The Child Under Eight - E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
THE MODERN EDUCATOR'S LIBRARY
_General Editor_.--Prof. A.A. COCK.
THE CHILD UNDER EIGHT
By
E.R. Murray
Vice-Principal Maria Grey Training College
Author Of "Froebel As A Pioneer In Modern Psychology," Etc.
AND
Henrietta Brown Smith
Lecturer In Education, University Of London, Goldsmiths' College
Editor Of "Education By Life"
"Is it not marvellous that an infant should be the heir of
the whole world, and see those mysteries which the books of
the learned never unfold? I knew by intuition those things
which since my apostasy I collected again by highest
reason."
THOMAS TRAHERNE.
1920
THE MODERN EDUCATOR'S LIBRARY
_The following volumes are now ready, and others are in preparation_:--
Education: Its Data and First Principles. By T.P. NUNN, M.A.,
D.Sc., Professor of Education in the University of London.
Moral and Religious Education. By SOPHIE BRYANT, D.Sc., Litt.D.,
late Headmistress, North London Collegiate School for Girls.
The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages in School and University.
By H.G. ATKINS, Professor of German in King's College, London; and H.L.
HUTTON, Senior Modern Language Master at Merchant Taylors' School.
The Child under Eight. By E.R. MURRAY, Vice-Principal, Maria Grey
Training College, Brondesbury; and HENRIETTA BROWN SMITH, L.L.A.,
Lecturer in Education, Goldsmiths' College, University of London.
The Organisation and Curricula of Schools. By W.G. SLEIGHT, M.A.,
D.Lit, Lecturer at Greystoke Place Training College, London.
EDITOR'S PREFACE
The _Modern Educator's Library_ has been designed to give considered
expositions of the best theory and practice in English education of
to-day. It is planned to cover the principal problems of educational
theory in general, of curriculum and organisation, of some unexhausted
aspects of the history of education, and of special branches of applied
education.
The Editor and his colleagues have had in view the needs of young
teachers and of those training to be teachers, but since the school and
the schoolmaster are not the sole factors in the educative process, it
is hoped that educators in general (and which of us is not in some sense
or other an educator?) as well as the professional schoolmaster may find
in the series some help in understanding precept and practice in
education of to-day and to-morrow. For we have borne in mind not only
what is but what ought to be. To exhibit the educator's work as a
vocation requiring the best possible preparation is the spirit in which
these volumes have been written.
No artificial uniformity has been sought or imposed, and while the
Editor is responsible for the series in general, the responsibility for
the opinions expressed in each volume rests solely with its author.
ALBERT A. COOK.
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON, KING'S COLLEGE.
AUTHORS' PREFACE
We have made this book between us, but we have not collaborated. We know
that we agree in all essentials, though our experience has differed. We
both desire to see the best conditions for development provided for all
children, irrespective of class. We both look forward to the time when
the conditions of the Public Elementary School, from the Nursery School
up, will be such--in point of numbers, in freedom from pressure, in
situation of building, in space both within and without, and in beauty
of surroundings--that parents of any class will gladly let their
children attend it.
We are teachers and we have dealt mainly with the mental or, as we
prefer to call it, the spiritual requirements of children. It is from
the medical profession that we must all accept facts about food values,
hours of sleep, etc., and the importance of cleanliness and fresh air
are now fully recognised. We do, however, feel that there is room for
fresh discussion of ultimate aims and of daily procedure. Mr. Clutton
Brock has said that the great weakness of English education is the want
of a definite aim to put before our children, the want of a philosophy
for ourselves. Without some understanding of life and its purpose or
meaning, the teacher is at the mercy of every fad and is apt to exalt
method above principle. This book is an attempt to gather together
certain recognised principles, and to show in the light of actual
experience how these may be applied to existing circumstances.
The day is coming when all teachers will seek to understand the true
value of Play, of spontaneous activity in all directions. Its importance
is emphasised in nearly all the educational writings of the day, as well
in the Senior as in the Junior departments of the school, but we need a
full and deep understanding of the saying, "Man is Man only when he
plays." It is easy to say we believe it, but it needs strong faith,
courage, and wide intelligence to weave such belief into the warp of
daily life in school.
E.R. MURRAY.
H. BROWN SMITH.
CONTENTS
PART I
THE CHILD IN THE NURSERY AND KINDERGARTEN
BY E. R. MURRAY
CHAP.
