The interlacing slats lead from the surface to the line, though otherwise they form a step in advance of the stick-laying, because they are connected "to work" presides; the natural punishment in the Kindergarten is, to exclude the child from work. with each other, and thus give permanency to the forms. The little sticks for laying are the embodied line, they may be thought to be the divided surface of the cube in order to retain the connection. In pea-work sticks (lines) are connected with embodied points (peas). Connection gives only permanent form to material. With this closes the first series of the A. B. C. of bodies. The following occupations pass over to a more flexible material, progressing from the body itself to its picture, viz: from pricking and sewing to drawing to which associates color; from drawing to the surface-line in weaving and paperinterlacing; then we proceed to the paper-square in cutting and folding representing the surface itself, till at last we arrive at the body again in modelling. The same logic chain of intuitions, representations, and experiences developed from it connects all the parts. By teaching the child to use the gimlet, to prick sharply, to cut, to measure, to fold, by teaching him to model, draw, paint, we give him the rudiments of all industries. The element In the discussion of this paper DR. CRUIKSHANK commended the system and remarked that it is a singular fact that a great portion of the human family go through the world "having eyes and seeing not. "The Kinder garten system leads to the cultivation of the eyes, the ears, the hands, and all the senses and organs of the body. MR. Z. RICHARDS, of Washington, D. C., spoke in commendation of the paper and said that he needed no conversion to the principles of the Kindergarten system, and that he believed they are the true and fundamental principles of all educational work. MR. HENKLE said that new methods of education can be introduced into a new country like America more readily than in old countries with fixed methods, and spoke of the danger that imperfect views of FROEBEL'S methods might be disseminated by superficial teachers. The country had already seen a sad exhibition of the abuse of the great principles that underlie true objective teaching. On motion of DR. CRUIKSHANK, the Chair appointed W. D. Henkle, JAMES CRUIKSHANK and W. E. CROSBY a committee on the nomination of officers. Adjourned. Second Day's Proceedings. TUESDAY, JULY 11, 1876. The Department met at 12 M. The HON. M. A. NEWELL of Baltimore read a paper on the Practical Aspects of Object Teaching. [This paper has not been received.-Printer.] It was discussed by DR. JOHN HANCOCK and MRS. ANDREW J. RICKOFF of Ohio, MRS. EZRA CARR of California, and the HON. E. E. WHITE of Indiana. Third Day's Proceedings. WEDNESDAY, JULY 12th, 1876. The Department met at 11 A. M. The following officers, reported by the Committee on Nominations, were chosen for the next year. President, DR. JAMES CRUIKSHANK of Brooklyn, N. Y. Vice-President, the HoN. H. A. M. HENDERSON, of Frankfort, Ky. On motion DR. HANCOCK was excused from reading his paper "How shall we train our Primary Teachers?" with the understanding that he would furnish it for publication in the proceedings. [This paper has not been received.-Printer.] MISS MINNIE SWAYZE then read the following paper entitled AESTHETICS OF EDUCATION. "Education" is a word which we use almost always in a conventional way. We limit its sense, and mean by it a certain school-routine, and the study of certain text-books; by it we understand, the memorizing of technical facts and phrases, the skilful manipulation of figures, a tolerable pat superficial and purely mechanical knowledge of grammar and enough geography to save us from mortification. The most that we do is to exercise in a low and limited way the understanding, without reference to its profitable employment in putting vigor and method into our whole mental life. We do not recognize the primary truth, that a fact has but a limited value, unless we can bring it into a genuine relation to our highest and best thought. One may have the whole curriculum of the school upon his tongue, and at his fingers' ends, and yet be utterly ignorant of all which constitutes a rounded, balanced, and nobly productive mind. It is always the best way of investigating a topic, to begin by comprehending the full meaning of the word by which we call it. "Education," for instance-what is the real signification of the word? At the first glance, you see the truth in it, as there is a truth in all legitimate words. It means "to draw out." One of its colloquial meanings in Latin is "to hatch," and it was frequently employed to express material development, and in a physical sense. But we by "education" usually mean intellectual culture-we rarely apply it to care and training of the body, save as the mental may depend for its completed growth upon the physical. By education in this paper, will be meant mental training in the fullest signification of the phrase. The first point to be considered then is that education is not wholly the acquisition of information, of facts, of statistics. These have their special use, and their separate value; they furnish data, secure accuracy, and check idle speculation. When we say that a man is ignorant, we mean that he has not these implements of facts with which the every-day labor of life is carried on. We properly regard one who cannot read or write or add or divide, as so far helpless; and doubtless he does work at a great disadvantage. Just so it is with a projector who has not even a smattering of the laws of mechanics; he wastes his time and wears out his heart, in the effort to invent a perpetual motion which was hopeless from the beginning. But if we would comprehend the wide difference between a technical and a philosophical education, we must start at the other end of the discussion, and find out what our system of education does not do for the population. We eliminate, to begin with, the large class of the absolutely unlettered, and the small one of the scholarly. Between these welters the sea of mediocrity-not necessarily a waste nor unproduct ive;-nay, alive with innumerable activities. Here are the productive classes the commercial, the agricultural, the mechanical-here are the men who create homes and the women who manage them-here are the voters who by proxy make the laws, and some of whom are busy breaking the laws to which they have assented. We find in it shrewdness, tact, industry, patience, economy, and