of the Anthon Memorial Church of New York. Mrs. Kraus and Miss Peabody at different times addressed the ladies of that church, and Mr. Newton, the rector, followed it up by distributing freely Kindergarten tracts, which any one can procure by sending five cents to E. Steiger, 25 Park Place, New York. At the end of the year-rather in the Spring of 1878, he asked his people assembled who would subscribe for a charity Kindergarten. Eight hundred dollars was at once subscribed, and half a dozen young ladies volunteered to assist a Kindergartner trained by Mrs. Kraus Bælte, to whom $600 was paid. The next year $900 was subscribed and some other ladies sent in a substantial dinner for the children. We trust this Kindergarten will prove a model for church work, uni. versally. Nothing done for the poor has such gracious effect or gives such promise. In Philadelphia a parochial Kindergarten is attached to a nursery in St. Peter's church, and is taught by Miss Fairchild, a graduate of Miss Burritt's, and some attempts have been made beside, in which Miss Stevens, Miss Dickey, and Mrs. G. Gourlay have begun good work. It is to be regretted that the church of the Epiphany did not continue Miss Sterling in her excellent beginning in their church parlor. Her success in winning the children and their parents was so signal that they expressed great grief in having to give it up, and if Miss Sterling could have found another rent-free room she would have gone on at her own expense, as the poor parents proposed to pay enough cents by the week to keep up the supply of material. It is necessary in all cases that the patrons of a Kindergarten should be fully apprised of the nature of the Kindergarten. In this case that requisite preparation was omitted and the whole expense fell on the purse of the rector, which could not be perennial. In Chicago, Mrs. E. W. Blatchford has established at her own expense a Kindergarten under a graduate of Mrs. A. H. Putnam, and which has her valuable superintendence. In Cincinnati a Charity Kindergarten has been established under the auspices of an association of ladies, and the immediate direction of Miss Shank of St. Louis, one of Miss Blow's pupils. The plan embraces a kitchen in which the older pupils will be taught practical cooking and all lighter house-work. The most remarkable development of Charity Kindergarten is going on in California, under several organizations of workers, all of which aim to bring the most neglected children within the elevating and refining influences of the best Froebel training. THE KINDERGARTEN AND HOMES. BY MRS. MARY PEABODY MANN. HOMES AS THEY ARE, AND THEIR IMPROVEMENT. WHEN we consider what homes and schools are in the present condi tion of the world, it is impossible for the thinking mind not to ask, What can be done to improve them? They surely do not produce the effect upon society that could be expected from ideal homes and schools, and it is these that we would now discuss. The institution of home is a divine one, as far as we can judge of divine things. The family is eminently God's institution, and nothing should be allowed to mar it. It is based upon the most powerful and all-pervading sentiments of the human soul, and our quest should be to ascertain by reflection all its capabilities for influencing the destiny of man. The child is born into the arms of its parents who may well stand appalled before the magnitude of the duty it imposes upon them, if they have any adequate appreciation of it at all, for we know, alas! that the actual parents of the majority of the human race have a very inadequate sense of their duty to their children. Children do not come voluntarily into the world, nor do parents summon them from the abyss of time and space with an intelligent consciousness that they are new emanations or creations of God's Spirit, to be instructed in their relations to the glorious universe to whose study their faculties are adapted. Often unwelcome, the product of passion instead of noble and religious sentiment, they are largely left to find out through suffering and unaided experience those relations to the uni verse which are the earnest of their immortality. And because the endowment of nature is often so rich as to overcome all obstacles to the building up of that spiritual nature which it is their own part to erect upon that basis, many shallow persons idly say that the consequences of neglect and obstructions to progress prove that adversity and hindrances are the best circumstances under which to form character. Out of conflict and strife much truth is elicited, because these stimulate the intellect to action, but it is as idle to say that neglect and absence of love are in themselves good for the soul, as that the indigestible matter we often eat strengthens the powers of digestion. Souls are often starved for the want of proper influences, as stomachs are ruined by indigestible food. It is true that even the stomach will survive much abuse, and we know that souls have an immortal principle that will stand by them in some sphere of being if not in this but why lose the highest benefits this life can bestow, the world that now is as well as that which is to come? The race has grown in spite of all the obstacles it has had to encounter, and the earnest inquiry that has engaged the greatest minds in it has resulted at last in the discovery of a method of improving homes and education within and out side of them. Madame Marenholz-Bulow, who may well be called the apostle of Froebel, having devoted thirty years of her life to the promulgation of his system in many lands, has of late issued a little book upon the evils of the present time, and she resolves them all into the deficient education of women. While women are of inferior education, how can homes be what they ought to be and evidently were intended to be? God does not do things arbitrarily. An eloquent preacher once said: “God takes care of the helpless babe, not by folding it under an angel's wing, but by pillowing it on a mother's breast." God does not speak from the skies to teach women to fit themselves to be good mothers, but having endowed the human race with faculties adequate to all their needs-and who can compass the glory of their possible destiny?