Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 by Various

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A Kindergarten, then, is children in society,--a commonwealth or
republic of children,--whose laws are all part and parcel of the
Higher Law alone. It may be contrasted, in every particular, with the
old-fashioned school, which is an absolute monarchy, where the children
are subjected to a lower expediency, having for its prime end quietness,
or such order as has "reigned in Warsaw" since 1831.

But let us not be misunderstood. We are not of those who think that
children, in any condition whatever, will inevitably develop into beauty
and goodness. Human nature tends to revolve in a vicious circle, around
the individuality; and children must have over them, in the person of
a wise and careful teacher, a power which shall deal with them as God
deals with the mature, presenting the claims of sympathy and truth
whenever they presumptuously or unconsciously fall into selfishness. We
have the best conditions of moral culture in a company large enough for
the exacting disposition of the solitary child to be balanced by the
claims made by others on the common stock of enjoyment,--there being
a reasonable oversight of older persons, wide-awake to anticipate,
prevent, and adjust the rival pretensions which must always arise where
there are finite beings with infinite desires, while Reason, whose
proper object is God, is yet undeveloped.

Let the teacher always take for granted that the law of love is quick
within, whatever are appearances, and the better self will generally
respond. In proportion as the child is young and unsophisticated, will
be the certainty of the response to a teacher of simple faith:

"There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them,--who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth.

"And blest are they who in the main
This faith even now do entertain,
Live in the spirit of this creed,
Yet find another strength, according to their
need."

Such are the natural Kindergartners, who prevent disorder by employing
and entertaining children, so that they are kept in an accommodating and
loving mood by never being thrown on self-defence,--and when selfishness
is aroused, who check it by an appeal to sympathy, or Conscience, which
is the presentiment of reason, a fore-feeling of moral order, for whose
culture material order is indispensable.

But order must be kept by the child, not only unconsciously, but
intentionally. Order is the child of reason, and in turn cultivates the
intellectual principle. To bring out order on the physical plane, the
Kindergarten makes it a serious purpose to organize _romping_, and set
it to music, which cultivates the physical nature also. Romping is the
ecstasy of the body, and we shall find that in proportion as children
tend to be violent they are vigorous in body. There is always morbid
weakness of some kind where there is no instinct for hard play; and it
begins to be the common sense that energetic physical activity must
not be repressed, but favored. Some plan of play prevents the little
creatures from hurting each other, and fancy naturally furnishes the
plan,--the mind unfolding itself in fancies, which are easily quickened
and led in harmless directions by an adult of any resource. Those who
have not imagination themselves must seek the aid of the Kindergarten
guides, where will be found arranged to music the labors of the peasant,
and cooper, and sawyer, the wind-mill, the watermill, the weather-vane,
the clock, the pigeon-house, the hares, the bees, and the cuckoo.
Children delight to personate animals, and a fine genius could not
better employ itself than in inventing a great many more plays, setting
them to rhythmical words, describing what is to be done. Every variety
of bodily exercise might be made and kept within the bounds of order and
beauty by plays involving the motions of different animals and machines
of industry. Kindergarten plays are easy intellectual exercises; for
to do anything whatever with a thought beforehand develops the mind
or quickens the intelligence; and thought of this kind does not try
intellect, or check physical development, which last must never be
sacrificed in the process of education.

There are enough instances of marvellous acquisition in infancy to show
that imbibing with the mind is as natural as with the body, if suitable
beverage is put to the lips; but in most cases the mind's power is
balanced by instincts of body, which should have priority, if they
cannot certainly be in full harmony. The mind can afford to wait for the
maturing of the body, for it survives the body; while the body cannot
afford to wait for the mind, but is irretrievably stunted, if the
nervous energy is not free to stimulate its special organs at least
equally with those of the mind.

It is not, however, necessary to sacrifice the culture of either mind or
body, but to harmonize them. They can and ought to grow together. They
mutually help each other.

Doctor Dio Lewis's "Free Exercises" are also suitable to the
Kindergarten, and may be taken in short lessons of a quarter of an hour,
or even of ten minutes. Children are fond of precision also, and it will
be found that they like the teaching best, when they are made to do the
exercises exactly right, and in perfect time to the music.

