The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-07-20
THE FREE KINDERGA RrEy Asso-
CATION.

CITATION.
The fete to be given in Lester park
on the evening of the 28th of the pres
ent month, under the auspices of the
Free Kindergarten associa ton, is for
a most noble purpose.
/ Many of our citizens, especially the
male class, may not understand the
purpose and may feel to ask the ques-
t1on: That is the real object OF the
association To answer this question
as ii should be answered would require
! more space, perhaps, than the daily
press would desire to grant; but an
answer must be given which will
prove, to some degree at least, salts
factory to the interested inquirer.
The association appreciates to the
highest degree that great educational
truth, great in Importance, that the
most impressive and consequently the
most enduring results from educatfve
processes are obtained when the mind
is the most impressionable, those
periods which we term the infancy
and the youth of life.
Our state constitution fixes as the
basis of our entire educational fabric
the kindergarten. 1t will take some
time. however, and some necessary
changes in conditions to enable the
state to carry out the fundamental law
on this subject and establish the kim
dergarten as part of the public
school system.
In connection with this latter propo-
sition the question arose in the minds
OF those deeply interested in the sub
ject: Shall we wait until the state
is prepared to take hold under more
favorable circumstances?
To this interroga tory number of
T,,1
1--WE will not wait; we will organize
and do the preparatory work for lay
ing the foundation for the greater
work of the state when it is prepared
to take hold
Pursuant to this declaration, and
consistent with it, an organization was
effected in December last with a
membership of thirteen ladies, since
which time it has grown until it now
has more than eighty names upon it's
roll, composed of males and females,
among whom are numbered ministers,
professional men and some of our most
enterprislng business men.
The work of the association has not
been that of holding weekly meetings
in which the time was spent in dis
cuSsing vague theories and in passing
panegyrics upon the dead masters; but
it has been practical and valuable to
the community.
By devices and plans, both laudab.e
and ingenious, the association has
succeeded in giving Kindergarten
training, free of charge, to twenty-four
children during the last half of the
past school year, or the first half of
the year which brought the organiza-
ton into existence. Not much time
has been lost in idle talk.
This half years test of what can be
done has been so satisfactory, not
only in the influence upon the little
people themselves, but in the wonder
full influence upon the homes of these
little ones, resulting in an uplifting of
the home and in placing a better en-
vironment around the child there as
well as in the rooms of the kindergar-
ten-that the association feels en-
couraged in it's determination to push
ahead, strengthen its forces and en-
large it's usefulness.
1t has sent its teacher east to at
tend, during vacation, an institution
which will the better equip her for the
work so well begun here
1t proposes to increase the number
of pupils next year and desires to be
prepared to furnish clothing for the
poorer children, if necessary-a thing
which was done last year in several
instances.
1t is for this purpose the 'fete' is to
be given-to raise money to carry out
these noble designs, and also to at
tract the attention of all to the good
work that is going on and to solicit
more laborers.
1t is the desire of the association to
have all good citizens-professio
and business men-connected with it,
and to have the cooperation of all
who desire the success of an institu,
ton whose power for good will be
great.
1t is an institution which seeks to
purify and elevate society by COM
nlencing at the bottom.
Man nor woman can engage in no
nobler work.
MRS. T. B. LEWIS,
nf