The Savannah morning news., 1903-07-12

In the falI OF the year When the
school houses throw open their doors
TO nearly all healthy children eager
to study about the great and Won
derful world in which they live, there
are still some bright little faces look
ing out into the world TO whom the
school doors are not yet open; these
belong TO the, little people from to s
years of age, and it was for such as
these that the great Froebel
provided the kindergarten.
At the age of 3 or 4 the child has
reached a full state of self-conscious-
ness and personal Identity, has ex-
plored all the loving regions of his
home, and is now ready to extend his
explorations and Investigations to the
outside world Let this desire to en-
large his knowledge of things about
him lead him first to the kinder
garten.
kindergarten Associations.
There he will find loving teachers
and become one of a social group which
will be but an expansion of the one
ne has known as his home. There his
eager little hands eyes, ears, and lips
will find ready and constant employ
ment-his delight in movement his
desire to observe, construct, TO invest,
will find a happy educational outlet
reproducing all the activities of the
grown-up life around him, the lives OF
animals, trees, flowers, and all living
things, and conditions Of things, that
come under his observations; realizing
and comprehending them more clearly
Of them
Froebel says Il can convert chill
dren's activities, energies, amusements,
occupations, all that goes by the name
of play into instruments for my pur-
pose and, therefore transforms play
into work. This work will be educa-
tion in the true sense of the word.
Instruction and Development.
The kindergarten is a system of in
struction and development for very
young children. There the child is de-
veloped along natural lines. and the
work given him is suited to his stage
of development. He is never forced.
but passes gradually from one stage
TO another. All his work is put into
the form of play las at his age he Will
have nothing but play) but in such a
manner that he uses body and mind,
and is led to see the spiritual side
and message of all things, thereby
factor, developing his three-fold ma
ture, body, mind and spirit, and re-
alizing one of the greatest aims of the
Kindergarten. the simultaneous devel-
opment of every faculty, which Is es-
sential for the production of the high
est type of humanity.
How the Child is Developed.
The child is developed physically by
means of marches, skips, games, and
calisthenics-his social instincts are
expanded by the companionship of 9TH
er children-his senses are cultivated
by the use of the gifts and occupations,
and his mind is used in the inventions,
constructions, and uses to which he
puts these educational paythings,
which Froebel planned and worked out
for him with so much loving thought.
But the greatest and highest object of
the kindergarten is character build
ing" and the child is taught the true
and best way of thinking and living,
before he has a chance to learn the
wrong-making good and strong those
first and most lasting impressions and
habits-hence the benefit not only to
the individual child. but to future gen.
erations and society.
The Law of Habit.
The law of habit is the foundation
of the kindergarten. Everything is
based on the good habits being formed
in its children. Physiologicaly, habits
are new pathways of nervous discharge
formed by strong states of conscious
ness, followed by action and sustain
ed and made permanent by the nutri-
ave processes, for with every circula-
tion of the blood, these new modes of
activity are stamped in deeper and
deeper Habits are much more read
lily formed during the periods of In
fancy, childhood, and youth than in
those who have reached maturity and
the earlier they are acquired the more
tenaciously are they retained. for ii is
then that the organism is growing
most rapidly, and the greatest amount
of new tissue is being formed so that
new connections are most readily es-
tablished, and the nutritive forces most
readily take on the new modes of ac-
ton.
The ImpressiOnabIe Age.
The period Of childhood is the most
unreasonable of all the periods of
life, for the child is most Influenced by
the external world, and is also under
the domination of maturer minds
which makes the responsibility of car
ing for little child great-as the habit
thus formed are returned after those
acquired in late life have passed awav