because I love them so well that I would have them faultless. If I dwell upon what they have failed to do, rather than upon what they have done, it is only because I am so earnest a believer in them, that, seeing their short-comings, I speak out that I may urge a remedy. If it were otherwise, I should not care to condemn. I should choose, indeed, to praise, since that is always pleasanter, and the Kindergarten needs not the aid of the public school, its success is already assured without that; it is the public school which needs the Kindergarten, and because of that I plead. That there is a want of harmony in our present method of education— the intellect being too often cultivated at the expense of the physical powers, and the small modicum of moral training given being so abstract as to prove quite ineffectual when subjected to the strain of real life and its temptations-but few educators will deny, while the people, the parents are clamoring for a change in our course of study, that their children may be better fitted for their work in the world. These are serious defects, but the remedy is at hand, for these, which are the weaknesses of the old mode of instruction, are the strong points of the New Education, Incorporate FROEBEL's idea into our present method, and the evil is overcome; make the Kindergarten the foundation of our freeschool system, then make the system consistent from beginning to end, and we shall have a system as perfect and complete as it is symmetrical. But this can not be easily done. It will cost us much money; yet, is it not worth while? Are not human beings of more value than silver and gold? Is it not cheaper for the State to educate the children of the poor and ignorant into noble women and men than to support them as paupers, or punish them as criminals? And this, I claim, the Kindergarten, supplemented by the public schools, can do. Does this seem like an exaggeration? Permit me then to review briefly some of the leading points of the New Education, that I may prove what I have affirmed.

Beginning by recognizing the fact that the destiny of each soul is activity; that it was sent upon earth, first, to conquer itself, and then conquer the world, FROEBEL goes on to assert, that " man is the child of nature, the child of man, and the child of God;" and that "education can only fulfil its mission when it views the human being in this threefold relation, and takes each into account;" and upon this assertion is based the method of the Kindergarten. First, as the child of nature, the little one's physical wants are attended to; it is made comfortable, primarily, that it may be happy; secondarily, that its bodily development may be unhindered. Not only this, but the games and plays are so managed that they tend to give still greater suppleness and vigor to the little bodies, as well as to afford plenty of healthful exercise, while the gifts and occupations train the tiny fingers to a dexterity which is simply marvellous in such young children; and thus begins industrial education. Even at the tender age of three, the young soul has already entered upon its mission, having learned to control, in some degree, its physical faculties, and with its first finished bit of work, it has commenced to conquer the world. Second, as the child of man, the human being steps out of the circle of necessity into the realm of freedom, and becomes conscious of self. Here begins, mainly, his mental activity; here, too, is

the point of departure between the new education and the old, for he is not taught to read; he has no books. FROEBEL Would have the child's knowledge-like its consciousness, begin within the narrow bounds of its own personality and radiate outward, instead of seeking to grasp that which the newly-awakened intellect is too weak to comprehend. He would have them know of the living world around them, before they are set to study the dead knowledge stored in books. He would develop the mental faculties in their natural order; first, the perceptive, and then the reasoning. And so the Kindergartner takes up things-not to tell the child about them-she is too wise for that; nor even to show them to the child-she is too kind; she grants at once the privilege (dear even to grown people) of handling, and places in the child's own hands the object to be studied; lets him test it as he will, and there is very little which can escape these keen young senses, sharpened as they are, by well-directed though unconscious education. Then the little ones are allowed to tell (they are always pleased to impart their new-found knowledge) what they have learned. What training is here for those eyes of the soul-the perceptive faculties; what cultivation of habits of accurate observation, close attention, and comparison; and what command of language, only those who are familiar with the results of the New Education can know, and this without the aid of books at all, Then, too, the creative faculty is aroused; invention is encouraged; the imagination stimulated, and a love for beauty, symmetry, and law inculcated, along with habits of neatness, order, regularity, and dispatch. All this is easily attained by the use of the gifts and occupations, while the plays afford opportunities for the teaching of both manners and morals.

