Moreover, such industry is the special desideratum to temper the spirit of the present age, which is so keen and energetic that it hurries our young men into pursuits in their amus.e.m.e.nts which take on the character of gambling; and hence gambling in business, gambling in politics, where even human beings, instead of being regarded as _brothers to be kept_, are used as dice, to be recklessly thrown in our game. The only preventive or cure for this pa.s.sion for gambling is industry, and the only industry that is attractive is artistic; and why should not all industry become artistic, now that the great cosmic forces are suborned, by our advancing civilization, as the legitimate slaves of men, to do all the hard work for men? I have already set forth this view of the subject in the _Plea for Frbel"s Kindergarten as the Primary Art-School_, which I appended to Cardinal Wiseman"s lecture on the relation of the arts of design with the arts of production (which I published in 1869, under the t.i.tle of _The Artist and the Artisan Identified,--the Proper Object of American Education_).
Before I leave these general remarks for more specific explanation of Frbel"s method of intellectual development, I would make one more observation. It is in the social and moral character of the kindergarten that Frbel has shown himself so much superior to Rousseau, whose method was to cultivate individualities exclusively, the teacher pretending to know no more than the child, but taking his idiosyncrasy for his only guide in discovery and invention. In the first place, Rousseau"s method has been found an impracticable one, for it requires a separate teacher for every child; and in the only instance, perhaps, in which it was ever carried out with perfect fidelity, that of Maria Edgeworth"s eldest brother (we have in her memoirs of her father all the facts), the ultimate effect was to make a monstrosity. He was utterly strange, so odd and unsocial, n.o.body but his father, who educated him, could have any practicable relation with him. He might be said to be conscientiously unsocial, and therefore immoral; and, though not ungifted, he was an utter failure in human life. We see similar effects produced measurably, in all cases where the main object is to cultivate the individual rather than the universal characteristics of humanity.
Frbel was tender, and gave freedom to individualities, but he took great care not to _pamper_ them. They are the results of the free-will, irrefragable, and will take care of themselves sufficiently, if not cruelly snubbed, but tenderly respected.
What is to be _intentionally_ cultivated in earliest infancy, are the _general_ affections and faculties, which relate us to our kind, insuring _common_ sense and _common_ conscience with a reasonable self-respect. Therefore, what is done in the kindergarten is necessary for all children, their idiosyncrasies being left free to play on the surface and give variety and piquancy to life, freedom and dignity to the individual.
All minds seem to be divided into two cla.s.ses. In one cla.s.s, the primal tendency is to observe single objects; and these are the so-called smart children, interesting the spectator by their vivacity and precocity. In the other cla.s.s, children seem to be dull in sense, un.o.bserving, but dreamy, as if they had an over-mastering _presentiment_ of that connection of things which binds them into wholes. It has been remarked that this latter cla.s.s turns out the great men,--the poets, the philosophers, the inventors, high artists, great statesmen, and law-givers,--while the precocious children disappoint expectation; probably because they have acc.u.mulated such a chaos of single impressions of disconnected things, that it quite overwhelms the cla.s.sifying and generalizing powers of the intellect. Frbel"s method equally meets the respective wants of both these cla.s.ses of minds, supplying by specific culture the _other_ side of their practical endowment. By its discipline of production, it gives the lively and restless ones the wand of the Fairy-Order, in discovering to them the connections of things, and the conditions as well as laws of organization; while for those of the dreamy, poetic, philosophic temperament, it sharpens the senses to individual things, supplying the definite and sensuous impressions, and suggesting the corresponding words that enable them to give an account of their own thinking, and ill.u.s.trate to others the struggling ideal; which, like conscience and the love of order and rhythm, is perhaps the yet persistent vision of that Heavenly Father"s face, which Jesus Christ has told us we are created beholding.
