knowledge of number, form, color and music. A great deal has been done for some children in teaching them self-control. "I think the effect of the kindergarten training has been decidedly favorable to the progress of the children in my own grade.

Their progress in point of time has not been much quicker, as I have had very few who have had more than one year of kindergarten training, and several of the bright ones have been delicate children who could only attend half a day or quite irregularly.

"I have a class of children whose parents are not anxious to have them pushed.

"The character of the work done has been much improved."

VI

"I have taught four years, one in the Hancock district and three in the W. Allston.

"The first year fifty per cent of my children were from the kindergarten; the second, third and fourth years about fifteen per cent.

Kindergarten children are creative, self-active and independent. They are accustomed to school life and used to being one of many instead of one alone.

"They have been waked up and are used to thinking. They are ready to begin to learn, whereas other children, with the exception of those who have brilliant minds, have to become accustomed to school work. Kindergarten children have learned how to work, how to use their hands, how to care for property.

"They have a good foundation for any kind of work.

"For the above reasons they are able to do the work of my grade in half the prescribed time. They always get more out of their work than other children and are always at the head of the class."

VII

"I have taught six years in the first grade. About 30 per cent of my children have come to me from the kindergarten.

"I have observed that kindergarten children are interested and ready at once for the work. The other children do not know how to act. Much time is taken up in teaching them minor details. They are not so quick with their fingers.

"The kindergarten children know how to handle their pencils and learn to write in a very short time.

"In every case the kindergarten children have shown. marked progress in the primary grades.

"Toward the latter part of the school year they have done second grade work. I have been interested in following their course through the grammar school, and have found. that they received double promotion."

VIII

"I have taught children in the first grade fifteen years. "Last year about fifty per cent, this year about sixty per cent, and in preceding years perhaps thirty or forty per cent, of my children came to me from the kindergarten.

"I find the children who have had two years of kindergarten training ready to do the work of the first grade, whereas other children need a great deal of preliminary work. The muscles of the hands of these children have been so trained that they are ready to use pen or pencil for writing and drawing, ready to cut and fold paper, ready to handle material for seat work. This training of the hands has had its corresponding development in the brain, and their minds are ready to intelligently guide the hands and to grasp new ideas. Their eyes have been so trained that they are ready for the color, form and observation work. This training of the eye affects also the work in reading very noticeably, as the children distinguish the forms of words and letters more easily. Their ears have been so trained that they are ready to listen and follow directions. Their number experiences have been many and varied, and it is in arithmetic especially that I notice their advantage over other children.

"In fact the normal child who has had a thorough kindergarten training does rapidly, and with ease, understanding, joy and appreciation what the normal child without this training does slowly and with difficulty.

"The kindergarten training has helped many of my children to do the work of the primary grade in less time than other children, but I think the great gain has been in the character of the work. It has been in quality rather than in quantity; in enrichment and expansion rather than in extent."

IX

"I have taught children in the first grade eight years. "I have always had some kindergarten children in my class with the exception of this year. Last year my class was made up wholly of the kindergarten children. The kindergarten children are wide-awake. I never had such an enthusiastic spirit in my class as I did the year it was made up wholly of kindergarten children. The children who come directly from home are, as a rule, diffident, and not responsive. It usually takes two weeks to get acquainted, to find some common bonds of interest. The kindergarten children I had watched in the kindergarten. I knew the stories and pictures they loved; the work they had done in form and color, and the games they had played. We were friends at once, and the work began earlier and with less friction. The children from home stand in awe of the teacher; the others have grown to love school and its work. The spirit of helpfulness is very strong. The first two weeks of school I was troubled with the discipline. The children talked aloud and hummed, but they worked. The humming did mean a happy spirit, but of course it did hinder the work. The talking without permission I found was almost always prompted by good motives. At the end of three weeks these children succeeded very well in these directions. They are good workers and they must have enough to do. Folding hands and sitting up straight does not appeal to them.

