FREE KINDERGARTEN ASSOCIATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19351, 11 December 1924, Page 6

FREE KINDERGARTEN ASSOCIATION.

PRESENTATION OF DIPLOMAS. On Tuesday evening the Dunedin Free Kindergarten Association held the presentation of diplomas ceremony for the kindergarten students in the Ota.gb Women’s Club. About 70 or 80 students and their friends, die committee members, local committee members, and the examiners assembled. Apologies were received from Professor A\ hite, the Hon. Mark Cohen, Mr T. R. Fleming, Mrs W. H. Reynolds, and Miss Maxwell. Mrs T. K. Sidcy (president of the association) was in the chair. Dr R. Lawson, Director of Education at Otago University, said he was particularly glad to speak at this function because the kindergarten movement was beginning to diffuse its spirit throughout the whole system of education. This was true more specifically in the matter of n free discipline, which was too often blamed by undiscorning critics as being responsible for the lessening of parental control. Rightly understood freo-discipline was the antithesis of anarchy. It implied the full, free, and spontaneous ' realisation of the child's nascent faculties, together with a corresponding subordination of selfish impulses to the general welfare of the little kindergarten community. The result became disastrous only when the child reared in this atmosphere of freedom, passed out into the harsh world of class-discipline. The kindergarten aimed not at teaching reading, writing, counting, or drawing, as such; hut at providing a specially chosen environment wherein the child, recapitulating in his development the main phases of the past evolution of society, would welcome occasions for writing, counting, and drawing, as being necessary for the integrating and externalising of the growing spirit within him. It was not true now, Jiowever true when Wordsworth wrote it, that “shades of the prison house begin to dose about the growing boy.” Children delighted in their microcosm—an image of the mighty world—and delighted in it because it brought them the satisfying activities their natures craved for. No one learned (o read—merely to be able to read; that would be an absurdity. All acquisitions of knowledge or power were valuable only in so far as they enriched the life or satisfied the legitimate aspirations of the individual in social surroundings. The school no longer imposed tasks, but conferred on the child the means of harmonising himself with his surroundings. After showing how evolution ns enunciated by Darwin, had enlarged the range of the kindergarten as first established by Froebel, Dr Lawson went on to say that Dr Montesorri's work had introducer! now and important elements, which though not as scientifically based as she had claimed for them, were influencing profoundly the whole educational field. Thus Miss Parkhurst, founder of the Dalton Flam-one of the best movements in contemporary education—was a protege of Dr Montesorri. So also was Airs O’Brien Harris, founder of the Howard system in a secondary boarding school for girls in England. The speaker congratulated the Dunedin association on its training work. This was of great value in helping to establish education as a profession. It was discreditable to civilisation that a certain stigma still marked teaching—that young men. of promise passed it by unless through dire necessity compelled to it, and that schools were obliged to accept on their staff men and women who were there avowedly only “putting in time” till something better turned up. Was there any vocation in which the best, talent, wits more a national need? He looked to the day when the best men in the land would turn to education. Our boys and girls were the riches of the nation; they should bo taught by our very best. Only compulsory training and registration could put teaching on a level with other professions. Moreover education was rapidly acquiring a body of established principles, which would enable it. to rank ns a science. Scientific minds had at last turned their attention to studying education. Concluding, he congratulated the .successful students; though the teacher’s remuneration was small, there certainly was a compensation in the jcindergarten—for there more than in any other educational province was there a daily reality in the saying: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The true teacher loved the work. The speaker wished the association continued success in its important service to the community. Mr T. K. Sidey, in the absence of Professor White, presented the diplomas to the eight graduates who had completed their two years’ course and gained their diplomas. He pointed out that every girl had gained honours (over 80 per cent, in her examination) in at least one subject, and that one (Aliss Saunders) had honours in four subjects. Miss Unit (honours in handwork), Miss Fraser (honours in hygiene and child psychology), Afiss Grieve (honours in kindergarten practice), Aliss Hey wood (honours in kindergarten practice, hygiene, child study. handwork). Miss Hogg (honours in liygie.no and child psychology). Miss Kilpatrick (honours in hygiene), Aliss Sullivan (honours in handwork), and Miss Saunders (honours in kindergarten practice, hygiene, child psychology, handwork) were the recipients of the diploma*. Miss Dutton then spoke a few words on the work of the first, year students and on the work of the examiners (Misses Goldsmith, Maxwell. F Boss, Ualrymplc, Pcrmin, Burton, and Mrs Sidey). Two book prizes for brushwork to Alisses Hoy-wood and Saunders and one for drawing to Aliss Malcolm, were given by Miss Scott, the teacher in art; and two prizes were presented by Miss Dutton for competitions in which the student's had competed during the year. The first for the “Best Model Maori Village” was won by Aliss Saunders, and the other for a “Design for a Kindergarten Frieze” was won by Miss Fraser. A concert programme and supper completed the evening, musical items being rendered by Misses Dawson, Hancock, and Heywood, and two little plays were staged.