Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-07-28

With the week Just ended closed the first
half-year's kindergarten work in Sacra-
mento.
1t is hardly possible for citizens un-
familiar with kindergarten work to real
ize the bearing of this great institution upon
the future of community. But expert
ence has shown substantial results, such as
cannot be gainsaid or denied There is
stream of influence that flows back into the
families which tells for good, no matter
how wretched and degraded the households
may be. The parents come to feel that
their children are of some value, and they
treat them with more consideration and
kindness the children feel that somebody
| loves them, and they unfold and blossom
like flowers in the sunshine.
1t has been clearly demonstrated th at the
best education for the prevention of pau
perism and crime is that sort of education
! which from earliest childhood develops all
! the powers of body and mind, fosters good
habits, cultivates a right spirit, imparts
practical information, and trains the young
! 10 active and skilled industry.
Victor Hugo said: Every case of yaga-
bondage has its root in neglected child"
Crime can only be hindered by letting
no child grow up a criminal. Take the
very little child into the kindergarten and
there begin the work of physical, mental
and moral training; then see the result
| The State begins too late when it permits
the children of the poor and degraded to
enter the public school at the age of six
years. 1t is like locking the stable after
| the horse is stolen.
San Francisco now supports seventeen
| kindergartens, as the result of nine years
experience. The total number of children
enrolled at the close of last year was 1873
In Sacramento the work for a long time
| looked hopeless for some unaccountable
reason. The citizens did not seem to real.
iZe that kindergarten was anything more
than play-ground-"to keep children out
of the street." Several little schools were
started by private enterprise, but did not
reach general public notice. Finally, how
| ever, Miss May Belle opened one early this
year, which, through the efforts of several
philanthroplc ladies and gentlemen, was
made a free kindergarten. 1t was man.
aged by the Women's Christian Temper
ance Union, and continues to be o-day
| Two more sprung up almost Immediately
| after, and these three now constitute Sacra-
mento's share OF the great work. That IN
der the control of the Women's Christian
Temperance Union is operated under what
| is known as the Chicago SYSTEM" while
| the other two-the Marguerite Kindergar-
| ten and the Sacramento Kindergarten
work under the Pacific system" The
| former system aims to the migrating of re-
| Ggious principles radically; its inceptions
and gifts are founded in the Scriptures.
| The Pacific system, while neglecting moth
| in the way of moral teaching, seeks more
to impart to the child practical everyday
! knowledge.
MARGUERITE KINDERGARTEN.
Marguerite kindergarten opened in April
last, and Is now the largest and most -four
| ishIng in the city, thanks to the efforts of
| such good people as Mrs. B R. Croker and
Rev. DR.. Merrill. The names of ninety
two children were enrolled in the schools
CLASH book by the close of this first half
year.
With such teacher as Miss NJ. Alys
Pullman, it is no wonder this school has
been so successful The children worship
her. She possesses that rare faculty,of enter
ing into the hearts of the little ones and
keeping them interested in their work
which is essential in an ideal kindergarten.
A representative of this journal made the
rounds of the kindergartens last week, and
watched the little ones at their work. He
dropped into Miss Pullman's school, on
Twenty-thiId and h streets, and the first
thing that struck him was the extreme
happiness of the little tots, together with
the innocent eagerness with which they de
voured every morsel of simple knowledge
so adroitly fed out to them by their teacher.
Miss Pullman's assistant Miss May Jack
son, is another lovabe little lady, and she,
too, exerts a remarkable influence over
those little buds.
Miss Pullman" asked the newspaper
man, will you tell me inst what this
kindergarten work is-what it is founded
on, and what its object is?n
She laughed.
=" Do you want a sermon on the subject?'
| she asked playfully.
well. choose your own method of ex-
PLANTATION, so long as | am enlightened on
the subject, that | may in turn enlighten
the public"
Well, sit down, now and don't inter-
| rupt me, and I'll tell you all about it. You
know Carlyle said: "A loving heart is the
beginning of all knowledge This it is that
opens the whole mind and quickens every
faculty 10 do its fit work Inspired by
similar thought Pestalozzi and Froebel
devised their methods. Pestalozzi may be
styled the father of popular education. He
| would develop the human being from
| within-outward; would give primary i'm
portance to the receptive and perceptive
| faculties, and held selfactivity to be the
| great condition of success Froebel, the
| founder of the kindergarten, while follow
| ing in the same line, brings prominently to
view the truth that the education OF the
child's powers requires not only assimila
| ton but also production and creation, and
| that TO express, to utter, to combine are
| necessary to all true learning-to obtain a
| firm grasp. not merely of words but of
| things. He thus recognizes alike the peace
| full completeness and the infinite, iuces-
SAINT expansiveness' which are characters
tics of childhood.
sin the kindergarten Do unto others
| as We would that others do unto you is the
| habit inculcated, and generous love and
| fair dealing should be woven in with every
| intellectual effort made. Parents must CO.
| operate with teachers to bring about these
conditions and children must be made
| happy in the unfolding of their powers in
| order to respond cheerfully to the efforts
| made to educate them, for children can
| only be genially and probably governed
| through their affections. No man or
woman can follow up the work of genu-
inc kindergarten without indorsing it. Re
move all obstacles from the path of the
child, address the highest principles in it,
and one learns to realize that the human
being was created in such relation to ma
ture and God that little is required but to
guide his powers Alright and
THE CHILD WILL FINE ITS WAY
To BOTH The dominion of the higher SEN
| timents in an unsophisticsted soul has
, never been so accomplished as in the rapid
reformation of little children who have
only known the most degrading influence
when finally brought under this system of
training.
The word training. with the associa-
tons we have of it in the routine work of
schools, hardly expresses the idea we
would convey of the influence of the kim
dergarten. 1t is the influence of law
divine law, which comes to the child in
the disguise of order and conditions. He
soon learns that by following principle
he comes TO certain result-that law, not
accident, rules in everything. 1t is well to
use the word law at once to the child in
stead of the word rule, for law is far more
comprehensive and will include far more
that he will find in his experience as he
goes on than the word rule. The child
should never be required to remember
anything he does-the simple repetition
makes its impression at last and his INTEL
lectual work should be simply play Play
is the natural, the appropriate occupation
of the child left to his own resources
Through play he becomes familiar with