Many valuable reforms have already been adopted in our public schools, and if we should give to the normal scholars the Kindergarten training, they would be enabled to introduce some of its valuable features into the present school system; thus, when the Kindergarten finally becomes a free institution, we should have a corps of trained teachers all ready to enter upon their field of labor.

The blocks, both cubes and oblongs, as well as the sticks, the Kindergarten drawing, and some of the other occupations would form an admirable substitute to occupy the time now given to primary arithmetic. The lessons would not only be more simple and pleasing, but would lead to a clearer comprehension of numbers also. Another hour devoted to the cultivation of the child's moral and physical nature by means of musical movement plays, stories, or learning of verses, &c., would still leave an hour or more to reading and writing, which is enough for a child to study during his first year of school. The experiment of combining Kindergarten methods with the primary school instruction was successfully tried in Allston, Mass., by Miss Susie Pollock, of Washington, who received her Kindergarten training in Berlin, Prussia, in 1869, and with myself is now associate principal of the Kindergarten Normal Institute of Washington. This school at Allston grew to be such a centre of attraction that every available place was filled with little pupils (eighty). But the insufficiency of the remuneration for the amount of work done, without assistants, led Miss Pollock to give up this school to come to Washington, where a larger salary was offered by private individuals.

The problem of expense has been satisfactorily solved in St. Louis, where 50 free Kindergärten are in successful operation. The salaries range from $500 to $800 a year. The teachers are not appointed by the school committee, but by the lady from whom they received their diplomas, and who is therefore best able to know their qualifications. The assistants in these free Kindergärten are not paid; they are either graduates or students who are very glad to obtain practical experience in teaching. Many mothers also volunteer to assist, for the sake of learning through apprenticeship how to use the system in their own families. The St. Louis school committee affirms that to have added the Kindergarten to the schools already provided proves an economic measure, not only by inducing habits of regularity and industry, but also because it has been proved that the Kindergarten saves two years of the primary school work and gives two additional years to the grammar school period; an important fact, when it is taken into consideration that nine-tenths of the children have only three years of school at most, and, if they can have the Kindergarten, they will have four or five years of school life.

Let us not object, then, to the introduction of public Kindergärten on economic grounds; for the arts and industries of our country will undoubtedly receive a new impetus, through the taste thus acquired

for symmetry, the practical application of numbers to things, and the familiar handling and use of the fundamental forms in geometry, with the clay modelling, and the second gift, the sphere cylinders and cube, as well as with the play with all the various triangles, &c. There can be no doubt that much of the money which has to be expended for reform schools now will be saved to the State; for the people's Kindergarten will prevent crime, and prevention is always better and cheaper than cure.

Dr. JOHN D. PHILBRICK, of Boston, after alluding to the different extreme views expressed in the two papers just read and during the discussion following, said that he thought it a mistake to refuse to do anything for a child's education until he is sixteen years of age. Referring to the limit of fourteen years of age, often fixed as the end of common school life, he ascribed the selection of that age to the fact that a law was passed in Massachusetts many years ago providing for a census of the school children between the ages of five and fifteen. That circumstance has led many to suppose that fifteen was assumed as the time at which the common school life should end; such, however, is not the case. He did not think that trade shops could be introduced into schools where pupils are not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age; the venerable Dr. Wise, who was thoroughly conversant with the subject, did not think so either. Without applying or wishing to apply what he was about to utter to any gentleman present, he would say that theoretical discussions of such a topic as this surprised him. Is there a single school in this country in which trades are taught? He doubted it. Are such schools common abroad? He doubted it. Last summer he read a long article in a Philadelphia newspaper describing a common school in which industrial trades are taught, the writer intimating that schools of the kind are common in Paris.

