THE FROEBEL CLUB.

Otago Witness, Issue 2722, 16 May 1906, Page 18

THE FROEBEL CL UB.

THE FROEBEL-PESTALOZZI SCHOOL

LECTURE EY DR TRUBY KING.

The Froebel Club last night "opened its 1906 °ession. Dr Trubi Kins lecturing: on

""Generp! Principles of the FroobelPestalozzi School." Mr M. Cohen presided.

The Chairman said the thanks of the public wore due to the Froebel Club for giving a ter.es of lectures this season to educate the public in the principles of Froebelism. Dr Truby King, who vras to deh\cr the opening lecture, was one of ths chief educationists in Dunedin. — (Applause.) Dr King-, who was <-ordiallv received. Ea:d that it might seem almost impertinent that he <=houkl speak or the subject of education, seeing thai education was not his profession. But there was some excuse for him. All medicai men had to go through the ordinary process of education. Some of them, in later life had to coach univers ty 'students, and to lecture to thorn and examine them. Further, msdical men had to kcap the body in health, and modern education cfi<?n tended to keep the body in very indifferent hea.th. So that a me'lical man had some special concern with education aft?r all. Th? Hon. Mr Edward Lyttelton, head master of Eton, referring; *to the indifference of English schoolmasters to the sttidv of the fundamental principles of education as bearing upon rho practice of thoir profession, said that schoolmasters were profoundly illlnformec' and profoundly indifferent." Canon Lyttelton add^d that " a superficial acquaintance with the theoretical writers on education Froebel. Pestalozzi. and Herbert Spencer — would show that though they differ much in detail, there is one group of principles which they concur in maintaining. They are those connected not v ith the teaching of any one subject, but with the fundamental difference between genuine education and cram, bstwe^n the training of the mind and the imparting of the knack of deceiving examiner? " Those remarks were made not to the public piimai-ilv. but to an assembly of 13 earnest a.a-3 eminent English eehoolmai'ters. The principle on which the theoretical writers were in agreement was that it was useless teaching children to repeat rarrot-like certain words \j ritten in a book ; but that knowledge to bs valuable must be assimilated. — (Applause.)

Starting- fro<n this basis Dr King rapidly traversed, with frequent quotations, the vital principles of the Froebcl. Pestalozzi school. The absolute need of hsrd daily physical exerci-e was stressed. There were three great period* in education : the period from 500 B.C. to 500 a.t>. ; the period 500 a.d. to birth of the Renaissance in the West, say 1500 ; and the t<ei ieds of the Rsnaissan-oa and of modern education— which were really one. The methods of the Renaissance were still continued. One of the finest Kvstems of -education ever introduced was the Greek sTrtem ; and Greek education, first and foremost, was a physical education. It was lecognised that you could have no peiveet mental development without perfect physical development. During the jiext period, the Dark Ages, very ' scant attention was paid to the body in any thinking way bj" the groat majority of the population. The highest form of education was practically submerged with the fall of the Roman Empire and the irruption of barbarous hordes. How far in these days we had fallen from the great ideal he could show mo3t simply by an exhibit. (Dr* King here displayed a typical lady's shoe of 1905.) Nothing more than that was necessary. He was speaking- quite earnestly, and from the bottom of his convictions. He did not think that a being created in the image of its Creator could possibly show more contempt for ils Creator than it did when it tried to jam its foot into a thing like that. This shoe was surely a negation of Draclical religion. In China they actually cut some bones from women's feet in order that they might be bound up and compressed. We did quite as bad. As to a great many of the feet he saw, he would suggest that bones should be cut out ; it would be far better, before attempting to put feet into shoes like this. Women who could not walk a mile were not fit to be mothers when they became mothers. As to boots, he was informed that the men were nearly as vain and as bad as the women. Wo should neve*- get a better standard of education until we got right back to the Greek standard. Tight-lacing was not quite so bad. on the who'e, as it used to be. but. at the same time, tisrhflneing struck more directly at the organism and at the duties of women with regard to nosterity. Lightly Dassiner over the Dark Ages. Dr King briefly sketched the progress of education from the dawn of the Renaissance -fo the days of Rousseau, Pfstalozzi. and Froebel. Rousseau said, as m the boy. '"Exercise his body, his organs, his senses, his powers ; but keen his mind nassive as lontr as possible. Mistrust all his sentiments formed before the judgment which determines their value." and so on. There was a very groat deal in this. Rousseau saw the essential truth that it was the create ?f- mistake in the world to force knowledge upon a child, and so to stunt his natural and proper development. These were the fundamental ideas runninc rhroujrh the nhilosophv of Pestalozzi and Froebel by them put into oractical use. Rousseau's mistake w.->s that he would itrnore the life of the child ;is an intellectual and moral being. Pestalozzi accepted Rousseau's philosonhy for the mo3t part but he saw life throueh an entirely different temperament. A man of very simple character. Pestalozzi was brought ud in a family. and nad an intense devotion to family life throutrhout; and he was by natum a very relie-ious man. He realised that a child has. a ricrlit to his life, and that the learning a child received should __ be developed from its own natural tendencies. "You ha^e no right." said Pestalozzi "to take away from a child the divine right of discovery." He put Rousseau's ideas into practice, and the keynote of his practice was hi« intense sympathy with his children. Froebel. starting life on a form, was apprenticed to forestry. So he realised ihat the laws of the universe as ther apnlied to plants applied also to animals. He felt that the human being should be developed in thr* <3ire"tioris in which it was naturally in-leiH-od to _ (Weiop. Froebel studied at •TVna. and intended firsi of all to devote his life to physical and natural science. Then he met a pupil of PeMalozzi. and knew at onc-e that bis real vocation lay in teaching. He became? a teacher. Tliti he reali-^d (hat he was not fit to teach : he needed Trainin2. Ho spent a couple of year« with Pe.staloz7i'. Froebel realised Hint education should he more &ystematised. J^ftalozzi

wfk not a "highly educated man. and it would have been impossible for him to evohe such a s\stem as Froebe!" evolved. Frcebel wanted to bring about the evolution of perfect men and women, and when be evohed this system with regard to young children it was only as a first stage of a systom to be carried throughout the s-chool life of a okild. Nowadays the kindergarten principle was seldom carried beyond what might be called the kindergarten period. Of Dr King's able lecture these notes are merely a -light sketch or suggestion. He elaborated ail the pouius here indicated, and be went into various kindred matters not here touched. It was. as Dr King's lectures are apt to b?, a discourse incisive, scholardy. luminous pre-eniin?ntl\- humane. The audience was large, but the lecture might advantageously be heard with the largest audience possible in Dunedin. This is a very big question, and any man who thinks that our State education system covers all necessary ground cannot be said to know vc-ry much about the question. The proseodings were closed by an earnest vote of r hanks to the lecturer. -