The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 61, November, 1862

But we must not omit one of the most important exercises for children in the Kindergarten,—that of block-building. Froebel has four Gifts of blocks. Ronge's "Kindergarten Guide" has pages of royal octavo filled with engraved forms that can be made by variously laying eight little cubes and sixteen little planes two inches long, one inch broad, and one-half an inch thick. Chairs, tables, stables, sofas, garden-seats, and innumerable forms of symmetry, make an immense resource for children, who also should be led to invent other forms and imitate other objects. So quick are the fancies of children, that the blocks will serve also as symbols of everything in Nature and imagination. We have seen an ingenious teacher assemble a class of children around her large table, to each of whom she had given the blocks. The first thing was to count them, a great process of arithmetic to most of them. Then she made something and explained it. It was perhaps a light-house,—and some blocks would represent rocks near it to be avoided, and ships sailing in the ocean; or perhaps it was a hen-coop, with chickens inside, and a fox prowling about outside, and a boy who was going to catch the fox and save the fowls. Then she told each child to make something, and when it was done hold up a hand. The first one she asked to explain, and then went round the class. If one began to speak before another had ended, she would hold up her finger and say,—"It is not your turn." In the course of the winter, she taught, over these blocks, a great deal about the habits of animals. She studied natural history in order to be perfectly accurate in her symbolic representation of the habitation of each animal, and their enemies were also represented by blocks. The children imitated these; and when they drew upon their imaginations for facts, and made fantastic creations, she would say,—"Those, I think, were Fairy hens" (or whatever); for it was her principle to accept everything, and thus tempt out their invention. The great value of this exercise is to get them into the habit of representing something they have thought by an outward symbol. The explanations they are always eager to give teach them to express themselves in words. Full scope is given to invention, whether in the direction of possibilities or of the impossibilities in which children's imaginations revel,—in either case the child being trained to the habit of embodiment of its thought.

Froebel thought it very desirable to have a garden where the children could cultivate flowers. He had one which he divided into lots for the several children, reserving a portion for his own share in which they could assist him. He thought it the happiest mode of calling their attention to the invisible God, whose power must be waited upon, after the conditions for growth are carefully arranged according to laws which they were to observe. Where a garden is impossible, a flowerpot with a plant in it for each child to take care of would do very well.

But the best way to cultivate a sense of the presence of God is to draw the attention to the conscience, which is very active in children, and which seems to them (as we all can testify from our own remembrance) another than themselves, and yet themselves. We have heard a person say, that in her childhood she was puzzled to know which was herself, the voice of her inclination or of her conscience, for they were palpably two, and what a joyous thing it was when she was first convinced that one was the Spirit of God, whom unlucky teaching had previously embodied in a form of terror on a distant judgment-seat. Children are consecrated as soon as they get the spiritual idea, and it may be so presented that it shall make them happy as well as true. But the adult who enters into such conversation with a child must be careful not to shock and profane, instead of nurturing the soul. It is possible to avoid both discouraging and flattering views, and to give the most tender and elevating associations.

But children require not only an alternation of physical and mental amusements, but some instruction to be passively received. They delight in stories, and a wise teacher can make this subservient to the highest uses by reading beautiful creations of the imagination. Not only such household-stories as "Sanford and Merton," Mrs. Farrar's "Robinson Crusoe," and Salzmann's "Elements of Morality," but symbolization like the heroes of Asgard, the legends of the Middle Ages, classic and chivalric tales, the legend of Saint George, and "Pilgrim's Progress," can in the mouth of a skilful reader be made subservient to moral culture. The reading sessions should not exceed ten or fifteen minutes.

Anything of the nature of scientific teaching should be done by presenting objects for examination and investigation.¹⁶ Flowers and insects, shells, etc., are easily handled. The observations should be drawn out of the children, not made to them, except as corrections of their mistakes. Experiments with the prism, and in crystallization and transformation, are useful and desirable to awaken taste for the sciences of Nature. In short, the Kindergarten should give the beginnings of everything. "What is well begun is half done."

