due to the unfortunate fact that so many habits which should have become second nature before school age, are left for the teacher to form, and thus the serious things-scorn for deceit, for meanness in any form, contempt for cowardice-are classed with slips in English or matters of courtesy.

It is customary to plead for the kindergarten as a preparation for the school. It certainly does this, but it has worth quite apart from its formal knowledge of color, form, number, and language. Its special function is to supplement the nurture of the home and establish right habits; not only habits of gait and general bearing, of voice and even of expression of countenance, and the mental habits of attention, observation, etc., but to give direction to the deep things of life; opening the eyes to the beauty of the world; stirring the soul by the mysteries of nature, and rousing awe which helps impress the imminence of God. If religion is to be a force in life, the child must never lose his sense of the conscious presence of God, and the assurance that the eternal life begins here and now.

That each division of the school course prepares for the next is true, but its worth does not depend upon that fact. I am impatient of that conception; it seems to leave something real out of life. Did not the Great Teacher give us the key when He said, "I am come that ye might have life?" His followers have not dared to take him at his word, but supposed he spoke of the future, and for centuries the world has missed the secret of living. It is only in our own day that emphasis upon the companion truth "the kingdom of heaven is within you" has brought reality into religious life. Is it not possible that in education we have failed to make each stage as worth while for its age, as well as a preparation for the next? Life was meant to be abundant for the kindergarten child, the grammar-school boy, the high-school student, as well as for the university man; and, perhaps, our failure along this line may account for the haste of the majority to escape from school to real life, before they are awake to the responsibilities resting upon each to uphold the ideals which are the heritage of the American child.

To sum up, the American ideal is threatened by

1. A foreign invasion, ignorant of our ideals of purity, respect for law, and the sacredness of individual liberty.

2. The growth of a new class, the idle rich, lacking the same sense of responsibility for participation in the artistic, scientific, social, and political life of the nation.

3. Commercial and industrial competition, which is corrupting politics and lowering the moral tone in all departments of life.

4. An absorption in business and social affairs which is destroying home life. The kindergarten is attempting to preserve the American ideal by

1. Restoring home responsibility, through trained motherhood.

2. More thoro preparation of kindergartners, with spiritual capacity and power of leadership, as enthusiastic for social betterment in the community as for their own particular work.

3. Establishing kindergartens in which respect for law, reverence for truth, individual responsibility, and joy in service are practiced in a community of equals; Massini's ideal, the "progress of all thru all, under the leadership of the best and wisest." Here the

foundation is laid for that "aristocracy of intellect and service" which President Nicholas Murray Butler declares is the characteristic of the true democracy.

Let me close with the affirmation of that noble pioneer, Emma Marwedel, who brought the kindergarten to California and established it in our midst: "I believe in the power of the kindergarten thru the moral power of the kindergartner to reform the world."

MOTIVE FOR WORK

MARGARET E. SCHALLENBERGER, PRINCIPAL OF TRAINING DEPARTMENT, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, SAN JOSE, CAL.

Perhaps no educational department is so widely and so pronouncedly misunderstood as to its motive as the kindergarten. Not only may this be said of its patrons, fond and often ignorant mothers at all levels of the social strata, but it is true to an enormous and, at first glance, surprising extent of educators themselves. This gross general misconception is due probably to the fact that for a long time the kindergarten was set apart from the general scheme of education. There were the primary, grammar, and high schools and as a climax to the series-if one went on-the university. The kindergarten was a side issue, a little play or toy school-in the narrowest sense of the word play-sometimes functioning, sometimes not; always an extra, never an essential; always a special type or variation, never a universally recognized and accepted form of education. This being the case, the kindergarten as a factor in child development has not been seriously considered; therefore its motive has not been seriously studied by educators at large. Here and there, to be sure, we find most careful investigators, many of whom are able writers, so that we in America now possess, aside from the contributions furnished by other countries, a kindergarten literature of our own of no mean quality; but comparatively few people have been inclined to read these publications, and a still smaller number have felt the necessity for doing so. Kindergartners themselves are partially responsible for this apathy. Their sunny child gardens were filled for long years, notwithstanding the protests of many able leaders, with ignorant, poorly-paid women, who, dazzled by the bright colors and bewildered by the vast mass of novel materials thrust upon them, flitted hither and thither among the little people and their "culture stuff" like giddy butterflies, and displayed little more reason while flitting than these care-free flower-lovers.