Jesus evidently is quoting a familiar proverb, when he says "for their angels behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." Does it not refer to the Persian mythology current in Judea after the captivity? However neglected and eclipsed, that primeval vision can never be quite lost. It persists in the love of order and beauty; in the desire to be loved _infinitely_; in hope "that springs eternal in the human breast"; in the ideals of imagination, that haunt both the savage and the sage, and, at worst, in _remorse_, in which, as Emerson says, "there is a certain _sweetness_," whether it be gentle as in what the Quakers call "the reproof of truth," or felt as the reproachful strivings within us of our neglected infinite nature.
This brings me to speak of Frbel"s superiority to Pestalozzi. The kindergarten is not mainly _object-teaching_, though of course a constant object-teaching is _involved_; all the materials of their work and all the surroundings of the children become objects of examination in their individualities of form, size, number, etc., and in their possible connections with each other and with the _child_. If Frbel proposes to give the fruits of the tree of _life_, before he gives those of the tree of knowledge, it is only that the latter may prove, _not a curse_, but a blessing. The world"s history and the present state of civilization in the foremost nations of the world shows us that knowledge may be _a power_ without being _a good_ (a snakish subtlety not Divine Wisdom). It begins to be realized in Europe as well as in America, that Frbel"s idea of education, in making _character_ the first thing, and knowledge the _hand-maiden_ of goodness, is the desideratum of the age, and promise of the millennium.
I should like to read you some letters of eminent men in France, addressed to Frbel"s most earnest disciple and apostle, the Baroness Marenholtz-Bulow, which I have translated from the appendix of her _Work in Relation to Education_ (see Appendix, Note B).
In an address to the school committee of Boston in 1868 I gave the call addressed in 1867 by the Philosophers" Congress in Prague to the convention of teachers in Berlin, and the call of the latter to the second convention of this congress at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1869. The burden of all these papers is the paramount necessity of religious and moral education, begun in earliest infancy, in order that the modern intellectual activity may not land us in licentious vices and heartless atheism, _our nearest dangers_. They all accept Frbel"s method of education by work and experience (beginning with the work and experience of the child of three years old) as the first condition of the regeneration of the human race.
It is the office of the kindergartner to awaken the intellect, which the child does not bring into the world, like its heart and will, full-grown. The infant suffers and enjoys as keenly, and wills as energetically, at first as ever in its life, but apparently begins and lives for some time, unconscious of a world without as a _not me_. It is purely subjective, _i.e._, feeling its material environment to be a part of itself. As Emerson says:--
"The babe, by its mother, Lies bathed in joy; Glide its hours uncounted; The sun is its toy!
Shines the peace of all being, Without cloud, in its eyes; And the sum of the world In soft miniature lies!"
Only by intentional help of those around the child can it grow into individual consciousness of its relations with nature in that order which produces the sound intellect. For the intellect is a growth in time, that carries on the nursery exercises of the limbs and affections by the movement plays, and adds those sedentary plays with the series of gifts, which are symbols of all nature in miniature, that objective revelation of G.o.d to which the receptive mind answers by thoughts.
Thinking is that reaction of the individual mind upon nature which, when it is put into words, produces progressively an image of G.o.d, which is the human mind.
The kindergartner"s conversation with the children upon their playthings is therefore her most important and delicate work, and one which she cannot do instinctively, but only if she scientifically understands the child on the one hand, and nature in some department on the other. It is impossible in this lecture, perhaps, to demonstrate my meaning. By following out Frbel"s own method of playing with the gifts, as suggested in Mrs. Kraus-Boelte"s guide or in _The Florence Handbook_, the whole process of the formation of the human understanding by the order of objective nature will become patent, and enable the kindergartner to avoid any great mistakes in her guidance of the children"s minds, which guidance should always be tentative, and respectful, to say the least, of their freedom to will. Then we shall have not mechanical work, but orderly, creative work from the children, whose spontaneity is not to be choked; but when it seems to be going in a wrong direction, interrogatively guided. Like Ariel, she must do her spiriting gently, lest she violate the legitimate individuality, and we have Caliban instead of the germ of Prospero.
