The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1910-12-08

The Mayor and some of the Alder
men of Kenosha have suggested that
the Kindergartens must go. What do
the people of Kenosha say about the
propositions
The School Board see the need of a
new school building, and are refused
the needed funds by the Council.
The school building is needed in or
der that children may be taken out of
basement rooms where they are now
sitting; in order that rent paid for the
accommodation of surplus depart
ment may be stopped; in order that the
high school may have needed room for
expansion in the high school building.
The Mayor proposes to cut out the
Kindergarten, to turn out the four
year-old and 6ve-year-old children, Z" for
whom the Board hires nurses at $50
month, and then, he says, there will
be room enough without new build
ing.
BY the law of Wisconsin, all children
over four years of age and under TWEEN
ty years of age have a right to school
ing at public expense. A child cannot
proftably be started in what is com
monty regarded as regular school work
reading, writing, spelling, numbers
before the age of six or seven. To at
tempt this work before that age is a
waste of time if not a positive detri-
ment later,
The kindergarten is designed to pre-
pare four and five year old children
for the later school work. Tt is NOT
merely for entertainment. It is Ia
school where exercises adapted to i'm
mature children fill the program.
In city like Kenosha, where there
is large foreign-speaking population
the kindergarten serves another very
important purpose. It puts children at
an early age in command of the Eng
fish language, so that when they are
old enough to be taught to read they
can go right ahead in it. Before a
child can be taught to read English
he must be taught to understand and
speak English.
By gathering the four and FIVE year
old children into the hndergartens this
preparatory start is given them, so
that when they dc enter the first grade
they are able to make more rapid pro-
gress. If circumstances ohlige them to
leave school at fourteen, when the
compulsory school age limit is reached,
they are better equipped for intelligent
citizenship than could have been pos
sible without the help given at the
start by the kindergarten.
For all children, it is easily demon
strated that much more rapid progress
in the grades is made by those whose
minds were quickened and whose habits
were shaped by the kindergarten train
ing.
There are 311 children four and five
years of age enrolled in the kinder
gartens of Kenosha today. There are
299 about five years old some with
kindergarten training last year, now in
the sub-prmary grades of the city.
Next fall there will be fully 800 more
children ready to demand entrance to
the kindergarten departments of our
schools.
Now we are told that we must shut
the doors of our schools in the faces
of these 600 little ones, and say. Ono
entrance here
What do the voting fathers of these
600 children say to this proposition? I
believe that those fathers had rather
walk or drive on unpaved streets for
while longer than to see the thing
happen that was proposed in the Com
mon Council last night. I believe that
all the taxpayers of Kenosha realize
that proper educational advantages for
the children of this city take prece-
dence in Importance of all other inter
ests. Our average citizen must be a
good citizen if our city is to advance
towards better things. It is education
that raises the efficiency of the average
citizen, and that education is most ef-
fective that begins with the little child
Mary D. Bradford,
Supt. of Schools.