
 suming that they should not only present the attraction 
 to the child^s mind, but also arouse and direct its atten- 
 tion. Whenever this is done by any agency except the 
 child's own self -active interest its power of aftention is 
 weakened. The duty of the guide of the child is to place "^ 
 it in conditions of interest to it, and allow its own mind 
 to do its own seeing. The child's environment, and not 
 the teacher or parent, should stimulate its mental ac- 
 tivity. 
 
 It is a common practice to arouse children from rev- 
 erie under the impression that they are mentally in- 
 active. This is a grave error. In this way mental opera- 
 tions of great importance are interrupted and sometimes 
 
 Ld 
 
i 
 
 230 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 checked for ever. Such thoughtless interference may 
 close windows of the soul that may never he reopened, 
 and break silver threads that may never he reunited. 
 Whether the child appears to be interested in its environ- 
 ment or not it arrests the development of its own self- 
 active interest to direct its attention to the thing which 
 is interesting to the adult friend who accompanies it. 
 When the child is doing wrong its interest centre should 
 be changed, but the child should not be conscious of the 
 interference of the guide who leads to the change. De- 
 manding a change of interest is a gross wrong, suggest- 
 ing a change because parent or teacher has found some- 
 thing attractive to himself is unwise; but leading to a 
 new interest because experience has proved it to be 
 adapted to child development is highly commendable. 
 
 The greatest intellectual power is interest in our en- 
 vironment. Every child whose faculties are in a normal 
 condition has this power naturally. If it be not im- 
 paired by the interference of adults, this power will in- 
 crease in propulsive influence as the child grows older. 
 As it is the greatest intellectual power, it is therefore 
 capable of most unlimited development. It should be 
 the revealer of all new things to the mind — new speci- 
 mens, new problems, and new relationships. If allowed 
 { to perform its proper function in a natural way, it gains 
 * in awakening and directing power as the child grows 
 older. 
 
 ]^o two children should be attracted by exactly the 
 I same things or combinations of things in a walk in the 
 country, or in any other gallery of varied interests. The 
 special selfhood of each child sees in the outer what cor- 
 responds to its developing inner. The individual power 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 231 
 
 to see in the outer that which is adapted to the develop- j 
 ment of the inner at present most active is the arousing \ 
 source of all true interest. When a parent or teacher 
 substitutes his own interests for those of the child, the 
 child^s interest is weakened and made responsive instead 
 of self-active. The real life of interest dies, and teach- 
 ers, after killing it, make energetic and often fruitless 
 efforts to galvanize it into spasmodic responsive action. 
 Individual self -active interest should be allowed to act "^ 
 without interference. The teacher should provide the 
 conditions of interest by bringing them to the child or 
 guiding the child to them. The child should do its own / 
 seeing, as the result of self-active and not responsive 
 interest. 
 
 Mother and father are no doubt essential aids to the 
 child in its happy and progressive growth. They are 
 needed by the child to assist in the solution of the more 
 difficult of its self-discovered problems, and in carrying 
 to a successful issue some of its many plans and experi- 
 ments. The child^s power of insight is at first greater 
 than its power of attainment. It sees problems that it 
 can not solve, and it makes plans which it is not able 
 to carry out alone. It takes its unsolved questions to 
 mother, whom it loves, and in whose wisdom it has faith, 
 and she has many opportunities to unfold to it the mys- 
 teries of life and growth and relationship that have been 
 dimly outlined in its opening mind. Children have been 
 named " Question boxes '^ and " Interrogation points " 
 because they ask for explanations of so many questions. 
 They do not, however, submit all their problems to their 
 friends for solution. They solve most of their own 
 problems, and only bring to their friends those for which 
 
232 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 they can not find satisfactory answers themselves. They 
 should be encouraged to bring their unsolved problems 
 to their friends^ and great care should be taken in giving 
 simple^ clear, and complete answers to their questions, 
 or in guiding them in finding the answers themselves, 
 when it is possible for them to do so. 
 
 They should receive similar encouragement and as 
 prompt and sympathetic co-operation when they come 
 with plans which they can not work out or experiments 
 which baffle them. Fathers have no better opportuni- 
 ties to establish the true relationship between their chil- 
 dren and themselves, and at the same time to aid in de- 
 veloping in them creative productivity — one of the most 
 essential elements in strong and useful character — ^than 
 are afforded when their children come to them with 
 plans or experiments which they can not complete with- 
 out help. Whoever helps a child to accomplish its pur- 
 poses and prevent the failure of its plans by performing 
 the mechanical work beyond its powers, or by revealing 
 to it new mechanical processes which it can itself apply, 
 aids in its true development. He does more: he pre- 
 vents discouragement and the weakening of individual- 
 ity. The child's nature rebels at failure to accomplish 
 its plans. Nature always protests against a violation 
 of her laws until frequent violation has shown that her 
 protests are unavailing. The child is at first made irri- 
 table by the failure of its plans, but every successive 
 failure leads to greater discouragement, until at length 
 discouragement produces paralyzing indifference, and 
 destroys the alertness and originality of the mind. If 
 plans are not executed, selfhood will ultimately cease to 
 plan. During the time that the child's power to execute 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 233 
 
 independently is weaker than its power to plan, co-oper- 
 ative help from parents or teachers is stimulating to indi- 
 viduality, and helps to develop the desire of the child to 
 co-operate with its seniors when it is able to do so. 
 
 Parents and teachers should learn to preserve the 
 natural wonder power of children, and provide condi- 
 tions for its fullest development. School methods have 
 unfortunately substituted suggestion for spontaneity, 
 and rendered it unnecessary, if not impossible, for the 
 pupils to develop their own natural power of self-acting 
 interest. Self-active interest is the only true interest. 
 It alone makes man an independent agent, capable of 
 progressive upward and outward growth on original 
 lines. It alone stimulates the mind to its most energetic 
 activity for the accomplishment of definite purposes. 
 It alone produces the complete co-ordination of the 
 sensor and motor departments of the brain. Self-active ] 
 interest is the natural desire for knowledge acting with ' 
 perfect freedom, the divinely implanted wonder power ', 
 unchecked by restriction and undiminished by the sub- / 
 stitution of the interests of others. True self-active in- 
 terest is the essential motive to intellectual activity and 
 to the fullest apperceptive increase in knowledge. 
 
 The development of self -active interest is clearly the 
 highest ideal of intellectual education. The first prin- 
 ciple underlying the development of this power is the 
 principle that underlies all growth: self -activity, spon- 
 taneity in the use of the power. The teacher's duty in 
 the development of any power in his pupils is first to 
 provide appropriate opportunities for the exercise of the 
 power, and, second, to prevent the substitution of other 
 agencies for the power to be developed. The true self- 
 
234 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 active interest of the child can not be developed unless 
 it is placed in conditions of interest appropriate to its 
 age and experience, and allowed to manifest choice in 
 the expression of its interest. The child^s self-active 
 interest receives little increase in power or activity by 
 acting in response to the instruction of the teacher. The 
 teacher is responsible for providing the conditions of in- 
 terest, and for aiding in the revelation of the attractive- 
 ness of these conditions in life, or action, or growth, or 
 constructive possibilities, or beauty of form, colour, or 
 sound, or by combinations of these elements of interest. 
 He can not devote too much attention to the conditions 
 of interest, but he should not try to dominate the inter- 
 est of the child. 
 
 It should not be necessary even to direct attention 
 or suggest interest directly by words. Interest is a natu- 
 ral power of the mind which possesses in itself the ele- 
 ments of progressive growth. It goes out spontaneously 
 in the case of each individual toward those things which 
 correspond to his mental development. It is the ele- 
 mentary agency in mental growth, and its power and in- 
 tensity increase as mental growth becomes more definite 
 and more complete. It is naturally self-active, and it 
 retains this quality unless the direction of another inter- 
 feres with its spontaneity. The weakening of this self- 
 active interest is one of the most direct ways in which 
 intellectual development can be checked. 
 
 It must not be understood that the teacher has no 
 function in arousing interest. There are many ways 
 in which he should stimulate the child's interest. He 
 is responsible for the selection of the appropriate en- 
 vironment of material for operation or investigation to 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AKD SELF-EXPRESSION. 235 
 
 suit different ages and degrees of development. His 
 mature judgment should present knowledge in proper 
 order so that the child may study the various depart- 
 ments of knowledge at the time it is naturally interested 
 in them. He should cultivate his own powers of illustra- 
 tion, narration, and exposition, that his necessary oral 
 explanations may always be brief, definite, interesting, 
 and stimulating to individual investigation by the pupils. • 
 Whatever he can do to make the external environment"^ 
 of the pupil interesting to his inner mental life / 
 should be done. The practice that should be avoided j 
 most carefully is interference with the action of the inner / 
 mental life of the pupil. Such a practice is unnatural, • 
 and prevents the development of spontaneous, self -active 
 interest power. Interest that is led out or carried out 
 never develops much intensity, energy, endurance, or 
 individuality. 
 
 All " stamping and moulding '^ processes in educa- 
 tion Froebel strongly objected to. Any education that 
 was mere overlaying, or cramming in from the outside, 
 met with his determined opposition. Education to him "1 
 was the assimilation of the outer by the self-activity of 
 the inner. 
 
 Individuality may be weakened by exercising the 
 child^s conscious reasoning power too soon, and by fail- 
 ure to sympathize with its imaginative nature. We 
 should never laugh at its odd fancies nor fail to show 
 sympathetic appreciation for its earliest literary or artis- 
 tic efforts. 
 
 The true influence of education on the individual to 
 be educated is the revelation of his individuality to him- 
 self, and the development of his own power of self-de- 1 
 
 ff V^^ OF THK ^"K\ 
 
 fi UNIVERSITY I 
 
236 FEOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 termination. To make a boy conscious of his own 
 power, and of his self -determining power to control it, 
 lays the foundation for his highest happiness and most 
 perfect success in life. 
 
 The secret of the complete development of selfhood 
 is the law of self-activity, one of the most important de- 
 partments of which is self-expression. There is exactly 
 the same wide difference between expression and self- 
 expression that has been pointed out between activity 
 and self-activity in Chapter IV. Expression that does 
 not express the self in art, or literature, or oral reading, 
 or recitation usually arrests the development of selfhood 
 or individuality. 
 
 One of the commonest fallacies in the list of educa- 
 tional theories is '^ expression leads to self-expression." 
 Expression and self-expression are the results of two en- 
 tirely different intellectual operations. The powers of 
 fT^ expression need culture, but they receive their best cul- 
 ture in expressing selfhood. Self and expression should 
 not be divorced. Self should never be sacrificed to ex- 
 pression, or spontaneity and originality will be lost. The 
 methods of training expression in the schools of the 
 past have prevented the full development of individu- 
 ality. 
 
 " My pupils write so much alike that you can hardly 
 see any difference between their copy-books," says a 
 proud teacher. Empty boast! Such a result means in- 
 jury to the development of the individuality of every 
 pupil. Writing should be more than mere letter forma- 
 tion. Our ideal in writing should be to train a free hand 
 to move automatically in harmony with a free mind. 
 Children have been trair.ed to dravr letters, not to write. 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AKD SELF-EXPRESSION. £37 
 
 We have sacrificed freedom to form, and then vainly 
 hoped for the freedom. We have restricted spontaneity 
 by limiting lines, by direction lines, and by faint letters 
 to be traced. We have cramped the fingers and confined 
 the free movement of the arm, and the cramping and 
 restriction have reacted on the souls of the children. 
 We have made our pupils slow copyists and slavish imi- 
 tators of writing; we should have given power to ex- 
 press thought rapidly on paper. The two elements in 
 good writing are free rapid movement and accurate letter 
 formation. We have striven for the second at the ex- 
 pense of the first, and in doing so we have weakened the 
 character of the race. 
 
 Copying headlines, like all conscious imitation, tends 
 to make a race of copyists, of unreasoning imitators, who 
 live and die in bondage to those who assume the right 
 to do their thinking for them. The time must come 
 when there shall be no more mere copying in learning 
 to write; when writing shall be, in mechanical execu- 
 tion as well as in thought expression, the representation 
 of conceptions defined in the mind of the child, not of 
 form conceptions defined on paper by some other person. 
 The true test of writing is not the writing done while 
 the mind is concentrated on the writing itself, but the 
 writing done while the mind is filled with original 
 thought which has to be expressed in written form. 
 Copying subordinates individuality, and prevents the 
 true conception of the independence and responsibility 
 of the human soul. All conscious imitation, even of 
 good, is weakening. 
 
 Imitation by unconscious childhood is the process by 
 which the self-activity of the child is evolved from the 
 
238 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 instinctive bodily movements made by the child to de- 
 fine its muscular powers and lay the foundation for 
 brain and neurological co-ordination. But there is a vast 
 difference between unconscious and conscious imitation. 
 The former is natural and helpful; the latter is certain 
 to weaken individuality and character. As the human 
 race rises to higher planes it loses the tendency to imi- 
 tate. The schools should help men to rise by climbing, 
 not by holding on to some one else. We should not be 
 satisfied with any teaching process based on imitation. 
 
