that she has made any study of play, or that she attaches special importance to the play activities, or natural activities of childhood, on which the Kindergarten is founded. This is probably accounted for in that her first observations were made on deficient children who are notably wanting in initiative.
Among these "play activities" we should include the child's perpetual imitation or pretence, a matter which Dr. Montessori entirely fails to understand, as shown in her more recent book, where she treats of imagination. Here she maintains that only the children of the comparatively poor ride upon their fathers' walking-sticks or construct coaches of chairs, that this "is not a proof of imagination but of an unsatisfied desire," and that rich children who own ponies and who drive out in motor-cars "would be astonished to see the delight of children who imagine themselves to be drawn along by stationary armchairs." Imitative play has, of course, nothing to do with poverty or riches, but is, as Froebel said long since, the outcome of an initiative impulse, sadly wanting in deficient children, an impulse which prompts the child of all lands, of all time and of all classes to imitate or dramatise, and so to gain some understanding of everything and of every person he sees around.
The work of Dr. Montessori has helped enormously in the movement, begun long since, for greater freedom in our Infant Schools; freedom, not from judicious guidance and authority, but from rigid time-tables and formal lessons, and from arbitrary restrictions, as well as freedom for the individual as apart from the class. The best Kindergartens and Infant Schools had already discarded time-tables, and Kindergarten classes have always been small enough to give the individual a fair chance. Froebel himself constantly urged that the child should become familiar with "both the strongly opposed elements of his life, the individual determining and directing side, and the general ordered and subordinated side." He urged the early development of the social consciousness as well as insisting on expansion of individuality, but it is always difficult to combine the two, and most Kindergarten teachers will benefit by learning from Dr. Montessori to apply the method of individual learning to a greater extent.
We are, however, fully prepared to maintain that Froebel; even in 1840, had a wider and a deeper realisation of the needs of the child than has as yet been attained by the Dottoressa.[6] In order to make this clear, it is proposed to compare the theories of Froebel with the conclusions of a biologist. For biology has a wider and a saner outlook than medical science; it does not start from the abnormal, but with life under normal conditions.
[Footnote 6: Her latest publication regarding the instruction—for it is not education—of older children makes this even more plain. For here is no discussion of what children at this stage require, but a mere plunge into "subjects" in which formal grammar takes a foremost place.]
In the address, from which the opening words of this chapter are quoted, it is suggested that a capable biologist be set to deal with education, but he is to be freed "from all preconceived ideas derived from accepted tradition." After such fundamentals as food and warmth, light, air and sleep, the first problems considered by this Biologist Educator are stages of growth, their appropriate activities, and the stimuli necessary to evoke them. Always he bears in mind that "interference with a growing creature is a hazardous business," and takes as his motto "When in doubt, refrain."
To discover the natural activities of the child, the biologist relies upon, first, observation of the child himself, secondly, upon his knowledge of the nervous system, and thirdly, upon his knowledge of the past history of the race. From these he comes to a very pertinent conclusion, viz. "The general outcome of this is that the safe way of educating children is by means of Play," play being defined as "the natural manifestation of the child's activities; systematic in that it follows the lines of physiological development, but without the hard and fast routine of the time-table."[7]
[Footnote 7: It is in this connection that the Kindergarten is stigmatised as "pretty employments devised by adults and imposed at set times by authority," an opinion evidently gained from the way in which the term has been misused in a type of Infant School now fast disappearing.]
It is easy to show that although Froebel was pre-Darwinian, he had been in close touch with scientists who were working at theories of development, and that he was largely influenced by Krause, who applied the idea of organic development to all departments of social science. It was because Froebel was himself, even in 1826, the Biologist Educator desiring to break with preconceived ideas and traditions that he wished one of his pupils had been able to "call your work by its proper name, and so make evident the real nature of the new spirit you have introduced."[8]
[Footnote 8: See p. 4.]
But Froebel was more than a biologist, he was a philosopher and an idealist. Such words have sometimes been used as terms of reproach, but wisdom can only be justified of her children.
At the back of all Froebel has to say about "The Education of the Human Being" lies his conception of what the human being is. And it is impossible fully to understand why Froebel laid so much stress on spontaneous play unless we go deeper than the province of the biologist without in the least minimising the importance of biological knowledge to educational theory. As the biologist defines play as "the natural manifestation of the child's activities," so Froedel says "play at first is just natural life." But to him the true inwardness of spontaneous play lies in the fact that it is spontaneous—so far as anything in the universe can be spontaneous. For spontaneous response to environment is self-expression, and out of self-expression comes selfhood, consciousness of self. If we are to understand Froebel at all, we must begin with the answer he found, or accepted, from Krause and others for his first question, What is that self?
Before reaching the question of how to educate, it seemed to him necessary to consider not only the purpose or aim of education, but the purpose or aim of human existence, the purpose of all and any existence, even whether there is any purpose in anything; and that brings us to what he calls "the groundwork of all," of which a summary is given in the following paragraphs.
In the universe we can perceive plan, purpose or law, and behind this there must be some great Mind, "a living, all-pervading, energising, self-conscious and hence eternal Unity" whom we call God. Nature and all existing things are a revelation of God.
As Bergson speaks of the élan vital which expresses itself from infinity to infinity, so Froebel says that behind everything there is force, and that we cannot conceive of force without matter on which it can exercise itself. Neither can we think of matter without any force to work upon it, so that "force and matter mutually condition one another," we cannot think one without the other.
This force expresses itself in all ways, the whole universe is the expression of the Divine, but "man is the highest and most perfect earthly being in whom the primordial force is spiritualised so that man feels, understands and knows his own power." Conscious development of one's own power is the triumph of spirit over matter, therefore human development is spiritual development. So while man is the most perfect earthly being, yet, with regard to spiritual development he has returned to a first stage and "must raise himself through ascending degrees of consciousness" to heights as yet unknown, "for who has measured the limits of God-born mankind?"
Self-consciousness is the special characteristic of man. No other animal has the power to become conscious of himself because man alone has the chance of failure. The lower animals have definite instincts and cannot fail, i.e. cannot learn.[9] Man wants to do much, but his instincts are less definite and most actions have to be learned; it is by striving and failing that he learns to know not only his limitations but the power that is within him—his self.
[Footnote 9: This would nowadays be considered too sweeping an assertion.]
According to Froebel, "the aim of education is the steady progressive development of mankind, there is and can be no other"; and, except as regards physiological knowledge inaccessible in his day, he is at one with the biologist