I here pause to display two kinds of work actually done by children under seven years of age at Frau Marquadt"s kindergarten in Dresden.
They enable me to show that those sedentary plays, with which Frbel would have children amused, must needs develop and educate the perceptive faculty and understanding in a substantial manner; for these things were done without patterns, and therefore from _thought_,--the thought being sometimes suggested by the dictation of the child-gardener, requiring of the child only one single act of reflection. But much of this work was invented by the children themselves, their wildest fancies being controlled to produce symmetry, by following the one rhythmical law of always making an opposite to everything they do. After showing and explaining the _modus operandi_ of the work exhibited, I went on to say:--
I believe n.o.body disputes, after they see what kindergarten is, that it is the gospel of salvation for children. The exercises put them into complete possession, not only of their limbs, especially the characteristic limb of man, the hand, just when they are the most flexible, and therefore most easily trained; and of their organs of sense (by which they gradually make the universe their instrumentality), but also of _accurate speech_, enabling them to express their impressions of individual things, as well as of what they _do_ with things and in the order of its doing. Thus they are prepared for entering upon more abstract subjects, by means of books and schools of instruction. A child well "gardened" and exercised in the intelligent use of his mother tongue enters upon the process of learning to read, for instance, with all the more advantage from being accustomed to hear and use language with precision and fluency; and is ready to learn to cipher all the more quickly, because of the concrete arithmetic and geometry he has mastered experimentally with the playthings and in the occupations, all his habits of delicate observation and nice calculation formed by the embroidery and other fanciful work giving the basis for intelligent cla.s.sifications. Even the few years of experience of some genuine kindergartens in this country has already proved this. I can give an instance in detail of the almost miraculous rapidity with which a cla.s.s of seven-year-old children learned to read in the primer called _After Kindergarten--What?_ (Note C, in Appendix.) All the time given to "child-gardening" is therefore more than saved at the next stage, when instruction begins. Other advantages accruing are incalculable, for the children themselves have become intelligent and conscientious co-operators with their elders, instead of pa.s.sive receivers or antagonists. When Miss Youmans" _First Lessons in Botany_ (a book made to teach botany in nature on Prof. Henslow"s method) was introduced into the New York primary schools, with great expectations of a brilliant success, it was found that the children did not take hold as expected of this science of observation. "I see now," said Miss Youmans to me, "the indispensableness of kindergartens to develop the faculties; more than half the children are intellectually demoralized by neglect or injudicious teaching before they are seven years old." Everything, however, depends upon the single-minded self-devotion and affectionate character of the kindergartner, and it is obvious that her education must be as special as that of a teacher of instrumental and vocal music; for as little as music can be taught by the ear, or drawing by the eye, without studying the underlying principles of harmony and symmetry, can kindergartning be taught empirically. Its foundation is in both a scientific and sympathetic study and understanding of the child"s perceptive powers and the material world. Not merely what is to be taught, as is the case with a university professor, but the free-willing and deep-feeling beings that are to be taught must be studied generally and individually above all things else. Hence, there must be special schools for teaching child-gardening, or a special department made in the already existing normal schools.
