intimate observation of the child's physical and mental makeup and activities, and be corrected by comparison with the same observations and conclusions of careful workers in the field of Child Study.

It is too bad that the kindergarten which has had the child so long, and meets him so intimately has furnished so little real material for experimental psychology and scientific Child Study. Is it, perhaps, that too much importance has been attached traditional material and device, and too little to training the kindergarten in Child Study?

There are great differences in the respective years of the child's early physical growth. For the purpose of convenience we may divide these years into infancy, from birth to two years of age, babyhood, from two to four, childhood, from four to eight, early adolescence from eight to twelve, and adolescence proper roughly from twelve to twenty. These divisions are gross and do not hold for any absolute number of children and overlap each other to a very great degree when it comes to actual child observation. There is, however, a real basis for such a division. Infancy corresponds roughly to the stage of mental life in the lower animals, babyhood to the stage when general mental functions appear, and childhood to the beginning of the ability to supply physical wants with less dependence than in the first two stages. In pre-adolescence the probability is that very great changes occur. This subject is treated at full in Stanley Hall's new book on "Youth" where the emphasis is placed on the study of the pre-adolescent period. Froebel himself probably had some such division in mind when he implied a distinction between the home kindergarten with the mother as sole teacher, the nursery kindergarten with the nurse as adjunct teacher to the mother, and the school kindergarten where the work of mother and nurse begin to be efficiently organized by the trained kindergarten teacher. Are kindergartners today giving enough attention to this threefold possible aspect of the kindergarten?

It must be noted moreover, that the phenomena of the bodily and mental activities of children are not constant quantities. We are compelled here to deal with more. or less probability, although the danger of error may be lessened by taking the great

est number of probably related cases, allowing for individual differences, and by working out the individual error to as fine a degree of accuracy as possible. Another means is to select only truly applicable material and use special care in the statement of the use of this definite material in the most accurate terms. If these suggestions were carried out more carefully in observations and reports it is probable we would have very much more accurate information about the physical and mental life of children of the kindergarten age.

In a later article we shall take up the question of the causes of physical condiof the inter-action of heredity and environtions in children from the twofold aspect

ment. We refer our readers to Prof.

Thorndike's Notes on Child Study, section 20, "Children of the Kindergarten Age." The statements he makes there are applicable to our present purpose.

We do not need to have a new child's psychology. psychology. If we apply the principles of general psychology, bearing in mind, first the predominence of the instinctive tendencies in the life of very young children, the transitory nature of many of these instincts, their specific educational value as basis for permanent mental processes, and the lack of actual experience on the part of the child with objects, thoughts and feelings we shall have better insight into the genesis of physical and mental behavior of

children from three to six.

If we turn to genetic psychology we will find there suggestions of value on the evolution of brain in the species, and as a consequence of the early development of the brain in the young child. In all these things the kindergartner should know the latest conclusions of science.

Prof. Thorndike gives first, curiosity as a factor in child development, second, play, and third, animal and savage traits in children. The reader is referred to a careful perusal of the Notes on Child Study for a fuller insight into Thorndike's point of view.

By curiosity is meant here the instinctive tendency of children to enjoy action and thought for their own sakes regardless of consequences. Children like to touch, pick up, drop and throw things, jump about to use each and all of the special senses, and to have ideas and fancies, all probably for the mere sake of the enjoyment of the

action and thought these give in themselves. This instinctive tendency is important, because it is a sign of instinctive response, a means of arousing such response, and a suggestion of the probable limitations of the particular child. The problem for the teacher of the very young child is, therefore, to measure these tendencies as a sign of the child's general condition, and direct and modify them for the physical and mental well being of their

possessor.

Children's play is closely allied to their instinct of curiosity. It differs largely from the play of other animals. It extends out to a larger field of activity, and is a probable expression on the part of the child of the extent of his heriditary propulsions as a further development basis. The first reward children perceive from their self originated play is the pleasure of activity, and as a consequence they modify their earliest expressions of this activity to multiply the possibilities of the consequent pleasure. One of the problems of education is to select and invent games which will supplement this tendency of the child to modify his play activities, and bring about the subsequent pleasure as an incentive to further modification toward mental growth.

