Froebel's Gifts Part 19

[71] "In this group work it is desirable that the common aims should be fully within the comprehension of each little worker, yet sufficiently beyond his powers of execution and endurance to make him sensible of the need of a.s.sistance. The former secures the possibility of individual enjoyment, and hence the only reliable incentive to persistence; the latter insures free subordination to the will of the whole, the essential condition of success."--W. N. Hailmann, _Primary Helps_, page 18.

Forms of Life.

As to Life forms in general, their number is practically unlimited, though as they are only line-pictures, and heavy lines at that, they are not as real as those made in the Building Gifts. They are easily made, however, and the veriest baby in the kindergarten who handles the sticks as a prelude to his drawing exercises invents with them all sorts of rude forms which he calls by appropriate names.

The question of color as it enters into these forms needs, perhaps, a moment's consideration here. As the gift includes both white and colored sticks, would it not be well to use the former for all dictations in Life forms, reserving the brilliant hues for the forms of symmetry whose charms they would greatly enhance?

Connection of other Objects with Stick Dictations.

We may sometimes connect simple, inexpensive objects with stick dictations, with a view to making them more realistic and delightful.

When the little ones are just getting the various positions and corresponding terms into their minds, and when therefore it is advisable to keep them amused and happy with one to three sticks as long as possible,--that is, until the fundamental principles have become very familiar,--these objects are most invaluable.

Innumerable lessons may be practiced with one stick only, calling it at last a whipstock and giving it a bit of curly paper for a lash. Far from being an instrument of punishment, it makes every child laugh with the glee of possession.

With two sticks laid horizontally we may give a little paper horse-car, or when one is vertical and the other runs horizontally across its end, we may call it a candlestick and snip a half-circle of paper into the semblance of a flame. The effect is electrical, though the light be only one candle-power.

And so on, _ad infinitum_; it is enough to give the hint for the play.

We can cut little paper birds for the bird-cages, tumblers for the rude little tables, green leaves for the trees, etc., making the stick exercise, even in its first more difficult details, a time of great satisfaction and gladness.

Complete sets of these card-board objects, one for each child, should always be kept on hand; if well made they will last a year.

Forms of Beauty.

Enough has already been said of the possibilities of the sticks to show that they are most valuable for symmetrical forms. They may be combined with the tablets, and thus very pretty effects be made, and when four children unite their material at the group work tables, the dictations and inventions produced are of course very large, and may be really beautiful if constructed on artistic principles.

Border work may be very fully carried out with the sticks, and another charming feature of the gift is the way in which it lends itself to the making of snow crystals. These are symmetrical combinations and modifications of familiar geometrical forms around the hexagon. Mr. W.

N. Hailmann says regarding them: "At first, it is best to give each child only six or twelve sticks, and to dictate the central figure (a hexagon or hexagonal star) verbally or by means of a drawing on the blackboard. They may then receive a number of additional sticks, and let the central figure grow, all obeying the teacher's dictation, or each following his own inventive genius."[72]

[72] "These forms are invaluable even as _silent_ teachers of geometrical and numerical relations. Used judiciously in conversational lessons, leading to partial or complete a.n.a.lysis of the figures in spoken or written descriptions, their teaching power is inexhaustible."--W. N. Hailmann's _Primary Helps_, page 21.

In this gift, as well as in the seventh, the child's imitative and inventive powers are obviously more greatly taxed than in the others, and the danger will be, if he is not well trained, that, as he apparently can do anything with the material, he will end by doing nothing. The greater the freedom given to the child, the greater the necessity of teaching him to use that liberty in and through the law, and not to abuse it by failing to reach with its aid the highest ends.

Connection of Sticks with Drawing.

We may make the laying of one-inch sticks in vertical and horizontal positions, in angles and squares, a prelude to the drawing of similar lines; and the copying of stick dictations, either from the table, or from memory, into drawing, is a most excellent exercise, calling into requisition great correctness and good judgment, besides an unusual amount of calculation, since the stick dictation will be on a scale of one inch, and the drawing on a scale of one fourth inch, reducing the original design to one in miniature. The child will almost always begin by attempting to make the picture exactly like his model in size without counting the inches and trying to make it mathematically correct; but after the idea is carefully explained and fully ill.u.s.trated, he will have no further difficulty excepting, perhaps, with the more complicated figures containing slanting lines.

Ambidexterity.

We should encourage in all possible ways the use of both hands in all the exercises with gifts and occupations, not only that one may be as skillful as the other, but also to avoid a one-sided position of the body which frequently leads to curvature of the spine. The well-known physiologist, Professor Brown-Sequard, insists on the equal use of both hands, in order to induce the necessary equal flow of blood to the brain. Through the effect of our irregular and abnormal development, the cause of which is the too persistent use of the right hand, one lobe of our brains and one side of our bodies are in a neglected and weakened condition, and the evils resulting from this weakness are many and widespread. Dr. Daniel Wilson says: "In the majority of cases the defect, though it cannot be wholly overcome, may be in great part cured by early training, which will strengthen at once both the body and mind."[73]

[73] "Whenever the early and persistent cultivation of the full use of both hands has been accomplished, the result is greater efficiency, without any corresponding awkwardness or defect. In certain arts and professions, both hands are necessarily called into play. The skillful surgeon finds an enormous advantage in being able to transfer his instrument from one hand to the other. The dentist has to multiply instruments to make up for the lack of such acquired power.

