People who say this evidently have no
conception of Froebel's plan, in which the simultaneous training of
head, heart, and hand is the most striking characteristic.
The kindergarten is mainly distinguished from the later instruction of
the school by making the knowledge of facts and the cultivation of
the memory subordinate to the development of observation and to the
appropriate activity of the child, physical, mental, and moral. Its
aim is to utilize the now almost wasted time from four to six years, a
time when all negligent and ignorant mothers leave the child to chance
development, and when the most careful mother cannot train her
child into the practice of social virtues so well as the truly wise
kindergartner who works with her. "We learn through doing" is the
watchword of the kindergarten, but it must be a _doing_ which blossoms
into _being_, or it does not fulfill its ideal, for it is character
building which is to go on in the kindergarten, or it has missed
Froebel's aim.
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