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LECTURES

IN THE

TRAINING SCHOOLS

FOR

Kindergarten Teachers.




EDUCATION

IN

THE HOME, THE KINDERGARTEN,

AND

THE PRIMARY SCHOOL.

BY

ELIZABETH P. PEABODY.


_WITH AN INTRODUCTION_

BY

E. ADELAIDE MANNING.

    "Come, let us live _with_ our children."--FRŒBEL.

          LONDON:
          SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LOWREY & CO.,
          PATERNOSTER SQUARE.
          1887.




INTRODUCTION.


AMONG those who in the last twenty years have helped to spread a
knowledge of the educational principles of Froebel beyond the limits of
his native country, Miss Elizabeth Peabody's name deserves to be
specially remembered. It is mainly owing to her enthusiastic efforts
that the value of the Kindergarten was early recognised in the United
States, and that its first American promoters were encouraged to
maintain, amid many difficulties, a standard of real efficiency for the
teachers of Froebel's system. Miss Peabody had long occupied herself,
theoretically and practically, with educational subjects. Not satisfied
by merely intellectual methods of instruction, and impatient of the
superficiality which was too often approved, she made it her great aim
to train character, and, by a simultaneous development of children's
mental capacities and of their moral nature, to prepare them for the
responsible duties of life. It was not surprising that when Miss
Peabody, holding such views of education, came in contact with the ideas
and the work of Froebel, she at once experienced the delight always
attached to the discovery that the problems exercising our own minds
have been successfully solved by some one who has started from
principles such as ours, and who has cultivated the same ideal. She
found that Froebel had carried into practice that very kind of training
of which she had realized the immense importance, and that he had placed
in a clear light truths which she had already more dimly perceived.
Eager to inform herself about the new system, Miss Peabody travelled, in
1868, to Europe, on purpose to visit in Germany the Kindergartens
established by Froebel, who was no longer living, and by his best
pupils. On her return to America, she devoted herself for many years to
the introduction and improvement of Kindergartens and of training
institutions, and to enlightening, by her writings and addresses,
mothers and educators respecting the value and simplicity of Froebel's
methods. Miss Peabody has the satisfaction of witnessing a good measure
of success from her generous exertions, in the increasing number of
advocates of the Kindergarten in America, in its adoption as a first
department of many State primary schools, and in the numerous private
and charity Kindergartens founded from North to South, and from New York
to San Francisco. Advanced now in years, this warm-hearted lady is
engaged in other lines of philanthropic work, but she retains, and still
manifests, her earnest interest in the educational progress which she
has laboured so actively to secure.

Ever since Miss Peabody's zeal was kindled for Froebel's ideal as to
young children's education, her help and criticism have been sought by
the trainers of Kindergarten students in America, and by all who, with
serious purpose, have thus worked for the movement. Hence she has often
delivered lectures at the opening of the session at Normal Colleges, and
on other occasions when she saw an opportunity of exercising influence
in favour of rational principles of education. This book, which appeared
only lately at Boston, consists of a few of such lectures. It is now,
with Miss Peabody's consent, published in England, where many parents
and teachers will be glad to profit by the author's wise and loving
study of little children, and her sympathetic insight into Froebel's
methods for their development. During the last few years various
thoughtful writers on education have drawn attention here to the subject
of infant management, and it is remarkable how widely the principles of
Froebel and Pestalozzi are now recognised and accepted. But books are
still greatly needed which, especially addressed to those who have
charge of children, urge in a convincing manner how essential it is
that the first few years should be rightly guided, and indicate certain
defined educational aims. I think that Miss Peabody's lectures are
likely to prove very useful in this direction. Though her readers will
perhaps contest some of her psychological deductions, they cannot fail
to be impressed and benefited by the high tone of her reasoning, by her
evidently tender and reverent love of children, and by her excellent
suggestions in regard to their harmonious development.

Amongst its other merits, this book tends to correct the still too
prevalent notion, that the Kindergarten is a peculiar--an almost
magical--institution, which provides a