SACRIFICE OF BABY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4313, 23 March 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

SACRIFICE OF BABY.

The educationalist Froebel evolved a system whose aim was to > help the child’s . mind, to grow naturally and-sponthrie-ously. 1 In 1836'he-opened? his first,kindergarten school at Blankenburg. . ' There was a' conference of the Ffo'obel Society at Essex Hall, London- recently, and the principal paper was read' by Mr, Graham Wallas. Ite .title wat, significantly.'enough, “A. Criticism of Froebelian/ Pedagogy.” He said that the principle on which a child should be reared should -be such • as- to enable it to live best the whole of its life. Wo woke the baby up-when it wanted to sleep, and fed it when it,was not hungry in order to form the ■ habit of regularity in eating and Bleeping. Such a habit might be disastrous to the members of a hunting-tribe,-but was essential to the inhabitants of a civilised tOWn. , It was necessary', declared Mr Wallas, to give up the • principle, _ “Follow nature.” To Rousseau’s question, “Are we to saorifice the ohildto the,man?” he answered "Yes,' in part.” The child must not 'live as though there were. ho. manhood, any more than the man must live as though there were no, childhood. Froebel simplified top .much,.both, the child- and the world- in '.which he lived. , - ‘ A clever poor child who ..learned little at home and was always one of a- class, of.fifty at school:must.learaufrom-books if he were to learn enough to make. , his way to. the, intellectual- life.- It was especially from' the * great thoughts of great men that his imagination inust be fired and his ideals formed between the age of eight and twelve. - r