The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1916-10-05

ooly needed to be shown how, but you
may well guess that in the early days of
what was afterwards 10 BE- known as The
kindergarten Moveme nj on the Pacific
Coast, when the Girl and her Kingdom
first came into &C i've communication with
each other. the question of discipline
doomed rather large! Putting aside al
together the question of the efficiency,or
the .propriety, of corporal punishment in
de public schools, it seems pretty clear
that babies of four or FIVE years should tie
spanked by their parents if by anyone;
and that a teacher who cannot induce
good behavior in children of that age,
without spanking, has mistaken her vo-
cation. However, it is against their
principles for Undergraduates to spank,
slap, fog, shake or otherwise Wrestle
with their youthful charges, 10 matter
how much they seem to need these in
Simultaneous and sometimes very etfec-
tual methods of discussion at the moment.
There are undoubtedly times when
the old Adam q don't know why it
shouldn't be the Old EveD rises in ones
still unregenerate heart. and one longs to
take the low road in discipline; but the
high road commonly leads one to the
desired point without great delay and
&
that taking away his work from child,
or depriving him of the pleasure of help
ing his neighbors, Is as great punish
ment as blow,
You may say such ideal methods
would not prevail with older boys and
girls, and that may be true, for wrong
development may have gone too far; but
1t is difficult to find small child who is
lazy or Indifferent, or one who would well
come the loss of work; difficult also to
find one who is not unhappy when depriv-
ed OF the chance OF service, seeing, as he
does, his neighbors happily working tc-
gether and joyfully helping others.
There were more than thousand vlsl-
tors during the first year. circumstance
that greatly increased the nervous strain
of teaching; for had to train myself, as
We'll as the children, to as absolute
state of Inconsistencies as possible. l
always jauhtiiy described the visitors as
fathers and mothers, and told the chill
dren that there would soon be other
schools like ours, and people just wanted
to see how We sang, and p.ayed circle
games, and modelled in clay, and learned
arithmetic with building blocks and all
the rest of it. | paid practically no at
tentlon to the visitors myself and they
ordinarily were clever enough to under
stand the difficulties of the situation.
Thirty seven years have passed, but
Ii l were portrait painter could re-
produce on canvas every nose, eye, smile,
hand, curl of hair, in that group. 1often
close my eyes to call up the picture, and
ain ost every child falls into his old seat
and answers to his right name
We have selected parts of paragraphs
from the first thirty pages, but we could
not possibly mutilate the other twelve
pages of pen pictures more charming than
any she ey er penned in fiction.
-'I The Girl and the Kingdom; Learning to
Teach " Written by Kate Douglas Wiggin and
presented to the Los Angeles City Teachers
Club (Trinity Buiding) to Create an iuca-
tlonal Fund for the Literacy Campaign of the
California Federation of Women's CLUBS