網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

which prepare for the admirable method of linear drawing that Froebel composed. It is in the intermediate class and the primary school that the teaching of linear drawing will find its true place. It constitutes an excellent preparation for the study of penmanship, of which the pupil now gains his first notions.

It is well known that the use of the little sticks in the Kindergarten is the preparation for arithmetic. The child counts there with these sticks as he counted with cou aters, cubes, etc., without going beyond twelve. In the intermediate class, he does not go beyond twenty, but restrained in these limits, he passes intuitively through all the different operations of arithmetic, progressing strictly from the known to the unknown, imitating the little sticks upon the slate, then gradually replacing them by figures. As to the talks and object lessons to which selected poems serve as illustrations, they take a more instructive character in the intermediate class, and serve (as well as in the lower classes of the primary school) as preparation for natural history and geography. But another advantage can be taken of them. At the end of every talk the teacher can sum up, in a few simple, clear, concise sentences, some elementary notions to which the little story or object-lesson has led. These short propositions, pronounced clearly and correctly, are the points of departure for the study of the mother-tongue, or rather of its first steps, reading. Then these propositions can be analyzed into words (five or six words), the words into syllables, the syllables into sounds. This first initiation into the constituent elements of language may occupy six months at least, and prepare for the reading lessons which the child will receive in the lower stage of the primary school. Then the symbol, the sign, the letter will be given him for the sound which he knows. This preparatory work abridges and facilitates the study of reading, takes from it all its dryness, and secures its results. This intermediate class for children six or seven years old is a very important one. We will even say that we think it indispensable, in order to secure, through the coming years of study, the advantages of Froebel's system; indispensable to the primary school, provided the primary school accepts the Kindergarten as its basis, and its points of departure, and consents to be the continuation, the natural consequence of it. The intermediate class opens the way; it alone can render possible the introduction and application of the principles of Froebel to the primary school; it is the necessary link which will one day make of the Kindergarten and the primary school an organized whole.

Education by Doing.

[ocr errors]

But the intermediate class is, as we have said, only the first step of the reform which Froebel looked forward to for the present primary school. This reform is to consist especially in the introduction of the Froebelian principle of work, of intelligent, methodical work, which demands the concurrence of all the activities of the child, and which procures him the satisfaction that every effort brings which is crowned with success. To make work anything but a hard and inevitable law, to make it loved for the pure enjoyment of which it is the source, this is to be the result of the Kindergarten in the future.

A great point in this conception of work is that it alone permits the parallel development of the physical and intellectual forces. The thought of organizing classes of industrial labor does not date from the present time; and wherever the trial has been made, it has given excellent results.* The pupils prepared in the Kindergartens occupy a distinguished place in them, and prove their skill and intelligence. To introduce manual labor, we are told, is an impossible thing; the programmes are never executed. Where is the necessary time? We are among those who think that in the actual execution of the programmes there is much time lost, many forces frittered away. Before his tenth or eleventh year the child is still too young to be restrained during several consecutive hours in a purely intellectual labor, without injuring the development of his faculties. Besides, reading, writing, arithmetic, having been prepared for in a rational man ner, the difficulties and delays against which the teacher has struggled, and which absorb much precious time, no longer existing, we should see the hours of study diminish of themselves. Three hours a day consecrated to actual study would be sufficient, and would allow two hours devotion to manual labor. The progress of the pupils, far from suffering by it, would gain by it; for the child, always on the alert and well disposed, would beam with pleasure and eagerness. The occupations of the Froebel method, developed and adapted to the age of the pupils, would find their place here, and would do excellent service, especially in the first two or three classes of the primary school. The branches mentioned in the following list are those whose introduction into the programme of the primary school we think both desirable and possible. We join to the list of the occupations the number of hours that might be devoted to them: weaving, two hours a week; paper-cutting, one hour; folding, two hours; drawing, two hours; modeling, two hours; box-making, two hours.

It results from what precedes, that the question of introducing the principles of Froebel into the primary school should be, according to us, answered in the affirmative, but that this introduction is only possible by the assistance of an intermediate class, annexed as an upper step to the Kindergarten, and forming the connection between this and the primary school, which, on its side, is to adopt the principles of the great philosophic pedagogue. To develop the instrument of labor, the hand, and also the intelligence, to make the body strong and supple, and the mind lucid and profound, to educate men and not scholars, would not this be a great step towards the solution of the social problem? We will not deny that this aim is an ideal one, but we think with our great compatriot, Emmanuel Kant, "that we ought to educate children not according to the present condition of the human race, but according to a better possible condition in the future, that is to say, according to the idea of humanity, and its completed destiny."

