Ill 



house forsaken. And this is the motive that withdraws married 

 women from public school-teaching. For what would become 

 of her "home," and who would take care of her husband and 

 children, when she was at school — generally considerably 

 removed from her abode ? In America the mother is the first 

 instructor of her children, and generally she teaches them to 

 read before sending them to public school. 



In the Kindergarten exhibits at Philadelphia we noticed 

 everywhere the application of Froebel's ideas, designed to 

 interest children while amusing them, to excite and direct their 

 attention, to accustom them to represent or put together objects 

 of their own devising. 



But with Americans the practical spirit is too strong for 

 them readily to accept what does not offer an immediate result. 

 One of the objections they urge against the Kindergarten is 

 that it does not teach reading, writing and arithmetic (the three 

 E's). Indeed, these institutions are not likely to meet full 

 acceptance in the United States until it shall be shown that 

 the general training they give to very young children will 

 induce rapid school-progress, until it shall be shown that chil- 

 dren bring from the Kindergarten a certain stock of practical 

 notions. Besides, there is the question of expense, and how 

 can $16 be gotten for the education of a child of from 3 to 7 

 years of age, when this costs only $10 or $12 for a pupil of 

 from 7 to 10 years of age ? If the Kindergarten has made its 

 way at but a few points in the United States, it is the object of 

 an active advocacy and has the sympathy of eminent educators. 

 The application it has already received tends to free the Froebel 

 system of any too exclusive form, and to adapt it to the wants 

 and the genius of the country. This same result we should 

 seek to attain in France, with the view of infusing life into our 

 infant schools, and awakening the faculties of the child, instead 

 of putting them to sleep by merely mechanical modes of pro- 

 cedure. 



Reading. — The reading of the French language certainly 

 presents sufficient difficulty ; but the extreme complication 

 and the numerous anomalies of English pronunciation render 

 the teaching of reading in that tongue a still more delicate 