The fencer who can transfer his weapon to the left hand places his adversary at a disadvantage. The lumberer finds it indispensable, in the operation of his woodcraft, to learn to chop timber right-and-left-handed; and the carpenter may be frequently seen using the saw and hammer in either hand, and thereby not only resting his arm, but greatly facilitating his work. In all the fine arts the mastery of both hands is advantageous. The sculptor, the carver, the draughtsman, the engraver, the cameo-cutter, each has recourse at times to the left hand for special manipulative dexterity; the pianist depends little less on the left hand than on the right; and as for the organist, with the numerous pedals and stops of the modern grand organ, a quadrumanous musician would still find reason to envy the ampler scope which a Briareus could command."--Dr. Daniel Wilson, _Left-Handedness. A Hint for Educators_.

Abuse of Eighth Gift.

No materials of the kindergarten (save the beans, lentils, etc., which serve to represent the point) have been so over-used and so abused as the sticks. When no other work was prepared for the children, when helpers were few, and it was desirable to give something which needed no supervision, when inexperienced students were to take charge of cla.s.ses, when the kindergartner was weary and wanted a quiet moment to rest, when everybody was in a hurry, when the weather was very cold, or oppressively warm, when there was a torrent of rain, or had been a long drought, the sticks were hastily brought forth from the closet and as hastily thrust upon the children. These small sufferers, being thus provided with work-materials in which it was obvious that superior grown people took no interest, immediately lost interest themselves. In riotous kindergartens the sticks were broken, poked into pockets, and thrown on the floor; in the orderly ones they were gazed at apathetically, no one deeming it worth while to stir a hand to arrange them, save under pressure. Sticks had been presented so often and in so tiresome a manner that they produced a kind of mental atrophy in the child,--they were arresting his development instead of forwarding it.

Such an abuse of material is entirely unnecessary in the kindergarten, where so many ways are provided of presenting the same truths in all sorts of different and charming guises. It is unnecessary and most unfortunate, for it has frequently thrown undeserved contempt on an innocent and attractive gift, which, when properly treated, is one of the most pleasing and useful which Froebel has bequeathed to us.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Paradise of Childhood. _Edward Wiebe_. Pages 39-45.

Kindergarten Guide. _J. and B. Ronge_. 33-36.

Kindergarten Guide. _Kraus-Boelte_. 239-373.

The Kindergarten Principle. _Mary J. Lyschinska_. 103-20.

Law of Childhood. _W. N. Hailmann_. 39.

Kindergarten Culture. _W. N. Hailmann_. 70-72.

The Kindergarten. _H. Goldammer_. 154-72.

Primary Helps. _W. N. Hailmann_.

Industrial Art in Schools.[74] _Charles G. Leland_.

Drawing and Decorative Design. _Charles G. Leland_.

Art and the Formation of Taste. _Walter Crane_.

Manual of Design. _Richard Redgrave, R. A._ Principles of Decorative Design. _Christopher Dresser_.

Art and Ornament in Dress. Introduction. _Charles Blanc_.

[74] Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education, No. 4, 1882.

FROEBEL'S NINTH GIFT

THE RING OR CURVED LINE

"Art developed in the same way. The Egyptian temples show us only straight-lined figures, which consequently show mathematical relations. Only in later times appeared the lines of beauty, that is, the arched or circular lines. I carry the child on in the same way."

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL.

"The curve bears with it in its unity and variety, its rich symbolism to everything which lives and moves, the most intimate relation to that which the child sees, feels, and loves." EMMA MARWEDEL.

"It might be said that to produce useful objects is the result of the struggle for life; but the tendency to create that which is simply artistic results from no such urgent need, yet it is found wherever the former exists."

CHARLES G. LELAND.

"Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake."

EMERSON.

1. The rings of the ninth gift are made of silvered wire, either soldered or unsoldered, and are whole circles three inches, two inches, and one inch in diameter, with their respective halves and quarters.

2. As the first six gifts emphasized solids and divided solids, the seventh, the plane, and the eighth, the straight line, so the ninth, the ring, embodies the curve, and ill.u.s.trates the circ.u.mference of the sphere and the edge of the cylinder.

3. All the objects. .h.i.therto used have, with the exception of the ball and cylinder, dealt with straight lines and the figures formed by those lines. We now begin a series of exercises with the curve, and the variety of symmetrical figures that can be constructed is immensely increased.