APPENDIX B.

Paper read before the Froebel Society, London, by Miss E. A. Manning, May 11, 1889.

THE KINDERGARTEN IN INDIA.

One proof of the soundness of Froebel's principles of education lies in the fact that they have been found practically useful in the training of children of various nations and of various races. The experiment made in a retired German village had within it such wise elements that it has extended itself with success not only into many countries of Europe and into America, but also to the East. At the Health Exhibition a few years ago we found that some of the little Japanese children share at least the interest of Froebel's occupations, and I wish to bring before you this evening some indications that his healthy natural system is beginning to be appreciated in India. Because Froebel observed children faithfully-and it is for his having done this, and having told us what he observed, that we owe him endless gratitude-it followed as a matter of course that the German villagers Gretchen and Hänslein could not be the only children to profit by his discoveries. For boys and girls under 6 years old are very like each other all over the globe. Everywhere they have same eagerness to investigate as to what sort of a world they have entered. The same clinging dependence on their elders, the same impulse to test their new powers, the same sociability, the same faults, the same charm, the same method of development. Therefore, the German teacher and philosopher, while guiding the mothers of his own valleys, was really counseling mothers and teachers in countries and epochs far distant from his

own.

It is true that there are hereditary differences, and differences due to variety in surroundings, which are noticeable even in the earliest stages of a child's life. National characteristics show their mark even before children can talk. One race of people is more active than another, one more vindictive, one more thoughtful, one has more delight in the beautiful, and as the phases of life in an individual are indissolubly linked together from beginning to end, such peculiar qualities exhibit themselves from the first. But Froebel's principles include so much width of application, they have such elasticity as well as strength, he looked so fully at human nature through the German villager's nature, that these differences can be met and dealt with easily. And after all even a dozen English children have almost as much variety of temperament and of tendency as if they were children of several nationalities. Froebel supplied certain leading truths, and, accepting these truths, those who can carry out his ideas have just to give due attention to special good or bad points of character and to the special aptitudes which need to be drawn out and exercised in accordance with race peculiarities, and thus his system becomes of world-wide application.

In regard to the practical methods of the kindergarten, however, it is very important that habits and circumstances should be taken carefully into account. One of Froebel's principles was that the child should always pass from the known to the unknown-that familiarity is valuable both in regard to mental and moral growthand thus he followed the bent of the children around him in arranging his series of occupations. But he would have been the last to stereotype his methods, because in doing so he would have felt that he was going against his own principles. Even these methods, as children are so much alike in all countries, prove very much in accordance with tastes and tendencies everywhere. But it is most important to utilize the self-chosen occupations of the little ones of any particular nationality and to recognize and to fit things in with the associations that have molded them. Hence the introduction of the kindergarten into a fresh country requires much care and resource, much judgment and sympathy.

Now, I have lately returned from a visit to India, and I have been asked to give some information as to what is being done there in regard to kindergartens. Perhaps, when you have heard what I have to tell, you will consider that the kindergarten can hardly be said to exist in India, and I should almost agree with you. But there is a decided effort, especially in one part of India, to enliven the old methods of teaching, to introduce manual and physical training among the younger classes in schools, and to make the teachers understand better the nature of children. Therefore, though I have not much to tell you of kindergartens as we know them here, apart from school training and in connection with home influences, yet something is going on which is decidedly valuable, and which, but for all that has been spoken and written upon Froebel's principles, would not have been carried out. Moreover, there is continual progress noticeable, and with a large supply of qualified teachers very much more might be attempted; for the educated men of India have many of them heard and read of this kind of training, and they are very anxious to see it spread in their country.

