364 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
Courthope Bowen, whose valuable contributions to Froebelian literature 
are as well known in America as among ourselves. 
This want of combination makes, as I before remarked, one great diffi- 
culty in presenting anything like a satisfactory account of the progress of 
she Froebel system in England ; and yet we may safely affirm that it has 
spread widely. We see it in London and the neighborhood, and we know 
of much work done in Yorkshire, in Manchester, and other parts of the 
aorth ; in Cheltenham, under the auspices of the Ladies’ College, whose 
distinguished principal, Miss Beale, is earnest in the cause; in the high- 
schools of the Girls’ Public Day School Company, twenty-five of which 
have kindergarten preparatory classes ; and of the many schools set up 
‘ndependently under the same name in different large towns all over the 
country, several have adopted the same arrangements. In short, the 
kindergartens, good and bad, are to be numbered by hundreds, and even 
she bad bear at least witness to the growing popularity of this method of 
lealing with little children. 
There is, however, as I said before, a more serious question to answer 
with regard to the real progress of Froebel education, one which points 
fo the second great difficulty of giving anything like a complete report of 
the existing condition, and this is, How far does the increase of kinder- 
gartens prove the spread of the Froebelian- theory of education ? How far 
is his principle of development of faculty in young children, of the con- 
tinuity of education upon the same scientific lines, accepted by parents, 
or even by teachers in advanced schools ? In short, are we aiming only 
at making childhood happier and more healthily active, or are we really 
following more and more the teaching of the great master, and con- 
sciously striving to train another generation of better citizens, of men 
and women by whom the value of work shall be less measured in money 
gain or worldly success—the parents of the future, who shall feel more 
deeply their fathomless responsibility for the well-being, physical and 
mental, of the young creatures committed to their care? This was 
Froebel’s view as he labored for ‘the education of mankind.” Ie could 
scarcely find words to express his sense of what we owe to children ; do 
we then, when we speak of the progress of his views among us, mean that 
we are more and more sharing in this feeling, with all it implies of new 
effort and higher aims? Would that I could answer this question as 
easily as that which related to the spread of kindergartens! A lady, whose 
own admirable work and long dealings among parents and ordinary 
seachers gives her authority to speak, sends me a discouraging account of 
her own experience : . 
‘“ Parents,” she says, ‘“as a rule expect a modern kind of education ; 
out what they expect they cannot define. They see a large number of 
children happy and good ; they would like their own child to join the 
oroup. We take them round in every classroom, and explain some points