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INTRODUCTION. |
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Looking tft the gifts as a whole, we observe at once their typical character. Geometric forms are the patterns according to which nature works, they are the ideas variously embodied in material objects,—the universals of form which underlie all its particular manifestations. These geometrical forms Froebel makes the playthings of the child. The first gift consists of balls of different colors ;—the second, of a wooden cube, sphere and cylinder ;—the third, fourth, fifth and and sixth, of tubes so divided as to illustrate every variety of prism and parallelopiped ;—the seventh, of square and triangular tablets, through combinations of which the child becomes familiar with all the regular polygons—the eighth and ninth,of sticks and rings, embodying the straight and curved lines. These gifts are not given to the child as object lessons, they are toys with which he plays—material which he analyzes and transforms. Through using the forms he becomes interested in them, his awakened interest makes him quick to detect objects resembling them ; detecting analogies he is led to comparison, and through comparison he abstracts the vitalizing idea. "Furnishing parallel cases is always the necessary first step towards finding the reason imbedded in all.'' This reason is one, and thus here again the mind is led from variety to unity and from the seen to the unseen.
It is characteristic of the symbolic phase of mind that it seizes not objects but attributes. That this has not escaped the mind of Froebel, we see from the fact that in each of his gifts he presents universal qualities in striking contrast, emphasizing, therefore, not the object itself, but some attribute common to all objects. Contrasts of color, form, material, size, dimension, relation, position, number, taste, smell, sound and movement, lead gradually to the abstraction of these qualities, and furnish the children with the key to the material world. For in all knowing we simply recognize what we already know, and can predicate of a new object only the qualities with which we are familiar. To recognize that grass is green, implies the knowledge of greenness ; to detect that the baik of a tree is rough, implies the knowledge of roughness.
An interesting thought in this connection is that contrasts being based upon universal relationships, the detection of contrasts in any given sphere prepares for the recognition of analogous contrasts in other spheres. The contrast of long and short detected in form may be extended to movement and to time ; the contrast of high and low grown familiar in position is recognized again in sound and through analogy in character. The opposition of sweet and sour applies not only to taste. We constantly contrast sweetness with sourness of disposition, instinctively recognizing the analogous relationship which here, as everywhere, make possible parallels between the things of sense and the things of thought.
Recurring to FroebePs desire to foreshadow from the beginning of life the supremacy of the unseen, we detect the deep reason which led him to insist so strongly upon a creative as opposed to a merely receptive activity. His own emphatic statement is that man made in the image of God, should, from the beginning of his life, be conceived and treated as a creative being, and the main object of his |
gifts is to supply to the child organized material adapted to stimulate productive power. The child represents with his ball, cube and cylinder ; builds with the blocks of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth gifts, and makes pictures with his tablets, sticks and rings. Giving form to his own vague fancies he learns to know thought as a shaping power. Realizing his own crude productions as imperfect images of the idea which floats before the eye of his mind, he will not be startled when he comes to know later that natural things are mere appearance—creative thought the one reality. Expressing his thought he will tend to see in all things the expression of thought. Therefore, to cultivate productivity is to lay a basis for faith and happiness. Analysis can give only the scattered elements of thoughts and things. The constructive idea must bind the parts into a living whole.
A significant feature of the Kindergarten material is that it is so organized that in using it the child is, as it were, forced to foreshadow in limited applications the most inclusive truths. These truths ruled in Froebel's mind and created his gifts. They are the realities the gifts symbolize. Hence, they must be suggested to the child through the use of the gifts.
The rules which Froebel gives as guides for the practical application of these gifts show his fundamental thought. We are to present every object first as a whole, that the idea of unity may precede the idea of variety; we are to bring out the typical significance of the gifts by seeking their distinctive features in other objects; we are to concentrate attention on essential qualities, that the child may learn to separate the salient and permanent from the accidental and transitory ; we are to show him the delusive changes wrought by motion to hint to him that things are not always what they seem ; we must encourage him in building to transform one object into another, that he may prefigure continuity and»historic growth ; w*e must lead him in his constructions to individualize each separate element that he may see for himself how the highest unity implies and demands variety.
What is all this, I ask again, but aiding the child to that symbolic expression through which the race transformed blind instinct into conscious idea. To see the smallest application of a great truth, is to begin to know it as to feel a mother's love revealed in a mother's smile, is to be thrilled with a presentiment of the all embracing love of God.
Thus leading through sympathy to union with nature and with man ; directing attention to the natural symbols of creative power,showing connections in the commonest things ; hinting the hidden causes of visible effects ; indicating organic processes ; supplying typical objects; stimulating creative activity, suggesting through contrasts the constant under the variable, and through the use of organized material, illustrating the deepest truths Froebel guides the young mind to the knowledge of God. God is the one in whom the many find their explanation—the invisible and permanent cause of all visible and transitory things. To teach a little child that he is a spirit infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being is to darken the mind with an uncompre- |
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