Perhaps teachers with a fair amount of experience might have felt like the beginner who frankly says, "I didn't say anything more because I didn't know what to say," when Dorothy discovered the wonderfulness of glass. Perhaps we are silent because the child has gone ahead of us. It is wonderful, but we have never thought about it. In such cases we must, as Froebel says, "become a learner with the child" and humbly, with real sympathy and earnestness, ask, "Is it wonderful, I suppose it is, but I never thought about it, why do you call it wonderful?" If the child answers, it is well, if not the teacher can go on thinking aloud, thinking with the child. "Let's think what other things we can see through." We can never understand it, we can only reach the fact of "transparency" as a wonderful property of certain substances and consider which possess this magic quality. There is water of course, and there is jelly or gelatine, but these are not hard, they are not stones as glass seems to be. The child will be pleased too to see a crystal or a bit of mica, but the main thing is that we should not imagine we have disposed of the wonder by a mere name with a glib, "Oh, that's just because it's transparent," but that we realise, and reinforce and deepen the child's sense of wonderfulness. So teacher and child enter into the thoughts of Him

Who endlessly was teaching Above my spirits utmost reaching, What love can do in the leaf or stone, So that to master this alone, This done in the stone or leaf for me, I must go on learning endlessly.



CHAPTER X

A WAY TO GOD

Wonders chiefly at himself Who can tell him what he is Or how meet in human elf Coming and past eternities.

EMERSON.

It is of set purpose that this short chapter, referring to what we specially call religion, is placed immediately after that on the child's attitude to Nature. The actual word religion, which, to him, expressed being bound, did not appeal to Froebel so much as one which expressed One-ness with God.

As a son can share the aspirations of his father, so man "a thought of God"

can aspire From earth's level where blindly creep Things perfected more or less To the heaven's height far and steep.

But we begin at earth's level, and a child's religion must be largely a natural religion.

How to introduce a child to religion is a problem which must have many solutions. In Froebel's original training course, his Kindergarten teachers were to be "trained to the observation and care of the earliest germs of the religious instinct in man." These earliest beginnings he found in different sources. First come the relations between the child and the family, beginning with the mother; fatherhood and motherhood must be realised before the child can reach up to the Father of all. Then there is the atmosphere of the home, the real reverence for higher things, if it exists, affects even a little child more than is usually supposed, but children are quick to distinguish reality from mere conventionality though the distinction is only half conscious. Reality impresses, while conventionality is apt to bore. Even to quite young children Froebel's ideal mother would begin to show God in nature. Some one put into the flowers the scent and colour that delight the child—some one whom he cannot see. The sun, moon and stars give light and beauty, and "love is what they mean to show." This mother teaches her little one some sort of prayer, and the gesture of reverence, the folded hands, affects the child even if the words mean little or nothing. Akin to the "feeling of community" between the child and his family is the joining in religious worship in church, "the entrance in a common life," and the emotional effect of the deep tones of the organ. Then there is the interdependence of the universe: the baby is to thank Jenny for his bread and milk, Peter for mowing the grass for the cow, "until you come to the last ring of all, God's father love for all." Next to this comes the child's service; others work for him and he also must serve. "Every age has its duties, and duties are not burdens," and it is necessary that feeling should have expression, "for even a child's love unfostered (by action in form of service) droops and dies away." There is also the desire for approbation. The child "must be roused to good by inclination, love, and respect, through the opinion of others about him," and this should be guided until he learns to care chiefly for the approval of the God within. Right ideals must be provided: religion is "a continually advancing endeavour," and its reward must not be a material reward. We ought to lift and strengthen human nature, but we degrade and weaken it when we seek to lead it to good conduct by a bait, even if this bait beckons to a future world. The consciousness of having lived worthily should be our highest reward. Froebel goes so far as to say that instead of teaching "the good will be happy," and leaving children to imagine that this means an outer or material happiness, we ought rather to teach that in seeking the highest we may lose the lower. "Renunciation, the abandonment of the outer for the sake of securing the inner, is the condition for attaining highest development. Dogmatic religious instruction should rather show that whoever truly and earnestly seeks the good, must needs expose himself to a life of outer oppression, pain and want, anxiety and care." Even a child, though not a baby, can be led to see that to do good for outer reward is but enlightened selfishness.

These suggestions are taken for the most part from the Mother Songs, some from The Education of Man. Each parent or teacher must use what seems to her or to him most valuable. Some may from the beginning desire to teach the child a baby prayer, or at least to let him hear "God bless you." Others may prefer to wait for a more intelligent stage, perhaps when the child begins to ask the invariable questions—who made the flowers, the animals; who made me? If so, we must remember that children see, and hear, and think, that often in thoughtless ejaculations, or in those of heartfelt thankfulness, children may hear the name of God; that a simple story may have something that stirs thought; that churches are much in evidence; and that the conversation of little playfellows may take an unexpected turn.

To me it seems a great mistake to put before young children ideas which are really beyond the conception of an adult. There are many stories told of how children receive teaching about the Omniscience or Omnipotence of God. The stories sound irreverent, and are often repeated as highly amusing, but they are really more pathetic. Miss Shinn tells of one poor mite who resented being constantly watched and said, "I will not be so tagged," and another said, "Then I think He's a very rude man," when, in reply to her puzzled questions, she was told that God could see her even in her bath. And the boy who said, "If I had done a thing, could God make it that I hadn't?" must have made his instructor feel somewhat foolish.

It never does harm for us honestly to confess our own limitations and our ignorance, and that is better than weak materialistic explanations, which after all explain nothing. To tell a child that the Great Father is always grieved when we are unkind or cowardly, always ready to help us and to put kindness and bravery into our hearts, that we know He has power to do that if we will let Him, but that His power is beyond our understanding: to say that He is able to keep us in all danger, and that even if we are killed we are safe in His keeping, surely that is enough. He who blessed the children uttered strong words against him who caused the little ones to stumble.

"From every point, from every object of nature and life there is a way to God.... The things of nature form a more beautiful ladder between heaven and earth than that seen by Jacob.... It is decked with flowers, and angels with children's eyes beckon us toward it." This is true, but it does not mean that we are always to be trying to make things sacred, but that we are to realise that all beauty and all knowledge and all sympathy are already sacred, and that to love such things is to love something whereby the Creator makes Himself known to us, that to enjoy them is to enjoy God.

Religion is not always explained as implying the idea of being bound, but sometimes as being set free from the bonds of the lower or animal nature. In this sense Mr. Clutton Brock may well call it "a sacred experience" for the child, when he forgets himself in the beauty of the world. If we could all rise to a wider conception of the meaning of the word religion, we should know that it comes into all the work of the day, that it does not depend alone upon that special Scripture lesson which may become mere routine.

The greatest Teacher of all taught by stories, and when any story deepens our feelings for human nature and our recognition of the heights to which it can rise, when it makes us long for faith, courage, and love to go and do likewise, who shall say that this is not religious teaching, teaching which helps to deliver us from the bonds that hamper spiritual ascent.

Many of us will feel with Froebel that the fairy-tale, with its slumbering premonition of being surrounded by that which is higher and more "conscious than ourselves,"[25] has its place, and an important place, in religious development.

[Footnote 25: P. 85.]

The "fairy sense," says Dr. Greville Macdonald, "is innate as the religious sense itself ... the fairy stories best beloved are those steeped in meaning—the unfathomable meaning of life ... such stories teach—even though no lesson was intended—the wisdom of the Book of Job: wisdom that by this time surely should have made religious teaching saner, and therefore more acceptable."[26]

[Footnote 26: "The Fairy-Tale in Education," by Greville Macdonald, M.D., Child Life, Dec. 1918.]

Fairies, like angels, may be God's messengers. A child who had heard of St. Cuthbert as a shepherd boy being carried home from the hillside when hurt, by a man on a white horse, repeated the story in her own words, "and he thought it was a fairy of God's sent to help him."

