By Eva Whiting White, Head Resident, Elizabeth Peabody House, Boston EIGHTEEN years ago, a woman original nucleus of twenty-six kin loved and revered by all who knew her, Miss Mary J. Garland, was largely instrumental in organizing in the west end of Boston a social settlement. This settlement was founded in memory of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and is a significant proof of the farsighted vision of its incorporators, among whom were Miss Wheelock and Miss Laliah B. Pingree, in interlinking child training with the social motive of enlarged family, neighborhood, and civic opportunity. In 1896, then, a leader in the kindergarten world took her stand on this question of the kindergartner's responsibility toward social problems, and three years ago, when the Elizabeth Peabody House Association began to plan for a building in which to permanently house the manifold activities that have radiated from the dergarten children, kindergartners from all over the country, yes, and from abroad, helped to make possible the present building, which stands as a monument to their breadth of conception of their field of interest. Working for child life does, indeed, mean working for all life, and those who touch child life most intimately can present the test of the past generation, the test of the present, and can guide toward the future as can no other group of persons. The kindergarten holds a strategic position in our educational and social scheme. No group of teachers has a greater opportunity nor is more sure of rewarded efforts. As a social worker there was a time when I tended to concentrate on the period of adolescence. It was not long, however, before I began to go back to the age of twelve, to ten, eight, six, to infancy itself Frequently the difficulties which are met in adult years are due to the lack of training and guidance in those early formative years when consciousness is dawning, when activity is at its maximum point of receptivity. Psychotherapy is rapidly accumulating evidence on this line and is showing us that the early impressions which are formed even before organized thought begins, tend often to be the most difficult to remove. which each individual is meant to make. Now the kindergarten's approach to the home is one of its strongest points, and it is in the light of the child and the home that the kindergartner can and should project her influence into those lines of effort which aim to grapple with present-day social problems. No approach to the home is more natural than is that of the kindergartner, and through her interest in the child, she is led immediately into the heart of the family situation. To me those who touch most closely the lives of children should be the home specialists, and in the forefront of community revivalists, if you will. The great cause of child welfare opens up before the kindergartner-a cause which involves incisive analysis and is worthy of the best she can give. The child and his home? -the home on its physical and spiritual sides?-the child's home in relation to other homes?-the child and his playmates?-his street contact?-the accepted neighborhood or community standards?these are some of the questions to be asked by the kindergartner. The kindergartner should know her neighborhood or community well. Family life cannot be judged from preconceived ideas. Families in their own setting must be studied and interpreted in the light of that setting. We have in the child a little animal reacting to instinctive impulse, an atom of human possibilities, if you will,-good and bad in the balance to be weighed by the working out of heredity and training, and the experience of life. No teacher can take the place of the mother during those first three or four years, and none but a personality that holds within itself the widest ranges of power to understand and to subtly guide child life, combined with the power to influence society in its reactions on child life, should make that first contact with the child outside of the home. It is not enough to know the technique of teaching a kindergarten; it is necessary to understand and to put into action the philosophy of the kindergarten movement, a philosophy that involves not only training the child, but paving the way for him in society so he may have a fair chance to make the contribution A kindergartner should steep herself in the reactions of the neighborhood or community in order to interpret the influences that are encircling the children in whom she is interested. One of the most telling developments in the training schools for kindergartners within the last few years has been the introduction of courses along sociological lines. The chief points of emphasis in these courses would probably be found to be the responsibility of the kindergartner in following her children outside the class room, and, in the light of the child, flashing the search light on the community. Acute needs thus made evident should be met through the personal influence of the kindergartner in rousing the community or by stimulating existing agencies such as churches, schools, or clubs. A kindergartner who goes to a community for the first time faces more of a problem than simply teaching and visiting in the homes of those whom she teaches. teaches. Neither the individual nor the homes are entities of themselves. Homes are reacted upon by homes and by other institutions. First, then, a kindergartner should as soon as possible make herself an integral part of her district by closing up on every opportunity that enables her to get at the inner life. What is the standard of family life? Types of homes? Churches? Schools? Recreational facilities? The great thing which the kindergartner is doing and which other forms of education have failed to follow up is that of not only developing the child but of bringing the mother within the educational scheme. Mother, child, and teacher, in those first months of instruction, are educating and are educated by one another. It is greatly to be regretted that this close contact with the home is not followed up throughout the school life of the child. Were the home and the school continuous allies much of the waste of effort that exists in our educational methods would be saved. After all, unless the kindergarten has the power to reorganize or center the neighborhood or community forces that surround a child so that the wellbeing of the child physically, morally, and spiritually shall be safeguarded, what assurance is there that the kindergarten influence will not be, in a large measure, lost? Further, workers with children can do more than other groups of persons to help in solving our social problems by the very forces of their appeal when presented in terms of childhood. About a year ago in this city, I listened to an impassioned appeal which held the audience absolutely by the force of an argument couched in the terms of the protection of children and the home. No other argument could have so riveted their attention. The appeal of the child or call of the home arouses every elemental impulse we have. Not only that, |