All thinkers, from PLATO down, have agreed that the teacher must know something of the nature of the human being, and consider his powers and limitations before he can efficiently train him, but FROEBEL did more than this—went further; he wisely remembered that the human being is but a child at first, and so studied the child nature as no educator before or since has ever done, and it was because he observed that the earliest manifestations of self-activity take the form of play that he incorporated plays and games into the Kindergarten. It is true that these have been the subject of much unreasonable criticism-the occasion of much absurd opposition; but the criticism is readily refuted, the opposition is easily met. For instance, it is objected that play, real play, is entirely spontaneous, the outcome of caprice, and that if it be guided, or in any way controlled, it is no longer play. That sounds well, but it is not true; it is an idea, not a fact. For children are always more or less confined in their games to certain surroundings or appliances, limited more or less by certain restrictions or circumstances, even if they play by themselves; and if they play with others, they must, of necessity, be subjected in a greater or less degree to the will of their playmates. What matters it then if these playmates be older than themselves, and those who, in their turn, are guided by motives higher than mere caprice? Children delight in the companionship of grown-up people, and are never happier than when those who are wise enough and good enough to become as little children, join them in their games. Besides, their plays

are generally imitations of the scenes or actions of real life, often of its follies, sometimes of its vices. The children would enter as heartily and happily into new plays which represent pure and pleasant things as into the old games which are usually handed down from one generation of children to another, and are never entirely spontaneous. And as for any restraining or refining influence, which the presence of the teacher may give, it is all clear gain to the joy of the occasion, for roughness does not add to happiness, and boisterousness is no indication of mirth.

But the child must learn to feel that it is a link in the great chain of humanity, and "to forget self in doing loving acts for others," and education has not fulfilled its mission till it remembers that the human being is the child of GOD, as well as the child of man and of nature, and so takes into training the higher faculties-the moral; then will the full chord of the child's being be struck; then, and not till then, will the harmony be perfect. But this training, too, must be concrete, instead of abstract, practical, not theoretical, for the moral, like the mental and physical powers, can only be strengthened by exercise-a fact too often forgotten by the instructors of youth, who think (it would seem) that to store the mind of their pupils with good precepts and great truths, should result in pure and perfect characters. "You can not," says FROEBEL, “do heroic deeds in words, or by talking of them, but you can educate a child to self-activity and to work, and through them to a faith which will not be dead," and so he has given abundant opportunities in his system for the exercise of the moral powers, and every condition favorable to the acquisition of good habits as a basis for all the virtues; but there is no memorizing of commandments, and no repetition of words whatever. Thus, the child in the Kindergarten is not constantly told to be good; he is inspired to be so by loving interest and unfailing sympathy; he is not perpetually urged to curb his temper and control his will, but he is helped to do it with gentle firmness and unfaltering patience. He does not hear the words of the Bible continually on the lips of his teacher, but the truths of the Bible grow into his heart, and its principles become a part of his character. He is not commanded to love his Creator, but the little child, loving and beloved, takes in very naturally and gladly the idea of GOD; his young soul leaps lightly the chasm between the seen and unseen, and loves with the same love, trusts with the same trust— the father and mother on earth, and Him, who is both Father and Mother in Heaven. Nor is this all; accustomed from the first to manifest their love in deeds rather than in words, such children never know lip service, but pass at once into the higher life of those whose good works shall glorify the Father, thus proving FROEBEL's assertion: "I have based my education on religion, and it must lead to religion."

Ours is a generation, sound in neither body, mind, nor soul, and the next is no better; and even the most conservative are beginning to recognize the fact that our idea of education hitherto has been too much confined to the cultivation of the intellect alone, and already the reaction has set in-in favor of some degree of physical culture, while our methods of mental training are constantly improving; but of moral or religious teaching in our public schools, we have as yet but the vaguest idea. How

could we? Great problems, like that of church and State perplex us; old war-cries, such as the "Bible in the public schools," sound again, and bitter sectarian feuds start up at the mere mention. But the Kindergarten arouses no conflict of authority; asserts no dogma; promulgates no creed; and here the children of the Christian and the Hebrew, of the Catholic and Protestant can gather together to gain that knowledge, selfreliance, and self-control which shall lead up to true and noble living; for this teaching, though marvellous for its symmetry, its insight into the needs and capabilities of the child-nature, is, after all, greatest in its method of educating the moral powers; most wonderful in its system of development of the higher nature.