Dr. Philbrick also alluded to the scheme for a "developing school," advocated by a Boston gentleman, the purpose of which he could not learn even from those favoring the idea. These he mentioned as theories; he would add that the common schools are often injured by the hasty and injudicious remarks of distinguished men. Some time ago

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1 See "Education by Hand," in Harper's Magazine for February, 1879. "The system in use in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston runs through all practicable courses, and rests upon the doctrine that the education of the hand is coördinate with the education of the mind. What, then, would be the natural relation of handwork and headwork? Plainly, as the faculty of observation precedes that of reflection, the student in the earlier part of his course would use his hands and his eyes more- that is, would give a larger proportion of his time to any manipulatory work than in the later processes. The public schools give

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a mental training which ought to make one a better workman who waits until he has passed through them before applying himself to an art, yet the public schools foster also a disinclination to manual labor. Manual instruction as an element in

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common school education finds a singular alliance with the Kindergarten method, which is also passing through its experimental phase, and demanding recognition in our public schools."

the whole country was informed that Mr. Wendell Phillips had charged the schools with sending their pupils into the world without the ability even to read. On asking Mr. Phillips why he had said this, he learned that a servant girl in the family had been found unable to read. Whether the girl had ever been to school at all was doubtful; but this remark was quite as well founded as many others reported in the papers.

Before making sudden or sweeping changes in our subjects and methods of instruction we need more information. There are great practical difficulties in the way of any attempt to teach trades in schools. The school in the Rue de Tournefort in Paris is an example of faulty theory resulting badly in practice. He saw there boys of twelve or fourteen who were trying to use planes and sledgehammers which they were not able to handle, and weakly girls who were wearing out body and brain in labor entirely unsuited to their age and condition. It was all wrong. After alluding to various other theories, respecting the non-use of text books, the reform of spelling, &c., Dr. Philbrick concluded by hoping that the department would devote itself to the live questions of the day, such as the wisdom of the common practice of selecting teachers for short terms of service, &c.

Mr. JOSEPH M. WILSON thought the union of industrial with common school education inevitable at an early day, and therefore eminently a live question.

After a few general remarks,

Mr. BARRINGER, of Newark, N. J., continued the discussion. He believed in the truth of Mrs. Pollock's remarks about the importance of Kindergarten training as an aid in subsequent industrial training, but he feared that the movement was, in many places, in the hands of immature and injudicious girls, who understood neither their work nor themselves. He thought the only practicable solution of the problem at present is to advocate the teaching of useful and beneficial things, such as drawing; and he told how, in his own city, the introduction of lessons in drawing, on two days of each week, in place of the usual writing lesson, has so vastly improved the writing of the pupils that it has excited universal and favorable comment.

Dr. PHILBRICK remarked that the industrial teaching in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston was directed to training the boys to use tools, but not to learn trades; this is entirely practicable, but perhaps not advisable if the funds are insufficient.

Mr. JOSEPH M. WILSON insisted that a school combining industrial with ordinary training is in operation in Paris. The advocates of this scheme wished to train the physique as well as the mind of the child from an early age.

Dr. PHILBRICK said that it is not practicable to teach boys under fourteen the carpenter's or the blacksmith's trade.

Mr. WILSON said that just as class rooms are now used in which to teach reading, writing, &c., they might be used to teach carving, model

ling, drawing, setting type, weaving, &c. Of course this would be expensive at first; but it would produce better results. Out of 10,000 persons committed to reformatories and penitentiaries in Pennsylvania, 8,000 could read and write; but only 560 had received any industrial training of any sort.

Dr. PHILBRICK admitted that carving and drawing are fit subjects for instruction; he had perhaps not caught Mr. Wilson's meaning at first. The present difficulty is that we do not have teachers or means for teaching drawing, modelling, &c.

