The Kindergarten Child--After the Kindergarten

THERE was a day when we primary school-teachers all believed — ineradicably and eternally, we thought then — that by means of joy and sport and merry games the little children at their play would banish the arid drudgery of the old schoolroom routine ; would laugh their way through reading and writing, sing their way through geography and history, dance their way through algebra and geometry, and progress in one beautiful, unbroken line of “ continuous development ” from the kindergarten, through the most difficult college examinations, on and on into a roseate futurity. Fifteen years ago, when free kindergartens were hardly more than starting in some of the large cities, we dreamed of the glorious era opening before both the children and the overworked schoolteacher.

Perhaps we expected too much. As we waited impatiently in the primary school for that first class of kindergarten-trained children who were to work without urging, and relieve us of all the responsibility of school government, we looked forward to a pedagogical millennium. The children came. In one day we discovered that they, as well as we, had expectations. They came expecting to find in us lovely ladies who would call them “ Freddie dear ” and “ my little Agnes ; ” they came expecting to be praised for every trivial act or piece of work ; they came expecting to do exactly as they pleased at any hour of the day, and to be entertained at every hour of the day. They came expecting all these good things, — and they were disappointed ; so were we. They were not as happy in the school as they had been when they were in the kindergarten ; neither were we. In a few days they made up their minds that we did not know how to teach, and at about the same time we made up our minds that they did not know how to learn.

We clung to our dream, for we were loath to let it go ; but the chilly morning of experience dawned upon us, and we awoke to find that our problems in school government had increased tenfold, and that the actual wear and tear in teaching had increased beyond what we could accurately compute. We have never denied that the kindergarten children could do a great many things, — in fact they could do about twenty-two times as many things as we had any use for; and we have never denied that they meant to be, and thought that they were, very good and " helpful ” children indeed, for they had one and all come to the “ Little Jack Horner ” stage of self-appreciation.

Had our sympathies congealed with age, or were we merely lacking in the social graces ? We found ourselves unable to pour forth a copious stream of praise and adulation every time the little “ Jack ” pulled out a plum. And we were made to suffer for it. Up to that time we had thought that we loved children, but we proved unequal to the continued drain upon our “ dears ” and " darlings; ” and since we could not always call all the children “ dear” and “ darling,” we were misunderstood in the matter of our affection.

Our lessons met with even less approbation than our affection. It had been a preconceived idea of ours that when an object was set for drawing, some attempt, at least, should be made to draw it. We found ourselves in error. Many of our kindergarten - trained children, upon seeing what we intended for a lesson, remembered a similar but more interesting object, which they forthwith drew. An apple would be replaced by a peach, an orange, or a pear. It was trying to the nerves, to say the least, after giving the apple, with directions for careful study, to find that the lesson time had been spent upon the illustration of an apple tree with our young artist picking apples.

In clay modeling, also, we were equally old-fashioned in our prejudices. When the apple was again given as the lesson, we found ourselves unwilling to accept as an equivalent a bird’s nest with eggs, a sled, or a man on horseback. The apple we had given, and the apple we intended to have modeled, or at least faithfully attempted, during the time assigned. On account of this attitude we were stigmatized as “ cranky.”

We thought it but natural that when the children reached the primary school they should receive instruction in the arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Accordingly, we began our lessons upon them. The children went to the blackboards to copy certain letters. For three days this was a great success. Then Freddie asked, “ Ain’t this work ? ”

We replied that it was intended to be, whereupon he laid down his crayon, remarking, " Then I don’t want to do it any more. In kindergarten we don’t work ; we play.”

He was prevailed upon to continue his lesson ; but the following day we were met with a like opposition from Agnes and Ethel and Harold. We insisted on the completion of the work in hand, but we discovered that public opinion was totally against our practices in this direction.

Our reading lessons were somewhat better liked, but the day came all too soon when we were asked why we did not make it more interesting.

“ In what way ? ” we meekly inquired.