The burden of thinking out the steps of procedure in the schoolroom is too great a one to be laid on the teacher who has to exercise the general care. It must all be at the tongue"s tip and fingers" ends beforehand. It took Frbel a lifetime, with all his genius and wisdom, to discover all the steps of this order of exercises, in correspondence with the true evolution of the faculties; but "one man dies, and other men enter into the fruits of his labors." Besides, it is as cruel to study the philosophy of education at the expense of the living children"s minds, as it would be to study anatomy and medicine at the expense of their living bodies. All kindergartners should observe and practise for awhile under the direction and criticism of those who are already experts and adepts; and the latter should be careful that their a.s.sistants try no rash experiments, but at first reverently observe successful work. It is the highest interest of all teachers to learn this method, because it develops themselves. It not only makes the best mothers, but the most perfectly accomplished women. It is entering into the secret of creation and redemption, which is the flower and fruit of human culture.[8]
When people ask me if kindergartning is not a method especially adapted to German children, I reply that it seems to me to encounter as great obstacles in that nationality as in any other. It is not a _national_ method, but the _human_ method; and I would remark in this place that it strikes me as especially desirable for Irish children. The natural predominance in them of fancy needs the check of accurate perception, a.s.sociated with accurate expression; accurate perception, first, of the individuality of objects, their form, size, color, direction, their mutual resemblances and contrasts, and the no less accurate perception of their relations to each other and to the child. These things can only be made objects of perception by children"s being accustomed to _make_ things, which employ the activities that otherwise will play at random and divert their attention from the matter in hand. In my observations of Irish servants, I am struck with their never seeming to see what is before their eyes, or to hear what is said to them, on account of the predominance of their creative faculties. Accurate perception of the things children play with, and successful manipulation of them to produce effects, would also help them to moral integrity; for order moralizes just in proportion as disorder demoralizes. Successful action cures idle dissipation, while unsuccessful efforts discourage and paralyze industry. Frbel wishes the child to be started at something he can certainly accomplish, though perhaps not without direction in words.
When the child sees an effect produced by himself, he will repeat it until he can produce the effect without direction, and, if asked, will be delighted to show another child how he has done it. It is a necessary step to put his action into words, and raises it from mere mechanical into intellectual work; from Chinese imitation into European and American invention. By and by, when he has learned a little steadiness of attention by doing successfully what pleases his fancy, he will make some motion of his own, and proceed according to the law of symmetry (whose virtue he has learned) to discover and make new forms of beauty and use; but he should still be carefully overlooked, and saved, by timely suggestions, from making mistakes. These suggestions he will crave and not resist, _if they are not peremptory_, but are put in the form of a question, which seems to respect his power to choose, which is his _personality_, the image of G.o.d within him. In proceeding in this way, both teacher and child are led more and more to realize that there is a mysterious third Being present, who is neither the teacher nor the child, but in whom they meet, through whom they communicate, and who gives the law they both must respect; that there is, in short, One "in whom they live and move and have their being"; that is the G.o.d who "worketh in them to will and to do"; that He enables them to create beauty, not at random, but with a certain freedom which is not lawlessness. He is the Creator of the Beauty they do not make, and of the Good they love, and gives the Laws which they obey, and in obeying become powers of good and inventors of beauty; for the laws of order are truly G.o.d"s thought revealed to their thought. To be active powers of good and beauty is to be religious, and also to be free from superst.i.tion; to love G.o.d instead of being afraid of Him; to make their lives a reasonable service, and thus become free from priestcraft and spiritual tyranny. Inefficiency, still more than ignorance, is the mother of fetich worship, and reduces man to slavery; and to be surrounded by natural and artistic beauty does not cultivate the mind, unless it is already an active power. Reverie is not thinking. But the mind can only become active by the electric touch of a sympathetic mind which is already in motion. It is the destiny of men to become one in that same sense that the Divine Father and Son are one. G.o.d has made human communion a moral necessity, and does nothing for man, except by the instrumentality of man. "By man came death, by man also cometh the resurrection from the dead." In short, education, that "mysterious communion of wisdom and innocence," is presupposed in reasonable religion. I once heard an eloquent man, who was speaking of education, say, "The Archangel is born upon earth; we may know him by the many difficulties that he has found and surmounted, and his consequent power to educate; for _education_ is the highest function of humanity in earth and heaven, cementing the links of the chain of love which binds us all to one another and to G.o.d." We are always either educating or hindering the development of our fellow-creatures; we are always being uplifted or being dragged down by our fellow-creatures. Education is always mutual.
