The Child under Eight | Page 5

children about 6
or 6-1/2 years old.
"(3) The Preparatory School, for children from 6 to 7 or 7-1/2 years
old.

"(4) The School of Handwork, for children from 6 to 10 or older.
"Dinners are provided for those children whose parents work all day
away from home at a trifling charge of a halfpenny and a penny. Also,
for a trifle, poor children may receive assistance of various kinds in
illness, or may have milk or baths through the kindness of the kindred
'Association for the Promotion of Health in the Household.'
"In the institution we are describing there is a complete and
well-furnished kitchen, a bathroom, a courtyard with sand for digging,
with pebbles and pine-cones, moss, shells and straw, etc., a garden, and
a series of rooms and halls suitably furnished and arranged for games,
occupations, handwork and instruction.
"The occupations pursued in the Kindergarten are the following: free
play of a child by itself; free play of several children by themselves;
associated play under the guidance of a teacher; gymnastic exercises;
several sorts of handwork suited to little children; going for walks;
learning music, both instrumental (on the method of Madame
Wiseneder[5]) and vocal; learning and repetition of poetry; story-telling;
looking at really good pictures; aiding in domestic occupations;
gardening; and the usual systematic ordered occupations of Froebel.
Madame Schrader is steadfastly opposed to that conception of the
Kindergarten which insists upon mathematically shaped materials for
the Froebelian occupations. Her own words are: 'The children find in
our institution every encouragement to develop their capabilities and
powers by use; not by their selfish use to their own personal advantage,
but by their use in the loving service of others. The longing to help
people and to accomplish little pieces of work proportioned to their
feeble powers is constant in children; and lies alongside of their need
for that free and unrestrained play which is the business of their life."
[Footnote 5: From certain old photographs, I suppose this to have been
what we now call a Kindergarten Band.]
"The elder children are expected to employ themselves in cleaning,
taking care of, arranging, keeping in order, and using the many various
things belonging to the housekeeping department of the Kindergarten;

for example, they set out and clear away the materials required for the
games and handicrafts; they help in cleaning the rooms, furniture and
utensils; they keep all things in order and cleanliness; they paste
together torn wallpapers or pictures, they cover books, and they help in
the cooking and in preparations for it; in laying the tables, in washing
up the plates and dishes, etc. The children gain in this manner the
simple but most important foundations of their later duties as
housekeepers and householders, and at the same time learn to regard
these duties as things done in the service of others."
It is worth while to notice the order in which the necessities of this
place are described. First comes a kitchen and next a bathroom, then an
out-of-doors playground with abundant material for gaining ideas
through action--sand, pebbles, pine-cones, moss, shells and straw. Then
comes the garden, and only after all these, the rooms and halls for
indoors games, handwork and instruction. It is worth while also to note
the prominence given to play, music, poetry and story-telling pictures,
domestic occupations and gardening, all preceding the "systematic and
ordered occupations" which to some have seemed so all-important.
If we compare this with the current ideas about Nursery Schools, we do
not find that it falls much below the present ideal. There has been a
time when some of us feared that only the bodily needs of the little
child were to be considered, but the "Regulations for Nursery Schools"
have banished such fear. In these the child is regarded as a human
being, with spiritual as well as bodily requirements.
To put it shortly, the physical requirements of a child are food, fresh air
and exercise, cleanliness and rest. It is not so easy to sum up the
requirements of a human soul. The first is sympathy, and though this
may spring from parental instinct, it should be nourished by true
understanding. Next perhaps comes the need for material, material for
investigation, for admiration, for imitation and for construction or
creation. Power of sense-discrimination is important enough, but in this
case if we take care of the pounds of admiration and investigation, the
pence of sense-discrimination will take care of themselves.
Besides these the child has the essentially human need for social

intercourse, for speech, for games, for songs and stories, for pictures
and poetry. He must have opportunity both to imitate and to share in
the work and life around him; he must be an individual among other
individuals, a necessary part of a whole,