FROEBEL AND INFANT-SCHOOLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—In a letter published in your issue of June 21st, the writer, signing himself "An Educationist," drew attention to the important fact that with all our School-Board expenditure, and all our extension of teaching, sufficient weight is not given to the queetion whether the education given is really of a quality which justifies its expense. He mentions the infant- school as having been meant to give something more than the "three R.'S " and "special subjects," to children of the age to which those valuable bases and those ornamental finishinge of "national education" are manifestly unsuited. He men- tions Wilderspin, Buchanan, and Mayo—doubtless names worthy of mention—but omits that of Friedrich Proebel, whose first and best-known distinction is that of giving a wholly new life, purpose, and meaning to the "infant-school." All who know anything of Froebel's work admit that, for little children from three years of age to seven, the "Kindergarten" affords a training of senses, mind, and heart, of bodily aptitudes, of mental, moral, and social habits, such as, when practised by trained teachers of ordinary good-souse and good-feeling, can- not fail of results, too valuable to be paid for. Enthusiasts for Froebel, the worthy successor and completor of Pestalozzi, "of whom I am least," believe that in Froebel's ideas are contained the "Principia " of a rational education for children of all ages ; that his wonderful system of methods, comprising" Gifts" (or rational toys), " Occupations" (or child's work adapted to train the senses and the hand), games, and songs, is a "new instru- ment" of educational science, applicable to every rank and class alike ; and that his training of the senses to value beauty, order, and sweet sounds ; of the personal habits to neatness, orderliness, and gentleness; of all social affections, by work and play together, under watchful but kindly superintendence ; taking care of the rights of individual intellect, by appealing first to taste and choice, and then to thought and ileason ; and all this, under the direct purpose of bringing the infant heait into communion with the Author of all Beauty and all Good,— it is, I say, the belief of enthusiasts for the "Kindergarten," that this training will be an Evangel to those myriads of neglected children whose existence among us is known to be, not only the disgrace of our Christianity, but the imminent danger of our civilisation. Were I not an enthusiast, I should, no doubt, apologise for thus writing what is known to everybody. But each recurring Sunday reminds some of us that what is known to everybody needs to be mercilessly reiterated. The Kindergarten may be a " truism " to many ; but I shall remind them, by a saying of Professor Hodgson, that "truism means quite as often a truth neglected, as a truth
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