 It is wrong to make the child express our matured 
 conceptions of the form of any object. It should ex- 
 press its own mental picture, not ours. Its power to 
 express by hand, or tongue, or face, or gesture, is weak- 
 ened every time it tries to express what it does not clearly 
 conceive. Its power to express its individual self is I 
 weakened every time it attempts to express the concep- 
 tion of anybody else. Such a course destroys the har- 
 mony that should exist between conception and repre- 
 sentation, and loss of harmony always means loss of 
 power. The crude lines made by a child to represent a 
 bird, a worm, a flower, a man, or a horse, may suggest 
 no picture to our minds, but they are realities to the 
 child who made them. A child^s efforts to express its 
 own, not some other person's conceptions, defines its 
 conceptions, and clearer conceptions give greater power 
 of expression. 
 
 The fettering of spontaneity and individuality by 
 divorcing self from expression in the use of language, 
 especially in bad methods of teaching oral expression, 
 has been more destructive of individual power than even 
 the methods of training in expression with the hand. 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 239 
 
 Language, according to Froebel, should be " the self- ^ 
 active outward expression of the inner. It is the expres- 
 sion of the human mind, as N^ature is the expression of 
 the Divine mind." Both in schools of elocution and in 
 public schools expression has taken the place of self- 
 expression. No one can ever regain his highest power • 
 to express his own thoughts who was forced into formal- 
 ism by bad methods of teaching oral reading when a 
 child. There can be no method by which young children 
 can be kept for years expressing the thoughts of others 
 in the language of others without arresting the develop- 
 ment of self-expression. Oral expression should be an 
 ever-growing power. Men possess more power of oral 
 expression in childhood than in maturity; more freedom, 
 more naturalness, and less self-consciousness. This most 
 unsatisfactory result must be brought about by improper 
 methods of teaching. Oral expression would keep pace 
 with the growing soul if it were developed as self-expres- 
 sion, and not as the expression of the thought and lan- 
 guage of others. 
 
 Nearly all training in oral expression given in the 
 schools has been limited to oral reading, yet oral read- 
 ing is the least developing form of oral expression. As 
 practised in the past, it has made men weaker than chil- 
 dren in the essentials of good oral expression. It is an- 
 other illustration of the deterioration of strengthening 
 self-consciousness into weakening self-consciousness 
 through improper methods. 
 
 Oral self-expression has received very little attention 
 yet, even in the most advanced schools. It is the only 
 form of oral expression that gives complete development 
 to selfhood or individuality. ^^ Allowing the thoughts 
 
240 FROEBELS EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 of others to run through our minds is not thinking." 
 Expressing the "thoughts of others in the language of 
 others has little if any beneficial effect on the thought 
 or self-expression of the child. As usually practised it 
 is injurious in its influence, because it interferes with 
 thought concentration, it weakens the natural power 
 of self-expression, and develops weakening self-con- 
 sciousness. Even where oral self-expression has been 
 introduced into schools, teachers usually prevent com- 
 plete self-expression by assigning the subjects for the 
 pupils. 
 
 In most schools, however, the methods at present in 
 use develop the form or means of expression without 
 aiming to develop the individuality that should be ex- 
 pressed, and that should give life and impressiveness and 
 originality to the expression. In all forms of representa- 
 tive expression, modelling, painting, drawing, etc., the 
 pupils have been trained to imitate the representations of 
 others, instead of revealing their own inner life of 
 thought and feeling. Even dramatic expression has been 
 taught by mechanical rules describing attitudes and 
 facial expressions to correspond with the various con- 
 ditions of thought and shades of feeling. These pro- 
 cesses, by which teachers attempted to teach expression 
 from without instead of from within, led to simulation, 
 not stimulation, to formalism and hypocrisy instead of 
 true vitality of character. The soul, the selfhood, the 
 individuality was not trained. 
 
 The expression of original thought has not yet re- 
 ceived due attention in connection with either written 
 or oral language training. The great aim should be 
 thought expression in both cases. Care should be taken 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF EXPRESSION. 241 
 
 to guide the child to new and richer departments of 
 thought. The inner should be stored and enriched, and 
 its enrichment is the surest way to enrich and beautify 
 the language. Clear, strong thoughts never lack ex- 
 pression. Henry Irving was right when he said to the 
 Harvard students: "If you are true to your individu- 
 ality, and have great original thoughts, they will find 
 their way to the hearts of others as surely as the upland 
 waters burst their way to the sea.'^ 
 
 Froebel said: "Works of high art" (in any depart- , 
 ment — literary, artistic, or constructive) " are always 
 representations of the most individual, the most per- 
 sonal inner life of the artist." The work of every man 
 and woman would be of a higher character if the schools 
 paid more attention to the development of the individual 
 inner life of each child. 
 
 After describing the folly of allowing children to 
 grow up without enriching their inner lives, their minds 
 and spiritual natures, and of substituting for pure sym- 
 bolic development and Nature contemplation " crude, 
 dead, heartless words," he says: "And nevertheless we. 
 expect our children, who have grown up so barren and j 
 empty of feeling, to understand" poets and Nature at a 
 later period. Then the drill-master's art — even in our 
 day and with the children of cultured parents — ^is ex- 
 pected to impart its elocutionary tricks. Behold the 
 poor child, vain and trembling, conceited or timid, re- 
 citing his piece, and say who is most to be pitied, the 
 child, his teacher, the poem, the poet, or the audience." 
 
 The following is written in the same spirit: "It 
 would prove a boon to our children and a blessing to 
 coming generations if we could but come to see that we 
 
 ir 
 
242 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 possess a great oppressive load of extraneous and merely 
 external information and culture, that we foolishly seek 
 to increase this from day to day, and that we are very 
 poor in inner knowledge, in information evolved from 
 our own soul and grown up with it. We should at least' 
 cease mahing a vain display of the thoughts, the knowledge, 
 and even the feelings of others.^' 
 
 The development of individuality in humanity is the 
 true basis for universal freedom. It alone can make 
 men independent, and no man can be free till he is in- 
 dependent, till he is self-respecting and self-determin- 
 ing. Diesterweg, in writing on behalf of Froebel, said: 
 ^^ What might not be the consequences if the dominion 
 of acquired dead notions, and that intellectual servitude 
 which has been propagated from generation to generation 
 hitherto, could be completely banished? '' To make man 
 worthy of freedom was FroebeFs aim. This element 
 in his work alarmed the Prussian Government so that 
 it proscribed the kindergarten in order to prevent the 
 spread of liberal ideas regarding individual independ- 
 ence. It did not know that Froebel's greatest ideal 
 was unity or community, and that by his educational 
 system he was not only making men worthy of freedom, 
 but at the same time laying the only logical founda- 
 tion for harmony between individualism and social- 
 ism. 
 
 Teachers should remember that the destruction of 
 individuality is most complete when the child is most 
 constantly guided by the teacher. Closely graded 
 schools are more likely to weaken selfhood than rural 
 schools. The country boy is free for a considerable part . 
 of each day, even in school, from the teacher's direct in- 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 243 
 
 terferenee, so that his individual efforts are not constant- 
 ly checked. 
 
 Individuality may be restricted by school pro- 
 grammes. Programmes have been too narrow and too 
 abstract, especially in primary classes. The programmes 
 should be wide, because there can be no learning with- 
 out* attention, no attention without interest, and no gen- 
 eral interest can be awakened and sustained without a 
 variety of subjects for study and work. All children are 
 not interested in the same subjects. Attempts to force 
 a child to be equally interested in all subjects weaken its 
 power of attention. The programme should be wide 
 enough to stimulate each child to interested effort on 
 the lines of its highest individual power. It is only 
 when so working that man's growth is as definite, as 
 rapid, and as harmonious as it should be. ^' Blessed is 
 the man that hath found his work,'' said Carlyle; " let 
 him ask no other blessedness." When a child's life runs 
 along the channel of its greatest individual power all 
 the other springs of power in its being flow into that 
 channel, its life becomes broader and deeper, and its 
 current stronger as the years pass away. 
 
 The worst schools are those in which there is least 
 self -activity in working out realizations of original con- 
 ceptions by the pupils. N'o teaching should be allowed 
 to end with the acquisition of power. Power should be 
 applied. Control should be exercised by the teacher in 
 the production of the varied powers that enter into the 
 characters of all well-trained men and women; spon- 
 taneity should be unrestricted in the use of these powers 
 by each individual in the execution of his own plans. 
 In the development of the universal elements of char- 
 
244 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 acter power the trained teacher finds his true place, 
 but in the unfolding of individual character the wisest 
 and most loving teacher should reverently stand with 
 uncovered head to watch the development of the 
 
 5 Divine. The teacher may cultivate power, and may 
 
 j stimulate effort by supplying the conditions of growth, 
 but independent activity alone can give life and 
 
 ' vigour and progressive expansion to individual char- 
 acter. 
 
 \ All methods of developing self-expression from with- 
 out are barriers to real spontaneity. In elocution or oral 
 expression, for instance, the almost universal plan of 
 
 y giving mechanical rules for emphasis and inflection, 
 specifying the tones of voice or gestures to be assumed 
 to represent the feelings, or prescribing the facial ex- 
 pressions to be made to simulate passions, develops 
 formalism and hypocrisy, not soul growth. The soul 
 should dominate the body, and the attempts to make the 
 body respond to or suggest thoughts or feelings that 
 have no real existence in the individual consciousness 
 helps to destroy the real power of body, mind, and spirit. 
 The body may be made erect, graceful, active, and the 
 voice may be made full, rich, elastic, pure, by careful 
 training; but by far the most important training is that 
 which cultivates the mind and heart and accustoms them 
 to the natural control of body and voice. All kinds of 
 training in self-expression are wrong that devote atten- 
 tion directly to the expression more than to the self of 
 the pupil. 
 
 The highest destiny of each human being is the 
 revelation of the Divine essence within him, the con- 
 scious unfolding of his individuality. Education should 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 245 
 
 aid man in the accomplishment of this high destiny. 
 All education that makes children conscious imitators, 
 that assumes to create interest, that forces the develop- 
 ment of any power too early, that substitutes words for 
 definite conceptions, that stamps and moulds to pattern, 
 and that tries to educate from without instead of from 
 within, weakens selfhood and prevents the achievement 
 of man's true life purpose. Froebel said, "All that 
 does not grow out of one's inner being, all that is not 
 one's own original feeling or thought, or at least awak- 
 ens that, oppresses and defaces the individuality ^of man 
 instead of calling it forth; " and again, " The instruction 
 forced upon the child's mind, which does not correspond 
 to its inner stage of development and its measure 
 of power, robs him of his original view of thifigs, 
 and with it of his greatest power and capacity to 
 impress the stamp of his own individuality upon his 
 being." 
 
 Eousseau expressed part of this great thought when 
 he wrote, " Every truth given too early by words plants 
 the seeds of vice in the childish soul." 
 
 Individual powers may be trained to activity with- 
 out developing the individuality. Whenever the indi- 
 vidual is developed in operative power, and not in 
 originating and directing power, true individuality is en- 
 slaved. Its proper functions are usurped by the teach- 
 er's personality. 
 
 Mrs. Browning, who among the poets had the most 
 definite revelation of individual responsibility, makes 
 Aurora Leigh, in refusing to marry the man whom she 
 dearly loved on the conventional condition of the ab- 
 sorption of her life-work in his, say: 
 
246 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 . . . You forget too much 
 That every creature, female as the male, 
 Stands single in responsible act and thought, 
 As also in birth and death. 
 
 And, when parting from him, she said, recognising that 
 individuality was more sacred than even love: 
 
 ... I go hence 
 To London, to the gathering place of souls. 
 To live mine straight out. 
 
 Mrs Browning aimed to make Aurora Leigh the strong- 
 est, truest type of female character revealed in litera- 
 ture. fThe central element of power in her character 
 she made a reverent recognition of her power and duty. 
 Undwarfed hy early tyranny, free in childhood from the 
 coercion of a dominant soul, her soul hecame no incon- 
 gruous mixture, but remained its own real self as it de- 
 veloped. To such souls God always speaks clearly. She 
 heard his word and lived it. She saw his glory and re- 
 vealed it. She felt his power and reproduced it. She 
 recognised the divinity in her own life as her individu- 
 ality, and she was true to it, and " lived her soul straight 
 out.'' 
 
 Froebel's ideal of individual evolution from within 
 is the surest hope of the evolution of humanity to purity 
 and strength. The inner must be the centre from which 
 the life power springs. 
 
 The Christ himself had been no lawgiver, 
 Unless he had given the life too with the law. 
 
 The growth of individual inner life by originative 
 and directive self-activity is a vital law in education. 
 Whatever there is of duty, of purity, of holy aspiration 
 in the child's soul should be helped to grow. Soul growth 
 
INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF-EXPRESSION. 247 
 
 must be from within. Emerson was right in saying, 
 " Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, 
 we must carry it with us or we find it not/^ 
 
 The child is full of holy aspirations. Lead these 
 aspirations out, and everywhere in the wondrous world 
 they will find corresponding beauty, whose enjoyment 
 will prepare them for the appreciation of supernal glories 
 that throughout the universe await the recognition of 
 a higher spiritual insight. Each young heart has a thou- 
 sand strings that should pour forth enrapturing har- 
 mony forever. Break none of the strings. Dare not 
 to play on the wonderful instrument. No other hand 
 can reveal its melody but the hand of the child itself. 
 
CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 OBJECTIVE TEACHING AND MANUAL TKAINING. 
 
 English and American teaching is weaker in its use 
 of objects than in any other department of school work. 
 Pestalozzi^s aim in using objects so largely in his school 
 was to develop the powers by which knowledge is re- 
 ceived into the mind. His purpose was to make all men 
 more comprehensively receptive, to open wider the win- 
 dows of the soul, so that streams of light and knowledge 
 might flow more freely into the mind. English and 
 American teachers are even yet fettered by the concep- 
 tion that objects are to be used merely to communicate 
 knowledge, to give clearer conceptions more easily, more 
 quickly, more definitely, and therefore more perma- 
 nently. Objects are usually brought into the classroom 
 that pupils may learn their qualities, their origin, their 
 construction, and their uses. Even in some of the nor- 
 mal schools, both in England and America, object teach- 
 ing has deteriorated into mere information lessons, or 
 " lessons on common things.^^ Books on object teach- 
 ing are in most cases classified collections of facts relat- 
 ing to objects, which are to be reproduced by the teacher 
 and afterward memorized by the unfortunate pupils. 
 Commonly but one object is used for the whole class, 
 
 248 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 OBJECTIVE TEACHING AND ^N^^V^^^^G, 249 
 
 and it is of service only as the objective title to a dull 
 and necessarily uninteresting and undeveloping lesson. 
 In good schools^ it is true, every child has in its hands 
 a specimen of the object under consideration, or each 
 pupil individually examines the object and makes draw- 
 ings or models of it; but there are comparatively few 
 schools in which objects are used for any higher purpose 
 than to give increased knowledge of the things studied 
 or to illustrate lessons on number, form, colour, etc. 
 
 Such lessons are infinitely better than lessons in 
 which information is communicated by words, but they 
 are much inferior in aim to the lessons Pestalozzi tried 
 to give with objects. The very name "object lesson'^ 
 is misleading, as it is calculated to direct attention to 
 the object more than to the child. Whenever knowl- 
 edge predominates over the development of the child 
 in the mind of the teacher and in the plans and meth- 
 ods of the schoolroom, the education is defective. 
 Knowledge is of great importance, but if it is made the 
 dominant ideal neither the development of the child 
 nor the communication of knowledge can reach its best 
 limit. Pestalozzi's lessons with objects gave knowledge 
 to his pupils, but knowledge was not their direct aim. 
 Increase in power and activity of faculty was his ideal. 
 
 Froebel was not satisfied with Pestalozzi's use of 
 objects. He was never satisfied with any method that 
 had for its aim the development of receptivity alone. 
 He knew that receptivity was but the initial step in the ' 
 related sequence of receptivity, reflection, and execution; 
 and he never forgot that, while the subordinate opera- 
 tions in a progressively related sequence have little if 
 any direct influence on the development of the higher. 
 
250 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 the activity of the highest stage of any sequence must 
 necessarily call all subordinate processes into their most 
 complete^ most natural, and most developing activity. 
 
 Froebel, therefore, made creativeness the all-inclu- 
 sive mental operation, knowing that it required the ex- 
 ercise of the reasoning and receptive powers to be more 
 energetic, more definite, and more productive than any 
 subordinate operation. His friend and coworker, Barop, 
 wrote : " The awakening of this eager desire for learn- 
 ing and creative activity was one of the fundamental 
 thoughts of Frederick FroebePs mind. The object teach- 
 ing of Pestalozzi seemed to him not to go far enough; and 
 he was always seeking to regard man not only as a re- 
 ceptive being, but a creative and especially a productive 
 one.^^ 
 
 Froebel aimed to communicate knowledge, to illus- 
 trate abstractions, to arouse, define, and strengthen the 
 observant or receptive powers, and to train the reflec- 
 tive or reasoning powers by his objective work. But he 
 aimed to do much more than this. These are but steps 
 leading to man's highest mental function, originality, 
 creativity, or the revelation of individuality by produc- 
 tive self-expression. Froebel used material things to 
 reveal selfhood, and the assimilation of knowledge, the 
 increase in the power, the accuracy and the quickness of 
 the receptive faculties, and the improvement of the rea- 
 soning powers resulted as absolutely necessary accom- 
 paniments of the creativeness. 
 
 By his gifts and occupations he provided for a most 
 comprehensive system of arousing the child's observant 
 powers, of giving new conceptions regarding mathemati- 
 cal forms and principles, of unfolding the artistic and 
 
OBJECTIVE TEACnma AND MANUAL TEAINING. 251 
 
 constructive elements in the child's mind, and of defin- 
 ing all these developing ideals by using varied kinds of 
 material to express in visible form its own original con- 
 ceptions. How utterly insignificant is the common 
 object work of the schools when compared with this com- 
 prehensive use of material in making the child's environ- 
 ment the direct agency in the development of its indi- 
 viduality! 
 
 His gifts were chosen with great care and wisdom 
 to suit the unfolding consciousness of the child, to fill 
 it with new conceptions suitable to its advancement, and 
 to aid it in its artistic, mathematical, and simple con- 
 structive development. The occupations give produc- 
 tive employment to the child, and develop its inventive 
 power, its artistic ability, and its constructive power; 
 in short, they provide means of expression for the child's 
 original conceptions, and reveal its inner powers to itself 
 and its teachers. 
 
 There are many points of superiority in Froebel's 
 objective work when compared with that done in most 
 schools. In ordinary objective work the child is recep- 
 tive, Froebel made it creative; the schools give in- 
 formation, Froebel gave power; the schools allow the 
 child to see, or at best to examine, the object, Froebel 
 allowed it to use it; the schools ask the child what it 
 can find out about the object, Froebel encouraged it to 
 find what it could do with it; the schools sometimes 
 permit the child to make a representation of the object, 
 Froebel required it to transform it into some other form 
 as an expression of an original thought of its own; the 
 schools are satisfied with increasing the store of knowl- 
 edge, or at best with enlarging faculty power, Froebel 
 
252 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 desired the assimilation of knowledge by using it as it 
 is acquired, and exercised the whole productive intel- 
 lect; the schools bring the outer material to the inner 
 life of the child, Froebel led the child^s inner life to 
 dominate and transform its material environment. 
 
 " The child must reproduce with matter what he 
 has received into himself from the external world in 
 order to understand iV Froebel did not mean by this 
 statement that what is taken in is to be reproduced just 
 as it is received. The statement is a condensation of his 
 principle that receptivity alone can not make knowledge 
 clear, that the internal must use the external before the 
 outer becomes really a part of the inner. 
 
 Froebel gave a spiritual meaning to all material 
 things. " It is quite a different thing," he says, " wheth- 
 er we look upon concrete things and facts as merely ma- 
 terial, the things and facts serving for this or that out- 
 ward purpose, or contemplate them as the outward form 
 of spiritual contents, as the intermedium of higher 
 truths and higher knowledge." He taught that " it is 
 in this sense that education needs to use the material 
 world." Teachers may not be able to comprehend this 
 symbolic use of material things as clearly as Froebel did, 
 but the conception of his aim in using objects should 
 revolutionize the teaching of so-called " object lessons." 
 
 It is in the department of manual training that the 
 schools are now gaining their clearest ideas of Froebel's 
 use of material things for the development of the inner 
 life of the child. Even here, as in object teaching proper, 
 teachers have passed through the narrow utilitarian 
 stage before reaching the educational basis for introduc- 
 ing manual training into the schools. 
 
OBJECTIVE TEACHING AKD MANUAL TKAINING. 253 
 
 Froebel saw the need of manual training to broaden 
 the school programme^ to give the race greater skill, and 
 to lead men to love work; but he advocated its intro- 
 duction into schools for much stronger reasons. His 
 reasons were educational, not economic or utilitarian. 
 He valued the change wrought in selfhood more than the 
 products of its work or the improvement in hand skill. 
 
 The intellectual and moral advantages of manual 
 training are gradually unfolding in the minds of edu- 
 cators, but none of FroebeFs successors have as yet taken 
 as high ground as he did in regard to them. He made 
 work a handmaid of religion, and believed that, if chil- 
 dren were trained to regard work as a means of self-ex- 
 pression, it would always be to them a means of joy — the 
 joy that should always spring from the accomplishment 
 of a true inner purpose. " Early work," he says, " guided 
 in accordance with its inner meaning, confirms and ele- 
 vates religion. Eeligion without industry, without work, 
 is liable to be lost in empty dreams, worthless visions, 
 idle fancies. Similarly, work or industry without reli- 
 gion degrades man into a beast of burden, a machine." 
 
 " God creates and works productively in uninter- 
 rupted continuity. . . . God created man in his own 
 image; therefore man should create and bring forth like 
 God. The spirit of man should hover over the shape- 
 less, and move it that it may take shape and form, a dis- 
 tinct being and life of its own. This is the high meaning, 
 the deep significance, the great purpose of work and indus- 
 try, of productive and creative activity. We become truly 
 Godlike in diligence and industry, in working and doing, 
 which are accompanied by the clear perception or even 
 by the vaguest feeling that thereby we represent the 
 
254 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 inner in the outer; that we give hody to spirit and form 
 to thought; that we render visible the invisible/^ 
 
 " Primarily and in truth man works only that his 
 spiritual, Divine essence may assume outward form, and 
 that thus he may be enabled to recognise his own spir- 
 itual, Divine nature and the innermost being of God." 
 
 Froebel saw, too, the purely intellectual advantages 
 of manual training. " Plastic material representation 
 in life and through doing, united with thought and 
 speech, is by far more developing and cultivating than 
 the merely verbal representation of ideas. The life of 
 the boy has, indeed, no purpose hut that of the. outer 
 representation of his self; his life is, in truth, but an ex- 
 ternal representation of his inner being, of his power, 
 particularly in and through material 
 
 The most important products of manual training are 
 the invisible, not the visible. Brain making and brain 
 co-ordination are the direct results of manual training. 
 Nearly all school processes develop only a one-power 
 brain. Every educational process that either communi- 
 cates knowledge directly to the child or trains the child 
 to acquire knowledge for itself, and stops there, develops 
 the sensor or receiving brain power only. It matters 
 little, so far as complete brain development is concerned, 
 whether the knowledge is communicated by words or 
 through real things, whether it is received from the 
 teacher ready made or gathered by the pupil himself. 
 If school education stops at receptivity and reflection, at 
 the acquisition of knowledge and the development of 
 the knowledge-gathering and reasoning powers, the 
 motor brain remains undeveloped, and the co-ordination 
 of the sensor and motor neurological systems remains 
 
OBJECTIVE TEACHING AND MANUAL TRAINING. 255 
 
 practically uninfluenced by school education. Fortu- 
 nately there are many opportunities for the development 
 of these most important departments of brain power 
 outside of school^ but they are fewer and less stimulat- 
 ing in cities than in rural districts, and men are gather- 
 ing in increasingly large numbers in cities. Even in the 
 country, however, the schools should leave no important 
 part of the child's development to chance; but there is 
 a much greater need of manual training in cities and 
 towns than in rural districts, not merely to give manual 
 skill as a basis for industrial success, but to aid in the 
 development and co-ordination of the brain. Froebel 
 believed that a child's evolution could not be completed 
 in perfect manhood unless it was brought in early years 
 "under the influence of Nature, of useful handiworky 
 and of religious feelings.'' 
 
 Mr. Bowen claims for Froebel the fatherhood of all 
 rational manual training, and he is clearly right in doing 
 so. He says: " We distinctly assert that manual train- 
 ing, and in particular Sloyd, which have been making 
 such marked progress on both sides of the Atlantic of 
 late, are direct and undeniable outcomes of FroeheVs views, 
 and that, unless they are dealt with on Froebelian prin- 
 ciples, they are certain to be little better than a waste of 
 time.'' The founder of Sloyd explicitly states that he 
 received his idea of the introduction of handwork chiefly 
 from Froebel. Indeed, he was led to prepare his Sloyd 
 work as a continuation of Froebel's kindergarten work, 
 so that pupils could continue their handwork after they 
 passed the kindergarten age. 
 
 Froebel's marvellous insight and his great logical 
 power can be realized in no better way than by tracing 
 
256 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS.' 
 
 the devious paths and lahorious efforts of his successors in 
 climbing slowly to the heights from which he saw the 
 clear light of truth in regard to soul growth through 
 self-expression by material things. The name " manual 
 training/^ like the term '' object lesson/^ has been 
 narrowing. It has directed attention to the external 
 instead of the inner development, to the production of 
 things more than to the production of character. His 
 successors caught the form of his thought without its 
 life. In nearly every essential they have climbed pain- 
 fully backward, instead of leaping upward with their 
 faces toward the light. 
 
