342 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
his moral nature ; cultivate mechanical skill in the use of the hands; give 
him a sense of symmetry and harmony, a quick judgment of number, 
measure, and size ; stimulate his inventive faculties ; make him familiar 
with the customs and usages of well-ordered lives ; teach him to be kind, 
courteous, helpful, and unselfish ; inspire him to love whatsoever things 
are true and pure and right and kind and noble; and thus equipped 
physically, mentally, and morally, send him forth to the wider range of 
study, which should include within its scope some sort of industrial 
training—that is, the putting of the boy or girl into the possession of the 
tools for technical employment, or for the cultivation of the arts of 
drawing and kindred employments; and, still further on, the boy and 
girl should have a completed trade. Thus will they be prepared to solve 
the rugged problem of existence by earning their own living through 
honest, faithful work. 
MODIFICATIONS IN THE PRIMARY SCHOOL. 
Thesis : *“ What modifications in the primary school are necessary or 
desirable in order to adapt it to continue the work of the kindergarten 
and reap the advantages of the training already received ?” 
BY B. PICKMAN MANN, OF WASHINGTON, D. C. 
THE most crying need of the primary school is the giving of an opportunity to the 
;eachers to devote personal attention to the scholars individually. This need is to be 
met by confining the number of pupils under one teacher within such limits that there 
may be time to devote the needed attention to each. It is recognized that one kinder- 
zartner cannot properly take care of more than twenty-five children, and it would be 
oetter if she had not more than eighteen or twenty. It is widely recognized also that 
ifty or sixty children are too many to be cared for properly by one primary teacher. 
and that she could do much better with one-half of that number. 
In placing the employment of more teachers first as a modification needed in the con- 
duet of primary schools, I do not forget that quality is needed more than quantity. But 
[ believe that the quality needed will come largely through the quantity. The teacher 
can do for each child more nearly what the child needs to have done for it. One of the 
important elements in the excellence of kindergartens is the ability of the kindergartner 
to give to each child the individual attention it needs. 
While I believe that the present teachers are capable in great measure of much better 
work than they are given an opportunity to perform, I believe the qualifications of 
teachers are capable of great improvement. The kindergarten method is more than a 
practice; it is a philosophy. 
The greatest value of the kindergarten rests in the power the kindergarten has to 
develop the higher and nobler side of individual character and ability. This power 
comes from the conformity of the kindergarten practice to the methods of nature. Con-