GARDEN STUDIES 131 



dead to us. With all our knowledge, we are empty for our children. 

 Almost all we say is hollow and empty, without content and without 

 life. Only in the few rare cases, when our speech rests on inter- 

 course with life and nature, do we rejoice in her life. 



Let us hasten, then! Let us impart life to ourselves, to our 

 children ; let us through them give meaning to our speech and life to 

 the things about us I Let us live with them, and let them live with 

 us ; thus shall we obtain through them what we all need. 



Our surroundings, the objects we see are lifeless ; they are dead 

 matter. They crush, instead of uplift us, for they lack the quicken- 

 ing word that gives them significance and meaning. 



Our speech is like the book out of which we have learned it, at 

 third or fourth hand. 



Fathers, parents, let us be up and doing ! what we lack let us 

 provide for our children. What we no longer possess — the all-quick- 

 ening, creative power of child-life — let it be again transfused from 

 their life into ours. Translated from Froebel's Menschen-Erzie- 

 hung, p. 55. 



In adult science we have been studying dead things so 

 long, dissecting and analyzing type-forms, that we have 

 well-nigh gone blind to the living, active side of nature ; 

 but this has furnished the primitive and fundamental, and 

 must furnish the larger future, interests of mankind in 

 nature. So completely does this side monopolize our 

 college and even university courses in biology that our 

 teachers know nothing else to teach. However much 

 value this may have for adult thought, when we attempt 

 to teach little children we must moult it all, heed every 

 suggestion of the great teacher, and become as little 

 children ourselves. 