 Through the wilderness of " trade schools " educa- 
 tors gradually reached the higher ground of hand train- 
 ing without special association with any particular trade, 
 but as a qualification for better work in any field of in- 
 dustrial life. Here they groped for a generation, and 
 here the great body of those who have climbed at all still 
 remain looking down instead of up. 
 
 During the last few years the most advanced leaders 
 have seen and taught that the true basis on which the 
 introduction of manual training into schools should rest 
 is educational, and not economic or utilitarian. Froebel 
 saw and taught this long ago, and his exemplification 
 of this principle in the use of material in the kinder- 
 garten has done more than all other agencies to help 
 others to see clearly what he saw. 
 
 Few have yet been able to follow Froebel to the 
 mountain top from which he saw in manual training, 
 in the constructive and transforming use of material, 
 the revelation of the complete inner life of the child 
 and the basis of its moral training. To Froebel we owe 
 
OBJECTIVE TEACHING AND MANUAL TRAINING. 257 
 
 our limited conception of the educational value of man- 
 ual training, to him we shall owe our greater enlighten- 
 ment when in the coming days we shall see heyond the 
 mists and shadows, and understand that the proper use 
 of objects or material things not only reveals new knowl- 
 edge, widens and strengthens our faculties, develops and 
 co-ordinates our brain power, and cultivates our execu- 
 tive force, but that it is the operative i foundation of spir- 
 itual evolution. 
 
 Educators, especially in England and America, began 
 as far as possible from Froebel's position in the part of 
 the school curriculum to which they assigned manual 
 training. Froebel gave manual training in many adapted 
 forms to the little children; his successors began by giv- 
 ing it to the oldest pupils in the high schools. Here, 
 again, the development, where any has taken place, is 
 slowly but progressively toward Froebel. Grade by 
 grade downward manual training is forcing its way. 
 In time men will see what Froebel saw so clearly long 
 ago, that the developing influence of the use of material 
 in productive self-activity is greatest in the early years 
 of the child^s evolution, and that if not begun then it 
 can never by any possibility produce its best effects. 
 Like all other education whose germs have not been de- 
 veloped in the first evolutionary stage, its later develop- 
 ment is correspondingly weak and formal. The kinder- 
 garten will in time become the universal basis for man- 
 ual training, because it uses handwork as a means of 
 head and heart growth, and at the period in the child's 
 life when it is most developing. 
 
 FroebePs objective work differs radically from Pes- 
 talozzi's, and from that of all Pestalozzi's followers in the 
 18 
 
258 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 way in which the child is required to express what it has 
 learned from the objects used. Pestalozzi's children 
 expressed their new ideas in words only. They gained 
 ideas from objects and expressed them in words. Froe- 
 bel used the object both to reveal and express new con- 
 ceptions. Most teachers yet limit the use of objects to 
 the in-taking of knowledge; their most developing use 
 is in the out-giving of ideas. This best use of objects 
 we owe to Froebel. Froebel was not satisfied with a 
 revelation of the law of objective representation of ideas 
 by constructive self-activity. He selected, constructed, 
 and classified material of various kinds, and gave it to 
 the child in the forms and quantities best adapted to 
 define and express its ideas. To do this cost him years 
 of careful study of childhood and its processes of self- 
 revelation. Again, he showed his most distinctive char- 
 acteristic of " translating psychological principles into 
 psychological practice." 
 
 Froebel himself expressed in the following brief 
 statement the great purposes for which he used material 
 in his educational system: " The time has now come to 
 exalt all work into free activity — that is, to make it in- 
 telligent action. This can only take place when the law, 
 according to which all formative activity proceeds, is 
 recognised and consciously applied, as it has been hither- 
 to unconsciously applied. The occupation material of 
 my method gives the means of unconscious application 
 of the law on the children's part to rise to art in such 
 a way as to come to their consciousness by degrees and 
 be recognised as the guide and regulator of all forma- 
 tion. In no other way can human work be transformed 
 into free activity. It can only become intellectual action 
 
OBJECTIVE TEACHING AND MANUAL TRAINING. 259 
 
 out of what has been mere mechanical action when the 
 occupation of the hand is at the same time the occupa- 
 tion of the mind. At the present time art alone can 
 truly be called free activity, but every human work 
 corresponds more or less with creative activity, and this 
 is necessary in order to make man the image of his Divine 
 Creator — a creator on his own part in miniature/^ 
 
 These sentences will bear careful rereading once a 
 month. 
 
CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 EVOLUTION. 
 
 Haying written largely in regard to evolution in 
 previous chapters^ especially in Chapters I and III, it is 
 unnecessary to do more than quote Froebel's own words 
 to unfold his conception of evolution. Like all basal 
 laws, it is interwoven with all other truth, and has neces- 
 sarily been kept in view when considering his other laws. 
 The following quotations show what an inspiring and 
 illuminating influence the law of evolution had in Froe- 
 bel's life. It is an essential feature in his philosophy as 
 the only possible foundation for progressive advance- 
 ment in the individual and in the race. It is the true 
 source of hope to the teacher, as it gives a logical basis 
 for belief in man's intellectual and spiritual develop- 
 ment. 
 
 '' Man, humanity in man, as an external manifesta- 
 tion, should be looked upon not as perfectly developed, 
 not as fixed and stationary, but as steadily and pro- 
 gressively growing, in a state of ever-living development, 
 ever ascending from one stage of culture to another 
 toward its aim which partakes of the infinite and eter- 
 nal.'^ 
 
 " It is unspeakably pernicious to look upon the de- 
 260 
 
EVOLUTION. 261 
 
 velopment of humanity as stationary and completed, 
 and to see in its present phases simply repetitions and 
 greater generalization of itself. For the child, as well 
 as every successive generation, becomes thereby exclu- 
 sively imitative, an external dead copy — as it were, a 
 cast of the preceding one — and not a living ideal for its 
 stage of development which it had attained in human 
 development considered as a whole, to serve future gen- 
 erations in all time to come. Indeed, each successive 
 generation, and each successive individual human being, 
 inasmuch as he would understand the past and present, 
 must pass through all preceding phases of human de- 
 velopment and culture, and this should not be done in 
 the way of dead imitation or mere copying, hut in the 
 way of living, spontaneous self -activity.'^ 
 
 " God neither ingrafts nor inoculates. He develops 
 the most trivial and imperfect things in continuously 
 ascending series and in accordance with external, self- 
 grounded, and self-developing laws.'^ 
 
 ^^ In general, whatever of human education and de- 
 velopment has been neglected in boyhood will never be 
 retrieved.^^ 
 
 " Every phase of development, however beautiful and 
 proper in its place, must vanish and perish whenever a 
 higher phase is to appear. The sheltering bud scales 
 must fall when the young branch or the fragrant blos- 
 som is to unfold, however much these tender forms may 
 thereby be exposed to the rough weather of the spring. 
 The fragrant blossom must make room for a fruit, at 
 first sour, hard, and homely. The luscious red-cheeked 
 fruit must decay that vigorous young plants and trees 
 may sprout forth." 
 
262 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 '' One's own perceptions awaken one's own concep- 
 tions, and these awaken one's own thinking in later 
 stages of development. Let ns have no precocity, but 
 natural — that is, consecutive— organic development." 
 
 " The laws of the universe are the same as the laws 
 of human education. Kindergartens form a stage of 
 development in the culture of man out of which the suc- 
 ceeding stages will follow according to a determined 
 law, as is the case in organic life." 
 
 "Every new stage of human development which 
 occurs in its own time as surely as the time itself comes, 
 and like the time brings in cyclical consequence its own 
 peculiarities, increases the capacity for the understand- 
 ing of truth, and thus broadens the knowledge of God.'^ 
 
 " Humanity, looked at externally, is not seen to be 
 an already perfected thing, not an absolutely established, 
 lasting thing, but a continually progressive, growing 
 thing, rising from one stage of culture to another, strid- 
 ing toward the goal that touches upon infinity." 
 
 Christ said, " I am come that they might have life, 
 and that they might have it more ahundantly/' Froebel, 
 since Christ, is the greatest revealer of the ideal of " more 
 abundant life." He saw the ascending stages in God's 
 created works, from inorganic matter, through organ- 
 ized life in E'ature, to man and to the centre of the of^ 
 ganic whole, God himself. He noted the progressive 
 sequence of related stages in the growth of plant life, 
 animal life, and man. He saw the similarity between 
 individual man and humanity in gradually unfolding 
 development. He believed that new revelations are 
 made to the race and to individuals when they are made 
 ready for the new revelation by having consciously 
 
EVOLUTION. 263 
 
 lived up to the revelations already made. He looked 
 for a continuously progressive ascent of the human race 
 from one higher stage of culture to a still higher, limit- 
 ing the highest only by "the goal that touches upon 
 infinity." The duty of all men, especially of teachers, is 
 to help the race to leap from stage to stage in its evolu- 
 tion toward the light. 
 
 The history of the race proves the possibility of up- 
 ward development. The world moves on to a higher 
 ground, and as it moves the light grows brighter and 
 sight grows clearer. Old beliefs and theories and con- 
 ventionalities fall away into the valley of errors. Each 
 generation marvels at the darkness of the one that pre- 
 ceded it. Each man regrets his father's benighted con- 
 dition, and is in turn pitied by his son. As men become 
 more free they rise to higher stages more rapidly. There 
 is no department of life-work in which there are fixed 
 conditions. Scientists, doctors, teachers, statesmen, 
 even the theologians, grow beyond their shells, and build 
 each year " more stately mansions " for their souls, leav- 
 ing " the past year's dwelling for the new." 
 
 To every man and woman Froebel said, what Holmes 
 said so exquisitely after him: 
 
 Leave thy low- vaulted past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea. 
 
 What inspiration and hope the idea of evolution 
 brings to the teacher! He is no longer a hearer of les- ^ 
 sons, a teacher of words, or even a developer of power. 
 He is a stimulator and helper of life to higher life. Mid- 
 
264 FROBBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 dendorff said: "To tend human germs in a constantly 
 progressive manner in every new stage of human devel- 
 opment is certainly no mean calling, but the greatest 
 and most important for every generation." Every teach- 
 er may climb where others never climbed. For the sake 
 of humanity and for our own growth we should climb 
 along new paths lighting beacon fires as we go up. The 
 best thing we can do for another soul is to start it to 
 climb for itself. 
 
 The rainbow rests on the crest of the mountain yon- 
 der. The pot of gold lies where the rainbow touches 
 the hilltop. What though the glorious bow moves on to 
 crown a higher peak as we ascend? There is joy in the 
 fact that there is always another hill to climb with a 
 new pot of gold at the top. 
 
 The Baroness von Marenholz-Biilow, in replying to 
 the insinuation that FroebePs principles were in har- 
 mony with those of the revolutionary party in Germany, 
 said: "The motto of the revolution is overthrow , while 
 Froebel's motto is development — development of men and 
 things." ^ 
 
 Evolution is now one of the central ideals of educa- 
 tion. We owe it largely to Froebel. Dr. Harris says: 
 " Inner connection is, in fact, the law of development, 
 the principle of evolution, and Froebel is the educational 
 reformer who has done more than all the rest to make valid 
 in education what the Germans call the ^ developing 
 method.' " 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 FROEBEL^S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Chahactee building is the supreme aim of FroebeFs 
 educational system. His principles of moral and reli- 
 gious culture are therefore worthy of careful study. 
 
 He applied precisely the same laws to the revelation 
 of ideals of right, justice, duty, and will that he applied 
 in the general development of the child. The law of 
 evolution led him to believe that the development of 
 moral and religious ideals must be a progressive growth 
 adapted to the expanding stages of the child^s life. He 
 never made the child a formalist or a hypocrite by 
 forcing on it a mature theology or the conduct of an 
 adult. The law of evolution revealed to him also the 
 necessity for implanting in early years the formative ele- 
 ments of moral and religious life, and gave the inspir- 
 ing conception of progressive growth to higher life. His 
 law of unity prevented his making the blunder of dis- 
 sociating the highest life of man from his common every- 
 day experience. In this way he dignified work and 
 made religion practical. His recognition of the sacred- 
 ness of individuality made him expect a distinct moral 
 and religious evolution for each individual. His law of 
 community taught duty, helpfulness, and co-operation, 
 ^ 265 
 
2G6 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 The law of apperception led him to see the impossibility 
 of giving a religious training at all, unless the germs of 
 religious feeling and thought were implanted in the 
 child's life. 
 
 He believed the three foundation elements in a reli- 
 gious life to be community, love, and life. The child's 
 earliest feelings of community and love he would have 
 developed in the loving family life, and its unconscious 
 basis for the conscious revelation of active, progressive, 
 evolving life he would lead it to gain from sympathetic 
 contemplation of Nature. 
 
 Speaking of the family, he says: " This feeling of 
 community, first uniting the child wdth mother, father, 
 brothers, and sisters, and resting on a higher spiritual 
 unity, to which later on is added the unmistakable dis- 
 covery that father, mother, brothers, sisters, human 
 beings in general, feel and know themselves to be in 
 community and unity with a higher principle — with 
 humanity, with God — this feeling of community is the 
 mry first germ of all true religious spirit, of all genuine 
 yearning for unhindered unification with the eternal, 
 with God.'' 
 