The child teaches his parents (as Gthe has said) what his parents omitted to teach him. Every child is a new thought of G.o.d, whose individuality is significant and interesting to others, though it is his own limitation; and to appreciate a child"s individuality is the advantage the teacher gets in exchange for the general laws which he leads the child to appreciate. It is this variety of individuals that makes the work of education fascinating, and takes from it all wearisome monotony. Those persons who feel that education is wearisome work have not learned the secret of it. I have never seen a good kindergartner who was not as fond of the work as a painter of his painting, a sculptor of his modelling. Teachers who are not conscious of learning from their pupils, may be pretty sure they teach them very little.
It is because kindergartning is this true education, which is mutual delight to the adult and the child, that I have faith it will prevail, and its prevalence is my hope for humanity. By the infinite mercy of G.o.d, no human being is hopeless of redemption into G.o.d"s perfect image at last; but humanity will not be redeemed as a whole,--will not become the image of G.o.d, or live the life of G.o.d,--until little children are suffered to go unto Christ while they are yet of the kingdom of heaven, and are blessed from the first and continually, by those who shall take them in their arms to bless them. Those are only perfect kindergartners who are "hidden in Christ," receiving every child in his name, and humbly learning of them the secrets of greatness in the kingdom of heaven, which is to be established on earth. Kindergartning is not a craft, it is a religion; not an avocation, but a vocation from on High.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] For details of manipulating the gifts and occupations, see _The Florence Handbook_, published by Milton Bradley; or Mrs. Kraus-Blte"s _Manual in Eight Parts_, which is being published by Steiger.
LECTURE V.
LANGUAGE.
TEACHING, which in the common sense of the word is the suggestion of thoughts by words, is not the kindergartner"s special work, but the _a priori_ process of drawing out into the individual consciousness of a child those latent powers whose free activity gives him conscious relations, first, with his kind; secondly, with material nature, including his own body; and, thirdly, with G.o.d. He is unconsciously in this threefold relation already, but to become conscious of these relations severally, in his own growth builds up the human understanding, which is not born with him like his sensibility and force of will. The human understanding, a creation in time of the free will, creates language as the element of a life not shared with animals; an intellectual life using the symbolism of nature as a means of intercommunication, and which is correspondent and bearing a relation to its creator, man, similar to the relation of the material universe to G.o.d, being in both instances an image, as in a mirror, of what is necessary and immutable in the self-consciousness, though without ent.i.ty itself. Hence, as the material universe expresses the wisdom of G.o.d, human languages express the imperfect wisdom of man. Language is the element in which the intellectual nature makes a sphere wherein to live and move and have its being. What breath is to the material body, making man alive in nature, language is to the social body, making it alive in history.
A word is both spiritual and material, being an articulate form of the voice which, as Gthe has happily said, is the nearest spiritual of our bodily powers, taking significance from the articulating organs, which are symbolical, like everything else in material nature, which, as I said before, is but an image, as reflected in a mirror, without absolute ent.i.ty, but bearing witness of an ent.i.ty progressively apprehended by the finite spirits of men, who are the children of the Infinite Spirit inheriting creative power forevermore.
The _in_articulate sound of the voice is the scream of pain or the shout of joy, mutually intelligible to all human hearts; and this aerial basis of language continues to be more or less intelligible to all souls, when modulated as in poetry into melody and rhythm by emotion and character.
The first human language was, perhaps, music of the deepest character, of which phase there is historic trace in the spoken Chinese, which has been perishing for ages on the lips of a nation whose origin is lost in the depths of antiquity. This spoken language is monosyllabic, and even the initial consonant often only a semivowel, while the whole word takes its significance from the _tone_ of the vowel; thus _lu_ in a low tone would have one meaning, LU in the tone of a musical third another meaning, and so on as the tone ascends through the octave. The inception of such a language implies an original equipoise of a brain not yet despoiled of its first vigor through moral delinquency which is incident to the freedom to will of a finite spirit, and consequently the Chinese language was inevitably lost. It would be interesting to enquire if those rare individuals among the Chinese who are expert in the spoken Chinese, are not of finest musical temperament.
