KINDERGARTEN METHODS IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS.

BY MRS. LOUISE POLLOCK,

Principal of Kindergarten Normal Institute of Washington, D. C.

LECTURE TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS.

Since it may yet be some time ere this city will give its citizens the free Kindergarten, I have invited the Public School teachers here to night, to explain to them, in as concise a manner as possible, the distinctive features of the Kindergarten system, which is called by Frederic Fræbel, its discoverer, "Nature's Method of Education." You may find some of its educational principles and methods adapted to the primary grades of the public schools, and incorporate them with your own to the great advantage of your pupils.

In the true Kindergarten the children are to be under six years of age, but where children have never enjoyed the benefits of this system at home or in the Kindergarten proper, children over six years of age, you will find, enjoy all the exercises designed for younger children, only their advancement from the most simple to the difficult will be more rapid, and the conversations and instructions accompanying the occupations must be adapted to their age.

The opening exercises in the first grade or lower primary school might well be the same as in the Kindergarten, namely: singing, conversation, and stories, as well as the learning of the songs or games which are on the programme of the day,—for there needs to be a regular programme, and each day should have its own occupations and plays, which are divided into four different kinds,-but to classify and describe these would require one or two separate lectures.

In the primary school as well as in the Kindergarten, the observing and reasoning faculties of young children should be developed first by inspection and experiments, made with the various gifts, and repeated with other objects having similar properties. Thus the little ball, the first gift, is spun around and we sing:

Sce me spinning round and round,
Never idle am I found.

Another day this spinning around is done with the wooden sphere of the second gift upon a plate, singing:

No matter how first I spin or race,

I always show the same round face.

With this play the children make the additional observation that it spins not only around itself, but also around the center of the plate. Again when making a little clay ball, on modeling days, they find out that it cannot roll if it has any corners or edges. This experience has also been gained while presenting the cube of the second gift.

Everything around us has a language, and it is the part of the educator to make this language understood to the child, or it may go through life with eyes that do not see, and ears that do not hear, and a mind that does not understand.

Lessons simple and advanced may well be given with the first gift, on color, material, motions, qualities, and uses of this gift, in accordance with the age of the child, or the time he has attended the Kindergarten.

The child, in playing with the second gift, is led to find out the similarities and differences of his soft ball and the wooden sphere; the cylinder is presented and when spun round shows the sphere:

When I spin yon around, my dear,

Then we see a little sphere.

When we spin the cylinder around,

Then a little sphere is found.

When we spin you round, my dear,
All your edges disappear.

Perhaps without this play the child would not have noticed that the cylinder had any edges. The cube of the second gift offers also a large field for comparing and experimenting which shall lead the child to discover the peculiar form and characteristics of the cube:

One face only now you see,
Where may all the others be?

To make the child notice the plurality of faces. Or:

When we spin you around, my dear,

All your corners disappear.

When we spin the cube around,

Then a cylinder is found.

This gift could also be advantageously used in the first grade of the primary schools when the children have had no previous Kindergarten training.

The third gift is the cube divided into eight smaller cubes, which leads to a closer intimacy and analysis of its form and uses.

Ever having nature for his guide, Froebel would have system and organization in the manner of presenting this gift, first as a whole, then analyzed or taken to pieces; then made whole again, when the play is finished. This not only satisfies the child's curiosity and desire for breaking things, but develops the constructive instinct, which, after building with the blocks, restores and reconstructs the previous order and original form, and is gratified by making whole what has been destroyed.

With this and all the gifts the child is made acquainted with the law of opposites and of combinations or connections, which leads him to take delight in symmetrical forms and harmonious designs and inventions of his own. This gift would be most useful in the primary school, succeeded by and in combination with the fourth gift, which is the cube divided into eight oblongs. Lessons in arithmetic can be given with the very best results, with these gifts as well as with the fifth gift, which is the * In our lectures to the normal pupils we fully explain the reasons why Froebel selected his various gifts and how they will lead to higher education.

cube divided diagonally into halves, quarters, thirds. For this gift is composed of twenty-seven cubes, and offers a far richer field for amusement and instruction than the third or fourth gift. This gift may be used not only in the second grade but also in the third grade of the public schools, to the great intellectual progress and advantage of children, who have never enjoyed previous Kindergarten training. One of the thirds of this cube being cut diagonally, the child may learn that one-third and one-half of one third are the exact half of his whole twenty-seven cubes, or of the three thirds of his cube. With the solid triangles of this gift, one placed upon the other, he can form the triangular or the square prism, and in connection with the box of geometrical forms may distinguish the difference between the pyramid and the prism, and the cone and the pyramid; he can form also square, oblong, hexagonal, or octagonal buildings, and if the teacher has had the proper normal training, she may also teach in this connection the various styles of architecture with the object lesson, which precedes the building with children in the primary grades.

The same may be said of the sixth gift, which is equally useful, and permits of even more pleasing structures, and may be used with equally good results to convey impressions in regard to form, space, and number. As you will observe, there is a close connection and careful guiding from the most simple to the more complex. Thus while in the previous six gifts the child has had solid bodies to handle and play with, which appeal more directly to his senses, now, the seventh gift, the laying tablets, the child is occupied with the faces only of his previous solid toys. His taste and ingenuity of design, his unconscious comprehension of the law of opposites, now comes into fuller play.

With this occupation the child becomes familiar with all the various angles which he outlines with another gift, the little round sticks.

This gift of "laying sticks" is to lead from the planes or faces of solid bodies to their edges or outlines, and is a fair preparation to the succeeding drawing occupation, by means of which the child embodies the forms of things conceived or perceived by his mind. The rings lead him to a still higher appreciation of facts and a just appreciation of what is correct and beautiful in outline.

