The Child under Eight Part 8

Another very early memory is one of grief, to see from the window how the gardener was mowing down all the daisies, and there were so many, in the gra.s.s; and yet another is of a high, gra.s.sy, sunny field with a little stream running far down below. It was not really far and there was nothing particularly beautiful in the place to grown-up eyes, but the beholder was very small and loved it dearly. To his Art and Blue Heaven Stevenson might have added Sun and Green Gra.s.s. For he knew what gra.s.sy places are to the child, and that "happy play in gra.s.sy places"

might well be Heaven to the little one.

A most interesting little book called _What is a Kindergarten?_[22] was published some years ago in America. It is written by a landscape gardener, and contains most valuable suggestions as to how best to use for a Kindergarten or Nursery School plots of ground which may be secured for that purpose. Naturally the writer has much to say on the laying out and stocking the available s.p.a.ce to the best advantage, choosing the most suitable positions for the house, where the teacher must live, he says, to supply the atmosphere of a home; for animal hutches, for sand-heaps and seesaws; for the necessary shelter, for the children's gardens, and for the lawn, for even on his smallest plan, a "twenty-five-foot lot," we find "room for a spot of green." Later he explains that for this green one must use what will grow, and if gra.s.s will not perhaps clover will. The way in which the trees and plants are chosen is most suggestive. Beauty and suitability are always considered, but he remembers his own youth, and also considers the special joys of childhood. For it is not Nature lessons that come into his calculations but "the mere a.s.sociation of plants and children." So the birch tree is chosen, partly for its grace and beauty, but also because of its bark, for one can scribble on its papery surface; the hazel, because children delight in the catkins with their showers of golden dust, and the nut "hidden in its cap of frills and tucks." And he adds: "How much more alluring than the naked fruit from the grocer's sack are these nuts, especially when dots for eyes and mouth are added, and a whole little face is tucked within this natural bonnet."

[Footnote 22: G. Hansen, pub. Elder, Morgan & Shepherd, San Francisco, 1891.]

In addition to the flowers chosen for beauty of colour, this lover of children and of gardens wants Canterbury Bells to ring, Forget-me-nots because they can stand so much watering, and "flowers with faces,"

pansies, sweet-peas, lupins, snapdragons, monkey flowers, red and white dead nettles, and red clover to bring the bees. Some of these are chosen because the child can do something with them, can find their own uses for them, can play with them. And, speaking generally, playing with them is the child's way of appreciating both plant and animal. Picking feathery gra.s.ses, red-tipped daisies, sweet-smelling clover and golden dandelions; feeding snapdragons with fallen petals, finding what's o'clock by blowing dandelion fruits, paying for dock tea out of a fairy purse, shading poppy dolls with woodruff parasols, that is how a child enjoys the beauty of colour, scent and form. He gets not more but less beauty when he must sit in a cla.s.s and answer formal questions. "Must we talk about them before we take the flowers home?" asked a child one day; "they are so pretty." Clearly, the "talk" was going to lessen, not to deepen the beauty. And animals? The child plays with cat and dog, he feeds the chickens, the horse and the donkey, he watches with the utmost interest caterpillar, snail and spider, but he does not want to be asked questions about them--he does want to talk and perhaps to ask the questions himself--nor does he always want even to draw, paint or model them. Mostly he wants to watch, and perhaps just to stir them up a little if they do not perform to his satisfaction. He does not necessarily mean to tease, only why should he watch an animal that does nothing? "The animals haven't any habits when I watch them," a little girl once said to Professor Arthur Thomson.

All children should live in the country at least for part of the year.

They should know fields and gardens, and have intercourse with hens and chickens, cows and calves, sheep and lambs; should make hay and see the corn cut. They would still want the wisely sympathetic teacher, not to arouse interest--that is not necessary, but to keep it alive by keeping pace with the child's natural development. It is not merely living in the country that develops the little child's interest in shape and colour and scent into something deeper. People still "spend all their time in the fields and forests and see and feel nothing of the beauties of Nature, and of their influence on the human heart"; and this, said Froebel--and it is just what Mr. Clutton Brock is saying now--is because the child "fails to find the same feelings among adults." Two effects follow: the child feels the want of sympathy and loses some respect for the elder, and also he loses his original joy in Nature.

"There is in every human being the pa.s.sionate desire for this self-forgetfulness--to which it attains when it is aware of beauty--and a pa.s.sionate delight in it when it comes. The child feels that delight among spring flowers; we can all remember how we felt it in the first apprehension of some new beauty of the universe, when we ceased to be little animals and became aware that there was this beauty outside us to be loved. And most of us must remember, too, the strange indifference of our elders. They were not considering the lilies of the field; they did not want us to get our feet wet among them. We might be forgetting ourselves, but they were remembering us; and we became suddenly aware of the bitterness of life and the tyranny of facts. Now parents and nurses (and teachers) have, of course, to remember children when they forget themselves. But they ought to be aware that the child, when he forgets himself in the beauty of the world, is pa.s.sing through a sacred experience which will enrich and glorify the whole of his life.