See Barnard's Journal of Education:

Labor in Juvenile Reform Schools, III., 12, 382, 393, 566, 821.

Kindermann and Schools of Bohemia, XXVII., 811.

Realistic Studies and Labor, XVII., 33, 151; XIX., 628; XXI., 202.

Technical Schools in Europe Generally, XVII., 33; XXI., 9-800; XXVIII., 1014.

Labor Element in Systems of Pestalozzi, Fellenberg, and Wehrli, X., 81; XXX., 263.

Manual Labor in American Schools, XV., 231; XXVII., 257.

Labor Element in English Schools, X., 765; XXII., 23–250.

KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD CULTURE IN FRANCE.

INFANT ASYLUMS-CRADLE SCHOOLS-KINDERGARTEN.

ASYLUMS for children form a subject of the greatest interest and importance, particularly in a country like France, where the custom of sending infants out to be nursed has been universally prevalent for a long time. The social position of the parents will of course determine the fate which awaits the tender infant during the first months of its existence.' If the parents be wealthy, or even belong to the middle class, a healthy nurse is procured, according to the advice of an experienced physician; nothing is left undone that tends to ameliorate the condition of the infant, and all possible precautions are taken to meet successfully the many dangers incidental to its young life. Far different is the case with that vast majority of infants whose parents either live in abject poverty, or who, in order to earn a scanty livelihood, are both obliged to work from early morn till late at night away from home. That which, with rich parents, is only a close adherence to a long-established custom, intended to meet the wants of an effeminate age, becomes to poor people a dire necessity.

The danger of this whole system of sending infants out to be nursed was fully exposed by M. Mayer, who, in his capacity as physician, could speak from experience, and in 1865 he published an appeal to the public, in which he says: "This is a crusade which we are going to wage against an absurd and barbarous custom, that of abandoning, a few hours after its birth, a cherished being, whose advent has been ardently desired, to the care of a rough peasantwoman, whom the parents have never seen before, whose character and manners the real mother does not know, who carries away the dearest treasure to some unknown village in the provinces, the name of which perhaps is not even given on the map of France. There is something so revolting to the moral sense in this, that twenty years hence it will hardly be credited. There are excellent mothers who resignedly submit to this sacrifice without any other sign of being shocked than some furtive tears, which they carefully hide, as too great an indulgence to human weakness. If we add that the mother has not always even the satisfaction of placing the newly-born infant directly in the hands of the person who is to nurse it, but that at certain seasons of the year women from the country come to Paris to gather the nurselings and to distribute them afterwards through the provinces, we shall seem to exceed the bounds of truth; yet this is strictly in accordance with the facts, and it forms a regular branch of industry, a trade no less productive of strange developments than the slave-trade."

[ocr errors]

To remedy this state of things M. Mayer proposed to form a Society for the protection of infants," the aim of which is to be:

1. To guard the infants against the dangers usually attending the nursing by hired nurses, far from their parents, without sufficient superintendence and without satisfactory guarantee.

2. To put into practice the regulations laid down by the present advanced medical science for the physical development of infants, before undertaking to cultivate their mental powers.

31

:

3. To pursue simultaneously at a suitable age the physical, moral, and intellectual training of the child.

This society is to attain this threefold end by establishing so-called "Maternal colonies" in the neighborhood of the great cities, and providing them with carefully-selected nurses; also with milch-cows of superior breed, to furnish the milk required for artificial nursing, and by a system of rewards given to those nurses who accomplish their task in the best manner.

The efforts of M. Mayer have led to the organization of societies in Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Rouen to carry out the idea.

GARDERIES.

But even under the most favorable circumstances, even with a devoted and attentive nurse, the painfulness of the infant's separation from its mother is not diminished whether the parents of the child be rich or poor. In the case of poor parents there will be additional circumstances to make this separation a very painful one. The father and mother are obliged to work incessantly in order to gain the means of subsistence, and no other course is left open to them than either to confide the infant to the care of the hospital founded by Saint Vincent de Paul, or to keep it at home, thus depriving themselves of part of the carnings indispensable for their living. The charitable societies lend some aid in this latter case, but not sufficient; and when the child has been weaned, and the mother goes out to work again, it is given to the care of a little brother or sister, who generally are sadly in want of being taken care of themselves. If the mother confides her infant to a so-called garderie, or to one of those "weaning establishments" which have no legal existence, and which, with or without the approbation of the mayor, prescribed in the regulations, are but too often directed by careless women, she has still reason to tremble for the health and well being of her infant. In a narrow room, deprived of fresh air and light, the unhappy creatures are crowded together; their bodily development is retarded, and as a natural consequence their mental powers remain totally undeveloped, on account of the incapacity of the superintending women, who rule only by the rod. And even if the mother keeps her child at home on Sundays and feast days the expense will be 70 centimes per day, or 17 fr., 20 cts. per month.

