Children's Rights: A Book of Nursery Logic

My answer was as follows,—brief perhaps, but certainly comprehensive:—

The music of St. Cecilia.

The art of Raphael.

The dramatic genius of Rachel.

The administrative ability of Cromwell.

The wisdom of Solomon.

The meekness of Moses, and—

The patience of Job.

Twelve years' experience with children has not lowered my ideals one whit, nor led me to deem superfluous any of these qualifications; in fact, I should make the list a little longer were I to write it now, and should add, perhaps, the prudence of Franklin, the inventive power of Edison, and the talent for improvisation of the early Troubadours.

The Troubadours, indeed, could they return to the earth, would wander about lonely and unwelcomed till they found home and refuge in the hospitable atmosphere of the kindergarten,—the only spot in the busy modern world where delighted audiences still gather around the professional story-teller.

If I were asked to furnish a recipe for one of these professional story-tellers, these spinners of childish narratives, I should suggest one measure of pure literary taste, two of gesture and illustration, three of dramatic fire, and four of ready speech and clear expression. If to these you add a pinch of tact and sympathy, the compound should be a toothsome one, and certain to agree with all who taste it.

And now as to the kind of story our professional is to tell. In selecting this, the first point to consider is its suitability to the audience. A story for very little ones, three or four years old perhaps, must be simple, bright, and full of action. They do not yet know how to listen; their comprehension of language is very limited, and their sympathies quite undeveloped. Nor are they prepared to take wing with you into the lofty realms of the imagination: the adventures of the playful kitten, of the birdling learning to fly, of the lost ball, of the faithful dog,—things which lie within their experience and belong to the sweet, familiar atmosphere of the household,—these they enjoy and understand.

It will be found also that the number of children to whom one is talking is a prominent factor in the problem of selecting a story. Two or three little ones, gathered close about you, may pay strict attention to a quiet, calm, eventless history; but a circle of twenty or thirty eager, restless little people needs more sparkle and incident.

If one is addressing a large number of children, the homes from which they come must be considered. Children of refined, cultivated parents, who have listened to family conversation, who have been talked to and encouraged to express themselves,—these are able to understand much more lofty themes than the poor little mites who are only familiar with plain, practical ideas, and rough speech confined to the most ordinary wants of life.

And now, after the story is well selected, how long shall it be? It is impossible to fix an exact limit to the time it should occupy, for much depends on the age and the number of the children. I am reminded again of recipes, and of the dismay of the inexperienced cook when she reads, "Stir in flour enough to make a stiff batter." Alas! how is she who has never made a stiff batter to settle the exact amount of flour necessary?

I might give certain suggestions as to time, such as, "Close while the interest is still fresh;" or, "Do not make the tale so long as to weary the children;" but after all, these are only cook-book directions. In this, as in many other departments of work with children, one must learn in that "dear school" which "experience keeps." Five minutes, however, is quite long enough with the babies, and you will find that twice this time spent with the older children will give room for a tale of absorbing interest, with appropriate introduction and artistic dénouement.

As one of the chief values of the exercise is the familiarity with good English which it gives, I need not say that especial attention must be paid to the phraseology in which the story is clothed. Many persons who never write ungrammatically are inaccurate in speech, and the very familiarity and ease of manner which the story-teller must assume may lead her into colloquialisms and careless expressions. Of course, however, the language must be simple; the words, for the most part, Saxon. No ponderous, Johnsonian expressions should drag their slow length through the recital, entangling in their folds the comprehension of the child; nor, on the other hand, need we confine ourselves to monosyllables, adopting the bald style of Primers and First Readers. It is quite possible to talk simply and yet with grace and feeling, and we may be sure that children invariably appreciate poetry of expression.

The story should always be accompanied with gestures,—simple, free, unstudied motions, descriptive, perhaps, of the sweep of the mother bird's wings as she soars away from the nest, or the waving of the fir-tree's branches as he sings to himself in the sunshine. This universal language is understood at once by the children, and not only serves as an interpreter of words and ideas, but gives life and attraction to the exercise.

Illustrations, either impromptu or carefully prepared beforehand, are always hailed with delight by the children. Nor need you hesitate to try your "'prentice hand" at this work. Never mind if you "cannot draw." It must be a rude picture, indeed, which is not enjoyed by an audience of little people. Their vivid imaginations will triumph over all difficulties, and enable them to see the ideal shining through the real. It is well now and then, also, to have the children illustrate the story. Their drawings, if executed quite without help, are, most interesting from a psychological standpoint, and will afford great delight to you, as well as to the little artists themselves.

