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Some Side Lights on the Kindergarten Movement 



The kindergarten occupies a place of its 

 own in American life and thought. It won 

 that place by the demonstration of its value for 

 little children. The recognition accorded it 

 has increased, however, as the value of its 

 principles for all education has become ap- 

 parent. The doctrine that gives it this value 

 is its conception of education as a process of 

 development. It was because this doctrine was 

 at such variance with the prevailing doctrine 

 of education as a process of instruction that 

 the kindergarten awakened such an interest 

 when it first became known, in the decade from 

 1870 to 1880. It was because a few people at 

 once recognized the doctrine of development 

 as the true one that the kindergarten found 

 advocates from the beginning, and it was be- 

 cause they saw in it an agency for the spread 

 of the new doctrine that they worked for its 

 advancement. In the progress of education, 

 therefore, the kindergarten has been both the 

 source and the consequence of the accepting 

 of the new educational ideals. So closely inter- 

 woven has the kindergarten been with the im- 

 provement of general education that the two 



can only be considered as parts of the same 

 story. The story is an interesting one, but too 

 long for these pages. A few significant points, 

 however, must be noted in passing. 



Woman's Work for Kindergarten Advance- 

 ment. The kindergarten movement has been 

 called a woman's movement, because of the 

 part that women have taken in its advance- 

 ment. The efforts of women have contributed 

 greatly to its success, but it has not been a 

 woman's movement only. Among the leading 

 educators who indorsed it from the beginning 

 was William T. Harris, who, as superintendent 

 of schools in Saint Louis in 1873, gave the 

 kindergarten its first trial in the school system. 

 This centered the interest of educators upon 

 it. Next in their interest in the new movement 

 were the mothers of young children, who in- 

 stinctively recognized that a doctrine so in 

 accord with the nature of childhood must be 

 the true one. Believing that an institution 

 which so interpreted childhood must have a 

 value for mothers as well as for children, they 

 added their influence to that of the educators, 

 urging the study of its doctrines and the adop- 



