Educational.

Otago Witness, Issue 1422, 22 February 1879, Page 7

Educational.

Bishop Moranin his Lenten Pastoral says :•— "Having spoken and written so frequently and distinctly on the Education question, it is not now necessary for us to write many words on the subject. You know your duty in this matter, and we are happy to be able to testify that you have bravely and nobly done it. It only remains for us, then, to exhort you to persevere and to be prepared to make in the future, if necessary, even greater sacrifices than you have hitherto made. The faith of your children, your own salvation, are at stake. Secularism is determined, if you permit it, to destroy Christianity, make men forget or ignore God and their own eternal destiny. Its object is the unchristianising of the world, and the reintroduction of Paganism. Be not deceived by the sophistry and hypocritical professions of its advocates. We are bound to be Christians and Catholics above and before all other things, and we should never forget the words of our Divine Redeemer, ' He that k not with me in as?ainst me.' All Government schools in these dioceses are godless and hostile to the Catholic Church. Catholics cannot frequent them without exposing themselves to grievous dangers to their faith and morals. Of these schools, therefore, Catholics cannot avail themselves, except in cases of very great necessity, and whensuch necessity being supposed— every possible precaution is taken to ward off all dangers to faith and morals. Parents and guardians should bear in mind that they are responsible for the children under their charge, and often reflect on these words of the Apostle : •He that neglects his own, particularly those of his own household, has lost the faith and has become worse than an infidel ;' and again on these words of our Divine Master : ' What will it avail a man to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul, or what will a man give iv exchange for his soul?' We therefore most earnestly exhort all to exert themselves to establish and maintain efficient Catholic schools wherever it is possible to do so ; and we call upon the clergy — who, indeed, have not been .wanting in this matter— to exert themselves with the greatest zeal and perseyerauce in the great cause of Catholic education. Nothing but Catholic education can save the rising generation from the baneful influence of the infidel systems of education so characteristic of this century and so fashionable in this Colony." * THE KINDERGARTEN. (COMBIUNICATED.) I. " That the age writes so much on EducatioD, Bhows at onco its absence and its importance : only lost goods are cried in the streets." So wrote Jean Paul Richter, at a period dating 40 years back ; to-day the writing on the same theme, far from being less, has increased a thousandfold. I offer no apology for helping to swell the cry which even in this remote corner of the earth is being daily rung in our ears, but will briefly btate why, in the particular phase of it which is about to occupy my pen, I am I induced to ask for it the careful consideration of those whom the subject interests. There is no need to remind readers that the Colony is well provided with schools both private and public, tho latter being State institutions ; and all are so wel]appointed, and ranging from the district school, at which it is understood primary education begins, up to the University, where the most abstruse subjects may be studied, that to many the question will occur, What, then, is there wanting ? Most parents are aware that five is the minimum age at which the Education Act enforces the attendance of children at school, and, as a rule, the masters of the State schools deoline to receive any under that age, nor are present school arrangements suitable for their reception. But who would aver that education begins only at the age of five ? Instruction may, though it should not ; but at five years the faculties of the child have unfolded to such an extent that education for good or for evil has already set its seal on the " embryo citizen." Parents are well aware of this, and accordingly, those who j b.ave the opportunity take &dYft»ta|e of tho