There is, however, nothing the children love more than the Bible story, the story which shows, so simply, humanity struggling as the children struggle, failing as the children fail, and believing and trusting as the children believe, and as we at least strive to do, in the ultimate victory of Right over Wrong, of Good over Evil. But just because the stories are often so beautiful and so inspiring, the teacher should have freedom to deal with them as the spirit moves her.

What experience has taught me in this way has already been passed on to younger teachers in Education by Life, and there seems little more to add.

Wonders chiefly at himself Who can tell him what he is.

It is for us to tell the child what he is, that he, too, like all the things he loves, is a manifestation of God. "I am a being alive and conscious upon this earth; a descendant of ancestors who rose by gradual processes from lower forms of animal life, and with struggle and suffering became man."[27]

[Footnote 27: The Substance of Faith Allied with Science, Sir Oliver Lodge (Methuen).]

"The colossal remains of shattered mountain chains speak of the greatness of God; and man is encouraged and lifts himself up by them, feeling within himself the same spirit and power."[28]

[Footnote 28: The Education of Man.]



CHAPTER XI

RHYTHM

Lo with the ancient roots of Man's nature Twines the eternal passion of song.

The very existence of lullabies, not to mention their abundance in all countries, the very rockers on the cradles testify to the rhythmic nature of man in infancy.

In his Mother Songs, Froebel couples rhythm with harmony of all kinds, not only musical harmony but harmony of proportion and colour, and in urging the very early training of "the germs of all this," he gives perhaps the chief reason for training. "If these germs do not develop and take shape as independent formations in each individual, they at least teach how to understand and to recognise those of other people. This is life-gain enough, it makes one's life richer, richer by the lives of others."

It is to the genius of M. Jacques Dalcroze that the world of to-day owes some idea of what may be effected by rhythmic training, and M. Dalcroze started his work with the same aim that Froebel set before the mother, that of making the child capable of appreciation, capable of being made "richer by the lives of others." But Froebel prophesied that far more than appreciation would come from proper rhythmic training, and this M. Dalcroze has amply proved.

"Through movement the mother tries to lead the child to consciousness of his own life. By regular rhythmic movement—this is of special importance—she brings this power within the child's own conscious control when she dandles him in her arms in rhythmic movements and to rhythmic sounds, cautiously following the slowly developing life in the child, arousing it to greater activity, and so developing it. Those who regard the child as empty, who wish to fill his mind from without, neglect the means of cultivation in word and tone which should lead to a sense of rhythm and obedience to law in all human expression. But an early development of rhythmic movement would prove most wholesome, and would remove much wilfulness, impropriety and coarseness from his life, movements, and action, and would secure for him harmony and moderation, and, later on, a higher appreciation of nature, music, poetry, and art" (Education of Man).

Here, then, is an aim most plainly stated, "higher appreciation of nature, music, poetry and art," and if we adopt it, we must make sure that we start on a road leading to that end.

To Kindergarten children, apart from movement, rhythm comes first in nursery rhymes, and if we honestly follow the methods of the mother we shall not teach these, but say or sing them over and over again, letting the children select their favourites and join in when and where they like. This is the true Babies' Opera, as Walter Crane justly names an illustrated collection. Froebel's Mother Songs, though containing a deal of sound wisdom in its mottoes and explanations, is an annotated, expurgated, and decidedly pedantic version of the nursery rhymes of his own country. That these should ever have been introduced to our children arose from the fact that the first Kindergarten teachers, being foreigners, did not know our own home-grown productions. Long since we have shaken off the foreign product, in favour of our own "Sing a Song of Sixpence," "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" and their refreshingly cheerful compeers. Froebel's book suggests songs to suit all subjects and all frames of mind—the wind, the moon, and stars, the farm with its cows and sheep, its hens and chickens, the baker and carpenter, fish in the brook and birds in nests, the garden and the Christmas fair.

We can supply good verses for all these if we take pains to search, and if we eschew ignorant and unpoetic modern doggerel as we eschew poison. Besides the nursery rhymes, we have Stevenson, with his "Wind," "Shadow," and "Swing," Christina Rossetti's "Wrens and Robins," her "Rainbow Verses" and "Brownie, Brownie, let down your milk, White as swansdown, smooth as silk." There are many others, and a recent charming addition to our stock is "Chimneys and Fairies," by Rose Fyleman. One thing we should not neglect, and that is the child's sense of humour. For the very young this is probably satisfied by the cow that jumps over the moon, the dish that runs after the spoon, Jill tumbling after Jack, and Miss Muffet running away from the spider. But older children much enjoy nonsense verses by Lewis Carroll or by Lear, and "John Gilpin" is another favourite.

It is a mistake to keep strictly within the limits of a child's understanding of the words. What we want here, as in the realm of Nature, is joy and delight, the delight that comes from musical words and rhythm, as well as from the pictures that may be called up. Even a child of four can enjoy the poetry of the Psalms without asking for much understanding.

The mother repeats her rhymes and verses solely to give pleasure, and if our aim is the deepening of appreciation, there is no reason for leaving the green and grassy path that Nature has showed to the mother for the hard and beaten track of "recitation." In our own Kindergarten there has never been either rote learning or recitation. The older children learn the words of their songs, but not to a word-perfect stage, because words and music suggest each other. Except for that we just enjoy our verses, the children asking for their favourites and getting new ones sometimes by request sometimes not. Anything not enjoyed is laid aside. We need variety, but everything must be good of its kind, and verses about children are seldom for children. Because children love babies, they love "Where did you come from, baby dear?" but nothing like Tennyson's "Baby, wait a little longer," and especially nothing of the "Toddlekins" type has any place in the collection of a self-respecting child. It is doubtful if Eugene Field's verses are really good enough for children.

All children enjoy singing, but here, as in everything, we must keep pace with development, or the older ones, especially the boys, may get bored by what suits the less adventurous. In all cases the music should be good and tuneful, modelled not on the modern drawing-room inanity, but on the healthy and vigorous nursery rhyme or folk song.

Children also enjoy instrumental music, and will listen to piano or violin while quietly occupied, for example if they are drawing. One Nursery School teacher plays soft music to get her babies to sleep, and our little ones fidget less if some one sings softly during their compulsory rest.

"The Kindergarten Band" is another way in which children can join in rhythm. It came to us from Miss Bishop and is probably the music referred to in the description of the Pestalozzi-Froebel House. The children are provided with drums, cymbals, tambourines, and triangles, and keep time to music played on the piano. They can do some analysis in choosing which instruments are most suitable to accompany different melodies or changes from grave to gay, etc. A full account was given in Child Life for May 1917.

Several years ago, knowing nothing of M. Dalcroze, Miss Marie Salt began an experiment, the results of which are likely to be far-spreading and of great benefit. Desiring to help children to appreciation of good music, Miss Salt experimented deliberately with the Froebelian "learn through action," and her success has been remarkable. Because of its freedom from any kind of formality, this system is perhaps better suited to little children than the Dalcroze work, unless that is in the hands of an exceptionally gifted teacher. M. Dalcroze himself is delightfully sympathetic with little ones.

Miss Salt tells her own story in an appendix to Mr. Stewart Macpherson's Aural Culture based on Musical Appreciation.

Good music is played and the children listen and move freely in time to it, sometimes marching or dancing in circles, sometimes quite freely "expressing" whatever feeling the music calls forth in them. The stress is laid on listening; if you see a picture you reproduce it, if the music makes you think of trees or wind, thunder or goblins, you become what you think of. It is astonishing to see how little children learn in this way to care for music by Schumann, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Dvorak, Brahms, Chopin, and Beethoven. The music is of course selected with skill, and care is taken that the "expression" shall not make the children foolishly self-conscious. Emphasis is always placed on listening, and the children's appreciation is apparent. Such appreciation must enrich their lives.



