The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-12-03
NEW SOCIETY FAD.
Kindergartning for Charity
Taken Up After a Meet
ing at Hasbrouck
Institute.
HIGHLY EMOTIONAL ADDRESSES
superintendent Snyder Puts the
Proceedings on a Scientific
Basis-Society Formed.

IN the solution OF the SOCIAL propieln dfiS-
ing from its neglect. The first kinder
garten will probably be opened shortly
after the holidays.
Hasbrouck Hall was comfortably filled
last night with persons who responded
to the call issued by the Woman's Ciu
for a meeting to discuss inaugurating the
work in Jersey City. Miss Cecilia Gaines
presided. Hamilton Wright Mabie, editor
of Outlook, and president of the New
York Kindergarten Association, was to
nave been the principal speaker OF the
evening. Illness prevented his presence,
and Miss Smith, who, with her sister,
Kate Douglass Wiggin, started the kinder
garten work in the West. was substituted.
"A wise child once remarked said the
speaker, that the only way to prevent
what's past is just to put a stop to it be-
fore it happens. l cannot hope to equal
the bewitching Mileslan grace of the say
ing in my little talk this evening, but /
shall take 1t as a text, for it is in truth
the very core of what / would say on the
kindergarten as a charitable work. that
is, as a prevention, not reformation.
1T is truism to say that the education
of any human being should begin with
his ancestors. and failing that, certainly
before his birth. 1t Is not possible, UNI,
fortunately, for US to regulate either of
these factors in the characters of other
peoples children, but if we are to under
take the education of them at all 1t would
seem that we should begin it at the proper
time and not postpone 1t to any age arbi-
trarily imposed by q mistaken law. Ine
kindergarten as a system of infant tram
ing is an essential in my opinion to every
child-to the, child of the rich and Weil-to-
do parents as much as to the child OF the
poor. 1t is the latter class, however, tnas
we are to consider. From the returns OF
a tenement house census taken a rev
years ago in New York there We're found
to be IA, 500 children under five years
horded under these roofs alone. ADD 10
these the number of little ones, Wa1fS OF
the city, tucked away in numberless odd
corners in other portions OF the city, ana
what an army OF babies rises up before
US. True. some of these have good
mothers and some home training, tor
poverty, thank Heaven, does not always
mean dirt and ignorance and carlessness
and brutality, and all of US who have
worked among the poor know that a home
and a sweet one may exist IN one small
crowded room. But eliminate these from
the problem and add to them the number
of babies who have the advantages or
the Kindergarten and what a horde or
neglected children remains.
And what are we doing for these little
ones? Why nothing at all in most cases,
or SO little that it is scarcely worth con-
sidering, save as a beginning. and yet We
in his most impressionag4c years, ana
without the least attempt at protection,
to infection by every. germ of evil that
turks in his surroundings. How mad 1t
is when we come TO think of it to give the
child every facility to inoculate himself
with a horrible disease, and then after
wards spend fabulous sums in trying TO
cure him of it, or if not to cure him to
punish it for having taken it.
What would I do then, coming down to
@,NanAf tIt rvs fnr tho n 10 nhit6 ut
the cities? What safeguards would 1
throw aroun him? How would ensure
his protection from evil influences. and
tions. Alas, we cannot ensure his protec-
ton from all these things but we can at
least put him as soon as he energies from
dergarten, an atmosphere where for three
or four hours a day he will see and hear
and feel and know nothing but what is
pure and noble and uplifting. The child
who has spent the freshest and most i'm
pressionable hours of the day in a kinder
garten of the right sort is SO filed with
ed to his own high level where he should
be and belongs by right that evil in
fuences have less power over him. II
the child for whom we are working is
not eneonpassed by drinking, brawling
and fighting at home he is likely to be set
in the midst of neglect and cheerlessness.
perhaps, but lone the less they are strong
ly felt, and his mind, when he comes to
the kindergarten is and must be darkly
stained with the faults and follies and
vices and misdeeds and sorrow of the
grown up people about him. Describe the
beautiful surroundings.of the kindergarten
to him and virtue kindles at the touch of
After Miss Smith had described in de-
tail the methods adopted in the moral,
physical and mental training of the chill
dren Of the kindergarten. Miss Jennie
Clerihew sang q lullaby, Little Shoes
by Kate Douglass Wiggin. Superintend-
ent of Schools Gilbert, of Newark, spoke
of the kindergartens in that city. He
pronounced them a success and declared
them an Indispensable auxiliary to the
public school system. The children who
graduate from the kindergarten, he said,
learn as much in enc year as other chill
dren do in two years. He was followed
by Miss Dozier, superintendent of kinder
gartens in New York, and Mrs. Tanning:
president of the Mothers Congress of
New York. who described their work as
k-indergartenerS.
Then Superintendent Snyder of this city
spoke. He said:-.I an going to be prac-
teal. Very much of the opposition which
has been aroused against the kindergar-
ten is the fault of the kindergarteners
quite ~fanciful and some undergraduates
have adopted his fancies n have tried
to carry them out in their system of
teaching. In doing SO they have present.
should not be adopted as a part of our
public school system. Time has taken
out a good many of these things. how
ever, and we find that Froeble did hit
on the best possible way of educating
children. In teaching children, z, 5 and
8 years old, we enbody many of the So
called kindergarten notions. That It is
easy to become emotional about the kim
derparten has been demonstrated in
this meeting where the preponderence
Of sentiment seems to be that it is a good
thing for the poor, that it is a good,
charitable and ~philanthropic work. It is
because 1t is scientific. however, that we
have to do with 1t. Education, both men
tai and moral, by the system of Froebel
is good. Why? Because 1t adopts natural
methods. One thing that we have diff
Guilty to do in the primary schools is to
get the children to talk. The child of the
kindergarten does talk because he has
something to talk about. because he is
full of ideas. Ideas and then words.
Words are bound to come. BY the time
the child leaves the kindergarten he has
a fund of information. / am firmly In
favor of the kindergarten from a peda-
gogical standpoint. | believe that the
Kindergarten ought to be d part of the
school system and that we ought to have
one here.
IT do not feel that 1t is a reflection on
the city tina this organization has been
formed. There are always people who are
ahead of the times. Our State scheme
Of education does not contemplate the
Kindergarten. The States does not allow
children under five years to participate
in the benefits of an education at the
-,h1ic axpansa pvaus fhat1ph fha e{tv ~ - !