 "Inasmuch as every separating tendency hinders 
 pure human development, man, even in childhood, re- 
 fers everything to family life, beholds everything 
 through family life, as is shown so clearly in child- 
 hood." 
 
 " Pure human, parental, and filial relations are the 
 key, the first condition, of that heavenly, Divine, father- 
 ly, and filial relation and life of a genuine Christian life 
 in thought and action." 
 
 " The comprehension of the purely spiritual human 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 267 
 
 relations, of the true parental and filial relations, fur- 
 nishes the only key for the recognition and apprehension 
 of the relations of God to man and of man to God/^ 
 
 " As long as mothers do not know how to admin- 
 ister the priestly office at home for their children's bene- 
 fit, so long will their piety suffer." 
 
 One of his great purposes was the ennoblement of 
 family life. He desired to make it pure, true, loving, 
 that it might fix in the child's nature types of purity, 
 truth, and love, and become to it an emblematic repre- 
 sentation of perfect society and of the relationship of 
 humanity to God. He valued the life of the home far 
 more than any moral or religious teachings of the home, 
 although he did not underestimate these provided they 
 were wisely given and were suitable to the child's stage 
 of development. 
 
 As he made family life the source of true religious 
 feeling, he made Nature the book in which the child in 
 early years can find its clearest thoughts of God, and re- 
 ceive into its mind the apperceptive germs to which may 
 be related the most vital elements of religious thought. 
 He speaks often and strongly on this question. He ob- 
 jected vigorously to the deadening practice of attempt- 
 ing to reveal spiritual truth or any other truth to a mind 
 in which there are no related centres established by ex- 
 perience. The following thoughts are types of many 
 others found in his writings: 
 
 " We have to open the eyes of our children, that they 
 may learn to know the Creator in his creations. Only 
 when they have found or divined God as the Creator 
 through visible things will they learn to understand the 
 ^Word of God' — God in spirit and in truth — and be 
 
268 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 able to become Christians. First is the visible world, 
 then the invisible truth — the idea.^^ 
 
 " The capacity for belief or sense of truth is killed 
 out in the childish heart when the truth is presented to 
 it only in the form of abstract language.^^ 
 
 " By pointing out God's works while rambling 
 through the scenes pf Nature a thousand opportunities 
 offer for worship/' 
 
 The contemplation of Nature's processes should re- 
 veal God to the child as Creator^ and this is the first 
 step toward true knowledge of his being. It also reveals 
 the element of life and of developing lif e^ and from these 
 the child learns to recognise the possibility of human 
 evolution. By its nurture of the life in Nature it learns 
 its power to improve life^ and by sowing the seeds of 
 plants it realizes that it may aid in the increase of life. 
 These thoughts^ when their time of fruitage in charac- 
 ter arrives, enable the child to realize that it has power 
 to help all life to higher, better, purer, truer life. This 
 is one of the most energizing thoughts that lie at the 
 foundation of true religious life. 
 
 The germination of a seed, the growth of a plant, 
 the unfolding of a bud, the blooming of a flower, the 
 structure of a leaf, the song of a bird, the love and mys- 
 teries of a bird's nest, the home-making of an insect, the 
 evolution of a worm into a butterfly, the rippling of a 
 brook, the vastness of the ocean, the majesty of a moun- 
 tain, the movement of trees in the wind — all these Froe- 
 bel uses to quicken the intellectual and spiritual life of 
 the child. It must not be understood that Froebel ex- 
 pected the child to be made conscious of God by its life 
 amid the mysteries of Nature during its uncbnscious 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 269 
 
 stage of development. This he would deplore. The 
 revelation of life as the unifying and evolving power in 
 ISTature was his aim. He believed that by the recogni- 
 tion of life in Nature and by performing all its work in 
 the kindergarten in a logical, progressive, evolving se- 
 quence, the ideals of life and law would definitely unfold 
 in the child^s consciousness, and ultimately reveal God 
 not only as the source of life and law, but as life and law, 
 the all-pervading elements that give unity and progres- 
 sive evolution to the universe. "Knowledge of God, 
 like all knowledge, enters the human mind by degrees 
 from the first presentiment up to faith, and then on to 
 sight, till the spirit comes up into highest unity or con- 
 sciousness of God.^^ 
 
 Nature is the most sacred temple for the child. In 
 it the child gives its truest worship, unconsciously over- 
 flowing with adoration and receiving into its life silent 
 streams of reverence and elements of vital truth direct 
 from the centre of life to strengthen its soul as naturally 
 as the trees and flowers around it are nourished by the 
 material elements that give them life and growth. What 
 life-revealing and life-stimulating sermons are preached 
 to it by the seed, the plant, the bud, the flower, and the 
 worm in their evolution toward a new life! What 
 hymns are sung to it by cricket and bee and bird! What 
 revelations of joy and peace and majesty and glory enter 
 its spiritual life as it lies on a June day looking beyond 
 the floating clouds, and dimly conscious of the melody 
 and mystery of life! 
 
 From the lips of an enraptured worshipper, who was 
 five years old, and into whose life flowed comfort and joy 
 and elation from the myriad sights and sounds of Na- 
 
270 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 ture till her heart overflowed^ came with reverent sweet- 
 ness the words^ " Thank you, God/^ Her religious life 
 was developing from within. It had no formalism, or 
 any other element of death. It was the spontaneous ex- 
 pression of real feeling, and not a mere ceremonial. She 
 felt a faith she never could have learned by words. 
 
 Froebel aimed to make mothers and teachers wise 
 enough to train childhood so that its spiritual evolution 
 might never be arrested. Only a few great souls carry 
 over into their conscious life the undimmed insight, the 
 untiring alertness, and the ever-increasing assimilating 
 power of their spiritual natures in unconscious child- 
 hood. The best growth of humanity must be forever 
 retarded so long as its highest power is dwarfed by weak 
 or false training. 
 
 The loving contemplation of Nature prepares the 
 child for the recognition of the underlying universal 
 law of unity, and ultimately for man^s greatest revela- 
 tion — that he is himself subject to this same law, and 
 responsible for bringing himself into harmony with it, 
 that he may reach his best development as an individual, 
 and become fully qualified for the fulfilment of his 
 highest destiny, and do his part nobly in applying this 
 law in the universal community of which he is an essen- 
 tial part. 
 
 Many scientists have made science a basis for unbe- 
 lief. Froebel made it an essential part of the basis of 
 true religion, a revealer of God; the only true revealer 
 to the child of life, reverence for life, evolution in life, 
 and therefore of the conception of the possibility of 
 higher human life and of human power to aid all human 
 life to higher life. 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 271 
 
 The Baroness von Marenholz-Biilow said, in con- 
 versation with Middendorff : " In our time men seem to 
 have forgotten Nature in favour of spirit, and objects 
 in favour of abstractions; the word is separated from 
 the thing and governs, and generally, only as a mere 
 empty word, is not understood. It is quite clear to me 
 that rroebeFs method and doctrine will reverse this 
 process, and first connect facts with the outer and inner 
 experience as their root and their cause. Thus only can 
 the spirit of truth, which is the Spirit of God, again be 
 recognised as one and the same in Nature and in the 
 mind. FroebeFs idea of education strives to bring to the 
 full consciousness of men their relations to Nature (the 
 Divine nature), and thereby must the relation of men 
 to God (in the Spirit) and to all that is divine, as Chris- 
 tianity teaches, be lifted to higher and clearer recogni- 
 tion. One side of truth verifies and explains the other 
 side/^ Middendorff replied: " You are right. One truth 
 must ever confirm another; the recognised truth will 
 be more clearly and deeply understood through every 
 new one discovered. The spirit of Christianity, so very 
 much misunderstood and mistaken at present, will 
 awaken to new life in children, and appear in a new and 
 higher light, when FroebeFs idea of education has been 
 practically applied. This is my deepest conviction." 
 
 Froebel believed "that we may restrain the sins 
 which spring from the animal appetite when we direct 
 the regards of the child to something that satisfies his 
 higher ideal or spiritual wants.'^ These higher spiritual 
 powers are a part of the child^s nature at birth, and they 
 need to be nourished in order that they may grow. As 
 the body grows by receiving proper nutrition, so the 
 
272 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 spiritual nature develops if it is satisfied; as the body 
 dies from lack of proper nourishment, so does the spir- 
 itual nature lose its vital energy unless supplied with 
 the elements of spiritual interest. " The spiritual un- 
 consciousness into which the child is born is changing 
 into conscious being from the first moment of life. The 
 incentives which are needed for the awakening of the 
 powers of the soul go out from the external world. . . . 
 The senses are to be awakened as the organs of the mind, 
 and not as the organs of mere sensuous pleasure or of 
 mere desires, as in the animals.'^ 
 
 This was one of FroebeFs great thoughts for the 
 training of humanity. He saw that the misuse of the 
 very elements of character that should make men pure 
 and noble led to their degradation and debasement, and 
 that thousands even of Christian parents prayed for the 
 salvation of their children while they allowed them to 
 plant in their natures the seeds of moral death. The 
 senses are agents of the soul, and should never become 
 the slaves of the body. When they do, sensuality takes 
 the place of spiritual wisdom. When men and women 
 learn to train their children properly the words of Solo- 
 mon will be understood and believed by Christians, 
 " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he 
 is old he will not depart from it." Many mothers de- 
 prave their children by giving them improper food; by 
 giving their food too often, or in too large quantities; 
 or by creating an unnatural taste for sweetmeats. This 
 lays the foundation of self-indulgence, for the gratifica- 
 tion of appetites that should never have been formed. 
 Froebel saw even more clearly than Ruskin that " all 
 evil springs from unused (or misused) good," and he 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 273 
 
 yearned to make parents and teachers wise in the train- 
 ing of the child, so that no good of body, mind, or spirit 
 should be unused or misused. FroebePs expression of 
 this thought is much more comprehensive than Euskin^s: 
 " A suppressed or perverted good quality — a good tend- 
 ency, only repressed, misunderstood, or misguided — lies 
 originally at the bottom of every shortcoming in man." 
 
 The same elements in our nature form in our lives 
 either love or hate, calmness or passion, truth or false- 
 hood, courage or cowardice, constructiveness or destruc- 
 tiveness, temperance or self-gratification, self-control or 
 self-indulgence, selfishness or unselfishness, strengthen- 
 ing self-consciousness or weakening self-consciousness, 
 purity or debasement. How supremely important it is, 
 therefore, that humanity should study the child as Froe- 
 bel did, to find how all the beautiful and the wonderful 
 in Nature may be made to stimulate the good and not 
 the evil in the intellectual and spiritual life of the child! 
 
 By keeping the child from its earliest years in an 
 atmosphere of purity, joyousness, and self -activity, sur- 
 rounded with the beautiful in Nature, colour, form, 
 music, and symbolic story, Froebel believed it possible 
 to so strengthen the good in the child's intellectual and 
 spiritual nature that it would continue to grow and re- 
 main a controlling ethical force through life. The spir- 
 itual nature may be trained to be receptive to all pure 
 and ennobling influences, and if these influences when 
 received into the child's life are not merely allowed to 
 accumulate, but are wrought into character by the cre- 
 ative self-activity of the child, they do a great deal to 
 eradicate coarseness and immorality from its nature. 
 
 He did not accept the theory of thejotah^depravity 
 
 ^ OF THB 
 
 .UNIVERSITY 
 
274 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 of the child, but taught that every child has in its nature 
 elements of divinity that when properly developed con- 
 stitute the true unity between humanity and God. He 
 believed man to be the highest created being, and he 
 refused to believe that all his tendencies are by nature 
 toward evil. He saw in the child elements of Divine love 
 and power which educational forces should keep in per- 
 fect, productive, creative unity with divinity. He be- 
 lieved that man was created in harmony with universal 
 unity, and that the elements of his own nature were 
 originally harmonious. He knew that evil, the misuse 
 of good, had partially destroyed this beautiful harmony, 
 and he believed that the highest function of education is 
 to restore this lost harmony. 
 
 The doctrine of total depravity he regarded as para- 
 lyzing to all human effort for self-evolution. There is 
 little hope or inspiration in the work of a teacher who 
 believes that he is teaching beings who are totally de- 
 praved, in whom there are no elements of purity and 
 wisdom and progressive growth; but there is a sacred joy 
 to him in the consciousness that each child possesses cre- 
 ative force and other elements of divinity, the love of 
 that which is inherently beautiful, a capacity for love, 
 ennobling aspirations, a mind that may grasp the prob- 
 lems of the infinite, and a spirit that should respond to 
 its Creator. The teacher who holds this view of child- 
 hood believes that he is moulding creative forces, and is 
 in the best sense a coworker with the Creator himself. 
 
