child's religion must be largely a
natural religion.

How to introduce a child to religion is a problem which must have many
solutions. In Froebel's original training course, his Kindergarten
teachers were to be "trained to the observation and care of the earliest
germs of the religious instinct in man." These earliest beginnings he
found in different sources. First come the relations between the child
and the family, beginning with the mother; fatherhood and motherhood
must be realised before the child can reach up to the Father of all.
Then there is the atmosphere of the home, the real reverence for higher
things, if it exists, affects even a little child more than is usually
supposed, but children are quick to distinguish reality from mere
conventionality though the distinction is only half conscious. Reality
impresses, while conventionality is apt to bore. Even to quite young
children Froebel's ideal mother would begin to show God in nature. Some
one put into the flowers the scent and colour that delight the
child--some one whom he cannot see. The sun, moon and stars give light
and beauty, and "love is what they mean to show." This mother teaches
her little one some sort of prayer, and the gesture of reverence, the
folded hands, affects the child even if the words mean little or
nothing. Akin to the "feeling of community" between the child and his
family is the joining in religious worship in church, "the entrance in a
common life," and the emotional effect of the deep tones of the organ.
Then there is the interdependence of the universe: the baby is to thank
Jenny for his bread and milk, Peter for mowing the grass for the cow,
"until you come to the last ring of all, God's father love for all."
Next to this comes the child's service; others work for him and he also
must serve. "Every age has its duties, and duties are not burdens," and
it is necessary that feeling should have expression, "for even a child's
love unfostered (by action in form of service) droops and dies away."
There is also the desire for approbation. The child "must be roused to
good by inclination, love, and respect, through the opinion of others
about him," and this should be guided until he learns to care chiefly
for the approval of the God within. Right ideals must be provided:
religion is "a continually advancing endeavour," and its reward must
not be a material reward. We ought to lift and strengthen human nature,
but we degrade and weaken it