“ Oh! tell us stories ’bout all the letters, the way Miss Bessie used to do in kindergarten,” said Freddie. “ There’s a C with his mouth open like a big fish, an’ he’s swimming to catch a little fish.

An’ there’s an A that’s the door of a tent with soldiers inside. An’ there’s a T, an’ that’s a boy with his arms out, running to see the soldiers. An’ there’s a cat waiting by a hole to catch a mouse ; an’ the mouse has little young children mice at home, an’ she’s coming out to get them something to eat, an’ I hope the cat won’t catch her.” All this was very entertaining, but we estimated that by such a method the children would master forty words a year ; which was hardly the progress required by the school.

Our arithmetic met with much less success than our reading and writing lessons. We were expected to conceal the dry arithmetical operations in entertaining tales of sticks of candy, cakes, oranges, and the like, in some such way as the following : —

“ Freddie had been a good boy all day long. He had not cried or whined. When he went to school next morning his mamma said, ‘ You were such a good boy yesterday, Freddie, that you may buy yourself two sticks of candy to eat at recess,’ and she gave him two pennies. Agnes did some sewing for grandma, and grandma gave her three pennies. Agnes bought sticks of candy, too, and carried them to school. Now, how many sticks of candy did Freddie and Agnes have together ? ”

After a trial of this method for several weeks, we were unable to trace any development of the idea of number to the introduction of ethical considerations into the examples ; and as a knowledge of arithmetic was gained in inverse ratio to the story-telling, we abandoned it without delay, and devoted our energies to simple number work. We had always been of the opinion that a modicum of attention was necessary in order to add and subtract, or to multiply and divide ; but without story-telling the lessons ceased to be " interesting,” and the children declined to give us any attention at all.

It had seemed to Miss Bessie advisable that the “ children should know something of the world on which they live,” and for purposes of instruction she had selected a geyser and a volcano as important — not to say interesting — features of land structure. By means of a rubber ball with a hole in it, artfully concealed in a pile of sand, she had created a geyser, and with a bit of cotton soaked in alcohol and lighted she had simulated a volcano.

We began our work with geography in ignorance of these facts. After a few lessons on hills, mountains, islands, capes, and bays, the children informed us that they “ did n’t like those old things.” Please, won’t you give us the fireworks ? ” asked Freddie. " Or the squirt? ” added Agnes eagerly.

Our school superintendent had become deeply interested in “ carrying on the kindergarten methods in the primary school.” To him this meant the wholesale importation of kindergarten materials in all their variety of form, color, design, usefulness and uselessness. The first thing he urged upon us was the ubiquitous sewing card. “ This is something practical,” he said, “ especially for the girls. They will learn to sew while working on these little cards.”

Wishing to know more about sewing cards, we bought a few, and operated upon them according to directions. In our youth we had taken pride in our sewing, and reminiscences of former years — and tears — expended over buttonholes, patchwork quilts, and “ samplers ” floated before us as we diligently stuck our needles into the little holes of the cards, already prepared, and pulled them out again. We stuck our needles in, we pulled our needles out, — and that was all there was to it. Buttons are attached to garments by this method of procedure, but how the principles of the sewing card can be applicable to sewing of the plain household variety, except in that particular, has been a mystery to us from that day to this. We have come to the conclusion that the value of sewing cards as a foundation for later domestic uses is a pedagogical myth. In this matter, however, we were unable to convince our superintendent, because he was a man, and because he was our superintendent, and cards were ordered for the children by the boxful.

We started out with cards of the ordinary kindergarten kind ; but one day there visited our superintendent the canny agent of a kindergarten supply firm, who sought to show him how we could combine the joys of art with industry. He produced for inspection sewing cards of impossible drawing and delicate, unutterable tints, — an old hat, a head (back view, cheek just visible), a cradle in a room, a bunch of Christmas bells hung awry in a tower, and Santa Claus going down a chimney. These were intended to be outlined in thread, — preferably in white silk, — thus making a “ dainty little picture that could be carried home as a present,” and of which any aunt, or even parent, would be glad to become the possessor. The young man talked blandly; the cards were bought; and we were obliged to waste a precious hour a week sewing ” pictures to appreciate which would have implied an elevated taste in a Hottentot only.

