124 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



year-old ' head boy ' of a kindergar- 

 ten, conducted by a noted kinder- 

 garten teacher, who could not rec- 

 ognize a quantity of three things 

 without counting them by ones. . . . 

 There is surely something lacking 

 either in the kindergarten as a prep- 

 aration for the primary school, or in 

 the primary school as a continua- 

 tion of the kindergarten, when a 

 child, after full training in the kin- 

 dergarten, together with two years' 

 work in the primary school, is con- 

 sidered able to undertake nothing 

 (in arithmetic) beyond the number 

 twenty." These authors enter into a 

 very elaborate analysis of the num- 

 ber concept, and lay down with ex- 

 treme care what they conceive to be 

 the best lines of approach to the 

 youthful mind in the teaching of 

 arithmetic. It seems to us, however, 

 that the number concept will dawn 

 upon the youthful mind without 

 much effort on the part of teachers 

 when the time arrives for it to be 

 of use. In most childish games the 

 element of number is involved. The 

 smallest girl with a skipping rope 

 will get into the way of counting her 

 skips with a more or less distinct 

 conception of the difference between 

 one number and another. So in the 

 matter of " turns " in any game in 

 which two or more are engaged: if 

 one child wants to have more 

 "turns" than it is entitled to, the 

 others have to be very young indeed 

 not to protest. In a tug-of-war 

 with, say, four on each side, the ad- 

 dition of a fifth to one side without 

 permission would make trouble in 

 the camp. When candies are being 

 distributed the arithmetical sense is 

 generally keenly alive. 



We conclude by commending 

 Miss Carter's article to the careful 

 consideration of all who are inter- 

 ested in educational problems. She 

 writes with a certain tinge of vexa- 

 tion, and, without meaning it, may 

 have somewhat forced the case 

 against her kindergarten children. 



The Atlantic Monthly deserves cred- 

 it, we must add, for the many able 

 and timely articles which it has late- 

 ly been publishing on educational 

 topics — articles stamped by the 

 breadth of thought and high culture 

 which are characteristic of our con- 

 temporary, and eminently adapted 

 to assist in delivering our educa- 

 tional methods from bondage to a 

 mechanical routine, and bringing 

 them nearer to the simplicity and 

 freedom of Nature. 



IS FREEDOM LIMITED BY CLIMATE? 



Since the United States turned 

 its ambition toward the tropics, the 

 question as to whether its political 

 institutions can be extended to the 

 inhabitants there has been widely 

 discussed. As might be expected, 

 the philanthr^opic advocates of ex- 

 pansion have insisted that " the 

 blessings of freedom and civiliza- 

 tion " are not limited by latitude 

 or longitude. Any other position 

 would, of course, have involved them 

 in the charge of inconsistency and 

 hypocrisy. But certain philosophic 

 expansionists, as they may be politely 

 called, have taken the opposite view. 

 "It is a cardinal fact," they say, quot- 

 ing the language of a recent essay of 

 Mr. Benjamin Kidd, " that in the 

 tropics the white man lives and works 

 only as a diver lives and works un- 

 der water. . . . Neither physically, 

 morally, nor politically can he be 

 acclimatized in the tropics." Still 

 quoting his language, they say again 

 that " a clearer insight into the laws 

 that have shaped the course of hu- 

 man evolution must bring us to see 

 that the process which has gradually 

 developed the energy, enterprise, and 

 social efficiency of the race north- 

 ward, and which has left less richly 

 endowed in this respect the people 

 inhabiting the regions where the con- 

 ditions of life are easiest, is no pass- 

 ing accident, nor the result of cir- 

 cumstances changeable at will, but 



