cine. The aim of a Normal School is to impart to teachers a professional education, and to enable us to drive out the quacks. The stupidity of the physicians is rarely felt at the time; the blunder of the lawyer may result in financial ruin, but the crudities and ignorance of the teacher may continue undetected for years. If the man has a pompous exterior and glib tongue, he may deceive boards of school trustees for years. The teacher's work being intangible, and we might add, spiritual, the great mass of mankind cannot estimate it as they do flour, coal, and medicine, etc." "In America," says Miss Anna C. Brackett, "more than elsewhere, we must expect to find multitudes attempting to do what is beyond their power, and the profession of education, in common with all other spheres, exhibit this fact. The American Normal School, in order that its diploma shall mean anything whatever, has therefore to distinguish between the chaff and the wheat, and then, decidedly and with authority, to separate the one from the other, retaining only the wheat. Unless it does this steadily, without fear or favor, it will be of very little service, however large may be its numbers, because it will simply serve, in that case, to exhibit a natural weakness instead of helping to correct it." It may be asked: "What has this to do with the training and qualification of Kindergärtners, who have only to deal with little children”?— As the Kindergarten is regarded as the Nursery of Mankind—this fact speaks in itself for the importance that is attached to the true training of the Kindergärtner. It has been well said that “if it were possible, every child should be taught by God himself." Every child is taught by a Divine providence that perpetually undoes mischief which our folly and wickedness inflict, and the best recognition we can make of this fact is to place our largest-minded and largest-hearted teachers over our youngest children in the school-room. The teachers of the lowest grades of pupils must be the animating soul of the school-room; must understand the varied avenues of approach to the sacred shrine, the soul of childhood; must inspire with her own enthusiasm and work the powers by which the little ones can apprehend, in gradual process, the mysteries of knowledge." Similarly expresses himself the author of a little pamphlet: The Philosophy of Teaching: "So deeply are we impressed with the importance and utility of the Kindergarten, and with the high qualities required by the teacher of the very young, that we are more and more disposed to believe that the true order in rank and promotion among the teachers should be, to speak in paradox, downwards; that is to say, the younger the children to be taught, the higher the rank and remuneration of the teacher; for not only is an extensive range of knowledge necessary to enable the teacher truthfully to answer the innumerable questions of inquisitive infancy, and to avoid giving false notions, to be afterwards with greater or less difficulty removed-always with a shock to the moral sentiment when the child discovers it has been deceived - but also a knowledge of the infant mind, a perception of the thoughts and fancies which chase one another through the infant brain, a knowledge and perceptive power which only a watchful and loving experience can acquire. An industry and a patience far beyond any needed by the teacher of more advanced pupils, are required by the highly-cultivated men and women to whom alone the training of infant minds should be intrusted. Advanced pupils go more than half way to meet their teacher-the infant can render no assistance to his, all has to be borne, suffered, and done for him his future habits depend mainly on those given to him in his earliest years. Yet the care of him in these important days is generally confided to ignorant nurses and to the less skilled class of teachers." As I said already some years ago before this Association: that "One of the chief causes that Froebel's method mostly has been executed imperfectly, is the insufficient training of Kindergärtners," and I here repeat what we demand of a Kindergärtner, viz: "An indispensable element in the Kindergärtner is, a quick and ready sympathy with the children, but it must be real, genuine, not pretended. She must be a child at heart, must be mother and sister to the children, and feel happy in their company, and have a clear insight into child-nature and life up to the seventh year. The nature of the child's mind is best learned by studying the thing itself. The principles of education cannot be fully mastered, especially in their relation to methods, unless illustrated by their application, and these can be done only where they are practiced. An exact knowledge and spiritual comprehension should be demanded, united with dexterous handling and turning to account as realization of the material; some musical knowledge and ability so as to execute Froebel's songs, and guide the plays with pleasure; a cheerful humor that can easily enter the child's plays, and is not easily affected by childish frowardness; conscientiousness; so much knowledge of nature as to be enabled to show to the children everywhere the Creator's love, wisdom, and power; in short, a pure and perfectly-cultivated mind and character; an idea of enduring results of her labor; a knowledge of the difficulties of her work, an appreciation of the sad consequences of mistakes; and, once more, a warm love for children, a spirit of self-sacrifice for their good, a just estimate of the true dignity of her vocation. Then it will be seen that it requires more tact, more energy, more ingenuity, more skill, more labor on the part of the Kindergärtner, an industry and patience far beyond any needed by the teacher of more advanced pupils. And last, but not least, the Kindergärtner needs true enthusiasm, which is kindled only at the altar of the living heart of little children." The Kindergärtner should also know how the cheerful play of the children should pass over into more serious instruction of the school. What renders children so happy in the Kindergarten is that they learn to play, the only thing that they care for after having supplied their animal wants. "That which will render pupils as happy in the primary schools is, that they learn to learn, the next thing children care for after they have learned to play," and that this latter should be the result of the Kindergarten time; it should be found existing in children at their seventh year." It should further be borne in mind that the aim of the Kindergarten system of training, which is intended for young children up to seven years of age-when school-training proper should begin— is to prepare for all subsequent education. But in order that school-teaching proper should begin in the right way, the Kindergärtner should know how the cheerful play of the children should pass over finally into the more serious instruction of the school. This is a point of great significance; so much so, that Diesterweg says, that "if this could not be done, it would be better that we had no Kindergartens." The