Kindergarten Principles And Practice

NDERGARTNER . 1 NATURE-STUDY . 23 bYMBOUSM ITS USE IN KINDERGARTEN SONGS AND GAMES 43 THE TEACHING OF PATRIOTISM . . f52 CONNECTION OF CONTRASTS THE LAW OF BALANCE 74 FROEBELS MOTHER PLAY 92 MORAL TRAINING 1C8 THE SCHOOL OF SPEUSIPPUS ART IN THE SCHOOL ROOM 128 KINDERGARTEN PLAY 145 MOKE ABOUT PLAY . .... 171 THE KINDERGARTEN AS A SCHOOL OF LIFE FOR WOMEN 177 EXCELSIOR ... . ... 191 The subjects of Childrens Playthings, Childrens Literature, Story-telling, Cooperative Work and Discipline are omitted in this book, as they are treated in the volume entitled Childrens Rights. KINDERGARTEN PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE THE ART AND MISSION OF THE KINDERGARTNER To be a kindergartner is the perfect development of woman liness, a working with God at the very fountain of artistic and intellectual power and moral character. It is therefore the highest finish that can be given to a womans education to be trained for a kindeigartner. ELIZABETH PAUCBB PEABODT. AMONG the other vocations which have grown up for women in the last quarter cen- j. . tury, none is more important, or signifi-Relation to cant of better things, than that which embraces the training and culture of childhood, for it has drawn into the channel of a scientifi cally learned and practiced profession the best and highest instincts of the sex. Frederic Denison Maurice says The zeal which has been awakened respecting infant edu cation has been of infinite worth, for it is impossi ble in educating little children to think chiefly of reading, writing, and ciphering. We are com pelled to remember that we have living spirits to deal with, which must, by most wonderful and 2 THE ART AND MISSION mysterious processes wherein we may be agents but cannot be principals, be brought to trust, to think, to hope, and then to know It is difficult to see how the true position of women as regards education could ever have been mistaken for a moment. And in one sense it never has been mistaken for that mothers must bring up their children, to use the common ex pression, and that, when the mothers care faild, such bringing up must be delegated to another woman, is the most universally acknowledged fact of every-day life. But what is not so universally understood is that bringing up is another name for education and that education, to be effectual, must be conducted with a purpose and according to knowledge. Froebel cannot be said to have discovered a new fact, or even propounded a new the r oebei, ory, when he hailed women as the true ministers of the great work of refor-. mation which he undertook. He only strove to give a new direction to the old activity, and to make manifest the true ground on which it should proceed. Pestalozzi, and Rousseau before him, had made public appeals to women but Froe bei renewed them with fresh force, calling upon the mothers, wives, and maidens of the German nation to undertake their natural task, that which love and necessity equally bound upon them, but to undertake it with a wider and more distinct pur OF THE E1NDEEGARTNER 3 pose. The stress which Froebel lays upon early child-culture shows the immense value he attaches to the precious formative period of life, and ex plains the lofty ideal he invariably sets before the kindergartner. He seems to have descended deeper into the well of truth than any previous educator, and his insight into the value of study ing childhoods earliest manifestations was the richest treasure he found there... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.