The Child under Eight | Page 3

up
arms to resist the invasion of Napoleon, and who had rejoiced with
such enthusiasm in the prospect of a free and united Fatherland, should
write in 1851:
"Wherefore I have made a firm resolve that if the conditions of German
life will not allow room for the development of honest efforts for the
good of humanity; if this indifference to all higher things
continues--then it is my purpose next spring to seek in the land of union
and independence a soil where my idea of education may strike deep
root."
And to America he might have gone had he lived, but he died three
months later, his end hastened by grief at the edict which closed the
Kindergartens. The Prussian Minister announced, in this edict, that "it
is evident that Kindergartens form a part of the Froebelian socialistic
system, the aim of which is to teach the children atheism," and the
suggestion that he was anti-Christian cut the old man to the heart.
There had been some confusion between Froebel and one of his
nephews, who had democratic leanings, and no doubt anything at all
democratic did mean atheism to "stony Berlin" and its intolerant
autocracy.
For a time, at least in Bavaria, a curious compromise was allowed. If
the teacher were a member of the Orthodox Church, she might have her
Kindergarten, but if she belonged to one of the Free Churches, it was
permissible to open an Infant School, but she must not use the term
Kindergarten.

Froebel was by no means of the opinion that, if only the teacher had the
right spirit, the name did not matter. Rather did he hold with Confucius,
whose answer to the question of a disciple, "How shall I convert the
world?" was, "Call things by their right names." He refused to use the
word school, because "little children, especially those under six, do not
need to be schooled and taught, what they need is opportunity for
development." He had great difficulty in selecting a name. Those
originally suggested were somewhat cumbrous, e.g. _Institution for the
Promotion of Spontaneous Activity in Children_; another was
_Self-Teaching Institution_, and there was also the one which Madame
Michaelis translated "Nursery School for Little Children."
But the name Kindergarten expressed just what he Wanted: "As in a
garden, under God's favour, and by the care of a skilled intelligent
gardener, growing plants are cultivated in accordance with Nature's
laws, so here in our child garden shall the noblest of all growing things,
men (that is, children), be cultivated in accordance with the laws of
their own being, of God and of Nature."
To one of his students he writes: "You remember well enough how
hard we worked and how we had to fight that we might elevate the
Darmstadt crèche, or rather Infant School, by improved methods and
organisation until it became a true Kindergarten.... Now what was the
outcome of all this, even during my own stay at Darmstadt? Why, the
fetters which always cripple a crèche or an Infant School, and which
seem to cling round its very name--these fetters were allowed to remain
unbroken. Every one was pleased with so faithful a mistress as
yourself,... yet they withheld from you the main condition of
unimpeded development, that of the freedom necessary to every young
healthy and vigorous plant.... Is there really such importance
underlying the mere name of a system?--some one might ask. Yes,
there is.... It is true that any one watching your teaching would observe
a new spirit infused into it, _expressing and fulfilling the child's own
wants and desires._ You would strike him as personally capable, but
you would fail to strike him as priestess of the idea which God has now
called to life within man's bosom, and of the struggle towards the
realisation of that idea--_education by development--the destined

means of raising the whole human race...._ No man can acquire fresh
knowledge, even at a school, beyond the measure which his own stage
of development fits him to receive.... Infant Schools are nothing but a
contradiction of child-nature. Little children especially those under
school age, ought not to be schooled and taught, what they need is
opportunity for development. This idea lies in the very name of a
Kindergarten.... And the name is absolutely necessary to describe the
first education of children."
For an actual definition of what Froebel meant by his Nursery School
for Little Children or Kindergarten, it is only fair to go to the founder
himself. He has left us two definitions or descriptions, one announced
shortly before the first Kindergarten was opened, which runs:
"An institution for the fostering of human life, through the cultivation
of the human instincts of activity, of investigation and of construction
in the child, as a member of the