54TH CONGRESS, 2d Session SENATE. DOCUMENT No. 123. Mrs. Anna Evans Murray A plea to the U.S. Congress for FREE KINDERGARTENS. In Washington D.C. FEBRUARY 12, 1897.—Referred to the Committee on Appropriations and ordered to be printed. Mr. Mitchell, of Wisconsin, presented the following STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM HARRIS, COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, ON THE SUBJECT OF "FREE KINDERGARTENS.”

COST OF TUITION IN THE KINDERGARTEN.

The total amount of salaries in this department for the 131 paid teachers was $21,860; average number of pupils belonging in the kindergartens was 3,841, making the average cost per pupil $5.70; cost for each of the 6,202 pupils enrolled, $3.52.

The salaries paid have been much reduced.

First Year Second Year Third Year Fourth Year Fifth Year . For whole day, director .$450 $475 $500 $550 $600 For half day, director 250 275 300 325 350 For whole day, paid assistant 200 For half day, paid assistant 125

The cost of tuition in the kindergarten for 1875-76 was, for each pupil belonging, $11.36; for each pupil enrolled, $5.76. For 1876-77, for each pupil belonging, $9; for each pupil enrolled, $3.52.

This shows a constant reduction in the cost of instruction in the kindergarten, and forms a very important consideration in the question of the introduction or continuance of the kindergarten in the public-school system.

The average cost of tuition in all the schools (see p. 48) is $16.73 for each pupil belonging, and $11.78 for each pupil enrolled in the course of the year.

In my report for 1875-76 I have discussed the several questions relative to the course of study and management of the kindergarten, and in my reports for 1876-77 I have given extended statistics as to results.

THE CLAIMS OF THE KINDERGARTEN FOR A PLACE IN THE PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM.

The question of the kindergarten can not be settled without considering many subordinate questions.

In one sense the whole of life is an education, for man is a being that constantly develops-for good or evil. In every epoch of his life an 0002 2education goes on. There are well-defined epochs of growth or of education; that of infancy, in which education is chiefly that of use and wont, the formation of habits as regards the care of the person, and the conduct within family life; that of youth, wherein the child learns in the school how to handle those instrumentalities which enable him to participate in the intellectual or theoretical acquisitions of the human race, and wherein at the same time he learns those habits of industry, regularity, punctuality, and self-control which enables him to combine with his fellow men in civil society and in the state; then there is that education which follows the period of school education—the education which one gets by the apprenticeship to a vocation or calling in life. Other spheres of education are the state, or body politics, and its relation to the individual, wherein the latter acts as a citizen, making laws through his elected representatives, and assisting in their execution; the church, wherein he learns to see all things under the form of eternity, and to derive thence the ultimate standards of his theory and practice in life.

The question of the kindergarten also involves, besides this one of province—i.e., the question whether there is a place for it-the consideration of its disciplines, or what it accomplishes in the way of theoretical insight or of practical will-power, these two, and the development of the emotional of the human being. Exactly what does the kindergarten attempt to do in these directions? And then, after what it does is ascertained, arises the question whether it is desirable to attempt such instruction in the school; whether it does not take the place of more desirable training, which the school has all along been furnishing, or whether it does not, on the other hand, trench on the province of the education within the family—a period of nurture wherein the pupil gets most of his internal, or subjective, emotional life developed. If the kindergarten takes the child too soon from the family and abridges the period of nurture, it must perforce injure his character on the whole; for the period of nurture is like the root-life of the plant, essential for the development of the above-ground life of the plant, essential for the public life of the man, the life wherein he combines with his fellow-men.

Then, again, there is involved the question of education for vocation in life, the preparation for the arts and trades that are to follow school life, as the third epoch in life education. Should the education into the technicalities of vocations be carried down into the school life of the pupil, still more should it be carried down into the earliest period of transition from the nurture period to the school period.

