two years' under graduate work counting toward a bachelor's degree in teaching.

A third feature of interest was the incorporating of the Connecticut Froebel Normal, which had been conducted for eight years as the Bridgeport Training School for Kindergartners, in affiliation with the New York Froebel Normal. The officers of the Connecticul Froebel Normal are Dr. E. Lyell Earle, President, and Miss Mary C. Mills, 1 reasurer and Superintendent. The faculties of the two schools will be interchangeable, and the graduates eligible for city and state licenses in both Connecticut and New York.

This success is a legitimate reward of the efforts made by Dr. Earle and Miss Mary Mills, a graduate of the New York Froebel Normal, during eight years of devoted service to the kindergarten cause in Connecticut. We are glad to say that the kindergarten has now become an integral part of the Bridgeport Public Schools, due in no small measure to the success of the work done in Bridgeport. A further reward of the success of the Bridgeport school is the fact that Dr. Earle has called Miss Mary C. Mills, principal of the Connecticut Froebel Normal, to the New York Froebel Normal.

The coming year promises to be a most successful one for both the New York Froebel Normal and its younger sister school at Bridgeport. Eminent lecturers are being invited to address at their monthI meetings the Alumnae Association of these two schools, which now number over four hundred members. Three Free Kindergartens are being conducted in New York by the Alumnae Association of the New York Froebel Normal.

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE.

DR. ANGUS MCVANNELL*

AT the I. K. U. convention Dr.

Mc Vannell called attention to certain characteristics of literature, chief among which are the following: (1) Literature is an art of expression. (2) Its materials are human experience. (3) Through the imagination these raw, crude materials are given form by man's soulform, which is also unity. (4) This unity is the end of art, and the steps to it are selection and discrimination, emphasis and

organization. (5) The experience which composes the materials of expression is constituted of action, feeling, thought; the means of expression is language, and language is intelligible because of the common nature in men, through which they can interpret by their own experience experiences not their own. (6) The power of individuals to realize experiences not their own depends on their faculty of imagination and of sympathy. Literature is, then, the expression in words of truth and beauty of man's consciousness of the significant and enduring values of experience-personal, national, universal.

It is the understanding that our reading. and education should serve to keep alive. Education is not to be thought of as a substitute for our humanity, but the means by which our humanity is to be developed. The seeds of the truest culture and of the

best life will never bloom for pedant or selfcentered dilettante, for they need the fostering care of love and sincerity and modesty. In our study of literature we must get beneath the stratum of intelligence and into the touch with the very life of a book. We must get down to the very soul and deeps of things. It is such study alone as gives to the soul the wisest passiveness Wordsworth writes about, not in one poem but in many. Today more than ever before there are needed men of the severest scholarship; but this is but a vain and empty resourse, unless there breath through it all an ardent, radiating faith and sanctified desire. In these days, too, it is difficult for the so-called educated mind to bathe in the "light that never was on sea or land;" the composition of the substance is demanded. In such discussions as take. place in many class rooms, teachers of literature too often only paralyze the spiritual antennae of their pupils. It would be too much to say that the sin is altogether willful; yet how little, after all, is the truth appreciated (in our better moments we all admit it) that teaching is a concrete spiritual function. The true teacher is a teacher in the school of the inner life, his work the endeavor to induce in his pupil a glad receptivity to that which is beautiful and good and true, and to give them some notion of that better part which shall not be taken away, which does not waste itself in much serving but in sitting attentive at the feet of the living truth. The

ly adapts itself to the representation of the life of a primitive race. Froebel felt the relation between children and the primitive life of man. The kindergartner who has caught the spirit of this article will be able to carry on the thought in several occupations. The Indians loved to paint, to weave, to model clay vessels. They loved beads and chains.

Each day a different child may wear the Indian costume, making it the center of interest in the kindergarten. This is preferable to many suits which would be too exciting. The kindergarten is being criticized for over stimulating the child's mind. Let us learn from our critics, hostile or friendly. The Indian child was taught to be silent. Let us not forget this as an off-set to any exciting game.

The running and ball games, the "take aim" games should be practised daily. Various stories may be introduced as of one little Indian boy who did not get his breakfast until he had hit the mark which his mother set every morning!

A target may be made for an aiming game, but I do not advise the use of the bow and arrow in the school room, although these objects may be shown, cut from paper. They may also be drawn by the children. Throwing the worsted balls at the target will be satisfactory and "Sharp-eyes must watch to see what color each ball strikes. Concentric circles may also be drawn on the floor for ring games. Balls may be thrown into a box or basket. The old-time song of "Ten Little Indians" is a simple counting game:

John Brown had a little Indian (Repeat three times)

One little Indian boy!

