| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
VI |
PREFACE. |
||
|
They cannot comprehend death or anything dead, therefore the happy beings, animating everything, surround themselves only with life, and hence it is they say, for instance, 'The lights have covered themselves up and gone to bed.' " Instinctively to the child,
" Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it which reaches and towers, And groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers."
So to both child and poet the wind "dances," the flowers " nod, sleep and wake."
" The smallest child a magnet in him bears That shows him how life binds together all; But this great truth must also dwell in you, And it must be the soul of all you do."
Froebel thus presents the only possible attitude that enables one to lead from instinct to conscious knowledge of unity. The child perceives things as a whole; therefore, in all helpiul association with him one must needs adopt his view, and like the artist (who voluntarily shuts off half the scene, banishes minor points, in order to receive the large impression, the main characteristics), must subordinate details—must see with the single eye of a little child that the whole body may be full of light.
This singleness of mind and heart is the childlikeness which is the open sesame to all beauty and truth.
When the mind in any degree grasps the great central truth—that God is harmony, the holding power, unity, love—we have scientific and intellectual results; when it is received into the heart the outcome is music, poetry, tender, sympathetic feeling and action, brotherly love. In childhood the heart feels the truth; in maturity, when together the heart feels and the intellect sees it, we have wisdom, true simplicity. It is with this true simplicity—the artist's and the poet's view of nature—that one must meet the child and lead him easily and gradually through processes and appearances to unity back of variety, to insight through sight.
Such is the aim of Friedrich Froebel—to recognize and sympathetically foster the child's faith in an all pervading harmony ; to lead through feeling to mental perception; to the tracing of relations by the seeing eye, the hearing ear, by both sense and sensibility.
The feeling of unity, harmony, goodness, is so vital, the heart in response to its rhythm, peace and gladness involuntarily bursts into song. According to Carlyle, "All deep things are song. It seems, somehow, the very central essence of us—Song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! The primal element of us; of us and of all things. See deep enough and you see musically; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you can only reach it." Song then ought to be a perfect instrument in the hands of tlie educator for ministering to the inner life of childhood. But in order to do its most effective work each song should be an embodiment of harmony, all its elements combining to serve the same purpose. The impression of the words should be strengthened and confirmed by the music, each conveying the same thought, so that were there no words the music alone would suggest the idea.
The song which has for its end either aimless jingle or the giving of direct information is not a perfect instrument; but the one which is an artistic story, where facts are subordi- |
|||