358 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
The child, if left to himself, will discover symbolism in nature. When it is given to 
him ready made, it has the tendency to render him superstitious, credulous, and super- 
ficial; glib-tongued but not really intelligent, because, not having made use of the facul- 
ties whose special function it is to relate symbolism and natural phenomena at the time 
when these faculties were in their germinal stage of being, the power has gone by, and 
a pleasurable sensation is produced upon him, not so much at the symbols themselves as 
oy the love he has for those who, in their impatient zeal to help the child realize God in 
rature, would stimulate the poetic sense innate in the breast of the human being by an 
arbitrary symbolism, thereby sacrificing the child’s power to discover for himself the 
‘elation between symbolism and natural phenomena. 
Wherever the kindergarten makes its appearance, there we may expect to find among 
che children a tendency toward many words and few ideas, in strong contrast to the lines 
juoted : 
¢ Simple words with meaning fraught.” 
I have in my mind a number of examples of this kind of teaching. I never visit 
zindergartens without being convinced of the injurious effects upon the children of an 
overdose of fairy stories and stories in which symbolism is overdrawn. That parents 
and kindergartners do not see the evil effects, is no sign that the harm is not being done. 
The result shows itself later on in life. 
I remember particularly one little girl, the daughter of literary and devoted parents, 
doth of whom had made a study of the kindergarten. This child was a little more than 
four years of age when her mother brought her to me, saying : My little girl is far in 
advance of children of her own age because we have always kept her with us. I should 
[ike sometime to have you hear her recite some poems which I have taught her. She 
will improvise by the hour most charming little fairy stories in which she will people the 
‘urniture, walls, and even the parts of the room with fantastic creations of her brain.” 
The mother accounted for this by the fact that she had always tried to have her little 
daughter see the symbolism concealed in every concrete manifestation of the divine 
mind ; that in her conversations with her little girl she had always given her two mean. 
ings to words and natural objects, viz.: the commonly accepted name itself and its 
symbolic significance. 
The time came for me to hear the little girl recite. From beginning to end the little 
‘our-year-old recited, without one word of prompting, ‘Paul Revere’s Ride,” with as 
much expression as we might expect from the original reciter of the story. When she 
had finished she gave a little spasmodic sigh of nervous fatigue, and I detected an 
annatural expression in her large brown eyes. This same child would sit at the kinder- 
garten table, with other children who were busy and happy at some creative and con- 
structive work, and with her hands folded and eyes vacantly staring into the distance, 
she would suddenly, to the amazement and consternation of children and kindergartner, 
sing out in a plaintive sort of tone a string of pretty words with no more logical connec- 
tion than there is between a rock and a butterfly. 
Another example will serve to illustrate my point. The following conversation took 
place between two kindergartners. While I took no direct part in the discussion, I 
listened with a great deal of interest, for the young lady who was defending a rational, 
natural method was the very embodiment of religious enthusiasm and had been remark- 
ably successful in leading many children through the material into a spiritual attitude 
of soul. First kindergartner: “Our games are different from all others. Our words 
are usually original with the kindergartner’s ingenuity, assisted at times by the children. 
They are, for the most part, descriptive of natural phenomena, as, for instance, crystal- 
lization, evaporation, freezing, radiation, and so on. The children, in these games, 
personate the particles of matter in their activities. They are in turn particles of snow,