Evening star., 1936-03-01
BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS.

TINE kindergartens Of the District
Of Columbia public schools
are celebrating their thirty
= eighth anniversary this year.
Miss Catharine r. watkins, their first
and only director since i1er post was
created by Congress in october, 1899.
is rounding out her thirty-seventh
year of service for Washington's school
system this April
Hers Is, In sense, an educational
legacy of service to our public school
system for her grandfather, DR.. Tobias
Watkins, an Army surgeon, was q
member of one of the city's early
school boards Those familiar with
our Washington public schools will
find it difficult to disassociate Miss
Watkins from active service with and
for our kindergartens, 50 much has
her life been their pattern for nearly
40 years. AS you listen to her eagerly
unfold the aims and purposes Of the
kindergarten in the education Of our
boys and girls for useful, happy citi-
zenship, so broad is her scope and
vision, so resilient her physical and
intellectual set-up that you scarcely
realize she is about to sever her con-
nection with the system she has so
faithfully and capably served It
would seem from her long association
with youth in its first process of edu-
cational unfolding. that she has ab-
corLod unto borcolf coy,, ofbi,o ~ 80
eternal spirit.
1t is SO years since Friedrich Froebel
devised the first kindergarten in
Blankenburg. Germany, in 1887. Dur
little over one-third of that period
what a lifetime Of trail-blazing the
educational career of Miss Watkins
has been. Not only has she been q
part in vast educational changes in
theory and practice. but she has be-
held education in general break down
many of its ancient barriers of class
room formality in favor of kinder
garten principles.
kindergarten Has Firm Place.
AS the name kindergarten implies.
it means garden of children with
the thought that education shall be
primarily a process of development
rather than of mere learning, the de-
velopment to be directed by providing
the right conditions under the guid-
ance of those trained for their tasks.
Froebel believed that such an institu-
ton was needed as supplement for
the home. Today the kindergarten
occupies distinct place in American
life and thought. This it has won
by the demonstration of the value of
its principles for all types of edu-
cation.
According to the survey of DR.. Mary
Dabney Davis of the United States
Office of Education, Washington,
D. c., has the largest number Of
children enrolled in its public school
kindergarten classes of any city in
the Nation in proportion to its popu-
lation. This status has come about
during the years Miss Watkins has
been associated with our schools as
a director of kindergartens.
1ACFlOuo W 1850 hulOC1 SditCu La.
struction was not available in our
public school system. In fact, very
generally throughout the United
States, the kindergarten was looked
upon as being in the faddish. luxury
educational class, of dubious prac-
ticality, and quite beyond the realms
Of possibility for public school edu-
cation.
Lauds Mrs. Phoebe Hearst.
To the philanthropic and educa-
tional vision of Mrs. Phoebe Apper-
son Hearst, herself q teacher before
she became the wife Of the wealthy
Senator George Hearst of California,
Washington owes one of the first
training schools for kindergarten
teachers and its first free kinder
gartens, one for white children and
one for colored children. Mrs. Hearst's
kindergarten College was located in
two houses on the north side of K
street between Twelfth and Thirteenth
streets near the Franklin School, the
present headquarters Of our educa-
tional system. The free kindergartens
were used as demonstration classes for
the training school. Through Mrs.
Hearst's generosity, the finest minds IN
educational theory in America at that
time were brought to the school as
its lecturers. -.
Graduate Of Kindergarten College.
Miss Watkins was a graduate Of
this kindergarten college. She has
since studied at Teachers College,
Columbia and Oxford University, Eng
land.
In 1898 through congressional ap-
preparation, $4,000 provided for the
establishment of eight kindergartens
for white children and six for colored.
The white kindergartens were located
in the Addison, Amidon, Dennison,
Monroe, Seaton, Peabody, Buchanan
and Bruce Schools. The Bruce is now
used as a school for colored children.
These colored schools housed the first
kindergartens for colored children in
Washingt gton-Magruder, Phillips, Pat
terson, Douglass, Lincoln and Payne.
The teachers for these first kinder
gartens were appointed by supt. OF
Schools william B. Powell, without
examination, upon the basis Of their
previous educational and teaching
reduce the domestic debt, or to re-
duce taxes.
In other words, the vicious circle
of Government finance that is now
burying the taxpayers deeper and
deeper in national debt could be re-
versed by reviving trade.