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INTRODUCTION. |
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tivity, combined different elements into a whole—
" Feels in his heart a glad surprise. He feels the charm that binds in one, The work in several parts begun.
And, finally, in a motto to a song intended to be sung, "When children for sleep prepare and fold their hands in prayer," we are exhorted thus :
14 Mother feel it deeply—One doth watch
When all in sombre night are wrapped in sleep, Have faith ! the good awaits thy careful search, Will from all fear and harm the children keep. Truly to them, naught better can'st thou give Than the true feeling they in one life live.
Scarcely less universally penetrating than this thought of unity is the relationship of all we see to the unseen. In the motto of the tasting song, we read :
" Ever through the senses nature woos the child, m Thou canst help him comprehend the lesson mild ; By the senses is the inner door unsealed, Where the spirit glows in light revealed.
Prefixed to the song of smell, are the lines:
" The child full early may perceive In everything that lives, The inner presence of a power That for existence strives.
Again, we read " That much is given to the outwardear, that man, all unheeding, will not hear." We are urged to help the child " Through the outer, the inner tie to know." We are told that " Through constructive form he passes from the outward to the inward," and we are enjoined:
" Have care then for the little child so bright, Let him not follow a delusive light; And not entirely in the outward live, But let the inner life its impulse give."
If then, we may take Froebel's own word for it, his main object is to lead the child to seek the one behind the many, and detect the unseen under the seen. What concerns us next are the means he uses to attain his end.
What the thought of unity is to the mind the feeling of sympathy is to the heart. We are one with the thing we love. To awaken sympathy is, therefore, to present the idea of unity in the most rudimentary form.- Hence, we find Froebel devising all possible means to rouse and direct the child's sympathies. He gives him a garden to dig and plant, that watching for the resultsof his labor may quicken his interest in the miracle of growth ; he gives him his own cat, or dog, or bird, that tending the helpless pet he may grow to love it; he puts the watering can in the hands of the baby, and sings to him of how the water refreshes the thirsty flowers. He trains the child to represent the flight of the bird, the swimming of the fish and the galloping of the horse, that sharing their activities he may identify himself with their being, and he leads him to reproduce in his plays the varied life of man in order to quicken his sympathy for men. The principle which |
guides him is obvious. Give a feeling expression and the expression in its reaction intensifies the feeling. Sharing the life of nature and of man the child feels himself one with both.
In the child's representations we detect at once a crude form of symbolism. When the child feels himself a bird because he imitates the flight of the bird, it is because he has been struck chiefly with the bird's swift motion, and has not learned to consider motion as an abstraction. So he holds the creeping motion in identity with the cat and the motion of sowing, reaping and sifting in the game of the farmer, in identity with the processes they represent. Seizing things by a single side, and identifying distinct objects through a common quality he individualizes history and relives the .symbolic life the race lived through so long ago. Ever to him the gold ring makes Betty a lady, and the new drum promotes Johnny to be drummer to the King.
The unity of man and nature pre-supposes their common origin. The child who feels connections and dependencies will have at least a confused presentiment of God. Awed by the thunder,—solemnized by the darkness—gladdened by the sunlight, and stirred in the depths of his spirit by the rushing of the invisible wind, he feels a presence he cannot define, and blindly reaches out towards "the all enfolding and all upholding." Remembering history, Froebel is careful to direct his attention to those natural objects which the instinct of mankind chose as symbols of the unknown Power that ruled the world. Of the fifty songs in the "Mother Play" no less than ten have for their theme some one of the varied aspects of light. They show us light as the source of form and color,—light as a creative and transforming force—light as nature's expression of gladness and love,—light and darkness as corresponding to good and evil,—light and the eye as symbolizing truth and the mind,—the pleasures of sight as contrasted with the grosser pleasures of touch, symbolizing the truth that the deepest and purest joys of life are apart from material possession. I give a single motto, and song to illustrate this phase of Froebel's method.
MOTTO.
Early this truth to thy child must be told :
W\ things that charm him his hands may not hold.
SONG.
Child.
O, birdie dear! O, birdie dear!
O, birdie on the wall!
O, birdie dear! O, birdie dear !
Be still now while I call;
You must not fly away so,
And dance about and play so.
O, birdie dear ! O, birdie dear!
Be still now while I call— Mother. The little bird is formed of light— It cannot be held in the fingers tight; It flies on the wall just to please the sight; It shines to give thy heart delight. |
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