All thru the past the little child has been led to "observe his own life"— to increase his individual power in language by the instinctive response of the mother to the child's effort. This is true in the development of written and picture expression, as well as in that which comes first-oral language. "But more potent than all external stimuli," writes Froebel, "is the child's passionate impulse toward a development of his own being, which shall be, on the one hand, spontaneous, on the other, in accord with the universal trend of life." The aid to be offered is to be determined by the child's progressive needs. I think it will help us to keep clearly in mind the child's language stages, if I borrow an analogy from a prominent geologist who, in speaking of the earth, says: special characteristic area of its surface has its prenatal conditions, its birth, babyhood, its childhood, maturity, old age, and decay."

Froebel certainly recognizes something akin to this in the processes of that form of expression which we are considering. There is the prenatal formation of the organs of speech and hearing. There is a time after birth when these are quite at the mercy of surrounding conditions; when there its little, if any, power of resistance to what is external; when all that is to nourish the language-power of the child comes to him unconsciously, and we might also say vicariously. It is just here that Froebel's scheme begins to ultimate itself. The child himself, we must remember, is the prime factor in the problem, but the mother's love, the mother's song, and mother's play are also very vital ones. Froebel appeals at once to the "working energy" of the child, no matter how slight that may be, and tho the child himself is altogether unconscious of the outcome of his efforts. Because he does hear, because he will soon listen, the old master considers it worth while to give something that has a hearing and a listening value. With her baby in her arms, Froebel read in the mother's instinctive action as who that has eyes to see has not read-something not only of the "joy of things to be," but the delights of things that are now present. He saw that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh; and what is more natural than that the mother's feeling should express itself in songs to and about her baby? Thru her response to his babblings, as Dr. Dewey has said, "the child comes to know what these babblings mean; they are transformed into an articulate language, and thus the child is introduced into the consolidated wealth of ideas and emotions which are now summed up in language."

But it may be said that we needed no Froebel to teach this fact; that this playful prattle between mother and child has always been a common thing. Why should it be claimed as a discovery of Froebel's? Why should we say "Froebel's Mother Play"? The instinct which prompts it is old; but the insight which Froebel would make possible to every mother in this sort of play is something that was little thought of before his day. While on the part of the child the play remains an expression of impulse

and activity for its own sake, he declares that the mother should have a broader outlook. Psychology teaches us that sense-impressions do remain, tho the subject of them may be for the time wholly unconscious of them; but when the time comes that sense-impressions are not only received, but perceived, the words and tones with which the child is already familiar, because of the many repetitions, are the more easily understood, and are a further help in gaining new words. This is especially true when words are interpreted by the actions, in which a child delights. There comes to him, in due time, a genuinely intelligent association of word and act, of word and object.

If it is the function of the mother to create conditions for 66 clear thinking, right feeling, and noble doing," then it is most desirable that she keep away from the child "needless imperfections of pronunciation-"those affected reduplications of words," as Mr. Hailmann calls themwhich sooner or later come between the child and the situation in which he finds himself. These are all well enough as the child's creations, but are not in place on the part of adults; for they do not help the child in "the completion of himself" to which we have before referred.

Froebel plays with words, as he plays with gesture, form, color, size, etc. There are very few elementary attributes of objects which do not come to the front in the little child's language necessities in play, and Froebel would note all of these, but would conserve the best. He does not want the child enveloped in words, but would develop the child's language by making the very best use of that which he has at his command.

Again, he lends a hand in this way: the child is given certain materials to work and play with; he builds with blocks, plays with balls of various colors, makes things of clay, wood, cardboard, and paper; he paints, draws, weaves, sews, pounds, digs in the dirt and sand; all of these activities and objects have a nomenclature peculiarly their own, and repeated plays with them create the need for numberless nouns and verbs, as well as for complete sentences. Because of the repetitions of the same words with the same playthings, from time to time, the child gains more definite ideas of the relation of the word and the object. I think this is one of the values in limiting, to some extent, the material a child works and plays with. It is not cramping or hampering, because the new creations or combinations continually call for more freedom and more words, as well as a better use of those already at his command.

