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READING AND WRITING IN THE KINDERGARTEN. 327 
His education of man has given wonderful insight into the growth of 
being as a whole, but it is in his personal letters to mothers and dear 
friends that we seem to come closer to the personality of the man. 
We have given the kindergarten a hearty welcome in this broad republic ; 
and, as our foreign friends say, our progress in the last five years has been 
that of flight rather than touching earth. Obstacles vanish before us; 
friends receive the kindergarten with open arms ; enemies and doubters 
are reconciled and believe. The truth does make us free, and we need the 
strong, sure balance of insight into the eternal truth of principle to steady 
our movement and calm our enthusiasm, to keep us united in a conscious 
expression of that foundation truth—the highest unity is that of unity in 
variety. 
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SHALL READING AND WRITING BE TAUGHT IN THE 
KINDERGARTEN? 
BY MRS. ALICE H. PUTNAM. CHICAGO. 
WHILE the word “growth” is the watchword now passing along the 
line of development from the nursery to the university, the fact that there 
are definite stages of growth, definite periods of life in which man may do 
certain things—nay, must work out certain problems which he cannot solve 
30 well at any other time—is a fact not so fairly recognized. 
The tools of the kindergarten, its games, gifts, and occupations, we all 
snow are the means of growth at this stage ; and it must be remembered 
shat, while opening the doors of the child’s mind to that which is external 
:0 him, they offer a theater for action or expression in which each child 
olays a leading part. Every sense is to be exercised and brought into rela- 
sion with every other sense, for upon clear sense perception will depend 
the clear concept which will be imperiously demanded in the later stages 
of growth. 
Whatever is arbitrary and conventional has a tendency to check rather 
than further this development. Reading and writing can never open up 
the young child’s heart and mind to these truths as do nature’s symbols, 
tor even to the youngest child nature’s truths are universal truths; they 
are always true to themselves, and their relationships stand out boldly. 
Again, when the child gains thought from words, it is not his own thought 
mn the sense that his use of typical objects is his. His discoveries of form, 
oosition, color, etc., are his experimentally. With the word he has had 
nothing to do ; it can bring him no message of the past, for, as has been 
said, to this child there is no past. He can use the word only along one 
line, while in the other case he is reaching out and applying successfully 
to all objects the elementary attributes gained from the one object.