Besides these essential questions, there are many others of a subsidiary nature—those relating to expense, to the training of teachers, and their supply, to the ability of public school boards to manage such institutions, to the proper buildings for their use, the proper length of sessions, the degree of strictness of discipline to the preserved, etc. The former essential questions relate to the desirability of kindergarten education, the latter relate to the practicability of security it.

The most enthusiastic advocates of the kindergarten offer, as grounds for its establishment such claims for its efficiency as might reasonably be claimed only for the totality of human education in its five-fold aspect—of nurture, school, vocation, state, and church. If what they claim for it were met with as actual results, we certainly should realize the fairest ideals of a perfected type of humanity at once. Such claims, however, can be made only of a life-long education in its five-fold aspect, and not of any possible education which lasts only from one to four 0003 3years in the life of the individual. Nothwithstanding this exaggeration, it may prove to be the case that the kindergarten is justified in claiming a province heretofore unoccupied by the school or by family nurture, and a province which is of the utmost importance to the right development of those phases of life which follow it. It is, indeed, no reproach to the friends of the "new education” (as they call it) to accuse them of exaggeration. The only fault which we may charge them with is a tendency to ignore or underrate the educational possibilities of the other provinces of human life, and especially those of the school as it has hitherto existed.

Before Miss Blow's experiment in the Des Peres School, the kindergarten was only a vague dream in the St. Louis schools; since that time the following has been the progress: Years Number of Number of teachers. Number of pupils Average Kindergartens enrolled number A.M. P.M Total Paid unpaid Total Boys Girls Total belonging 1873-74 1 1 1 3 4 30 38 68 42 1874-75 3 1 4 4 13 17 130 141 271 136 1875-76 7 5 12 12 38 50 533 508 1,041 528 1876-77 16 14 30 32 150 182 1,506 1,872 3,333 1,502 1877-78 22 18 40 60 139 199 2,407 2,952 5,359 1,469 1878-79 27 26 53 131 65 196 2,845 3,357 6,202 3,842

THE PRACTICAL CONDITIONS NECESSARY FOR THE SUCCESS OF THE KINDERGARTEN.

After we have decided in the affirmative the essential questions relative to the reasonableness of the course of study and discipline of the kindergarten, its suitability to the age of the children, its effect upon the education that follows it, we come to the subsidiary questions regarding expense, training of teachers, and the details of management. These questions are not important, unless the decision is reached that the kindergarten theory is substantially correct. If it is found to be a valuable adjunct to the school, then we must solve the practical problems of how to introduce it into the public-school system. The problem is, how to meet the expense. If the traditional form of the kindergarten be adopted, that of one teacher to each dozen pupils, and this constitution an isolated kindergarten, the annual cost of tuition would be from $50 to $100 per pupil, a sum too extravagant to be paid by any public-school system. The average tuition per pupil in public-school systems of the United States ranges from $12 to $20 for the year's schooling of two hundred days. No school board would be justified in expending five times as much per pupil for tuition in a kindergarten as it expended for the tuition of a pupil in the primary or grammar school.

If it is necessary to limit the number of pupils per teacher to 12 or 20 while in the primary schools, each teacher can manage and properly instruct 50 or 70, it becomes likewise necessary to invent a system of cheaper teachers. At once the Lancasterian system-or the "monitorial system-suggests itself as a model for the organization of the cheap kindergarten. The kindergarten shall be a large one, located in a room of ample size to hold 5 to 10 tables, each table to have 15 children attending it, and presided over by a novitiate teacher; and the whole room shall be placed under the charge of a thoroughly competent teacher, of experience and skill, and well versed in the theory and practice of Froebel's system. The director of the kindergarten 0004 4must be a well-paid teacher, receiving as much as the principal of a primary school, with two assistants. Her assistants, the "novitiate teachers,” are learners of the system. The first year they shall be volunteers and receive no salary; the second year, or as soon as they pass the first examination in theory and practice of the kindergarten, they are to receive a small salary as "paid assistants.” After a year's service as paid assistants they may pass a second examination, and, if found competent, be appointed directors and receive a higher salary.

