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of things that are now present. He saw that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, and what is more natural than that the mother's feeling should express itself in songs to and about her baby. Thru her response to his babblings, as Dr. Dewey has said, "the child comes to know what these babblings mean; they are transformed into an articulate language, and thus the child is introduced into the consolidated wealth of ideas and emotions which are now summed up in language."

But it may be said we needed no Froebel to teach this factthis playful prattle between mother and child has always been a common thing. Why should it be claimed as a discovery of Froebel's? Why should we say "Froebel's Mother Play?" The instinct which prompts it is old, the insight which Froebel would make possible to every mother in this sort of play is something that was thought little of before his day. While on the part of the child the play remains an expression of impulse and activity for its own sake, he declares that the mother should have a broader outlook.

Psychology teaches us that sense impressions do remain, tho the subject of them may be for the time wholly unconscious of them; but when the time comes that the impressions are not only received but perceived, the words and tones with which the child is already familiar because of the many repetitions are the more easily understood, and are a further help in gaining new words. This is especially true when words are interpreted by the actions, in which a child delights. There comes to him in due time a genuinely intelligent association of word and act, of word and object.

If it is the function of the mother to create conditions for "clear thinking, right feeling, and noble doing." then it is most desirable that she keep away from the child "needless imperfections of pronunciations, those affected reduplications of words," as Mr. Hailmann calls them, which sooner or later come between the child and the situation in which he finds himself. These are all well enough as the child's creations, but are not in place on the part of adults, for they do not help the child in "the completion of himself" to which we have before referred.

Froebel plays with words, as he plays with gesture, form, color, size, etc. There are very few elementary attributes of objects, which do not come to the front in the little child's language-ne

cessities in play, and Froebel would note all of these, but would conserve the best. He does not want the child enveloped in words, but would develop the child's language, by making the very best use of that which he has at his command.

Again, he lends a hand in this way: the child is given certain materials to work and play with. He builds with blocks, plays with balls of various colors, makes things of clay, wood, cardboard, and paper; he paints, draws, weaves, sews, pounds, digs in the dirt and sand. All of these activities and objects have a nomenclature peculiarly their own, and repeated plays with them create the need for numberless nouns and verbs, as well as for complete sentences; and yet, because of the repetitions of the same playthings from time to time, the child gains more definite ideas of the relation of the word and the object. I think this is one of the values in limiting, to some extent, the material a child works and plays with. It is not cramping or hampering, because the new creations or combinations continually call for more freedom and more words, as well as a better use of those already at his command.

Another plan of Froebel's growing out of the use of the work and play material is to have the child work occasionally from very definite directions or dictation, given by the teacher. Do not be alarmed lest the creativeness of the child will suffer. It is not a one-sided arrangement, for soon, in turn, the teacher becomes pupil, and the child is the master-workman, who must now tell definitely what we are to do. This sort of work must fall in with a previously awakened experience, as to position, direction, as well as of other elementary attributes of objects. It must have a "content," that the child himself feels is a worthy one, not only for the future but for the present. No one who has not tried this device knows its real worth as a means of language teaching. By such an exercise now and then there is formed in the mind as the goal of the effort a transparent mental image of the object or activity to which all of the preceding experiences belong, and words, as well as things, are made simpler and clearer. This we must remember is only one device. There are times when the child is left wholly to himself to work out his ideas as best he can; but he certainly needs help in spelling out the fact that experience, either with action or objects, or the words which symbolize them, is a connected process. "The whole vast mystery of life, in all

its processes and conditions," I quote Professor Small again, "confronts the child as it does the sage. It is the business of the educator to help the child interpret the part by the whole. Education from the beginning should be an initiation into science, language, philosophy, art, and political action in its largest sense. There fore Froebel's aim in each and all of these subjects is one of nurture, a fostering care of that which is best. He does not want the child warped anywhere by habit, by prejudice, nor by misunderstanding.

I have only hinted at Froebel's strong feeling for rhythm in language teaching. He would make it a powerful factor from the nursery song thru the child's whole school life. Because rhythmical language is begun instinctively, he claims that it must also become intelligent, and this even before the words may be fully understood. He would use song and poetry as a means to the increase of a higher inner life, and he advises the skeptic who questions the value of it to study the child's language simply and naturally, and see how early in the child's simplest expression of feeling he falls into rhythmical speech. An universal and complete plan of education will not leave children to an arbitrary, frivolous whimsicality in any form of expression, but should lead them to understand and appreciate the true products of art, in which is included poetry.

