The true teacher is a student of humannature, and the student of human nature isthe pupil of God.—Horatio Stebbins
[Pg v]
The three little volumes on that Republic ofChildhood, the kindergarten, of which this handbook,dealing with the gifts, forms the initialnumber, might well be called Chips from a KindergartenWorkshop. They are the outcome oftalks and conferences on Froebel's educationalprinciples with successive groups of earnest youngwomen here, there, and everywhere, for fifteenyears, and represent as much practical work atthe bench as a carpenter could show in a similarlength of time. They are the result of mutualgive and take, of question and answer, of effortand experience, of the friction of minds againstone another, of ideas struck out in the heat ofargument, and of varied experience with manyhundred little children of all nationalities andconditions. They are not theories, written in theseclusion of the study; and if perchance theyhave the defects, so should they have the virtues,[Pg vi]too, of work corrected and revised at every stepby the "child in the midst." If it is objectedthat many things in them have been heard before,we can but say with Montaigne: "Truth andreason are common to every one, and are no morehis who spake them first than his who spake themafter."
The various talks have been cut down here,enlarged there, condensed in one place, amplifiedin another, from year to year, as knowledge andexperience have grown; many of the ideas whichthey advocated in the beginning have been eliminated,as being completely reversed by the passageof time, and much new matter has been added asthe kindergarten principle has developed. Theyare as much a growth as a coral reef, though theauthors have little hope that they will be asenduring.
The kindergarten of 1895 is not the kindergartenof 1880, for the science of education hasmade great strides in these past fifteen years.Many things which were held to be vital principleswhen we began our talks with kindergartenstudents, we now find were but lifeless methodsafter all. It is not that time has reversed thefundamental principles on which the kindergarten[Pg vii]rests,—these are as true as truth and as changeless;but the interpretation of them has greatlychanged and broadened with the passage of years,and many of the instrumentalities of educationwhich Froebel devised are destined to furthertransformation in the future. For this r