The Kindergarten

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2. Status Of The Kindergarten In Different Countries



A. Germany

Practically no attention is given to infant education in the school systems of Germany. This nation which gave the world the discoverer of the kindergarten has never indorsed his ideas in any wholehearted manner. Froebel established his first kindergarten at Blankenburg in 1837 (he named it Kindergarten in 1840;) but so little favor did it meet that between the years 1851 and 1861, it was officially prohibited in Prussia, and even to-day it has not been incorporated in the public school system of that kingdom.

Even the private kindergartens are not largely attended. The number of these private kindergartens is between 200 and 300.




B. Austria-Hungary

In Austria-Hungary infant schools had been organized before the kindergarten was invented, but the influence of Froebel began to be felt even during his life time, and the transformation of the infant schools was gradually effected. In 1872 kindergartens were made a part of the school system, and since then all children between the ages of four and six have been compelled to attend either the kindergarten or the infant schools. Every normal school student is required to understand the educational principles of Froebel's kindergarten. In 1903 there were 77,000 children between the ages of three and six in the kindergartens of Austria, and 154,000 in those of Hungary. There was also a completely organized system of day nurseries, which enrolled 152,000 children. The kindergartens of Hungary compare well with the best in Switzerland and in the United States.




C. Switzerland

The first kindergarten in Switzerland was opened in 1872 in Zurich. In 1881 a national kindergarten association was organized there. In 1900 there were 767 kindergartens attended by 30,344 children between the ages of four and six.




D. The Netherlands

The kindergarten movement in the Netherlands was inspired by Baroness Marenholtz Von Biilow in 1858. In 1900 there were in that country 1,047 kindergartens and now there are both public and private kindergartens with a total of about 125,000 children.




E. Belgium

Kindergartens have existed here since 1842. In 1857 Baroness Von Biilow gave many lectures about the kindergarten. In 1899 there were 2198 kindergartens and 222,068 children between three and six were enrolled in these schools. Now more than 250,000 children are trained in the kindergartens.




F. Portugal

Infant schools of the 'maternal' or nursery type enroll children from three to six years of age.




G. Russia

There are a few kindergartens here, some dating back a quarter of a century.




H. Sweden

Infant education in Sweden is of the 'maternal' rather than kindergarten type. There are over 5,000 infant schools, called Smaskolar, which prepare for the elementary grades.




I. Australia

In this country infant schools, with a two-years' course, are found in New South Wales and in Western Australia.




J. Italy

In Italy the first kindergarten was opened in 1850. Baroness Von Biilow lectured on the kindergarten during 1871 to 1872 and at the end of the year her lectures were published. Inspired by her, the Italians founded a large kindergarten in Naples, and a few in Florence, Rome and Venice. In 1907-8 there were 3,576 schools and 343,563 children who were being trained in the kindergartens. As in other countries, these institutions are private and communal, although they receive grants from the general government. They have been established in at least one-fourth of the communes. Here in Italy, so called kindergartens are in reality day nurseries, since children are allowed to enter at the age of two and a half years. In Italy, as in Japan, the lack of trained kindergarteners is a source of weakness. Yet there are some very good training courses in the normal schools, and excellent private training schools in Naples, Verona, and Rome. The Royal Froebel Institute, at Rome, received an endowment from Victor Emmanuel II. Since 1907 Dr. Montessori has organized the infant school called the Casa dei Bambini, or "The Children's House", in Rome.

The essentials of her system are a strong emphasis on sense training and great stress on the freedom of the child. For the sense training there are many different pieces of apparatus designed to develop the several senses. As she was a close student of Itard and Seguin, there are various wooden insets similar to those used by them. The child learns to recognize the form by passing the fingers around the edges of the insets and then putting them in their proper places. She also uses blocks of various sizes and silk bobbins of different colors and shades, and letters cut from sandpaper. In addition to this somewhat formal sense training, there is buttoning and lacing cloth or leather fastened on frames. There is nothing new in this, however, as there have been many American schools which have used these methods in the training of feeble minded children for some time past. The second essential feature of the Montessori method is the freedom of the child. This principle, too, is not a new invention after all, as every student of educational history knows. Her distinguished service is rather the awakening of infant educators who have been tired of the repetition of the Froebel's gifts and occupations.




K. England

In 1854 Von Marenholtz Biilow visited England. There had already been established in London a Froebelian kindergarten, which was conducted by Mr. and Mrs. Ronge. In the same year there was an educational exhibition in the city.* To this exhibition Baroness Biilow presented the series of gifts and Mrs. Ronge gave a lecture on the exhibition. In fact, this was the first lecture about the kindergarten in England. This lecture awakened the prominent educators who were amazed at the new idea in pedagogy.

