participation in, and training for, community work that many private training schools have rendered conspicuous service. In this direction they have, in fact, set standards that few public training schools can reach. It is perhaps because of their greater freedom that private training schools have been able to perform other services to the cause of kindergarten training, the making of experiments and working out of problems that have value for the movement as a whole.

It is in part because the several ideals that underlie kindergarten training have received different degrees of emphasis in different institutions and in part because different kinds of kindergarten work call for different kinds of training, that kindergarten courses and training schools differ as they do. Such differences can not be dispensed with; nevertheless, the conviction has become general among training teachers that kindergarten training courses need improving in two directions. The first of these is a greater emphasis upon scholarship, and the second an effort toward greater uniformity. In consequence a new type of training course is in process of evolution, one in which the virtues of the earlier type are retained, but in which the conditions and needs of the present will be recognized and met.

A study of the training courses given in this bulletin will show that they possess great variety. In many the earlier type is still clearly recognizable, although modifications of it may be in evidence. In others the later one seems to have gained the ascendancy. This diversity is not due to a lack of common ideals, but to the fact that the present is a period of transition in kindergarten training. The era in which such training first took shape in the United States has passed away. During that era it was doubtless wise that the whole effort of training teachers should be concentrated upon the Froebelian message. That era has given place to one which has accepted the developmental conception of education in general, and which accepts the kindergarten as a part of the whole.

The present inquiry was prompted by the growing interest in the problem of kindergarten training on the part of the educational public. It is believed that a statement of the results of such an inquiry will prove helpful in many ways. It will give kindergarten training teachers an opportunity to gain a general view of the kindergarten training situation, and a means of determining their common problems. It will enable them to make a study, too, of their differences, and to see the need of standardization in a greater degree than has yet been attempted. It can not fail to be of service also to school authorities and to students of education in general, especially because of the deeper insight it may give into the purposes and ideals of the kindergarten itself; because of the opportunity it will

offer to compare the training of kindergartners with that of grade teachers; and because it should lead to practical suggestions concerning the improvement of both forms of training.

It is because of the general feeling that kindergarten training courses need revising and strengthening that the Bureau of Education committee of the International Kindergarten Union was asked to outline a training course upon the lines which educational authorities consider desirable in order that graduates may have the knowledge that present-day conditions require, and the viewpoint that will enable them to work in harmony with the school as a whole. This "suggested course," together with certain convictions that underlie its organization, will be found elsewhere in this bulletin.

The statistics concerning kindergarten training and training schools which this bulletin contains will tell much that is of value, but they can give but little insight into the spirit that has made the kindergarten and kindergarten training the force that these have become in American education. To gain this insight the facts here given must. be interpreted in the light of kindergarten progress as a whole in its relation to educational progress in the United States. So interpreted the facts in question are full of promise for a larger and better service to the little children of America in the years to come.

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II. STATISTICS OF KINDERGARTEN TRAINING SCHOOLS, 1912-13.

TABLE 1.-Schools for training kindergarten teachers-Principals and faculties.

J. Ormond Wilson Normal School, Kindergarten Depart-
ment, 11th and Harvard Sts.

City.

1905

Helen Gordon...

712

8 25

1,800

1,000

Lucy Webb Hayes Training School, Kindergarten Department, 1150 N. Capitol St.

Washington Normal School No. 2 (colored), Kindergarten City. Department, 17th and M Sts. NW.

Private.

TABLE 1.-Schools for training kindergarten teachers-Principals and faculties—Continued.

1

2

3

4

5

7

9

Froebel School of Kindergarten Normal Classes.

Mark Hopkins School, Kindergarten Department,
Church St.