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when we speak plain but good English. They are also a long time learning to express themselves. In the expression of what has been impressed upon them, kindergarten children are greatly in advance.

"The whole mental and moral character of the children who have attended the kindergarten is much superior to that of the children who come to us directly from the home.

"I have one suggestion, not a criticism, to make. A very few children, who have strong imagination and who prefer to use their imagination rather than their perception, are likely to have that tendency increased by the training in imagination given in the kindergarten, so that they have difficulty in seeing things as they really are. For example, such children repeatedly read one word of a sentence and then recite a sentence totally unlike what is before them. think that kindergarten teachers do not realize this as we do, and that in the care of such children they ought, perhaps, to lay more stress upon truth-telling. This is the only possible fault I have seen in a child as a kindergarten child, and this only in a very few children.

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"I wish that all children under six years of age in our district were compelled to go to the kindergarten before entering the primary room.'

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"It is my pleasure, as it is also my duty, to submit the following answers to the questions issued in the recent circular with regard to the effects of kindergarten training upon the pupils of my own grade, the first primary.

"Five years has been the length of my service in the first grade.

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About forty per cent of my pupils have received instruction in the kindergarten. The children who have had kindergarten training seem to possess greater enthusiasm for and interest in their school work, and, therefore, concentrate their attention sooner and for a longer period than those from home.

“My pupils from the kindergarten have greater and more accurate powers of observation and discrimination. This fact is noticeable in their quick recognition of written forms and their associated sounds.

"The vocabulary of the kindergarten child is larger, and his power of expression, therefore, greater. He is less shy

and timid and so expresses himself readily and freely. He is able from this fact to take up the regular language work in reading sooner, and so time is saved. The willingness to narrate his experiences is so marked that I have to be careful that the others have equal opportunities to express themselves. This is true particularly at the beginning of the school year.

"The experience gained in the kindergarten helps the child to understand the literature presented to him more readily and thoroughly.

"Generally the kindergarten child recognizes numbers and performs operations with them more quickly than other children, helped by his former work in weaving and other kindergarten occupations. These latter also These latter also help him to be more skillful with his hands. He can be left at his busy work with less oversight and with better results to be seen on inspection. This is a saving of time. The manual training which he has received also results in a greater power of expression in the drawing and writing lessons. The terms used in drawing are also more familiar, being recalled instead of newly learnt. Consequently less drill is needed.

"The kindergarten child is more familiar with school routine, and, therefore, requires fewer directions. Having attended school before, the primary teacher is not obliged to spend time and energy in comforting him on his separation from home friends.

'Finally, the kindergarten child seems to me more courteous, more helpful and more ready to recognize the rights of his fellow-pupils.

"The kindergarten pupils now in my own grade have been able to accomplish more in the required studies than those of the same age who came directly from home. The few exceptions occur in the cases of children who are not to be regarded as normal.

"Several children who have received the full kindergarten course have been able to omit the second year course in the primary, and have, therefore, completed that course in two years instead of the usual three years. This does not occur with other children unless they are unusually old when they enter or have special home training. One child, who proved too immature for the work of my grade, after a short training in the kindergarten, was able to do the work better and more quickly than he could possibly have done without it.

"That the character of the work has been improved, I have no doubt. Since I have always been so fortunate as to have some pupils from the kindergarten, I cannot compare the work accomplished with that of pupils, all of whom came direct from home. The comparison I have made between the latter and kindergarten children seems to be just, and I feel sure the kindergarten has helped to produce better results throughout my class, even when a very small proportion of the children in the class had had the benefit of its training."

The following letter, also received from Boston, and written by a teacher of third grade, shows that the influence of kindergarten training extends beyond the primary room:

"In speaking of the value of kindergarten training I judge from observation and inference rather than from a close grade connection with it.