"The training given the children in the kindergarten enables them to take up work more intelligently. They are wide-awake in observation lessons. They are quick in recognition of form and color, and in seeing resemblances. They are intensely interested in stories and poems. I never had a class who read with so much expression. I think the work done in the kindergarten songs sweetened their voices. Of course I do not think the kindergarten training makes a dull boy bright, but I do think that a dull child is brighter and more responsive than if he had not had this training.

"In point of time, if by that is meant double promotions, the children have not gone on any faster. But I do think the children were better developed and more ready to take up the second grade work than the children entering the first grade from home.

"I think the kindergarten children do better and neater work. They are more self-reliant. They have more creative power and are always ready with new combinations in design work."

X

"I have taught the lowest grade in the primary school for four years. My first class contained no kindergarten children; my second, third and fourth contained 33 1-3, 100 and 70 per cent respectively, making an average of 51 per cent. "I have found the kindergarten children to have broader, more original and better trained minds than most of the other children. They are better able to concentrate their attention; they grasp an idea more readily and go ahead by themselves. They distinguish form more quickly, and so learn to write and read in a shorter time than the others. They have already formed habits of cleanliness and punctuality which, with other children of the lower classes, we have to struggle some months to establish.

"I think the kindergarten training has advanced the progress of the children in the primary school both in point of time and in the character of the work. If a child has had two years' training in a kindergarten and then enters my room at the age of five and a half or six he can generally finish the first grade work by March first and enter the third grade in September, and, as I have stated in the previous paragraph, the work is better and more intelligently done and shows much originality."

ΧΙ

"It is a great pleasure to me to have the opportunity offered by the questions sent us relative to kindergarten work in preparation for the Paris Exposition to say that I think the kindergarten training is of vital importance to the children of foreign and ignorant parentage such as we have in our district. From general judgment I say that all children need the kindergarten, but I know that it is of the first importance to those who come from oppressed, lawless and unlovely homes. I hope the fact that I have taught only two years in this grade will not render my testimony worthless. "Last year about 5 per cent of my children had had some, but not a complete kindergarten training. This year, for one month, about 95 per cent of my children were from the

kindergarten. At the end of that time the best 45 per cent moved on, the rest remaining with me. None of those left with me had completed the kindergarten course before entering the primary grade. That one month's experience with nearly a whole class of kindergarten children was delightful. "To my mind the comparative characteristics of the kindergarten child and the street child are these:

"The kindergarten child observes and discriminates; is intelligent in his attitude towards things; is able to remember things taught: is ingenious, spontaneous, interested and imaginative; has a sense of honor and respects the property and rights of others; is gentle, kind, helpful and thoughtful; possesses a sense of the beautiful, and a sense of individual moral responsibility; is cognizant of the Supreme Being and reverential.

"The street child is unobservant, dull in attitude, weak in imagination, indifferent to things. He is rough, shameless, thoughtless, teasing, disregards the rights and property of others, is little moved by the beautiful, is ignorant in general, and, therefore, lacking in love and reverence. He has no sense of individual responsibility and is morally chaotic. "The kindergarten child has further learned to direct himself along a specific line of action whether it be work or control, in obedience to a spoken or unspoken law. He is, in short, intelligent, sensitive, responsive and self-directing in a far greater degree than the other child. With regard to rapidity of progress, I can answer only in regard to the work in my own grade. The kindergarten child, as I have observed him, moves much more rapidly over the ground of work than another child of equal ability.

"The character of the work done by kindergarten children shows a great improvement over that done by other children. Their manual training helps them to learn writing and seat work more quickly. The information they have acquired in the kindergarten and the dexterity they have gained enable them to progress rapidly, while at the same time their work is better done. They bring to their work a respect for it which increases their sense both of its dignity and of their own dignity.

"Of great importance in such a district as ours is the training in understanding good English which the kindergarten gives the child. Our children who come directly from the homes are a long time learning to understand us