Another plan of Froebel's growing out of the use of the work and play material is to have the child work occasionally from very definite direction or dictation given by the teacher. Do not be alarmed lest the creativeness of the child will suffer. It is not a one-sided arrangement, for soon, in turn, the teacher becomes pupil, and the child is the masterworkman, who must now tell definitely what we are to do. This sort of

work must fall in with a previously awakened experience, as to position, direction, etc., as well as of other elementary attributes of objects. It must have a "content" that the child himself feels is a "worthy" one, not only for the future, but for the present. No one who has not tried this device knows its real worth as a means of language-teaching. By such an exercise now and then there is formed in the mind, as the goal of the effort, a transparent mental image of the object or activity to which all of the preceding experience belong; and words, as well as things, are made simpler and clearer. This we must remember is only one device. There are times when the child is left wholly to himself – to work out his ideas as best he can; but he certainly needs help in spelling out the fact that experience, either with actions or objects or the words which symbolize them, is a connected process. "The whole vast mystery of life, in all its processes and conditions"— I quote Professor Small again — "confronts the child as really as it does the sage. It is the business of the educator to help the child interpret the part by the whole. Education from the beginning should be an initiation into science, language, philosophy, art, and political action in its largest sense." Therefore, Froebel's aim in each and all of these subjects is one of nurture, a fostering care of that which is best. He does not want the child warped anywhere by habit, by prejudice, or by misunderstanding.

I have only hinted at Froebel's strong feeling for rhythm in languageteaching. He would make it a powerful factor from the nursery song thru the child's whole school life. Because rythmical language is begun instinctively, he claims that it must also become intelligent; and this even before the words may be fully understood. He would use song and poetry as a means to the increase of a higher inner life, and he advises the skeptic who questions the value of it to study the child's language simply and naturally, and see how early in the child's simplest expression of feeling he falls into rhythmical speech. A universal and complete plan of education will not leave children to an arbitrary, frivolous whimsicality in any form of expression, but should lead them to understand and appreciate the true products of art, in which is included poetry.

In the chapter on "The School and the Family," in the Education of Man, under the heading "Observation of Nature and Surroundings," Froebel begins by having the children name the things nearest to them; then follows a conversation as to the relation of one thing to another: of the furniture of the room to the room itself; of the room to the house; of the house to the premises -the yard, garden, barnyard, etc. He brings in here a most vital truth, viz., that the knowledge of things and words must be consciously necessary to the child; and these necessities do spring forth at certain times and in certain places as "buds on the bough of a tree." The teacher is expected to see these requirements almost intuitively, but he must also know how to give to each stage that which

the stage demands. He leads the child from the home into the fields, to the things of nature, to river, hills, grass, trees, etc. The animals are noted, and classified according to the child's ability; but the ability is ever increasing. He observes men at different sorts of work, and notes the common features and the ultimate aim. He sees that men live in families, families in larger groups; and finally the child comes back to the home from which he started on his explorations with a larger outlook; and, if he has been rightly led, he has at least a germ of the truth, which is so fundamental in all ethics, that "only as a whole, as a unit, can humanity fully attain the highest and ultimate purpose of human striving." In speaking of the child's language in the relation to all of these observational experiences, Froebel says: "Man's speech should be, as it were, himself in its integrity; it should reveal him all-sidedly and become an image of his inner and his outer world."

DISCUSSION

MISS ELIZABETH HARRISON, Chicago, Ill.-Play and speech are the elements in which the young child lives and by means of which he grows into the deeper significance of life.

By means of play he tries and tests the different properties of the world about him, beginning with his own body. He seizes his toes, stretches out his fingers, rolls, kicks, and, later on, creeps, climbs, walks, runs, jumps, and swims; until, unconsciously, he has obtained a mastery over his own body. At the same time he is being forwarded in his investigations of the outside world. He pushes, pinches, squeezes, rolls, and, if need be, tears to pieces objects about him.

In early childhood he attempts many exercises that result in nothing except a knowledge of the material in hand; as, for example, he fills a box with dirt, empties it out, refills it, and again empties it, anywhere from one to a hundred times; he pours the sand thru his fingers in tireless repetition, throws pebbles into the water, tosses bits of paper out of the window, to the intense satisfaction of his young soul. Later on he builds, molds, paints, saws apart and nails together again, not so much for the sake of the result obtained as to feel his growing power over the material world about him. Playthings made under the greatest effort are soon thrown away, and forgotten.

