THE FUTURE OF THE KINDERGARTEN

Evening Star, Issue 15373, 23 December 1913, Page 3

THE FUTURE OF THE KINDERGARTEN

AN ADDRESS BY THE HON. J. ALLEN.

Tho Minister of Education (the Hon. J. Allen), in opening the .Radiol Reynolds Free Kindergarten at South Dunedin yesterday afternoon, delivered a very interest-

ing address

The .Minister said that it gave nim very creat plcas.cie t,> !)c present to oilieially open the Rachel Reyuold-s Kindergarten. He himself had been connected with the

kindergarten movement .since its inception,

although he did not know so much about it as scme'of these sitting around him. It was indeed very lilting that this special

school, this mcdcl school, should bear tho name that it did. Ho did not suppose that there was am one in Dunedin who

was not acquainted with the great work

that .Mrs Reynolds !i;.d done for the Fro-n Kindergarten Association in this City. He did not know that she was exaetly tne fhst to originate the idea of free kindergartens, but if .she was not, then, at any

rate, the. was or.e of the very first. Certainly .Mrs Reynolds's spirit and her soul had been witii the young from the beginning until this very oay. (Applause.) And it wastiict active interest and thai-sjlr-saeririce so characteristic of Mrs Reynolds that h.'id done so much to make the.kindergarten mo\emcnt in. Dunedin the success it was. Applause.) The pro-int model school ii: which tl'ev were r.uw assembled was

Ihe finest memento that could be presented to the City 11, appreciation of what

-Mrs Reynolds had <!one for Dunedin. (Applause.) He was airaid that they forgot sometimes, when they realised what the free kindergarten did for little, children, what it did for these who were no longer children. Mrs Reynolds would pardon him for faying that, good woman as she would have been without any free kindergarten, she was a much better woman be.ca.ufe there was one. iLanehwr.) Not only women had been benefited by their attachment, to the free kindergarten." There was his fiieixl, Mr Cohen, en the left. What would he have lx'en without the kindergarten movement'.' (Laughter.) And again there was his friend Mr iSidey. lie did. not believe that he would havebeen half the. politician he was—(laughter) ■—but for his close connection with the kindergarten and the children that at- ! tended it. And there was Miss Kelsey I nnd the presidents who ha-d preceded her. He did. not know whether thev would have lnvti as good as they were to-day hut for the "free kindergarten. Realty this movement was of great value to the community. It was of value to the community, not only because of tho advantages it gave the' children. There was tins tidier advantage . those who had been connected with it had learnt a good deal, they had luid their hearts softened, and they had been made better men and women. He knew something about those who had been teaching in the free kindergarten schools —ho know what effect it had had on some of these, giiis. j fie said to tlia girls of Dunedin with ail earnestness that their lives would Ix 3 much better if they had some other thoughts in their minds than the simple thought of passing the day the best way they could. He 'was certain that there, was more supreme enjoyment and more lasting pleasure, in having done a good day's work not for oneself, but for somebody else—for the litt-ie children of the _ community—(applause)—than there was in the balls and parties and many of those, other enjoyments. Might he say to j tho young women of Dunedin that there ' were opportunities for them here, ' they would find work, and with that work they would find pleasure, and at the. ,-ame ■■ time make themselves better fitted to ' afterwards take up whatever calling they ! might be asked to take up. He must sa'v ' how much the people of this City owed to ' tho executive, the past executives, and to ' those who had been connected with the kindergarten institutions. Those who had come 11, contact with the teacheis realised how sweet their lives had boiti. It wr,* a great thing to come in contact with children, and it had a very salutary e ff Pl - t upon the girl who came in. touch with them, tine could only hope, whether it was by the efforts made bv those who gave their time freely .and Nvillindv or whether it was by the State comin-'morc eloseJy into contact with movements of this kind, that the influence of th- kinder gar-ten would spread and „iden, and that they should all by and by reali- t V I njendoua advantages thai came to them all through taking hold oi Uu young children at an early stage and putting then i o L the, ght pnthat the l stait? m

The State, the Hon.- Mr Allen said, had earnest sympathy with the kindergarten movement, and wished it to succeed So tar as.money was concerned, the various Governments had all helped in every case where the people had been willing to help also. is tor Dunedin iU-elf. he. could honestly say lhat there was no other city m .New Zealand-he did not know whether there was another city in the world, for its size—u here the public gave so K cneJviwly to ircc education a« t'hov did here. ■Dunedm had never. wared in its support lo educa homil movements. There that ■ <lay tney had an outcome of the cwnerositv ot the people—the beautiful building in which they wore assembled: and he congratulated tnem on having secured such a- model ouildmg. Again, he had to gay, so tar ae the State weie concerned, the association had leceived consideiable assistance from Governments from time to time in the erection of this buiklins, and l* had beep, very willingly given. As th* present Minister of l-.ducation. nothing had pleased him more than to be. able to assist them. _ The association, uo he had heard that afternoon, were not quite, out of the wocd. They wanted to know whether the Government were prepared to help them further. He understood that they wanted something like £75 to thoroughly furnish and equip, fhe building and make it free, of debt. Well, he was able to say, on behalf of the Government, that, so far as their furnishings and equipments went, if they could pi-educe accounts tcv show that they had expended that amount without oxtiavngance on the, necessary things, the Government would help them to the extent of £75. (Applause.) The kindergarten movement was growing, and so far as the State were concerned he could not state that day what the connection, would he between the State and the free, kindergarten movement. All of them were learners, and it was difficult to realise what tiie. future was going to bring to them. Whether the. movement would be influenced or modified bv other movements was difficult, to sa.v. Mr Sidey h-ad referred to the Montcs.-ori system".