But all this is ancient history; the kindergarten has found its place in the educational scheme, and tho there are striking exceptions, kindergartners today, as a rule, understand, at least as well as other teachers understand theirs, the problems set them. Nevertheless, for the reasons just stated, they by no means have as yet succeeded in making "the people" understand.

The great problem of the kindergartner is not different in the main from that of other educators. Can any clearer statement be made of it than the following by Professor Edward L. Thorndike in his Educational Psychology? 1

'P. 79.

The work of education is (1) to supply the needs of the brain's healthy growth and to remove physiological impediments to it; (2) to provide stimuli to desirable mental variations and to withold stimuli from the undesirable; (3) to make the outcome of desirable activities pleasurable and to inhibit their opposites by discomfort.

The three chief practical problems of education would thus be those of hygiene, of opportunity, and of incentives and deterrents.

The conscientious teacher often asks herself, How can I best deal with the child at this period of his life in order that it may yield its fullest and richest value? It follows logically that an impoverished life at one period means a weakened life at the next, and conversely. The argument often advanced that a child entering the primary school directly from the home does brilliant work and advances rapidly thru the primary and grammar grades is no criticism at all upon the kindergarten. Who can say how wonderful might have been his proficiency or how rapid his development had he been subject to kindergarten stimuli? The other thesis, that the kindergarten child does not always take to primary school methods with ease and docility is likewise challengeable. The ease with which he does take to them may be largely due to his kindergarten life, or we might ask, are the primary school methods always those that well-developed six-year-olds find interesting and profitable?

The kindergarten, as well as the other departments of education, has been and is in progressive evolution. The intelligent kindergartner no longer blindly follows the theories of Froebel or Pestalozzi, any more than does the intelligent primary teacher depend altogether for guidance, as she did very generally not many years ago, upon the average accumulated experience of her predecessors. The kindergartner no longer points with pride, as she sometimes used to, to the results obtained in various forms of handwork, e. g. pricking patterns upon cardboard, any more than the thoughtful teacher in the grades congratulates herself upon the ability of her pupils to state certain facts in history, arithmetic, or grammar.

The emphasis today in education is an emphasis upon interest in what is worth knowing and zeal in its pursuit, rather than upon the accomplishment of a finished amount of work, mental or physical, or even upon the ability to perform the work. We care less what a man knows than for what he is desirous of knowing, less for what he can do than for his attitude toward work. The life of the educated man is a life of voluntary action in a right direction. It is the function of the school to provide, so far as possible, the proper stimuli and deterrents to make not only possible but strongly probable such life.

Psychology, sociology, ethics, as well as the long-established sciences, are gradually furnishing us with certain data upon which we may formulate educational principles. The kindergartner in common with other educators eagerly seeks for these data. She knows that the mind of the little child is analogous to that of the adult; the two are similar but not alike. She learns as much as possible about the make-up and functioning of her own mind. She tries to apply this knowledge to the study of the child mind. She studies the laws of society and tries to understand what is meant by a "good citizen."

She learns to discriminate finally between forms of right and wrong action and turns to various sciences to see what they have to teach her of precision, accuracy, patience, conditions of experiment, truth. And then she turns again to her kindergarten. To know as much as is possible of the physical and mental condition of each child under her direction, to study inherited traits and home environment, and with this knowledge to set about a work of definite and deliberate change to be wrought in each bit of humanity: this is the selfconstituted task of the professional-spirited kindergartner.

