the child a
social relation of abiding confidence, of secure trust, of faith
unshakable. And this relation will then create for the teacher the
obligation to keep this trust inviolable, to practice daily, _noblesse
oblige_. Teaching will be great art when with the subject-matter the
artist gives love, a great universal kindness that thinks not of
itself but, being no respecter of persons, looks upon each child in
the light of that child's own best realization. This penetrating
sympathy, this great understanding, will call forth from the child an
answering love, which grows daily into a larger humanity of soul until
the child, in time too, comes to have a universal sympathy. This is
the true greatness of teaching. This it is which brings the child into
harmony with the Divine love which speaks in all God's handiwork and
brings him into that unity with God which is the mystery of Froebel's
teaching.

During the story-telling one must ask, "In all this what is the part
the child has to play?" In the telling the teacher has aimed to give
what there is in the tale. The child's part is to receive what there
is in the tale, the emotion, the imagination, the truth, and the form
embodied in the tale. The content of feeling, of portrayal, of truth,
and of language he receives, he will in some way transmit before the
school day is ended, even if in forms obscure and hidden. Long years
afterwards, he may exhibit this same emotion, imagination, truth and
form, in deeds that proclaim loudly the return from his fairy tales.
However, if the child is being surrounded by pragmatic influences
through his teachers he will soon become aware that his feelings are
useless unless he does something because of them; that what he sees is
worthless unless he sees to some purpose; that it is somewhat
fruitless to know the truth and not use it; and if words have in their
form expressed the life of the tale, he is more dead than words not to
express the life that teems within his own soul. The little child
grows gradually into the responsibility for action, for expression,
into a consciousness of purpose and a knowledge of his own problems.
But each opportunity he is given to announce his own initiative breaks
down the inhibition of inaction and aids him to become a free
achieving spirit. As the child listens to the tale he is a thinking
human creature; but in the return which he makes to his tale he
becomes a quickened creator. The use which he mak