River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1885-03-19
The RELATION or KINDERGARTEN 10 PRiMAR

| members enrolled, all of whom show
interest and enthusiasts in the work.
The RELATION or KINDERGARTEN 10 PRIMARY
| SCHOOL.
BY MARY HAw SMITH.
The aim of the Kindergarten is the
education of the little child in the
truest and most complete sense. Edu-
| cation has been defined to be 1.-the set
ting free of the bound-up forces of
| the body and the soul. The inner
| conditions necessary to this setting
| free, the healthily-born child brings
| with him into the world; the outer
| conditions must be supplied through
| education. We have a plant whose
| buds of leaves and blossoms we wish
to have set free and sprout. What do
we do! Supply it with the proper
| amount of sunshine, air, and moisture
| and then let it alone for the rest. The
inner force is sufficient to do the work
if the outward conditions are all
right. From s'The Reign of
Law" we learn "Every thing
in the kingdom of nature,
however different the stages of
progress may be, comes under one
universal law, and development, or
education, means the same as progress
| according TO Tar. The faculties of
the mind and body as much belong to
nature and her laws as the physical
world around and outside of us. One
great consequence oflaw over material
things is the necessity of reSorting to
the use of appropriate means for the
accomplishment of purpose, SO does
the same necessity arise out of the
same conditions among the phenome
ma of mind. If we wish to operate
| upon the human character we must
direct our efforts to place that charac-
ter under outward conditions which
we know to have a favorable effect
upon it. In the material world we
should be powerless to control any
event if we did not know it to be sub
ject to laws. The same impotency
would effect us, if, in the mental aud
moral world, also, definite conditions
had not always an iinvariable tenden-
cy to produce certain results.
This | understand to be Froebels
| idea of education. Beginning with
| the babe on the day of its birth there
SIiOulu 10 ID UaLlUfUt. ULI HSOHNOto
growth i'll all directions strengthen
| ing and building up of true and no
| BILE character-a development which
is never truly finished as long as the
| individual lives, but which is only
Withdrawn more and more from out
ward influences and which enters
more and more into original, free, and
| noble differentiation. His educa-
ton should simply be to supply the
| proper outward conditions and let the
| natural ones do the rest. From his
| biography we learn that Froebei was
| for many years teacher in the more
| advanced grades of school work land
| it was his experience with boys that
| helped him to develop and fix his edu
| cational theories. He did not feel
| that infants should have one kind of
| education and older children another.
| Different in method, truly, because
every year of child's life has its
own type, but not different in princi.
| pie, and that in every case the future,
| the manhood, should be kept in view.
| Through all his labors as a teacher he
had been baffled by the impossibility
of crowdlng into the years boy
| SDEIlllS db OCilOOl tllE lllOOl uSblOu
essary for his after success in the
world, together with that training of
all the faculties, the harmonious de-
| yeIopment of the whole nature which
| he held more important than any
knowledge. He had thought that
better trained teachers would attain
the object, but the result proved that
the difficulty lay deeper still. 1t was
in the condition of the children them
selves who came to school with unde-
veloped or misdirected faculties; and
thenceforth he devoted himself to the
subject of early education. He laid
aside all books on theory and studied
the child. A writer in Canadian
School Journal says: "He watched
it at its play and at its work. He saw
that it was open to impressions from
every direction; that its energies were
manifested by unceasing curiosity and
unceasing restlessness; that, if left to
itself, the impossibility of reaching
any satisfactory conclusions in it's re-
searches, little by little stifled it's in
terest; the eager desire to explore
deeply the world of ideas and objects
before him passed into a superficial
observation, needing little and sure of
nothing He saw that the law which
made it fit from object to object in
this unceasing motion was a law of
development implanted by God, and,
therefore. good; but that unless it
were directed and given aim and pur-
pose, it became an element of mischief
as well. How was the possible angel
to be developed, and the possible devil
to be defeated. Froebel said: If we
take God S own way, We must be right;
so let US direct into a systematic, but
natural course of employment all these
tender fancies, these fearless little
hands and feet, and these precious lit
tie eager souls: and then we shall
work with the Divine love and intelli-
gence, and it with US, and our chill
dren shall find the good and avoid the
evil.
From this study OF the child, the
greatest friend of children, concludes:
II can convert this spontaneous ac-
tiyity, which is the handspring of all
the machinery. this delight in move
ment. this curiosity, this desire for
invention and construction, in fact
all of children's activities, energies,
amusements, occupations, all that
goes by the name of play can con-
vert them all into instruments for my
!, purpose" This play period of the
J child which has hitherto been allowed
} to 90 to waste-or worse-shall be-
come an educational period. To this
period Froebel gave the name Kinder
gdrten.
This child-garden claims to take
children at the earliest stage in which
they can be trained in some sense col
lnctivelu aud Naturally To unfold de-