One little, two little, three little Indians
Four little, five little, six little Indians
Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians
Ten little Indian boys. (Then backwards.)
Ten little, nine little, etc.

(See Children's Old and New Singing Games, Hofer). For this game ten very simple suits may be prepared, or a few feathers worn and bead chains. Counting shells for wampum may be played at the table.

Every kindergartner should read carefully the story of "The Childhood of Hiawa tha." Stories may be told of the animals the little Indian boy loved and how he used to play with them, calling them "Hiawatha's Brothers." Pictures should be shown

and also toy and clay animals placed among the trees in the sand scene. Possibly a rabbit may be secured as a pet. The Indian name of the squirrel will please the children too-Adjidamo, or Shadow Tail.

I suggest that the whole chapter of "Hiawatha's Childhood" be read at a Mothers' Meeting before or after September 29th, and the mothers taught to chant the song of the firefly as a lullaby:

"Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly
Little, flitting, white-fire insect,
Little, dancing, white-fire creature,
Light me with your little candle
Ere upon my bed I lay me,

Ere in sleep I close my eyelids."

NOTE The following books will be helpful for consultation: The Indian's Book, by NavalieCurtis, Harper & Bros.; Eastman's Indian Boyhood. The life of an Indian girl, Sit-Ka-La-SaSee the Atlantic Monthly, January and February, 1900. The writings of Miss Alice Fletcher are also valuable.

ALUMNAE NOTES.

(Officers of Alumnae Associations are requested to send in notes of their meetings and other items of interest to kindergarten readers throughout the country.)

During the past year the alumnae association of the New York Froebel Normal engaged in several new forms of activity.

Its first venture was a Bazaar held for the raising of funds for the Alumnae Free Kindergarten which it proposed to conduct in conjunction with the Bloomingdale Settlement House at W. 100th St., New York City. Three hundred dollars were realized, and the free kindergarten under the directorship of Miss Anna Weisenburg, a faculty graduate of the New York Froebel Normal, The kindergarten continued successfully throughout the year.

It is proposed during the coming year to extend the kindergarten into the parks and playgrounds, and a special course will be given to the Alumnae members by Miss Marie Ruer Hofer of the Froebel Normal Faculty, and Dr. E. Lyell Earle, President of the School.

Another feature of importance was the affiliation of the New York Froebel Normal with the University of the State of New York through the Board of Regents, thereby placing its graduates, both academic and professional, on the same footing as the graduates of State and City Normal Schools, and allowing university credit for

truest type of the growth of the spiritual life is that of a child in its intercourse with its mother, and its source is in the impact on ours of nobler, purer souls.

In the Republic Plato declares that words of truth and beauty are the best garrisons of the souls whom God loves. In the selection of literature for little children certain fundamental prinicples may be briefly formulated as follows:

(a) The selection for the child (as for the adult) must be primarily in accordance. with a literary standard; the story, the verse, the piece of literature must be recognized as a product of the artistic imagination. Dealing with the typical and supreme interests of the soul, the story, the legend, the piece of literature must be clothed in "words of truth and beauty."

(b) Though dealing with the typical and supreme interests of the soul, the story, the verse, the piece of literature should be selected in order to create an unconscious form for selection or rejection in things, thoughts, feelings, actions-for, in a word, the organization of experience. The child's nature, as that of the adult, is ever being "subdued to what it works in, like the dver's hand."

(c) The psychology of literature, moreover, has to answer the question, not merely what place does literature occupy in our spiritual environment, but what is literature as a mental process, what is it as an attitude of mind, what as a mode of personal experience? How, again, the question must be asked, does the attitude. become intensified, the interest deepened? In the childhood of the race nature forced the questions How? and Why? The answer was the literature of the early-time myth and folklore. To the child of the later day nature and life put the same questions. There is the same longing to know, the same groping for the truth in the child as in the race. The child demands the storythe story of courage, of wisdom, of kindness stories which tell of perseverance, of discovery; which tell him of the home that protects from the storm, of the varied forms of all life, natural and human. This, then, briefly is the question in the teaching of literature-what is it as a mode of personal experience, whether in connection. with the simple story or the highest form of lyric or epic? What is the interest and what the motive in the child, the adult? How does this interest, this attitude, this

motive, emerge in the circle of the individual's experience? What will satisfy it? To realize through a sympathetic study of the individual's mind and heart as they unfold, and through a deep and vital appreciation of literature, and of the attitude of mind and heart which knowledge of literature presupposes, is to go a long way towards an answer of the question whether and how literature can be taught.

Ruskin lighted seven lamps of Architecture to guide the steps of the architect in the worthy practice of his art. At some future day there may be lighted seven lamps of Literature to guide the steps of those who in the worthy practice of their art would tell to the little children the words of truth and beauty-the best garrisons of the soul whom God loves.

