360 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION.. 
brooks, sleeping waters, smiling sunshine, are pretty; but sn are plain wind, flowing 
brooks, frozen waters, sunshine, in themselves beautiful, and children think so. 
What is more poetic than the ‘“ wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth” ? Not one 
word of figure ; the simple statement of a beautiful thing in nature is itself suggestive. 
The Great Teacher seemed willing to call things by their right names. 
‘ Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin ; 
and yet even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” And shall we 
paint these lilies before we show them to the children ? 
There is current a plausible doctrine, that in each child are repeated the characteris- 
ides of the race. 
This statement sounds very fine, and if not turned and twisted to mean more than a 
mere fact it would not be necessary to refer to it here. It is needless to deny or affirm 
a, fact so well established as this, but it should be remembered that these earlier stages 
of development through which the child must needs pass are meant by the very laws of 
avolution to sink into rudimentary conditions—into innocuous desuetude, as it were. 
To emphasize them must result in arrested development and retard the progress of 
‘he race. 
If they are considered at all in educational work, this should be done in a way that 
may reduce toa minimum their influence in the life of the child, and assist him to use all 
ais strength in living intelligently toward the ideals of the race. In other words, these 
rudimentary conditions should cease to be factors in the lives of the race as early as 
sossible. 
ADDITIONAL PAPERS SUBMITTED TO THE KINDERGARTEN 
CONGRESS. 
FROEBEL’S EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES IN ENGLAND. 
BY EMILY A. E. SHIRREFF, PRESIDENT OF THE FROEBEL SOCIETY, LONDON. 
I An asked to give to our American friends some account of the prog- 
ress of Froebel’s educational principles in England. It is not an easy 
matter, and my answer will be a very imperfect one. One great reason 
of the difficulty is that much of the werk has been desultory, and the 
knowledge of it confined, therefore, to scattered localities. Had the 
great hope of the Froebel Society been realized, and had efforts been 
combined and systematized under one central body, we should not only 
aave made more advance and attained more influence, but the point 
gained would have been easy to realize and to present. This view, how- 
ever, was not popular, and only here and there had there been any com- 
bination ; consequently it is very difficult to learn what is going on and 
what has really been achieved. 
This is the first difficulty. The second is more serious, and would, I 
fear, be the same in every country, arising, as it does, from the danger of 
confounding the increase of kindergartens with the spread of Froebelian 
principles. But to this I must return later.