 Froebel wrote very strongly against the theory of 
 total depravity. He said: " Whoever considers that 
 which is finite, material, physical, as in itself bad, there- 
 by expresses contempt for creation, Nature, as such — 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 275 
 
 nay, he actually blasphemes God. It is treason to human 
 nature and to man to consider him in his essence as 
 neither good nor bad or evil; how much more, then, is 
 it treason to consider him in his nature as essentially 
 bad or evil! ^^ 
 
 The progress of mankind religiously has been de- 
 layed by the lack of true self -reverence. Froebel was 
 the apostle of higher self-recognition. His loving faith 
 in the development of the good in humanity has revo- 
 lutionized the teaching and disciplinary processes of 
 progressive educators, but its best work will be done 
 when it reveals to all men their native divinity, and 
 makes education and life-work a conscious growth 
 toward the Divine. True humility does not spring from 
 a consciousness of weakness and depravity, but from 
 the consciousness of power which reveals responsibility 
 and relationships, and helps man to realize that he is 
 but one of a mighty host of workers for truth. There 
 is little development in any religion that gives to its 
 believers the enfeebling conception that they are merely 
 "unworthy worms.^^ No man can have true faith in 
 God who has not true faith in himself. 
 
 Froebel strongly objected to the defining of evil in 
 the mind of the young child as an element in its own 
 character. To do this necessarily degrades the child's 
 moral sense. "It is certainly a very great truth,'' he 
 says, " and failure to appreciate it does daily great harm, 
 that it generally is some other human being, not infre- 
 quently the educator himself, that first makes the child 
 or the boy bad. This is accomplished by attributing 
 evil — or at least wrong — motives to all that the child 
 does from ignorance, precipitation, or even from a keen 
 
276 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 and praiseworthy sense of right or wrong. Unfortu- 
 nately, there are still such men of mischief among edu- 
 cators. To them children and boys are little malicious, 
 spiteful, lurking sprites, where others see at most a jest 
 carried too far, or the effect of too free an exercise of 
 spirit. Such birds of ill omen, especially when they are ' 
 educators, are the first to bring guilt upon such a child 
 who, though not wholly innocent, is yet without guilt; 
 for they give him motives and incentives which were as 
 yet unknown to him.^^ 
 
 Evil should not be defined in the consciousness and 
 will of the child as a personal motive in its life. In this 
 way consciousness of innocence is destroyed, and the 
 positive character is paralyzed. Positivity is the central 
 element in character. Knowing the will of God by doing 
 it, and acting the defined will for humanity — this is the 
 Christian life that meets the Divine approval. Froebel 
 ridicules the religious training that first makes a boy 
 believe himself bad, then coerces and restricts and dwarfs 
 him into external submissiveness, and, finally, like the 
 boy who has maltreated a fly and torn off its wings and 
 feet, says, " See how tame! '^ 
 
 Children love to do good better than evil. Christians 
 must believe this or they believe that God^s highest 
 created beings prefer evil to good. Such a belief pre- 
 vents the conception of the ideal of progressive advance- 
 ment from stage to stage by humanity and individual 
 man. The parent or teacher should provide facilities 
 for the child's productive occupation. If this is done 
 the destructive tendency will gradually vanish from its 
 character. The mother or teacher should guide to a 
 change in the centre of interest when the child is tend- 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 277 
 
 ing toward the wrong. The great dangers in the ethical 
 training of children are the weakening of self -reverence 
 in the immature consciousness and the consequent lack 
 of positiveness or independent aggressiveness for truth. 
 
 The great hody of Christians are negative. They 
 need independent vitality. They wait for leadership. 
 They depend' on external stimulation, and work with 
 spasmodic energy when electrified by the fervid enthusi- 
 asm of others. The greatest lessons taught to the world 
 by Christ are individual power and individual responsi- 
 bility. The teaching of the theologians has so far failed 
 utterly to reveal to men a due sense of the divine power 
 they possess, and which they should cherish and develop 
 above all else. It is true that it has given to some men 
 a sense of responsibility, but it is a sense of responsibility 
 for the evil and not the good in their natures. The great 
 work of the Church should be to convince man of his 
 power to aid in the overthrow of evil and the accom- 
 plishment of good. This is the true basis of responsibil- 
 ity. The teaching that makes a man feel responsibility 
 only for his sins is a blighting misrepresentation of 
 Christ's most vital revelations. 
 
 Froebel longed to have the school, the home, and the 
 Church work in perfect harmony in the development 
 of the child. He aimed to make it positive, not negative; 
 self -reverent, not self -abased. He would as long as pos- 
 sible prevent its recognition of evil in its own nature by 
 directing its attention to its powers to achieve good and 
 providing appropriate means for their exercise. The de- 
 fining of the consciousness of evil must weaken charac- 
 ter, the gradual defining of individual- good by creative 
 self-activity in executing unselfish purposes develops 
 
278 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 true character force^ and helps to make the divinity in 
 the child the dominant element in its nature. 
 
 Froebel pleaded that the child might be free from 
 the terrorism of religious teaching. Speaking of his own 
 experience, he says, " Great was my joy when I believed 
 I had proved completely to my own satisfaction that I 
 was not destined to go to hell.^^ He was a most earnest 
 Christian, but he wished to save the child from the 
 " stony, oppressive dogmas of theology.'^ He believed 
 that the seeds of character require the sunshine of joy- 
 ousness for their early germination and development, 
 as the seeds of plants need the warmth and light of the 
 sun; and that as plants grown in a cellar are feeble and 
 delicate, so characters developed in gloom and fear lack 
 vitality, strength, and positivity. He recognised a wide 
 difference between the darkness of difficulty and the 
 shadow of dread. Difficulties are opportunities for vic- 
 tory; dread palsies power. No life — physical, intellec- 
 tual, or spiritual — ^is true life unless its highest charac- 
 teristic is power. The religious or ethical training that 
 by terrorism or in any other way weakens power, pre- 
 vents the growth of divinity in humanity, and retards 
 the progress of humanity toward the Divine. 
 
 He criticised severely the practice of associating 
 gloom and sadness with religion and severity and pun- 
 ishment with God in the mind of the child. It is a de- 
 plorable thing to misrepresent God to a child; yet it 
 has been customary for parents and even teachers to 
 speak of God to children as a kind of malicious spirit 
 who dislikes bad children so thoroughly that he is con- 
 tinually on the lookout for opportunities to punish them. 
 They represent the loving Father as a spy ever on the 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 279 
 
 alert to wreak vengeance on what they are pleased to 
 call " naughty children." Froebel led the child to see 
 God as love, life, and the centre of all unifying and up- 
 lifting power. 
 
 Gloom is unnatural in a child's life, and it is a fatal 
 mistake to give it the impression that religious life, the 
 expression of its highest nature in adoration and action, 
 should have in it any element of melancholy or dread. 
 The unity of Divinity with the divinity in man should 
 bring to the awakening consciousness its highest happi- 
 ness. Even the child's social and creative plays should 
 be truly reverent worship to it. In all departments of its 
 unfolding life happiness is a preventive of evil and a 
 stimulus to good. The puritanical idea that associated 
 joyousness and art and music with evil was a perversion 
 of truth that blighted true religious culture. Fro6bel 
 was one of the first to protest against it on philosophic- 
 ally religious grounds. The shadows of religious gloom 
 are lifting, and the brightness of religious life will soon 
 shine full and clear. There are few Christians now who 
 would sympathize with the Scotchman who, after visit- 
 ing Edinburgh on Sunday, said, " It was an awful sight 
 to see the people so happy on the Lord's day." ^ 
 
 Froebel objected as definitely to the attempts to make 
 children love good by bribing them as he did to attempts 
 to make them hate evil by terrorizing them. He had 
 little faith in the piety either of child or man that rested 
 on promises of rewards either in the present or the fu- 
 ture. " It argues a low degree of insight into the nature 
 and dignity of man if the incentive of reward in a future 
 world is needed in order to insure a conduct worthy 
 of his nature and destiny." He believed that, if the 
 
280 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 child has not been warped in its earhest development 
 by allowing its powers to define evil instead of good in 
 its nature, through failure to provide appropriate con- 
 ditions for its best spiritual growth, it will need no prom- 
 ise of reward to lead it to do right, because, if properly 
 trained, it will enjoy doing right better than wrong. 
 He knew, too, that children who are led to do right by 
 promises of reward are forming the habit of doing when 
 bribed, and not the habit of doing right. They will do 
 wrong as readily as right for bribes in manhood if their 
 moral development is arrested by the substitution of 
 rewards instead of the enjoyment and duty of doing 
 right, as the motive to action. 
 
 It is a fallacy to suppose, as so many do, that if chil- 
 dren can be led to do right by coercion or by hope of 
 reward, they are forming the habit of right-doing. It 
 is the motive and not the action that becomes habitual 
 by repetition in moral training. The habit that is formed 
 by promising rewards to children is the habit of bribe- 
 taking. Such training makes it impossible to develop 
 the sense of duty and responsibility as the basis for right 
 action. It will help educators to avoid many mistakes 
 if they remember that the originating power is more im- 
 portant than the operative power in the formation of 
 moral habits. Moral habits are the result of moral 
 actions. It is undoubtedly as true in ethical training 
 as in any other department of training that "practice 
 makes perfect,'^ or that repeated action defines power; 
 but it must never be forgotten in any department of 
 training that it is self -actiYity and not mere activity that 
 is truly developing. The selfhood is the originating 
 power, and the formation of moral habits must produce 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 281 
 
 a change in the selfhood. The change wrought by prom- 
 ising rewards or by coercion is weakening. In the first 
 case it is degrading; in the second, it is paralyzing. All 
 external incentives to duty weaken the child^s inner 
 self-active motive power, and thus prevent its highest 
 ethical development. 
 
 Froebel objected in all training to dogmatic teach- 
 ing beyond the child^s experience. The effects of such 
 teaching in ethical training are even more disastrous 
 than in any other department of training. Vital inter- 
 est dies when moral and religious theories are given in 
 words before apperceptive centres adapted to the child's 
 stage of development have been formed by experience. 
 The growth must be from the inner to the outer life. 
 There must be some experience to give life and meaning 
 to the words, or they remain dead 'and meaningless. 
 Confusion results when a child is led to believe that its 
 moral and religious nature is being developed by mem- 
 orizing statements of theological dogma. Many Chris- 
 tian people only believe they believe. " If a man is to 
 understand religious truth, he must be made to experi- 
 ence much. He must rise gradually to a knowledge of 
 the truths of Christianity.^' Froebel did not believe it 
 possible to teach temperance, or citizenship, or virtue, 
 or religion from books alone, but held that a good 
 character is developed by good living. Good habits 
 and loving service are better than any formal ethical 
 training. Form' and life must be in harmony. Un- 
 less dogmatic creeds are illustrated by true lives in 
 those by whom the child's daily life is surrounded, 
 there is great danger that the creeds will be discarded 
 because misunderstood, and that with the creeds will 
 
282 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 be swept away the child's desire for a higher spiritual 
 life. 
 
 Froebel protested against all efforts to force on a 
 child the practice or creed of adults in religious life or 
 profession. He objected to formal religious exercises 
 in schools unless they are adapted to the child's stage of 
 development. He desired that every human being 
 should have his religious feelings developed and applied 
 in childhood. His ideal of the perfect training of a child 
 was to bring it under " the influence of Nature^ useful 
 handiwork^ and religious feelings/' but he dreaded noth- 
 ing more than that the child should become a formalist 
 or a hypocrite. It usually becomes both if adult religion 
 is forced on it prematurely; and formalism and hypoc- 
 risy are the most effective agents in destroying the divin- 
 ity in humanity and in robbing men of true motives. 
 George McDonald describes the process of religious 
 training too often adopted as an attempt to " sand- 
 paper a child into'a saint." Religious life must be the 
 result of the out-working of the good feeling and thought 
 of the child's inner life. 
 
 The child may be dwarfed religiously either by los- 
 ing the proper religious culture of the emotions and the 
 senses adapted to the earliest stage in its religious evolu- 
 tion, or by compelling it to assume in childhood the re- 
 ligious life of a later stage of its development. 
 
 In his kindergarten and in his directions for mothers 
 he tried to guide the kindergartner of mother to lead 
 the child by her enlightened love through the circum- 
 stances and conditions that define and strengthen the 
 principles of sound morality by calling them into prac- 
 tice, and give it such experiences as will lead to the 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 283 
 
 natural unfolding of its religious character, and lay 
 the foundation for a clear, strong, true, and ever- 
 developing spiritual nature. " The boy's life,'' he says, 
 ^"' should be a prayer of Jesus expressed in conduct and 
 in deeds." 
 
 Froebel believed in a thoroughly practical religion. 
 He did not undervalue spirituality, but he saw that re- 
 ligion was too often mere sentiment, a temporary awak- 
 ening of feeling. He placed a very high value on spir- 
 ituality, and he therefore desired to weave pure feeling 
 and thought into character by the child's active use of 
 them in its daily life. 
 