The stories can also be illustrated with clay modeling, an idealized mud-pie-making very dear to children. They soon become quite expert in moulding simple objects, and enjoy the work with all the capacity of their childish hearts.

Now and then encourage the little ones to repeat what they remember of the tale you have told, or to tell something new on the same theme. If the story you have given has been within their range and on a familiar subject, a torrent of infantile reminiscence will immediately gush forth, and you will have a miniature "experience meeting." If you have been telling a dog story, for instance,—"I hed a dog once't," cries Jimmy breathlessly, and is just about to tell some startling incident concerning him, when Nickey pipes up, "And so hed I, and the pound man tuk him;" and so on, all around the circle in the Free Kindergarten, each child palpitating with eagerness to give you his bit of personal experience.

Gather the little ones as near to you as possible when you are telling stories, the tiniest in your lap, the others cuddled at your knee. This is easily managed in the nursery, but is more difficult with a large circle of children. With the latter you can but seat yourself among the wee ones, confident that the interest of the story will hold the attention of the older children.

What a happy hour it is, this one of story-telling, dear and sacred to every child-lover! What an eager, delightful audience are these little ones, grieving at the sorrows of the heroes, laughing at their happy successes, breathless with anxiety lest the cat catch the disobedient mouse, clapping hands when the Ugly Duckling is changed into the Swan,—all appreciation, all interest, all joy! We might count the rest of the world well lost, could we ever be surrounded by such blooming faces, such loving hearts, and such ready sympathy.

THE RELATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN TO SOCIAL REFORM

"New social and individual wants demand new solutions of the problem of education."

"Social reform!" It is always rather an awe-striking phrase. It seems as if one ought to be a philosopher, even to approach so august a subject. The kindergarten—a simple unpretentious place, where a lot of tiny children work and play together; a place into which if the hard-headed man of business chanced to glance, and if he did not stay long enough, or come often enough, would conclude that the children were frittering away their time, particularly if that same good man of business had weighed and measured and calculated so long that he had lost the seeing eye and understanding heart.

Some years ago, a San Francisco kindergartner was threading her way through a dirty alley, making friendly visits to the children of her flock. As she lingered on a certain door-step, receiving the last confidences of some weary woman's heart, she heard a loud but not unfriendly voice ringing from an upper window of a tenement-house just round the corner. "Clear things from under foot!" pealed the voice, in stentorian accents. "The teacher o' the Kids' Guards is comin' down the street!"

"Eureka!" thought the teacher, with a smile. "There's a bit of sympathetic translation for you! At last, the German word has been put into the vernacular. The odd, foreign syllables have been taken to the ignorant mother by the lisping child, and the kindergartners have become the Kids' Guards! Heaven bless the rough translation, colloquial as it is! No royal accolade could be dearer to its recipients than this quaint, new christening!"

What has the kindergarten to do with social reform? What bearing have its theory and practice upon the conduct of life?

A brass-buttoned guardian of the peace remarked to a gentleman on a street-corner, "If we could open more kindergartens, sir, we could almost shut up the penitentiaries, sir!" We heard the sentiment, applauded it, and promptly printed it on the cover of three thousand reports; but on calm reflection it appears like an exaggerated statement. I am not sure that a kindergarten in every ward of every city in America "would almost shut up the penitentiaries, sir!" The most determined optimist is weighed down by the feeling that it will take more than the ardent prosecution of any one reform, however vital, to produce such a result. We appoint investigating committees, who ask more and more questions, compile more and more statistics, and get more and more confused every year. "Are our criminals native or foreign born?" that we may know whether we are worse or better than other people? "Have they ever learned a trade?" that we may prove what we already know, that idle fingers are the devil's tools; "Have they been educated?"—by any one of the sorry methods that take shelter under that much-abused word,—that we may know whether ignorance is a bliss or a blister; "Are they married or single?" that we may determine the influence of home ties; "Have they been given to the use of liquor?" that we may heap proof on proof, mountain high, against the monster evil of intemperance; "What has been their family history?" that we may know how heavily the law of heredity has laid its burdens upon them. Burning questions all, if we would find out the causes of crime.

