No books are to be
seen in a kindergarten, because no ideas or facts are presented to the
child that he cannot clearly understand and verify. The object is not
to teach him arithmetic or geometry, though he learns enough of both
to be very useful to him hereafter; but to lead him to discover
_truths_ concerning forms and numbers, lines and angles, for himself.
Thus in the play-lessons the teacher simply rules the order in which
the child shall approach a new thing, and gives him the correct
names which, henceforth, he must always use; but the observation of
resemblances and differences (that groundwork of all knowledge), the
reasoning from one point to another, and the conclusions he arrives
at, are all his own; he is only led to see his mistake if he makes
one. The child handles every object from which he is taught, and
learns to reproduce it.
It is not enough to say that any ordinary system of object teaching in
the hands of an ingenious teacher will serve the purpose or take the
place of the kindergarten.
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