Clay modeling and drawing we had always believed in, and it needed no kindergarten arguments to induce us to continue them both. But after we had formed our opinion of the sewing card, we looked askance at the weaving, the parquetry, the paper cutting, and the paper folding. So far as the weaving went, our superintendent himself could not show us any “ practical application ” of it to anything on the wide earth, and we were allowed to use our own judgment in excluding it from our schools. Still, feeling strongly the necessity of “ carrying on the kindergarten ideas without break,” he refused to listen to us in the matter of the other exercises.

He advised us to “ read up on the subject of the kindergarten occupations and get some new ideas,” and he placed in our hands the current kindergarten literature. The following reprinted selection, having met with the approval of two editors of educational magazines, must be authoritative in the matter with which it deals : —

“ Paper folding gives to the child a love for the beautiful, and love for the beautiful is the beginning of love for the good. By using tints and shades of different colors, we teach them to love pretty but not gaudy colors, and also to make pretty designs and life forms which call their attention to art and nature.

“ They are also taught to be neat by the use of paper folding. They must also have clean hands, and be careful not to get the paper crumpled or torn.

“ The papers are first placed on the table, giving a look of neatness and accuracy not only to their own work, but to the whole table. The folding must be accurate, leaving no little uneven places or crooked lines.

“ While teaching carefulness, neatness, accuracy, etc., we give them the key to patience. If they do their work with care, they learn patience without knowing they are doing so.

“ They are made responsible for their own work. If they tear or injure it through carelessness or inattention, they are not given any more. If it is too badly torn to use, they are made to do without any for that lesson.

“ They are allowed to take their work home, on condition that it is brought back, thus teaching responsibility in another way. We awaken their sense of manhood by trusting them to take care not to harm their own or the other children’s papers.

“ It teaches them to be useful and helpful to others. If one child does his work nicely and quietly, he is encouraged to help some one else who is not so competent ; or if a paper is handed to one child, he is asked, ' Would you like to give that piece of paper to some one else, and get another piece for yourself ? ’

“ In this way he is made both useful and generous. If we give careful attention to these things at school, the children will gradually attain the same habits at home.

“ Thus paper folding teaches: 1. Love for the beautiful, therefore love for the good. 2. Neatness. 3. Accuracy. 4. Carefulness. 5. Patience. 6. Honesty. 7. Industry. 8. Usefulness. 9. Helpfulness. 10. Generosity.”

But why stop at ten ? Two more would have made an even dozen. Why not add: “11. Stenography. 12. Cooking”?

We knew that in the kindergarten the children had learned many songs, and it occurred to us that we might enliven our day with music. When requested to sing, they favored us with this selection : —

It was sung to the following melody : “Ka jinky, jinky, jinky; Ka jinky, jinky, jink,” and so on.

This was matched by a song called The Old Black Cat: —

Refrain.

The melody of this is simply, “ Tum, tum, tum; Te-tum, tum, tum; Tum, tum, tum; Te-tum, tum, tum.”

The children requested us to join them in some games played by holding hands in a ring and singing the while. These are two we participated in : —

ROUND THE VILLAGE.

LOOBY LOO.

We found our enjoyment of the second of these in inverse ratio to the number of its stanzas, of which there were twelve. By the time we had reached the fifth stanza, Looby Loo had palled upon us, and at the tenth we were fain to retire ingloriously from the scene of action. After a few more of these experiences, we discovered that our enthusiasm over “kindergarten games in the schoolroom ” was much less than we had anticipated. In fact, to express it in simple language, we were bored, — very much bored indeed ; and as we did not feel dissimulation in the matter particularly incumbent on us, and practiced only the mild concealment of holding aloof at times when Looby Loo and kindred games were played, we were considered lacking in musical and poetical taste.