It was one of Kant's sayings that the other world is not so much another place as another view. There is at least one better result of education than to attain knowledge. It is the quickening of the inner life of the soul to a swifter sympathy, a finer insight, a more living and a more loving responsiveness to whatsoever things are true and honest and just and lovely and of good report, and a disposing of the mind to think on these things.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC IN THE

W

KINDERGARTEN. AUGUSTI S. EARLE.

E hear a great deal nowadays about city and state emphasis on Games, Play and Folk Dances in the School. The three R's "Reading," "Riting" and "Rithmetic" threaten to be introduced to new examples for models such as,-for reading exercises a study of folk lore: for "riting," Swedish Spinning Song; and "Rithmetic"-If three Dutch boys dance the "Sailor's Hornpipe," four Scotch the "Highland Fling," four English the "Minuet," four Indians the "War Dance,” and four negroes the "Coon Dance"-how many children are dancing?

But what about the accompaniment to those folk and song demonstrations-for I think we all grant that we understand the folk lore better if we hum, sing or play the illustrations,-enjoy the songs better if we follow the same method and undeniably dance better if done to a melody. What then is the place of instrumental music in

the school and if necessary what instrument best meets these necessities?

The Chinese has his Tom Tom; the Scotchman his bagpipe; the Mexican his mandolin; the negro his banjo; the soldier his drum; but an ordinary "street piano" can unify and resolve all racial prejudices into a more joyous outburst than which no other one instrument can ever hope to attain.

If then, the "street piano," a really modern innovation with its crude cadenzas, is a medium for joyous and, unified song, game and dance expressions, are we not wise to introduce the more refined home piano into our schools as embracing the national noise, jingle and tingle in a harmonious series of tones?

If then instrumental music has a place in the school and if this is best illustrated in the composite piano, let us see what study has been given to it.

In New York City the past three years more teachers have dreaded the Music Test for Kindergarten and Primary Licenses than "History and Principles"-not because music is harder but because the Curriculum has required a certain efficiency in Sight Reading, Tone Production and actual Playing, which latter requirement has not been taught, while prominent educators cover History and Principles in every reputable city and state institution. What then is What then is the result? Teachers recognizing their lack of musical training "cram up" on other (better taught) subjects hoping to average high enough to reach a passing mark with music almost a dismal failure.

It is not only uncommon but a fact to go into a primary school to find a corps of teachers numbering from five to fifteen, and but one perhaps able to "play the piano" though all are expected by the city to do this duty if called upon. Right here let me say that the "piano player" is often one of the most popular teachers in the schools and lives out the proverb-"Music hath charms to sooth the savage breast" and furthermore inspires our children into a happy chorus which the eminent Frank Damrosch said at an address at Albany in a plea for more music study-"leads through its harmony in tone and chorus to peace and a great nation."

It is deplorable to find that many of our schools, rich in buildings, maps, pens, etc.. are but shabbily provided with an old-fash

ioned "square" piano-a small organ, "second-hand" upright and oft times no musical instrument at all. Perhaps you

will say "But the teacher can use the tuning fork." True, but the tuning fork serves the purpose only of giving the initial tone, while the harmonious piano accompaniment finishes the pleasing effect so that the result we receive in arithmetical term we might call the Answer.

It is not my privilege to indicate a course of instrumental preparation,-for after all "methods" and "courses" count but littlethe result and application dominating all. But if a young kindergartner is called upon to digest Psychology, History and Principles of Education, Theory and Practice and many more of those unique subjects, with two years' arduous and obligatory training, does it not seem just to give her an adequate training in pure instrumental music when a morning's program is nearly one-half devoted to Song, Game and Play which requires instrumental support?

Our kindergartens are flooded with young teachers who play "by ear" so that "The Merry Widow Waltz" is introduced into the child mind for the illustration of the graceful "Flying Birds" and Broadway light opera ditties heat the tempo for the otherwise sweet, healthful games. The songs often times are picked out with the "right hand" and I have even known a kindergarten. where the kindergartner played the melody with one hand while her assistant plaved the "base,"-neither one capable of doing both. These are no exaggerations.

The so-called kindergarten trainer of some years ago has long since realized that this is the age of specialization and that her pathetic efforts to play some of the simple "Finger Plays" have only thrown her into embarrassed confusion just as the more difficult "Songs and Games" need a better piano technician than that teacher usually is.

Sometimes a principal has threatened to withhold the desired diploma until a student was equiped to play the Songs and Games. so vital a factor on the program-but such a threat has met with cynical tolerance from some of the teachers and open rebellion from the student; but a subsequent try at the Music Test has convinced all of the advisability of careful preparation.

The conclusion must be reached-if we