organism of school, and every mother should acquire an early knowledge of the principles of FROEBEL's educational system, and every girls' school ought to have in its programme the theoretical and practical instruction of it. One of the chief causes that FROEBEL'S method mostly has been executed imperfectly is the insufficient training of Kindergärtners. The six-months time is insufficient for a thorough training (and was insufficient also with FROEBEL), and the consequence of a too short time of training has been, that only a small number of Kindegärtners are able through continued studies and experience to apply FROEBEL's method in their Kindergartens. Nothing has done more harm than these unfinished Kindergärtners, who neither know to conduct the Kindergartens in FROEBEL's spirit, nor know to give an account of the principles and method. The very small number of practical genuine Kindergärtners has been the cause that many projected Kindergartens could not be realized or were insufficiently executed, and in consequence died a natural death. In those Kindergartens of these "short-studied Kindergärtners" mostly mere imitation is seen. Every Kindergärtner should always one year--or at least half a year- help practically in a Kindergarten before conducting one. From a well-qualified Kindergärtner is demanded: (1) Love for children, and that she feel happy in their company; (2) a clear insight into child's nature and life up to the seventh year; (3) an exact knowledge and spiritual comprehension united with dextrous handling and turning to account, or realization, of all of FROEBEL's means of occupation; (4) some musical knowledge and ability, so as to execute and guide cleverly and with pleasure FROEBEL's songs and plays, and to create around her a happy, merry life; (5) knowledge of nature, so as to be enabled to show to the children every where the Creator's love, wisdom and power; (6) a cheerful humor that can easily enter into the child's play, and is not too easily affected by childish naughtiness; (7) conscientiousness; and (8) a pure and perfect culture of mind and character. One other point is often overlooked: that the learning and studying of the system does not make Kindergärtners. ORGANIC LINK BETWEEN KINDERGARTEN AND SCHOOL.-Kindergarten education will have its true success only then, when the organic link between it and the school is created; such a link brings the greatest advantage to the school, because the Kindergarten itself gives security for an all-sided natural training. The school must not be a Kindergarten, and the Kindergarten not a school. It is a matter of course that FROEBEL intended to continue the system of educational development after Kindergarten was absolved; that therefore his labors were not confined to the latter, which was but one of the features of his system of education. This brings us to the intermediate class. The intermediate class has to fill the gap which yet exists between Kindergarten and school; it stands, according to FROEBEL, in the middle between the Kindergarten and the proper learn-school, or of comprehension and conception, combining both, and is to form the necessary link of connection between them. The intermediate class continues that which has been begun in the Kindergarten, with the same material and the same method in extension. The intermediate class offers completely the conditions to realize the education for work. FROEBEL'S method gives the starting-point for each science and each profession. In order to reap the highest results of the Kindergarten principle, it is not only important to follow it with artistic and industrial work-shops, and schools of practical agriculture, but it is also desirable for the scholars to make excursions to observe the phenomena of a universal nature, as well as to visit manufactories, mills, forges and museums; thus the young will learn real life, in applying more and more the principle of free and spontaneous activity, and will desire to reach the hight of demonstration and abstraction in all branches of knowledge. Superior methods of teaching the arts and sciences now exist, of which he will know how to take advantage. The habits of the mind, formed by the pupils of FROEBEL, will reäct necessarily on the development of existing methods. The inner feeling or intuition will be called to take a free flight, while ordinary schools degrade intuition. The Kindergarten is to be finally developed in the garden of the young, so called, where each pupil can lawfully manifest freely and without restraint his individuality. The garden of the young serves as an auxiliary to maintain the purity of the heart, to elevate the mind by moral pleasure, to procure æsthetical enjoyments, by music and creative art. If time would permit, I would in this connection make some brief remarks on school-gardens, to which in the Old World ever more attention is paid, especially in Austria. Have already called the attention on another occasion to the World's Exhibition at Vienna, where for the first time it will be shown how "learning and earning" can be united; where it will be illustrated as it never has been done before, namely, the human race experienced and experiences, as the individual does, from its birth, the different grades of development: infancy, youth, manhood, and the culmination of the development. And again, in the development of the life of the individual, the general traits belonging to the development of the race, as we trace it in history, may be seen. It is FROEBEL'S undenied merit to have recognized the fact, and to have found the means to aid in this development from earliest infancy. I have further shown that since last year Austria has taken the lead in introducing Kindergartens, and unites them organically with the public schools. (I hold in my hand the degree of the Austrian Minister of Instruction, STREMAYR, from June 22d, 1872, R.G. B. No. 108, containing 27 paragraphs.) This is a step in the right direction, for the benefits of FROEBEL'S educational idea will only be completely appreciated when it shall have been applied in all its degrees, and when the whole of the childhood from the earliest age to close of youth shall have been passed in the gardens of mind. In conclusion, I will state that what gives pleasure to children generally and at all times serves always for their development in some way; that in the intermediate class likewise, as in the Kindergarten, the children will come together on the principle of harmonious working, of equal claims to development, culture and the care of the teacher; that here, as said before, is continued what has been begun in the Kindergarten, with the same material and the same method in extension; that in short the intermediate class offers completely the conditions to realize the education for work. The discussion of the subject was continued by W. N. BARRINGER, N.J.; Z. RICHARDS, Washington, D.C.; Miss PAYSON, of Chicago Ill.; and Miss KATE FRENCH, of N.J. A paper was presented by Superintendent A. J. RICKOFF, of Cleveland, Ohio, as follows. SCHOOL-HOURS FOR CHILDREN UNDER TEN. It is injudicious to prescribe for all the children in a place or for all places alike. The delicate child should be sent to school only as he can be without prejudice to his health; and though all power to regulate school attendance is and must be vested in boards of education, and the administration of their rules must be to a greater or less degree left to the discretion of the teacher, the wishes of careful and