He had the pleasure of teeing a good deal j of that eyeteni ■ in Koine. He met. Dr Montcssori the first night he landed there, j He .saw her schools, and met her every i day he was there, and he could see that I there was a great deal in her system, i which adopted the same system as the free kindergarten adopted—that was, the teaching of the child to exercise ijs own initiative, and to reiy upon it.velf ; hut still it did it in a rather different way to the kindergarten. From what he could see of that, system, he did not know that it would he wise to adopt it in its entirety, hut he believed that the two systems could be combined, so as to make a more effective means of dealing with and getting into touch with young children. He did :iot know that it applied to young children only. Dr Montcssori had made experiments with, older children —children of 15 and 14 yea re of age —and although she was not able yet to say what the results of her experiments would be, she expressed i]'> doubt about, f s ucceding in the long run. He was fortunate on his trip Home to strike a lady who was sent by the Xew South Wales (lovcrnment to Homo to study the Montcssori methods. She was a very clever and cultured lady, and she had promised him a copy of her report, and he was looking forward to the report with interest. They had been experimenting in Sydney for some time. a.nd they j had crone further with the Monler-sori system than Dr Montcssori had done herself, so that they could hope to ieam from their own people what wck to be learnt about these methods. The State would certainly not lose touch with the principles underlying the kindergarten and Montcssori ey?terns. The State were bound to get hold of them and adopt them, and use them in their own r-chools. How that would affect the Kindergarten Association he was not going to say. But the position was that the executives of the free kindergartens in Sew Zealand had got to the stage where they felt that they must get mere closely into touch the one with the other, where they had to adopt some methods by which their teachers could be trained on a systematic plan, and where they must be able to chance their teachers, and find a- better standing for them. The whole thing, indeed, was in the process of development, and a step forward was to be taken very shoitly. The executives of the various associations had met, and had discussed this, and the discussions were troing to be very valuable. They had agreed about some things, and only this last week or two they had approached him as Minister of Ivducation. One of the things they hr.fl oac-cd about was that their teacher:; must lv more definitely recognised by the State, and ihey had asked the tloveinment to assist, them, in examining these teachers in such a way that there, must he a delinito standard set, which in one case should be equal to the standard set for kindergarten teachers at Home, and which in the other case should be the standard for Xew Zealand. He could make no definite statement that day in, lcspect to that, for the matter had been referred to the depaitment, with the ohj<vt of ceeing .what practical difficulties there were (If any) in the. State carrying cut these examinations, which the free kindergartens wanted. Ha did not know of any, and he did not think that there would be any difficulties. He hoped that they would he able to do what the Kindergarten Association wanted—to be able to examine kindergarten teachers throughput Xew Zealand, and to say tosome of them "we will put you on a. footing equivalent to kindergarten teachers in Great Britain." To others

I who did not want to get to that standard the Government would institute examinations which would be of .such a degree that those who passed them would be abb to go with their certificates to anv kindergarten in New Zealand with a" definite mark given by the State which would be recognised, and which he hoped would be ot advantage. .More than that, he hoped tnat it might be possible that the teachers with the Government mark upon them would be able to drift into our public schools. (Applause.) The teaching children got in the kindergarten was not the only great benefit that was got out of kindergartens. The gn.a; benefit they got out ot them was the influence that, was brought, to bear on tho-e connected with those kindergartens, and the spirit that was put. into children. As Dr Montcssori said to him, she did not care, about the teaching, the learning to write. The basis of the whole thing,' she said, was the moral training, the training that led the children to become food citizens. °

As a member of the Government and as Minister of Education he valued this movement extremely highly. Tho whole community were grateful 'to those who had given their time and means so readily to help it forward, and also to those who were teaching in their kindergartens, ihey begged of them not to forget that sweet womanly influence and that good moral effect which a good woman could produce, if she exercised the best that was in her in the training of children. It was that influence even more than teaching that one looked to for the good effect that would come from kindergartens in New Zealand. They would lose a great deal if the_ State tied itself up so closely with the kindergarten movement that it drove away those helpful women who met from time to time and visited these kindergartens and brought the material spirit —the atmosphere of the best of our homes —into the kindergarten schoolrooms. As Minister of Education he would never do anything to break up that helpful contact between the best women of our community and the children they had to look to in the future. (Applause.) Might he say to the people here that there was nothing that- could commend itself better to their generosity and to their thought than a training institution such as this free kindergarten. Ho would like to see

•mildings similar to the one in which thev • ere .assembled in' other parts of Dunedin Jierc was another similar building in Vuekland, but it was not so good as the iiu'.-in South Dunedin. In concluding the Minister referred to lie untiring efforts of Miss Darling, whose courage, he said, had never failed her then there were the sympathetic women—the mothers—who in the most courageous way had gathered together and had worked with their hands and their brains i to get the building in South Dunedin (Applause.) They deserved their best nnnks, and he hoped that they would eep m close touch with the building. He

earnestly hoped that it would be the home not only of the children, but of the mothers of to-day and of the mothers whose children would attend it later. He was satisfied that the teachers would never do their work so well as they did unless they came, into touch with "the mothersof the children. (Applause.)