The part of India which I have referred to as that where a decided effort is being made in the kindergarten direction is the Presidency of Madras. There is an excellent inspectress of girls' schools in that presidency, Mrs. Brander, who cares very much that the younger children in the schools should be appropriately dealt with. Mrs. Brander has spent many years in India, first as superintendent of the government training-school for mistresses, and now as inspectress. In her present capacity she visits numbers of girls' schools in distant districts as well as those in the city of Madras, and latterly a second inspectress, Miss Carr, has been appointed. These two ladies undertake the inspection, personally or through their deputies, of all the presidency girls' schools. In no other part of India is such an arrangement made; partly because it is not easy to find qualified ladies for the work and partly because Madras has always been rather forward, owing to the zeal of the missionaries, in education. Mrs. Brander was in England a few years ago, and she interested herself much about Froebel's methods and read books on the subject. She had, even before, as superintendent of the training college, adopted the occupations and games to a small extent in the practicing school, and gradually she has become more and more convinced of their value. Miss Carr, her colleague, was, till last December, head of the same training school, many students of which are now settled as teachers in various places. Miss Carr, partly with the help of two Madras students who spent a year or two in England, did great deal to improve the infant classes of the practicing schools and to instill rational ideas on education into the minds of the students. So now Mrs. Brander and Miss Carr on their tour of inspection are able to encourage the former students and to keep up this standard of teaching, and they both pay special attention to the kindergarten teaching.

Mrs. Brander has seen the great importance of adapting the methods to the surroundings of the little Indian children. You can hardly realize how very narrow the life of these children is. Seldom going out of their houses; with no shops containing pictures and other educating objects to look at; living among elders who are extremely ignorant and who believe in all sorts of superstitions, and married, or, as we should call it, betrothed, before they are 10 or 12 years old, they grow up with unobservant faculties, untrained habits of conduct, no knowledge of the outside world, and altogether undeveloped. In the treatment of such children when they are allowed to attend school it is difficult to find a basis to work from. Even pictures do not readily convey ideas to them, and the games that are interesting to European children have to do with ways and phases of life of which they have never heard. At the same time these children have bright capacities, they are very eager to improve, and, as little pupils, they are exceptionally good. The great thing there is to utilize the sights and sounds that they are accustomed to, and the occupations which are familiar to them. Mrs. Brander devotes much care to this. She selects native songs that may be suitable, and the materials which can be bought in the bazaar (this for another reason also, that they are cheaper), and she lets the children practice beadwork, in which they are very ingenious, and play with familiar seeds and berries. Some of the native methods, as forming letters in the sand, are quite in accord with kindergarten plans, but in the oldfashioned schools the exercises are done without joyousness, with great monotony, and under severe threats and punishments. All the world over it seems to have been assumed that children hate learning, whereas to learn, under right conditions, is to most children a real pleasure.

Now, will you pay a visit with me in imagination to a school in Madras to which a kindergarten is attached-that is, the younger children are taught on Froebel's method, as far as it can be managed. Mrs. Brander and I went to see this school one morning during my visit to Madras, driving to it in that glorious Indian sunshine, of which there is not too much in December, though even then we have to protect ourselves against it. Well, we arrive in a rather crowded street at the central school and kindergarten, which, with five other schools, is supported by the Maharaja of Vizianagrum, and is under the supervision of the committee of the National Indian Association. The house is one of typical native arrangement. Entering from the street we came upon a small courtyard, and beyond it was another. The rooms all round the court on the lower floor were quite open, something like an interior veranda, with supporting pillars. It looks extremely picturesque to see at one glance the groups of children sitting in these open rooms in their bright variegated sarees. The head mistress, Miss Jupe, came to meet us. She is chiefly occupied upstairs with the elder girls, but she superintends the kindergarten with great care and interest. In the right-hand room of the court we see seventeen tiny boys and girls, all occupied with mat plaiting. The needles are now made in Madras, for it costs a great deal to get them from England. The children sat on benches with desks before them. I wish I could convey to you an idea of how they looked. Rich brown faces, large dark eyes, black smooth hair plaited behind in a knot, or hanging down, and most of them very gaily dressed. They wear very small short-sleeved jackets and a skirt, and over all, a long saree, a sort of scarf of several yards, twisted