We must say a word about the locality and circumstances of a Kindergarten. There is published in Lausanne, France, a newspaper devoted to the interests of this mode of education, in whose early numbers is described a Kindergarten; which seems to be of the nature of a boarding-school, or, at least, the children are there all day. Each child has a garden, and there is one besides where they work in common. There are accommodations for keeping animals, and miniature tools to do mechanical labor of various kinds. In short, it is a child's world. But in this country, especially in New England, parents would not consent to be so much separated from their children, and a few hours of Kindergarten in the early part of the day will serve an excellent purpose,—using up the effervescent activity of children, who may healthily be left to themselves the rest of the time, to play or rest, comparatively unwatched.

Two rooms are indispensable, if there is any variety of age. It is desirable that one should be sequestrated to the quiet employments. A pianoforte is desirable, to lead the singing, and accompany the plays, gymnastics, frequent marchings, and dancing, when that is taught,—which it should be. But a hand-organ which plays fourteen tunes will help to supply the want of a piano, and a guitar in the hands of a ready teacher will do better than nothing.

Sometimes a genial mother and daughters might have a Kindergarten, and devote themselves and the house to it, especially if they live in one of our beautiful country-towns or cities. The habit, in the city of New York, of sending children to school in an omnibus, hired to go round the city and pick them up, suggests the possibility of a Kindergarten in one of those beautiful residences up in town, where there is a garden before or behind the house. It is impossible to keep Kindergarten by the way. It must be the main business of those who undertake it; for it is necessary that every individual child should be borne, as it were, on the heart of the garteners, in order that it be inspired with order, truth, and goodness. To develop a child from within outwards, we must plunge ourselves into its peculiarity of imagination and feeling. No one person could possibly endure such absorption, of life in labor unrelieved, and consequently two or three should unite in the undertaking in order to be able to relieve each other from the enormous strain on life. The compensations are, however, great. The charm of the various individuality, and of the refreshing presence of conscience yet unprofaned, is greater than can be found elsewhere in this work-day world. Those were not idle words which came from the lips of Wisdom Incarnate:—"Their angels do always behold the face of my Father": "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

A PICTURE

[AFTER WITHER.]

 
Sweet child, I prithee stand,
While I try my novel hand
At a portrait of thy face,
With its simple childish grace.
 
 
Cheeks as soft and finely hued
As the fleecy cloud imbued
With the roseate tint of morn
Ere the golden sun is born:—
Lips that like a rose-hedge curl,
Guarding well the gates of pearl,
—What care I for pearly gate?
By the rose-hedge will I wait:—
Chin that rounds with outline fine,
Melting off in hazy line;
As in misty summer noon,
Or beneath the harvest moon,
Curves the smooth and sandy shore,
Flowing off in dimness hoar:—
Eyes that roam like timid deer
Sheltered by a thicket near,
Peeping out between the boughs,
Or that, trusting, safely browse:—
Arched o'er all the forehead pure,
Giving us the prescience sure
Of an ever-growing light;
As in deepening summer night,
Over fields to ripen soon
Hangs the silver crescent moon.
 

* * * * *

TWO AND ONE

I

The winter sun streamed pleasantly into the room. On the tables lay the mother's work of the morning,—the neatly folded clothes she had just been ironing. A window was opened a little way to let some air into the room too closely heated by the brisk fire. The air fanned the leaves of the ivy-plant that stood in the window, and of the primrose which seemed ready to open in the warm sun. Above, there hung a cage, and a canary-bird shouted out now and then its pleasure at the sunny day, with a half-dream perhaps of a tropical climate in the tropical air with which the coal-fire filled the room. Mrs. Schroder leaned back in her old-fashioned rocking-chair, and folded her hands, one over the other, ready to rest after her morning's labor. She was willing to take the repose won by her work; indeed, this was the only way she had managed to preserve her strength for all the work it was necessary for her to do. She had been conscious that her powers had answered for just so much and no more, and she had never been able to make further demands upon them.

When years before she was left a widow, with two sons to support and educate, all her friends and neighbors prophesied that her health would prove unequal to either work, and agreed that it was very fortunate that she had a rich relation or two to help her. But, unfortunately, the rich relations preferred helping only in their own way. One uncle agreed to send the older boy to his father's relations in Germany, while the other wished to take the younger with him to his home in the South; and an aunt-in-law promised Mrs. Schroder work enough as seamstress to support herself.