many preparatory schools iv operation. There are, however, numbers amongst us who have no such opportunity, and for other reasons besides cannot send their little ones to thete schools, but who are thoughtful enough to desire the presence of infant schools to which the very young members of their family might go. Soidp, doubtless, and perhaps the great majority, would desire to have these schools for the simple reason that while there the child. 1 en are "out of mischief." Let us credit at least some parents with much higher motives. As has been Baid, education has begun its work long before the age of five, and without any doubt that impressionable period of life ought to be utilised to the highest advantage for the child, and, in a wider sense, for the common well being of the race. And on the point just mentioned, I am tompted to ask the statesman whether it be not a matter worthy his serious consideration that so valuable a part of the training-time of life of thousands of the future men aod women of the Colony should be left to run riot in weeds aud other noxious growths ? Is if; ia the interests of the nation over whrse welfare he watches, that no attention should be bestowed here ? I aak thfl question on broad grounds. Happily there is encouragement in the thought that our present Minister of Eduoation, Mr Ballance, is personally in hearty sympathy with the writer ia the wish to have infant schools on the Kindergarten principle in our midst. "It would be well to popularise the idea, how would you have such schools organised. ? Let me have suggestions and information," are a few of Mr SaUance's pointsd remarks made on a late occasion when the subject was brought before him. Following up his advice, it is proposed to give, in a few papers to the Otago Daily Times, a sketch of the Kindergarten method of infant education, a method now finding firm footing in England, America, and elsewhere. The source whence the information is derived is from papors sent by the friendly hands of Miss Buss, of London, a lady whose name is already asFociated with the progress of education in Obago. Miss Bubs is a member of the London Frobel Society for the promotion of Kindergartens, and the papers are chiefly contributions to the Society, written by its president, Mi-s Shirreff, from which I Bball quote freely when neoessary. "But what is a Kindergarten ?" says many a reader ; and to those who know, it may be sufficient to say that, except by persons directly interested in education, it has been found tbat there is very far from a general acquaintance with the subject. An article in a oontemporary a few evenings sioce is about the only local notice of the system that has appeared.

It needs not. therefore, to apologise for beginning at the beginning. The words " kinder g*rten," are German, aud mvy be translated into " children's garden," or " garden of children," the latter giving a perfectly clear idea of the moaning of the term. We speak of a garden of flowers, the flowers bein<? there for cultivation ; in like manner the Kindergarten is for the training and culture of that most tender aud wonderful flower — the infant human being. The special features which it exercises for this purpose were devised and founded by a Gorman named Frederic Frobel, who stands out conspicuous as one of the latest benefactors of his kind, in his clear enunciation of the principles which should guide tho educator. A born philanthropist, he made this the study of his life, the theoretical outcome of which is an incomparable work, called " The Education of Mankind " " But," said he, " I must see infant gardens, I must see roy theory put into practice," and forthwith he set about pleading, panning, devising, and before his death he had the gratification of seeing numbers of Kindergartens established throughout his fatherland. Like many others whose lives aro a sacrifice of self to the pursuit of some high purposg, his worldly goods were few, and in the prosecution of his great work it is re corded of him that day by day he would travel on foot many miles, frequently resting at night upon the green sward, with "an umbrella far his bedroom, and a knapsack for his pillow." Gradually, as the system made itself known, it was taken up in France and Switzerland, thence to America. In England, as far back as 1851, the first Kinder, garten was established in London, by Mand Madame Eonse, both enthusiastic dis ciples of Frobel. Their labours excited much interest, and elicited the spontaneous and public commendation of Mr Mitchell, one of her Majesty's school inspectors. Here and there other Kindergartens sprang into existence aud flourished, yet the system did not make that advance that it undoubtedly deserved. Nor should this acfc as a caution to us on this side the globe. Who that thinks at all but deplores that England, with all her power of intellect-, Bhould be so dull to everything like an appreciation of the philosophical principles that underlie the mental training of individual human nature ? There, porhapn, hardly anything would be more difficult than to make the need of the Kindergarten felt, because of the pre-eminenco of ita merits as a process of harmonious development of the whole nature, on scientific ■principles. Its constant advocacy, however, byfri-nds of education — many of whom, of course, recognise its true basis — has at last succeeded so well in popularising the Kindergarten, that now the wish to promote tho system far outruns the means 1 . A late report of the Frobel Society states that great limitations to its efforts are imposed by the want of trained teacheiv, applications for whom from all parts of tho kingdom are far in excess of tho number of students who enter themselves at; the Training School. Tho latest triumph of the system is the acknowledgment oE its merits by Sir Charles Reed, chairman of tho London School Board. The Board has now adopted ib, and already a Normal Training Institution is organised for the supply of thoroughly trained teachers for the Kindergartens attached to thtir ordinary schools.