I. "WHAT'S IN A NAME?"
II. THE BIOLOGIST EDUCATOR
III. LEARNING BORN OF PLAY
IV. FROM 1816 TO 1919
V. "THE WORLD'S MINE OYSTER"
VI. "ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE"
VII. JOY IN MAKING
VIII. STORIES
IX. IN GRASSY PLACES
X. A WAY TO GOD
XI. RHYTHM
XII. FROM FANCY TO FACT
XIII. NEW NEEDS AND NEW HELPS
PART II
THE CHILD IN THE STATE SCHOOL
BY H. BROWN SMITH
I. THINGS AS THEY ARE
XIV. CERTAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF GROWTH
XV. THE INFANT SCHOOL OF TO-DAY
XVI. SOME VITAL PRINCIPLES
II. PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF VITAL PRINCIPLES
XVII. THE NEED FOR EXPERIENCE
XVIII. GAINING EXPERIENCE BY PLAY
XIX. THE UNITY OF EXPERIENCE
XX. GAINING EXPERIENCE THROUGH FREEDOM
III. CONSIDERATION OF THE ASPECTS OF EXPERIENCE
XXI. EXPERIENCES OF HUMAN CONDUCT.
XXII. EXPERIENCES OF THE NATURAL WORLD
XXIII. EXPERIENCES OF MATHEMATICAL TRUTHS
XXIV. EXPERIENCES BY MEANS OF DOING.
XXV. EXPERIENCES OF THE LIFE OF MAN
XXVI. EXPERIENCES RECORDED AND PASSED ON
XXVII. THE THINGS THAT REALLY MATTER.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
PART I
THE CHILD IN THE NURSERY AND KINDERGARTEN
CHAPTER I
"WHAT'S IN A NAME?"
It is an appropriate time to produce a book on English schools for
little children, now that Nursery Schools have been specially selected
for notice and encouragement by an enlightened Minister for Education.
It was Madame Michaelis, who in 1890 originally and most appropriately
used the term Nursery School as the English equivalent of a title
suggested by Froebel[1] for his new institution, before he invented the
word Kindergarten, a title which, literally translated, ran "Institution
for the Care of Little Children."
[Footnote 1: Froebel's _Letters_, trans. Michaelis and Moore, p. 30.]
In England the word Nursery, which implies the idea of nurture, belongs
properly to children, though it has been borrowed by the gardener for
his young plants. In Germany it was the other way round; Froebel had to
invent the term _child garden_ to express his idea of the nurture, as
opposed to the repression, of the essential nature of the child.
Unfortunately the word Kindergarten while being naturalised in England
had two distinct meanings attached to it. Well-to-do people began to
send their children to a new institution, a child garden or play school.
The children of the people, however, already attended Infant Schools,
of which the chief feature was what Mr. Caldwell Cook calls
"sit-stillery," and here the word Kindergarten, really equivalent to
Nursery School, became identified with certain occupations, childlike in
origin it is true, but formalised out of all recognition. How a real
Kindergarten strikes a child is illustrated by the recent remark from a
little new boy who had been with us for perhaps three mornings. "Shall I
go up to the nursery now?" he asked.
The first attempt at a Kindergarten was made in 1837, and by 1848
Germany possessed sixteen. In that eventful year came the revolution in
Berlin, which created such high hopes, doomed, alas! to disappointment.
"Instead of the rosy dawn of freedom," writes Ebers,[2] himself an old
Keilhau boy, "in the State the exercise of a boundless arbitrary power,
in the Church dark intolerance." It must have been an easy matter to
bring charges of revolutionary doctrines against the man who said so
innocently, "But I,--I only wanted to train up free-thinking,
independent men."
[Footnote 2: Author of _An Egyptian Princess_, etc.]
It was from "stony Berlin," as Froebel calls it, that the edict went
forth in the name of the Minister of Education entirely prohibiting
Kindergartens in Prussia, and the prohibition soon spread. At the
present time it seems to us quite fitting that the bitter attack upon
Kindergartens should have been launched by Folsung, a schoolmaster, "who
began life as an artilleryman." Nor is it less interesting to read that
it was under the protection of Von Moltke himself that Oberlin schools
were opened to counteract the attractions of the "godless" Kindergarten.