It is singular how hard it is, for those who have large means and resources, to understand how to supply the little wants and needs of those less fortunate. The smallest stream in the mountains will find its way through some little channel, over rocks, or slowly through quiet meadows, into the great rivers, and finally feeds the deep sea, which is very thankless, and thinks little of restoring what is so prodigally poured into it. It only knows how to sway up with its grand tide upon the broad beaches, or to wrestle with turreted rocks, or, for some miles, perhaps, up the great rivers, it is willing to leave some flavor of its salt strength. So it is that we little ones, to the last, pour out our little stores into the great seas of wealth,—and the Neptunes, the gods of riches, scarcely know how to return us our due, if they would.

When Mrs. Schroder, then, refused these kindly offers, because she knew that her husband had wished his boys should be brought up together and in America, and because she could not separate them from each other or from herself, the relations thought best to leave her to her own will, and drew back, feeling that they had done their part for humanity and kinship. Now and then Mrs. Schroder received a present of a worn shawl or a bonnet out of date, and one New Year there came inclosed a dollar-bill apiece for the boys. Ernest threw his into the fire before his mother could stop him, while Harry said he would spend his for the very meanest thing he could think of; and that very night he bought some sausages with it, to satisfy, as he said, only their lowest wants.

Mrs. Schroder succeeded in carrying out her will, in spite of prophecy. Her very delicacy of body led her to husband her strength, while the boys very early learned that they must help their mother to get through her day's work. Her feebleness of health helped her, too, in another way,—by stopping their boy-quarrels.

"Boys, don't wrangle so! If you knew how it makes my head ache!"

When these words came from the mother resting in her chair, the quarrel ceased suddenly. It ended without settlement, to be sure, which is the best way of finishing up quarrels. There are always seeds of new wars sown in treaties of peace. Austria is not content with her share of Poland, and Russia privately determines upon another bite of Turkey. John thinks it very unjust that he must give up his ball to Tom, and resolves to have the matter out when they get down into the street; while Tom, equally dissatisfied, feels that he has been treated like a baby, and despises the umpire for the partial decision.

These two boys, indeed, had their perpetual quarrel. Harry, the older, always got on in the world. He had a strong arm, a jolly face, and a solid opinion of himself that made its way without his asking for it. Ernest, on the other hand, was obliged to be constantly dependent on his brother for defence, for his position with other boys at school,—as he grew up, for his position in life, even. Harry was the favorite always. The schoolmaster—or teacher, as we call him nowadays—liked Harry best, although he was always in scrapes, and often behindhand in his studies, while Ernest was punctual, quiet, and always knew his lessons, though his eyes looked dreamily through his books rather than into them.

Harry had great respect for Ernest's talent, made way for it, would willingly work for him. Ernest accepted these benefits: he could not help it, they were so generously offered. But the consciousness that he could not live without them weighed him down and made him moody. He alternately reproached himself for his ingratitude, and his brother for his favors. Sometimes he called himself a slave for being willing to accept them; at other times he would blame himself as a tyrant for making such demands upon an elder brother.

As Mrs. Schroder leaned back in her chair after her morning's labor, the door opened, and a young girl came into the room. She had a fresh, bright face, a brown complexion, a full, round figure. She came in quickly, nodded cheerily to Mrs. Schroder, and knelt down in front of the fire to warm her hands.

"I did want to come in this morning," she said,—"the very last day! I should have liked to help you about Ernest's things. But Aunt Martha must needs have a supernumerary wash, and I have just come in from hanging the last of the clothes upon the line."

"It is very good of you, Violet," answered Mrs. Schroder, "but I was glad to-day to have plenty to do. It is the thinking that troubles me. My boys are grown up into men, and Ernest is going! It is our first parting. To-day I would rather work than think."