Kindergärtner is also often asked to give elementary instruction to those children who have passed through the Kindergarten; and if it were only on this account she should be acquainted with the pedagogics of the new elementary methods, and the history of their development, and she also must be taught how to teach. Without this knowledge she would be in the dark in regard to instruction, and gross mistakes could easily be made in regard to the school and its institutions. A sufficient insight into school affairs will, besides, make her modest, and she will not judge schools hastily if she acquires a knowledge of the highly-gifted persons who have devoted their lives to its development and continued accomplishment. If we look more minutely at the subject and the method of instruction, we ought to render more prominent the fact that the different branches of instruction have a certain connection with and relation to each other, and have their focus, so to speak, in Froebel. For only through strictly-jointed and united work can we come nearer to the aim of the training of the true Kindergärtner, and can an independent, conscious work be reached-that is, if we can presuppose that the instruction can be called profound and comprehensive. In regard to the different branches of instruction, we require, in pedagogics, complete and exact knowledge of the newer historical pedagogical development, from Amos Comenius to Pestalozzi and Froebel. It is a fact, and everybody can see it who follows the development of universal history, that one fact develops itself from the preceding one. Before our time excellent men have lived, and they have prepared the ground, that our ideas may find a place thereon. We all are standing on the shoulders of our ancestors, and, therefore, also, Froebel does not stand alone by himself in his educational endeavors. Comenius, Ratichius, Franke, Salzmann, Basedow, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Krause, Fichte, Diesterweg, etc., etc. What significance is attached to these names for education in Germany! Froebel, in many things, is very much like them, and in other things, again, he is widely different. But a Kindergärtner should be intimate with this. For it often happens that teachers who have read a little of Froebel, put the question: "What Froebel asks, many others have said before him;" for example this question: "Did not Comenius say that the play of the child was his work?" Ought not she be enabled to answer: "Who of them has, like Froebel, taken in hand so practically the education of the little-ones, that in it the germ of all future good might be placed? And who gave us the means, and discovered the laws of life, through which alone we can educate according to nature? Without a knowledge of the efforts of the past centuries no one is enabled to see why Froebel's efforts became a necessity, an historical act, and why Froebel, for all time, will occupy such a prominent place in pedagogy, We also must do justice to the time after Froebel up to the present day; this time must be looked upon and talked over, and the merit of the prominent advocates of pedagogical ideas should be duly recognized, and their writings read and criticised. The system of Froebel and his means, founded on old and new physiological and psychological experiences and investigations, should be studied theoretically and practically, so that each Kindergärtner will be enabled to give as quickly an account for questions as well as she has learned to handle methodically the means of occupation. She must be, in the fullest sense, not only the guide of the plays, but, also, understand them thoroughly. *The activity of the soul shows itself in the child as play. FREDERICK FROEBEL made use of this hint, giving the Kindergarten-games as the first object-lesson, and makes us notice the great law, which rules in the kingdom of form, viz: that from the different composition and arrangement of a few primary forms, all existing forms are made. The first game Froebel gives to the child is the Ball, generally called the 1st Gift. It consists of six, soft, colored balls, of the primary and secondary colors. The ball is the form of movement. Colors are the productions of light, and help to awaken the mind's light through the pleasure they create. These six balls are introduced to the child in every possible different and individual manner. The ball illustrates the general properties of form, color, size, weight, space, and density. As soon as the little ties through the development of the body. The second Gift consists of a wooden ball, a cylinder, and a cube. When the child grows older and stronger, it wishes to hold firmer objects; it unconsciously compares, which leads to knowledge. In order to gain clear knowledge the child must not be confused by too many forms-but draw its comparisons from a few primary forms which form a strong contrast. The two primary contrasts are sphere and cube, the cylinder being its intermediate; the sphere is the embodiment of life-the cube that of rest-the cylinder combining both qualities; the sphere is a unit the cube a variety; the ball remains always unchanged in its apparent form, whether in motion or rest,-the cube *EXPLANATION.-In consequence of the multiplicity of the cuts and the brevity of the text in these illustrations, the printer has found it utterly impracticable always to place a cut in close proximity to its explanatory text; in some cases the separation is a page or two. changes at the slightest motion and position. The connecting link, the cylinder, contains the ball and is contained by the cube. The third Gift is a cube divided once in every direction, giving thus eight. equal cubes. In the second gift the cube is used as a whole, now the child, by this equal division, becomesacquainted with the contrast of size, and, as this division satisfies the natural desire of the child to see the inside of things, to see how it is made, he begins to tread the road of rational analysis. The child using the parts of the cube to rejoin them again to the original cube or or to other new forms, analysis thus ends in synthesis, and satisfies the child's desire to create-a little story enlivening the whole or a song accompanying the work. This gift is also used for teaching number; also symmetrical forms are made, so-called forms of beauty, whereby the law of symmetry is brought forward. One form always can be altered into a series of different ones, the child thus learning the composition and arrangement of things. 1 1 The fourth Gift consists also of a divided cube; it is four times divided into eight oblong blocks or bricks. The contrast of this gift with the former one consists in the sub-division of its parts; the likeness in their totality of equalsized cubes. The cubes of the third gift are equal in height, length, and breadth; the oblong blocks of the fourth gift are twice as long as they are broad, and twice as broad as they are high. This gift is used in a similar manner as the former ones, but by the oblong shape of the blocks a greater variety of forms is gained, and drawing the child's at |