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all about and raised over the head when required. In that part of India the dress is of cotton. One little girl had a red jacket and a white saree; another, a green saree; another an orange one over a white skirt. One child had a spot of red paint on her forehead, ear ornaments all about the ears, and many bangles. Most had these ornaments on, but no shoes and stockings. A little boy had a green jacket and gay cap. I tell you these details that you may form a picture in your minds of the scene. Then the native teacher, who also had bare feet, wore a red jacket and a saree, with shawl stripes (red, green, and yellow). Round her neck was a coral chain set in silver, a flat gold ornament in her hair, and she wore spectacles. All the children seemed interested in this mat-plaiting, and they got on with it as well as English children might. Then we went to see about twenty of a baby class, all sitting on a long strip of mat on the floor, which is much more comfortable for them than benches. These babies were busy with bricks. The teacher had a magenta jacket and a cream-colored saree with gold border. She told them to make two chairs with their bricks for the ladies, which they did with alacrity. Then they made, with five bricks, a fireplace and a "chattie" (a pot) upon it for boiling rice. "What do you do with the rice"? asked the teacher. Eat it," said they, thinking of the invariable daily meal. One little boy had a coat and cap of yellow and red silk, and he wore toe rings. The very small girls do not yet wear sarees. They sang a Tamil song about something very familiar to them, "mittai,"-that is, sweetmeats. Who make the sweets"? "Brahmins," they replied. This is so, because what Brahmins made everyone may eat, but things made by those of a lower caste may not be eaten by a higher. Leaving these dear little children we found some rather older, playing in the courtyard. They were pretending to draw water from a well in tiny chatties, imitating the dipping of the chattie into the well with their soft delicate little arms and then watering some long twists of paper with flapping green ends, which I suppose were intended for palm trees. Then we saw some of their own games. One they call the frog game. Two little girls took hold of each other's hands, repeating a rhyme: "We have rice in our pot; you have grain (that is, a coarse kind of grain), in yours. Which will you have"? Then they jumped again and again from the ground, bending and throwing their interlaced hands alternately to one side or the other. Another game was with clapping hands, first clapping each her own hands and then across. Then we saw another little class where all were forming the Tamil letters by laying red seeds on their slates upon the form of the letters which had been drawn by the teacher. In the upper story we found the older children. It is difficult to get enough female teachers as yet, and many men teach the girls' schools. It looked strange at first to see the men, in white and red turbans and perhaps a long white or orange coat or an enveloping shawl, conducting a class. One was giving a lesson on the cotton plant, with plenty of specimens, and he had a small pot containing water, that he might let them drop a rupee and also some cotton into it, to show the relative weight. These elder girls performed the kol-attam, or stick dance. Each child in the circle had two sticks, and in a methodical way she struck her own together in time with those of her neighbors on each side of her. The effect was extremely pretty owing to their graceful actions. and the blue, red, white, lemon, and other colors of the saree and skirts. Meanwhile they sang a song about a garden and red and white lotus flowers. There was much that was interesting in the upper school, but I must keep to the little ones; so we will leave this school and look in at another in a different part of Madras. It is a missionary school, of which the superintendent is Miss Oxley, of the Church Missionary Society. A storm had come on and we had to rush into the house. These children were fetched to school in a bullock cart; it goes round to their houses and brings them in sets of ten or twelve. One such batch arrived when we were there, and it was curious to see the pains taken lest the driver or anyone else should see the girls. The cart had to be turned with its end toward the verandah, and then they slipped out and ran in on the inner side of the cart. The driver is screened off. The teacher was a young Mohammedan woman, in a yellow chudder, something like a saree, but not near so long. It is worn by Mohammedans. She taught the class with great spirit. Most of them had red Manchester cotton chudders, perhaps with yellow borders, and red pyjamas (trousers). We went to see a small class sitting in an inner verandah. These tiny ones were on the floor, occupied with bead threading, which they greatly enjoy. As I have said, the Indian work with beads is most ingenious; so this occupation is one which it is very useful to develop educationally. The beads were in a little chattie, or pot, and each child had a slate, so that if the beads were dropped they did not get lost on the matting of the floor. They were questioned in colors and answered very well. After the Health Exhibition in London Mme. Michaelis kindly allowed me to have for India her series of bead threading, and this has been circulated in most of the Madras Presidency schools. Mrs. Brander saw its value, and she has made the greatest use of it as a pattern. It is very rare that Mahommedan girls are allowed to attend school. There is something very dignified even in the tiny children's manners. They wear their chudders over

their heads, and when they stand with folded arms, their faces so plump and their eyes so fine, they look like Little Red Riding Hoods. Mrs. Brander inspects missionary as well as government schools, and she takes every opportunity of organizing an interesting variety of occupations.