 He demanded works, not only to show faith but to in- 
 crease faith. He saw the folly of training a race to be- 
 lieve, or rather to believe they believe, without doing 
 good deeds in accordance with their most enlightened 
 beliefs. " Keligion is union with God, and man can be 
 united with God only by seeing, believing, and acting 
 with God, and not by any one of these things alone." 
 Herbart taught that instruction is the chief element in 
 the formation of character. This Froebel did not be- 
 lieve. He substituted creative doing of the right for in- 
 struction. Instruction is needed; but neither feeling 
 nor instructed thought becomes a part of a child's na- 
 ture truly till it is applied by the child in executing a 
 good impulse or plan of its own. Froebel taught that 
 ^^the worship of God is only one-sided, is only a tem- 
 porary social edification, which deserves not the name of 
 worship if it proves fruitless for the inward and out- 
 ward life of man.'^ His all-enlightening law of unity 
 made it impossible for him to divorce the spiritual 
 from the practical. Eeligious feelings and thoughts 
 
284 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 fade out of life unless they are made a part of life. 
 "Keligion is not an emotion or a dogma, but a serv- 
 ice/^ 
 
 In all FroebeFs teaching, as well as in his organized 
 system of education, he guided the child^s work so that 
 its chief joy should be found in rendering service to 
 others who needed it. He knew that the child might 
 be made intensely selfish by making it conscious of its 
 own individual power without at the same time training 
 it to use its powers for others whom it can aid to greater 
 happiness. He gave childhood full opportunity to learn 
 by experience that it is ^^more blessed to give than to 
 receive " — a truth no one ever understood if he had to 
 learn it by words alone. The child in the kindergarten 
 produces gifts for mother, father, grandparents, sisters, 
 or brothers. They are the results of its creative and con- 
 structive power, expressions of its inner life, and, if they 
 are received with joyous appreciation, the child is truly 
 blest by immediate happiness and by unselfish charac- 
 ter development. Froebel taught that the true Christ- 
 mas tree for the child is the tree on which hang gifts 
 made by the child for others. Too often children are 
 made selfish at the time when of all the days in the year 
 they should be trained to understand the joy of giving. 
 Giving to others the results of its own labour foreshad- 
 ows the nobler duty of self-sacrifice for others who sor- 
 row — a virtue that Froebel aimed to implant in every 
 heart as a golden link to bind the brotherhood of 
 man. 
 
 He had little respect for any religion that made the 
 saving of his own soul the supreme end of a man's reli- 
 gious life. He aimed to make men free, that they might 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 285 
 
 develop their selfhood or their inner divinity to its 
 highest limit, but with freedom he always associates re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 Each individual should recognise two dominant 
 duties: First, to bring himself into harmony with uni- 
 versal law, that his own evolution may be complete; sec- 
 ond, to become an essential part of the interdependent 
 organic unity of humanity. The recognition of indi- 
 viduality alone may make men selfish, and therefore es- 
 sentially evil; the training of individual power in order 
 to become a stronger element in the universal brother- 
 hood makes a man at once humble, self -reverent, unsel- 
 fish, and creatively co-operative. 
 
 The Church, by directing the man^s attention too 
 exclusively to the salvation of his own soul, was using 
 the highest external moulding agency to make him self- 
 ish, and to make atomism or separatism or unrelated 
 individualism the supreme law of humanity. Froebel 
 took direct issue with the Church, and claimed that it 
 grievously misrepresented Christ's teaching. He saw 
 in Christ's revelation to man more than all else the true 
 conception of an interdependent humanity whose inner 
 connection is the Divine element in its nature, and whose 
 destiny is complete unity with God. To make this unity 
 between humanity and God perfect each individual in 
 humanity must establish the unity between himself and 
 God. This Froebel made his highest privilege, because 
 thereby he was doing his most perfect work for humanity 
 and God. Perfect happiness is only possible when man 
 is performing up. to his fullest power the best he is now 
 capable of as a step toward the fulfilment of his highest 
 destiny. To guide him in doing this through life is the 
 
286 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 work of religion. To fit him for it is the aim of ethical 
 training. 
 
 Man's highest destiny, according to Froebel, is unity 
 with God. He says: " Eeligion is the endeavour to raise 
 into clear knowledge the feeling that originally the spir- 
 itual self of man is one with God, to realize the unity 
 with God which is founded on this clear knowledge, and 
 to continue to live in this unity with God, serene and 
 strong, in every condition and relation of life.'' To make 
 this unity possible is the all-pervading, all-inclusive aim 
 of his educational system. In the earlier stages of the 
 child's evolution in the home, the kindergarten, and the 
 primary school, he would implant the germs of unity 
 with God by leading it to recognise the element of life 
 in Nature as the basis of its later recognition of God as 
 the source of life and as the life itself. In the higher 
 departments of the public schools the phenomena of 
 Nature should reveal the laws as well as the life of God, 
 and in the college and university he would make the 
 conception of unity conscious, and develop it as the 
 broad foundation on which to rest all efforts for the 
 amelioration of evil and the development of good. He 
 would make a radical change in the work of colleges and 
 universities by making it chiefly constructive instead of 
 cumulative, so that all the learning and training of the 
 previous stages of educational growth might be co-ordi- 
 nated and wrought into uplifting, life-impelling forces. 
 All the training of sensations and emotions, and all the 
 acquisition of knowledge, is preparatory to the develop- 
 ment of an enlightened, a strong, and a persistent will 
 to make man a self-active power for good. 
 
 The conception of perfect unity between individual 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 287 
 
 man and God is but the basis on which rests the greater 
 unity between God and humanity. The wider ideal is 
 the source of progressive reUgious growth^ according to 
 Froebel's general principle, that the all-inclusive ideal 
 in every department of intellectual and spiritual devel- 
 opment is most productive of active, persistent interest 
 and of creative self-activity, and therefore of true 
 growth. He says: " Unless man ascends from the knowl- 
 edge of the fatherhood of God in his own life to a 
 knowledge of his fatherhood in the life of man- 
 kind, future religious instruction will be empty and 
 barren.^^ • 
 
 Froebel taught the importance of revealing to con- 
 scious youth the superiority of the internal when com- 
 pared with the external, and the fallacy of resting happi- 
 ness on the variable conditions of outer life, instead of 
 finding its chief joy in " inner freedom, serenity, and 
 contentment.^^ By the true culture of man's spiritual 
 nature he hoped to ennoble him so that he would be- 
 come free from the aggravating restrictions of material 
 conditions, and use even difficulties and disappointments 
 as elements in his spiritual evolution. " Renunciation," 
 he says, " the abandonment of the external for the sake 
 of securing the internal, is the condition for attaining 
 highest development.'' 
 
 Humanity has been dwarfed by servility to material- 
 ism. To remedy this one-sided Christians have attempted 
 to elevate man by a too exclusive spirituality. Froebel 
 aimed to preserve the proper relationship between the 
 two. He made the spiritual the dominant force to utilize 
 material things for high purposes, and thereby hoped 
 ultimately to free man from the slavery of lower desires. 
 
288 FEOEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 How the race would leap toward the light if it had 
 learned to subordinate the external to the internal! 
 
 IFroebel aimed to ennoble work — to make it the 
 achievement of creative power, the accomplishment of 
 duty, and the expression of the divinity in man. Work 
 that degenerates into drudgery is a dreadful perversion 
 of high powers. The power to work enables men to 
 prove their love by deeds, and makes a man worthy of 
 his place as an individual in the unity of humanity. 
 Work is a source of development to man's physical, in- 
 tellectual, and spiritual nature, and it is therefore an 
 important element in ethical culture. It gives a man 
 executive power, and religious life needs the character- 
 istic of achievement. To arouse good feelings without 
 action in response to their promptings is certain to 
 weaken a child's moral force. Froebel believed tliat all 
 men should be workers, and that working together they 
 would become workers with God. 
 
 Mr. Bowen has described Froebel's religious teach- 
 ings as " the pure, simple view of the Gospels — brotherly 
 kindness, growing up into love of God — living, moving, 
 and having its being in the practice of love. It is a 
 growing into union with humanity and with God by a 
 willing, conscious endeavour to live out on earth God's 
 grand purpose in humanity — a purpose which more than 
 once has been made to seem narrow and unattractive, 
 but which, as Froebel expounds it, is again worthy of 
 man and of man's Creator." " This growth, too," he 
 adds, " Froebel's plan is well fitted to produce." 
 
 Froebel believed that humanity may develop pro- 
 gressively toward the Divine in conformity with the uni- 
 versal law of evolution; that every child has in its na- 
 
FROEBEL'S ETHICAL PRINCIPLES. 289 
 
 ture an element of divinity which should be fostered 
 and brought into conscious unity with the Divine; that 
 the natural tendency of childhood is toward the right 
 if supplied with right conditions for the growth of its 
 best; that the ideal sidje of the child^s nature should be 
 developed from the moment the baby receives its first 
 impressions to prevent the growth of the sensual in its 
 character; that training should begin at birth, but that 
 it never should interfere with the child^s spontaneity; 
 that freedom is the only true condition of perfect growth; 
 that coercion dwarfs and reward-giving as an induce- 
 ment to good conduct degrades; that positivity or spir- 
 itual propulsion is an important element in character; 
 that ethical culture must be given in each stage of de- 
 velopment in order that the true growth of succeeding 
 stages may be attained; that it is a grave error to attempt 
 to give the child in any stage of its development ethical 
 training or rules of conduct belonging rightfully to a 
 later stage; that the first germs of religious growth are 
 found in community, love, reverence, filial and fraternal 
 relationships, and true living as revealed by the experi- 
 ences of pure family life; that Nature is the child's sym- 
 bolic revealer of God as life in advancing evolution to 
 higher life; that the evil in a child's action results from 
 suppressed or misdirected good; that religion should 
 not be associated with terrors of any kind; that the 
 child's religious experiences should be joyous and happy; 
 that God should be revealed as a loving father; that 
 the child should not be made conscious of evil in its 
 own motives in its early life; that the child's life should 
 be kept free from formalism and hypocrisy; that no dog- 
 matic theology should be given in words until the child 
 20 
 
290 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 has experiences that can give life and meaning to the 
 words; that the child^s mind should not be filled with 
 meaningless maxims, mere ashes of dead virtues; that 
 selfhood is the child's divinity and its development the 
 great function of the home and the school; that self- 
 hood should be made complete as a basis for the perfect 
 unity with God and humanity; that self-activity is the 
 process of growth morally as well as intellectually; that 
 right-doing not only demonstrates faith but increases it; 
 and that religion can not be communicated to or taken 
 into the life of man as a completed thing, or by the in- 
 tellectual acceptance of opinions or doctrines, but that 
 it must be a progressive growth in feeling and thought in 
 which community, love, life, law, reverence, gratitude, 
 joyousness, renunciation, unselfishness, freedom, and 
 creative activity are essential elments. 
 
 At first, theologians feared that Froebel was unor- 
 thodox, but to-day the most progressive religious leaders 
 are earnestly advocating the vital truths he taught. Hi^ 
 insight into the inner meaning of Christ's teaching was 
 truly remarkable. The religious world owes him a deep 
 debt of gratitude for many interpretations of Christ's 
 wonderful lessons, perhaps for none more than for the 
 inspiring revelation that Christ came not alone that men 
 might have life, but that they might have it '^ more 
 abundantly." 
 
 When Froebel's ethical teaching has wrought its per- 
 fect work in the homes, the schools, and the churches, 
 then his complete ideal, which is the Gospel ideal in i 
 practice, will be the greatest controlling and uplifting 
 force in the world. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Anarchy caused by coercion, 171. 
 Apperception, 212-221. 
 Arithmetic,, fundamental error in 
 
 teaching, 56 ; pupils should make 
 
 problems as well as solve them, 
 
 110. 
 Arnold, Dr., on the aim of the 
 
 teaching of history, 111. 
 
 Barop on object teaching, 250. 
 
 Blow, Miss, on the difference be- 
 tween the atomism of Kousseau 
 and Pestalozzi and Froebel's idea 
 of unity, 53 ; on unity in knowl- 
 edge, 76. 
 
 Botany, teaching too early destroys 
 vital interest in Nature, 57. 
 
 Bowen, H. Courthope, similarity of 
 principles of Carlyle and Froebel, 
 85 ; Froebel true psychologist of 
 childhood, 35 ; on unity or inner 
 connection, 52 ; on self-activity, 
 103 ; on physical development 
 through games, 128 ; on appercep- 
 tion, 219 ; on manual training, 
 255 ; on religious training, 288. 
 
 Brain, the, aided in growth by 
 bodily activity, 129, 132. 
 
 Bribing to do good, fallacy of, 280. 
 
 Browning, Mrs., on reverence for 
 selfhood, 245. 
 
 Billow, Baroness von, on FroebePs 
 law of unity, 79 ; on the law of 
 development, 264 ; on moral train- 
 ing, 271. 
 
 Cerebral growth increased by self- 
 activity, 93. 
 
 Character too often negative, 277. 
 
 Child study, 1. 
 
 Child, the, more important than 
 knowledge, 102. 
 
 Child development before school 
 life, 105. 
 
 Child the centre of correlation, 
 209. 
 
 Childhood, rights of, should be sa- 
 credly respected, 166. 
 
 Children love to work, 167, 172; 
 should live in contact with Na- 
 ture, 179-196 : should cultivate 
 plants, 186, 192. 
 
 Coercion dwarfs power, 162, 173. 
 