CHAPTER XII

FROM FANCY TO FACT

Creeps ever on from fancy to the fact.

Fairy tales suit little children because their knowledge is so limited, that "the fairies must have done it" is regarded as a satisfactory answer to early problems, just as it satisfied childlike Man. Things that to us are wonderful, children accept as commonplace, while others commonplace to us are marvels to the child. But fairy tales do not continue to satisfy all needs. As knowledge grows the child begins to distinguish between what may and what may not happen, though there will always be individual differences, and the more poetic souls are apt to suffer when the outrush of their imagination is checked by a barbed wire of fact. The question "Is it true?" and the desire for true stories arise in the average child of seven to eight years, and at that age history stories are enjoyed. Real history is of course impossible to young children, whose idea of time is still very vague, and whose understanding of the motives and actions of those immediately around them is but embryonic. They still crave for adventure and romance, and they thrill to deeds of bravery. Bravery in the fight appeals to all boys and to most girls, and it is a question for serious consideration how this admiration is to be guided, it certainly cannot be ignored. It is legitimate to admire knights who ride about "redressing human wrongs," fighting dragons and rescuing fair ladies from wicked giants, and at this stage there is no need to draw a hard and fast line between history and legendary literature. It is good to introduce children, especially boys, to some of the Arthurian legends if only to impress the ideal, "Live pure, speak true, right wrong, else wherefore born?" Stories should always help children to understand human beings, men and women with desires and feelings like our own. But in history and geography stories we deal particularly with people who are different from ourselves, and we should help children to understand, and to sympathise with those whose surroundings and customs are not ours. They may have lived centuries ago, or they may be living now but afar off, they may be far from us in time or space, but our stories should show the reasons for their customs and actions, and should tend to lessen the natural tendency to feel superior to those who have fewer advantages, and gradually to substitute for that a sense of responsibility.

But the narration of stories is not the only way in which we can treat history. Our present Minister of Education says that history teaching ought to give "discipline in practical reasoning" and "help in forming judgements," not merely in remembering facts. Indeed he went so far as to say "eliminate dates and facts" by which, of course, he only meant that the power of reasoning, the power of forming judgements is of far more consequence than the mere possession of any quantity of facts and dates. Training in reasoning, however, must involve training in verification of facts before pronouncing judgement.

Training in practical reasoning takes a prominent place in that form of history teaching introduced by Professor Dewey. According to him, history is worth nothing unless it is "an indirect sociology," an account of how human beings have learned, so far as the world has yet learned the lesson, to co-operate with one another, a study of the growth of society and what helps and hinders. So he finds his beginnings in primitive life, and although there is much in this that will appeal to any age, there is no doubt that children of seven to ten or eleven revel in this material.

If used at all it should be used as thinking material—here is man without tools, without knowledge, everything must be thought out. It does not do much good to hand over the material as a story, as some teachers use the Dopp series of books. These books do all the children's thinking for them. Every set of children must work things out for themselves, using their own environments and their own advantages. The teacher must read to be ready with help if the children fail, and also to be ready with the actual problems. It is astonishing how keen the children are, and how often they suggest just what has really happened. Where there is space out-of-doors and the children can find branches for huts, clay for pots, etc., the work is much easier for the teacher and more satisfactory. But even where that is impossible and where one has sometimes to be content with miniature reproductions, the interest is most keen. Children under eight cannot really produce fire from flints or rubbing sticks, nor can they make useable woollen threads with which to do much weaving. But even they can get sparks from flint, make a little thread from wool, invent looms and weave enough to get the ideas.

The romance of "long ago" ought to be taken advantage of to deepen respect for the dignity of labour. Our lives are so very short that we are apt to get out of perspective in the ages. Reading and writing are so new—it is only about four hundred years since the first book was printed in England, the Roman occupation lasted as long, and who thinks of that as a long period? Perhaps it is because we are in the reading and writing age that our boys and girls must become "braw, braw clerks," instead of living on and by the land. History, particularly primitive history, should help us all to be "grateful to those unknown pioneers of the human race to whose struggles and suffering, discoveries and energies our present favoured mode of existence on the planet is due. The more people realise the effort that has preceded them and made them possible, the more are they likely to endeavour to be worthy of it: the more pitiful also will they feel when they see individuals failing in the struggle upward and falling back toward a brute condition; and the more hopeful they will ultimately become for the brilliant future of a race which from such lowly and unpromising beginnings has produced the material vehicle necessary for those great men who flourished in the recent period which we speak of as antiquity."[29]

[Footnote 29: The Substance of Faith, p. 18.]

Professor Dewey urges that "the industrial history of man is not a materialistic or merely utilitarian affair," but a matter of intelligence, a record of how men learned to think, and also an ethical record, "the account of the conditions which men have patiently wrought out to serve their ends."

This interest in how human beings have created themselves and their surroundings ought to be deeply interesting to any and every age. Young children can reach so little that one hopes the interest aroused will be lasting and lead to fruitful work later. But it certainly makes a good foundation for the study of history and geography, if history is treated as sociology and if geography is recognised as the study of man in his environment.

Coming now to practical details, in our own work we have followed fairly closely the suggestions made by Professor Dewey, but everything must vary from year to year according to the suggestions of the children or their apparent needs. One extra step we have found necessary, and that is to spend some time over a desert island or Robinson Crusoe stage. Some children can do without it, but all enjoy it, and the duller children find it difficult to imagine a time when "you could buy it in a shop" does not fit all difficulties. They can easily grasp the idea of sailing away to a land "where no man had ever been before," and playing at desert island has always been a joy.

The starting-points for primitive life have been various; sometimes the work has found its beginning in chance conversation, as when a child asked, "Are men animals?" and the class took to the suggestion that man meant thinking animal, and began to consider what he had thought. Often after Robinson Crusoe there has been a direct question, "How did Robinson Crusoe know how to make his things; had any one taught him? Who made the things he had seen; who made the very first and how did he know?" One answer invariably comes, "God taught them," which can be met by saying this is true, but that God "teaches" by putting things into the world and giving men power to think. This leads to a discussion about things natural, "what God makes" and what man makes, which is sometimes illuminating on the limited conceptions of town children. Years ago we named primitive man "the Long-Ago People," and the title has seemed to give satisfaction, though once we had the suggestion of "Old-Time Men."

We always start with the need for food, and the children suggest all the wild fruits they know, often leaving out nuts till asked if there is anything that can be stored for winter. Roots are not always given, but buds of trees is a frequent answer. Children in the country ought to explore and to dig, and in our own playground we find at least wild barley, blackberries of a sort, cherries, hard pears, almonds and cherry gum. Killing animals for food is suggested, and the children have to be told that the animals were fierce and to realise that in these times man was hunted, not hunter. Little heads are quite ready to tackle the problem of defence and attack. They could throw stones, use sticks that the wind blew down, pull up a young tree, or "a lot of people could hang on to a branch and get it down." When one child suggested finding a dead animal and using it for food, some were disgusted, but a little girl said, "I don't suppose they would mind, they wouldn't be very particular."

The idea of throwing stones starts the examination of different kinds, which have to be provided for the purpose. Flint is invariably selected, and for months the children keep bringing "lovely sharp flints," but there is much careful observation, observation which has a motive. "I would put a stone in a stick and chuck it at them" is followed by much experiment at fixing. String is of course taboo, but bass is allowed because it grows, also strips of skin. We very often get the suggestion "they might find a stone with a hole in it," which leads to renewed searching and to the endeavour to make holes. To make a hole in flint is beyond us, but in a softer stone it can be done.

