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Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology. E. R. Murray
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isbn 4064066232443
Автор произведения E. R. Murray
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
It is distinctly significant, therefore, to find how closely Froebel’s ideas on the subject resemble Professor Stout’s conception of mental activity.
“Conscious process,” writes Professor Stout, “is in every moment directed towards an end, whether this end be distinctly or vaguely recognized by the conscious subject, or not recognized at all.”
Froebel writes:
“In all activity, in every deed of man, even as a child, yes the very smallest, an aim is expressed, a reference to something, to the furthering or representing of something; … thus the child strives, even if unconsciously, to make his inner life objective, and through that perceptible, that so he may become conscious of it.”—P., pp. 237–240.
The same idea, that conscious process is directed to an end, though there may be no consciousness of that end, is given in another passage, where Froebel is speaking of the need for satisfying a child’s normal desire for playthings.
“Very often the child seeks for something, nevertheless he himself does not know at all what he seeks; at another time he puts something away from him and again knows not why.”—P., p. 168.
Of the earliest mental activity Professor Stout writes:
“In its earliest and simplest form, mental activity consists in those simple reactions which without being determined by any definite idea of an end to be realized, tend on the whole to the maintenance of immediate pleasure and the avoidance of immediate pain.”
The movements of the organism at this earliest stage “seem primarily adapted to the conservation and furtherance of vital process in general.”[13]
Froebel speaks of the child’s efforts:
“to put far from him that which is opposed to the needs of his life and yet would break in upon it.”—P., p. 167.
He tells the mother that, in the first stages at least, the restlessness and tears of the infant will warn her of the presence of anything in his surroundings hurtful to his development, while his laughter and movements of pleasure will show “what according to the feeling of the child is suited to the undisturbed development of his life as an immature human being.”
Mr. Stout goes on to say that such simple reactions are adapted “secondarily and by way of necessary corollary to the conservation and furtherance of conscious life.” He tells us that: “The primary craving with which the education of the senses begins, so far as it does not involve such practical needs as that of food, may be described as a general craving for stimulation or excitement … this conation being in the first instance in the highest degree indeterminate.”
Froebel, who speaks of the nurse “soothing the restless child vaguely striving for definite and satisfactory outward activity,” tells us that:
“if his bodily needs are satisfied and he feels himself well and strong, the first spontaneous employment of the child is spontaneous taking in (selbstthätiges Aufnehmen) of the outer world.”—P., p. 29.
He writes to Madame Schmidt, the cousin for whose assistance he has begged in observing children:
“This spontaneous activity of limb and vividness of sensation natural to infancy, and I may say inseparable from it, must also be carefully studied.”—L., p. 110.
And, in the Mother Songs, he says:
“You can see how his bodily activity, the movement and use of his limbs, like the activity of his senses, all turn towards one point: Life must be grasped, experienced and perceived … he wants to appropriate the outer and to re-embody it … his susceptibility for all that gives and takes up life will strike you as something that elevates his life in every way; even as young plants and animals are susceptible to the faintest workings of light and warmth, or the impressions of their environment, however delicate. Moreover, this receptivity is most closely related to great general excitability and sensibility (Erregbarkeit, Reizbarkeit).”—M., pp. 119–121.
Froebel’s views as to the nature both of early and of later mental activity then bear a strong resemblance to the modern view as stated by Professor Stout.[14]
In searching Froebel’s writings to find what he has to say about the stages lying between early mental activity and fully developed will, between what he calls “natural activity of the will, and true genuine firmness of will,” it soon becomes clear that it is impossible to separate what is said about will development, from what is said about intellectual development.[15] This is a natural consequence of Froebel’s constant insistence on the unity of consciousness, and it is the position of modern psychology, whether written from the analytic or the genetic point of view. Mr. Irving King writes: “The functional point of view emphasizes first of all the intimate inter-relation of all forms of mental activity and the impossibility of describing any one aspect of consciousness except with reference to consciousness as a whole.” Professor Stout, in his “Analytic Psychology,” has a section entitled “Conation and Cognition developed co-incidentally,”[16] while Froebel says:
“Thought must form itself in action, and action resolve and clear itself in thought.”—P., p. 42.
Froebel speaks of his projected institution at Helba as “fundamental,”
“inasmuch as in training and instruction it will rest on the foundation from which proceed all genuine knowledge and all genuine practical attainments; it will rest on life itself and on creative efforts, on the union and interdependence of doing and thinking, representation and knowledge, art and science. The institution will base its work on the pupil’s personal efforts in work and expression, making these, again, the foundation of all genuine knowledge and culture. Joined with thoughtfulness, these efforts become a direct medium of culture.”—E., p. 38.
Professor Stout’s account of how the unconscious mental activity of early childhood becomes transformed into the definite and conscious activity of fully developed will is, stated briefly, something to this effect. It is of the essence of conation to seek its own satisfaction, and this is only possible as the conation becomes definite. “Blind craving gives place to open-eyed desire,” as the original conation tends to define itself. So “the gradual acquisition of knowledge through experience is but another expression for the process whereby the originally blind craving becomes more distinct and more differentiated.” The grouping of cognitions is not produced by the conscious needs: “It is the way in which the conation itself grows and develops.”
For this account we can find a wonderfully exact parallel in one of Froebel’s less well-known papers, that on “Movement Plays.”
“All outer activity of the child has its ultimate and distinctive foundation in his inmost nature and life. The deepest craving of this inner activity is to behold itself mirrored in some outward object. In and through such representation, the child himself grasps and perceives the nature, direction and aim of his own activity, and learns also further to regulate and determine his life, that is his activity, according to these outward phenomena.”—P., p. 238.
This craving for outward representation, by satisfaction of which the child gains knowledge of the ends of his activity, is an exact equivalent of Stout’s blind craving which gives place to open-eyed desire as it tends to define itself. Froebel’s conclusion, that only as this unconscious or blind craving for action is satisfied does the child become “conscious of the nature, direction and ends of his own activity,” is but another way of stating Professor Stout’s conclusion, that the grouping of cognitions, which is the gradual acquirement of knowledge through experience,