Guide to the Kindergarten and Intermediate Class; and Moral Culture of Infancy.

Kindergartner, fully intelligent of childhood, and thorou

children from a more profound depth than ordinary education respects. But instead of beginning with putting checks upon childish play, he took the hint of his method from this spontaneous activity; and began with genially

is such a misfortune should ever be excited between the young and old. Nothing is worse for the soul, at any period of life, than to be put upon self-defence; for humility is the condition of the growth of mind as well as morals, and ensures that natural self-respect shall not degenerate into

training, which his faithful disciples have scrupulously kept up. And if only genius and love like his own could in one lifetime have discovered the science and worked out the processes of this culture, yet hun

l not describe the fine gradations of the work, or give an idea of the conversation which is to be constantly had with the children. It would be less absurd to suppose that a

, to be tuned and made to discourse divine harmonies? How is it, then, that the "harp of a thousand strings"-which God puts into the hands of every mother, in perfect tune-is so recklessly committed, first to ignorant girl-nurses, and then to the least educated teachers? Looking at children's first schools, it would seem that anybody is thought

called and blessed little children, because, as he said, of such was the kingdom of heaven; and again, more significantly still, when he warned from "offending (it might be better rendered perverting) these little ones; because," as he added, "their spirits do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." To know the soul before it has been warped by individual caprice and circumstance, is the science of sciences, on which is to be founded the art of arts; viz., that of educating the child so that its individuality may develop, not destroy, its sense of universal relations. And here I must pause to say, that it is simply astonishing t

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ut with a philosophic earnestness. Not that any mother could tell him the secret. It cannot be put into formulas, nor does it come by intuition into the scientific form in which a Kindergart

waken her heart. Gradually these reciprocal instincts open upon the child the first thing it knows; namely, that it is dependent for the means of life. For a child knows, in its heart, for a long time before it reflects and gets the thought, that not in itself, but outside of itself, is the source of its life. Of course, i

, than to feel its own body is the first pleasure of the child. To use its organs in pla

r's heart also goes to meet the child's faith with vocal expressions of tender joy; the heart of the child is awakened by tones which emparadise it, and it answers by like tones. There is nothi

d, and sometimes mere timidity, interferes. And, in general, Froebel saw how little most mothers reflect on the great work they are doing when they play with their children. He wished them to study into the laws they are obeying, in order to discover their scope and meaning, that they may be able

fumbling its little hands, and enjoying its bodily existence generally; and she sympathizingly intervenes, and draws the child to forget itself in its heart-sense of her sympathetic presence. She feeds the instinctive putti

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their necks, and they were cast into the uttermost depths of the sea." If these words mean any thing,-and who will dare say they are mere rhetoric?-then let us take care that we do not rush into the work of education, without being sure that we shall not

dren are consigned, by inevitable circumstance, to other nursing than a wise mot

ers and nurses brought their infants of six months old to his house, and he taught them how to play with-without fatiguin

which was not relinquished when Froebel died, but is now instructed by the best teachers of the Volks-Kindergartens, who go into it by turns. It has its sessions in the evenings

specific normal training is constantly kept up to supply the ever-increasing demand

abstractions is more apt to conceal than to reveal a living science. No book can train a Kindergartner, but only at best serve as a convenient reminder to educated exper

on the continent of Europe. Miss Kriege not only has studied a year in this training-school, but all the while frequented the Kindergarten of Madame Vogler, as observer and assistant; and,-together with her mother, a lady who is the equal of the Baroness Marienholtz in every thing but t

isters who have no intention of making teaching their vocation, but who may thus understand and be able to co-operate in spirit with the Kindergartner, in the education of the children; for it