In the St. Louis kindergartens the number of 60 pupils entitles the director to one paid assistant, and there is one additional appointed for each 30 pupils above that number. Thus, there would be a director and four paid assistants if the kindergarten had 150 pupils. (The director would, in St. Louis, receive $350 per annum, and each paid assistant $125 per annum. The cost of tuition-based on teachers' salaries—would be $850 per annum for the 150 pupils, being less than $6 per annum for each.)

Besides the salaried teachers of the kindergarten it is expected that there will be an equal or greater number of volunteers. In order to make it worth while for volunteers to join the system, as well as to secure the development of the salaried teachers, it is necessary to have two persons of superior ability that can give instruction-one a week-on the theory and practice (the "gifts and occupations”) of Froebel's system. A young woman will find so much culture of thought to be derived from the discussion of Froebel's insights and theories and so much peculiarly fitting experience from her daily class in the kindergarten-experience that will prove invaluable to her as a wife and mother-that she will serve her apprenticeship in the kindergarten gladly, though it be no part of her intention to follow teaching as a vacation.

It is a part of the system, as an adjunct to the public schools, to educate young women in these valuable matters relating to the early training of children. I have thought that the benefit derived by the 200 young women of the St. Louis kindergartens from the lectures of Miss Blow to be of sufficient value to compensate the city for the cost of the kindergartens. A nobler and more enlightened womanhood will result, and the family will prove a better nurture for the child.

Here we come upon the most important practical difficulty in the way of the general introduction of the kindergarten. If the teachers are no better than the average mothers in our families, if they are not better than the average primary teacher, it is evident that the system of Froebel can not effect any great reform in society. "It is useless to expect social regeneration from persons who are not themselves regenerated.”

In our St. Louis work we have been very fortunate in having a lady of great practical sagacity, of profound and clear insight, and of untiring energy to organize our kindergartens and instruct our teachers. Her (Miss Susan E. Blow's) disinterested and gratuitous services have been the means of securing for us a system that now furnishes its own directors, assistants, and supervisors.

There is another important point connected with the economy of the kindergarten. The session should not last over three hours for the children of this age. Hence each room permits two different sessions to be held in it per day-one in the morning and one in the afternoon—thus accommodating double the number of pupils. In some cases, where the teacher has attained experience and strength sufficient, she teaches in both sessions, and receives a higher grade of salary for the 0005 5work. (In St. Louis, as already mentioned, directors receive $600 for two sessions per day and $350 for one session; paid assistants receive $125 for one session and $200 per annum for two daily sessions.)

The furniture of the kindergarten is made up of small, movable chairs and small tables, each one capable of accommodating two children—the surface of the table being marked off into division 1 inch square. It is better to use the small tables than large ones that will accommodate a whole class, for the small ones may be moved easily and combined into large ones of any desirable size, and may be readily arranged into any shape or figure and placed in any part in the part of the room by the children themselves. It is necessary to use the floor of the room during one exercise each day for the games, at which time all the children are collected "on the circle.” At this time it may be desirable to remove the tables to the sides of the room, and with small tables this can be easily accomplished Again, in the absence of one of the teachers, it may become necessary to combine two classes into one, uniting two tables. The small tables are therefore an important item in the economy of the kindergarten.

With these suggestions I leave the subject, believing that they are sufficient to justify the directors of our public schools in making the kindergarten a part of our school system. The advantage to the community in utilizing the age from 4 to 6 in training the hand and eye; in developing the habits of cleanliness, politeness, self-control, urbanity, industry; in training the mind to understand numbers and geometric forms, to invent combinations of figures and shapes, and to represent them with the pencil—these and other valuable lessons in combination with their fellow pupils and obedience to the rule of their superiors; above all, the useful suggestions as to methods of instruction which will come from the kindergarten and penetrate the methods of the other schools—will, I think, ultimately prevail in securing to us the establishment of this beneficent institution in all the city school systems of our country.