devotion to duty; and yet why is it that society as it is called so often wearies us? Why are we doomed to breathe so constantly the thin air of commonplace? Why is it that we so seldom encounter not alone original minds, but minds bright with the originalities of others? How many are there who read more than the newspapers, or with these a few cheap novels dear at any price? How many who know a good picture from a bad one? a well-proportioned building from an architectural nightmare? The profoundest lecture or sermon from the shallowest? How many are prepared to solve accurately a problem of political ethics, or remember history enough to help them to do it? How many are sure of a fine poem, unless a great name be associated with it? How many who possess what we call taste, and are not given to aud possessed by an ingrained and hopeless vulgarity? I have a great respect for the American people. In this year of all years, we must not overlook the national accomplishment of the past century, altogether the most historically wonderful of modern times. But in the magnificence of these material results, in our broadened territory, our multiplying towns, our increasing cities, our ever-growing population, we forget the true constitution of a state. There have been barbarous nations greater than ours, and the Roman Empire which covered the world, missed the moral force of Sparta and the grace of Athens. Always quality dominates over quantity, and the tendency of a rank growth, is naturally towards coarseness. No matter how many millions may be enumerated by our census-the ignorant and animal swarms of the East will still outnumber us. All masses take their tone and character from the individual minds which compose them. So too, material acquisition is mere heaping and hoarding, unless our riches help to make us wiser and nobler. Put these truths together: consider that millions of money without minds to devote them to real use are more luckless than the most squalid poverty; and you will then see the best purpose of which any system of education can be capable. In the light of these indisputable propositions, we see what may be considered the chief defect of all school education. I am not prepared to say that it can be remedied altogether. Every American girl or boy cannot have a private tutor, and in the school which counts its pupils by hundreds, individualty of mind must be in a greater or less degree ignored. You must have drill if you are to handle masses, and the tendency of drill is always towards the mechanical, and of school drill towards memorizing. Thus it is that we go on year after year, turning out hordes of pupils all fashioned according to one pattern. The whole know no more than each. Knowledge has been distributed according to some unwritten Agrarian law, and while all are equally wise, very few are specially so. It is true there has been a dole of provender, but hardly anybody has a stomach full. We see then that it is not by what it knows, in a scholastic sense, that the world moves. Its best motive power is in its intuitions-in faith, in religion, in conscience, in love, in aspiration. But if we say to a trustee or a committee man, or even to some teachers, that the object of a school should be to promote them, we are not understood. He comprehends the advantages of grading schools, the necessity perhaps of keeping the school-houses in repair and of having them well ventilated; he knows the largeness and even the littleness of the school-book trade; he can make sharp bargains with teachers and keep them well up to their duty; he has made up his mind upon the problem of compulsory attendance; he declares seriously and sincerely that he considers our common-school system to be the very foundation of national prosperity and greatness; but it is safe to say that of education in its largest and best sense he has but a limited comprehension. For see how much there is to be cultivated in the child of which our systems take no cognizance. There is the heart with its possible wealth of affection, an embryo of truth, of honor, and of love! There are the tastes which may be low and mean, or high and manly! There are perceptions of duty as yet dim and uncertain which may be trained to acuteness and precision! There are the appetites to be restrained and disciplined and kept within the bounds of decent and self-respecting moderation! There is the virtue which fitly developed will save woman from an aimless life ending it may be in ruin, and man from brutality, and sensuality and selfishness! Do you say that this is moral training which is not the business of the Common School? I answer that it is the business of the Common School to comprehend the whole scheme of human life, and that it should concern itself with all that may make such life truly successful. We build art galleries and we fill them with the triumphs of the painter and the sculptor; and if these are to be for the benefit of the whole population why should not the children of the people receive their first lessons of the beautiful even in their infancy? Why should they not be surrounded at that season of receptivity, by all which may train the eye and educate the taste, and make fancy chaste, judgment accurate, and the imagination pure and elegant? There is the school-room, for instance; it is the apartment in which these little ones must spend a moiety or more of their waking hours. We may make it commonplace, hard, and angular, and colorless, or we may give it tone which will refresh the weary eye, and ornament which will be a primary lesson in art criticism. There are the manners which we may form and refine, remembering that courtesy is quite as important as arithmetic and that a genial address has its value as well as geography and correct spelling. If children are to be taught to read why not at the same time introduce them to what is most beautiful in poetry and to what is best in prose, taking a little pains to show them the difference between the good and the mediocre? These pupils as a class will receive no education of this kind at home, where indeed, they would not receive any good education at all; and it is because in general, home is not what it should be, it is because home is coarse and ignorant and evil in its influences, that the State interferes. All I ask is that the State should do its whole duty. Nor need I say how much in this great work depends upon the teacher. A really good teacher, with a just estimate of the dignity of the profess |