In the chapter on the "School and the Family," in the "Education of Man," under the heading, the "Observation of Nature and Surroundings," Froebel begins by having the children name the things nearest to them; then follows a conversation as to the relation of one thing to another; of the furniture of the room to the room itself; of the room to the house; of the house to the premises the yard, garden, barnyard, etc. He brings in here a most. vital truth, viz., that the knowledge of things and of words must be consciously necessary to the child; and these necessities do spring forth at certain times and in certain places as "buds on the bough of a tree." The teacher is expected to see these requirements almost intuitively, but she must also know how to give to each stage that which the stage demands.. He leads the child from the home into the fields; into the surrounding country; to the things of nature; to river, hill, grass, trees, etc. The animals are noted and classified according to the child's ability; but the ability is ever increasing. He observes men at different sorts of

He sees

work, and notes the common features and ultimate aim. that men live in families, families in larger groups, and finally the child comes back to the home, from which he started on his explorations, with a larger outlook; and, if he has been rightly led, he has at least a germ of the truth which is so fundamental in all ethics that "only as a whole, as a unit, can humanity fuily attain the highest and ultimate purpose of human striving." In speaking of the child's language in relation to all of these observational experiences, Froebel says: "Man's speech should be, as it were, himself in its integrity; it should reveal him all-sidedly and become an image of his inner and his outer world.

"WHAT we should do is to see that every moment yields its largest returns in life. It is long ago that Aristotle said that the one perfect form of action is not work, but play, because in work you submit to an outside stimulus. But by play he did not mean distraction and diversion. Play ought to be as serious as any work of life, the re-creation of the powers of mind and body. The highest forms of friendship, the appreciation of music, the free action of the body in joyous movement these are play. This higher form of play ought always to be one part of the margin of life."-Edward Howard Griggs.

H

THE OPTIMIST.

IS vision pierces thru the veil of clouds
And views the genial sun behind it all;
He scans the dewy, rosy-tinted dawn

Beyond the midnight's all-prevading pall.

He hears a shout of triumph, loud and clear,
Amidst the direst murmurs of defeat;

In all the bitterness and gall of life

He seeks and finds a little that is sweet.

-Will Reed Dunroy.

I

HINDRANCES TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE. MISS CECILIA ADAMS, SUPERVISOR OF KINDERGARTENS, DENVER.* N the beginning of child study the kindergarten was devised to meet the needs of the normal child; but as soon as our experience widens we find many classes of children in various stages of development, and the methods and mental food for one stage will not develop and nourish the other. It is our duty then, as teachers, not to appeal to any one class, but to understand the different shades of mentality, and give light to those below normal, as well as the bright and precocious individuals.

The child seems to have two births; the one liberates the physical body, and the other, due to environment, liberates the soul. It is the latter with which we have to work in our educational methods, and the question comes, how shall we, thru environment, bring freedom to those who have been hindered in their normal physical life? In a group of fifty children there will be five or ten who are responsive and lead in all activities. The others are quiet and passive, perhaps are confused by the multitude of persons. It may be some do not hear what is said, and grasp imperfectly the topic of discussion, while some speak so incorrectly they prefer to remain silent. These latter cases, if not at once, in time are liable to the disease of aphasia, because the brain and speech organs are not working in unison. Many of these troubles are caused in children by lack of nourishment. Some children are affected so as to be weak in body or indolent and phlegmatic in mind. Sometimes the poorly nourished brain is affected thruout; sometimes only in special centers, as the eye, the ear, or the motor cells. All must work in harmony for perfect expression in speech.

It is difficult for the public to control the child's nourishment, upon which life depends; but we can understand the result that follows the lack of nourishment, and change our methods to suit the stage of development.

Every individual is born into this world complete in his pattern. Our patterns vary, but all unfold exactly alike as the race advances step by step. The study in science is revealing these steps and leading us into an open path by which we may walk hand in hand with these unfortunate little mates.

*Read before the N. E. A.

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