The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-29 00:00:00

LITERATURE,

JUVENILE BOOKS.

Kinder Garten Educational Employments for

Children. By Jane Mill. Barton and lodge.
The advantages and peculiarities of the system
of the Kinder Garten are beginning to be more
generally discussed among us, and, in consequence,
more highly estimated. Tne great and lasting
evils resulting from the forced application of young
and tender minds to long hours of dry and (' o them)
unintelligible study, have long been insisted ou
by those best qualified to judge, but, in spite
of doctors and moralists, in spite, too, of the
sadder warning of the drooping health and flag-
ging spirits of their children, parents too often
persist in exactions which are really cruel. No
rational person would expect a child of six or
eight years to carry heavy weights or walk long
distances, yet overteaching is quite as senseless,
though more insidious. Why should the brain be less
cared for than the limbs P Assuredly it is not of
less value, and its influence on the general health is
more powerful and more lasting. The mental result
is generally disappointing—the physical is too often
disastrous. We trust the inauguration of the
Kinder Garten system, which is based on the
sound principle of training rather than teach-
ing, will tend in some deg, ee to mitigate this evil,
for so long as parents expect children of five to be
fluent readers, and at eight or nine to be proficient
pianistes, teachers by the ordinary method are very
awkwardly situated. The Kinder Garten is only
intended for very young children, and is designed as
an introduction to the ordinary method rather
than an opposition to it. It aims at employing those
superfluous energies of children which usually are
only shown in devastation, in construction and in-
genuity. The devices and models made by some
children are really surprising, and those less skilful
are equally interested in learning how a thing is
made by seeing it put together instead of broken to
pieces. Instruction is conveyed in various forms,
but the games of the children are one of the prin-
cipal means by which they learn order, ingenuity,
and harmony, along with the principles of geome-
try, arithmetic, music, and design. The little work
before us represents many of these games, and thus
affords parents an opportunity of becoming ac-
quainted with some of the leading features of the
system.

The Two Cousins.—Three Years After.—Made
Clear at Last. By H. S. E. Wertheim, Mac-

intosh, and Hunt, Paternoster-row.
These are three pleasant little tales for girls of
the working class just beginning life, written with
a purpose, but yet full of daily interest. As they
are adapted to an age which finds the fascination of
fiction all-powerful, we should hope that they may
be productive of benefit. Were employers and
parents more careful to place such works in the
hands of girls, they might be able by their means
to turn the taste for romance, which is often pro-
ductive of evil, into a channel for mental and moral
elevation.

Tales of Life in Earnest. By Miss Crompton,
Author of " Tales that are True," &e. Barton
and Hodge.

This is an elegantly bound and handsomely illus-
trated volume, reciting anew some of those old tales
that never wear oat. The stories of " Elizabeth of
Siberia," " Alfred the Great," " George Washing-
ton," and " Hofer," never lose their charm. They
are fresh to every succeeding generation, and their
lessons are never tedious or unprofitable. Miss
Crompton's little work, however, does not confine
itself to "twice told tales," for there are many
new sketches with such titles as " The Life Boat,"
" Three Months under the Snow," &c. We subjoin
one of these which tells briefly a story which some
of us have heard before, but which can scarcely be
heard too often :