Little wonder that the same man who in 1813 had so gladly taken up arms
to resist the invasion of Napoleon, and who had rejoiced with such
enthusiasm in the prospect of a free and united Fatherland, should write
in 1851:
"Wherefore I have made a firm resolve that if the conditions of German
life will not allow room for the development of honest efforts for the
good of humanity; if this indifference to all higher things
continues--then it is my purpose next spring to seek in the land of
union and independence a soil where my idea of education may strike deep
root."
And to America he might have gone had he lived, but he died three months
later, his end hastened by grief at the edict which closed the
Kindergartens. The Prussian Minister announced, in this edict, that "it
is evident that Kindergartens form a part of the Froebelian socialistic
system, the aim of which is to teach the children atheism," and the
suggestion that he was anti-Christian cut the old man to the heart.
There had been some confusion between Froebel and one of his nephews,
who had democratic leanings, and no doubt anything at all democratic did
mean atheism to "stony Berlin" and its intolerant autocracy.
For a time, at least in Bavaria, a curious compromise was allowed. If
the teacher were a member of the Orthodox Church, she might have her
Kindergarten, but if she belonged to one of the Free Churches, it was
permissible to open an Infant School, but she must not use the term
Kindergarten.
Froebel was by no means of the opinion that, if only the teacher had the
right spirit, the name did not matter. Rather did he hold with
Confucius, whose answer to the question of a disciple, "How shall I
convert the world?" was, "Call things by their right names." He refused
to use the word school, because "little children, especially those under
six, do not need to be schooled and taught, what they need is
opportunity for development." He had great difficulty in selecting a
name. Those originally suggested were somewhat cumbrous, e.g.
_Institution for the Promotion of Spontaneous Activity in Children_;
another was _Self-Teaching Institution_, and there was also the one
which Madame Michaelis translated "_Nursery School for Little
Children_."
But the name Kindergarten expressed just what he Wanted: "As in a
garden, under God's favour, and by the care of a skilled intelligent
gardener, growing plants are cultivated in accordance with Nature's
laws, so here in our child garden shall the noblest of all growing
things, men (that is, children), be cultivated in accordance with the
laws of their own being, of God and of Nature."
To one of his students he writes: "You remember well enough how hard we
worked and how we had to fight that we might elevate the Darmstadt
creche, or rather Infant School, by improved methods and organisation
until it became a true Kindergarten.... Now what was the outcome of all
this, even during my own stay at Darmstadt? Why, the fetters which
always cripple a creche or an Infant School, and which seem to cling
round its very name--these fetters were allowed to remain unbroken.
Every one was pleased with so faithful a mistress as yourself,... yet
they withheld from you the main condition of unimpeded development, that
of the freedom necessary to every young healthy and vigorous plant....
Is there really such importance underlying the mere name of a
system?--some one might ask. Yes, there is.... It is true that any one
watching your teaching would observe _a new spirit_ infused into it,
_expressing and fulfilling the child's own wants and desires._ You would
strike him as personally capable, but you would fail to strike him as
priestess of the idea which God has now called to life within man's
bosom, and of the struggle towards the realisation of that
idea--_education by development--the destined means of raising the whole
human race...._ No man can acquire fresh knowledge, even at a school,
beyond the measure which his own stage of development fits him to
receive.... Infant Schools are nothing but a contradiction of
child-nature. Little children especially those under school age, ought
not to be schooled and taught, what they need is opportunity for
development. This idea lies in the very name of a Kindergarten.... And
the name is absolutely necessary to describe the first education of
children."
For an actual definition of what Froebel meant by his Nursery School for
Little Children or Kindergarten, it is only fair to go to the founder
himself. He has left us two definitions or descriptions, one announced
shortly before the first Kindergarten was opened, which runs:
"An institution for the fostering of human life, through the cultivation
of the human instincts of activity, of investigation and of construction
in the child, as a member of the family, of the nation and of humanity;
an institution for the self-instruction, self-education and
self-cultivation of mankind, as well as for all-sided development of the
individual through play, through creative self-activity and spontaneous
self-instruction."
A second definition is given in Froebel's reply to a proposal that he
should establish "my system of education--education by development"--in
London, Paris or the United States:
"We also need establishments for training quite young children in their
first stage of educational development, where their training and
instruction shall be based upon their own free action or spontaneity
acting under proper rules, these rules not being arbitrarily decreed,
but such as must arise by logical necessity from the child's mental and
bodily nature, regarding him as a member of the great human family; such
rules as are, in fact, discovered by the actual observation of children
when associated together in companies. These establishments bear the
name of Kindergartens."