In his struggle to master language he is doing the opposite thing. He is striving to give his inner world to the outer world. In fact, the very word "speech" in primitive tongues signifies to "break oneself." "To utter" means "to outer." Thus thru the very structure of words we have a suggestion of the chief purpose of language. This gives us some idea of its importance as an element of education.

Froebel, the founder of the kindergarten, in stating a general outline of what the education of man should be, gives us the three chief groups of instruction, namely: religion, the natural sciences (including mathematics), language. Writing he would have as the overflow of the full soul. The first general division religion - he defines as: "the endeavor to raise into a clear knowledge the feeling that the spiritual self of man is one with God, and to realize this unity with God, thus founded upon clear knowledge, and to continue to live in this unity with God, serene and strong in every relation of life."

Concerning natural sciences he speaks thus: "What religion says and expresses, nature says and represents. What the contemplation of God teaches, nature confirms; for nature as well as all existing things is a manifestation, a revelation, of God.”

With such a profound and reverent view of religion, and such a devout and loving view of nature, what may we expect to be the definition of language? After showing how the study of religion unifies, in his inner life, man and all created things, and how the study of science individualizes and separates each distinct object in the outside world, Froebel declares that language is the medium by means of which the inner and the outer are joined, the universal and the particular are unified and harmonized, as language is the self-active, outer expression of the inner life.

It has been found to be of the greatest value in hand-work to lead the child to see form as organized creation. All natural sciences are organized as soon as sufficient data are obtained for organization. So language can be taught to a young child in a systematic and thoroly organized manner, without in the least interfering with the spontaneous, joyous expression of the inner self. Indeed, a prominent phonographer goes so far as to organize the first baby babblings. We quote his testimony on the subject:

Probably the author can add nothing here which will make clear the method herein proposed better than a brief recital of his own experience. He is the happy father of four children, the oldest of whom is not yet seven. Having been a student of phonography, and a great admirer of the art, and with the theory well in mind, he began, without any wisely matured plans, but rather from a sort of instinct as to correct method, to teach his first child, when it had barely passed the cooing stage, to make the elemental sounds, in the order which the science of phonography shows to be that in which the organs of speech adapt themselves with least effort, and which is explained in the text following: Beginning with the vowels-the most easily learned sounds, because unobstructed-he proceeded to the consonants, then the diphthongs, and finally to combinations. This method he pursued with each child, beginning at the age of from twelve to eighteen months, and continuing by easy stages, a lesson of but a few moments at a time, once or twice a day, when the child crawled from its crib to be perched on its father's breast, early in the morning, or in the evening when taken on its father's knee. The result was simply astonishing. So correct was the articulation and so accurate the ear in the catching of sounds that at three years of age the child's capacity to talk scarcely ever escaped comment. The contrast with children who had learned to talk in the ordinary haphazard manner was truly painful. At eight years of age other children were observed to mouth and swallow their words, to lisp, or to give the impression that their speech was obstructed as by a mouthful of mush.

No words can be too strong for the denunciation of the senseless "baby-talk" indulged in by so many fond but selfish mothers. Consider that method as being used in teaching a foreigner our language, and the senselessness of it becomes apparent without further argument. One of the self-evident values of the kindergarten is the fact that in it the child not only learns to connect the object or action with the word all unconsciously, but also because in a scientific kindergarten both the objects used and the activities taught are typical, and the properties of matter as well as the forms of motion are the essential ones.

Thus the child learns fundamental words, definite and strong contrasts, leaving the finer shades of meaning for a later stage of growth. Not only are the descriptive words thus vividly taught, but the constant commingling with children of his own age causes a child to express himself more freely to his small comrade and in simple, childlike language. The songs, stories, and pictures, also, are so selected as to call forth mental images that a child can easily grasp and retain. But above all the ideals that are awakened within his young soul demand expression, and in the enthusiasm over what is to him a beautiful thought the child forgets his outer self and its limitations and "outers," or utters, his inmost self. This is the true source of all the truly free and noble use of language, and insures the individual style of expression even in a young child, while at the same time calling for clear and definite language.

But above all things else this early and easy mastery of words thru the direct connection of them with the objects, activities, or relationships they represent brings with it the vividness and strength of mental imagery. This enables the mind the more readily to transfer a word from a purely sensuous meaning to a spiritual meaning, and thereby to transfigure the common speech until soul can speak to soul. Thus the highest office of language is obtained.