The Kindergarten

One morning a foreign lady visited the kindergarten, accompanied by her child. She asked to see some information about the school, and after touring all its parts and learning everything she wished to know, she asked — without hesitation — to enroll her child. I said to her: "But it will not escape you, Madam, that we do not formally teach foreign languages in this kindergarten." She answered: "Would it ever occur to me to burden my child with learning languages when he is no more than six years old? All I hope for him, Madam, is that he live in a wholesome environment, romp among this collection of carefully chosen educational toys that guide him in a sound, scientific direction, mix with children close to him in age, and remain always under health and psychological supervision... When I place my child in the hands of child specialists, I am confident that they will give him what he needs and what he is ready to take in of learning, and they are too wise to impose learning on him before his brain is prepared to receive it..."

I shook this lady's hand and thanked her for her confidence, and as I watched her steps recede from me I asked myself: "When, I wonder, will the sons of our country grasp the idea of the kindergarten with the simplicity with which this lady set it out? When will fathers place their trust in the trained educator, consult her in solving their children's problems, and explore with her the possibilities of refining their natures and habits, encouraging their gifts and inclinations, and making of them the highest model of the child as he ought to be — not as they want him to be?"

A few days after this incident, I got in touch with one of the well-known journalists of this country, inquiring why his daughter had been absent from the kindergarten four days running. He came in person and courteously gave me to understand that his little girl would be leaving the kindergarten because she was obliged to leave the capital in her mother's company. But this argument of his did not convince me — perhaps because I read another story in his eyes. I pressed the matter further with him, and before long he uttered what I wanted to know. He said: "I, Madam, want my daughter to learn. She has been here three months and has not held a book — not even a copybook and pencil! If they learn anything, what is it then: play? She plays perfectly well at home... and there she costs me nothing!" So I asked him: "And how old is your daughter?" He answered: "Three and a half." I said: "And do you hope to teach her language at this early age?" I tried my hardest to make the idea of the kindergarten clear to him, and to point out the general improvements in his little girl's condition. He agreed to all my points, thanked me with a smile, and departed, promising to bring his daughter back the next day — but he did not bring her back! Because his fossilized mentality would not let him acknowledge the truth... Withdrawals for this reason recurred many times over after the first term of the school year, and our defense on this subject was like one crying out in a wilderness...

Public opinion in our country, gentlemen, has not yet tasted the true meaning of the kindergarten. You see most parents enter their children in the kindergarten — while they are under five — and expect us to teach them reading, writing, and arithmetic; otherwise, in their eyes, we are falling short. It escapes them that their child, thanks to the psychological guidance he receives from his teachers and thanks to the educational toys placed in his hands, has gained and profited without knowing it. He has become more precise and quicker in observation, stronger in expression, clearer in speech, and more self-reliant. It escapes them, too, how much the child is refined and how much he acquires as he mingles with his classmates and companions, in the classroom and the garden; and how much he profits on the social side, as he grows accustomed to self-denial, cooperation in work, the bearing of responsibilities, the championing of right, and truthfulness before all else. Through training and experience he sees that the liar is detested and the lover of self a loser, and so he is led to rid himself of these faults that trouble the serenity of life.

Ladies and gentlemen: when the kindergarten of the Lebanese Women's League was founded last October, mighty efforts were made to make it a model kindergarten keeping pace with the newest kindergartens. We drew our materials from research and studies on kindergartens in America and Europe, and we took care to tint it with two bright colors: first, the Arab Lebanese color, and second, the non-sectarian color — for we felt that the ailment of our country is caused by the weakness of these two elements, especially at the age of childhood, when the child's mind is like dough, taking whatever shape the educator wishes for it.

Our child draws his religion from truthfulness, justice, love, and faith — those sublime qualities that spring from God Almighty... And our child loves his country, sings its praises, is devoted to its language, because he lives in an atmosphere that strengthens and respects it.

The child's personality is the axis toward which our eyes are turned. This being so, we must encourage everything apt to develop and bring out the powers latent in the child, and avoid all pressure or imposing of orders, so that our child may live in a free, natural atmosphere, merge into his surroundings, and see for himself the results of his actions. We discuss with him any fault he has committed or mistake he has fallen into; and if punishment is required, it is the guilty child himself who passes judgment on it and accepts it in silence, convinced of it and understanding its point of view. Rarely is a fault repeated that is treated with this psychological analysis. Our child is a little man, with an opinion that must be considered and a personality that must be respected. And what use would it be if our sons mastered several languages and their personality were lost — that weapon worn by the one who cries out in the face of injustice, that weapon which makes of the ordinary man a critic and a leader, that weapon of which certain non-national schools have stripped us... or nearly so...

It is truly a matter for regret to see the greater part of our schools still clinging to the old methods of raising children. In them are many harsh systems and methods that conflict with the ways of modern education and keep the true idea of the kindergarten far from the child's mind, making of it a narrow prison for his small body, so that he hates school from his tenderest years and grows artful in scheming to stay away from it; and this dreadful image remains in possession of his mind even after he grows up and finishes his studies. Psychologists have proved that the images imprinted on the child's imagination in his first years have the gravest effect, not only on the first stage of his life but on all its stages.

In the light of this truth, the greatness of the responsibility laid upon our shoulders — we who are responsible for the kindergartens — becomes plain to us. We must make of them a delightful paradise, in keeping with the merry, innocent nature of childhood, so eager for adventure and freedom. The kindergarten and its garden should be fitted out with all kinds of educational toys that satisfy the instinct of curiosity in children and make school dear to them, so that they frolic in it the whole day long, dream of it on some of their days, and hurry to it in the morning with radiant faces and shining eyes, ready to please their teachers and carry out their duties with pleasure and energy. And when they have completed their time there and made ready to enter the primary school, they will enter it armed, sure of themselves, carrying in their minds a beautiful picture of school as we wish to make it, and in their imaginations a clear picture of the days of childhood, as we love to remember them.

"This lecture was delivered over Radio Lebanon."