But the regular gymnastics and the romping plays must be alternated with
quiet employments, of course, but still active. They will sing at their
plays by rote; and also should be taught other songs by rote. But there
can be introduced a regular drill on the scale, which should never last
more than ten minutes at a time. This, if well managed, will cultivate
their ears and voices, so that in the course of a year they will become
very expert in telling any note struck, if not in striking it. The ear
is cultivated sooner than the voice, and they may be taught to name the
octave as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and their imaginations impressed by
drawing a ladder of eight rounds on the blackboard, to signify that the
voice rises by regular gradation. This will fix their attention, and
their interest will not flag, if the teacher has any tact.

Slates and pencils are indispensable in a Kindergarten from the first.
One side of a slate can be ruled with a sharp point in small squares,
and if their fancy is interested by telling them to make a fish-net,
they will carefully make their pencils follow these lines,--which makes
a first exercise in drawing. Their little fingers are so unmanageable
that at first they will not be able to make straight lines even with
this help. For variety, little patterns can be given them, drawn on
the blackboard, (or on paper similarly ruled,) of picture-frames and
patterns for carpets. When they can make squares well, they can be
shown how to cross them with diagonals, and make circles inside of the
squares, and outside of them, and encouraged to draw on the other side
of the slate, from their own fancy, or from objects. Entire sympathy and
no destructive criticism should meet every effort. Self-confidence is
the first requisite for success. If they think they have had success, it
is indispensable that it should be echoed from without. Of course there
will be poor perspective; and even Schmidt's method of perspective
cannot be introduced to very young children. A natural talent for
perspective sometimes shows itself, which by-and-by can be perfected by
Schmidt's method.[B]

[Footnote B: See _Common School Journal_ for 1842-3.]

But little children will not draw long at a time. Nice manipulation,
which is important, can be taught, and the eye for form cultivated, by
drawing for them birds and letting them prick the lines. It will enchant
them to have something pretty to carry home now and then. Perforated
board can also be used to teach them the use of a needle and thread.
They will like to make the outlines of ships and steamboats, birds,
etc., which can be drawn for them with a lead pencil on the board by the
teachers. Weaving strips of colored card-board into papers cut for them
is another enchanting amusement, and can be made subservient to teaching
them the harmonies of colors. In the latter part of the season, when
they have an accumulation of pricked birds, or have learned to draw
them, they can be allowed colors to paint them in a rough manner. It is,
perhaps, worth while to say, that, in teaching children to draw on
their slates, it is better for the teacher to draw at the moment on the
blackboard than to give them patterns of birds, utensils, etc., because
then the children will see how to begin and proceed, and are not
discouraged by the mechanical perfection of their model.

Drawing ought always rather to precede reading and writing, as the
minute appreciation of forms is the proper preparation for these. But
reading and writing may come into Kindergarten exercises at once, if
reading is taught by the phonic method, (which saves all perplexity to
the child's brain,) and accompanied by printing on the slate. It then
alternates with other things, as one of the amusements. We will describe
how we have seen it taught. The class sat before a blackboard, with
slates and pencils. The teacher said, "Now let us make all the sounds
that we can with the lips: First, put the lips gently together and sound
m," (not _em_,)--which they all did. Then she said,--"Now let us draw
it on the blackboard,--three short straight marks by the side of each
other, and join them on the top,--that is m. What is it?" They sounded
m, and made three marks and joined them on the top, with more or less
success. The teacher said,--"Now put your lips close together and say
p." (This is mute and to be whispered). They all imitated the motion
made. She said,--"Now let us write it; one straight mark, then the
upper lip puffed out at the top." M and p, to be written and
distinguished, are perhaps enough for one lesson, which should not reach
half an hour in length. At the next lesson these were repeated again.
Then the teacher said,--"Now put your lips together and make the same
motion as you did to say p; but make a little more sound, and it will be
b" (which is sonorous). "You must write it differently from p;--you must
make a short mark and put the _under_ lip on." "Now put your teeth on
your under lip and say f." (She gave the power.) "You must write it by
making a short straight mark make a bow, and then cross it with a little
mark across the middle." "Now fix your lips in the same manner and sound
a little, and you will make v. Write it by making two little marks meet
at the bottom."