Not till after thinking had begun could articulation by the organs of speech begin. Thinking is the free individual act which a.s.sociates the mind"s activity and the sensibility of the heart with material things, and must precede the use of words.
A time comes to every intelligent child when it wonders how words should express thoughts. Victorious a.n.a.lysis has never yet penetrated the whole mystery of language to the complete satisfaction of men, though I think philologists and metaphysicians are on the way to it, and have reached some fundamental facts. For instance, that _in_significant sounds and articulations could not make significant words, and that vocal sounds (vowels) get their meaning from feeling, while articulations get theirs from the symbolism of the organs of speech.
The organs of speech are, first, the throat,--as the guttural organ is called in English because through it we take our food and send forth our voice,--is _out of sight_, _covered up_, _hidden_, the _central_ point where the voice starts; secondly, the lips, which are obvious, movable, parallel; thirdly, our teeth, against which the voice strikes, are hard, stiff, and dead in comparison with the flexible lips, and the tongue which connects all together, the voice rolling over it and hardly articulated. Hence the hard _c_ and _g_, and the rough aspirate _h_ are factors in all words signifying the beginning of self-originating motion (observe _go_ and _kick_, or _cause to go_), the causal, the central, covered, hidden; while the l.a.b.i.als, _p_, _b_, _f_, _v_, are factors in all words expressing obviously moving phenomena; and the dentals, _d_, _t_, _s_, _z_, found in words expressive of stiff, hard, dead phenomena (the word _death_ is all but identical with the word _teeth_); separation and number being expressed by _s_ and _z_, which are made by throwing the vocal breath out between the separated teeth. The liquids _r_ and _l_, _r_ being also a factor of words expressing indefinite beginning, (as _original_, _auroral_, _arise_, etc.) are made by the voice moving over the tongue more or less energetically, to express movements whose difference of energy is exemplified in the words _fry_ and _fly_, _grow_ and _glow_, _M_ closes the lips without preventing the continuous sound of the voice from being heard; and _n_, negating limitation by throwing the breath (or voice) out at the nose, symbolize respectively the positive and negative aspects of Infinity.
Of course I am giving only a hint in order to define what I mean when I say significant words are not made out of insignificant sounds, and that articulated sounds get their meaning from the symbolism of the organs of speech.
The historical origin of language is lost in the depths of antiquity, when the human race was yet in that equipoise of mind, heart, and self-activity, which in the process of evolution is only progressively recovered by the free agent, it being the office of education to restore it.
The infant (that is, the _non-speaking_ child) in vision of the Eternal, only gradually becomes aware of the succession of time. For, as Mr.
Emerson sings in his Sphinx song,--
"The babe by its mother Lies bathed in joy, _Glide its hours uncounted_."
And Wordsworth says of "the little child,--"
"On whom those truths do rest, That we are toiling all our lives to find;"
"By the vision splendid The youth is still attended;"
and
"Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy, Yet he beholds the light and whence it flows; He sees it in his joy: At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day."
But this fall from the Ideal is not what Calvinistic theology declares it to be, reprobation either intellectual or spiritual!
"Oh, joy that in our embers Is something that doth live, That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive."
True education shall lead out the imprisoned spirit, growingly conscious of individuality, by means of the symbolism of the prison-house itself which is that correlation of necessary forces we call the material universe.