How does her work differ from that of other teachers? The work of the kindergartner is of a more positive nature. The child comes to her with less experience of the world of any kind. The influence of environment, good or bad, has not had time to change in any marked degree his original self. Action in any particular direction has not been continued long enough to become habit. Curiosity has not yet been killed or even very much curbed, neither has its field of operation been very wide or fertile. Imitation has not gone sufficiently far to become second-nature. Rivalry, emulation, courage, aggressiveness, self-reliance, timidity, selfishness, generosity, vanity, co-operation-no one of these tendencies has been given opportunities striking enough or often enough repeated to be classed as characteristic. In a word, the kindergarten child is more a bundle of natural than of acquired tendencies.

Her problem is less complex than that of the child's later teachers. She has less to do with the breaking of habits, because, speaking broadly, we may say that no strong habits have been formed. She has much to do, however, with the formation of habits, and in providing opportunity for their proper development and exercise, she has a problem sufficiently important and difficult.

It is in the study of the natural tendencies of individual children and their expression, in other words, in the study of children's motives and their direction into avenues of desirable work that her chief function lies. No teacher has so little excuse for repression, for the simple reason that there are fewer tendencies to suggest the method of repression; no teacher, perhaps, has so great a responsibility for the simple reason that there are so many chances for wrong expression, bad habit formation, undesirable work.

Any form of expression engaged in with zeal is work. Certain forms of what is commonly termed play may very properly, according to this definition, be classed as work. This the writer understands; but the walls between play and work are so low and weak as constantly to need propping upon one side or the other, and the enormous gaps between the two fields are so apparent that it seems absurd to try to draw any hard and fast line between the two. The kindergarten, e. g., far from being designated a mere play school might far more properly be called a garden in which children work, not toil, and the work done in a kindergarten in which selection of stimuli has been careful and direction of child motive is wise, certainly compares favorably in value to that done during any period of equal time during the child's school life.

The selection of work-inspiring stimuli rests, of course, with the kindergartner; the motive for work is to be found in the child himself. Artificial incentives for work in the kindergarten are neither necessary nor advisable, and their employment by any teacher whatsoever is too often due to lack of knowledge of how to use motives already in the child mind.

Roughly, then, the method of procedure is blocked out; it is the same for all kindergartners. What truths, if any, have been discovered? How is the kindergarten child differentiated from children of a larger growth and from adults? What with him can we count upon as a motive for voluntary work? The most noticeable trait, apparent even to the casual observer, is physical activity. The kindergarten child is predominantly active as compared with others. He likes movement for its own sake-and truly the granting of opportunity of movement for its own sake would be a boon to many a child. But the wise kindergartner utilizes this natural motive for motion and makes of it a motive for work involving motion. She realizes that this movement ought to be self-directed to a great extent, that it must call for the exercise of the power of choice, that it must lead to production of some kind, that in its progress it must not interfere with the rights of others, that it must take the form of co-operation, that it must be of such a nature and continue for such a time as to further, never to hinder, healthy, normal physical development. Games, then, are not played for mere amusement. Songs are not sung for entertainment. Handwork is not provided merely to keep the child busy, nor, on the other hand, for the finished production which may follow. Pictures are not drawn to serve as specimens of childish art. The work in the mind of the kindergartner to be wrought is real work, work that carries with it power and dignity, work that is thoroly enjoyed, and the motive for it she finds in the child in irrepressible movement.

But this tendency to irrepressible movement is not confined to his physical nature. His mind, as is ours, is in a constant state of flux. The mind of the young child, however, is in a special or unique state-that of passive attention. If he be a normal human being of four or five years, he must attend to the sights, sounds, and other stimuli offered by the outside world. He is more of an animal than he will be later. The animal who refuses thus to attend fails to survive. The child who is unable thus to attend is abnormal, unfit. Yet these brief periods are at the same time periods of interest, and, if the proper stimuli be provided, are periods of great and valuable mental growth. The motive for work in this case is simply an overpowering tendency to be constantly in a peculiar state of mental activity. The work is the change that goes on in the child's mental complex during these rapidly passing periods under the influence of carefully directed stimuli. The motive for work then is again irrepressible movement, but in this case mental movement.

Much that this new and strange world brings to the child he is not ready to receive. It bears no content, carries with it no meaning, but there are certain tendencies either natural or easily and early acquired that almost never fail