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and privations to his poor home with the poorer master, who enlisted his share of our good-will, till, spite of his discordant music, we vowed to save pennies for this monkey man and sweet sticks for his monkey.

"I came away soon after and left the children drawing, with crayons, such realistic monkeys as Asheley House has never seen nor ever will see, nor ever desires to see, but these were out of the fullness of experience.

"From the door I looked back and saw the old gentleman bowing over Marion's hand, and heard him say, 'God bless you, madam!'

"Now, hear the conclusion of the whole matter. I came home with such a tumult of doubts and questions in my mind as I would not have had anyone know, and threw myself on the lounge from force of habit for a noontime rest. All at once it seemed that I was back in the vestibule of Asheley House, side by side with the old gentleman. Something moved me to look up in his face, and I saw that he was Froebel! Instantly all my doubts and questions. came over me like a flood, and I dropped on my knees and clasped his hands, crying: 'Father, Father Froebel, which of the two was most a kindergarten?'

"He did not answer for so long that I looked up again and there was only the bronze statue of Froebel that always stands there, with its strange, rare smile, and its finger pointing upward!"

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NATURE'S MESSAGE.

EARTH! thou hast not any wind which blows
That is not music. Every weed of thine,
Pressed rightly, flows in aromatic wine,

And every humble hedgerow flower that grows,
And every little brown bird that doth sing,
Hath something greater than itself, and bears
A loving word to every living thing,

Albeit it holds the message unawares.

All shapes and sounds have something which is not
Of them. A spirit broods amid the grass:

Vague outlines of the everlasting thought

Lie in the melting shadows as they pass.

Sometimes we know not how, nor why, nor whence--
The twitter of the swallows 'neath the eaves,
The shimmer of the light amid the leaves,
Will strike up thru the thick roofs of our sense,
And show us things which seers and sages saw.

Richard Realf.

GENERAL REPORT OF THE KINDERGARTEN AND ELEMENTARY DEPARTMENT MEETINGS OF

A

THE N. E. A. AT MINNEAPOLIS.

T last year's N. E. A. meeting, which was held at Detroit, the Kindergarten and Child Study departments held joint sessions, the officers sharing the responsibility equally. At the recent great meeting in Minneapolis, the Kindergarten and Elementary Education departments held joint meetings, and elicited the earnest attention of large audiences, including many prominent men and women, who took part in the discussions.

KINDERGARTEN AND ELEMENTARY SESSION.

The Kindergarten Department met at 9.30 Wednesday morning, July 9, at the First Congregational church, Miss C. Geraldine O'Grady, president, in the chair.

Dr. D. L. Kiehle, Professor of Pedagogy, University of Minnesota, gave the address of welcome.

Before the regular program was carried out it was moved by Miss May, and seconded by Mrs. Putnam, that the president appoint a nominating committee to report at the end of the meeting. This motion was carried.

The president appointed Miss Sarah B. Goodman of St. Cloud, chairman; Mrs. J. N. Crouse of Chicago, Mrs. Hannah Brown Bishop of Duluth. As the latter was not present, Miss Corinne Marcellus of Chicago was substituted.

The committee on resolutions appointed by the president, to report at the end of the joint session with the Elementary Department Thursday afternoon, July 10, was as follows: Miss Minerva Jourdan, Chicago, chairman; Miss Alice Baird of Marshalltown, Iowa, and Miss Ethel E. Barr, Racine, Wis.

The president prefaced the more formal papers with a general statement of the aims of the meeting, over which she presided with great charm and womanliness. The following program was

then carried out:

"Hindrances in the Development of Language," Miss Cecilia Adams, supervisor of kindergartens, Denver, Colo.

"Froebel's suggestion on Fostering Language," Mrs. Alice H.

Putnam, s.perintendent Chicago Froebel Association Training School

Following these papers was a discussion led by Mrs. J. N. Crouse of Chicago, who substituted for Miss Elizabeth Harrison, who was detained by illness. The order of discussion was here suspended, and the Girls' Glee Club, North High School, sang "Annie Laurie" and "The Broken Pitcher."

The discussion was then resumed by Miss O'Grady, Miss Ada Van Stone Harris of Rochester, Miss Minerva Jourdan, KINDERGARTEN MAGAZINE, Mrs. Putnam, Miss Sarah Brooks of St. Paul, and Mrs. Alice Cooley, Department of Pedagogy, University of North Dakota, who summarized the topics under discussion.

Miss Mary C. May, director Kindergarten Department of the State Normal School, University of Utah, read a paper on "The Need of English Study by Kindergarten Students." The paper was discussed by Mrs. Ogden, Minneapolis, and Miss Goodman

of St. Cloud.

The nominating committee reported the following names: President, Miss Anna Williams, Philadelphia, Pa.; vice-president, Miss Stella Wood, Minneapolis, Minn.; secretary, Miss Clara Wheeler, Grand Rapids, Mich. The report was adopted and the officers declared elected. Mrs. J. N. Crouse suggested that alternates on the program be provided in the future. The meeting. then adjourned.