To discover the why and wherefore of things is a law of human thought. The reform schools, penitentiaries, prisons, insane asylums, hospitals, and poorhouses are all filled to overflowing; and it is entirely sensible to inquire how the people came there, and to relieve, pardon, bless, cure, or reform them as far as we can. Meanwhile, as we are dismissing or blessing or burying the unfortunates from the imposing front gates of our institutions, new throngs are crowding in at the little back doors. Life is a bridge, full of gaping holes, over which we must all travel! A thousand evils of human misery and wickedness flow in a dark current beneath; and the blind, the weak, the stupid, and the reckless are continually falling through into the rushing flood. We must, it is true, organize our life-boats. It is our duty to pluck out the drowning wretches, receive their vows of penitence and gratitude, and pray for courage and resignation when they celebrate their rescue by falling in again. But we agree nowadays that we should do them much better service if we could contrive to mend more of the holes in the bridge.

The kindergarten is trying to mend one of these "holes." It is a tiny one, only large enough for a child's foot; but that is our bit of the world's work,—to keep it small! If we can prevent the little people from stumbling, we may hope that the grown folks will have a surer foot and a steadier gait.

A wealthy lady announced her intention of giving $25,000 to some Home for Incurables. "Why," cried a bright kindergartner, "don't you give twelve and a half thousand to some Home for Curables, and then your other twelve and a half will go so much further?"

In a word, solicitude for childhood is one of the signs of a growing civilization. "To cure, is the voice of the past; to prevent, the divine whisper of to-day."

What is the true relation of the kindergarten to social reform? Evidently, it can have no other relation than that which grows out of its existence as a plan of education. Education, we have all glibly agreed, lessens the prevalence of crime. That sounds very well; but, as a matter of fact, has our past system produced all the results in this direction that we have hoped and prayed for?

The truth is, people will not be made much better by education until the plan of educating them is made better to begin with.

Froebel's idea—the kindergarten idea—of the child and its powers, of humanity and its destiny, of the universe, of the whole problem of living, is somewhat different from that held by the vast majority of parents and teachers. It is imperfectly carried out, even in the kindergarten itself, where a conscious effort is made, and is infrequently attempted in the school or family.

His plan of education covers the entire period between the nursery and the university, and contains certain essential features which bear close relation to the gravest problems of the day. If they could be made an integral part of all our teaching in families, schools, and institutions, the burdens under which society is groaning to-day would fall more and more lightly on each succeeding generation. These essential features have often been enumerated. I am no fortunate herald of new truth. I may not even put the old wine in new bottles; but iteration is next to inspiration, and I shall give you the result of eleven years' experience among the children and homes of the poorer classes. This experience has not been confined, to teaching. One does not live among these people day after day, pleading for a welcome for unwished-for babies, standing beside tiny graves, receiving pathetic confidences from wretched fathers and helpless mothers, without facing every problem of this workaday world; they cannot all be solved, even by the wisest of us; we can only seize the end of the skein nearest to our hand, and patiently endeavor to straighten the tangled threads.

The kindergarten starts out plainly with the assumption that the moral aim in education is the absolute one, and that all others are purely relative. It endeavors to be a life-school, where all the practices of complete living are made a matter of daily habit. It asserts boldly that doing right would not be such an enormously difficult matter if we practiced it a little,—say a tenth as much as we practice the piano,—and it intends to give children plenty of opportunity for practice in this direction. It says insistently and eternally, "Do noble things, not dream them all day long." For development, action is the indispensable requisite. To develop moral feeling and the power and habit of moral doing we must exercise them, excite, encourage, and guide their action. To check, reprove, and punish wrong feeling and doing, however necessary it be for the safety and harmony, nay, for the very existence of any social state, does not develop right feeling and good doing. It does not develop anything, for it stops action, and without action there is no development. At best it stops wrong development, that is all.

In the kindergarten, the physical, mental, and spiritual being is consciously addressed at one and the same time. There is no "piece-work" tolerated. The child is viewed in his threefold relations, as the child of Nature, the child of Man, and the child of God; there is to be no disregarding any one of these divinely appointed relations. It endeavors with equal solicitude to instill correct and logical habits of thought, true and generous habits of feeling, and pure and lofty habits of action; and it asserts serenely that, if information cannot be gained in the right way, it would better not be gained at all. It has no special hobby, unless you would call its eternal plea for the all-sided development of the child a hobby.

Somebody said lately that the kindergarten people had a certain stock of metaphysical statements to be aired on every occasion, and that they were over-fond of prating about the "being" of the child. It would hardly seem as if too much could be said in favor of the symmetrical growth of the child's nature. These are not mere "silken phrases;" but, if any one dislikes them, let him take the good, honest, ringing charge of Colonel Parker, "Remember that the whole boy goes to school!"