After further remarks by Messrs. Luckey of Pittsburgh, Deery, Dixon of Allegheny City, and Maris of the West Chester (Pa.) Normal School, President WICKERSHAM said that the penitentiary statistics quoted by Mr. Wilson need explanation. It had been asserted in the newspapers that the teaching of the public schools does not tend to prevent but to produce crime, and that most of our criminals have been pupils of the common schools. He had investigated these statements and the statistics quoted, and had found that these criminals who were reported able to read and write could barely do so; many thought they had attended school somewhere, at some time, perhaps for a few days or weeks; surely the conclusions drawn from such data are wrong. He next sketched the proposed State home for neglected and friendless children; this is to have twenty acres of land attached thereto; there are to be shops also. The question of guarding against idleness and crime is one closely connected with the question of preventing ignorance. The old world had not succeeded in solving it yet. He believed that neither the school in the Rue de Tournefort nor that in the Rue de la Villette is

a success.

Dr. PHILBRICK said they are not successful as yet financially. The Villette school is practicable, the other is not.

Mr. SMITH, superintendent of schools, Syracuse, N. Y., gave an interesting account of the origin and progress of the sewing schools in that city. The benevolent people some time ago found much destitution and misery; they solicited and obtained work for several hundred poor women from the merchants of the city, but shortly afterward they found that most of these persons had been discharged because they did not know how to sew. To remedy this condition of things, these poor women were invited to come to a sewing school which was organized for them, but this also failed. Then, two years ago, the ladies obtained from the city board of education the privilege of using the public schoolhouses of the city for an hour and a half every Saturday afternoon; the ladies supplied the teachers, and invited all girls over seven years of age who wished to learn sewing to come and be taught. This work was an immediate and growing success, and has gone on ever since. The course of instruction is from the simple and easy to the more intricate and difficult parts of the art; the success has been most satisfactory. Mr. Smith concluded as follows: The ladies who inaugurated this

work asked the board of education to take up the matter and carry it on as a part of the common school education; but for want of means we have requested the ladies to continue until we can relieve them. I wish you could come to Syracuse and see how this work is going on. This may not be teaching the trades, but it is teaching these little girls what their mothers cannot do to-day; it is teaching them the skilful use of their fingers, judgment in cutting out their garments, how to mend a tear and put on a patch neatly. It may not be teaching them tailoring, but it is teaching these girls to know just what they will want to know when they shall have families of their own. This is the kind of industrial work I favor. I am not in favor of teaching shoemaking, plastering, blacksmithing, or any other trade in the common schools, but I am in favor of teaching boys how to handle tools of any kind skilfully. Now, by the way, I think moulding a good thing to be taught in the schools, as well as drawing, how to manipulate moistened sand and work it into the best shape and form; such things as these are what we need. I believe in making the hands skilful as well as the mind.

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The President announced that the hour for adjournment had arrived ; and, on motion of Mr. Wilson, of Washington (at 10.10 P. M.), the Department adjourned until Wednesday at 9.30 A. M.

THIRD SESSION-WEDNESDAY MORNING.

WASHINGTON, February 5, 1879.

The Department met pursuant to adjournment, and was called to order by the president, Mr. Wickersham.

The PRESIDENT. I desire to announce to the Department the different committees, as follows:

Legislative committee.-M. A. Newell, Maryland; W. T. Harris, Missouri; J. D. Philbrick, Massachusetts; George J. Luckey, Pennsylvania; G. J. Orr, Georgia.

Executive committee.-J. O. Wilson, District of Columbia; T. M. Marshall, West Virginia; Isaac N. Carleton, Connecticut; L. H. Duling, Pennsylvania; W. A. Mowry, Rhode Island.

Committee on resolutions.-W. H. Barringer, New Jersey; John Hancock, Ohio; Henry Houck, Pennsylvania; Richard L. Carne, Virginia; J. H. Piper, Illinois.

Committee on invitations.-S. M. Etter, Illinois; Edward Smith, New York; C. E. Hovey, District of Columbia.

Hon. J. ORMOND WILSON, of Washington, invited all who remained in the city on the following day to attend the forthcoming meeting of the school teachers of the District of Columbia, in the Congregational Church.

At the request of the United States Commissioner of Education, the committee on legislation was instructed to examine and report upon the condition, plans, work, and needs of the Bureau of Education.

Hon. William Windom, United States Senator from the State of Minnesota, was then introduced and briefly addressed the Department.