The following resolutions were submitted at the joint session, and passed by the kindergartners present:

WHEREAS, The kindergartners in attendance upon the N. E. A. in July, 1902, appreciating the many courtesies extended to them, desire to submit the following resolution:

Resolved: That the kindergartners attending the convention express their appreciation to the home committee which has so carefully provided for their comfort, and especially to Miss Stella L. Wood, chairman; to the board of trustees for use of the First Congregational Church, to the press of the city for reports of the meetings, to the Remington Typewriter Co. for valuable service, and to the Elementary Department for the participation in the Wednesday meeting, and their courtesy in the Thursday meeting. MINERVA S. JOURDAN, Chairman, MARY C. MAY, ETHEL E. BARR.

EI EMENTARY AND KINDERGARTEN SESSION.

On Thursday afternoon, July 10, at the First Congregational

Church, the department met in joint session with the Elementary Department, President Ogg presiding. The meeting was largely attended and most helpful and suggestive.

The address of welcome to the Kindergarten Department as a body was made by Dr. D. L. Kiehle, professor of pedagogy of the University of Minnesota. He spoke as follows:

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, representative kindergartners of America: It is always a pleasure to us Minneapolitans to welcome representative Americans to our fair city. We are modestly proud of our virtues. We are especially proud of our young city, its scenery and its life. To you kindergartners and lovers of childhood we offer the hospitality of our city and its surroundings, and present it as the magnificent kindergarten of the northwest. We have the children and we have the equipment of a kindergarten in nature's adornments of walks, gardens, lakes and groves, of flowers and birds. We now welcome above all others that choice company of men and women who, by their presence, will quicken our love of children, and will intelligently direct us in developing their best life, until in the full capacity of their nature they are in sympathetic and intelligent unity with their threefold and complete environment.

Until men and women began with the love and study of childhood, we had no philosophy of education broad enough to comprehend humanity in its relations and all its powers. Until the rights of childhood and the obligations of Christian and civil society to the care of children in the arraignment of the freedom to which they are by nature entitled-until these were recognized, there was no adequate interpretation of education applying to all its stages from the cradle to the grave. Our most cordial welcome will appear in the appreciative attention we give to your inspiring words, expecting to gain an uplift which will make us all more loyal to the principles of Froebel, and more intelligent in applying them to the education of our youth. May your abiding with us be pleasant, and your return to your homes safe, and with your memories ladened with kindly feelings and good thoughts as the fruitage of the journey.

PRESIDENT O'GRADY'S INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Miss O'Grady, who naturally was responsible for the program and the choice of subjects considered by the speakers, told as follows why she was led to select as a general topic, "The Development of Language":

My attention was called some years ago to the importance of language in connection with our work, and I have found the study of it so profitable that I hope others will. In a very old book, the beauty of whose ideas and language is acknowledged even by

those who do not believe its teachings, there is a parable of a valley of dry bones, breathed upon by the spirit, and of how "bone came to his bone," and they arose and stood upon their feet an exceeding great army. Like this, it seems to me, words without the spirit of thought are disconnected and lifeless, but thought without words is formless, invisible, inactive. The problem of the relation between thought and expression, and how to educate each thru the other, is really the problem of all education. Just because the problem has been a general one it has not been defined and limited. The only sure way to master a general idea is to master each of the special ones of which it is a synthesis; but in order to do this we must look at them one at a time. I was awakened to this problem thru my experience in training normal. students, and at the same time thru my work as a primary teacher and kindergartner. I have worked on what is called the "development" method, and this has made me observe the ideas and expressions of those whom I taught. The children showed in both thought and words an incomplete, partial, and poorly mastered power. This was only natural; it could not be otherwise, and was to be overcome by time and education. But when I realized more every year that not only the children, but the majority of normal students, expressed vague and indefinite ideas in incomplete and indefinite language, that I rarely came upon one whose thought and words were clear and definite, I felt that these defects had not been overcome by time and education, and that in this line at least we had very poor results from twelve or more years of school life. It seemed as if the teachers who showed so much the same defects as the children were very little likely to help them to clear ideas and definite expression.

I have realized this even more since I have made some special study of young children. I find that they need so much comprehension, help, and duplicate expression, if I may call it so, from their teachers to help out their imperfect ideas and language. Their own expression is largely thru action, material, and other incomplete phases of, or steps toward, language; but these are, or ought to be, only phases of expression; the climax surely ought to be, full power to think in words. What is the use of our recognizing the rudimentary forms of expression as a starting point if we never carry the process to its completion? What is the use of trumpeting the principle of going from "concrete to abstract" if we never arrive at the abstract, that is, at power to deal with it? Many people, of course, have recognized such defects in our education. The efforts in English work made by Harvard and other colleges of late years, and their result on the high school curriculum, show that this problem has been felt. But what proportion of our teachers go to college? What proportion of teachers in the elementary schools have had a high school training which included adequate work in English? and as long as 90 per cent of

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