Yes, the whole boy does go to school; but the whole boy is seldom educated after he gets there. A fraction of him is attended to in the evening, however, and a fraction on Sunday. He takes himself in hand on Saturdays and in vacation time, and accomplishes a good deal, notwithstanding the fact that his sight is a trifle impaired already, and his hearing grown a little dull, so that Dame Nature works at a disadvantage, and begins, doubtless, to dread boys who have enjoyed too much "schooling," since it seems to leave them in a state of coma.

Our general scheme of education furthers mental development with considerable success. The training of the hand is now being laboriously woven into it; but, even when that is accomplished, we shall still be working with imperfect aims, for the stress laid upon heart-culture is as yet in no way commensurate with its gravity. We know, with that indolent, fruitless half-knowledge that passes for knowing, that "out of the heart are the issues of life." We feel, not with the white heat of absolute conviction, but placidly and indifferently, as becomes the dwellers in a world of change, that "conduct is three fourths of life;" but we do not crystallize this belief into action. We "dream," not "do" the "noble things." The kindergarten does not fence off a half hour each day for moral culture, but keeps it in view every moment of every day. Yet it is never obtrusive; for the mental faculties are being addressed at the same time, and the body strengthened for its special work.

With the methods generally practiced in the family and school, I fail to see how we can expect any more delicate sense of right and wrong, any clearer realization of duty, any greater enlightenment of conscience, any higher conception of truth, than we now find in the world. I care not what view you take of humanity, whether you have Calvinistic tendencies and believe in the total depravity of infants, or whether you are a disciple of Wordsworth and apostrophize the child as a

"Mighty prophet! Seer blest,
On whom those truths do rest
Which we are toiling all our lives to find;"

if you are a fair-minded man or woman, and have had much experience with young children, you will be compelled to confess that they generally have a tolerably clear sense of right and wrong, needing only gentle guidance to choose the right when it is put before them. I say most, not all, children; for some are poor, blurred human scrawls, blotted all over with the mistakes of other people. And how do we treat this natural sense of what is true and good, this willingness to choose good rather than evil, if it is made even the least bit comprehensible and attractive? In various ways, all equally dull, blind, and vicious. If we look at the downright ethical significance of the methods of training and discipline in many families and schools, we see that they are positively degrading. We appoint more and more "monitors" instead of training the "inward monitor" in each child, make truth-telling difficult instead of easy, punish trivial and grave offenses about in the same way, practice open bribery by promising children a few cents a day to behave themselves, and weaken their sense of right by giving them picture cards for telling the truth and credits for doing the most obvious duty. This has been carried on until we are on the point of needing another Deluge and a new start.

Is it strange that we find the moral sense blunted, the conscience unenlightened? The moral climate with which we surround the child is so hazy that the spiritual vision grows dimmer and dimmer,—and small wonder! Upon this solid mass of ignorance and stupidity it is difficult to make any impression; yet I suppose there is greater joy in heaven over a cordial "thwack" at it than over most blows at existing evils.

The kindergarten attempts a rational, respectful treatment of children, leading them to do right as much as possible for right's sake, abjuring all rewards save the pleasure of working for others and the delight that follows a good action, and all punishments save those that follow as natural penalties of broken laws,—the obvious consequences of the special bit of wrong-doing, whatever it may be. The child's will is addressed in such a way as to draw it on, if right; to turn it willingly, if wrong. Coercion in the sense of fear, personal magnetism, nay, even the child's love for the teacher, may be used in such a way as to weaken his moral force. With every free, conscious choice of right, a human being's moral power and strength of character increase; and the converse of this is equally true.

If the child is unruly in play, he leaves the circle and sits or stands by himself, a miserable, lonely unit until he feels again in sympathy with the community. If he destroys his work, he unites the tattered fragments as best he may, and takes the moral object lesson home with him. If he has neglected his own work, he is not given the joy of working for others. If he does not work in harmony with his companions, a time is chosen when he will feel the sense of isolation that comes from not living in unity with the prevailing spirit of good will. He can have as much liberty as is consistent with the liberty of other people, but no more. If we could infuse the spirit of this kind of discipline into family and school life, making it systematic and continuous from the earliest years, there would be fewer morally "slack-twisted" little creatures growing up into inefficient, bloodless manhood and womanhood. It would be a good deal of trouble; but then, life is a good deal of trouble anyway, if you come to that. We cannot expect to swallow the universe like a pill, and travel on through the world "like smiling images pushed from behind."