Then Madam Biilow published a book in English entitled, " Educational Mission of Women ". Mr. Dickens also published an article in his "Household Words" and wrote an explanatory essay on her book. By means of this book many English educators and society women were suddenly inspired and much interest was aroused.

In 1857 Miss Doreck came over from Wurtenberg and founded the London Kindergarten. Since 1861 Miss Eleonore Heerwart (who had been trained by Middendorff at Keilhau) and the Baroness Adele de Portugal and Madame Emilie Michaelis came to England and these contributed much to the kindergarten movement.

For the first twenty years the effect of the propaganda was felt mainly in the private schools for the wealthy, though it had been commended by one of the inspectors of the eductional department as early as 1854. At length the London School Board was established in 1870 to investigate the conditions of the old schools and the new scheme. In February, 1871, a committee was appointed (with Professor Huxley as its chairman) to consider the curriculum to be adopted in the elementary schools.

In 1874 the Board appointed Miss Bishop to lecture on the kindergarten and in the same year the Croydon School Board appointed Madame Michaelis.

In the same year also the British and Foreign Training School established a kindergarten in connection with its college at Stockwell and invited Miss Heerwart to take charge of it. Thenceforth the germ of the kindergarten took quick root, and within a few years most Infant Schools regularly employed Froebel's games and many were imbued with his spirit. At present England is the foremost nation in the world in the provisions for educational facilities in the preliminary grade. Over 2,000,000 children between the ages of three and seven are enrolled in the English Infant Schools. Yet, strictly speaking, these schools are not real kindergartens, but ordinary schools for teaching the rudiments, with some kindergarten attachments. They lead directly into the elementary school.




L. France

France, like England, retained the Infant Schools (though they call them the Maternal Schools, ecoles maternelles) instead of adopting the kindergarten. The Baroness Von Billow's efforts in France in 1855 resulted in many reforms in the maternal schools of the country; although, as a result of the feeling aroused by the French-Prussian war, everything German, even the name Kindergarten, was rejected, and progress in that line came to an end.

The ecoles maternelles and the classes enfantines do not follow the teaching of Froebel, but exist chiefly for social and economic reasons. They are primarily designed in the interest of the mothers whose household or business duties demand all their time. These schools relieve them of the care of their young children. The hours at school are long, frequently from 7 A. M. to 7 P. M., and there is much work and little play. The teachers are women, most of whom are not specially trained. In 1906-1907 the Ecoles Maternelles enrolled 651,955 children between the ages of two and six years.




M. United States

In the United States the kindergarten has been cordially received. Its principles have influenced the public school system and have in turn been developed and modified by it. And here we can find the best kindergartens and the best organization of the institution in the world.

The development of the kindergarten movement in the United States may be traced by the following dates :

1827. An Infant School Society was formed in New York City in the interest of children from three to six years of age, but it was incorporated into the New York Public Society.

1855. Mrs. Carl Schurz, who had studied under Froebel, established at Watertown, Wisconsin, the first American Kindergarten. All the early kindergartens were conducted by the cultured German immigrants and German was spoken in them.

1860. The first ardent American apostle of the kindergarten, Miss Elizabeth Peabody opened a kindergarten in Boston. She was the sister-in-law of Horace Mann.

1868. The first American school for training kindergarten teachers was opened in Boston.

1872. Miss Maria Bblte opened a training school in New York.

1873. Another training school was established in New York. Both schools were conducted by ladies who had been trained under Froebel's associates in Europe.

1873. The first public kindergarten was opened by the School Board of St. Louis, Mo., under the superintendency of Dr. Harris. It was conducted by Miss Susan E. Blow and with such success as to establish it firmly in the St. Louis system and to encourage similar experiments in other cities.

1876-1889. Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw supported the entire free kindergarten system of Boston.

1881. The kindergarten was adopted as part of its public school system at Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The following cities also adopted the kindergarten as part of their school system in these early years.

1883. Des Moines, la. 1891. Lexington, Ky.
1884. Portland, Me. 1891. Utica, N. Y.
1886. New Orleans, La. 1892. St. Paul, Minn.
1886. Hartford, Conn. 1893. Chicago, 111.
1887. Philadelphia, Pa. 1893. Worcester, Mass.
1888. Rochester, N. Y. 1893. New York, N. Y.
1889. Los Angeles, Cal. 1893. Omaha, Neb.