-he inspires the mother's heart to learn by experience. If it is true that in early times men lived hundreds of years, it could have been none too long to learn the lessons of this great school of a world. At present we seem to live long enough only to catch a glimpse of what is left for us to do. Women were once, and in some places are still treated only as chattels, or at least merely as the bearers of bodies, and are not expected to educate the souls. Even in the most educating modern country (Germany) it was not long since considered best for the sons to be taken from the influence of their mothers as early as possible. It had not apparently dawned upon them that the mothers should be better educated for their office. May we not justly attribute to this custom the prevalence of irreligion among distinguished Germans? for if religion is not cherished at the mother's knee, by the mother's heart, where will it be likely to be done? The mother watches every motion of her nursing babe, and its organic life in her is thus far cherished, but when a little older the care becomes troublesome, especially if she is worldly, and she calls in the aid of—whom? Does she, like queens, appoint the best educated and most unexceptionable woman in her sphere to aid her in the holy duty? Should not every mother provide that none but good examples shall be set before the awakening mind and heart of her little immortal? and consult at every turn with assistant educators? And as her child increases in years, does she guard it on every side from evil influences? Does she especially watch her own words and acts, which have such powerful influence upon the child as long as its faith in her is unbroken, the faith that is the matrix of faith in God? Does she never break a promise, or present an unworthy motive, or use a subterfuge with her child? Did she come to her task prepared for it? or was she married, or did she become a mother without studying the subject? Probably nine-tenths of all the women who are married think only of the gratification of their own affections. When the relation of mother comes to a conscientious woman, the maternal sentiment awakes and absorbs almost her every thought, but how poorly does she find herself equipped for the new duty! She searches herself to know what are her resources, and deplores her deficient education when she finds how limited they are. New, pressing duties of many kinds prevent her from educating herself now, and she is obliged to depend upon her maternal instincts, whose scope she has never studied. These instincts, uneducated, may make her sacrifice every one else to her child, which she has not the right to do. More children come and she is overwhelmed. How frequent is this history! She must now learn wisdom by her mistakes, and her children are the victims of this long-deferred training! In reading the history of Froebel's life and study of man, and his final discovery of the true method of education, what woman is not mortified to think that it was not made by a woman and a mother? Froebel learned it from his observation of tender, noble mothers, who had learned wisdom by their costly experience, guided by the maternal instinct which makes the good mother obliterate herself for the good of her child. Standing a little apart from the duty, and bringing a cultivated, scientific, mind to the subject, he saw where the difficulty lay, and why all mothers were not equal to their task, and why children were left to suffer uncomprehended, unsympathized with. This tender, womanly nature, from which he had suffered so much after losing his own mother, was enlisted in the reform of this world-wide evil, and he has shown mothers how to remedy it. This sentiment pervades all his works. But this is not to be done slumbering. Woman must rise in her might and see that all women are educated for their vocation. It is not enough that a mother here and there studies the system, but every woman should be trained to the work, so that children may fall into no evil hands. No woman should consider herself educated who does not make herself acquainted with a method that is acknowledged by the highest thinkers to meet all the requisitions for the education of the little child; for the Kindergarten system provides for every want of human nature-physical, moral, and intellectual. If all women studied the principles of this science, for it is a science, no motherless child would be left to suffer, for nothing so draws out the maternal nature in woman as the profound study of child-nature. Every good Kindergartner finds the motherly element in herself, and by adoption makes every child she deals with her own, so that the most difficult cases do not discourage her, or wear out her patience, or exhaust her resources. She is sure the right germ is there if her skill can find it, and the challenge to the resources she has laid by seems to create new ones to meet every contingency. COMMON SCHOOLS OF CONNECTICUT. Statistical Tables Compiled from Official Returns. BY REV. J. G. BAIRD.* I. SCHOOL STATISTICS BY TOWNS, 1. Name of Towns-alphabetically arranged by Counties. 2. Population by National Census of 1875. 3. 4. Grand List for Taxable Purposes - State Treasurer's Report 1875. 5. Number of Public Schools. 6. Number of Grades or Departments in same building. 7. Average Length of School Term per year. 8. Children enumerated over 4 and under 16 years. 9. Scholars Attending School in Winter. 10. Scholars in Summer. 11. Scholars over 16 years of age. 12. Different Scholars of any age any portion of the year. 13. Scholars between ages of 4 and 16 years. 14. Children between 4 and 16 years enumerated. 15. Average School Attendance in Winter. 16. Average School Attendance in Summer. 17. Teachers 18. 19. 20. 66 21. 2 66 24. 66 Males in Winter. Wages per month - Males. 25. Received from State School Fund. United States Town Deposit Fund. ABOVE STATISTICS (1-37) SUMMARIZED BY COUNTIES, II. TOWNS ARRANGED ACCORDING TO TAXABLE PROPERTY AND IV. TOWNS ARRANGED ACCORDING TO ACTUAL APPROPRIATIONS, ATTENDANCE, TAXABLE ABILITY AND 671 685 689 690 696 698 703 704 VI. TOWNS ARRANGED ACCORDING TO PER CENT. OF ATTENDANCE, VII. UNITED STATES DEPOSIT FUND IN EACH TOWN IN 1847, IX. DISTRIBUTION OF SCHOOL FUND EACH YEAR FROM 1825-1876, . |