On Friday afternoons our pupils spoke pieces for half an hour. The kindergarten children informed us that they knew enough pieces to “ fill a whole day.” Agnes volunteered to entertain us with a poem called Spring Flowers. She prefaced her recitation by a few impromptu remarks of kindergarten origin : —

“ Little children are buttercups an’ daisies when they 're good. An’ when things happen to you that you don’t like, if you keep on being good and singing, then it’s just like the buttercups an’ daisies that come up in the cold before all the other flowers, to make people happy.”

After this moral sentiment we listened to the following verses : —

Not able to believe our ears, we asked Agnes if she had not made some mistake in the recitation. She assured us that it was “just the way Miss Bessie taught it to the children in kindergarten.” On the following day she brought us a collection of poems arranged for the use of the tender young, and proved beyond dispute that her rendering had been correct. After thinking the matter over very carefully, we decided that this effusion was not intended for a statement of botanical facts concerning the life histories of the spring plants, but merely as an exercise in mental gymnastics in the forming of a visual image of daisies “ ’neath the frozen grass,” and of bare fields surrounded by leafless trees with the cold March wind whistling through their branches, and “ here and there ” over the hard brown earth “ buttercups and daisies fine ” blooming away as gayly as in June. As a matter of fact, this is so superlative a test of our faculties that few of us have ever succeeded in creating a mental picture which tallies in every particular with the requirements of the poem ; but perhaps it may be easier for the young, less hampered as they are with a knowledge of the plain facts of the case.

Freddie followed Agnes with this stanza : —

We copied it at Once, in order to ponder on it at our leisure, and we have never ceased to wonder how “ one blossom follows another one, over and over and over.”

These poems formed part of a fairly extensive repertoire whose statements were frequently erroneous, and whose versification schemes belonged to the “ singing-ringing,” “ boy-joy,” “ lovedove ” kind, the following being a sample : —

The children had a habit of bringing us stories which they thought might edify us. This was one of their favorites : —

“ The dear cow is in the field eating grass. I love the dear cow because she gives me milk to drink and cream for my porridge. She gives me butter for my bread. She gives me leather for my shoes. Thank you, thank you, dear cow, for all these good things ! ”

Agnes supplied us with a book which Miss Bessie had valued highly in her kindergarten work, labeled Stories for the Kindergartens and Primary Schools, and she recommended its contents to our careful attention. One story, A Legend of the Cowslip, recounts the method by which the cowslip originally obtained her yellow blossoms : —

“ Then she heard a robin sing ; but as the earth still covered her, the song was hut half understood, and to hear better, she lifted her head high enough for a yellow sunbeam, who had been looking everywhere for her, to see her.

“ She remembered both the sunbeam and the robin, and so glad was she to see them both that she laughed a low sweet ‘ Ha, ha, ha, ha ! ’ and there she stood in full bloom, every ha, ha ! having become a smiling, sunny-hearted blossom.

“ Of course she was amazed, and hung her head in a sweetly modest fashion, as do cowslips to this day ; for since that happy springtime not one of the family has forgotten to laugh itself into golden bloom, when it hears the robin and sees the yellow sunbeam of merry May.”

Another story, entitled The Man Who Wanted to Chain the Sea, gives an account of Xerxes and his bridge of boats. After describing the wrecking of the bridge, the narrative continues : —

“ When Xerxes saw this, he turned very white in the face, but not like the waves of the sea, for his paleness was from wicked anger, and not from great sorrow.

“ Why do I think the sea was sorry ?

“ Did you ever stand by the ocean, and look away, away to where the sky seems bending over the water, and the water rising up to the sky, until their faces are both hidden in a misty veil ? Then did you turn your back to the sorry sea, and look at the hills covered with trees, and grass, and merry little flowers that laugh when the rain patters, and smile when the sun sifts its gold down upon them, and the great earth laughs everywhere before you, while behind you the greater sea moans and is sorry ?

“ I think the sea is sorry for the foolish little children who make themselves unhappy with disagreements when they might be joyous ; I think the sea is sorry because men and women are so often selfish, refusing to be like One who always went about doing good; I think every child could give some reason for the sorrow of the sea ; but we must see what Xerxes did about his bridge,” etc.

