the simple to the complex. The parallelopipedon, the triangular prism, the square prism and the rectangular prism are found. among these divisions and subdivisions. So in building miniature houses, barns and hotels, the children finding in these fundamental forms playthings to amuse them, are only too glad to know and to remember their names. Succeeding these Gifts are the tablets used to represent surfaces; the square, the half square, the equilateral, the right-angled scalene and the obtuse-angled triangles. This Gift the children use in laying symmetrical patterns and designs and play that they are making dining room floors and so forth.

Following this are the steel rings, the sticks used to enclose space and the seeds to represent points. The possibilities with the Gifts are inexhaustible because they epitomize the world of matter, and it is only necessary to show a child a few of their possibilities in order to call forth his inventive faculty.

First the ball, cube and cylinder, the fundamental solid forms of creation, then the parallelopipedon which approaches the surface, then the tablets which represent surfaces, then the sticks and rings which represent lines, then the seeds used to represent points and to indicate the direction of lines. Here is logical dependence and development from the concrete to the abstract. The choice of the Gifts is based upon a thorough understanding of science and there is nothing in the world of form which can be wholly unfamiliar to a child who has been trained in the Kindergarten.

The Gifts are also valuable for manual training as most of them require skillful and delicate handling.

manner, seeing the dependence of one. on another, leads to orderly and logical thinking. The Occupations correspond to and follow the Gifts in their development and are in miniature the industries of the race. They give the child an opportunity for the expression of the ideas which he has gained. Clay-modeling, sewing, weaving, paper-folding, cutting and designing, are Occupations which delight the children, for in them they find the means to express themselves, and this lays the foundation of self-respect, since the children see the tangible results they have produced by their own thought and skill. Kindergarten materials are few and simple but their possibilities are limitless. Paper-folding and cutting are especially valuable in training the child to be accurate. The beauty of the work is not in the material but in the skill and accuracy with which it is handled. Many of the forms are commenced by folding a square of paper so that the folds make two diameters and two diagonals. The children call this making "two books and two shawls." The sewing and weaving are valuable in awakening the artistic perceptions, for the children are constantly seeing colors in harmonious combinations. The blackboard drawing which accompanies the stick-laying lessons is the beginning of the child's expression of thought by means of drawing. Psychologically considered it is a test of his power to analyze and to abstract. All the work in the Kindergarten makes necessary the constant use of the hand thus laying the foundation for all manual training.

ten, and doing in an orderly and logical

would be laying an educational foundation both deep and wide. But this is not often possible, so field and forest contribute their treasures and the children are surrounded in the Kindergarten by as many natural objects as are available for the purpose of awakening their interest and curiosity in natural phenomena. So in the Kindergarten we may always find seeds sprouting, plants growing, the chrysallis waiting to turn into a butterfly, the cocoon in which the silk caterpillar has rolled himself away, specimens of quartz and other minerals and perhaps a piece of tree which grew in the coal period.

If it is in winter, a bunch of dry sticks (as they appear to be) may be seen in water, waiting for the winter buds to open so that the children may see the latent life appearing. It is useless to try to enumerate all the objects which the thoughtful Kindergartner is ever on the alert to secure and make tributary to her work. About each of these things she has some pleasant little talk or story with which to interest and teach the children, thus fostering the germ of a scientific mind.

There are many stories which give the children a foundation for the study of geography, such as the Seven Little Sisters. These stories are very entertaining and at the same time they give some idea of the climatic divisions of the earth's surface, and

of the manners and customs of the people living in different parts of the world. Stories about animals, if judiciously told, foster in the child a love for natural history and give him the facts which form the groundwork for this study. In stories and conversations with the children the Kindergartner finds her best opportunities for seed-sowing; for by means of stories and simple experiments there is no department of science which cannot be simplified and made interesting to children, and in conversations with them they are led to express their thoughts and taught to express them in correct language.

The fundamental principle on which the method of work is based is found in one of Froebel's own sentences. "It is not by teaching and imparting a mere variety and multitude of facts that a school becomes a school (in the true sense) but only by emphasizing the living unity that is in all things."

