which to determine the promotion or demotion in degrees or grades of the holder. And in as much as real progress demands that the acquisition of knowledge and ability to use it professionally, should go hand in hand, the academic studies should appear upon the blank in the same connection with the professional. The following might serve as a sample: Academic. What studies in the following list have you been pursuing since last report? Other studies can be added to this list if desirable. Professional. 1. What works on teaching have you studied since last report? 2. What Educational periodicals do you take? 3. What lectures or educational articles have you written or published? 4. What Teachers' Institutes have you attended? In what capacity? 5. How many months have you taught? 6. What Place......... .......... Grade............Salary........ 7. What other Educational work have you done? Fellow-teachers: the foregoing is submitted as merely suggestive of what we believe can be done, and ought to be done, in this particular field of our work. Let us either cease proclaiming to the world that ours is a profession, or else do something to entitle it to such a rank. Let us do something in the way of collecting and classifying the material about us, into a system of knowledge susceptible of study and practice, in the Normal School; that those coming after us may not be compelled to wade through words interminable and discussions endless in order to obtain a few settled ideas upon their work. Let us put our Normal-School Literature, and our courses of instruction in shape, and do it now. Let us have something like uniformity in these courses, and the future members of our profession will have cause to bless the National Educational Association on this the Centennial year of our Nation's birth. ELEMENTARY DEPARTMENT. First Day's Proceedings. MONDAY, JULY 10, 1876. This Department was called together in the Main Hall of the Academy of Music at 3 P. M., by the President, Mrs. STONE. In the absence of the Secretary, Mr. Z. RICHARDS of Washington, D. C., was chosen to fill the place pro tem. The President announced that the Hon. B. G. NORTHROP, who was to read the first paper, had just informed her by telegraph that his health would not permit him to be present. Mrs. JOHN KRAUS-BOELTE then read the following paper: CHARACTERISTICS OF FROEBEL'S METHOD, KINDERGARTEN The Pre-requisites of a Kindergärtner and Explanations with The characteristic of Froebel's method consists just in his methods of occupying children, by permitting them to bring forth a product by their own feeble efforts. These methods awaken and develop the germs of the creative spirit, the spirit of invention, and, instead of allowing the child to imitate, lead him to produce individual work. A real fusion of learning, work and play is only possible, when the objects, which serve the child in its play, are not ready made, but invite independent mental and bodily action upon them. Ready-made playthings hinder childish activity, and train to laziness and thoughtlessness; and hence are much more injurious than can be expressed. The impulse to activity then turns to destruction of the ready-made things and becomes at last a real spirit of destructiveness. Also merely mechanical work of the children, that which is done without exciting the imaginative faculties, is likewise injurious, because thereby the intellect becomes inactive. Froebel's method aims to give nothing but the material for play. The transforming of this material, wherein play and work consists, is done according to law in a free, inventive, productive manner. "Just there," says Bertha von Marenholtz, "where the critic commonly attacks the Kindergarten, lies its highest value." It is thought by some, that Froebel gives to all children the same materials, prepared beforehand, so that they may make use of them; and that he obliges them to draw from these materials determined and foreseen results. But this would trammel all individuality. We do observe in some quarters a disposition to make patterns and prepare elaborate material for the Kindergarten; but this is a deviation which annuls Froebel's principles. His method is the very opposite. The child receives only simple material, which he can transform, or compose into new forms within the limits of their nature. The important thing is, that the teacher should be thoroughly imbued with Froebel's principle. The individuality of children is neither constrained nor fettered whether Kindergärtner knows how to lead him to appropriative use of materials suitable to his purpose. Nothing is more difficult to set forth in Froebel's method, nor more important to be comprehended, than the application to children's plays of the most general law of creation. But it is absolutely necessary to see how this application is made by the children, in order to appreciate the value of the method." Under the head: "What is required of the Kindergärtner,” (compare Report of the Com. of Education of 1872 in an article on The Object of the Kindergarten," by John Kraus) it will be seen, "that the most essential part of the whole system is the methodical arrangement of the exercises and the games, and the explanations given by Froebel to those who are to conduct them. To know them all is quite a study; to apply them well, an art; to understand their significance their effect— the order and manner in which they ought to be given to the children, is a science. It cannot be too often repeated, that nothing but long and careful study of the system and actual working, will give such knowledge of details as would enable a person to practice the peculiar mode of instruction, or to understand the many important points, such as the length of time to be given to each exercise, or which of these may be used simultaneously. 