"Of the sixteen American cities with a population of over 200,000 in 1890, only four-Philadelphia, Boston, Milwaukee and St. Louis-have incorporated the kindergarten on any large scale in their public school systems. Four more-New York, Chicago, Brooklyn and Buffalo-have kindergarten associations organized to introduce the new method as a part of free education. In San Francisco kindergartens are maintained with no apparent expectation of uniting them to the free school system. Only Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Detroit, among the seven cities left-the other three being Pittsburgh, Washington and New Orleans,—are returned as having charitable or religious associations supporting kintergartens. In 1877-88, forty-six lesser places were named as having 'one or more kindergartens, mostly experimental,' connected with public schools. The entire work of providing a special education for children from three to six years of age is still in this stage in this country. Contrast this with France, where the Écoles Maternelles, begun by Oberlin in 1771, and given new life in 1826 by Mme. Millet, have substantially adopted the Froebelian principle and practice, and had in 1887-88 an attendance of 741, 224 between the ages of three and six, in a population only two-thirds of that of the United States, and having a far smaller proportion of young children.

"Compared, however, with like movements to secure the education of a class, or the adoption of a new system of teaching, the kindergarten movement may fairly be considered unrivalled in the history of national education. 'The good Lord could not be everywhere, therefore he made mothers,' said the Jewish rabbi, familiar with that type of Jewish motherhood which in its supreme manifestation at Nazareth has transfigured the office, estimate, and influence of womanhood throughout the civilized world.

66 The cause of these schools, rounding out the work and supplementing the responsibility of mothers, rich or poor, has appealed to the maternal instinct of women wherever it has been presented. The movement has been essentially theirs. They have led it, supported its schools, officered its associations, and urged its agitation.

"The same work remains to be done throughout the land. There is not a city, a village, or a hamlet which will not be the better for a kindergarten association.

"Experience has amply proved that these schools will never be introduced or established save by self-sacrificing pressure. Difficulties have vanished. Expenses have been reduced. There is needed only the personal effort indispensable for general success and universal adoption."

From the Minneapolis Tribune is taken the following:

"To save the children of the submerged classes, to supplement the work of the school by personal visits to their homes, is the mission of the charity kindergarten. As a philanthropic and educational agency, it is superior to all others. To attempt to reform older people is to begin at the wrong end of the ladder; the great opportunity lies with the children in those early years when heart and mind are pliable and easily bent in right directions. The kindergarten doubles the school period. The moral influence of kindergarten training on the neglected children of our towns and cities is evidenced by the report from San Francisco, that of the 9,000 children from the "other half," who have gone through the free kindergartens of the Golden Gate Association in the last twelve years, only one has ever been arrested for crime. The founders and promoters of kindergartens have been mostly women. After the death of Froebel, in 1852, his work was taken up by the Baroness Marienholtz-Bulow, who devoted to it her wealth, zeal and superior intelligence. In Germany the Dowager-Empress Victoria, has long been a zealous friend of kindergartens. The pioneers of the movement in this country were the two sisters, Elizabeth Peabody and Mrs. Horace Mann.

"In 1878, Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw founded a system of free kindergartens in Boston, supported by herself,. Five years later they were transferred to the free school system of that city, being fourteen in number. Benevolent ladies in St. Louis, Philadelphia, San Francisco and other large cities soon engaged in this work, which has spread widely.

"In 1870 the whole United States had only five free Kindergartens. There are now over 3,000, one-sixth of which are connected with the public schools. There are also 118 kindergarten Associations. But as yet the kindergarten has but a small part in our public school system. Less than one-fifth of one per cent. of the

children who are receiving elementary instruction in our free schools, have had the prior advantage of kindergarten training. Born in Switzerland, a republic, the free kindergarten has proved itself peculiarly adapted to republican institutions. France has more children in kindergartens than all other countries combined. From the growth of the movement among us, the United States bids fair to rival in this respect her sister republic."

In this department of our Souvenir, Miss Eliza Hardy Lord contributes an admirable article upon "Women as Teachers," and Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells writes with authoritative knowledge of the "Normal Schools of Massachusetts.

Professor Anne Morgan presents the higher uses of "Liberal Education," and Gail Hamilton sketches with her usual vigorous strokes, "An American Queen."

Mrs. Frances Fisher Wood contributes an appreciative portrait of Maria Mitchell, which is admirably supplemented by Miss Helen Leah Reed, in "Women's Work at the Harvard Observatory."

THE

CHAPTER XXIII.

WOMEN AS TEACHERS.

A RECORD OF BEGINNINGS.

BY ELIZA HARDY LORD.*

HE work of the woman teacher in America began in the Dame School of the far-away colonial days where she taught the little children gathered about her to read from the New England Primer and sometimes to recite the shorter catechism.

The scanty records of those days throw very little light upon the subject of schools or teachers, but that little is enough to show small advance for the century and a half between the time when, in the town of Woburn, Mass., 1635, "Joseph Wright's wife and Allen Converse's wife were able to divide between them o, Ios, od., for the year's work," and the year 1790, when in the thriving town of Newburyport, Mass., three or four schools for girls were established "to learn them good manners, and proper decency of behavior." In addition to the essentials they were to be taught "spelling and reading sufficient to read the Bible, and if the parents desired it, needle-work and knitting." †

Hedged in by an immense tradition womankind had seemed condemned to a perpetual childhood, and it was not until the closing decades of the eighteenth century, when we had become a nation, that opportunities for the education of girls were offered beyond the merest rudiments. Even then girls of more than nine years of age were not allowed to attend the public schools, and the private schools

*Late dean of the Woman's College of Cleveland, Ohio.

+"Woman's Work in America." Chapter on "Education in the Eastern States." To this work the writer is indebted for facts in connection with the schools of the East and South.