Symbolic Education.
An Early Commentary on Froebel’s Work
by a Nineteenth Century Female Kindergarten Teacher
[Froebel]. Blow, Susan E. Symbolic Education. A commentary on Froebel’s “Mother Play.” (International Education Series. Edited by William T. Harris, A.M., LL.D. Volume XXVI.) New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1894.
8vo.; green cloth, stamped in red, gilt, and black.
Third edition of this treatise by a late-19th century young female kindergarten teacher on Freidrich Froebel’s Mother’s Songs and Games (Mutter-Spiel und Koselieder), which was published fifteen years after his foundational The Education of Man. Issued as part of the International Education Series edited by William T. Harris, whose influence Blow acknowledges in her Author’s Preface:
Those of my readers who are familiar with the writings of Dr. Harris will recognize my indebtedness to him. The extent of this indebtedness no one can realize so fully as myself. I count it one of the great privileges of my life that my practical work in the kindergarten was begun and continued for seven years under his searching yet kindly criticism; nor am I less grateful for the insights which have come to me from his books, his lectures, and his many monographs on philosophy and education.
The first formally structured American kindergarten, based on Froebel’s model, was founded in Boston in 1860. Harris opens his sixteen page Editor’s Preface with statistics on the evolution of the kindergarten in the U.S. through 1892, and follows it with a discourse on the significance of “the advent of the kindergarten system in this country.” His discussion of the importance of developing a “correct method” for early childhood education is backed up by or juxtaposed with his examination of the salient philosophies on education, including Rousseau, Hegel, and Aristotle, in addition to Froebel.
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