Chicago State University - Emblem Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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scarcely anything which a little child should have that cannot be given him in the kinder- garten. The child to whom may come all sorts of experience and in the right amounts, the kindergartner helps by presenting them in an orderly way and emphasizing and eliminating the ones which need such emphasizing or eliminating. Of course, the child may live and grow up and be healthy without the kindergarten and some of its experiences, but so also may one grow up without other things, as reading and arithmetic. But how much easier the other things are that he learns later on and how much more understanding of the world about him he may be, with his experiences. Even a poor kindergartner may do good by taking children out of unspeakable sur- roundings and showing them the possibilities of life; even the keeping of children off the street when it is most crowded is a service that must not be forgotten. So that now being confident that there is something worth while in our work as we come to the end, let our enthusiasm never die out but win over to our side the help and co-operation of those who really have never given much thought to the matter but had an impression that it was all play and keeping the youngsters amused. A Round-Robin Out of the back door of a beautiful house came a little girl. She had on a pretty pink dress and a very large sunbonnet; and in her hand she carried a small pail and shovel. She was very happy this morning, for had not her mother given her permission to go down to the sea-shore and play in the sand.? Skipping down the garden path, she stopped every once in a while to smile at the hollyhocks or the tiny pansies and tell them of the good time she was going to have at the sea-shore. Just think, dear four-o ' clock, I am going to build a wonderful castle where the sea fairies will come and live, while you are fast asleep here this beautiful morning, and on the happy child skipped, through the garden gate and across the road to a grove of tall trees; then down to a lovely green meadow where the gentle cows were eating their break- fast. Good morning, cows, said Betty. I am coming through your pasture to go to the sea. Do you know I am going to build a beautiful castle where the sea fairies can come and live. ' ' Oh! I am so happy! Tra-La-La! La-La! Happily she sang as she climbed over the pasture bars out on to the sandy road which led straight to the sea. When Betty reached the sea-shore she set down her little pail and began busily to dig up the sand. She kept on digging and digging until she had a high pile of sand and a very large hole on the shore. But a very curious thing about this hole was, that at every shovel- ful she dug up, the hole would fill with water. Soon there was so much water in it that circular ripples began to appear on the top, and from nobody knows where, a tiny shell appeared, just like a little canoe floating towards Betty. Who was holding the paddle of this canoe but a tiny fairy, all dressed in delicate green seaweed, and carrying a pearl wand in her hand. 18

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The Kindergarten and the Child As one grows older one wishes the days were very much longer than they really are. I can remember frequent periods of ennui when I had exhausted my childish capacity for play or tasks and didn ' t know what to do with myself on a long summer afternoon. Things seem greatly changed nowadays. So many things crowd in that it seems all one can do is to take as much of a thing as possible while it is in the taking and not to mourn, because things are so but to scramble on to something else which must also be accom- plished. So it is with some favorite occupation — the thing may be our favorite pursuit until we have met and tried something else. ' ery often through enforced study of a character — through studying his works — we may come to admire and know that person very well indeed. And so it is that after we have had our philosophy — Mother Play and frequent references to Froebel ' s other books — we look back on our other work with real enthusiasm and we see things in a very different light. However, we must soon drop that for something else, but finally when the gifts and occupations, our actual experience, songs and music begin to have some connection instead of being entirely separated, we realize that the kindergarten is not a mere waste of time, as so many people think. We find that it is real!} ' an education in itself and that, though it does not teach arithmetic and geography, there is a vast number of other things without which the individual is really not normal. The kindergartner begins here at the very bottom. There is a whole world of ignorance to the little child on which must be brought the light of intelligence. There are so many things to be heard, smelled, said, felt, remem- bered, and enjoyed. The child must have experiences, of course, and the kindergartner may help here. (If she does not, that is another affair which may be spoken of later.) The getting of experiences is a matter of chance, and the child may get the experiences he needs and he may not. Sometimes it is an overdose of one kind of experience and too small a dose of another. There is such a thing as in the case of the child who has no brothers or sisters, as getting every experience but the social one — this is where the kindergarten may help. Perhaps it may not be a lack of social experience from which another child may suffer, but something of a different type which the child needs just as much. There is 17

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Oh! exclaimed Bett - in surprise, as she looked at this beautiful maiden of the sea; but the fairy only smiled and said, You are the kind little girl who is going to build a palace for the fairies, and since you are so good and thoughtful, m ' mistress, the Queen, has sent me to ask you to come and visit our fairyland, so that we will be acquainted when we come to live in your palace b}- the sea. I will take you in my canoe. But I am so very big, I could never fit in that tin}- canoe. Oh! that is a simple matter, but you must leave your pail and shovel on the shore, for you will have no use for them in Fairyland. The fairy touched Betty ' s shoe, which was near her, and the little girl instant!}- grew smaller and smaller until she was no bigger than the fairy; then with one step she was in the boat, and the fairy, taking the paddle, struck the water. No sooner had she done this than the canoe began to sink deeper and deeper into the water, until it reached the bottom of the ocean, and then floated along until it came to a sand}- shore, similar to the one they had just left. This, said the fairy, is my home, Fairyland. Come, let us get out, for my mistress, the Queen, is waiting for you. And Betty, now no bigger than the fairy, stepped out of the boat and followed the fairy. Oh! she cried. Look, look at the flowers! ' hy, they are the same pansies I told I was coming down to the sea-shore to-dayj and they are moving too! And truly enough, the little pansies came up to greet Betty. Come, little girl, we are going to dress you prettily because our Mother Queen is giving a party for you to-da}-, and two pansies took Betty by the hands and brought her to the prettiest dressing-room imaginable. The curtains were of a velvety green moss and the little dressing table had a looking-glass made of dew-drops. I can ' t get dressed up, said Betty. It will take too long, and besides, I have ' nt brought my Sunday dress along. But the pansies only laughed and one clutched her shoes, the other her dress, and in a few minutes Betty w as clothed so beautifully that even her own mother would not have known her. But look! said Betty, I ' ve still got on my sunbonnet! Oh, no, you haven ' t, little Betty; just feel your head! And to be sure, Betty ' s sunbonnet was now a beautiful bonnet of flowers. Come, now, you must get to the party, but my cousin Mistress Rose will take you there, for I must go back to the shore, and wait for other little boys and girls to come. Oh, will there be other children there too. asked Betty. Wait and see, said the fairy, and she took Betty to the Rose. This is little Betty, who lives in the pansies ' garden home and w-ho wanted to build a castle for our queen. The Rose smiled, taking Betty by the hand, and together they walked down the lovely path to the party. The party was held in an open space in the middle of a wonderful forest. Beautiful festoons of flowers hung from tree to tree and garlands of precious stones glittered in the sunshine. Betty thought she had never seen such a wonderful sight. It almost took her breath away, and she held tightly to the hand of Mistress Rose, when they walked into the dell. Dainty little fairies now tripped out from under the petals of the flowers which they used as umbrellas. They were all dressed in brightly colored gauze. Soon the Queen rode in on a chariot made of pearl sea-shells, with her long, flowing black hair falling in heavy ringlets around her face. These fairies greeted Betty as a little playmate and made her