66 "That it is necessary to begin every art, every trade, and in short all kinds of handiwork with the elements of all knowledge, every one knows. But what the elements of all knowledge-what the elements of all work are that every one does not know. What has been said by Pestalozzi and Froebel on this subject and repeatedly commented upon at length by Diesterweg, Bertha von Marenholtz has drawn into a small compass." In order to learn to read, one must first learn the A. B. C. To be able to work productively, one must learn the A. B. C. of matter, and also the A. B. C. of things, since all things are of material nature. But this A. B. C. of things consists in their common properties, for example: form, color, size, number, sound, etc. Whether we mean artistic or industrial work, it always has to do with form, color, dimension, etc., and these organs must be carefully developed and exercised therefore, if the work is to succeed. Before object-teaching in the school undertakes this practice, things and their properties have been perceived by the young denizens of earth,-perceived as an impression not understood. But this merely indefinite perception does not yet give the A. B. C. of things clearly and definitely ordered any more than looking at books teaches the child the letters. Now this A. B. C. of things must unquestionably precede the A. B. C. of words, since the sign (the letters) presuppose the concrete to which they refer; this most original of all perceptions, of all understanding and learning, had not yet been found before Froebel. The things and their properties are certainly there, and they are also perceived by every child of sound senses, but they have not been set in order so as to be irresistibly impressed in their original and simplest elements on the still blank tablet of the child's soul. This discovery, and the clothing of it in the form of play, is Froebel's general thought, and the new and important thing in his method! Only in this way is it possible that the very youngest child by his own labor, that is by self-activity, can himself work out his intellectual powers in their entire individuality; and the only proper nourishment, the milk of his earliest development be administered to the young mind. The material, which the A. B. C. of the properties of things (of all things) represent, are far more easily to be combined for the as yet unpracticed organs of the child, than the letters of words unintelligible to him; the figure and image combined by himself express the soul of the child yet hidden from himself better than words could do it, just as the artist can express his idea, not in words, but only in works of art. But the discovery of such a plastic A. B. C. is not only the beginning, the knowledge, and the mastery of the material, it also brings the free methodical management of every work, by means of which the workman arrives at the comprehension of its theory, and thus only is labor to be raised to science, when it becomes an intellectual and individual product. Some time ago the graduates of Columbia Law School in the city of New York, some two hundred in number, appeared before the General Term of the Supreme Court to be admitted to practice under the Statute. Judge Davis, who presided, took occasion to say, "that he disapproved of the manufacturing of lawyers." While he thought it proper to examine the gentlemen before him in regard to character, he intended to instruct the committee to adhere to the admission of graduates from law schools, and although the committee were obliged to examine as to their character, and the court to admit them to practice, there were other requirements than the mere passing of the examination at a Law School. Similar it is in regard to Medical and Normal Schools. Says Dr. H. C. Wood in regard to the medical education in the United States: "There may be in the community a wide diversity of opinion as to the power of the medical profession for good, but there certainly must be a great unanimity as to its power for evil. What may be called the medical instinct of the race is so strong that in times of serious illness the most inveterate scoffer is fain to call upon the physician. The public has therefore a vital interest in the practical skill of the profession, and, as this skill is chiefly the result of technical education, in the training of young physicians. The methods of education pursued in this country are at present singularly imperfect and the need of some control from without the profession is imperative." Says another: "Our medical schools, law schools, normal schools, and all professional schools, in a measure, fail to meet the expectant demands of the public in sending forth trustworthy physicians, competent lawyers, and teachers of power and influence, mainly because the material upon which they operate is immatured.” The Principal of one of the most prominent Normal Schools in this country says: "There are perhaps more quacks to-day in the profession of teaching than in the profession of medi |