The acorn is not the oak, although it contains within it all the elements and possibilities of the full grown tree, and so the Kindergarten is not a school of science, art or ethics, nor the Kindergartner a teacher of these things. But she can say as each child leaves her influence, “I have laid the foundation, though another buildeth." MARY KATHERIN YOUNG. New York.

Summer said to the Spring: "What a wonderful thing
It is to bring in so much sweetness and grace,
I am sure, that to you my blossoms are due,
And I feel I am taking your place.

"I never can blush, but I think of your flush; And the eyes of the flowers at evening are wet; There was something so fair in your innocent air, That your going we can but regret."

"You beautiful comer," said Spring to the Summer, "I lived out my life but to brighten your way;

I heard the buds swelling, and could not help telling,
For I knew you would see them some day.

"It was only my duty to bring you the beauty,
And to help one another is a lesson for all,
And perhaps you'll be willing, your mission fulfilling,
To leave something to brighten the Fall."
Selected.

MRS. J. C. WHITON.

The baby apples cried a moment with pain but it was soon over and they nestled down in their Mamma's comfortable arms and went to sleep.

These babies grew until they were large, round, green apples. The place where the hailstones hurt them made a bruised spot on their cheeks.

Baby Grey thought of her scar a moment, then began to cry, and said, "No use in living, I have a great, ugly spot on my cheek, no one will ever love me, I am just tired of living. I can never be pretty nor can I ever be sweet and nice as my sister on that long, beautiful branch; I am just going to give up."

So she did, and pouted herself into a shriveled, dried-up apple.

Not so with Baby Gay. She said, "I know I can never be pretty on one side for the hail made such a large hole in my cheek, but I am not going to give up in that way.

thing towards making someone happy if it is only to be a mouthful of good apple for a hungry little boy?

"I am going to turn my good cheek to the sunshine and make it grow so fat and rosy that when little girls and boys see me they will forget all about my bruised side, and will love me for what there is good in me. I will ask the sunbeams to shine and shine on me so warm and bright, that my coat will grow as red as Mary's cheeks, and my meat will be as juicy and sweet as is possible for an apple's to be. God made me to be a happy Baby Gay, for he wishes all of his babies to be happy, and I am not going to give up and be cross and ugly just because Mr. Hail made a mistake and let some of his little stones hurt me. So much more is the reason that I should try to be happy."

"Education consists in leading man as a thinking, intelligent being, growing into self-consciousness, to a pure, conscious and free representation of the inner law of Divine Unity, and in teaching ways and means thereto."

Life-Unity is the word which tells the whole story. Here Froebel's and Herbert Spencer's ideas are vitally the same. Spencer limits its application to developing

C. L. S.

thought, while Froebel sees it as the characteristic of developing life, which is the outward manifestation of the thought. Although Froebel's principles are applicable to all stages of life, his interest was centered in childhood, for there he found the hope of humanity.

The child comes into the world a realized thought of God. His natural tendencies need right guidance, though only guidance,

for, as Emerson says, "No man can teach another, only remove obstacles from the path and secure liberty in following nature's indications." Hence education at this time is passive. It is not for us to impose a new nature upon the child, to mould him into any form we may prefer,-rather, it is our duty to aid him in reaching that individuality which Miss Blow calls "the divine spark we bring with us into the world, whose burning is our being, whose shining is our life." This implies on the part of the child, a free, spontaneous growth from within outward.

"This self-activity is not only the means of making internal external, but also of making external internal. In the latter case, the coming to a knowledge of the outside world, the child is provided with the same material which Nature provided her child. In the most ideal culture of the primitive man, the concrete was given, in preparation for the underlying truths the abstract. Similarly in the Kindergarten, the Gifts, the fundamental forms of Nature in their simplest elements, are presented, from which is derived a recognition of the un

derlying intellectual and spiritual truths. From the created the child is led to the source, the Creator.

Man is a developing organism, i. c., a being consisting of parts, of which the functions of each are essential to the existence of the whole. Hence, in order to gain development of the whole, there must be development in all phases of his nature, physical, mental and spiritual, symbolized in Froebel's words of life, light and love. With the exercise of a little ingenuity and a great deal of love, the child is provided. with something to do, something to hope for, something to love, and thereby has obtained the open sesame of life which enables him to pass from an unconscious condition through the light of true wisdom, to perfect harmony, to a true conscious living. Although pre-eminent care is taken of the individual, it is the bettering of humanity. which Froebel seeks. Indeed, there is a mutual dependence of the two, society and the individual being necessities each for the advancement of the other.