This last letter was made a separate lesson of, and the other lessons
were reviewed. The teacher then said,--"Now you have learned some
letters,--all the lip--letters,"--making them over, and asking what each
was. She afterwards added w,--giving its power and form, and put it with
the lip-letters. At the next lesson they were told to make the letters
with their lips, and she wrote them down on the board, and then said,--
"Now we will make some tooth-letters. Put your teeth together and say
t." (She gave the power, and showed them how to write it.) "Now put your
teeth together and make a sound and it will be d." "That is written just
like b, only we put the lip behind." "Now put your teeth together and
hiss, and then make this little crooked snake (s). Then fix your teeth
in the same manner and buzz like a bee. You write z pointed this way."
"Now put your teeth together and say j, written with a dot." At the
next lessons the throat-letters were given; first the hard guttural
was sounded, and they were told three ways to write it, c, k, q,
distinguished as _round_, _high_, and _with a tail_. C was not sounded
_see_, but _ke_ (ke, ka, ku). Another lesson gave them the soft guttural
g, but did not sound it _jee_; and the aspirate, but did not call it
_aitch_.

Another lesson gave the vowels, (or voice-letters, as she called them,)
and it was made lively by her writing afterwards all of them in one
word, _mieaou_, and calling it the cat's song. It took from a week
to ten days to teach these letters, one lesson a day of about twenty
minutes. Then came words: mamma, papa, puss, pussy, etc. The vowels were
always sounded as in Italian, and i and y distinguished as _with the
dot_ and _with a tail_. At first only one word was the lesson, and the
letters were reviewed in their divisions of lip-letters, throat-letters,
tooth-letters, voice-letters. The latter were sounded the Italian way,
as in the words _a_rm, _e_gg, _i_nk, _o_ak, and Per_u_. This teacher had
Miss Peabody's "First Nursery Reading-Book," and when she had taught the
class to make all the words on the first page of it, she gave each of
the children the book and told them to find first one word and then
another. It was a great pleasure to them to be told that now they could
read. They were encouraged to copy the words out of the book upon their
slates.

The "First Nursery Reading-Book" has in it _no_ words that have
exceptions in their spelling to the sounds given to the children as
the powers of the letters. Nor has it any diphthong or combinations of
letters, such as oi, ou, ch, sh, th. After they could read it at sight,
they were told that all words were not so regular, and their attention
was called to the initial sounds of thin, shin, and chin, and to the
proper diphthongs, ou, oi, and au, and they wrote words considering
these as additional characters. Then "Mother Goose" was put into their
hands, and they were made to read by rote the songs they already knew
by heart, and to copy them. It was a great entertainment to find the
_queer_ words, and these were made the nucleus of groups of similar
words which were written on the blackboard and copied on their slates.

We have thought it worth while to give in detail this method of teaching
to read, because it is the most entertaining to children to be taught
so, and because many successful instances of the pursual of this plan
have come under our observation; and one advantage of it has been,
that the children so taught, though never going through the common
spelling-lessons, have uniformly exhibited a rare exactness in
orthography.

In going through this process, the children learn to print very nicely,
and generally can do so sooner than they can read. It is a small matter
afterwards to teach them to turn the print into script. They should be
taught to write with the lead pencil before the pen, whose use need not
come into the Kindergarten.

