PRESENT DAY CRITICISMS OF THE KINDERGARTEN [The following article was written by Miss Smith in March, 1909, and is now published because the editor feels that it will be of interest to the kindergarten world to see how many of the criticisms here quoted have been met in the years that have passed, and how many are still in force.] IT was T was my fortune, as a schoolgirl, to belong to various quaint and curious societies, of some of which I fear I was the originator and the guiding spirit. One of these associations of which I was a shining membér known as the Fault Society and flourished, in defiance of all laws of probability, for at least a school term. There were six of us who belonged to the Fault Society, and meetings were held every fortnight. One person was chosen for discussion at each sitting and the other five members, who had presumably devoted the preceding thirteen days to consideration of the subject, took it in turn to communicate to their victim what in their opinion was her most besetting sin. Nor were these communications made in secrecy; they were uttered in a loud and cheerful voice, though no doubt conscientiously and prayerfully. Nor were they resented for the most part, although I do recall one occasion when the meeting broke up, or was washed away, I might say,-in six separate floods of tears. Speaking for myself, I should say that the said victim was in almost every case paralyzed by the nature of the faults imputed to her,-faults of which she was commonly quite ignorant, and, one might perhaps safely say, quite innocent,-though she was conscious in the background of her mind of a score of others which were dark enough to cause her considerable uneasiness about bedtime. This fault-finding, if one would do it so as to be really salutary, to expose the evil and to heal it with the same burning ray, is a difficult matter indeed, and one which in the moral realm of things, at least, the patient can often do for himself, if he will, much better than any one can do for him. A few years ago there came to me the associate editor of a Western journal of ambition and ability, who told me of a series of articles her company purposed publishing, which would deal with the educational system of the United States as a whole and in detail, and which would begin at the Kindergarten and close with the University. There were to be two articles on the kindergarten, I learned, one to explain and one to criticise it, and I hastened to inquire, fortified, no doubt, by charter membership in the Fault Society, if I might be allowed to serve as the critic. No, I was answered, that position had already been given to a prominent writer, whose kindergarten articles I might perhaps remember. I did remember them with great clearness, and remarked that they could scarcely be called the opinions of a critic, but the broomsticks, boiling water, and hot shot of a bitter enemy. I subsequently felt obliged to promise the article explaining Froebelian theory and practice, however, lest that be given to the prominent writer also, or to one of her lurid and melodramatic literary family, but I knew then that I was a hundred times better equipped to find fault with the kindergarten than she could ever be, not only because it is part of my life, knit into the very soul of me, but because it chances, since I belong to a migratory family, that I know it in this country and in Great Britain as not all kindergartners and training teachers have been so fortunate (or, unfortunate, as you like) as to know it. I am the better equipped, perhaps, for seeing the defects in the kindergarten, too, because I now stand a little apart and away from the rush of the stream, like one posted on a river bank who can see more clearly than he who is occupied in steering his craft, the flotsam and jetsam, the wreckage, the noble ships, the tugs, the tiny rowboats, swimming down the waters. Years have passed since I have done any regular kindergarten teaching or training, but I have never lost touch with either, never ceased to study Froebel (and I hope to live Froebel), and never for a moment lessened my interest in the work which is, in my opinion, the best worth doing of any work given to women in the whole round world. Am I too enthusiastic, too fervid? Remember before you judge me that I believe this with all my heart, and therefore must I speak. I speak. It is only because I love the kindergarten so dearly that I can find fault with it, and in these latter years I have been in a position to hear criticisms which never would have come to me had I been closely associated with kindergarten daily living. In all this time, too, I have had at hand a large and stout brown paper envelope labeled Objections to and Criticisms of the Kindergarten, and into that safe receptacle I have tucked everything appropriate that has come to me,-dinnertable conversations, scraps of luncheon talk, discussions at women's clubs, bits of argument from neighboring steamer chairs, and, lastly, quantities of cuttings from books, newspapers, and magazines, both American and foreign. Some of these, like the opinions of the Fault Society, will seem to you wholly untrue, no doubt; to some you will give a partial credence, and others you will accept outright. I do believe, however, when massed in this way that they have a value as showing the trend trend of public opinion, which the kindergarten, as a public servant, is bound to heed. One criticism that has from the first been directed against kindergartners is that as a body they are inclined to form an exclusive sect, to consider themselves the "elect"; that they are unwilling to see good in any other educational system; and that, like Don Quixote in the famous bonfire, they are willing to offer up all other books existing, if they may retain the "one fit in that kind," which is, of course, Froebel. It is complained also that they have zeal without discretion, that there is much literal formalism among them, and that they never get outside Froebel's system, never perceive any new truth of child nature, but only fresh and more convincing illustrations of truths already formulated and implied in Froebel's teachings. We are warned by Mr. Graham Wallas of the London School Board that "although in some respects it is an advantage to center our work around the life and teaching of one master, yet it is an advantage which may be bought too dear," and again by Dr. G. Stanley Hall that we are in danger of creating a worship of Froebel, or "Froebelolatry," as he calls it, which is not without certain analogies with that which celibate monks have created by idealizing the Virgin Mary (Mariolatry). Both Froebel's views of children and his applications have been too much sentimentalized, thinks Dr. Hall, and the kindergartners to-day are more interested in his teachings than they are in educational principles generally. We are told that the kindergarten will not improve until Froebel's authority and system cease to dominate the thought of kindergartners and that what we need is a change of attitude so that we shall be susceptible to |