Milwaukee, Wis.

JEAN CHILD.

To turn aside a moment from a study of the effects of Kindergarten training upon the little children, I wish to record the profound impression I have received of the value of the Kindergarten work to the workers themselves, to the young girls and women who devote themselves to a study of the principles of the Kindergarten, and to the application of these principles in the work of teaching.

A very short time ago, I heard a lady who herself had graduated with high honor from Vassar College, and who was the

*Extracts from a paper read at the Kindergarten Section of the National Educational Association, at St. Paul,

mother of two beautiful children, a boy and a girl, declare that if it were in her power she would make a course of training in Kindergarten work a legal pre-requisite to marriage for every young woman. She said, and I believe she was right, "that the latter years of a young woman's school or college life, and the period which she so frequently spends in social pleasures after that school or college life is ended, tends to separation from child-life, and to cause forgetfulness of the feelings and sympathies of very little children." Hence, when the young wife is called to assume the duties of maternity, she is, with the exception of ma

ternal instinct of affection for her child, in the most utterly unfitted condition possible to rightly care for and understand that little one. I am sure that nearly all observers of the development of young people have noticed that there is in most of them a period when they are unsympathetic and repellant toward small children. The big boy of 18 or 20 does not want the little boy of 3 or 4 "bothering around," as he calls it. The school miss of the same age thinks the little brother and sister a necessary nuisance, only to be tolerated-scarcely ever to be loved and respected.

All the stories of the

mischief perpetrated, and the secrets unfolded by the small brother, to the discomfiture of his young lady sister, have their origin and point in this phase of the development of family life. The only cure for this unsympathetic stage of mental and moral development in young women, is a conscientious return to the study of the life and feelings of very young children.

To the credit of young girls be it said that there is scarcely any study in which it is so easy to interest them, or which they pursue with more persistent enthusiasm, when once they are interested, than this same study of Kindergarten principles. And what a beautiful preparation for motherhood is such a course of instruction and training. How it will quicken their apprehension and appreciation of the intelligence of young children. How careful will it make them of the impressions they themselves make upon the little ones. Never among young mothers trained in the Kindergarten, will we find that petulance and lack of self-control so often witnessed in those who have come into their maternal cares and duties without any such preparation. "I am going to give you a good, sound whipping, for I feel just like it," I heard a young mother say, a short time since, to a little child whose restlessness had, as she expressed it, "worn her all out."

And she was as good as her word, giving the little one so severe a punishment that it shortly after fell into a deep sleep of exhaustion, whereat the foolish young mother rejoiced, and said: "Just see what a good thing it is once in awhile to give Robbie a regular trouncing." Who, in the possession of any right sentiment, but would feel deeply sorry for both mother and child? Speaking of the knowledge gained by the young teacher of child-life and child-intelligence, we must not forget to notice how much can be learned from the simple, unsophisticated revelations of the little ones themselves. "Johnnie," said a teacher in my Kindergarten, to a fractious little urchin who had not yet been brought within metes and bounds, "Johnnie, if I should write a note to your papa and tell him how troublesome you have been this morning, what do you think he would say or do?" Johnny leaned back in his chair thoughtfully for a moment and then replied: "Well,it would just depend on how he felt; if he came home from the store feeling good, he wouldn't say a word or do a thing; but if he came home tired and worried, I expect he'd give me a real

good spanking."

good spanking." What teacher of good judgment but would draw from this statement a useful and instructive inference? And so from the standpoint of an outside observer only, I say: The Kindergarten is the school of God. It is one of the numerous ways in which the Creator is now manifesting Himself to men, through inspiring forms of activity that are evidently the work of the Divine Spirit. Never was the immanence of God so visibly manifest in our world as to-day. When that Divine Spirit is making itself manifest in almost countless forms of beneficient activity, in institutions of all kinds for alleviating the suffering of the human race, for rescuing the young from sinful surroundings and influences; in the building of asylums and hospitals, in the founding of industrial