Then may come the question of safety and tree-climbing, and how to manage with the babies. Children generally know that tiny babies can hold very tight, and have various ideas for the mother. How to keep the baby from falling brings the idea of twisting in extra branches, which is recognised as a cradle in the tree, and the children delight in this as a meaning for "Rock-a-bye, baby, in the tree-top." The possibility of tree-shelters comes in, and various experiments are made, sometimes in miniature, sometimes in the garden. Out of this comes the discussion of clothes. Animals' skins is an invariable suggestion, though all children do not realise that what they call "fur" means skin.

Skin is provided, and much time is taken in experimenting to see if it can be cut with bits of flint. How could the long-ago people fasten on the skins, brings the answers "by thorns," "tie with narrow pieces," and the children are pleased to see that their own leather belts are strips or straps. Sometimes much time is taken up in cutting out "skins to wear" from paper or cheap calico, the children working in pairs, one kneeling down while the other fits on the calico to see where the head and legs come. The skins are painted or chalked, and pictures are consulted to see whether the chosen animals are striped or spotted.

It may be stated here that we are not very rigid about periods or climates, and that our long-ago people are of a generalised type. Our business is not to supply correct information on anthropological questions, but to call forth thought and originality, to present opportunities for closer observation than was ever evoked by observation lessons, and for experiments full of meaning and full of zest. Naturally we do not despise correct information, but these children are very young and all this work is tentative. We are never dogmatic, it is all "Do you think they might have ..." or "Well, I know what I should have done; I should have ..." and the teacher's reply is usually "Suppose we try."

Children are apt of course to make startling remarks, but it is only the teacher who is startled by: "Was all this before God's birthday?" "I don't think God had learned to be very clever then." It is a curious fact, but orthodox opinion has only twice in the course of many years brought up Adam and Eve. Probably this is because we never talk about the first man, but about how things were discovered. The first time the question did come up Miss Payne was taking the subject, and she suggested that Adam and Eve were never in this country, which disposed of difficulties so well that I gave the same answer the only time I ever had to deal with the question.

When we come to the problem of fire, we always use parts of Miss Dopp's story of The Tree-Dwellers. If the children are asked if they ever heard of fire that comes by itself, or of things being burned by fire that no human being had anything to do with, one or two are sure to suggest lightning. They will tell that lightning sometimes sets trees on fire, that thunderstorms generally come after hot dry weather, and that if lightning struck a tree with dry stuff about the fire would spread, and the long-ago people would run away. A question from the teacher as to what these people might think about it may bring the suggestion of a monster; if not, one only has to say that it must have seemed as if it was eating the trees to get "They would think it was a dreadful animal." Then the story can be told of how the boy called Bodo stopped to look and saw the monster grow smaller, so he went closer, fed it on wood, and liked to feel its warm breath after the heavy rain that follows thunder—why had the monster grown smaller?—found that no animal would come near it and so on. We never tell of the "fire country," though sometimes the children read the book for themselves a little later.

We have never succeeded in making flames, but it is thrilling to get sparks from flint. Once a child brought an old tinder box with steel and flint, but even then we were not skilful enough to get up a flame. Still it is something to have tried, and we are left with a respectful admiration for those who could so easily do without matches.

What made these long-ago people think of using their fire to cook food? Our children have suggested that a bit of raw meat fell into the fire by accident, and we have also worked it out in this way. We were pretending to warm ourselves by the fire, and I said my frozen meat was so cold that it hurt my teeth. "Hold it to the fire then." We burned our fingers, and sticks were suggested, but we sucked the burnt fingers, and I said, "it tastes good," and the children shouted with glee "Because the meat's roasted really." Then something was supposed to drop, and the cry was "Gravy! catch it in a shell, dip your finger in and let your baby suck it." A small shell was suggested, and the boy who said "And put a stick in for a handle" was dubbed "the spoon-maker." At that time we were earning names for ourselves by suggestions; we started with Fair Hair, Curly Hair, Big Teeth, Long Legs, and arrived at Quick Runner, Climber, and even Thinker.

We have got at pottery in a similar way. The meat was supposed to be tough. "Soak it" came at once, and "Could you get hot water?" Then came suggestions: a stone saucepan, scoop out a stone and put it on the fire, build a stone pan and fix the stones with cherry gum, dig a hole in the ground and put fire under; "that would be a kind of oven." When asked if water would stay in the hole, and if any kind of earth would hold water, the answer may be, "No, nothing but clay, and you'd have to make that." "No! you get clay round a well. My cousin has a well, and there's clay round it." "Why, there's clay in the playground." "You could put the meat into a skin bag or a basket." Asked if the skin or basket could be set on the fire, or if anything could be done to keep the basket from catching fire, the answer comes, "Yes, dab clay round it. Then," joyfully, "it would hold water and you could boil." "What would happen to the clay when it was put on the fire?" This has to be discovered by a quick experiment, but the children readily guess that when the hot water is taken off the fire there would be "a sort of clay basin. Then they could make more! and plates and cups!"

Experiments depend upon circumstances and upon the age of the children. A thick and tiny basin put into a hot part of an ordinary fire does harden and hold water to a certain extent even without glazing. But elaborate baking may also be done.

I have found it convenient to take weaving as a bridge to history stories, by using Sir Frederick Leighton's picture of the Phoenicians bartering cloth for skins with the early Britons. The children are told that the people dressed in cloth come from near the Bible-story country, and those dressed in skins are the long-ago people of this very country. What would these people think of the cloth? "They would think it was animals' skins." And what would they do? "They'd feel it and look at it." So cloth is produced and we pull it to pieces, first into threads and then into hairs, and the children say the hairs are like "fur." Then sheep's wool is produced and we try to make thread. Attempts at thread-making and then at weaving last a long time, and along with this come some history stories, probably arising out of the question, "How did people know about all this?" The children are told about the writings of Julius Caesar, and pictures of Roman ships and houses are shown, beside pictures of coracles and bee-hive dwellings, etc. Old coins, a flint battle-axe, some Roman pottery are also shown, along with descriptions and pictures of the Roman villa at Brading and other Roman remains. The children are thus helped to realise that other countries exist where the people were far ahead of those in this country, and they can begin to understand how social conditions vary, and how nations act upon each other.

The work varies considerably from year to year, according to how it takes hold upon the children's interest. But children of eight to nine are usually considered ready for broad ideas of the world as a whole, and the inquiry into where Julius Caesar came from, and why he came, gives a fair start.



CHAPTER XIII

NEW NEEDS AND NEW HELPS

I am old, so old, I can write a letter.

Writing and reading have no place in the actual Kindergarten, much less arithmetic. The stories are told to the child; drawing, modelling and such-like will express all he wants to express in any permanent form, and speech, as Froebel says, is "the element in which he lives." His counting is of the simplest, and the main thing is to see that he does not merely repeat a series while he handles material, but that the series corresponds with the objects. Even this can be left alone if it seems to annoy the little one. In the school he is on a very different level, he has attained to the abstract, he can use signs: he can express thoughts which he could not draw, and can communicate with those who are absent. He can read any letter received and he is no longer dependent on grown-ups for stories. He can count his own money and can get correct change in small transactions, and he can probably do a variety of sums which are of no use to him at all.

Between these two comes what Froebel called the Transition or Connecting Class, in which the child learns the meaning of the signs which stand for speech, and those which make calculation less arduous for weak memories.

Much has been written as to when and how children are to be taught to read. Some great authorities would put it off till eight or even ten. Stanley Hall says between six and eight, while Dr. Montessori teaches children of five and even of four. Froebel would have supported Stanley Hall and would wait till the age of six. The strongest reason for keeping children back from books is a physiological one. In the Psychology and Physiology of Reading[30] strong arguments are adduced against early reading as very injurious to eyesight, so it is surprising that Dr. Montessori begins so soon. It has been said that her children only learn to write, not to read, but it is to be supposed that they can read what they write, and therefore can read other material.

