WELLINGTON FREE KINDERGARTEN

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 42, 17 August 1918, Page 9

WELLINGTON FREE KINDERGARTEN

Those who are interested in the edu- 1 cation and general well-being of the children of the city should visit the demonstration organised by the Free Kindergarten Association in the Masonic Hall on the afternoons of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday next. There may be seen "Empire building," the development of the physical, mental, and moral powers of the children. Four of the Kindergarten schools belonging to the association will go through their ordinary morning programme of work, and those present will be enabled to judge for themselves of the educational value of the training, which a few people still understand so little. The council of the association is satisfied that any man or woman who will accept the invitation .to be present at this demonstration, and will carefully note for themselves how the activities of each day are planned to impress the lesson to- be learned upon the child-mind, will not only go away satisfied that good work is being done for the country, but will be prepared to help with influence and money to caiTy on and increase the Kindergartens. The need for better accommodation for the main Kindergarten and training centre for students is so great that with the approval of the Men's Advisory Finance Committee the Kindergarten Council has arranged to buy a property in Taranakistreet, upon which is a. building which, with some few small alterations, will be suitable for the next few years. It is in order to pay for this property that funds are now urgently needed. Owing to the interest taken in education by the owner, the association has been able to secure the • section at very reasonable terms-—viz., £2460, of which £750 is to be paid by September, and the balance in not more than five years, The necessary alterations are estimated at £250, and it is this, first thousand pounds which the pvlilic of Wellington are asked to help to raise. The sum of £600 is already in hand, and the council feels confident that, it will not appeal in vain for tho remaining £400. especially as theMinister of Education, speaking recently in Auckland, paid that, urgent as the need of the children under five years was, he did not think Cabinet could be persuaded to allot the £70,000 required, should Kindergarten work be taken up by the State, until the conditions developed by war should have changed.