Agnes requested us to entertain the other children with readings from this book; but in view of the foregoing selections, which are fair samples of them all, we felt obliged to decline.

It was in the nature work and object lessons that our enthusiasm over the kindergarten-trained child received the blow from which it never recovered, though it continued to drag out a precarious existence until a second installment of Miss Bessie’s kindergarten pupils destroyed the ray of hope which had kept it alive. Our curriculum included lessons on plants and minerals. We gave out three leaves to each child for a comparison of shapes.

“ Children, what have you on your desks ? ” we asked.

“ I have three little boats ! ” cried Freddie.

“ I have three fans,” said Agnes.

“ I have a papa, and a mamma, and a baby,” said Ethel.

“ I have three plates for the ‘ Three Bears,’ ” said Harold.

“ I ain’t got nothin’ but three ole leaves ! ” announced Pat.

Derision from the kindergarten children. Pat subsided in dismay.

Another time we gave out pieces of flint for a lesson on minerals.

“ Children, what have you on your desks ? ” we asked pleasantly.

“ I have a snowball,” said Freddie.

“ I have a little white mouse ! ” cried Agnes.

“ I have a lump of salt,” said Harold.

“ I have a lump of sugar,” declared Ethel.

“ I ’ist got a ole stone ! ” cried Pat.

“ How many of you have lumps of sugar ? ” asked we.

At the suggestion all of them had, except Pat.

“ Taste it! ” we commanded ; and then, “ Is it sugar ? ” we asked severely.

“No. ma’am,” replied the kindergarten children feebly.

“ Ye ort uv knowed it wa’n’t sugar! ” retaliated Pat; and in our estimation Pat stepped to the head of the class.

Flowers were called fairy cradles, chairs, houses, hats, dresses, or simply fairies, — “fairy daisy,” “fairy violet,” etc. Seeds were called baby plants, marbles (when round), fairy cakes and pies, fairy boats, little mice, dogs, rabbits, pigs. Stems were sticks, canes, broom - handles. Roots were worms, snakes, horses, or cows. Sometimes we were able to trace a vague resemblance to these objects, usually we were not; but Freddie and Agnes were satisfied if they could use any name but the right one, when asked to tell what a thing was.

Nor was this all. Every flower or plant enjoyed ethical characteristics. Some were “good,” some “ bad; ” most were “ pure ” or “ noble.” All except the bad ones had been especially created for the use and delectation of mankind in general, and good little children in particular.

As these performances continued week after week, certain recrudescences of primeval man — or his better half — took place in us, and at last the day came when his spirit prevailed over our ordinary mild and gentle practices.

Laying a leaf on each child’s desk, we said, “ Take your leaves in your hands, children, and give us your whole attention,” and there was that in our tone which caused us to be obeyed. Holding a leaf ourselves, we said, “ Children, this is a leaf. [Pause.] This is a leaf. [Pause.] Children, this is A LEAF ! What is in your hands ? ”

“ This is a leaf,” they replied.

“ Children, this leaf is green. What color is this leaf ? ”

“ This leaf is green.”

“ Children, this is the stem of the leaf. What is this ? ”

“This is the stem of the leaf.”

“ Children, this leaf grew on a tree. Where did this leaf grow ? ”

“ This leaf grew on a tree.”

When our rage was spent and we rested from our labors, it was with the consciousness that for once in their lives, at least, the kindergarten children had called an object by its right name, and had made three plain, cold statements concerning it. But it was appalling to realize that it would be necessary to pursue this course of treatment with unflinching diligence for several years if we had any hope of bringing the kindergarten children down — or up — to the level of Pat in the matter of the simple statements of every-day facts.