The general idea of the growth of the kindergartens in the United States will be indicated from the following data:

In 1902 there were in the United States a total of 3,244 kindergartens, with an enrollment of 205,432 children. The census of 1900 gave a population of 3,636,583 children between 4 and 6 years of age, so that a little more than 5% of the children between the ages of 4 and 6 were receiving kindergarten training in 1902. Ten years later we find 7,557 kindergartens with an enrollment of 353,546 children. The census of 1910 gives a population of 4,150,815 children between 4 and 6 years of age. In 1912, therefore, approximately 9% of the children of kindergarten age were in the kindergartens.

Figure 1 (Bulletin 1914 No. 6 pp. 15.) shows the numbers of children enrolled in kindergarten per 1000 of the population between 4 and 6 years of age in 1912.

Figure 1: Number of children enrolled in kindergartens per thousand of the population between 4 and 6 years of age in 1912.


The foregoing figures indicate the development of the Kindergarten externally. This sort of measurement, however, "is akin to standing a little child against the kitchen door and measuring its height every six months, and letting it triumphantly view the new scratch which shows how it is 'growing!' But no series of ascending scratches can record the development of the little child 's mind and power. " Now, let me describe its development from within. It seems to me that the only real Froebelian Kindergartens are to be found in the United States. In Germany we are not able to find them, though Germany gave to the world the founder of the kindergarten. Even to-day there are in that country no kindergartens which are established by the government. France is one of the leading nations as regards education during the *' tender age". The French schools are not, however, to be regarded as Kindergartens; they are really nurseries and exist chiefly for social and economical reasons. Again, England is the foremost nation in infant education, yet her ''Infant Schools" are ordinary schools for teaching the rudiments with some kindergarten attachments. The United States, on the other hand, has adopted and developed the kindergarten more thoroughly than any European country.

Opened by cultured German immigrants, inspired by the so-called "ardent American apostle of the Kindergarten", Miss Peabody of Boston, the kindergarten started its career in America. It was introduced into the public school system by William T. Harris and W. N. Hailmann.

In the St. Louis Kindergarten, Miss Susan Blow emphasized symbolism and industrial training. And she has been the prominent leader of the conservative school. She advocated a close adherence to Froebel's fundamental educational principles. On the other hand, there are at present many prominent leaders of the younger progressive school. They believe in the selection of materials, games, miniature industrial processes, etc., from the world with which the child comes into daily contact, as a means of aiding him to appreciate this world instead of adhering to those materials which Froebel selected from the relatively primitive village life in Blankenburg, Keilhau and other places with which he was associated. The progressives also, as a rule, do not emphasize the symbolic values which inhere in Froebel's devices. They are supported by modern psychologists' analysis ot child experiences, represented by Professor John Dewey. As a partial explanation of Froebel's belief in symbolism, Dewey presents this very suggestive critique of our own Kindergartens:

"It must be remembered that much of Froebel s symbolism is the product of two peculiar conditions of his own life and work. In the first place, on account of inadequate knowledge at that time of the physiological and psychological facts and principles of a child's growth, he was often forced to resort to a strained and artificial explanation of the value attaching to play, etc. To the impartial observer it is obvious that many of his statements are cumbrous and far-fetched, giving abstract philosophical reasoning for matters that now receive a simple every-day formulation. In the second place, the general political and social conditions of Germany were such that it was impossible to conceive continuity between the free co-operative life of the kindergarten and that of the (reactionary monarchical) world outside. Accordingly he could not regard the occupations of the schoolroom as literal reproductions of the ethical principles involved in community life,- the latter were often too restricted and authoritative to serve as worthy models. Accordingly, he was compelled to think of them as symbolic of abstract ethical and philosophical principles. There certainly is change enough and progress enough in the social conditions of the United States of to-day, as compared with those of Germany of his day, to justify making kindergarten activities more natural, more direct, and more real representations of current life than Froebel's disciples have done."

B. L. Thorndike more emphatically concludes after giving many examples, "... No one has ever given a particle of valid evidence to show any such preposterous associations in children's minds between plain things and these far-away abstractions."

Thus, the psychological tendency of the progressive kindergarteners in the United States is to emphasize reality rather than Froebelian symbolism. Especially, the experiment made in Dewey's reconstructed kindergarten marked a real epoch in kindergarten training. There is no doubt that the Montessori method has also made some contribution (as I have stated before) to the American kindergarten .

The first comparative investigation of sixteen thousand eighth grade graduates of the public schools of New York City, made by Dr. Leonard P. Ayres in 1909, to which reference will be made later in the thesis, raised some doubts as to the efficiency of the kindergarten in that City. The kindergarten Association is also active in studying various aspects of kindergarten and non-kindergarten pupils in the United States.

This critical attitude toward the Froebelian kindergarten is also reflected in several investigations made to determine the work of the kindergarten by studying its effects on the children attending it. All in all, the future of the American Kindergarten is promising.