CRÈCHE, OR CRADLE-SCHOOL.

The evil had certainly reached its climax when, in the year 1844, M. Marheau paid a visit to one of these establishments. This visit had far-reaching consequences, and became in fact the turning point towards a better system of infant-education in France. The woman who had several little infants huddled together in a miserablo room, on being questioned gave the following account: that as a general rule she had only five or six infants; that her customers paid her only eight sous per head, and six sous in addition if she provided food for the child; that in the morning the mothers used to bring clean linen and take the soiled away in the evening, when they fetched their children, and that if the infants were not yet weaned, the mothers came to nurse them themselves at the hours when they took their meals. These last words were a ray of light to M. Marheau, and gave him the first idea of instituting "cradle-schools." Instead of indulging in idle laments on the evil effect of large factories, or making vain efforts to stop the irrepressible march of modern industry, this thoroughly

honest and common-sense man at once conceived a plan to remedy the evil. Two problems were to be solved. As regards the mothers, how a safe guarantee could be provided which neither the superintendence of a young child nor an old woman could offer; as regards the infants, how they could have the milk which nature herself provides in the mother's breast, and the affectionate care which their tender age demands. M. Marbeau immediately went to work to realize his projects. He gave a full and true account of the actual state of affairs to the Department of Benevolent Institutions, of which he was a member, and submitted to their approbation his plan for a "cradle-school." A com mittee was appointed, and M. Marbeau charged with the report. He proved in this report "that it was a solemn duty to extend aid to these poor mothers and poor infants; that a cradle-school was possible; that it would cost, all told, only about fifty centimes per head; that the expenses of organizing the first establishment would be trifling, and easily met by charitable donation!" This report awakened the sympathy of many, and though the Department of Bencvolent Institutions did not feel justified in giving official aid to this private undertaking, yet most of its members, as founders of the establishment, subscribed a sum towards its support. Contributions came in from all sides, and the Duchess of Orleans, by a large donation, completed the required sum.

On the 14th November, 1844, M. Marbeau was thus enabled to open the first institution, organized after his plan, in one of the most wretched parts of Paris, No. 81, Rue de Chaillot. In remembrance of the infancy of our Savior he called it crèche (manger.) There, in a light and well-ventilated room, the infants were kept from 5.30 A. M. till 8.30 P. M. in summer, and from 6.30 A. M. till 8 P. M. in winter, at the small charge of twenty centimes per day for each infant. During this time the mothers, who were obliged to go out to work, came at certain stated times cach day to nurse their children, till they were weaned. After the children have all been taken home in the evening the room is left open all night, to let the vitiated air escape, and be entirely renovated. Sundays and feast days the cradle-school remains closed, in order that by thus bringing parents and children together once a week the family-tie may not be too much relaxed. Kind, patient, and intelligent women attended the children all day long, under the superintendence of a lady inspectress, whose charity and social position gave sufficient guarantee for their being well cared for. A physician was employed to pay daily visits to the school, to attend to all cases of sickness, and see that the children from the age of 1 to 3 years were supplied with food best suited to their age.

The rapid success of this institution, which soon could not contain the number of infants that were sent thither, created quite a sensation. It was felt that to aid the working man in the care and education of his infants was rendering a great service to the family, as thereby greater inducements were held out to him to marry, and the general misery of the poorer classes greatly alleviated. Frequent enquiries came from all parts of the country in regard to the organi zation of the institution, and numerous visitors convinced themselves, by personal inspection, of its successful working.

In February, 1845, M. Marbeau published his work, entitled: "Cradle schools, or the means of lessening the misery of the people by increasing the population," which (Sept. 10, 1846) was rewarded by the Monthyon prize given by the French Academy. M. Villemain very appropriately remarked on this occasion: “Thus is realized whatever there was practicable in the theories and

« 上一頁繼續 »