The occupation of sewing is in direct harmony with the drawing and all other occupations which describe the outline or edges of anything, and is a harmonious sequence to the perforating occupation, which rests on the principle of leading the child from the outline or edges of a body to its corners or points, which are brought into relation or connected again by the thread or stitch from point to point. The same is done with the peas-work, where the edges, represented by wires and connected at the corners by peas, serve the admirable purpose of showing the perspective outlines of figures and forms. These two occupations are very delightful to the child, as they gratify his ideality, his inborn desire for activity, and under systematic direction develop skill and invention.

The perforating should not be used by anyone who has not been properly trained in the rules which regulate its use, or it may lead to injury of the eyes.

The interlacing slats prepare for the weaving with paper; many of the instructions given with the previous gifts may be repeated under a new guise. The weaving leads us back from combining edges to planes, and with the modeling in clay we return to solid bodies.

The folding in paper leads to many observations, useful as a foundation for higher scientific education, while it cultivates accuracy of eye and hand, most useful in every vocation in life.

The same may be said of the cutting in paper, where the additional lesson of political economy is inculcated, in so far as the children are taught to save every little piece that falls off in order to give it its appro priate place and so let it form an additional feature of the beauty of the figure attained. They also learn thereby that everything is good and fills a useful part if it is in its appropriate place.

All these gifts, with the exception, perhaps, of the modeling, which involves considerable labor on the teacher's part, of washing hands and clearing away, may be a source of delightful observations and instruc tions in the primary school to children from six to ten years of age.

I am positive that when the teachers of the public schools shall have received the Kindergarten normal training, they will be anxious to devote one hour each day to kindergarten methods, and they will find that the children advance just as fast, if not more rapidly, in their clementary pursuits, and have a clearer comprehension of all they learn.

Miss Clara Heald, a teacher of a third-grade public school in this city, gives her testimony to this effect: That whereas she had been teaching as a matter or duty in regular prescribed methods, with no particular interest in the children, as soon as she had advanced to a certain degree in her Kindergarten normal training, with my daughter and myself, she began to make use of her instructions. The result was most gratifying to her; not only were the children much interested in the process of learning through doing, but she enjoyed her school far more, began to love her pupils individually, and to look upon her teacher's profession as an ennobling, honorable, beneficent work. Stories and exercises intended for very young children were relished and gave pleasurable instruction to children from eight to twelve years of age, because they were what they needed, and had been, as I may say, cheated out of, in carlier childhood.”

A Kindergarten is considered a play school, and children over seven years of age feel almost ashamed to go to one. But our private Kindergartens could not exist if they limited their instructions to children of the Kindergarten age. We therefore have graded classes in our Kindergar tens, and separate teachers, who give instruction adapted to the age of the pupils. This affords our normal pupils an opportunity to observe the practical application of Kindergarten methods at different stages of the children's advancement and ages. The Kindergarten is truly a place where the children learn how to play in such a manner that the foundation is laid for unselfish, law-abiding citizenship.

Here, also, they daily listen to the kind of sermon which children can understand and profit by, namely, the sweet and simple parables which come in and are suggested by the various forms they build, sew, or model. Here they learn, perhaps for the first time, that their little indi

viduality is only a part of one great whole; and although at home they may be permitted to rule every one, here others have as much right as they, and they begin to feel the natural consequences of their actions. The Kindergartner needs to be a person of superior judgment, possessed of refinement of manners, and of a strong will, yet withal respecting the will of others, and ever ready to examine herself carefully and conscientiously to find out if what she desires is simply the expression of her own self-will, or if it is dictated by her desire for the highest good of the child in her charge. She must feel that it is her duty to train and direct the will of her pupils into right and virtuous paths, but that it is by no means her business, or anybody else's, to break the will of the child, that great moral force, which he will need so much for every action of his life. We should rather give it wholesome exercise, by giving the child opportunity to decide questions for himself whenever an opportunity arises; for instance, in the choice of colors when giving out the balls, and in the formation of figures and invention of designs after his short dictation lesson is over. Every educator should always be ready to imagine herself in the child's place; she needs to be full of sympathy and ever ready to render such assistance that, while it prevents his becoming discouraged, will bring out the child's self-activity and desire to do for himself, which, together with perseverance and neatness of execution, must be encouraged at every step. Above and over all, she must be conscious of the fearful responsibility she assumes when she becomes the motherly guide of young children, and ever treat the children in such a manner as she would that others should treat hers. Her ready sympathy, the stories, and the harmonious manner of conducting the musical plays, her gentle and impartial manner of settling all their little troubles and disputes, and her suggesting the manner of disposing of their little handiwork; these are the moral agents for developing the affectionate and spiritual element of children in the Kindergarten.

I will now, in as brief a manner as possible, recapitulate the main features which characterize the Kindergarten, and the objects attainable by the general adoption of its methods in our primary schools.

The peculiar features of the Kindergarten are as follows:*

1. (a) The Kindergarten training aims to bring harmony to the child's own being; between the expression of his thoughts, his feelings, and his will power; his will and his reflections or reason. (b) It aims to show him his true relation to his surroundings, his playmates, friends. The result should be his delight in peaceful, affectionate intercourse with others. (c) It aims to lead the child to feel himself one with nature and obedient to nature's laws. He shall make correct observations with the aid of the Kindergartner, he shall make correct imitations of natural objects, and by means of child-like, familiar conversation he shall peep into her secret workshop, and learn to admire the beauty and order of its organization. He will thereby learn to love its phenomena, the living creation, and learn to respect nature's laws everywhere and at all times. (d) Finally, the child shall be led to feel himself in harmony with what is

*Köhler's Practical and Theoretical Kindergarten Guide.