We have fallen upon degenerate days, when fraud and corruption sit in high places, and evil walks unabashed in the broad daylight, and our country needs the clear, clean consciences, the upright souls, the iron wills of earlier days, and what shall give them to us again? Education, for the elements of power lie dormant in every new-born soul, and only as they are trained for good or evil shall they ripen into deeds of honor, or deeds of dishonor. Grant, then, a broader, deeper, earlier culture, and the best first. The Jesuits were accustomed to declare that if they could have the entire charge of a child during the first seven years of its life, they were willing to relinquish him to other training; secure in the conviction that their principles were too firmly implanted ever to be eradicated; and yet, our public system of instruction (except in St. Louis) provides for no training before the child is five years old, allowing, nay, in large cities, compelling the large majority of those who attend the common schools to spend the first two of the best educational years of their life, under the worst of educational influences-those of the street, and of ignorant and often vicious homes, and then placing them, during the last two of these precious years, most frequently under the teaching of beginners-men, girls, and boys, often giddy and thoughtless, always inexperienced and immature. What blindness, what folly is this? Children have a right to the best which we can give them, and let us not grudge the time or money it may cost; then if worst comes to worst, and we must economize, better, by far, wait till they are older, when they have some power of protecting themselves against unwise or inefficient instruction, than to place these young impressionable beings under the blighting, deforming, dwarfing influences of poor teaching during their tender years. It is true that the ideal teacher-one not only born to the vocation, but who has added to genius both education and experience, is not often ready to lay all these gifts at the feet of a child; it is only those who, like FROEBEL, remember that it was the Great Teacher who said: "Except ye become as one of these, ye can not enter the Kingdom."

Thus, the true Kindergartner must have had soul-culture, as well as mental and physical training to fit her for her work, and such, and such alone, are the teachers our little ones should have. Then give them three years, or even two of the Kindergarten, with its marvellous method, which develops naturally and symmetrically the threefold nature of the child, which trains at the same time the head and the hand, the senses and the soul, which combines in such just proportions, theory and prac

tice, knowing and doing, educates with equal skill the perceptive and reflective faculties, the intellect and the conscience; and which, while it represses the lower nature, the animal instincts, arouses the higher, the spiritual forces, to their fullest, noblest exercise. For in no other way can humanity hope to attain to that inner and outer harmony of existence which makes this world the heaven for which we long, and this life the beginning of the life eternal.

Mr. SHELDON, of Massachusetts, admitted the value of kindergarten schools, and the application of FROEBEL'S principles and methods for children under six years of age, but asked to have the advocates of this system mark out a practical course of study which can be adopted in the primary schools, composed of children from six to ten years of age,— schools for children as they are now found in towns and cities.

Miss RUTH R. BURRITT, of Philadelphia, arose to answer the question, "How the Kindergarten principles can be carried into the commonschool work." She had taught in the primary schools many years before she entered the kindergarten field, and she was sure that FROEBEL'S principles could be and should be carried into the lower grades of commonschool work, but also into the high schools and normal schools. First the thing, then the picture, then the word. The most experienced and most highly-cultivated teachers should be placed in charge of the little children.

United States School Commissioner JOHN EATON, protested against methods being used in primary schools, but endorsed them in the college. He insisted that FROEBEL himself simply protested against university methods being applied to children. He believed that the late Prof. HENRY had touched the key-note when he agreed that education in its methods should be adjusted to the condition of the child; that kindergarten methods should not be carried to the high school. He believed in the "historic" development of a subject: what is true of the race is true of the individual.

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JOHN D. PHILBRICK, of Massachusetts, did not believe that there could be found in all Europe a simon pure" kindergarten, carried on according to FROEBEL's ideal as interpreted by the leading kindergartners in this country.

Mr. SHELDON wanted to know whether the method of SOCRATES was entirely dispensed with in the kindergarten? Was there not, he asked, a period, when, like SOCRATES, the teachers found it necessary to resort to the catechetical method?

Miss RUTH R. BURRITT-"No! SOCRATES never attended a kindergarten." A. L. WADE, EDWARD A. SINGER, and Miss MARIA L. SANFORD, continued the discussion.

The President appointed the following committee on the nomination of officers:

JNO. IRVIN, of Indiana; Z. RICHARDS, of D. C.; RUTH MORRIS, of Ohio; LELIA E. PATRIDGE, of Penn., and A. L. WADE, of West Va.

Adjourned.