But we must not omit one of the most important exercises for children
in the Kindergarten,--that of block-building. Froebel has four Gifts of
blocks. Ronge's "Kindergarten Guide" has pages of royal octavo filled
with engraved forms that can be made by variously laying eight little
cubes and sixteen little planes two inches long, one inch broad, and
one-half an inch thick. Chairs, tables, stables, sofas, garden-seats,
and innumerable forms of symmetry, make an immense resource for
children, who also should be led to invent other forms and imitate other
objects. So quick are the fancies of children, that the blocks will
serve also as symbols of everything in Nature and imagination. We have
seen an ingenious teacher assemble a class of children around her large
table, to each of whom she had given the blocks. The first thing was to
count them, a great process of arithmetic to most of them. Then she made
something and explained it. It was perhaps a light-house,--and some
blocks would represent rocks near it to be avoided, and ships sailing in
the ocean; or perhaps it was a hen-coop, with chickens inside, and a fox
prowling about outside, and a boy who was going to catch the fox and
save the fowls. Then she told each child to make something, and when it
was done hold up a hand. The first one she asked to explain, and then
went round the class. If one began to speak before another had ended,
she would hold up her finger and say,--"It is not your turn." In the
course of the winter, she taught, over these blocks, a great deal about
the habits of animals. She studied natural history in order to be
perfectly accurate in her symbolic representation of the habitation of
each animal, and their enemies were also represented by blocks. The
children imitated these; and when they drew upon their imaginations for
facts, and made fantastic creations, she would say,--"Those, I think,
were Fairy hens" (or whatever); for it was her principle to accept
everything, and thus tempt out their invention. The great value of this
exercise is to get them into the habit of representing something they
have thought by an outward symbol. The explanations they are always
eager to give teach them to express themselves in words. Full scope is
given to invention, whether in the direction of possibilities or of the
impossibilities in which children's imaginations revel,--in either case
the child being trained to the habit of embodiment of its thought.

Froebel thought it very desirable to have a garden where the children
could cultivate flowers. He had one which he divided into lots for the
several children, reserving a portion for his own share in which they
could assist him. He thought it the happiest mode of calling their
attention to the invisible God, whose power must be waited upon, after
the conditions for growth are carefully arranged according to _laws_
which they were to observe. Where a garden is impossible, a flowerpot
with a plant in it for each child to take care of would do very well.

But the best way to cultivate a sense of the presence of God is to draw
the attention to the conscience, which is very active in children, and
which seems to them (as we all can testify from our own remembrance)
another than themselves, and yet themselves. We have heard a person say,
that in her childhood she was puzzled to know which was herself, the
voice of her inclination or of her conscience, for they were palpably
two, and what a joyous thing it was when she was first convinced that
one was the Spirit of God, whom unlucky teaching had previously embodied
in a form of terror on a distant judgment-seat. Children are consecrated
as soon as they get the spiritual idea, and it may be so presented that
it shall make them happy as well as true. But the adult who enters into
such conversation with a child must be careful not to shock and profane,
instead of nurturing the soul. It is possible to avoid both discouraging
and flattering views, and to give the most tender and elevating
associations.

But children require not only an alternation of physical and mental
amusements, but some instruction to be passively received. They delight
in stories, and a wise teacher can make this subservient to the highest
uses by reading beautiful creations of the imagination. Not only such
household-stories as "Sanford and Merton," Mrs. Farrar's "Robinson
Crusoe," and Salzmann's "Elements of Morality," but symbolization like
the heroes of Asgard, the legends of the Middle Ages, classic and
chivalric tales, the legend of Saint George, and "Pilgrim's Progress,"
can in the mouth of a skilful reader be made subservient to moral
culture. The reading sessions should not exceed ten or fifteen minutes.

Anything of the nature of scientific teaching should be done by
presenting _objects_ for examination and investigation.[C] Flowers and
insects, shells, etc., are easily handled. The observations should be
drawn out of the children, not made to them, except as corrections of
their mistakes. Experiments with the prism, and in crystallization
and transformation, are useful and desirable to awaken taste for
the sciences of Nature. In short, the Kindergarten should give the
beginnings of everything. "What is well begun is half done."

[Footnote C: Calkin's _Object Lessons_ will give hints.]

We must say a word about the locality and circumstances of a
Kindergarten. There is published in Lausanne, France, a newspaper
devoted to the interests of this mode of education, in whose early
numbers is described a Kindergarten; which seems to be of the nature of
a boarding-school, or, at least, the children are there all day. Each
child has a garden, and there is one besides where they work in common.
There are accommodations for keeping animals, and miniature tools to do
mechanical labor of various kinds. In short, it is a child's world. But
in this country, especially in New England, parents would not consent
to be so much separated from their children, and a few hours of
Kindergarten in the early part of the day will serve an excellent
purpose,--using up the effervescent activity of children, who may
healthily be left to themselves the rest of the time, to play or rest,
comparatively unwatched.

