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INTRODUCTION. |
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headed formula—to help him feel his pervading presence. Power and love is to awaken the reverence, which, with expanding knowledge, will culminate in devout insight. Primitive men knew only that there were vast powers which ruled the world. Philosophy was born when the mind grew clearly conscious that the source of all things must be one. Slowlv through the centuries the idea gained con-creteness, until in the fullness of time the complete revelation of God stirred to its depths the infinite spirit of man. As individuals, we must re-live each stage of the slow process. In r ur hearts, too, the light must dawn faintly and only gradually grow into the perfect day. Ever our baffled minds renew the old cry, " Touching the Almighty, I can-i ot cannot find him out." Ever the divine voice renews the command, " Acquaint thyself with him and be at peace."
White light breaks into rainbow colors, and life's illuminating truth must be reflected in all life's aspects. The idea of unity is the center of all the concentric circlesof life. We draw around it ever widening curves, until center and circumference merge in the infinite circle of absolute being.
Surrounding the individual are his "larger selves," the feimily, civil society, the state and the church. But for the family he would perish in helpless infancy, but for organized civil society his life would scarcely rise above the level of the brute ; but for the state he would never learn to will rational deeds ; but for the church his vague spiritual aspiration could never grow into conscious insight. Through participation in the organized thought and life of mankind the individual man attains to freedom. That he may fully enter upon his rich inheritance, he must have from his earliest years love for father and mother, sister and brother, a grateful sense of dependence upon those whose labor enriches his life, an enthusiastic sentiment of patriotism and a profound reverence for the sacred institution which guards the oracles of the most high.
That the significance of institutions may be foreshadowed to the feeling of the child, they, too, must be presented to him in symbolic forms. Immersed in his relationships he cannot comprehend them. Drifting with the current of the universal life he cannot measure its force. Borne aloft in the strong arms of humanity, he can gauge neither his own feebleness nor the strength of mankind. He needs to have his life made objective to him. Therefore, he loves the symbols which interpret him to himself, and in his eager play, pictures the life he longs to understand. The care of the mother bird for her young, thrills his heart with a faint consciousness of his own mother's love ; his garden unlocks to him the life of the farmer; with sword and drum and flag, he imitates—that he may understand—the soldier, and with hands and fingers, representing the church, the steeple the door and all the good people, he grapples with a vague feeling of the connection between the church and the truth it symbolizes.
Froebel seized the hint given him by the child's instinctive play, and in a number of dramatic songs, reflects the social organism. Remote analogies satisfy the child's feeling better than exact representations, and it is easy for him to find in the many fingers on one little hand a symbol of the fam- |
ily in the unity of its varied members, the length ot the middle finger is sufficient to mark it out as the representative of papa, while the little finger to the baby's mind appropriately symbolizes himself. In a number of finger exercises, Froebel has suggested the varied aspects of family life. Now, stretching out his little fingers, the child shows father, mother, sister, brother and baby himself ; now clasping them together, he represents—
4t How sunk in each others arms they lie, Little brothers and sisters so peacefully."
And again, he indicates an extension of family relationships by showing with the thumbs and fingers of both hands how two grandmothers, with their respective grandchildren go to make each other a call.
I give the words of a song of which the children never tire, and which represents the love and care of the father and mother bird for their young.
The words and melody are, of course, interpreted by dramatic action. Five children stoop towards the ground, and with bent heads and arms clasped aroung each other's necks, make the bird's nest. Rapidly transforming themselves into baby birds they open wide their mouths for the food the father brings ; then slowly extending their arms they show how the little ones are fledged, and at last, bidding the parent nest good-bye, fly rapidly through the forest represented by the other children.
u A little bird once made a nest, Of moss, and hay and hair; And then she laid five speckled eggs, And covered them with care.
Five little birds were hatched in time, So small, and bare, and weak ; The father fed them every day With insects from his beak.
At last the little birds were fledged, And strong enough to fly, And then they spread their tiny wings, And bid the nest good-bye.
There's many a little home like this,
Sheltered in every grove,
To teach us how to make our homes
Abodes of peace and love. I have already referred to the games which represent the different activities of men, but it is obvious that they illustrate social dependence equally with organic processes. The same symbol may represent different phases of a generic thought, and thus, while all of Froebel's songs are pervaded by the idea of unity, particular songs have also subordinate meanings and applications. Civil society is foreshadowed in the games of the farmer, the miller, the baker, the carpenter, the joiner, the wheelwright and a host of others, and the two ideas kept prominently before the child's mind in all of them are, first, that he must be grateful for the varied work which loads his life with blessings ; and, second, that "as all are for each so each must be for all,'* and he, too, must contribute his mite to the labor of the world. Even money, " the universal solvent," is not forgotten by Froebel. In the game of the target, after rep- |
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