[Footnote 30: Macmillan.]

If we agree not to begin until six years old, the next question is the method. The alphabetic, whereby children were taught the letter names and then memorised the spelling of each single word, has no supporters. But controversy still goes on as to whether children shall begin with word wholes or with the phonic sounds. It is not a matter of vital importance, for the children who begin with words come to phonics later, and so far as English is concerned, the children who begin with phonics cannot go far without meeting irregularities, unless indeed they are limited to books like those of Miss Dale.

In other languages which are phonic the difficulties are minimised. Children in the ordinary Elementary Schools in Italy, though taught in large classes, can write long sentences to dictation in four or five months.[31] But in Italian each letter has its definite sound and every letter is sounded. It is true that these children appear to spend most of their time in formal work.

[Footnote 31: A class of children who began in the middle of October wrote correctly to dictation on March 28, "Patria e lavoro siamo, miei cari bambini, parole sante per voi. Amate la nostra cara e bella Italia, crescete onesti e laboriosi e sarete degni di lei."]

The Froebelian who believes in learning by action will, of course, expect the children to make or write from the beginning as a method of learning, whether she begins with words or with sounds. But in English, unless simplified spelling is introduced, the time must soon come when reproduction must lag behind recognition. One child said with pathos one day, "May we spell as we like to-day, for I've got such a lot to say?"

The phonic method dates back to about 1530. The variety used in the Pestalozzi-Froebel House is said to have originated with Jacotot (1780-1840). It is called the "Observing-Speaking-Writing and Reading Method." Froebel's own adaptation was simpler; it was his principle to begin with a desire on the part of the child, and he gives his method in story form, "How Lina learned to write and read." Lina is six, she has left the Kindergarten and is presently to attend the Primary School. She notices with what pleasure her father, perhaps a somewhat exceptional parent, receives and answers letters. She desires to write and her mother makes her say her own name carefully, noticing first the "open" or vowel sounds and then by noting the position of her tongue she finds the closed sounds. As she hears the sound she is shown how to make it. Her father leaves home at the right moment, Lina writes to him, receives and is able to read his answer, printed like her own in Roman capitals. He sends her a picture book and she is helped to see how the letters resemble those she has learned and the reading is accomplished.

In England the phonic method best known is probably Miss Dale's. It is very ingenious, the analysis is thorough and the books are prettily got up, but to those who feel that reading, though a most valuable tool, still is but a tool and one not needed for children under seven, the method seems over-elaborate. Much depends upon the teacher but to see fifty children sitting still while one child places the letters in their places on the board suggests a great deal of lost time. The system is also so rigidly phonic that it is a long time before a child can pick up an ordinary book with any profit.

Stanley Hall holds that it is best to combine methods, and probably most of us do this. "The growing agreement" is, he says, "that there is no one and only orthodox way of teaching and learning this greatest and hardest of all the arts, in which ear, mouth, eye and hand must each in turn train the others to automatic perfection, in ways hard and easy, by devices old and new, mechanically and consciously, actively and passively ... this is a great gain and seems now secure. While a good pedagogic method is one of the most economic—both of labour and of money—of all inventions, we should never forget that the brightest children, and indeed most children, if taught individually or at home, need but very few refinements of method. Idiots, as Mr. Seguin first showed, need and profit greatly by very elaborated methods in learning how to walk, feed and dress themselves, which would only retard a normal child. Above all it should be borne in mind that the stated use of any method does not preclude the incidental use of any and perhaps of all others."

An adaptation of phonic combined with the word method can be found in Education by Life. It is simpler than Miss Dale's, and being combined with the word method, children get much more quickly to real stories. Stanley Hall advocates the individual teaching of reading, and since Dr. Montessori called every one's attention to this we have used it much more freely, and have found that once the children know some sounds, there is a great advantage in a certain amount of individual learning, but class teaching has its own advantages and it seems best to have a combination. Long since we taught a boy who was mentally deficient and incapable of intelligent analysis, by whole words and corresponding pictures. Miss Payne has developed this to a great extent. It is practically an appeal to the interest in solving puzzles. The children choose their own pictures and are supplied with envelopes containing either single sounds, or whole words corresponding with the picture. They lay h on the house, g on the girl, p on the pond, and later do the same with words. They certainly enjoy it, and no one is ever kept waiting. Sometimes the puzzle is to set in order the words of a nursery rhyme which they already know, sometimes it is to read and draw everything mentioned.

It is not only how children learn to read that is important: even more so is what they read. Much unintelligent reading in later life is due to the reading primer in which there was nothing to understand. Children should read books, as adults do, to get something out of them. The time often wasted in teaching reading too soon would be far better employed in cultivating a taste for good reading by telling or reading to the children good stories and verses.[32]

[Footnote 32: It is difficult to find easy material that is worth giving to intelligent children, and we have been glad to find Brown's Young Artists' Readers, Series A.]

A revolution is going on just now in the method of teaching writing. It is now generally recognised that much time and effort have been wasted in teaching children to join letters which are easier to read unjoined.

A very interesting article appeared in the Fielden School Demonstration Record No. II., and Mr. Graily Hewitt has brought the subject of writing as it was done before copperplate was invented very much to the fore. The Child Study Society has published a little monograph on the subject giving the experience of different teachers and specimens of the writing.

Little Marjorie Fleming was a voracious reader with a remarkable capacity for writing. Her spelling was unconventional at times, but there was never any doubt about her meaning. She expressed herself strongly on many subjects, and one of these was arithmetic. "I am now going to tell you the horrible and wretched plaege (plague) that my multiplication gives me you cant conceive it the most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7 it is what nature itself cant endure." Yet "if you speak with the tongues of men and angels and make not mention of arithmetic it profiteth you nothing," says Miss Wiggin.

There are a few little children who are really fond of number work. There are not many of them, and they would probably learn more if they were left to themselves. There are even a few mathematical geniuses who hardly want teaching, but who are worthy of being taught by a Professor of Mathematics, always supposing that he is worthy of them. But the majority of children would probably be farther advanced at ten or twelve if they had no teaching till they were seven. They ought to learn through actual number games, through keeping score for other games, and through any kind of calculation that is needed for construction or in real life.

There are but few true number games, but dominoes and card games introduce the number groups. In "Old maid" the children pair the groups and so learn to recognise them; in dominoes they use this knowledge, while "Snap" involves quick recognition. Any one can make up a game in which scoring is necessary. Ninepins or skittles is a number game, and one can score by using number groups, or by fetching counters, shells, beads, etc., as reminders. The number groups are important; they form what Miss Punnett calls "a scheme" for those who have no great visualising power, and they combine the smallest groups into large ones. It ought to be remembered that the repetition of a group is an easier thing to deal with than the combination of two groups, that is, six is a name for two threes and eight for two fours, but five and seven have not so definite a meaning.[33]

[Footnote 33: This very morning a child cutting out brown paper pennies for a shop said, 'Look! there are two sixes; that would be a big number!']

The Tillich bricks are good playthings, and so is cardboard money—shillings, sixpences, threepences, pence and halfpence.

When the names have a meaning the children will want signs, i.e. figures. Clock figures (Roman) can be used first as simplest, showing the closed fingers and the thumb for V; the only difficulty is IX. The Arabic figures can be made by drawing round the number groups, or by laying out their shapes in little sticks. 5 and 8 show very plainly how to arrange five and eight sticks; for two and three they are placed horizontally, the curves merely joining the lines.

In teaching children to count, the decimal system should be kept well in mind, and the teacher should see that thirteen means three-ten, and that the children can touch the three and the ten as they speak the word. Eleven and twelve ought to be called oneteen and twoteen, half in joke. The idea of grouping should never be lost sight of, and larger numbers should at first be names for so many threes, fours, fives, etc. In order to keep the meaning clear the children should say threety, fourty and fivety, but there should be no need to write these numbers. The Kindergarten sticks tied in bundles of ten are quite convenient counting material when any counting is necessary. Tram tickets and cigarette pictures can be used in the same way.