But now let us go to the presidency training school for mistresses at Madras, which is the source whence the teachers derive their knowledge of Froebel's system. Miss Carr, who till lately was the superintendent, has sent out in the five years of her stay about one hundred teachers. She had not yet started her new inspecting work when I was at Madras, so I was able to see the training school while her methods were in force. I thought this institution was most carefully conducted and there was a unity about the working which appeared to me remarkably well suited to the aims in view. The normal students usually number about 40, some English or Eurasian and others Hindoos. On account of the variety of languages it is necessary to have three practicing schools-Tamil, Telugu, and English. The two teachers I referred to just now, Miss Shunmugum and Miss Bernard, were for a time in England studying at the Teachers' Training College, then in Bishopsgate. They have proved very useful since their return, both in the practicing school and for the normal department. The students have passed three examinations in ordinary subjects before going to the training school, so that while they are there all their time is occupied in learning the art of teaching. Miss Carr used to look over and criticise all their sketches of lessons beforehand and she appointed them to one class for a month. In the course of their stay they in turn took all the classes, including those of the little ones. Thus the kindergarten division is an integral part of the whole. There are also model lessons and criticism lessons and lectures to the students on school management and on points relating to teaching. The result of all is that there is much life and spirit in the training school and that the younger children are most happy in their classes, where the methods present a great contrast to the monotonous and uninteresting routine usually pursued.

The training school stands in a large compound (that is, surrounding ground, sometimes a garden). In this case there is only grass and a few trees. You see a group of little carriages and bullock carts, in which the teachers, and students, and children have driven to school. The classes were crowded as to space when I was there, for a large pandal, i. e., temporary room in the compound, had been lately blown down in a gale, but the director of public instruction has secured that a hall with classrooms shall soon be built. The children were in the lower part of the house, the students upstairs. Miss Shunmugum took us first to see the little ones. About 20 small Telugu children were having an object lesson from one of the students, named Subermal. She wore a red cotton skirt and a greenish bodice, over which was a white saree. In her ears there were several pearls and a green stone was near the top of her ear. Tiny pearls were screwed on to her face here and there. Her black hair was neatly plaited and round her neck was a bead chain with some coins interspersed. No shoes, but silver toe-rings. Gold is thought too precious to wear on the feet. The lesson was on the hen. A stuffed hen stood before Subermal, and she called the children up in turns to examine it and to compare it with a duck, for in that school they teach much by comparison. They all seemed very much interested. It was pleasant to see their bright smiles. Indian children are generally very quiet and impassive, but these quite entered into teaching so suited to their nature and capacities. From the constant habit of preparation, the student teacher did not lose her way. One other lesson, but to elder children, was on the peacock, a very familiar bird in India. Here the teacher had to content herself with a picture and a peacock's feather. But I must not take you into the higher school. I will tell, however, of a lesson I heard given by a student on another day when Miss Brander was inspecting the training school. A class of eight little boys and girls was brought up into the inspection room and the student gave a very good lesson with square and oblong. I have the sketch here, only it is in Tamil. I could not follow it, but the children evidently enjoyed it and Mrs. Brander approved it. At one point they all held out their slates to illustrate the oblong. One tiny boy was bare to the waist. Indeed, his only dress was a white cloth tied round him and falling over his legs, except that he hed a purple cap. It was very amusing to see this little fellow go up eagerly to the blackboard and point to the square and the oblong of colored papers stuck on to it. This was the only inspection lesson given that day to a kindergarten class, but later I saw the little ones do some very simple exercises. It was not easy to distinguish the girls from the boys, for the smallest ones are often dressed alike, in gay little vests and trousers. Parents like their girls to be taken for boys, because, as you are aware, it is thought more desirable in India to have sons than daughters. At one time the Hindoo mothers did not like their children to have movement exercises, so this teaching had to be given up. But Miss Carr took care to let the Eurasian children practice in the open verandah, where the Hindoo mothers could look on, and after awhile they came to her asking, " Why do you not let our children do as these do?" Whereupon these exercises were resumed. Of course in the Indian climate