The material universe, as I have already said, is the symbolization of everything in G.o.d except his creativeness which is the spiritual essence that he shares with Humanity, his only-begotten Son. It is the body of G.o.d, and human language is the body of individualized Humanity, whose imperfections correspond with its various partial developments and short-comings. And it is ever growing towards perfection in the form of poetry, bearing witness to the creativeness (or genius) of man forevermore. As breath is to the material body, keeping men alive in nature, so language is to the social body, keeping individuals alive in history and literature; and as the material universe is symbolical of G.o.d"s wisdom, so the echoes of the universe tossed from the lips of men are symbolic images of the wisdom of man. Language, in short, being of both natures, spiritual and material, makes an elemental sphere for the intellectual life, beyond the material; in short, makes a metaphysical world, in which the finite and infinite spirits commune with other finite spirits and with the Infinite One; for by words every minutest shade of individual consciousness may be communicated from one finite mind to another, making not only an immortal communion of men possible, but a communion of G.o.d and Humanity also that shall have no end. Heaven and earth pa.s.s away, but the Word of the Lord endureth forever.
But I must not be tempted into philosophizing farther upon language at present, precisely because it takes us into the deepest mysteries of speculative thought, and our business with it now is practical, and concerns the nursery and kindergarten processes of culture.
Looking at it superficially, speech is an imitative art, and so far as our experience goes, is always taught by elders to the young generation empirically. This teaching of the mother-tongue in the nursery is an immensely important thing, because it carries on the development of the understanding towards the fulness of Reason (which is seeing particular things in their proportionate relation to the whole).
In the whole course of a child"s education, nothing is done which so much involves the totality of his activity as his learning to talk. For to talk presupposes observation, discrimination, memory, fancy, understanding. The first three (observation, discrimination, and memory) are nearly pa.s.sive reactions from sensuous impressions. But fancy and understanding are creative acts of the human spirit, almost defying a.n.a.lysis. In fancy, the mind acts quite reckless and even defiant of nature"s laws and order. In understanding, it observes and uses them subjectively. That children delight in using words to name things in the order of nature, and to express qualities and relations in connection, making an echo-picture within of what they see without, is not so wonderful as the exaltation of delight produced by a story which is, as it were, triumphant over nature"s laws, and reckless of its order; and the shocks of laughter with which they catch at a grotesque and impossible combination of images made in their fancy by means of words.
The predominance of fanciful talk to children which seems to be instinctive with all peoples, everywhere, is an indication that fancy is as legitimate an activity as understanding, to say the least. It seems to me to be an evidence of our being begotten directly by the creative spirit, sons of a divine Father, who is the complex of Infinite Love, Infinite Wisdom, and Infinite Power, of which our human feeling, power of thinking, and executive ability are the shadow, or rather a living image.
Both fancy and understanding are developed in time by words. We all know how children are waked up and delighted by Mother Goose absurdities, and still more by fairy stories that seem to set at naught the facts and override the laws of nature. It is a stubborn fact, of which materialistic positivists afford us no explanation, and which I commend to the consideration of Mr. Mansell, and whoever else talks of the limitations of religious thought. And I think it will be found that children who are talked to by Mother Goose and fairy-story tellers learn to talk more quickly than others, and have more vivacity of mind generally, with a power of entering into the minds of others commensurate with their sensibility, and justifying the human sympathies which are often a burden to the unimaginative, who are nevertheless kind. A great deal of the misunderstanding of others which causes unnecessary pain and social bitterness, checking generous furtherance of one another"s good purposes, arises from want of saliency of imagination, preventing us from being able to put ourselves in another"s place. And of course it is not without the highest reason that the Father of our Spirits has given fancy the advantage of the first start in our mental process. That fancy precedes understanding in our psychological history cannot be denied by any nice observer. I have known some parents who would not use Mother Goose or fairy stories with their children, but subst.i.tuted therefor amusing experiments in physics,--the metamorphosis of insects and the cla.s.sification of plants according to their differences. Their children became scientific when they grew up, were fine mathematicians, and were interested in mechanical inventions and natural history; but took comparatively little interest in political and moral problems, though not at all wanting in the social and patriotic affections, which also characterized their parents, who were themselves brought up on the imaginative system not well modified by studies of nature"s phenomena, which was probably the reason of their strong reaction from the imaginative method.