 Comenius, motto of, 68 ; on less 
 work by teachers and more by 
 pupils. 114. 
 
 Control by external agencies de- 
 grades, 164. 
 
 Control and spontaneity, 24, 154- 
 178. 
 
 Co-ordination of neurological sys- 
 tem by games, 138. 
 
 291 
 
292 
 
 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Co-operation, law of, 16 ; natural to 
 children, 227. 
 
 Copying headlines weakens indi- 
 viduality, 237. 
 
 Correlation of studies, 197-211 ; lack 
 of, in Pestalozzi's work, 200. 
 
 Country and city life, influence of, 
 on education, 93. 
 
 Creative power in man, 107. 
 
 Creative productivity the true ideal, 
 113. 
 
 Culture epochs, 64. 
 
 Depravity, law of total, rejected, 80, 
 165, 274. 
 
 Dewey, Prof, on self-activity, 104. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, on wrong of de- 
 struction of wonder power, 110; 
 on neglect of physical culture, 
 150. 
 
 Diesterweg on individual freedom, 
 242. 
 
 Discipline, 154-178 ; in schools revo- 
 lutionized by Froebel, 177. 
 
 Discovery of problems, power weak- 
 ened in school, 106. 
 
 /Drawing, an agency in self-expres- 
 sion, 116 ; in connection with his- 
 tory and literature, 117 ; and the 
 development of the imagination, 
 117 ; child should choose its own 
 departments of, and subjects, 117 ; 
 based on Nature study, 206. 
 
 Education a progressive growth to- 
 ward the divine, 54, 59 ; miscon- 
 ception regarding its true mean- 
 ing, 130. 
 
 Emotional nature, early training 
 of, 8. 
 
 Enrichment of school courses by 
 Nature study, 193. 
 
 Environment should be adapted to 
 
 the child's stage of evolution, 
 112. 
 
 Ethical principles of Froebel, 265- 
 290. 
 
 Evil often defined in the child's 
 mind by teachers, 275. 
 
 Evolution of man through definite, 
 related stages, 11, 54, 58, 260-264. 
 
 Excursions to fields and woods im- 
 portant, 190. 
 
 Executive power should be devel- 
 oped, 68, 91, 95. 
 
 Experience, ethical teaching must 
 be based on, 281. 
 
 Expression does not lead to self-ex- 
 pression, 236. 
 
 Family life the source of true re- 
 ligious feeling, 266. 
 
 Flowers, destruction of, may lead 
 to libertinism, 191. 
 
 Freedom under law, 158, 168. 
 
 Froebel's educational principles 
 compared with Pestalozzi's, 37, 38, 
 39 ; educational principles com- 
 pared with Herbart's, 39-47. 
 
 Froebel always reduced principles 
 to practice, 123, 190. 
 
 Froebel's object teaching, 249, 250 ; 
 manual training, 252 ; philosophy 
 comprehensive, 34 : own views on 
 unity, 49 ; own views on self- 
 activity, 97 ; own views on play, 
 121 ; own views on discipline, 155 ; 
 own views on Nature, 179 ; own 
 views on apperception, 215; own 
 views on individuality, 224 ; own 
 views on ethical training, 262. 
 
 Geography related to Nature study 
 207. 
 
 Grammar, error in teaching, 57 ; re- 
 lated to Nature study, 201. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 293 
 
 Hailman, Dr., similarity of princi- 
 ples of Froebel and Herbert Spen- 
 cer, 35 ; on unity or inner con- 
 nection, 52 ; on self-activity, 86. 
 
 Hall, Stanley, progress of Froebel's 
 philosophy, 35 ; Froebel's idea of 
 feeling now dominates psychol- 
 ogy, 36 ; Froebel's view of God 
 and Natm-e, 36. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William, on self-ac- 
 tivity, 103. 
 
 Hamilton, Dr., chest development 
 of British soldiers, 126. 
 
 Harmony in training essential, 64- 
 66, 131. 
 
 Harris, Dr.,- Froebel chief advocate 
 of law of development, 264 ; Froe- 
 bel and the education of feeling, 
 36 ; Froebel's philosophy the 
 highest for woman, 36 ; on unity 
 or inner connection, 52 ; on meth- 
 ods of discipline, 154 ; influence 
 of kindergarten on arithmetic and 
 geometry, 207. 
 
 Herbart's educational principles 
 compared with Froebel's, 39-47. 
 
 Hypocrisy, danger of inducing, in 
 children, 282. 
 
 Imagination developed by contact 
 with Nature, 187. 
 
 Individualism and socialism, 70, 80, 
 102, 142, 226. 
 ' Individuality and self-expression, 
 14, 222-247. 
 
 Indolence, unnatural, 90. 
 
 Inner connection or unity, 3, 48-83. 
 
 Insight and attainment, 92. 
 
 Interest weakened by substituting 
 problem solution for problem dis- 
 covery, 108. 
 
 Interest change of centre from 
 wrong to right, 172, 174; sus- 
 
 tained by productive self-activity, 
 175; developed by love of Na- 
 ture, 189; dwarfed by substitu- 
 tion of other's interests for those 
 of the child, 229. 
 
 Internal and external, relationship 
 between, 287. 
 
 Irving, Henry, on self-expression, 
 241. 
 
 Jena, Froebel's educational devel- 
 opment at, 62. 
 
 Kindergarten, the, made play cul- 
 ture objective, 124; the best type 
 of correlation, 197; the, founded 
 to form apperceptive centres of 
 feeling and thought in the child, 
 213; proscribed by the Prussian 
 Government, 242. 
 
 Language correlated with Nature 
 study, 201. 
 
 Law and liberty in harmony, 158, 
 168, 176. 
 
 Liberty of choice essential in self- 
 expression, 119. 
 
 Life, reverence for, an important 
 element in moral training, 191. 
 
 Longfellow on the symbolism of 
 flowers, 183. 
 
 Manual training, intellectual ad- 
 vantages, 253 ; moral advantages, 
 253 ; as self-expression, 254 ; edu- 
 cational not economic, 22, 253; 
 and brain making, 254 ; and the 
 neurological system, 254. 
 
 Materialism and spirituality, har- 
 mony between, 287. 
 
 Mathematics related to Nature 
 study, 204, 206 ; a correlative 
 study, 209. 
 
294 
 
 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 Mary's Meadow Societies, 193. 
 Mechanical processes of developing 
 
 expression weaken self-expres- 
 sion, 244. 
 Mediation, law of, 73. 
 Middendorff on moral training, 271 ; 
 
 on children's play, 147. 
 Modelling based on Nature study, 
 
 206. 
 Moral evolution by detinite related 
 
 stages, 58; effects of play, 139; 
 
 education through 2^ature, 179- 
 
 196. 
 Motor and sensor nervous systems 
 
 co-ordinated by physical culture, 
 
 133. 
 Motor power developed by play, 
 
 134 ; has been neglected, 134. 
 
 Nascent periods of educational 
 growth, 54, 55, 64. 
 
 Nature's processes reveal inner law, 
 94. 
 
 Nature and God, 71, 267; the re- 
 vealer of life, evolution and God, 
 18, 179-196 ; and moral educa- 
 tion, 179-196, 267; the correlat- 
 ing study in Froebel's work, 201- 
 208. 
 
 Negative character produced by 
 schools, 277. 
 
 Neurological entire system devel- 
 oped by bodily action, 133. 
 
 Nutrition most important in brain 
 development, 129. 
 
 Objects, higher use by Froebel irr 
 
 teaching number, 56, 207, 251. 
 Objective teaching and manual 
 
 training, 248-259. 
 Object teaching misunderstood by 
 
 English and American teachers, 
 
 20, 248. 
 
 Object teaching of England and 
 America, criticism of, 76, 248 ; by 
 Pestalozzi, 249, 250, 258 ; of Froe- 
 bel, 20, 249, 250, 258. 
 
 Opposites, law of harmony be- 
 tween, 73. 
 
 Oral expression should be self-ex- 
 pression, 238. 
 
 Originative power more important 
 than operative power, 107. 
 
 Over-pressure, evil effects of, 129. 
 
 Painting based on Nature study, 
 206. 
 
 Periods of educational growth, 59, 
 60. 
 
 Pestalozzi's general educational 
 principles compared with Froe- 
 bel's, 37-39. 
 
 Physical culture, formal, like all 
 formal teaching not the end, 128 ; 
 urgently needed, 130 ; should be 
 considered in granting university 
 degrees, 131. 
 
 Play the perfect type of self-activi- 
 ty, 93 ; as an educational factor, 
 23, 122-153 ; must not be robbed 
 of spontaneity, 125; and physical 
 development, 126, 137, 142 ; im- 
 portance of joyous interest in, 126 ; 
 develops the whole being, 127; 
 most effective in co-ordinating 
 sensor and motor systems, 134; 
 great developer of motor power, 
 136 ; as a developer of moral 
 power and character, 139; de- 
 
 ^ velops selfhood, 147. 
 
 Playgrounds, recent movement in 
 favor of, in Germany, 148 ; need 
 of, in cities, 152. 
 
 Problem discovery greater than 
 problem solution, 106 ; in arith- 
 metic, Euclid, physics, and bot- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 295 
 
 any, 110 ; in history, geography, 
 and literature, 111. 
 Programmes, school, should not be 
 too narrow, 243. 
 
 Rein on the true centre of correla- 
 tion, 211. 
 
 Related stages of educational evolu- 
 tion, 54, 55. 
 
 Religious views of Froebel so ad- 
 vanced that at first he was called 
 " unorthodox," 36, 290 ; training 
 should be free from terrorism and 
 gloom, 278. 
 
 Revelation to the child should lead 
 to revelation by the child, 116. 
 
 Running games, advantages of, 126, 
 138. 
 
 Schmidt, Dr. F. A., on benefits of 
 running games, 126. 
 
 Schools, " free republics of child- 
 hood," 158. 
 
 Science founded on Nature study, 
 204. 
 
 Scientific classification in botany, 
 zoology, etc., weakens true inter- 
 est in Nature, 57. 
 ^Self-activity, 6, 84-120; in origina- 
 tive power, 86, 120 ; the true test 
 of teaching, 104; free, does not 
 mean unrestricted liberty, 113 ; 
 foundation of true correlation of 
 studies, 120 ; productive, surest 
 source of interest, 175. 
 
 Self-expression 'versus expression, 
 114, 236; two stages of, 115; in 
 play, 145 ; oral, not sufficiently 
 practised, 240. 
 
 Self-education, 96. 
 
 Self-reverence a leading element in 
 ethical training, 275. 
 
 Sensations and emotions, early train- 
 ing of, 8. 
 
 Senses should be awakened of or- 
 gans of mind, not as mere sensu- 
 
 . ous pleasures, 271. 
 
 Sensuality prevented by flower 
 love, 192, 271. 
 
 Sensor and motor nervous systems 
 co-ordinated by physical culture, 
 133. 
 
 Service to others a basal element in 
 ethical training, 284. 
 
 Sloyd based on Froebel's work, 255. 
 
 Socialism and individualism, 70, 80, 
 102, 142, 226. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, on the evil effects 
 of developing one department of 
 human power at the expense of 
 the others, 65; on self-develop- 
 ment, 103. 
 
 Spirituality promoted by true ob- 
 jective work, 252. 
 
 Spontaneity, 24, 84, 154r-178. 
 
 Stages of evolution in the individ- 
 ual, 54, 55, 58 ; evolutionary, of 
 educational progress, 87. 
 
 Study alone dwarfs motor power, 
 135. 
 
 Symbolism, 30. 
 
 Tennyson on God in Nature, 183. 
 Terror destructive of character 
 
 power, 163, 278. 
 Terrorism and gloom should not be 
 
 associated with religious training, 
 
 278. 
 Trade schools condemned, 256. 
 
 Unity or inner connection, 3, 48- 
 83 ; in individual growth, 54 ; of 
 physical, intellectual, and spir- 
 itual growth, 65-67; of feeling, 
 knowing, and willing, 67 ; of 
 receptive, reflective, and execu- 
 tive powers, 68 ; between the in- 
 
296 
 
 FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL LAWS. 
 
 dividual and the race, 70; be- 
 tween Nature and God, 71 ; types 
 of, 73 ; practically wrought out in 
 Froebel's kindergarten work, 77 ; 
 social, educational, and religious, 
 80 ; value of law of, to teachers, 81. 
 Universities, fundamental change 
 in aim of work, 60 ; should con- 
 sider physical development in 
 granting degrees, 131. 
 
 Weiss, Prof., lectures at Berlin, 62. 
 Wiese, Dr., on health of English 
 boys, 148. 
 
 Women as teachers, 28. 
 
 Wonder power should be developed 
 
 not destroyed, 109. 
 Wordsworth and Froebel, alike in 
 
 reverent recognition of God in 
 
 Nature, 36, 182, 195, 205. 
 Work should never degenerate into 
 
 drudgery, 113, 172. 
 
 Ziller on the true centre in correla- 
 tion, 211. 
 
 Zoology, mistake in teaching too 
 soon, 57. 
 
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