Two rooms are indispensable, if there is any variety of age. It is
desirable that one should be sequestrated to the quiet employments. A
pianoforte is desirable, to lead the singing, and accompany the plays,
gymnastics, frequent marchings, and dancing, when that is taught,--which
it should be. But a hand-organ which plays fourteen tunes will help to
supply the want of a piano, and a guitar in the hands of a ready teacher
will do better than nothing.

Sometimes a genial mother and daughters might have a Kindergarten, and
devote themselves and the house to it, especially if they live in one
of our beautiful country-towns or cities. The habit, in the city of New
York, of sending children to school in an omnibus, hired to go round the
city and pick them up, suggests the possibility of a Kindergarten in one
of those beautiful residences up in town, where there is a garden before
or behind the house. It is impossible to keep Kindergarten _by the
way_. It must be the main business of those who undertake it; for it is
necessary that every individual child should be borne, as it were, on
the heart of the _garteners_, in order that it be _inspired_ with order,
truth, and goodness. To develop a child from within outwards, we must
plunge ourselves into its peculiarity of imagination and feeling. No
one person could possibly endure such absorption, of life in labor
unrelieved, and consequently two or three should unite in the
undertaking in order to be able to relieve each other from the enormous
strain on life. The compensations are, however, great. The charm of the
various individuality, and of the refreshing presence of conscience yet
unprofaned, is greater than can be found elsewhere in this work-day
world. Those were not idle words which came from the lips of Wisdom
Incarnate:--"Their angels do always behold the face of my Father": "Of
such is the kingdom of heaven."

A PICTURE.

[AFTER WITHER.]

Sweet child, I prithee stand,
While I try my novel hand
At a portrait of thy face,
With its simple childish grace.

Cheeks as soft and finely hued
As the fleecy cloud imbued
With the roseate tint of morn
Ere the golden sun is born:--
Lips that like a rose-hedge curl,
Guarding well the gates of pearl,
--What care I for pearly gate?
By the rose-hedge will I wait:--
Chin that rounds with outline fine,
Melting off in hazy line;
As in misty summer noon,
Or beneath the harvest moon,
Curves the smooth and sandy shore,
Flowing off in dimness hoar:--
Eyes that roam like timid deer
Sheltered by a thicket near,
Peeping out between the boughs,
Or that, trusting, safely browse:--
Arched o'er all the forehead pure,
Giving us the prescience sure
Of an ever-growing light;
As in deepening summer night,
Over fields to ripen soon
Hangs the silver crescent moon.

* * * * *

TWO AND ONE.

I.

The winter sun streamed pleasantly into the room. On the tables lay the
mother's work of the morning,--the neatly folded clothes she had just
been ironing. A window was opened a little way to let some air into the
room too closely heated by the brisk fire. The air fanned the leaves of
the ivy-plant that stood in the window, and of the primrose which
seemed ready to open in the warm sun. Above, there hung a cage, and a
canary-bird shouted out now and then its pleasure at the sunny day, with
a half-dream perhaps of a tropical climate in the tropical air with
which the coal-fire filled the room. Mrs. Schroder leaned back in her
old-fashioned rocking-chair, and folded her hands, one over the other,
ready to rest after her morning's labor. She was willing to take the
repose won by her work; indeed, this was the only way she had managed to
preserve her strength for all the work it was necessary for her to do.
She had been conscious that her powers had answered for just so much and
no more, and she had never been able to make further demands upon them.

When years before she was left a widow, with two sons to support and
educate, all her friends and neighbors prophesied that her health would
prove unequal to either work, and agreed that it was very fortunate that
she had a rich relation or two to help her. But, unfortunately, the rich
relations preferred helping only in their own way. One uncle agreed to
send the older boy to his father's relations in Germany, while the other
wished to take the younger with him to his home in the South; and an
aunt-in-law promised Mrs. Schroder work enough as seamstress to support
herself.

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