During the first five or six years this love. of movement, and sense excitement, his ingenious explanations and superstitions about life, his carelessness of past and future suggest his mind as really that of primitive man. He is not, however, a savage in miniature. He has the heriditary deposit of civilized possibilities and civilized environment. The extent of this heriditary deposit we have no way of measuring. In many of his early traits he does represent savage tendencies, but in actual conditions of development these are seldom persistent and frequently exert no permanent influence on his future development.

The kindergarten is the systematic part in our educational system which begins the transformation from these instinctive actions of curiosity, play, and savage traits into intelligent, industrious and moral activity.

This would suggest a greater recognition in our kindergarten system of folk lore and myth, and possibly natural phenomena as material for games, songs and stories to be emphasized as construc

tive activities to modify the kindergarten child through processes of interest into self assertion and self control. The value of this material, however, will depend on the motive of its use. Much of our myth material would make no appeal to primitive man, and probably influences children from recent acquired interests. The reason is the primitive myth can find no possibility of functioning in the life about him save in play, and its sole purpose is perhaps as we give it today to prevent the myth cell from dying through sheer starvation. If more of the primitive quantities could be injected. into the myth and folk game and folk story the probability is the general power of the cell would continue in a mild species of immortality in the later development of the child's individual power. What was real to primitive man is play to our present day kindergarten child.

A further possible application of these primitive traits in early children might be a reproduction of primitive life and activities in parks and playgrounds, and in carrying on summer kindergartens under as nearly primitive conditions as possible with the direct supervision of trained kindergartners. While this is impossible in the schools it may suggest to kindergarten teachers a modification of the frequently artificial presentation of the folk song, game and story in the actual kindergarten of the schools. No plea is being made here for the neglect of actual life about us, in song, game, story and occupation. On the contrary present day life must be the term

and measure of all school values.

In our next article we shall take up the instincts of children from the standpoint of genetic psychology, and show how far these may be made to suggest the basis of the subject matter of the kindergarten program, and see what principles and practices we may derive therefrom in the child's ability to interprete the actual life about him. This may furnish us principles of theory and practice in reference to the child's physical and mental life and indicate how the early mental traits and activities. manifested by him from the periods of three to six years of age may be utilized in a sane kindergarten theory and practice.

are never

An attempt has lately been made to supplant the Froebel songs with new melodies adapted to his verses. This was dictated by the consciousness that Froebel's songs, as well as his pictures, were not only antiquated, but absolutely useless to meet the modern needs of the kindergarten. But this attempt is not only not an improvement, but these scraps of melodies, torn from their proper association with instrumental and larger vocal compositions of every possible source, besides some very unchildlike original songs, are neither a proper musical expression of the kindergarten text, nor are they appropriate as children songs in compass of voice, simplicity, charm and suggestiveness. On the contrary, they present a fragmentary, haphazzard combination of music and words, in which the text and music blended as an organic unit of verse, music and emotional context. The mistake made by writers of children verses and music consists in the apparent fact that they start out with the conviction that "any jingle will do for children." Of the kindergarten verses Sully says: "Children's verses, so far as I have come across them, are poor and stilted, showing all the signs of the cramping effort of models and rules to which the child-mind cannot easily accommodate itself, and wanting all true inspiration." And as to music Taylor holds "that by virtue of its intimate relation to the finer sentiments of humanity its ethical value can hardly be over-estimated." If these facts are recognized why will kindergarten authorities permit the use of so much useless, ineffective, and poor material in the verses and songs to be presented in the daily work of the kindergarten? Surely Froebel's ideals, as to the educational value of verse and music, are not realized by this superficial material. Music has been cultivated too much as an agreeable variety, a welcome relaxation in the studies of the child. It is not so much as to what music. instills into the child but as to how much it will entertain him, and relax him physically. In this lies the short-coming of the application of music as educational

factor in the child life. The child receives no idea of music as a thing, as a corporal demonstration of an an inherent mystery. "The human mind in its first stage of development must have corporal demonstration; ideas must be presented to it in visible images," says Miss Wiggin. Now in the association of music with song and movements in the ordinary kindergarten specie, music as a corporcal thing, or the mysterious agent of the emotional and ethical force on the child, is lost sight of; in fact in this connection-presented as it is it loses its chief and most influential

educational value.