Violet was the young girl's name. A stranger might think that the name did not suit her. In her manner was nothing of the shrinking nature that is a characteristic of the violet. Timidity and reserve she probably did have somewhere in her heart,—as all women do,—but it had never been her part to play them out. She had all her life been called upon to show only energy, activity, and self-reliance. She was an only child, and had been obliged to be son and daughter, brother and sister in one. Her father was the owner of the house in which were the rooms occupied by Mrs. Schroder and her sons. The little shop on the lower floor was his place of business. He was a watchmaker, had a few clocks on the shelves of his small establishment, and a limited display of jewelry in the window, together with a supply of watch-keys, and minute-hands and hour-hands for decayed watches. For though his sign proclaimed him a watchmaker, his occupation perforce was rather that of repairing and cleaning watches and clocks than in the higher branch of creation.

Violet's childhood was happy enough. She was left in unrestrained liberty outside of the little back-parlor, where her Aunt Martha held sway. Out of school-hours, her joy and delight were to join the school-boys in their wildest plays. She climbed fences, raced up and down alley-ways, stormed inoffensive door-yards, chased wandering cats with the best of them. She was a favorite champion among the boys,—placed at difficult points of espionage, whether it were over beast, man, woman, or boy. She was proud of mounting some imaginary rampart, or defending some dangerous position. Sometimes a taunt was hurled from the enemy upon her allies for associating with a "girl;" but it always received a contemptuous answer,—"You'd better look out, she could lick any one of you!" And at the reply, Violet would look down from her post on the picketed fence, shake her long curls triumphantly, and climb to some place inaccessible to the enemy, to show how useful her agility could be to her own party.

The time of sorrow came at twilight, when the boys separated for their homes,—when Harry and Ernest clattered up to their mother's rooms. They could be boys still. They might throw open the house-doors with a shout and halloo, and fling away caps and boots with no more than an uncared-for reprimand. But Violet must go noiselessly through the dark entry, and, as she turned to close the door that let her into the parlor, she was greeted by Aunt Martha's "Now do shut the door quietly!" As she lowered the latch without any sound, she would say to herself, "Why is it that boys must have all the fun, and girls all the work?" She felt as if she shut out liberty and put on chains. Her work began then,—to lay the tea-table, to fetch and carry as Aunt Martha ordered. All this was pleasanter than the quiet evening that followed, because she liked the occupation and motion. But to be quiet the whole evening, that was a trial! After the tea-things were cleared away, she would sit awhile by the stove, imagining all sorts of excitements in the combustion within; but she could not keep still long without letting a clatter of shovel and tongs, or some vigorous blows of the poker, show what a glorious drum she thought the stove would make. Or if Aunt Martha suggested her unloved and neglected dolls, she would retire to the corner with them inevitably to come back in disgrace. Either the large wooden-headed doll came noisily down from the high-backed chair, where she had been placed as the Maid of Saragossa, or a suspicious smell of burning arose, when Joan of Arc really did take fire from the candle on her imaginary funeral-pile. Knitting was no more of a sedative, though for many years it had stilled Aunt Martha's nerves. It was singular how the cat contrived always to get hold of Violet's ball of yarn and keep it, in spite of Violet's activity and the jolly chase she had for it all round the room, over chairs and under tables. Even her father, during these long evenings, often looked up over his round spectacles, through which he was perusing a volume of the "Encyclopedia," to wonder if Violet could never be quiet.

As she grew up, there was activity enough in her life, through which her temperament could let off its steam: a large house to be cared for and kept in order, some of the lodgers to be waited upon, and Aunt Martha, with her failing strength, more exacting than ever. Her evenings now were her happy times, for she frequently spent them in Mrs. Schroder's room. One of the economies in the Schroders' life was that their pleasures were so cheap. What with Harry's genial gayety and Ernest's spiritual humor, and the gayety and humor of the friends that loved them, they did not have to pay for their hilarity on the stage. There were quiet evenings and noisy ones, and Violet liked them both. She liked to study languages with Ernest; she liked the books from the City Library that they read aloud,—romances that were taken for Mrs. Schroder's pleasure, Ruskins which Ernest enjoyed, and Harry's favorites, which, to tell the truth, were few. He begged to be made the reader,—otherwise, he confessed, he was in danger of falling asleep.