thoughtful parents ought, in public as well as in private schools, to be respected in this matter. On the other hand, in all our cities, and too frequently in our smaller towns and villages, there is a class of children who are neglected at home, by idle, improvident, ignorant and even vicious parents, whose school is the street and whose teachers are of the criminal classes. This class of children ought to be kept in school as many days in the year and as many hours per day as possible. Between these two classes, one of which should be kept out of school the most of the time and the other kept in school, if possible, all their waking hours, there is almost an endless variety, for each of which provision should be specifically made, were it possible to do so. There is, therefore, nothing left us but to meet as far as we can the average condition of childhood. But we are compelled to speak not only of the average child, but of the average schoolroom and average teacher. There are school-rooms, and too many of us see them at times, which should lay boards of education liable to indictment for maintaining nuisances; and there are deaths of little children which, if subjected to thorough-going and honest inquest, would lay them liable to indictment for manslaughter,—that is, if criminal neglect and carelessness can ever be reached by penalties of law. There are teachers, too, who ought never to have the charge of a school-room. They are of an unhappy temperament themselves and they seem to have a subtle skill in making every body about them unhappy, especially little children. In such school-rooms and under such teachers it would be well if the school-hours were reduced for the average child to less than three hours per day. On the other hand, we may imagine schoolrooms with such surroundings and under the care of such teachers, educators rather, as would make attendance at school a continual source at once of delight and profit, to be interrupted only that the holy ties of the home might be maintained unimpaired. I have spoken of these possible extremes in the character and condition of the children to be taught, and in the circumstances under which they are to be taught, that I may thereby possibly forestall a discussion which might be of little practical utility, because presuming upon wholly impossible conditions. We have to come then to the solution of the question really before us- What school-hours would this association recommend for little children between six and ten years of age, that is, for the average child in ordinary schools? Let me give my answer and the reason therefor. For the first two or three months I would not keep children in school more than three hours per dayan hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon. From that time on till nine years of age, four hours per day is sufficient. Not only is it sufficient, but longer confinement I should judge to be prejudicial to mental as well as physical development. From nine to ten and thereafter, five hours per day are enough. Now I can not take the time to say all that ought to be said in way of limitation and modification of the general law announced. It must be remembered that I speak of the average child and the schools as they generally are. For the first three months, then, an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon is all that ought to be required; with one proviso, however, that whenever it be possible arrangements be made at school for the care of the little children of the working-women during the hours of the recess. This much of discrimination ought to be exercised—nay, must and will be, in our larger cities at least, either by means of classification of schools or by other special means. Do you ask why an hour and a half in the morning, and an hour and a half in the afternoon? Why not three hours in the morning, and, as some have proposed, bring another class of children together in the afternoon, it may or may not be, with a change of teachers? In reply I have to say that the average teacher has not versatility and power enough to keep children, in the first three months of school-going, pleasantly and profitably, for three hours continuously engaged. Nor, if they had, are the school-rooms adapted to the exercise which the children need in the first weeks of confinement following years of unrestrained liberty. But they have only a short time to attend school, and they can not afford to waste their time, says the objector. I answer that the element of time and the value of repetition is greatly overestimated. When the mind is in the right state, as the photographic plate is when it is put into the camera, the impression is almost instantaneous, and too long exposure only confuses the impression, and repetition without attention tends to almost fatal dissipation of the powers of thought. It seems to me that the abstraction of thought, which some times makes the child appear stupid in the eyes of the teacher, is the very means by which his natural intellect is preserved from stupefaction. Again, I would have two sessions in the day, because I would have the child form the habit of going regularly to school, as his father goes to work, morning and afternoon. It is the commencement of the discipline of life. Let me say here, that at times the school authorities may be compelled to have half-time schools, as they are called, to hush the clamors of those whose children would be otherwise crowded out because of the want of room. But it seems to me that no measure could be attended with greater hazard, if even this expedient assume the authority of custom. What I have said of the first three months of schooling may be said, with slight variation, of the periods which follow. As the muscle, bone and brain harden and strengthen by age and exercise, the hours of confinement in the school-room may be increased, but not proportionally. It must be remembered that, as self-control assumes its sway, continuity and intensity of application increase in greatly accelerated ratio, and that it is true in the action of the mind as in the working of machinery that, as you increase the pressure, the wear and tear increases in more than geometrical ratio. I have said, therefore, that for the pupils of the higher classes five hours of school-work per day is enough. Let me say in conclusion that, while I think I have recommended what is desirable and practicable to-day, I have not indicated the direction which true progress will take. In the schools of the future I believe that the younger children, children from four to eight or ten years of age, children who at home would depend upon wise and loving parents for the direction of their plays and sports, that children at that age will have the advantage of the sole attention of wise and loving educators (not teachers) in the Kindergarten; educators that understand the wisdom of leaving the human spirit sufficiently alone, that it may grow according to its own law, and yet will know how to supply the conditions of growth. In such schools, the hours of exercise and instruction absorption, I ought to say - will be increased, and six hours will not be considered too much. In the higher schools of the future, when the hours of conscious effort come, in the higher classes of the grammar school and in the high school, the hours of instruction and labor will be reduced. The following list of officers was elected for the ensuing year: President-HENRY F. HARRINGTON, New Bedford, Mass. N. A. CALKINS, President. - |