Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/117

Rh but also a far-reaching criticism of life in general, teaching as they do that the ideal life is not one in which there is constant strife between the soul and the outer world, but one in which these are in harmony; that we must not waste our energies in striving to perform the impossible, but must rather work out our best impulses with integrity and without affectation. But while Froebel's principles are in theory equally applicable to the conduct of life and to methods of education, they are practically more easily applied to the latter, for the outer world in which our children live is less complicated and more easily regulated and arranged. "We can not provide them with an ideal world, but we can do much more for them toward this object than we can for ourselves. Let it not be said that they will thus be unfitted for life in the world as it is. Rather will they be strengthened and enabled to take their places rightly therein—enabled also each in his own sphere and according to his strength to exert the right kind of influence upon the outer world and help on progress in the right direction.

A well-regulated Kindergarten is an example on a small scale of what life in the outer world ought to be. Each individual is encouraged to exercise choice in all cases where it is not hurtful to the community, and no one is compelled to do disagreeable things for the sake of what is so often falsely called discipline. The children are not asked if they are good or told that they are bad. They are not encouraged to think about themselves at all, but the moral feelings are unconsciously developed because there is an atmosphere of sympathy and happiness. Fear, the most common cause of untruthfulness in children, is entirely removed, and the nature of the surroundings is such as to gradually diminish other causes, such as boastfulness and selfishness. The teacher watches the children and makes use of their own natural tendencies to further the objects which he has in view. He works with them, constantly helping and encouraging, gently turning their efforts in the right direction, and never takes up the position of a cold and rigid martinet. A child who does not succeed in anything he is trying to do is not punished and generally not blamed; but the children are not idle, because they are interested in their work, and because success is always preferable to failure. On the moral as well as on the intellectual side, the teacher does not make demands upon the powers of the children which are not likely to be satisfied. Right action in this matter requires sympathy, judgment, and experience. It is hurtful to the moral nature to be asked to perform a good action of which that nature is not yet capable, but it is by the performance of that which is within its powers that the moral nature is strengthened and developed. Thus the child learns by doing, and moral progress becomes a