During three years of kindergarten Miss Bessie had been devoting her energies to what she called “ training the children’s imaginations,” with the foregoing result. We therefore set ourselves to work to discover to what extent this training had been accomplished. After much patient observation we came to the conclusion that their imaginations had not been trained at all, but that their suggestibility had been developed to such a pitch that most of the kindergarten children were in a state of half hallucination all the time ; that in trying to reach the imagination Miss Bessie had been merely injuring the ability to have clear and precise sense impressions ; and that when the “ training ” had reached the stage where, given one thing, the children saw another, she felt she had done her duty, and might send them to the primary school for us to build whatever we could on the “ foundation ” she had laid. These opinions were not, of course, shared by Miss Bessie, to whom the misnaming of objects according to remote resemblances constituted her stock in trade of the pedagogics of the imagination. With the same method by which Miss Bessie “trained the imagination ” she “ developed the powers of observation,” “ because the children were obliged to look at an object carefully in order to see its resemblance to another object.” She argued that to call a white stone a “ little white mouse ” betokened more observation than to call it a “ lump of sugar,” while to call it a “ stone ” betokened no observation at all. So far as training the “ reasoning powers ” was concerned, Miss Bessie had not, intentionally, done anything. In her scheme of individual evolution there were certain “ ages ” corresponding to “ stages in the evolution of man; ” and since she supposed that the “age of reason” had set in with the advent of steam locomotion, about the middle of the nineteenth century, she felt that reasoning must therefore be the “ crowning glory of the whole course of the education of the individual,” and refrained from all attempts to “ develop prematurely ” in this direction the infants confided to her care.

There was no denying that the kindergarten child had ideas. His little mind was no tabula rasa upon which we were expected to begin the laborious inscription of the facts of life. We soon found that we could not mention any subject under the sun without bringing down from Freddie and Agnes an avalanche of inaccurate or incorrect information concerning it. Indeed, we finally discovered that we were not expected to impart instruction at all, but that our function as teachers was to set interesting topics for discussion, and listen quietly to the “ facts already in the child’s mind,” remarking at frequent intervals, “ Really ? ” “ How very interesting ! ”

“ You astonish me ! ”

We were not long left in ignorance as to the wide extent of Freddie’s acquisitions, since he informed us with each subject brought up for study that he had “ learned all about that in kindergarten.” If we intended to give a lesson on the bat, he told us that he had “ learned all about birds in kindergarten.” We were led to discuss the whale: he told us that he had “ learned lots and lots about fishes in kindergarten.” Miss Bessie had devoted three years of her young life to “ laying the foundations of all future knowledge ” in him. True, it was in the condition of the stones on a New England farm, - scattered over the whole place, and of no use to anybody, — but it was there. With every lesson that we ever tried to give Freddie we were informed that he had “ learned all about it in kindergarten.”

The time came when we felt that our most fruitful teaching was expended on Laura Francesca Fredoni, heiress to the banana vender at the corner of the street. In our inmost heart we knew that the Lady Laura understood no word of English, but she fixed her liquid eyes upon us as we talked, and through all our acquaintance she never once informed us that she had learned all about anything in the kindergarten. From this we concluded that she profited by our instruction, and our heart was comforted. Day by day the appalling magnitude of Freddie’s erudition grew upon us. We had set some store by our own attainments. We were college-trained, and labored in the proud conceit that we knew something ; but we did not know enough to teach Freddie. We had learned in our tender years that

and we were forced to conclude that we were very greatly at fault indeed. Our ideas seemed all old-fashioned. We had been brought up to believe that obedience was due from children to their elders, who were responsible for them, — Freddie did not share this view with us ; that a certain definite attainment should be the result of each year’s work, — attainment was not valued by Freddie ; that industry and perseverance and the ability to do the work in hand, whether pleasant or unpleasant, were at the foundations of character and success, — Freddie scorned such considerations, and openly scoffed at perfection.

Our relations became more and more strained. We felt that we had mistaken our vocation. We believed that our attainments might have fitted us to shine in many spheres, but not as Freddie’s teachers ; and in the course of time it was borne in upon us that our abilities were not such as to enable us successfully to develop in the primary school the flabby kindergarten intellect of the kindergarten child.

Marion Hamilton Carter.