a careful choice has to be made in gymnastics, lest the girls should overdo. The course of training is for one year, but the students can stay longer if they do not pass well. Sometimes a teacher in some country school is sent up to be trained and she goes back with new ideas and a different sense of what to aim at. This was the case with a girl ealled Sellammal, from Kumbakonum, for whom we procured a scholarship (£10) from English funds. She profited extremely by her stay in Madras, and she delighted in the training school so much that she wrote a poem on it celebrating its advantages and its management. When I was at Madras she came with her parents a long night journey from Kumbakonum to see me. She fully recognizes the value of the kindergarten occupations and is very successful with them. Mrs Brander encourages for the basis of the games the daily occupations which go on in the children's homes, as fetching water from the well, grinding the corn, and so on. I think the Indian children have quite a dramatic instinct and they are fond of joining in simple scenes, arranged by the teachers. Their memories are so remarkably good that the learning what each has to say is quite easy. At one school at Madras, under a native Christian lady, Mrs. Satthiandahan, some children acted a sort of welcome to me. The schoolgirls were placed in the open rooms round the courtyard, in the middle of which was a tree, and there were also shrubs in pots. Several girls pretended to be getting flowers, when another girl appeared finding great fault with them for coming without leave into a garden and plucking flowers. I should say that each girl had a colored paper basket, something like a fly catcher. They defended themselves and said they did not mean to do wrong. Then came the little guardian's mother, and she scolded her for having been off duty and let the other girls enter, but she also found fault with the invaders. After some disputing the whole matter was amicably settled by the girls explaining that an English lady had come to their school and they wished to get flowers for a garland for her. That excuse was considered satisfactory, and when a garland was placed on me it was supposed to be the one that they had been meanwhile making. Sometimes they hold a sort of argumentative conversation on the advantages of going to school, and they are very fond of a wedding game of their own called a "Garbi," in which the children with a particular step move round in a circle, clapping their hands and bowing towards the center at each forward step.

There are scarcely any teachers except those trained at the training school who understand anything about Froebel; so the kindergarten attempts in the mofussil (the country) schools are often very poor and mechanical. Still there is a recognition of the idea that education means something wider than learning to read and write, and certainly many of the results are good. I will read to you a sentence or two out of the report of Mrs. Brander, to the director of public instruction (Mr. Grigg), for last year:

"The introduction of children's occupations, object lessons, and action songs, and the grants offered for them have awakened an interest in the subject of the educa tion of young children. Many managers have bought books on the subject, and a knowledge of the best methods of teaching young children is certainly spreading, Where well-trained teachers are employed the younger classes are now well taught, and managers seem to realize more than they used to do that the best teaching can not be obtained from untrained or poorly trained teachers. Even where the teachers are untrained, and where they conduct occupations mechanically, the children are happier and better employed in weaving paper, threading beads, or looking at pictures of animals than they were in shouting the alphabet for an hour at a time on the old pyal school system."

I may add as to Madras, that Miss Rajahcopaul, of the Free Church Missions, who was also once in England, and who studied at Miss Naubi's, has translated a selection of action songs from the book of Mrs. Berry and Madame Michaelis into Tamil. In other parts of India there is not much known or practiced as yet regarding the kindergarten, but a good many inquiries are made about it, because articles in newspapers, and educational information from England has stirred up some interest in the subject. The training schools generally have not taken it up. There is one at Ahmedabad, in the Bombay Presidency, where the lady superintendent of the training college is Mrs. McAfee, who was lately in England. She gained here some useful ideas, I think, through Mrs. Holton, which she has found very helpful. But I must not omit mentioning the Irish Mission School, where many years ago two of Fräulein Heerwart's students used to teach. Though they have both left (one has married a missionary and the other is also married), yet the beginning that they made has been carried on. I was present at the prize giving in this school and I gathered that the younger children are taught in a bright, rational way. A little pupil of 4 years old was of the Parsee family in which I was staying, and this child, Dhunbai, showed the good effects of attending the kindergarten. She was a fine child, very quiet and dignified, and with much self-possession. She would repeat several infant school rhymes in Gujerate translations out of a book prepared by the head of a training college at Poona. It was curious to see the grave way in which she would