The decimal notation is a great thing to learn, how great any one will discover who will take the trouble to work a simple addition sum, involving hundreds, in Roman figures. Children are always taught the number of the house they live in, which makes a starting-point. If, for instance, 35 is compared with XXXV a meaning is given to the 3.

Many teachers make formal sums of numbers which could quite well be added without any writing at all. By using any kind of material by which ten can be made plain as a higher unit—bundles of sticks or tickets, Sonnenschein's apparatus, Miss Punnett's number scheme, or the new Montessori apparatus with its chains of beads: the material used is of no great consequence—children should be able to deal as easily with tens as with ones, and there is no need for little formal sums which have no meaning.

Everything in daily life should be used before formal work is attempted. "Measure, reckon, weigh, compare," said Rousseau. Children love to measure, whether by lineal or liquid measure, or by learning to tell the time or to use a pair of scales.

There are a few occasions when interest is in actual number relations, as when a child for himself discovers that two sixes is six twos. One boy on his own account compared a shilling and an hour, and said that he could set out a shilling in five parts by the clock. He looked at the clock and chose out a sixpence, a threepence, and 3 pennies. But usually what is abstract belongs to a stage farther on.

So we can end where we began, by letting Froebel once more define the Kindergarten.

"Creches and Infant Schools must be raised into Kindergartens wherein the child is treated and trained according to his whole nature, so that the claims of his body, his heart and his head, his active, moral and intellectual powers, are all satisfied and developed.

"Not the training of the memory, not learning by rote, not familiarity with the appearances of things, but culture by means of action, realities and life itself, bring a blessing upon the individual, and thereby a blessing upon the whole community; since each one, be he the highest or the humblest, is a member of the community."



PART II

THE CHILD IN THE STATE SCHOOL

I. THINGS AS THEY ARE



CHAPTER XIV

CERTAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF GROWTH

Early in the nineteenth century two men, moved by very different impulses, founded what might be considered the beginnings of the Infant School. For nearly fifty years their work grew separately, but now they are merged together into something that seems to be permanent.

In a bleak Lanarkshire factory village in the south of Scotland, Robert Owen, millowner, socialist and Welshman, found that unless he could provide for the education of the children of his factory hands, no parents would consent to settle in the district and he would be without workers in his mill. As a consequence Owen found himself in the position of education authority, privy purse and organiser, and he did not flinch from the situation; he imposed no cheap makeshift, because he believed in education as an end and not as an economic means; a twofold institution was therefore established by him in 1816, one part for the children of recognised school age, presumably over six, and one for those under school age, whose only entrance test was their ability to walk. It is with the latter that we are concerned.

The instructions given by Owen to the man and the women he chose for his Infant School may serve to show his general aim; the babies under their care were above all to be happy, to lead a natural life, outdoor or indoor as weather permitted; learning their surroundings, playing, singing, dancing, "not annoyed with books," not shadowed by the needs of the upper school, but living the life their age demanded. In the light of the 1918 Education Bill this seems almost prophetic.

Their guardians were selected solely on the grounds of personality, and expected to work in the spirit in which Owen conceived the school. They were gentle, without personal ambition, fond of children, caring only for their welfare; but the sole guiding principle was Owen, and this was at once the success and doom of the school, for the personality of Owen was thus made the pivot round which the school revolved; without him there was nothing to take hold of.

Very soon the experiment became known: persons with the stamp of authority came to see it, and even official hearts were moved by the reality of the children's happiness and their consequent development. The visitors felt, rather than knew, that the thing was right. Arrangements were made to establish similar institutions in London, and after one or two experiments, a permanent one was founded which was under the control of a man named Wilderspin.

Wilderspin's contribution to education is difficult to estimate; certainly he never caught Owen's spirit, or realised his simple purpose: he had ambitions reaching beyond the happiness of the children; and far from trying to make their education suit their stage of growth, he sought to produce the "Infant Prodigy," just as a contemporary of his sought to produce the "Infant Saint." From what we can see, his aim was what he honestly believed to be right, as far as his light went; but he sought for no light beyond his own; and his outlook was not so narrow as his application was unintelligent. Owen was still in Lanarkshire to be consulted; Rousseau had already written Emile, Pestalozzi's work was by this time fairly well known in England, the children were there to be studied, but Wilderspin pursued his limited and unenlightened work, until the Infant School was almost a dead thing in his hands and in the hands of those who followed. The following is Birchenough's account:

"The school was in charge of a master and a female assistant, presumably his wife. Much attention was given to training children in good personal habits, cleanliness, tidiness, punctuality, etc., and to moral training. Great stress was laid on information.... The curriculum included reading, writing, arithmetic, geometry, lessons on common objects, geography, singing and religion, and an effort was made to make the work interesting and 'concrete.' To this end much importance was attached to object-lessons, to the use of illustrations, to questioning and exposition, while the memory was aided by means of didactic verse.... The real teaching devolved upon the master and mistress. This was of two kinds: class teaching to a section of the children of approximately equal attainments either on the floor or in the class-room, and collective teaching to the whole school, regardless of age, on the gallery."

It is a curious coincidence that in 1816, the year of Owen's experiment, a humble educational experiment was begun by Frederick Froebel in a very small village in the heart of the Thuringian forest. Like Owen, his aim was education solely for its own sake, and he had a simple faith in the human goodness of the older Germany. But he came to education as a philosopher rather than a social reformer, with a strong belief in its power to improve humanity. This belief remained with him; it is embodied in his aim, and leavened all his work.

The first twenty years of his experience convinced Froebel that the neglect or mismanagement of the earliest years of a child's life rendered useless all that was done later. What came to Owen as an inspiration grew in Froebel to be a reasoned truth, and like Owen he put it into practice. In 1837 the little Kindergarten at Blankenburg was begun, with the village children as pupils; the beautiful surroundings of forest-covered hills and green slopes made a very different background from the bleak little Lanarkshire village, overshadowed by the factory, where Owen's school stood, but the spirit was the same; the children were in surroundings suitable for their growth, and the very name of Kindergarten does more to make Froebel's aim clear than any explanation. He lived to see other Kindergartens established in different parts of Thuringia, and about the middle of the nineteenth century some of his teachers came to England, and did similar work in London, Croydon and Manchester. The private Kindergarten became an established thing, and educationalists came to understand something of its meaning.

In 1870 the London School Board suggested that the Kindergarten system should be introduced into their Infant Schools, and in doing so they were unconsciously the factors in bringing together the work initiated by Owen and by Froebel. The Infant School of Wilderspin, already briefly described, was almost a dead thing, with its galleries and its mechanical prodigies, its object-lessons and its theology; now it was breathed upon by the spirit of the man who said: "Play is the highest phase of child development, of human development at this period: for it is the spontaneous representation of the inner, from inner necessity and impulse." "Play is the purest, most spiritual activity of man." "The plays of childhood are the germinal leaves of all later life." "If the child is injured at this period, if the germinal leaves of the future tree of his life are marred at this time, he will only with the greatest difficulty and the utmost effort grow into strong manhood."

It is perhaps not altogether to be wondered at that teachers at first seized the apparatus rather than the spirit of the Kindergarten when we remember that we have not accepted in anything like its fulness the teaching of Froebel. Formalism and materialism always die slowly: play in the Board School was interpreted as something that had to be dictated and taught: the gifts, occupations and games were organised, and appeared on the time-table as subjects side by side with Wilderspin's theology and object-lessons. The combination must have been curious, but even with its formalism the change was welcome to the children: at least they could use their hands and do something; at least they could leave their back-breaking galleries and dance and skip, even though the doing and the dancing were according to strict rule.

