The first steps in all the kindergarten occupations are directed or
suggested by the teacher; but these dictations or suggestions are
merely intended to serve as a sort of staff, by which the child can
steady himself until he can walk alone. It is always the creative
instinct that is to be reached and vivified: everything else is
secondary. By reproduction from memory of a dictated form, by taking
from or adding to it, by changing its centre, corners, or sides,--by a
dozen ingenious preliminary steps,--the child's inventive faculty is
developed; and he soon reaches a point in drawing, building, modeling,
or what not, where his greatest delight is to put his individual ideas
into visible shape. The simple request, "Make something pretty of your
own," brings a score of original combinations and designs,--either the
old thoughts in different shape or something fresh and audacious which
hints of genius. Instead of twenty hackneyed and slavish copies of
one pattern, we have twenty free, individual productions, each the
expression of the child's inmost personal thought.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125