The Child under Eight | Page 8

a greater extent.
We are, however, fully prepared to maintain that Froebel; even in 1840,
had a wider and a deeper realisation of the needs of the child than has
as yet been attained by the Dottoressa.[6] In order to make this clear, it
is proposed to compare the theories of Froebel with the conclusions of
a biologist. For biology has a wider and a saner outlook than medical
science; it does not start from the abnormal, but with life under normal
conditions.
[Footnote 6: Her latest publication regarding the instruction--for it is
not education--of older children makes this even more plain. For here is
no discussion of what children at this stage require, but a mere plunge
into "subjects" in which formal grammar takes a foremost place.]
In the address, from which the opening words of this chapter are quoted,
it is suggested that a capable biologist be set to deal with education, but

he is to be freed "from all preconceived ideas derived from accepted
tradition." After such fundamentals as food and warmth, light, air and
sleep, the first problems considered by this Biologist Educator are
stages of growth, their appropriate activities, and the stimuli necessary
to evoke them. Always he bears in mind that "interference with a
growing creature is a hazardous business," and takes as his motto
"When in doubt, refrain."
To discover the natural activities of the child, the biologist relies upon,
first, observation of the child himself, secondly, upon his knowledge of
the nervous system, and thirdly, upon his knowledge of the past history
of the race. From these he comes to a very pertinent conclusion, viz.
"The general outcome of this is that the safe way of educating children
is by means of Play," play being defined as "the natural manifestation
of the child's activities; systematic in that it follows the lines of
physiological development, but without the hard and fast routine of the
time-table."[7]
[Footnote 7: It is in this connection that the Kindergarten is stigmatised
as "pretty employments devised by adults and imposed at set times by
authority," an opinion evidently gained from the way in which the term
has been misused in a type of Infant School now fast disappearing.]
It is easy to show that although Froebel was pre-Darwinian, he had
been in close touch with scientists who were working at theories of
development, and that he was largely influenced by Krause, who
applied the idea of organic development to all departments of social
science. It was because Froebel was himself, even in 1826, the
Biologist Educator desiring to break with preconceived ideas and
traditions that he wished one of his pupils had been able to "call your
work by its proper name, and so make evident the real nature of the
new spirit you have introduced."[8]
[Footnote 8: See p. 4.]
But Froebel was more than a biologist, he was a philosopher and an
idealist. Such words have sometimes been used as terms of reproach,
but wisdom can only be justified of her children.

At the back of all Froebel has to say about "The Education of the
Human Being" lies his conception of what the human being is. And it is
impossible fully to understand why Froebel laid so much stress on
spontaneous play unless we go deeper than the province of the biologist
without in the least minimising the importance of biological knowledge
to educational theory. As the biologist defines play as "the natural
manifestation of the child's activities," so Froedel says "play at first is
just natural life." But to him the true inwardness of spontaneous play
lies in the fact that it is spontaneous--so far as anything in the universe
can be spontaneous. For spontaneous response to environment is
self-expression, and out of self-expression comes selfhood,
consciousness of self. If we are to understand Froebel at all, we must
begin with the answer he found, or accepted, from Krause and others
for his first question, What is that self?
Before reaching the question of how to educate, it seemed to him
necessary to consider not only the purpose or aim of education, but the
purpose or aim of human existence, the purpose of all and any
existence, even whether there is any purpose in anything; and that
brings us to what he calls "the groundwork of all," of which a summary
is given in the following paragraphs.
In the universe we can perceive plan, purpose or law, and behind this
there must be some great Mind, "a living, all-pervading, energising,
self-conscious and hence eternal Unity" whom we call God. Nature and
all existing things are a revelation of God.
As Bergson speaks of the _élan vital_ which expresses itself from
infinity to infinity, so Froebel says that behind everything there is force,
and that we cannot