Violet had grown up into a woman, and the boys had become men; and now she was kneeling in front of Mrs. Schroder's fire.

"Ernest's last day at home," she said, dreamily. "Oh, now I begin to pity Harry!"

"To pity Harry?" said Mrs. Schroder. "Yes, indeed! But it is Ernest that I think of most. He is going away among strangers. He depends upon Harry far more than Harry depends upon him."

"It is just that," said Violet. "Harry has always been the one to give. But it will be changed now, when Ernest comes home. You see, he will be great then. He has been dependent upon us, all along, because genius must move so slowly at first; but when he comes back, he will be above us, and, oh! how shall we know where to find him?"

"You do not mean that my boy will look down upon his mother?" said Mrs. Schroder, raising herself in her chair.

"Look down upon us?" cried Violet. "Oh, no! it is only the little that do that, that they may appear to be high. The truly great never look down. They are kneeling already, and they look up. If they only would look down upon us! But it is the old story: the body can do for a while without the spirit, can make its way in the world for a little, and meantime the spirit is dependent upon the body. Of course it could not live without the body,—what we call life. But by-and-by spirit must assert itself, and find its wings. And where, oh, where, will it rise to? Above us,—above us all!"

"How strangely you talk!" said Mrs. Schroder, looking into Violet's face. "What has this to do with poor Ernest?"

"I was thinking of poor Harry," said Violet. "All this time he has been working for Ernest. Harry has earned the money with which Ernest goes abroad,—which he has lived upon all these years,—not only his daily bread, but what his talent, his genius, whatever it is, has fed itself with. Ernest is too unpractical to have been able even to feed himself!"

"And he knows it, my poor Ernest!" said Mrs. Schroder. "This is why he should be pitied. It is hard for a generous nature to owe all to another. It has weighed Ernest down; it has embittered the love of the two brothers."

"But it is more bitter for Harry," persisted Violet. "All this time Ernest could think of the grand return he could bring when his time should come. But Harry! He brings the clay out of which Ernest moulds the statue; but the spirit that Ernest breathes into the form,—will Harry understand it or appreciate it? The body is very reverent of the soul. But I think the spirit is not grateful enough to the body. There comes a time when it says to it, 'I can do without thee!' and spurns the kind comrade which has helped it on so far. Yet it could not have done without the joy of color and form, of sight and hearing, that the body has helped it to."

"You do not mean that Ernest will ever spurn Harry?—they are brothers!" said poor Mrs. Schroder.

Violet looked round and saw the troubled expression in Mrs. Schroder's face, and laughed as she laid her head caressingly in her friend's lap.

"I have frightened you with my talk," she said. "I believe the hot air in the room bewildered my senses and set me dreaming. Yes, Harry and Ernest are brothers, and I believe they will always work together and for each other. I have no business with forebodings, this laughing, sunny day. The March sun is melting the icicles, and they came clattering down upon me, as I was in the yard, with a happy, twinkling, childish laugh. There are spring sounds all about, water melting and dripping everywhere, full of joy. I am the last person, dear mother Schroder, to make you feel sad."

Violet got up quickly, and busied herself about the room: filled the canary's cup with water, drew out the table, and made all the usual preparations necessary for dinner, talking all the time gayly, till she had dispersed all the clouds on Mrs. Schroder's brow, and then turned to go away.

"You will stay and see Harry and Ernest?" asked Mrs. Schroder. "They have gone to make the last arrangements."

"Not now," said Violet. "They will like to be alone with you. I will see Ernest to bid him good-bye."

II

Two years passed away. At the end of this time Mrs. Schroder died. They had passed on, as years go, slowly and quickly. Sometimes, as a carriage takes us through narrow city-streets, and we look in at the windows we are passing, we wonder at the close life that is going on behind them, and we say to ourselves, "How slow the life must be within those confined walls!" At other times, when our own life is cramped or jarred by circumstances, we look with envy on the happy family-circles we see smiling within, and have a fancy that the roses have fallen to others, and we only have the thorns. There are full years, and there are years of famine, just as there come moments to all that seem like a life-time, and lives that hurry themselves away in a passing of the pendulum. It is of no use to shake the hour-glass; yet, when we are counting upon time, the sands hurry down like snow-flakes.