Children, because they are not engaged in the struggle for life, are more capable of this aesthetic self-forgetfulness than they will afterwards be; and they need all of it that they can get, so that they may remember it and prize it in later years. In these heaven-sent moments they know what disinterestedness is. They have a test by which they can value all future experience and know the dullness and staleness of worldly success. Therefore it is a sin to check, more than need be, their aesthetic delight" (_The Ultimate Belief_).

We cannot all give to our children the experiences we should like to supply, but if we are clear that we are aiming at enjoyment of Nature, and not at supplying information, we shall come nearer to what is desirable. For years, almost since it opened in 1908, Miss Reed of the Michaelis Free Kindergarten has taken her children to the country. It means a great deal of work and responsibility, it means collecting funds and giving up one's scanty leisure, it means devoted service, but it has been done, and it has been kept up even during war time, though with great difficulty as to funds, because of the inestimable benefit to the children. Miss Stokes of the Somers Town Nursery School secured a country holiday for her little ones in various ways, partly through the Children's Country Holiday Fund, but since the war she has been unable to secure help of that kind, and has managed to take the children away to a country cottage. A paragraph in the report says: "The children in the country had a delightful time, and what was seen and done during their holiday is still talked about continually. These joys entered into all the work of the nursery school and helped the children for months to retain a breath of the country in their London surroundings. They realised much from that visit. Cows now have horns, wasps have wings and fly--alas they sting also. Hens sit on eggs, an almost unbelievable thing. Fishes, newts, tadpoles, were all met with and greeted as friends. Children and helpers alike returned home full of health and vigour and longing for the next time. One little maid wept bitterly, and there seemed no joy in life at home until she came across the school rabbit, which was tenderly caressed, and consoled her with memories of the country and hopes for future visits."

In the days when teachers argued about the differences between Object-lessons and Nature-lessons, one point insisted upon was that the Nature-lesson far surpa.s.sed the Object-lesson because it dealt with life.

We have learned now that we should as much as we can surround our children with life and growth. Even indoors it is easy to give the joy of growing seeds and bulbs and of opening chestnut branches: without any cruelty we can let them enjoy watching snails and worms and we can keep caterpillars or silkworms and so let them drink their fill of the miracle of development. But beauty comes to children in very different ways, and always it is Nature, though it may not be life.

Children revel in colour, colour for its own sake, and should be allowed to create it. In a modern novel there is a description of a mother doing her was.h.i.+ng in the open air and "at her feet sat a baby intent upon the a.s.similation of a gingerbread elephant, but now and then tugging at her skirts and holding up a fat hand. Each time he was rewarded by a dab of soapsuds, which she deposited good-naturedly in his palm. He received it with solemn delight; watching the roseate play of colour as the bubbles shrank and broke, and the lovely iridescent treasure vanished in a smear of dirty wetness while he looked. Then he would beat his fists delightedly against his mother's dress and presently demand another handful."

The following notes from another student's report show how this may spring naturally out of the children's life:[23]

[Footnote 23: Miss Edith Jones.]

"We were spinning the teetotum yesterday and it did not spin well so we made new ones. While the children were painting their tops, Oliver grew very eager when he found he could fill in all the s.p.a.ces in different colours, but Betty made her colours very insipid. I want them to get the feeling of beautiful colour, so I shall show them a book with the colours graded in it, and we shall each have a paper and paint on it all the rich colours we can think of. The colours will probably run into each other, and so the children will get ideas about the blending of colours, but I will watch to see that they do not get the colour too wet. If they are not tired of painting I want to show them a painted circle to turn on a string and they can make these for themselves, using the colours they have already used.

"I want the children to do some group work, and I thought we might make a village with shops and houses under the trees in the garden and have little men and women to represent ourselves. The suggestion will probably have to come from the teacher, but the children will probably have the desire when it is suggested, and I hope we shall be able to go on enlarging our town on the pattern of the towns the children know. If they want bricks for their houses they can dig clay in the garden.

"_Report_.--The children wanted to make a tea-set, so we carried our clay outside. They began discussing why their china would not be so fine as the china at home, and I said the clay might be different. Then Bernard asked what sort of china we should get from the clay in the garden, and I told him that kind of clay was generally made into bricks, and suggested making bricks. From that we went on to the use of bricks, and to-morrow we are going to dig, and make bricks to build a town. Bernard is anxious to know how we shall make mortar. Just then it started to rain, and Bernard said that if the sun kept s.h.i.+ning and it rained hard enough we should have a rainbow, and he wished it would come so as to see the beautiful colours. I thought this rather a coincidence, and told him I had a book with all the rainbow colours in it. They asked to see it, so I showed it and suggested painting the colours ourselves.

Those who had finished their dishes started, and we talked about the richness of the colours. One or two children started with very watery colour, so I showed them the book and began to paint myself. They all enjoyed it very much, especially the different colours made where the colours ran into each other. The results pleased them and they are to be used as wall-papers to sell in our town, but Sybil wants to have a toy shop, and she is going to make a painted circle for it like the one I showed."

