The Child under Eight | Page 9

conceive of force without matter on which it can
exercise itself. Neither can we think of matter without any force to
work upon it, so that "force and matter mutually condition one
another," we cannot think one without the other.
This force expresses itself in all ways, the whole universe is the
expression of the Divine, but "man is the highest and most perfect
earthly being in whom the primordial force is spiritualised so that man
feels, understands and knows his own power." Conscious development

of one's own power is the triumph of spirit over matter, therefore
human development is spiritual development. So while man is the most
perfect earthly being, yet, with regard to spiritual development he has
returned to a first stage and "must raise himself through ascending
degrees of consciousness" to heights as yet unknown, "for who has
measured the limits of God-born mankind?"
Self-consciousness is the special characteristic of man. No other animal
has the power to become conscious of himself because man alone has
the chance of failure. The lower animals have definite instincts and
cannot fail, _i.e._ cannot learn.[9] Man wants to do much, but his
instincts are less definite and most actions have to be learned; it is by
striving and failing that he learns to know not only his limitations but
the power that is within him--his self.
[Footnote 9: This would nowadays be considered too sweeping an
assertion.]
According to Froebel, "the aim of education is the steady progressive
development of mankind, there is and can be no other"; and, except as
regards physiological knowledge inaccessible in his day, he is at one
with the biologist as to how we are to find out the course of this
development. First, by looking into our own past; secondly, by the
observation of children as individuals as well as when associated
together, and by comparison of the results of observation; thirdly, by
comparison of these with race history and race development.
Froebel makes much of observation of children. He writes to a cousin
begging her to "record in writing the most important facts about each
separate child," and adds that it seems to him "most necessary for the
comprehension of child-nature that such observations should be made
public,... of the greatest importance that we should interchange the
observations we make so that little by little we may come to know the
grounds and conditions of what we observe, that we may formulate
their laws." He protests that even in his day "the observation,
development and guidance of children in the first years of life up to the
proper age of school" is not up to the existing level of "the stage of
human knowledge or the advance of science and art"; and he states that

it is "an essential part" of his undertaking "to call into life an institution
for the preparation of teachers trained for the care of children through
observation of their life."
In speaking of the stages of development of the individual, Froebel says
that "there is no order of importance in the stages of human
development except the order of succession, in which the earlier is
always the more important," and from that point of view we ought "to
consider childhood as the most important stage, ... a stage in the
development of the Godlike in the earthly and human." He also
emphasises that "the vigorous and complete development and
cultivation of each successive stage depends on the vigorous, complete
and characteristic development of each and all preceding stages."
So the duty of the parent is to "look as deeply as possible into the life of
the child to see what he requires for his present stage of development,"
and then to "scrutinise the environment to see what it offers ... to utilise
all possibilities of meeting normal needs," to remove what is hurtful, or
at least to "admit its defects" if they cannot give the child what his
nature requires. "If parents offer what the child does not need," he says,
"they will destroy the child's faith in their sympathetic understanding."
The educator is to "bring the child into relations and surroundings in all
respects adapted to him" but affording a minimum of opportunity of
injury, "guarding and protecting" but not interfering, unless he is
certain that healthy development has already been interrupted. It is
somewhat remarkable that Froebel anticipated even the conclusions of
modern psycho-analysis in his views about childish faults. "The sources
of these," he says, are "neglect to develop certain sides of human life
and, secondly, early distortion of originally good human powers by
arbitrary interference with the orderly course of human development ...
a suppressed or perverted good quality--a good tendency, only
repressed, misunderstood or misguided--lies at the bottom of every
shortcoming." Hence the only remedy