Chicago, which is co-operative with the social settlement work in that city. Conspicuous among normal departments conducted under the auspices of kindergarten associations, is the training school of Miss C. M. C. Hart in Baltimore, which, in addition to a two years' course for kindergartners, offers a fine post-graduate course, and a course preparatory for normal work. Other training schools connected with kindergarten associations are the normal departments of the Froebel association, and the Free kindergarten association of Chicago, and the training schools conducted under the auspices of the Louisville and Golden Gate associations. Kindergarten departments have been established in several great quasi-public institutions. Among the most notable of these are the kindergarten department of Pratt institute, Brooklyn, and of Teachers college, Columbia university, and of Workingman's institute, New York. Of the 164 public normal schools in the United States 36 provide some kind of kindergarten training, the courses varying in length from about two years to six months. These kindergarten departments are distributed as follows in the normal schools of the different states: New York, 7 Pennsylvania, 4 Massachusetts, 3 New Jersey, 2 Connecticut, 2 Illinois, I Kansas, I Rhode Island, I Wisconsin, 2 Georgia, I Nebraska, I Ohio, I The public normal schools whose kindergartens are most worthy of mention are those of Boston, Milwaukee and Philadelphia. In general, however, the kindergarten work in public normal schools is inferior to that of private training schools, kindergarten associations and the great institutions to which reference has been made above. Kindergartners are admitted to surpass all other teachers as students of educational literature. They are also distin guishing themselves by zealous and persistent attendance upon post-graduate courses in pedagogics, science, literature, history and psychology. Between the years 1880 and 1888 large numbers of St. Louis kindergartners participated in classes organized during successive winters for the study of Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles, Homer, Dante and Goethe. They also followed lecture courses in psychology and philosophy, and constantly attended classes devoted to the deeper study of Froebel's educational principles and the illustration of his method. Through the efforts of the Chicago kindergarten college post-graduate work of a high order has become a feature of Froebelian activity in that city, and for many years there has been conducted each winter a literary school whose lecturers are recognized as the greatest interpreters in America of the supreme works of literature. During successive winters Miss Laura Fisher, director of the public school kindergartens of Boston, has organized postgraduate classes in the study of the Mother Play and the Pedagogics of the Kindergarten and has also conducted valuable courses in literature and psychology. Through the efforts of Miss C. P. Dozier, supervisor of the New York kindergarten association, and Miss Mary D. Runyan, head of the kindergarten department of Teachers college, Columbia university, post-graduate work has been organized in New York city. Classes in psychology, literature and the philosophy of history are conducted by Miss Hart in Baltimore, and courses in literature and psychology are already given in connection with the young but flourishing work of Miss Niel in Washington. In Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Buffalo and other cities post-graduate work is less developed, but good beginnings have been made. The power of the kindergarten over the minds of its students arises from the fact that it connects the ideal of selfculture with the ideal of child-nurture. The true woman does not wish to "deck herself with knowledge as with a garment, or to wear it loose from the nerves and blood that feed her action." Therefore, she responds with whole heart to the appeal to learn all she can, be all she can, and devote all she is and all she knows to the service of childhood. Rooted in maternal impulses it would be strange indeed if the kindergarten did not appeal to mothers. That classes for mothers should come into existence was a predestined phase of the Froebelian movement. Whoever has studied the writings of Froebel knows that the education of mothers was one of the most important features of his endeavor. Practically, however, the work in this direction amounted to very little until a mothers' department was established in that unique institution, the Chicago kindergarten college. I call this institution unique because it has consciously attempted the transformation of the girls' college into a school for motherhood. The colleges for men offer many different courses. Why should not the colleges for women offer at least elective courses in subjects fitting their students for the vocation of mother and home maker? Why should not the study of Froebel's Mother Play, the use of kindergarten gifts and the practice of kindergarten games be made one of these elective courses? Why should not all institutions which ignore the mission of woman as nurturer be supplanted by institutions like the Chicago kindergarten college, which, while giving general culture, make it their supreme aim to fit women for the work, which, if there be any meaning in the process of natural evolution, is theirs by divine appointment? And, finally, why should not such institutions give instruction not only to young girls but to mothers themselves? During the single year 1891-92 the mothers' department of the Chicago college gave instruction to 725 mothers. In the eight years since its foundation it has given whole or partial courses to nearly five thousand mothers. The effects of such instruction in enhancing the sanctity and uplifting the ideals of family life can hardly be exaggerated. Recently the work of this department has been extended by holding convocations for the discussion of all phases of child-nurture. of such convocations have already been held, each of which had nine sessions of from two to two and one-half hours in Four length. The attendance was from three to five thousand persons. While the maternal ideal is dominant in the Chicago college it is not exclusive. This organization supports a number of kindergartens wherein students learn to apply Froebelian. principles. It has departments for kindergartners, kindergarten trainers and primary teachers. It has also departments of literature and publication and a philanthropic department, these several departments being all in the hands of competent specialists. Finally, it has developed and extended the literary and historic courses begun in St. Louis and by adding courses in science and art has connected the kindergarten with the total round of man's spiritual activity. Radiating from the kindergarten college as its center the maternal movement is spreading throughout the United States. It is the highest reach of the Froebelian ideal and means nothing more nor less than the attempted regeneration of all human life through the regeneration of the family. Froebel's supreme claim to our grateful remembrance rests upon the fact that consciously repeating the unconscious process of social evolution he set the little child in front of the great army of advancing humanity. Science affirms that the feebleness of infancy created the family and that from the family have been evolved the higher institutions. "Without the circumstances of infancy," writes one of our leading scientists, "we might have become formidable through sheer force of sharpwittedness. But except for these circumstances we should never have comprehended the meaning of such phrases as self-sacrifice or devotion. The phenomena of social life would have been omitted from the history of the world and with them the phenomena of ethics and religion." In his cry, "Come, let us live for the children," Froebel utters in articulate speech the ideal whose unconscious impulsion set in motion the drama of human history. The little child was pioneer of the process which created human institutions. We must make him the pioneer of their perfection. 1 Cosmic Philosophy, John Fiske, II: 363. |