Gloucester County Democrat., 1909-04-22


] the ideals are the desires of the heart.
What are we placing before the chill
!, dren to influence them all their lives?
! Each little child has an ideal self, we
should warmly receive each sponta-
neous manifestation of that self, not
seeking to make it conform to our
! ideal. The individuality of the child
i is sacred, and if we car keep his fan
| cy pure, he will not even see evil.
We may help him upward toward
his ideal through our games, songs,
stories and talks. 1t may be through
nature study Longfellow says:
And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, here is a story book
Thy Father hath written for thee.
Come wander with me, she said,
/ Into regions yet untrod
And read what is still unread
In the manuscript of God.
And he wandered away and away,
With Nature the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the Universe.
We cannot always place the child
on Natures knee, to read her story
book, but we can WOO the old nurse
| to us now and then. Watch the snow
flakes, cut them out and paste them
on pretty blue paper; show the coll
ors in the rainbow, in the shells and
! stones. We can watch one of the
most beautiful of natures works, the
transformation of caterpillar to chrys-
alis and then to butterfly Study with
the children the termination of seeds
in cotton indoors, and the unfolding
of the new leaves and the spring
flowers outdoors.
We can nuture the mate love of chill
dren for animals John Burroughs
says: The love of nature is never to
be cultivated by dumping lot of bare
4, the outside, let them absorb is
might suggest that children have the
nature work peculiar to its season,
so that the child may get the proper
relation. No better foundation for
service or religion can be laid than
the sincere and reverent interest in
nature, which has found out that in
this universe of ours "All's love, yet
all's law
Story telling has real mission in
setting free the natural creative ex-
Ipression of children. Sarah Cone Bry-
ant says: A story is a work of art,
its greatest use to the child is in the
everlasting appeal of beauty, by which
the soul of man is constantly beset.
New images, quickened to new per-
ceptions and so given desire to grow.
4 Tell, not read, your stories, and tell
good stories, not incidental. Stories
of nature and child-life, of history and
mythology, all have their place, and
4 the best educators tell us, all these
are necessary for the symmetrical de-
velopment of the faculties. Animal
stories are of great value to the child,
if the right k ind. Indeed we must
have a care in telling any kind of a
story, that first impressions be right
cneS.
Susan E. Blows translation of
FroebeFs "Mutter and Kose Lieder.
The interest a young child gives
To every animal that lives,
Dear Mother, is an open door
| Through which unbounded good
Filling his mind with knowledge
manifold,
Of natures wondrous laws, SO new,
so old,
But watch, lest by the self-same way
Into his soul some i'll may stray.
And while your eyes look otherwhere
Make for itself a Judgement there.
Watch, and with noble thoughts SO
so fill his mind
That passing evil may no shelter
find
We know how eagerly he listens to
stories of the sly fox, or the great
strong lion, the king of beasts. He
i likes to hear of their voices, their
craftiness, their cunning, of the var
ious ways in which they out-wit their
prey. What child could listen to the
stories from Kipling's Jungle Books
and not feel a deeper sympathy ever
afterward with all animal life? Or
/ Frobel's shadow plays, or E. S. Thomp
sons wild Animals have Known, Z
i These books surely have great and
good influence on children, as we'll as
upon ourselves.
4 A bulletin board serves as a pic
4 ture book of the. subject with which
we are dealing, the form and coloring
appealing to the chi1d's sense of sight,
and unconsciously intoxicating love
for the beautiful The child likes to
see in pictures the things he sees
about him in real life. But the pic
lures must be true to those things he
knows, If he is to enjoy them. So we
must place only such as are pleasing,
4 and the arrangement means much.
i Among other things for our bulle-
4 tin, / have made series of posters
i by folding, cutting and pasting. These
Il ara m an1Infnd an praan 0r h1l1n or what
ever background suits. They consist
OF simple pictures representing a
thought, story or experience. For in
Stance in March, after several talks
q on the winds work (and it seems as
lif there were no end to the things done
l by this unseen power, rocks the trees,
| flies kites, drives sailboats, blows the