"The value of your teaching is not the information you have put into the mind, but the interest you have awakened. If the heart is trained the rest grows out of it. The mind is evolved out of heartiness."-G. Stanley Hall. I. K. U. DEPARTMENT Дн Propagation Notes Reports of delegates at the Springfield Convention covered a wide range of activities, and were suggestive along many lines of effort for the propagation of the kindergarten. Some effective ways of emphasizing the value of the kindergarten in the community are illustrated in the following clippings from delegates' reports:The Norfolk Kindergarten Club, through a play festival in which the activities of the playground were exhibited, aroused the public interest so thoroughly that five playgrounds were equipped and opened in the city. The Duluth-Superior Kindergarten Club reported that its spring play festivals not only stimulated public interest in the kindergarten but put about two hundred dollars each year into the club treasury, a part of which is used as a delegates' a delegates' fund for representation at I. K. U. conventions. The report also makes mention of the kindergarten work in the "Iron Range" in northern Minnesota, where great classes of newly arrived foreign children are being cared for in modern splendidly equipped buildings. Kansas City reports a splendid winter festival which enabled the club to equip a settlement kindergarten, to pay membership dues to the Child Labor Association, to have a general lecture fund for the benefit of parents and teachers, and to accomplish many other things. Dayton, Ohio, reports a Story Tellers' League in which are enrolled teachers from the kindergarten to the high school. It also reports the identification of the kindergartners with the Civic Workers Association, a "get-together" movement for making the city into a "spotless town" and beautifying it. The kindergarten children are also enrolled as members. The Detroit kindergartens have had numerous festivals, hand work exhibits, etc., and have made so strong an impression on the city. that when a new building is opened, if a kindergarten is not at once established the people ask to have it done. The Milwaukee Froebel Union has made a special study of the unification of the kindergarten and primary schools. To this end the kindergartners themselves have been making a careful study of their own methods and materials that they may intelligently make suggestions to the primary grades. For this purpose they have divided themselves into groups, and have studied music, table work, rhythm and games, rhymes and stories, mothers' clubs, home visiting, and program work. The responsibilities of the ballot. GRACE E. MIX, Chairman Propagation Committee. The Rhode Island Kindergarten A Special Message to the MemLeague reports a school census including four-year-old children. Duplicate slips from these blanks are turned over to the kindergartners so that they can look up the children in their district. This league also reports close co-operation with the first grade teachers as it realizes how greatly this relationship strengthens the kindergarten in the community. The Kindergarten Federation of Wilkesbarre made a strong report. It made much of the fact that it is trying to impress upon the public the value of the kindergarten, that lengthens the school life of the Ichild who must leave school at fourteen, cultivating his powers of observation and attention, obedience and expression, giving him a larger vocabulary, and in the case of foreign born children a new language. Atlanta University has a kindergarten training course for young colored women, especially fitting them for mission work, with a two years' course and the hope of raising the standard to three years in the near future. The program of the Chicago Kindergarten Club shows the wide range of interest of the members and the preparation they are making for becoming strong social A few of the topics fol forces. low: The conservation of the child. bers of I. K. U. Branches The first vice-president of the International Kindergarten Union has for her special work the conference of directors and assistants, and thus early in the year wishes to begin preparations for the convention to be held in San Francisco in 1915. The conference at the Springfield meeting had the unique quality of seeming to be too short, which was certainly a compliment, and one not often merited at educational conventions. The subject of The Development of Initiative was so suggestive, and so applicable to all phases of the work that the time seemed all too limited for the discussions provoked by the brief and admirable papers presented. A development of some of these topics might be interesting for suggestions and questions that at the next conference; it is to ask this letter is written. If there is the faintest possibility that you may be so fortunate as to be present at the next I. K. U. meeting, in June, 1915, will you not send to the writer any question or topic which you would like to have discussed at the conference? The aim is to have an interchange of experience in as informal a manner as may be possible with a large How Chicago cares for her chil- group of people. Harmonious, im dren. personal discussion with kinder gartners of differing views, from different parts of the country, whether it accomplishes a modification of view, or makes clearer our own reasons for the faith that is in us, is one of the most stimulating and truly educative factors in our development. A conference affords a most admirable opportunity for this discussion, and each person who reads this letter is urged to contribute to the interest of the next meeting by sending topics, suggestions, or questions to MISS STELLA LOUISE WOOD, Kindergarten Normal School, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sale of Annual Reports All I. K. U. Reports, with the exception of the latest one, are offered for sale at the nominal sum of 10 cents, with 5 cents extra for postage. There are now on hand copies of the following:Thirteenth Annual Report, Milwaukee, 1906. Fourteenth Annual Report, New Sixteenth Annual Report, Buffalo, 1909. Seventeenth Annual Report, St. Louis, 1910. Eighteenth Annual Report, Cincinnati, 1911. Nineteenth Annual Report, Des Moines, 1912. These reports contain much interesting and valuable information and should be in the hands of every kindergartner. The sixteenth contains the summary of the Committee of Nineteen on the different points of view of the kindergarten, and is especially valuable. Send orders to Miss May Murray, Treasurer, KINDERGARTEN REVIEW, Springfield, Mass. Requests to Branches To facilitate preparations for the next I. K. U. convention, which will be held at San Franciso, June 30 to July 4, 1915, presidents of all I. K. U. branches are urged to find out as soon as possible the number of members who will probably attend the convention, and report through the medium of the REVIEW. It is earnestly requested that the secretary of each branch of the I. K. U. send at once to the corresponding secretary of the I. K. U. the names of new officers for this year, and the number of members of her association. Address Miss May Murray, Corresponding Secretary, KINDERGARTEN REVIEW, Springfield, Mass. NEWS DEPARTMENT OUR NEWS DEPARTMENT is open to all kindergartners, and we hope that individuals and associations will make use of it to keep in touch with each other. As the REVIEW for each month is issued on the 20th of the month previous, the news for a number must reach us before the 5th of the previous month; that is, news for November, before October 5; December, before November 5. The Fourth International Congress on Home Education, scheduled to convene in the City of Philadelphia under the auspices of the International Commission on Home Education and ParentTeacher Unions September 22-29, 1914, has been temporarily postponed to a date to be determined by the Central Committee. A meeting of this committee will be called by Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, president of the Congress, as soon as events warrant, according to a statement received from Mrs. J. Scott Anderson, general secretary. Mrs. Joseph R. Wilson, chairman of Committee on the Convention of Safety arranged as a part of the Fourth International Congress on Home Education, announces that the Convention of Safety will be held as scheduled although the Congress has been temporarily postponed. The Convention of Safety is under the auspices of the Home and School League of Philadelphia of which Mrs. Edwin C. Grice is president. Miss Emma Ghering, who has been assistant kindergarten training teacher in the Illinois State Normal University at Normal, Ill., the past year, now has charge of the kindergarten training in the State Normal School at Duluth, Minn. Miss Ghering is a graduate of the supervision course at Teachers College, Columbia University. Miss Alice O'Grady, head of the kindergarten department of the Chicago Normal School, was married July 23 to Mr. William B. Moulton of Chicago. Mrs. Moulton will not give up her work in Chicago Normal School and will continue her interest in the activities with which she has been connected. Miss L. B. File, director of the Oak Hill Kindergarten, St. Louis, Mo., had charge of the kindergarten and playground at the Litchfield-Hillsboro (Ill.) Chautauqua, August 2-16. |