Framingham State University - Dial Yearbook (Framingham, MA)

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21 Though we may admire their superior quickness and vivacity, still we would dread to think how easily these may degenerate into positive faults. But do we ever find in such children any failings which a just, reason- able, firm, though gentle government, appropriate to their needs and years, might have corrected, had they been subjected to it from the beginning? If so, then we may well recommend the application of discipline according to the ideas of Froebel,-satisfied that such discipline will bring poise, calmness, self-control, self-forgetfulness, and helpfulnessg and that there- fore the kindergarten is especially well fitted for the coming citizen of a re- public. Not only is the kindergarten a school of citizenship, but it is a school of patriotism also, for it trains the child from the beginning in the history of his country, so far as his undeveloped powers are able to receive it, and places before him in the national hero-stories, an ideal toward which he may struggle in the future. It is a great principle of the kindergarten that labor is not the curse but the blessing of mankind: that all development and all highest enjoy- ment of life comes to each person through what he can do to express his own mind. , So the children are set to learn by doing, and the idea of industry in their education has its relation not directly to the work which they may do in mature years, but to the desire and intention of enabling them to think each for himself. K. M. whoso loves a child loves not himself but God, whoso delights a child, labors with God in his workshop of the world of hearts. Whoso helps a child brings the Kingdom of God. Whoso saves a child from the fingers of evil sits in the seat with the builders of cities and the procurers of peace. vf, f ' c -N -z...--'21, - s - - c so , 2 . . A V 'Qi -

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20 The Kindergarten THE word Kindergarten,' means, literally, a child-garden. What does the word garden suggest to us? A sheltered spot. guarded from rough winds, and open to the sunshine, rich, 'fruitful earth, carefully trained vines, blooming flowers, abundance of air, and dew, and rain, and everywhere freshness, fragrance, and loveliness. And what of the gardener? What are his duties? It is he who lays out the garden, who prepares the earth, who sets out the plants in favorable locations, according to their kind, who uproots the weeds, de- stroys noxious insects, prunes and trains, protects the tender seedlings from the glare of the sun, and provides water when the skies will not. He does all these things wisely and carefully, and he knows that flower, tree, vine, and grass-blade must do their own growing, and that neither dew nor rain, air nor sunshine, are his to give. just as the gardener knows that the miraculous life principles exist in everything he sows, and will develop under proper conditions, so Froebel believed that in every child there exists the possibility of a perfect man, and that it is the task of the educator to provide conditions which will develop that possibility. It is that portion of Froebel's philosophy which relates to the training of children below the school age, and it is his insistence upon the importance of this period, that furnishes one of his distinctive contributions to education- al ideas. The kindergarten was the product of the lifelong thought, study, and experience of a profound observer and child-lover, a man rich in native insight and well versed in the knowledge of the schools. True it is that the kindergarten provides for the young human plant the proper conditions for growth and development, suitable climate, soil, and exposure, careful nurture, happy occupation for activities of soul, mind, and body, and opportunities for the learning of those relationships which bind man to his fellow creatures, to Nature, and to God. The aim in discipline is to help make the child self-governing, and at the same time to teach him his responsibility toward and dependence upon the community of which he is a part. . .It is believed that kindergarten principles when rightly applied in the training of American children, will prove of the greatest efficiency in cor- recting the faults to which they seem peculiarly subject. Whatever is the cause, many American children are markedly ner- vous, undeveloped, and precocious and are somewhat difficult to manage.

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22 The Poetry and 'Prose of Courses of Study There came into the school not long ago a bulletin from one of the western normal schools. The western normal schools are wide-awake in- stitutions. This bulletin was upon Courses of Study for the Training De- partment. The statements concerning each course was opened, almost always, with some quotation concerning the subject to be treated. They are so good that we are giving some for your future consideration. GEOGRAPHY. Step by step the conviction dawns upon the learner that, to attain to even an elementary conception of what goes on in his parish, he must know something about the universe. H uxley. HISTORY. We as we read must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner, must fasten these images to some reality in our se- cret experience, or we shall see nothing, learn nothing, keep nothing. Emerson. ELEMENTARY SCIENCE. One momenthnow may give us more Than years of toiling reason: Our minds shall drink at every pore The spirit of the season. W adslvarth. READING AND LITERATURE. Literature is the embodiment of ideal beauty in human speech. Crawshanv. --il.-l LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR. .Language is the armory of the human mind and at once contains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future conquests.