ect.

These talks on the kindergarten have purposely been divested of a
certain amount of technicality and detail, in the hope that they will
thus reach not only kindergarten students, but the many mothers and
teachers who really long to know what Froebel's system of education is
and what it aims to do. They will never of themselves make a
kindergartner, and are not intended to do so; but they certainly
should shed some light on Froebel's theories, and establish a basis on
which they can be worked out in the home and in the school.

We shall attempt no defense of the kindergarten here. It has passed
the experimental stage; it is no longer on trial for its life; and no
longer humbly begging, hat in hand, for a place to lay its head. As an
educational idea, it is a recognized part of the great system of
child-training; and to say, in this year of our Lord, one thousand
eight hundred and ninety-five, that one does not believe in the
kindergarten is as if one said, I do not believe in electricity, or, I
never saw much force in the law of gravitation.

True, Froebel's ideas are often misinterpreted and misapplied; often
espoused by ignorant and sentimental persons; often degraded in their
practical application; true, the ideal kindergarten and the ideal
kindergartner are seldom seen--(though they are worth traveling a
thousand miles _to_ see)--all this is true, and no one knows it better
than we; but that a divine idea is wrongly used does not invalidate
its divinity.

That kindergarten principles are gaining ground everywhere; that every
year more free and private kindergartens are established, more
training schools opened, more students applying for instruction, more
books written on the subject, more educational periodicals seeking for
kindergarten articles, more cities adding it to their school systems,
more normal schools giving courses in kindergarten training, more
mothers and teachers seeking for light on Froebel's principles,--all
these are matters of statistics which any one may verify by
consulting the Reports of the Commissioner of Education and the
various educational magazines.

Our modest volumes, of which the second will deal with the
occupations, the third with the educational theories of Froebel, do
not claim to be deeply philosophic, nor even to be exhaustive. They
are, in a sense, what is called a "popular" treatise on a scientific
subject; and though some scientists decry such treatises, yet there