The change was not welcome to all teachers. As late as 1907 a headmistress who was a product of the training of that time remarked: "We have Kindergarten on Wednesday afternoons and then it is over for the week." But there were teachers who saw beneath the bricks and sticks and pretty movements, who felt the spiritual side and kept themselves alive till greater opportunities came. What was imperishable has remained; the system of prescribed activities is nearly dead, but the spirit of the true Kindergarten is more alive than ever.

The change from the early 'eighties till now is difficult to describe, because it is a growth of spirit, a gradual change of values, rather than a change in outward form; there has been no definite throwing off, and no definite adoption, of any one system or theory; but the difference between the best Infant Schools of 1880 and the best Infant Schools of to-day is chiefly a difference in outlook. The older schools aimed at copying a method, while the schools of to-day are more concerned with realising the spirit.

At present we are trying to reconstruct education for the new world after the war, and so it is convenient to regard the intervening period of nearly half a century as a transition period: during that time the education of the child under eight has changed much more than the education of older children, at least in the elementary school; and there have been certain marked phases that, though apparently insignificant in themselves, have marked stages of progress in thought.

Perhaps the most significant and most important of these was the effect of the child-study movement on the formal and external side of Kindergarten work. It is first of all to America that we owe this, to the pioneer Stanley Hall, and more especially here to Mr. Earl Barnes. Very slowly, but surely, it was evident to the more enlightened teachers that children had their own way of learning and doing, and the adult-imposed system meant working against nature. For the logical method of presenting material from the simple to the complex, from the known to the unknown, from the concrete to the abstract, was substituted the psychological method of watching the children's way of learning and developing. Teachers found that what they considered to be "the simple" was not the simple to children; what they took to be "the known" was the unfamiliar to children. For instance, the "simple" in geography, in the adult sense, was the definition of an island, with which most of us began that study, and in geometry it was the point. To children of the ordinary type, both are far-away ideas, and not related to everyday experiences; "the known" in arithmetic, for example, was to teachers the previous lesson, quite regardless of the fact that arithmetic enters into many problems of life outside school. The life in school and the life outside school were, in these early days of infant teaching, two separate things, and only occasionally did a teacher stoop to take an example from everyday life. A little girl in one of the poorest schools brought her baby to show her teacher, and proudly displayed the baby's powers of speech—"Say a pint of 'alf-an-'alf for teacher," said the little girl to the baby by way of encouragement to both. This is the kind of rude awakening teachers get, from time to time, when they realise how much of the real child eludes them. Psychology has made it clear that life is a unity and must be so regarded.

Part of this child-study movement has resulted in the slow but sure death of formalism: large classes, material results, and a lack of psychology made formalism the path of least resistance. Painting became "blobbing," constructive work was interpreted as "courses" of paper folding, cutting, tearing; books of these courses were published with minute directions for a graduated sequence. The aim was obedient imitation on the part of the child, and the imagined virtues accruing to him in consequence were good habits, patience, accuracy and technical skill. Self-expression and creativeness were still only theories.

A second interesting phase of the transition period was the method adopted for the training of the senses. From the days of Comenius till now the importance of this has held its place firmly, but the means have greatly changed. Pestalozzi's object-lesson was adopted by Wilderspin and thoroughly sterilised; many teachers still remember the lessons on the orange, leather, camphor, paper, sugar, in which the teacher's senses were trained, for only she came in contact with the object, and the children from their galleries answered questions on an object remote from most of their senses, and only dimly visible to their eyes. Similar lessons were given after 1870 on Froebel's gift II. in which the ball, cylinder and cube were treated in the same manner: progress was slow, but sometimes the children followed nature's promptings and played with their specimens; this was followed by books of "gift-plays," where organised play took the place of organised observation.

About 1890 or thereabouts the Nature Study movement swept over the schools, and "nature specimens" then became the material for sense training: as far as possible each child had a specimen, and by the minute examination of these, stimulated their senses and stifled their appreciation of all that was beautiful.

Question and answer still dominated the activity; the poor little withered snowdrop took the place of the dead camphor or leather. But underlying all the paralysing organisation the truth was slowly growing, and the children were being brought nearer to real things.

A third phase in this transition period is that known as "correlation"; most teachers remember the elaborate programmes of work that drove them to extremes in finding "connections." The following, taken from a reputable book of the time, will exemplify the principle:

A WEEK'S PROGRAMME

Object Lesson The Horse. Phonetics The Foal, oa sound. Number Problems on the work of horses. Story The Bell of Atri [story of a horse ringing a bell]. Song Busy Blacksmith [shoeing a horse]. Game The Blacksmith's Shop. Reading On the Horse. Poetry Kindness to Animals. Paper Cutting The Bell of Atri. Paper Folding A Trough. Free-arm Drawing A Horseshoe. Clay Modelling A Carrot for the Horse. Brushwork A Turnip for the Horse. Brown Paper Drawing A Stable.

Underneath it all the truth was growing, namely, the need of making associations and so unifying the children's lines. But the process of finding the truth was slow and cumbersome.

A fourth phase of the early Infant School was the strong belief of both teachers and inspectors in uniformity of work and of results. It is difficult to disentangle this from the paralysing influences of payment by results and large classes: it was probably the teachers' unconscious expression of the instinct of self-preservation, when working against the heaviest odds. But it was constantly evident to the teacher that any attempt on a child's part to be an individual, either in work or in conduct, had to be arrested: and the theory of individual development was regarded as so Utopian that the idea itself was lost. Goodness was synonymous with uniform obedience and silence; naughtiness with individuality, spontaneity and desire to investigate. A frequently-heard admonition on the part of the teacher was, "Teacher didn't tell you to do it that way—that's a naughty way"; but such an attitude of mind was doubtless generated by the report of the inspector when he commended a class by saying: "The work of the class showed a satisfactory uniformity."

To obtain uniform results practice had to come before actual performance, and many weary hours were spent over drill in reading, drill in number, drill in handwork, drill in needlework. The extreme point was reached when babies of three had thimble and needle drill long before they began needlework. There were also conduct drills; Miss Grant, of Devons Road School, remembers a school where the babies "practised" their conduct before the visit of the "spectre," as they called him, he being represented as a stick set up on a chair. There is a curious symbolism in the whole occasion.

It is difficult to see the good underlying this phase, but it was there. There is undoubtedly a place for practice, though not before performance, and uniformity was undoubtedly the germ of an ideal.

All these phases stand for both progress and arrest. The average person is readier to accept methods than investigate principles; but we must recognise that all struggles and searchings after truth have made the road of progress shorter for us by many a mile.

Perhaps the chief cause of stumbling lay in the fact that there was no clearly realised aim or policy except that of material results. There were many fine-sounding principles in the air, but they were unrelated to each other; and the conditions of teaching were likely to crush the finest endeavours, and to make impossible a teaching that could be called educative.



CHAPTER XV

THE INFANT SCHOOL OF TO-DAY

Taking neither the best nor the worst, but the average school of to-day, it will be profitable to review shortly where it stands, to consider how far it has learnt the lessons of experience, and what kind of ideal it has set before itself.

In externals there have been many improvements. Modern buildings are better in many ways; there is more space and light, and the surroundings are more attractive. Most of the galleries have disappeared, but the furniture consists chiefly of dual desks, fixed and heavy, so that the arrangement of the room cannot be changed. The impression given to a visitor is that it is planned for listening and answering, except in the Baby Room, where there are generally light tables and chairs, and consequently no monotonous rows of children, unless a teacher arranges them thus from sheer habit. In each room is a high narrow cupboard about one quarter of the necessary size for all that education demands; most education authorities provide some good pictures, but the best are usually hung on the class-room wall behind the children, and all are above the children's eye level. "Oh, teacher, my neck do ache!" was the only appreciative remark made by a child after a tour made of the school pictures, which were really beautiful.