"I have more than once met with such contrasts in the moral attitude and mental atmosphere of younger children who had been under kindergarten training, and older ones from the same family who began school life before kindergartens were established, that I can attribute the source of the happy and healthful influence to but one cause. Indeed,

it was unmistakably evident in several instances that the leaven had worked where it would happily do so much good in the future in raising the minds of the parents to a finer conception of the duties and possibilities in training their children. This has come to me more than once from a personal confession and acknowledgment. An influence that makes thus early for the formation of character surely cannot have too high an estimate, especially from those whose efforts must succeed it in the work.

"I feel that to the kindergarten training is due much of the possibility of developing in the children the power to observe, to generalize, to execute and to express themselves as intelligently and thoughtfully as they were able to do a year or two later in school life, before kindergartens were with us. In my present class the kindergarten children are all to be promoted with one exception, and they are ten months younger than the other children. Their average age is eight years and ten months, while that of the nonkindergarten children is nine years and eight months, or practically a year of school life. I find the difference is

about the same in favor of kindergarten children for several years back, as far as I examined. There seems to be but one influence as to the cause for this, the quickening and brightening influence of the first training, coming at a time when the children are awakening fast to the multitude of influences and interests which surround them, and which is of a character to lead the little hearts and hands to the best they can think and do."

The limits prescribed for this monograph prevent me from doing full justice to the valuable material sent me from Boston. So far as I am aware, no equal number of competent witnesses reporting upon children received from so large a number of kindergartens have ever been publicly cited in behalf of the Froebelian method. Their testimony proves beyond peradventure that the kindergartens of Boston have actually achieved nearly all the results claimed for the system by its most enthusiastic friends. The following letter from Mr. Edwin P. Seaver, superintendent of the Boston public schools, describes the obstacles with which the kindergarten has still to contend and suggests a plan by which its influence may be increased:

"My acquaintance with kindergartens began in the year 1881, when, in making my first official visits in the Boston schools, I found the kindergartens then privately supported by Mrs. Shaw in certain school rooms granted rent free for that purpose by the school committee. At first I was amused by the novel exercises, and then pleased by the evident hold these exercises, or the teachers, or both, had upon the children. Longer and closer study of the kindergarten exercises convinced me that here was a real educational agency of singular efficiency.

"Looking at it from the practical side I observed that there were some thousands of children in Boston whose education both morally and intellectually would be greatly advanced by their being placed at an early age in good kindergartens. I thought too that for all children the kindergarten was the best means of passage from the home to the primary school. A knowledge of the spirit and methods of the kindergarten spread among the primary teachers seemed likely to exercise a beneficial influence on

the primary schools. There was no doubt that this same benign influence had made itself felt in many homes. Among the strongest early friends of the kindergarten were many parents whose children had been kindergarten pupils. There were many primary teachers whose experience with kindergarten children enabled them to analyze and describe the effects of the kindergarten system of instruction in favorable terms.

"These were some of the considerations which moved me in the year 1888 to recommend that the kindergarten be made an integral part of the system of public instruction in the city of Boston. Since this was done, the public kindergartens have steadily grown in number and in popularity, in so much that nearly all school districts in the city are supplied with them, and about one-third of the children now pass through them before entering the primary schools. Our primary teachers have become more and more appreciative of the excellent foundation the kindergarten gives for the child's subsequent instruction. Altogether, it may truly be said that the public kindergartens of Boston have fulfilled, and more than fulfilled, the expectations formed of them at the time of their adoption. Imperfections they have shown, as what schools or what things human do not? But every year there have been improvements, every year a better understanding of the essential principles of kindergarten instruction, and every year a more widespread knowledge of the practical benefit of these principles when properly applied.

"As to the subsequent progress of kindergarten children in the school grades, it has been impossible for me to arrange and properly carry out a thorough statistical inquiry. I can only say in general that my impressions, gathered from conversations with teachers these many years, lead me to the conclusion that the progress of kindergarten children compares very favorably with that of other children of the same age and similar environment. This progress is not so much manifested by quicker passage from grade to grade in the schools for there is much that is arbitrary and artificial in the rules governing the promotion of pupils through the grades as it is in the broader and stronger work done by children whose education has been started aright in the kindergarten.

"Another influence which obscures the result in statistical

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