The Child under Eight

nlightened Minister for Education. It was Madame Michaelis, who in 1890 originally and most appropriately used the term Nursery School as the English equivalent of a title su

Letters, trans. Micha

the word Kindergarten while being naturalised in England had two distinct meanings attached to it. Well-to-do people began to send their children to a new institution, a child garden or play school. The children of the people, however, already attended Infant Schools, of which the chief feature was what Mr. Caldwell Cook calls "sit-stillery," and here the w

! to disappointment. "Instead of the rosy dawn of freedom," writes Ebers,[2] himself an old Keilhau boy, "in the State the exercise of a boundless arbitrary power, in the Church dark intole

hor of An Egypti

spread. At the present time it seems to us quite fitting that the bitter attack upon Kindergartens should have been launched by Folsung, a schoolmaster, "who began life as an artilleryma

o resist the invasion of Napoleon, and who had rejoiced with such enthusi

of honest efforts for the good of humanity; if this indifference to all higher things continues-then it is my purpos

t is evident that Kindergartens form a part of the Froebelian socialistic system, the aim of which is to teach the children atheism," and the suggestion that he was anti-Christian cut the old man to the hea

of the Orthodox Church, she might have her Kindergarten, but if she belonged to one of the Free

ir right names." He refused to use the word school, because "little children, especially those under six, do not need to be schooled and taught, what they need is opportunity for development." He had great difficulty in selecting a name. Those orig

igent gardener, growing plants are cultivated in accordance with Nature's laws, so here in our child garden shall the noblest of

you the main condition of unimpeded development, that of the freedom necessary to every young healthy and vigorous plant.... Is there really such importance underlying the mere name of a system?-some one might ask. Yes, there is.... It is true that any one watching your teaching would observe a new spirit infused into it, expressing and fulfilling the child's own wants and desires. You would strike him as personally capable, but you would fail to strike him as priestess of the idea which God has now called to life within man's bosom, and of the struggle towards the

Kindergarten, it is only fair to go to the founder himself. He has left us two definitions

n the child, as a member of the family, of the nation and of humanity; an institution for the self-instruction, self-education and self-cultivation

sal that he should establish "my system of education-educa

pontaneity acting under proper rules, these rules not being arbitrarily decreed, but such as must arise by logical necessity from the child's mental and bodily nature, regarding him as a member o

y is that of Madame von Marenholz in 1847 going to watch the proceedings of "an old fool," as the villagers called him, who played games with the village children.

ece of clothing; one boy had his feet in a bucket of water washing them carefully; other girls and boys were standing round attentively looking upon the strange pictures of real life before them, and waiting for something to turn up to interest them personally. Our meeting was

of Froebel's most

e flight of the little ones into the room, where each of them sat down in his place on the bench and took his box of building blocks. For half an hour they were all busy with their blocks,

ion of constructive play with active exercise, rhythmic game and song, and last but not least human k

omething more than the equivalent of the Montessori Children's Houses under the name of Free Kindergartens or People's Kindergartens. It will bring this out more clearly if, without referring here to a

oebel's own grand-niece, trained by him, and of whom he said tha

ost before it had started, was now rescinded, and our own Princess Royal[4] gave warm support to this new institution.

Princess of Prussia,

der

e the necessary and natural help which poor mothers re

blishment

nal Kindergarten with four classes fo

y held in the morning for chil

ool, for children from 6

ndwork, for children

penny and a penny. Also, for a trifle, poor children may receive assistance of various kinds in illness, or may h

yard with sand for digging, with pebbles and pine-cones, moss, shells and straw, etc., a garden, and a se

poetry; story-telling; looking at really good pictures; aiding in domestic occupations; gardening; and the usual systematic ordered occupations of Froebel. Madame Schrader is steadfastly opposed to that conception of the Kindergarten which insists upon mathematically shaped materials for the Froebelian occupations. Her own words are: 'The children find in our institution every encouragemen

raphs, I suppose this to have been w

for the games and handicrafts; they help in cleaning the rooms, furniture and utensils; they keep all things in order and cleanliness; they paste together torn wallpapers or pictures, they cover books, and they help in the cooking and in preparations for it; in laying the

through action-sand, pebbles, pine-cones, moss, shells and straw. Then comes the garden, and only after all these, the rooms and halls for indoors games, handwork and instruction. It is worth while also to no

been a time when some of us feared that only the bodily needs of the little child were to be considered, but the "Regulations for Nu

this may spring from parental instinct, it should be nourished by true understanding. Next perhaps comes the need for material, material for investigation, for admiration, for imitation and for construction

to imitate and to share in the work and life around him; he must be an individual among other individuals, a necessary part of a whole, allowed to give as well as to receive serv

idance from those specially qualified by real grasp of the facts of child-development. Well-to-do mothers, too, often leave

tigating propensities natural and desirable in a healthy child between three and five. There are innumerable Kindergartens open only in the morning for the children of those who can afford to pay, and these could well be multiplied and assisted just as

should never be large or the home atmosphere must disappear. They should always have grass

need. If the mother must go out to work, the child requires a home for the day, and the Nursery School must make arrangements for feeding the children. All little children are the better for rest and if possib

very great. But soap and hot water do cost money and washing takes time, and the modern habit of brushing teeth has not yet been acquired by all classes of the community. The Free Kindergartens provide for necessary washing, each child

t children do improve enormously in open-air camps, but so they do in ordinary Nursery Schools, where they are clean, happy and well fed, and where they li

ls who have tried to give to their lowest classes Nursery School conditions. Since the passing of Mr. Fisher's Education Bill, however, we are entitled to hope that soon, for all children

ebel reached his vision of what a child is, and of what a child needs, and the consideratio