In my article in the June number of the Kindergarten-Primary Magazine I have given a broad outline of the possibility of music as an educational factor in the kindergarten, and in the present article I call the attention of all teachers and all those interested in the welfare of child training to a series of articles to be published in this Magazine during the coming year, touching upon the practical side of a greater usefulness of the application of music in children plays and games. I intend to demonstrate the fact that while music has a direct influence, and possesses an inherent charm, the child will be immeasurably more interested in music if it comes in contact with the corporal factor or force which constitutes the symbol of a hidden element. This aspect can be supplied to the child just as drawing material and colors are supplied. With this most valuable distinction that the material from which the child obtains a musical tone also contains the mystery of the musical effect. It combines, therefore, three bines, therefore, three very interesting phases of educational value, namely: it is a visible corporeal object; it embodies a musical mystery; and it serves as a symbol. Now if a child is brought in contact with objects which are convenient for such purposes he will be interested, and anxious for information. If in this state of curiosity symbolic information is supplied in the form of a game or play, the educational value will be of a far more gratifying and useful nature than can be obtained by the mere connection of music with words and movements. The child will then conceive of music as a thing of far greater significance and influence on his mind and feelings than he receives from words. It will impress him with an idea of something he

but which constitute the characteristic method of gaining experience and of social participation at that age. It may be asIt may be assumed, therefore, that the kindergarten is not to be conceived wholly as a thing apart from the regular educational system, but throughout as an integral element in that system.

(15) The kindergarten, therefore, may be defined as a society of children, engaged in play and its various forms of self-expression, through which the child comes to learn something of the values and methods of social life, without as vet being burdened by its intellectual technique. Here, as throughout the educational process, the starting point is the experiences, the attitudes, the interests of the child.

(16) On the other hand, however, these experiences, attitudes, interests, and activities of the child are organized, made significant and amplified, (in other words, made. educational) through the reproduction within the society of the kindergarten of the typical and universal experiences or activities of the wider social life. Of course, the notion of the wider social life is not to be interpreted in anv narrow. static, or purely mechanical sense. The kindergarten or school must not reflect in a purely realistic sense existing social life; it must reflect also that ideal of social good toward which the wider social life is struggling.)

II.

The spiritual life of man is everywhere guided by habit, by belief, by principles or by ideals. Energy, life, spirit, are all forms of a vast process of organization-or development, as many would designate it. The human life of man requires rules and principles-and these rules and principles have in the last resort been extracted from life itself. Life increasingly takes on form, organization; experience in the long run. shapes itself to that which is more comely; for even an imperfect ideal through its very imperfection urges life on to greater perfection, and the production of still higher ideals. As life moves on to life, so it is the task of art, of teaching, of religion-forces which emerge within life-to make life. ideal and harmonious, not to realize artificial ideals imposed from without. Their task is not to add to human nature, but to glorify it.

It has been said above that everywhere we find life, natural or spiritual, in a process

of organization: and the rules or principles of organization are not found outside of life, but within it. It is so with what we are accustomed to call more particularly our inner life or experience: and the organization of human experience we believe to be possible in accordance with general principles. According to this view, life takes on the form, as it did with Plato, of a personal work of art, wherein the individual capacities and impulses are harmonized, and the individual life brought into harmony with the life of the intelligent regulation of life according to general principles. The Christian ideal urges a life in harmony with the life that organized in a living unity the way, the truth, the life, of life itself. In history, in philosophy, in religion, in education the final principle must be found in the principle of personality. In the process of development, then, from the lower to the higher, there is organization: the lower forms move accord ing no law: the highest activities of the spiritual life are given through a true realization in thought and action of the underlying principle of life itself.

Human life, the life capable through thought of intelligent direction or supervision, may be designated by the word “experience;" and before trying to indicate the significance of what precedes, certain further considerations may be noted which, if not kept in mind, may make some statements regarding the nature of kindergarten principles appear somewhat abstract or unduly far removed from so-called practice. In the kindergarten, in the school, in life, as has been urged above, every principle possessed of significance and vitality has revealed itself as a concentrated expression of tendencies of life which were moving spontaneously before they took on the form of thought or imagery. Educational experience, in whatever form, is part of life-experience, and the principles of education are simply the formulated truths of educational experience. So with kindergarten principles, and problems. The problems fundamental to the kindergarten-what we shall teach and how-the problem of materials and method-are the problems fundamental to the entire educational process. The concept of the kindergarten is by no means a simple affair, even if it could be studied in and by itself. To study it thus, is impossible, since the true educational unit is not