It was true, as Violet had foreboded, that Harry missed Ernest. He went heavily about his work, and the house seemed silent without him. Harry confessed this sadly to Violet, when his brother had been gone about a year. They had heard from Ernest in Florence, that he was getting on well. He had found occupation in the workshop of a famous sculptor, and had time besides to carry out some of his own designs.

"He writes me," said Harry, "that he will be able now to support himself, and that he does not need my help. Do you know, Violet, that takes the life out of me? I feel as if I had nothing to work for. I always felt a pride in working for Ernest, because I thought he was fitted for something better. Violet, it saddens me to think he can do without me. I go to my daily work; I lift my hammer and let it fall; but it is all mechanically; there is no vital force in the blow. It is hard to live without him."

"This is what I was afraid of," said Violet. "I was afraid he would think he could do without us. But he cannot do without you."

"Say that he cannot do without us" said Harry; "for he needs you, as I need you, and the question is, with which the need is greater."

Violet turned red and pale, and said,—

"We cannot answer that question yet."

After Mrs. Schroder died, it was sad enough in the old rooms. In the daytime, when Harry was away at his work, Violet would go up-stairs and put all things in order, and make them look as nearly as possible as they did when the mother was there. Harry came to pass his evenings with Violet.

A few days after his mother's death, he said to Violet,—

"Is it not time for you to tell me that it is I who need you more than Ernest? He writes very happily now. He is succeeding; he has an order for his statue. He writes and thinks of nothing else but what he will create,—of the ideas that have been waiting for an expression. I am a carpenter still, I shall never be more, and my work will always be less and lower than my love. Could you be satisfied with him? He has attained now, Ernest has, what he was looking for; and have I not a right to my reward?"

The tears tumbled from Violet's eyes.

"Dear, noble Harry! I am not ready for you yet. I do believe he is above us both, and satisfied to be above us both; but I am not ready yet."

A day or two afterwards, Harry brought Violet a letter from Italy. It was from an artist friend of Ernest's, whose wife and mother had kindly received him into their home. Carlo wrote now that Ernest had been taken very ill. They thought him recovering, but he was still very low, and his mind depressed, and he continued scarcely conscious of those around him. He talked wildly, and begged that his home friends would come to him; and though his new Italian friends promised him all that kindness could give, Carlo wrote to ask if it were not possible for his brother or his mother to come out. He had been working very hard, was just finishing an order that had occupied him the last year, and he had overtasked his mind as well as his body.

"You will go to him!" exclaimed Violet, when she had read the letter.

"If nothing better can be done," answered Harry. "Only yesterday I made a contract for work with a hard master. It would be difficult to break it; but I will do it gladly, if there is nothing better to be done."

"You mean that you would like to have me go to Ernest," said Violet.

"Will you go?" asked Harry. "That will be the very best thing."

Aunt Martha broke in here. She had been sitting quietly at the other side of the table, as usual, apparently engrossed with her knitting.

"You do not mean to send Violet to Italy, and to take care of Ernest?" she exclaimed. "What are you thinking of? I would never consent to Violet's going alone; it would not be proper."

Violet grew crimson at the reproof. She was standing beneath the light, and turned away her head.

"Not if I were Harry's betrothed?" she asked.

Aunt Martha looked up quickly. She saw the glad, relieved expression of Harry's face.

"If you are engaged to Harry, that is different, indeed!" she said.

It did make a difference in Aunt Martha's thoughts. In the first place, it gave her pleasure. Harry was well-to-do in, the world. He would make a good husband for Violet, and a kindly one. She liked him better than she did Ernest. She had supposed Violet would marry one or other of the boys, and, "just because things went at cross-grain in the world," she had always supposed Violet would prefer Ernest. She had never liked him herself. He was always spinning cobwebs in his brain; she never could understand a word of his talk. She did not believe he would live, and then Violet would be left a poor widow, as his mother had been left when her Hermann died. She remembered all about that. Ernest's absence had encouraged her with regard to Harry; but two years had passed, and it seemed to her the two were no nearer an engagement.