Frobel, as has been said, was born in Germany, and from his ve^y early years the human intellect was for him a subject of absorbing interest. When a man of mature years, he entered himself a pupil of Pestalozzi, then of European fame ; but in tho object— teaching, which was the cheval de hataille of this reformer of infant education, Frobel failed to find a solution of the problem of which he|was in search. He year&ed

to probe into yet greater depths of infantnature — spiritual, moral, intellectual, and animal depths — of which Pestalozzi's teaching seemed but to touch the surface. Afresh he gave himself uptoßtudy, and c pending much of his time in communion with Nature, he became her listener and interpreter ; he watched her operations and investigated the results with a yet greater earnestness, and to this end — that no system could equal, far less be «uperior to, training the human plant than Nature's own. Here, then, was what he had been groaning to discover— in Mr Payne's words, "a system working harmoniously and consistently towards a definite end, and securing positive results; a system, too, strictly educational, whether we regard the development of the faculties employed, or the acquisition of knowledge, as accompanying the development—a system in which the little child i 8 the pupil and Nature the educator."

The leading principles deduced by Fiobel, Miss Shirreff sums up under five heads, as follows :— l. All the faculties of the child, mentally and bodily, are to be severally drawn out and exercised as far as age allows. 2. Tbe powers of habib and association — which are the great instruments of all education — of the whole training of life, must be brought to bear from the earliest dawn o£ intelligence, with a systematic purpose. 3. The active instincts of childhood are to be cultivated through manual, no less thaß through mental work, and made an essential part of the training. 4. The senses are to be trained to accuracy as well as the hand. 5. The children must lean how to observe what is placed before them, and to see it truly — an acquirement which every teacher of science or of drawing wili app/eciate.

To work out these principles Fiohel devised his practical method of infant education, and the very name he gave to the place where his phy-leesons were to be given, marks his purpose. The foreign name, "Kindergarten," England has adopted ; its literal meaning has already been explained.

As Pestalozzi did before him, Frtfbel appealed, to mothers, but he also went further, and. appealed to women generally, as the true educators. Miaa Sbirreff writes Btrongly on this point, and her words are of universal application. The system, she says, even for its partial application, requires the thorough training of women-teachers, but for its application as a means of national reform, would require that mothers should be educated for the saored office— that women generally should be taught to consider that intelligent care of the young is the first and most important work for which they need fit themselves. Education in the uu^sery, and for years affcer leaving it, is inevitably women's work, and in no one thirg ia the whole ordor of the Universe has Nature spoken more strongly than in this. She nukes it impossible for us to alter or modify her law. Frobel knew this, and he is the first who has brought a wide study'of human nature to bear upon infant life, and to reduce to system the observations thus made. He watched children closely to ascertain the order of development indicated by instinctive tendencies, and in his advice to mothers, is minute in how these tendencies are to be directed. Growth in one direction must not be allowed to supersede or hinder g-'owth in another, and whilst all the faculties are necessary for perfect life, care must be exercised in aiding their development into harmony with each other, and the Kindergarten gives the epportunity for the practical exposition of these principles as regards children from three tv seven yeais of age. And the training takes in the child's whole nature, aiding 'its expansion physically and morally, ac well as intellectually. The rhythmical movements, the dancing and singing games, are not only good for the health, but they make the limbs supple, and improve both eye and ear, and moreover, make the child happy and joyous ; while the moral training is carried on through the habit of strict aud unreasoning obedience, under a gentle law ever referring to the will of God, who has placed helpless infancy under that loving care which represents His ceaseless love for all His creatures. And by directing observation to order and beauty in external things, and in human conduct, as manifestations of God's rula and presence throughout the world, these things surely tend to form religious and moral associations which, loDg before the age when any catechism would b8 intelligible, prepare the mind for the reception of all that is highest in Christianity or in philosophy.