As a rule the windows are too high for the children to see from, and the lower part is generally frosted. In a new school which had a view up one of the loveliest valleys in Great Britain, the windows were of this description; the head of the school explained that it was a precaution in case the children might see what was outside; in other words, they might make the mistake of seeing a real river valley instead of listening to a description of it.

In country schools of the older type the accommodation is not so good, but the newer ones are often very attractive in appearance, and have both space and light. The school garden is a common feature in the country, and it is to be regretted so few even of the plot description are to be found in town schools.

Of late years the apparatus has improved, though there is still much to be done in this direction. Instead of the original tiny boxes of gifts we have frequently real nursery bricks of a larger and more varied character, and many other nursery toys. One of the best signs of a progressive policy is that large numbers of little toys have taken the place of the big expensive ones that only an occasional child could use. It is a pity that the use of toys comes to so sudden an end, and that learning by this method does not follow the babies after they have officially ceased to be babies, as is the custom in real life.

One of the most striking changes for the better is the evidence of care of the children's health, of which some of the external signs are doctor, nurse and care committee. A sense of responsibility in this respect is gradually growing in the schools; a fair number provide for sleep, a few try to train the children to eat lunch slowly and carefully, and some try to arrange for milk or cod-liver oil in the case of very delicate children. Though these instances are very much in the minority, they represent a change of spirit. This is one of the striking characteristics of the new Education Bill. A legacy from the old formalism lies in the fact that every room has a highly organised time-table, except perhaps in the Babies' Room, where the children's actual needs are sometimes considered first. The morning in most classes is occupied with Scripture, Reading, Arithmetic, Writing, and some less formal work, such as Nature lesson or Recitation; some form of Physical Exercise is always taken. The afternoons are mostly devoted to Games, Stories, Handwork and Singing: this order is not universal, but the general principle holds, of taking the more difficult and formal subjects in the morning. In the Babies' Room some preparation for reading is still too frequent. The lessons are short and the order varied, but in one single morning or afternoon there is a bewildering number of changes. Some years ago the unfortunate principle was laid down in the Code, that fifteen minutes was sufficient time for a lesson in an Infant School, and though this is not strictly followed the lessons are short and numerous, giving an unsettled character to the work; children appear to be swung at a moment's notice from topic to topic without an apparent link or reason: for example, the day's work may begin with the story of a little boy sent by train to the country, settled at a farm and taken out to see the cow and the sow: soon this is found to be a reading lesson on words ending in "ow," but after a short time the whole class is told quite suddenly, that one shilling is to be spent at a shop in town, and while they are still interested in calculating the change, paints are distributed, and the children are painting the bluebell. The whole day is apt to be of this broken character, which certainly does not make for training in mental concentration, or for a realisation of the unity of life. Some teachers still aim at correlation, but in a rather half-hearted way: others have entirely discarded it because of its strained applications, but nothing very definite has taken its place.

The curriculum which has been given is varied in character, and sometimes includes a "free period." Except in the Babies' Class the three R's occupy a prominent place, and children under six spend relatively a great deal of time in formal subjects, while children between six and seven, if they are still in the Infant School, are taught to put down sums on paper, which they could nearly always calculate without such help. As soon as a child can read well, and work a fair number of sums on paper, he is considered fit for promotion, and the question of whether he understands the method of working such sums, is not considered so important as accuracy and quickness. The test of so-called intelligence for promotion is reading and number, but it is really the test of convenience, so that large numbers of children may be taught together and brought, against the laws of nature, to a uniform standard.

This poison of the promotion and uniformity test works down through the Infant School: it can be seen when the babies are diverted from their natural activities to learn reading, or when they are "examined": it can be seen when a teacher yields up her "bright" children to fill a few empty desks, it can be seen in the grind at reading and formal arithmetic of the children under six, when weary and useless hours are spent in working against nature, and precious time is wasted that will never come back. Yet we say we believe that "Children have their youth that they may play," and that "Play is the purest, most spiritual activity of man at this stage" [childhood].

The lack of any clear aim shows itself in the fluid nature of the term "results"; to some teachers it signifies readiness for promotion, or a piece of work that presents a satisfactory external appearance, such as good writing, neat handwork, an orderly game, fluent reading. To others it means something deeper, which they discover in some chance remark of a child's that marks the growth of the spirit, or the awakening of the interest of a child whose development is late, or the quickened power of a child to express; or evidence of independent thought and the power to use it, in some piece of handwork, or appreciation of music or literature. According to the meaning attached to the term "results" so the method of the teacher must vary; but one gets the general impression that in this respect matters are in a transitional state; the first kind of teacher is always a little uncertain of her ground and a little fearful that she is not quite "up-to-date," while the second class of teacher is sometimes a little timid, and not quite sure that she is prepared to account for the rather subtle and intangible outcome of her work.

The same transitional character holds in the case of discipline: while what is known as "military" discipline still prevails in many schools, there are a very fair number with whom the grip has relaxed; but it is a courageous teacher that will admit the term "free discipline" which has nearly as bad a reputation as "free thought" used to have, and few are prepared to go all the way. Probably the reason lies in the vagueness of the meaning of the term, and the fact that its value is not clearly realised because it is not clearly understood. Teachers have not faced the question squarely: "What am I aiming at in promoting free discipline."

Taking a general view of the present school, one gets the impression of a constant change of activity on the part of the children, but very little change of position, a good deal of provision for general class interest, but little for individual interest; of less demand than formerly for uniformity of results, but the existence of a good deal of uniformity of method, arresting the teacher's own initiative; of very constant teaching on the part of the teacher and a good deal of listening and oral expression on the part of the children, of many lessons and little independent individual work. Below all this there is evident a very friendly relationship between the teacher and the children, a good deal of personal knowledge of the children on the part of the teacher, and a good deal of affection on both sides. There is less fear and more love than in the earlier days, less government and more training, less restraint and more freedom. And the children are greatly attached to their school.

From consideration of the foregoing summary it will be seen that education in the Infant School is a thing of curious patches, of strength and weakness, of light and shade; perhaps the greatest weakness is its lack of cohesion, of unification: on the one hand we find much provision for the children's real needs, much singleness of purpose in the teacher's work, such a genuine spirit of whole-hearted desire for their education: on the other hand, an unreasoning sense of haste, of pushing on, of introducing prematurely work for which the children admittedly are unready; an acceptance of new things on popular report, without scientific basis, and a lack of courage to maintain the truth for its own sake, in the face of so-called authority, and a craving to be modern. At the root of all this inconsistency and possibly its cause, is the lack of a guiding policy or aim, the lack of belief in the scientific or psychological basis of education, and consequently the want of that strong belief in absolute truth which helps the teacher to pass all barriers.



CHAPTER XVI

SOME VITAL PRINCIPLES

If it be true that the Infant School of to-day suffers from lack of a clear basis for its general policy, it will be profitable to have clearly before us such principles as great educators have found to be most vital to the education of young children.

We all believe that we have an aim and a high aim before us: it has been variously expressed by past educationalists, but in the main they all agree that the aim of education is conduct.

In actual practice, however, we act too often as if we only cared for economic values. If we are to live up to our educational profession, we must look our aim in the face and honestly practise what we believe.

While training of character and conduct is the accepted aim for education in general, to make this useful and practical each teacher must fix her attention on how this ultimate aim affects her own special part of the whole work. By watching the free child she will discover how best she can help him: he knows his own business, and when unfettered by advice or command shows plainly that he is chiefly concerned with gaining experience. He finds himself in what is to him a new and complex world of people and things; actual experience is the foundation for complete living, and the stronger the foundation the better the result of later building. The first vital principle then is that the teacher of young children must provide life in miniature; that is, she must provide abundant raw material and opportunities for experience.