Unfortunately there are but few pictures of Froebel's own Kindergarten,
but there seems to have been little formality in its earliest
development. An oft-told story is that of Madame von Marenholz in 1847
going to watch the proceedings of "an old fool," as the villagers called
him, who played games with the village children. A less well-known
account is given by Col. von Arnswald, again a Keilhau boy, who visited
Blankenberg in 1839, when Froebel had just opened his first
Kindergarten.
"Arriving at the place, I found my Middendorf[3] seated by the pump in
the market-place, surrounded by a crowd of little children. Going near
them I saw that he was engaged in mending the jacket of a boy. By his
side sat a little girl busy with thread and needle upon another piece of
clothing; one boy had his feet in a bucket of water washing them
carefully; other girls and boys were standing round attentively looking
upon the strange pictures of real life before them, and waiting for
something to turn up to interest them personally. Our meeting was of the
most cordial kind, but Middendorf did not interrupt the business in
which he was engaged. 'Come, children,' he cried, 'let us go into the
garden!' and with loud cries of joy the little folk with willing feet
followed the splendid-looking, tall man, running all round him.
[Footnote 3: One of Froebel's most devoted helpers.]
"The garden was not a garden, however, but a barn, with a small room and
an entrance hall. In the entrance Middendorf welcomed the children and
played a round game with them, ending with the flight of the little ones
into the room, where each of them sat down in his place on the bench and
took his box of building blocks. For half an hour they were all busy
with their blocks, and then came 'Come, children, let us play "spring
and spring."' And when the game was finished they went away full of joy
and life, every one giving his little hand for a grateful good-bye."
Here in this earliest of Free Kindergartens are certain essentials.
Washing and mending, the alternation of constructive play with active
exercise, rhythmic game and song, and last but not least human
kindliness and courtesy. The shelter was but a barn, but there are
things more important than premises.
Froebel died too soon to see his ideals realised, but he had sown the
seed in the heart of at least one woman with brain to grasp and will to
execute. As early as 1873 the Froebelians had established something more
than the equivalent of the Montessori Children's Houses under the name
of Free Kindergartens or People's Kindergartens. It will bring this out
more clearly if, without referring here to any modern experiments in
America, in England and Scotland, or in the Dominions, we quote the
description of an actual People's Kindergarten or Nursery School as it
was established nearly fifty years ago.
The moving spirit of this institution was Henrietta Schroder, Froebel's
own grand-niece, trained by him, and of whom he said that she, more than
any other, had most truly understood his views.
The whole institution was called the Pestalozzi-Froebel House. The
Prussian edict, which abolished the Kindergarten almost before it had
started, was now rescinded, and our own Princess Royal[4] gave warm
support to this new institution. The description here quoted was
actually written in 1887, when the institution had been in existence for
fourteen years:
[Footnote 4: The Crown Princess of Prussia, afterwards the Empress
Frederick.]
"The purpose of the National Kindergarten is to provide the necessary
and natural help which poor mothers require, who have to leave their
children to themselves.
"The establishment contains:--
"(1) The Kindergarten proper, a National Kindergarten with four classes
for children from 2-1/2 to 6 years old.
"(2) The Transition Class, only held in the morning for children about 6
or 6-1/2 years old.
"(3) The Preparatory School, for children from 6 to 7 or 7-1/2 years
old.
"(4) The School of Handwork, for children from 6 to 10 or older.
"Dinners are provided for those children whose parents work all day away
from home at a trifling charge of a halfpenny and a penny. Also, for a
trifle, poor children may receive assistance of various kinds in
illness, or may have milk or baths through the kindness of the kindred
'Association for the Promotion of Health in the Household.'
"In the institution we are describing there is a complete and
well-furnished kitchen, a bathroom, a courtyard with sand for digging,
with pebbles and pine-cones, moss, shells and straw, etc., a garden, and
a series of rooms and halls suitably furnished and arranged for games,
occupations, handwork and instruction.
