established in New York in 1873. Both were conducted by ladies who had been trained under Froebel's associates in Europe.

5. 1880-1890. Many associations of private individuals were organized in the larger cities between 1880 and 1890 to maintain kindergartens. A few had been established in the preceding decade; namely, in Milwaukee in 1870, San Francisco in 1878, Cincinnati in 1879, Chicago in 1880. By 1897 over four hundred such associations were in existence.

6. 1880-1900. Public-school kindergartens were actively established between 1880 and 1900, especially after 1890. They were introduced into more than twenty-five publicschool systems between 1880 and 1890; by 1897 they had been introduced into one hundred and eighty-nine cities of over eight thousand inhabitants. Before 1880 public kindergartens had been established in only two large cities, namely, Boston, which maintained one for a few years after 1870; and St. Louis, where they were in existence from 1873. Their successful establishment in St. Louis was another of the important innovations of Superintendent Harris.

Special legislation necessary to permit public kindergar tens. The general adoption of the kindergarten as a part of public-school systems was impeded by the fact that in most states the public schools did not admit children under five or six years of age. Consequently, before city schools could admit younger children it was necessary to secure state legislation lowering the entrance age. In some states this legislation was not necessary; in others it was secured after 1880; in some, where it is necessary, the efforts to secure it have failed, and though the cities in such states may maintain kindergartens, they may not admit children under five or six years of age.

Harris and Hailmann leading advocates of kindergar ten.-William T. Harris (1835-1909) and W. N. Hailmann (b. 1836) were the two public-school superintendents who were

most active in introducing the kindergarten into America. Both were prominent advocates of certain Pestalozzian as well as Froebelian methods. Hailmann prepared one of the first American manuals of kindergarten methods, entitled "Kindergarten Culture," which was published in 1873. He also translated Froebel's "The Education of Man," and in 1884 was made first president of the newly organized kindergarten section of the National Educational Association. Superintendent Harris was keenly in sympathy with the general idealistic tendency of Froebel's philosophy, and his successful maintenance of kindergartens as part of a large public-school system was an influential factor in convincing schoolmen of their value.

St. Louis kindergarten (1873) emphasized symbolism and industrial training.- Superintendent Harris was assisted in the organization of the St. Louis kindergartens by Miss Susan Blow, who gave her services gratuitously in the early years. Miss Blow has been the most prolific American writer on Froebelian theory and practice. The accounts which she and Mr. Harris published in the St. Louis school reports are important historical documents. Those for 1875-1876 and 1878-1879 are particularly valuable. In these reports, as in her later writings, Miss Blow took the position that the use of the kindergarten materials in the same order and by the same method that Froebel prescribed is essential for securing their educative results, and that this order corresponds to the order of development of the child's own intelligence and appreciation. Concerning symbolism she took a similar attitude, saying:

The symbolism involved in all things for in nature everything corresponds to spirit, and hence each lower, material object is in some sense a key to unlock the perception of a higher, more subtle object — this symbolism is the basis of the intellectual value of the gifts of Froebel.

One of the most interesting phases of Mr. Harris's discussion of the kindergarten was printed under the heading

"Industrial Education-Where it should begin." He argued at length for the value of the two years spent in kindergarten occupations in "starting into development activities of muscle and brain which will secure deftness and delicacy of industrial power in all after life." But such training should have no place in the ordinary elementary grades, according to Mr. Harris.

Beyond the seventh year of age the time of the child is too valuable to use it for other than general disciplines—reading, writing, arithmetic, etc., and drawing. He must not take up his school time with learning a handicraft. . . . After the common-school education is finished, the "manual-training school" will complete the preparation for a trade. (25: 126.)

Thus Mr. Harris described the condition that has commonly prevailed down to the present time (1912), namely, constructive work in the lowest grades and in the highest grades of the public schools, but none in between.

Modification of Froebelian kindergarten theory and practice. Progressive school modernizes materials and games. Two rather clearly defined sects of kindergartners have come into existence in recent years: first, those who believe in a close adherence to Froebel's materials, games, sequence, and symbolic significance; and second, those who accept some of Froebel's fundamental educational principles but do not believe it necessary to follow his particular devices. Miss Blow has been the most prominent leader of the conservative school, and there are at present many prominent leaders of the younger progressive school. The progressives believe in a selection of materials, games, miniature industrial processes, etc., from the world with which the child of to-day is in contact, as a means of aiding him to appreciate it, instead of adhering to those which Froebel selected from the relatively primitive village life with which he was associated. The progressives also, as a rule, do not emphasize the symbolic values supposed to inhere in Froebel's devices. In this

they are supported by modern psychological analysis of child experience. We shall present the statements of two leading psychologists on the subject.

Modern psychologists reject Froebelian symbolism: Dewey; Thorndike. In addition to the mystical, symbolic tendencies inherent in Froebel's temperament, Professor John Dewey offers as a partial explanation of Froebel's belief in symbolism the following statements:

It must be remembered that much of Froebel's symbolism is the product of two peculiar conditions of his own life and work. In the first place, on account of inadequate knowledge at that time of the physiological and psychological facts and principles of a child's growth, he was often forced to resort to strained and artificial explanations of the value attaching to the plays, etc. To the impartial observer it is obvious that many of his statements are cumbrous and far-fetched, giving abstract philosophical reasons for matters that now receive a simple everyday formulation. In the second place, the general political and social conditions of Germany were such that it was impossible to conceive continuity between the free, coöperative social life of the kindergarten and that of the [reactionary, monarchial] world outside. Accordingly he could not regard the occupations of the schoolroom as literal reproductions of the ethical principles involved in community life. the latter were often too restricted and authoritative to serve as worthy models. Accordingly he was compelled to think of them as symbolic of abstract ethical and philosophical principles. There certainly is change enough and progress enough in the social conditions of the United States of to-day, as compared with those of Germany of his day, to justify making kindergarten activities more natural, more direct, and more real representations of current life than Froebel's disciples have done. (17: 145.)

Speaking of the impossibility of the child experiencing the symbolic meaning of a thing that Froebel expected him to, Dewey said:

Practically all he [the child] gets out of it is its own physical and sensational meaning, plus, very often, a glib facility in phrases and attitudes that he learns are expected of him by the teacher — without, however, any mental counterpart. We often teach insincerity, and instill sentimentalism, and foster sensationalism when we think we are teaching truths by means of symbols. The realities reproduced, therefore, by the

child should be of as familiar, direct and real a character as possible. It is largely for this reason that in the kindergarten of our school the work centers so largely about the reproduction of home and neighborhood life. (17: 147.)

In his "Notes on Child Study" (1903) Professor E. L. Thorndike advanced similar criticisms as follows:

And what shall I say of those who by a most extraordinary intellectual perversity attribute to children the habit of using common things as

symbols of abstractions which have never in any way entered their heads; who tell us that the girl likes to play with her doll because the play symbolizes to her motherhood; that the boy likes to be out of doors because the sunlight symbolizes to him cheerfulness? . . .

If we live in houses because they symbolize protection, if we like to see Sherlock Holmes on the stage because he symbolizes to us craft, or Uncle Tom because he symbolizes to us slavery, or a clown from the