This is clearly the time to show a gla.s.s prism and to let these children make rainbows for themselves, to tell the story of Iris, and to use any colour material, Milton Bradley spectrum papers, Montessori silks, colour top, and anything else so long as the children keep up their interest. The interest in colour need never die out; it will probably show itself now in finer discrimination, and more careful reproduction of the colours of flowers and leaves, and the sympathy given will heighten interest and increase enjoyment.

Here are some notes showing children's numerous activities in a suburban garden where they were allowed to visit a hen and chickens.

"_Monday_[24]--To-day the children took up their mustard and cress, dug and raked the ground ready for transplanting the lettuces. After their rest we went to see the chickens at the Hall (the Students' Hostel), and the Hall garden seemed to them a wonderful place. They watched the trains go in and out of the station at the foot of the garden, and explored all the side doors, going up and down all the steps and into the cycle shed. They helped Miss S. to stir the soot water, then they went to the gra.s.sy bank and ran down it, slid down it, and rolled down it. They peeped over the wall into the next garden, they peeped through holes in the fences and finished up with a swing in the hammock. Each child had twenty swings, and they enjoyed counting in time with the swaying of the hammock, and swayed their own bodies as they pushed.

[Footnote 24: These notes are part of those already given on pp. 68-71.]

"Another example of love and rhythm was when they went to say good-bye to the hen and chickens, and kept on repeating 'Good-bye, good-bye' all together, nodding their heads at the same time.

"I did not know if I should have let them do so much, but I was not sure that we should be allowed to come back and I wanted them to enjoy the garden.

"_Wednesday_.--First we watered the lettuces we had transplanted, and transplanted more. Then, as we had permission to come again, we took some of our lettuces to the chickens. We saw the mother hen with one wing spread right out, and the children were much surprised to see how large it was. We looked at the roses, and saw how the bud of yesterday was full blown to-day. The children again ran down and rolled down the bank, and had turns in the hammock, this time to the rhythm of "Margery Daw" sung twice through, and then counting up to twenty. Very often they went to watch the trains. Cecil is particularly interested in them, and wanted to know how long was the time between. He said three minutes, I guessed nine, but we found they were irregular. In the intervals while waiting for a train to pa.s.s, we played a 'listening' game, listening to what sounds we could hear. A thrush came and sang right over our heads, so the listening was concentrated on his song, and we tried to say what we thought he meant to say. One child said, 'He says, "Come here, come here,"' but they found this too difficult. We also watched a boy cleaning the station windows, and Dorothy said, 'Miss Beer, isn't it wonderful that you can see through gla.s.s?' I agreed, but made no other remark because I did not know what to say.

"We rested outside to-day under an almond tree. I pointed out how pretty the sky looked when you only saw it peeping through the leaves. After rest the children noticed feathery gra.s.ses, and spent the rest of the morning gathering them. I suggested that they should see how many kinds they could find. They found three, but were not enthusiastic about it, being content just to pluck, but they were delighted when they found specially long and beautiful gra.s.ses hidden deep under a leafy bush.

They also found clover leaves, and I told them its name and sang to them the verse from 'The Bee,' with 'The sweet-smelling clover, he, humming, hangs over.'

"_Thursday._--Brushed and dusted the room, gave fresh water to the flowers, and then went to gardening. The children were delighted to find ladybirds on the lettuces they were transplanting, and we also noticed how the cherries were ripening.

"They joined the Transition Cla.s.s for games. Later, while playing with the sand, Cecil made a discovery. He said, 'Miss Beer, do you know, I know what sand is, it's little tiny tiny stones.'"

It may be worth while to notice some things in these notes. First the pleasure in exploring the new surroundings and then the variety of delights. Our landscape gardener mentions that "any slope to our grounds should be welcomed.... For as we leave the level land and flee to the mountains to spend our vacation, so will a child avoid the street and seek the gutter and the bank on the unimproved lot to enjoy its pastime." Our own children have been fortunate enough to have a bank for their play, and though, unfortunately, extension of buildings has taken away much of this, we have had abundant opportunity to see the value of sloping ground. Then there are the discoveries, the feathery gra.s.ses, especially those which were hidden, the ladybirds, that sand is really "tiny tiny stones"--has every adult noticed that, or is sand "just sand"?--and the "wonder" that we can see through gla.s.s, a wonder realised by a little girl of four years old. Also we can notice what the children did not desire. They liked listening to the thrush, but to make out what the thrush was "saying" was beyond them. They liked gathering feathery gra.s.ses, but to sort these into different kinds gave no pleasure, though older children would have enjoyed trying to find many varieties.

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 gla.s.s. 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 gla.s.s 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 G.o.d

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 att.i.tude 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 G.o.d.

As a son can share the aspirations of his father, so man "a thought of G.o.d"

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 G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 gra.s.s for the cow, "until you come to the last ring of all, G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 "G.o.d 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, or in those of heartfelt thankfulness, children may hear the name of G.o.d; 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 G.o.d. The stories sound irreverent, and are often repeated as highly amusing, but they are really more pathetic. Miss s.h.i.+nn 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 G.o.d could see her even in her bath. And the boy who said, "If I had done a thing, could G.o.d 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 G.o.d.... 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 G.o.d.

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.