"The occupations pursued in the Kindergarten are the following: free
play of a child by itself; free play of several children by themselves;
associated play under the guidance of a teacher; gymnastic exercises;
several sorts of handwork suited to little children; going for walks;
learning music, both instrumental (on the method of Madame Wiseneder[5])
and vocal; learning and repetition of poetry; story-telling; looking at
really good pictures; aiding in domestic occupations; gardening; and the
usual systematic ordered occupations of Froebel. Madame Schrader is
steadfastly opposed to that conception of the Kindergarten which insists
upon mathematically shaped materials for the Froebelian occupations. Her
own words are: 'The children find in our institution every encouragement
to develop their capabilities and powers by use; not by their selfish
use to their own personal advantage, but by their use in the loving
service of others. The longing to help people and to accomplish little
pieces of work proportioned to their feeble powers is constant in
children; and lies alongside of their need for that free and
unrestrained play which is the business of their life."
[Footnote 5: From certain old photographs, I suppose this to have been
what we now call a Kindergarten Band.]
"The elder children are expected to employ themselves in cleaning,
taking care of, arranging, keeping in order, and using the many various
things belonging to the housekeeping department of the Kindergarten; for
example, they set out and clear away the materials required for the
games and handicrafts; they help in cleaning the rooms, furniture and
utensils; they keep all things in order and cleanliness; they paste
together torn wallpapers or pictures, they cover books, and they help in
the cooking and in preparations for it; in laying the tables, in washing
up the plates and dishes, etc. The children gain in this manner the
simple but most important foundations of their later duties as
housekeepers and householders, and at the same time learn to regard
these duties as things done in the service of others."
It is worth while to notice the order in which the necessities of this
place are described. First comes a kitchen and next a bathroom, then an
out-of-doors playground with abundant material for gaining ideas through
action--sand, pebbles, pine-cones, moss, shells and straw. Then comes
the garden, and only after all these, the rooms and halls for indoors
games, handwork and instruction. It is worth while also to note the
prominence given to play, music, poetry and story-telling pictures,
domestic occupations and gardening, all preceding the "systematic and
ordered occupations" which to some have seemed so all-important.
If we compare this with the current ideas about Nursery Schools, we do
not find that it falls much below the present ideal. There has been a
time when some of us feared that only the bodily needs of the little
child were to be considered, but the "Regulations for Nursery Schools"
have banished such fear. In these the child is regarded as a human
being, with spiritual as well as bodily requirements.
To put it shortly, the physical requirements of a child are food, fresh
air and exercise, cleanliness and rest. It is not so easy to sum up the
requirements of a human soul. The first is sympathy, and though this may
spring from parental instinct, it should be nourished by true
understanding. Next perhaps comes the need for material, material for
investigation, for admiration, for imitation and for construction or
creation. Power of sense-discrimination is important enough, but in this
case if we take care of the pounds of admiration and investigation, the
pence of sense-discrimination will take care of themselves.
Besides these the child has the essentially human need for social
intercourse, for speech, for games, for songs and stories, for pictures
and poetry. He must have opportunity both to imitate and to share in the
work and life around him; he must be an individual among other
individuals, a necessary part of a whole, allowed to give as well as to
receive service. In the National Kindergarten of 1873 no one of these
requirements is overlooked except the provision for sleep, and from old
photographs we know that this, too, was considered.
Nursery Schools are needed for children of all classes. It is not only
the children of the poor who require sympathy and guidance from those
specially qualified by real grasp of the facts of child-development.
Well-to-do mothers, too, often leave their children to ignorant and
untrained servants, or to the equally untrained and hardly less ignorant
nursery governess.
Mothers in small houses have much to do; making beds and washing dishes,
sweeping and dusting, baking and cooking, making and mending, not to
mention tending an infant or tending the sick, leave little leisure for
sympathy with the adventuring and investigating propensities natural
and desirable in a healthy child between three and five. There are
innumerable Kindergartens open only in the morning for the children of
those who can afford to pay, and these could well be multiplied and
assisted just as far as is necessary. In towns, at least, mothers with
but small incomes would gladly pay a moderate fee to have their little
ones, especially their sturdy little boys, guarded from danger and
trained to good habits, yet allowed freedom for happy activity.
Kindergartens and Nursery Schools ought to be as much as possible
fresh-air schools. They should never be large or the home atmosphere
must disappear. They should always have grassy spaces and common
flowers, and they ought to be within easy reach of the children's homes.