Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1911-03-31
KINDERGARTEN WORK
preston, in order to give practice to
| the child and davalon riuht habits
lContinued from page II

garten literature, one is at a loss to
know where to begin, so many are the
good things said in it's favor; so many
are its friends and so few its opponents.
Perhaps one of the Boston supervisors
has expressed it as we'll as any:
1.-The kindergarten is factor in ed
ucation which through it's own means,
meets the essential needs of childhood
and in so doing prepares the child's
mind and heart for the next higher
step. It develops the power to see, to
choose and to do; the power to give
attention to apply ones self to the task
in hand, and power to control impulses,
to enter into the experience of others
and begins to develop all such powers
in a degree proportionate to the child s
age and capacity"
To quote again from another super
visor: "a knowledge of size, color,
number, considerable power of that
and imagination, the habit of standing
and sitting well, of obedience, of
answering when addressed, moving
without the aid of gestures, these are
some of it's assets. An enlarged vo-
cabulary, readiness to note resem-
blances and differences, ability to sing
and to echo note and expressions, to
"play fair" to follow directions, and,
above all, desire to work, and to do
ones best-these are the evidences Of
power developed by the kindergarten
training" One of the chief ideas of
Troebel, was the education of a child
through self activity. Not one of US,
but can appreciate the activity of a
child at the age of four or five
The method of the kindergarten is to
direct this energy into doing some
thing. and to help the child to perform
definite tasks, and thus learn to figure
things out for himself, to realize that
he is an individual and that there
are others beside himself. 1t throws
him at an early age 1.-TWO or three
years before he is ready for regular
school duties) into relations with chill
dren of his own age, gives him COM
partnership, not that which runs loose,
without any purpose except general
letting off of steam, but companion
ship that has mutual object in view
"a doing something together. His
work in the kindergarten is play, but
it is play that means something.
One educator says that teaching
children to learn to play is sufficient
justification for the kindergarten if
there were no other reasons for its
existence
The kindergarten develops the play
spirit into rational activities and
teaches the children to regard others
and to observe, and it helps the shy
and awkward. 1t tends. to make a
child unselfsh. 1t introduces him into
a small world, and he early begins to
learn his place in it.
He is taught by the eye instead of by
the ear and initiates serious occupa-
tons and invents things that resemble
them in the way of play and he does all
this with children of his own age.
He is too young to learn from books,
but during the few hours spent in the
each day, his young ener-
gy and mind are directed along lines of
systematic endeavors.
If there were no kindergartens these
children would start in their school
work at five or six years of age. They
would require a great deal more of adj
justing year or two later than if they
had been in-the kindergarten. In fact,
unless they were carefully trained at
home, most of them, would demand
several months attention before the
routine of primary work could be done.
The most eminent editors and auth
ors, like the late Richard Watson Gid
er, Hamilton w. Mabie and Kate Doug
las Wiggin, have long been exerting
their influence for the kindergarten.
1t has been found that the children
coming up from the kindergarten are
the best students. They easily sur
pass the children who have no kinder
garten training, if not actually in the
gain of time certainly always in the
quality of work. The kindergarten
child does readily what the unframed
child does with the struggle. One
effect of the training is especially no.
ticeable. In the kindergarten the
child acquires the habit of concentra-
ting the attention and working under
erection without the consciousness of
restraint. In no way that has ever
been devised can the child acquire this
necessary habit of concentration with
so little strain upon mind and teacher
as through the kindergarten method.
Some people may think that the kinder
garten is an institution separate from
IL