Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-04-14
THE KINDERGARTEN.

Gently EIlorts are now being put 1orth TO
establish such schools in this city, and it
is to be hoped that these laudable schemes
will receive the material support essential
to their Inauguration and maintenance.
Under the Golden Gate kindergarten
Association of San Francisco there were
organized thirteen of these schools or
classes. Only one of these was adopted by
the Public School Department There are
now eleven of the schools in that city and
one at Menlo Park. OF these, eight were
founded and are maintained by Mrs. Lee
land Stanford, one by Mrs. Hearst, one by
Miss Croker, one was founded by Miss
Flora Sharon, and is still maintained by
that lady. Outside Of these there are
some twenty-nine free kindergartens in
San Francisco and environs, including
three in Oakland, one in Mayfield, one in
San Mateo, and several in orphanages and
asylums, while kindergarten classes in
several cases are maintained by churches.
There are over two thousand children en-
rolled in these free schools, and the de-
mand for them would justify the establish
ment of FIVE times as many classes as pri-
vale benevolence now sustains. 1t costs
about 81 900 year to sustain class of
sixty children and give them the very
best kindergarten training.
The kindergarten really needs no special
pleading in its behalf 1t must be
assumed that the public is informed upon
lis benefits, and the important part it plays
in the earliest stage of developing the in
tellect of the child, in cultivating its tastes,
and training its habits in orderly WAYS
The whole course Of educational advance
in the teaching of primary pupils, has in
the last thirty years proceeded upon the
principle of addressing the reason through
the fancy, and cultivating the love of
knowledge through the agency of
the Imagination, the most power
full influence in child-life. In its
relation to industrial education the kinder
garten occupies position closer than any
other preparatory system to the object
sought to be attained The fundamental
idea upon which it proceeds, and that is
foremost in all its method, we may term the
beauty of order. 1t does not discover the
education of head, heart and hand, but oper-
ates upon them together. 1t aims to teach
the young pupil to accomplish right pur-
poses in an orderly way, and yet in a way
most in harmony with its virgin tastes
and untarnished fancy. 1t is not its effort
to teach of books or words, but of things
about the child, its relation to them, and
the laws governing them. Its labor is to
teach the child how to think and how to
do; how to have and express ideas. To
this end it makes observation the key note
of all its processes.
The kindergarten pupil does not grow
into the world with closed eyes, 1t is
taught how to see and understand things,
and it requires scarcely more than weeks
training in the kindergarten to make little
eyes open and keep open for facts as the
foundation and spring of ideas 1t culti-
Yates the creative faculty; it enlists to This
end the playthings of the child and gives
the pleasure Of their use teaching pur-
pose So far from binding child to its
seat aud study, or using coefciye means to
attach il to tasks il wholly frees the little
one body and mind, and by skillfully
training Of its pereeptive faculties in free
dom, it quickens, strengthens and fashions
the reflective. In other words, as an able
advocate of the system has put it, il takes
the child with all it surroundings and
turns its natural inquisitive disposition
concerning them to the very best account
in ascertaining the reason for them. 1t
seizes upon the instinct of play and con-
verts it, without divesting it of the 'play
element into a means of cultivating con-
structive skill.
The kindergarten has at its foundation
this essential truth, that the best educa-
ton begins at the earliest age, thus en-
phasizing the old proverb, Gas the twig is
bent the tree s inclined" But it is vitality
essential that this bending shall be in the
right direction and in harmony, as far as
may be, with natural tastes. The kinder
garten lies at the very root Of industrial
education. since it is constant in
teaching how to fashion things, the har
mony of orderly designs, the power and
scope OF the creative faculty, and the
ability of human intelligence beginning
with the simplest process to conquer
things to human uses. As Mrs. Cooper.
the well-known apostle of the kinder
garten has well said, it is character
builder, proceeding upon the belief of
Lord Brougham, that child can and does
learn more before the age of six years than
it does or can learn after that age during
it whole life, however long it may be. 1t
holds with the Spartans, that the life of
the child is Of most value to the State.
The kindergarten is the most potential
teacher of self-helpfulness among children
known to educational systems, and for
that very reason is best adapted to train
ing those children who by reason of the
inability of parents or the misfortune of
circumstances, are left to that inevitable
fashioning by vice, which is the fate of the
unguided child in that critical period of
life between the nursery and the primary
school.
1t an evidence of the slowness of the
public to leave beaten paths, that the
kindergarten, with all its demonstrated
advantages and wonderful influences. upon
child life, has so long been held away
by the public school systems. But it
is now making rapid progress to union.
Boston, after watching individual expert
ment with the kindergarten for a decade,
has engrafted the private classes upon its
system. St. Louis has seventy of these
schools under the protection of the pubic
arm. while in Philadelphia and several
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