346 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
active exercises of the kindergarten, which their graceful movements and 
spontaneous playfulness enliven, while their knowledge of the routine is 
shown only in their happy freedom with the children who look to them 
as leaders. This, too, is a part of the preparation of the kindergartner, 
and should be in the hands of intelligent and well-informed students. 
These teachers, not yet qualified as principals, may be in training for 
the general examination in secondary studies, and may be working as 
assistants while progressing in their preparation as principals ; or, if they 
aspire only to the position of helpers under the direction of a principal, 
they should be required to pass only an elementary examination in branches 
of study, provided they manifest the right spirit and a love of children. 
But for such as aspire to the charge of a kindergarten, the culture of the 
high-school course is not too much to require as the basis of professional 
‘raining. The morning talks will tax the widest resources of learning; 
to answer a child’s inquiries and lead him to ever opening vistas of obser- 
vation and discovery, calls for the highest culture in natural science as 
well as in all the relations of human activity. When we see Froebel 
sitting down with his treasures of university erudition to open the mental 
vision of twelve little children and feed them with the bread of life, we 
catch a glimmer of the light that he deemed the birthright of the poorest 
child. After such a glimpse of the measurements of the master, can we 
set up a narrow gauge for the kindergartner in either power or attain- 
ments ? 
KINDERGARTEN AS A BASIS FOR LIFE. 
BY FRAU HENRIETTA SCHRADER, OF BERLIN. 
[Tors PAPER WAS TRANSLATED FOR PUBLICATION BY AMELIA HOFER, or CHICAGO.] 
To my mind it is a vital mistake to consider the kindergarten, as is too 
requently done, as a preliminary step toward the school, and to see its 
olan of work, its methods of occupation and development, merely as a 
preparation for primary instruction. 
Too great importance has been put upon school training in our time, 
which has been given a prominence far out of proportion to that accred- 
‘ted to the home training and to the family influence in public education, 
and this in spite of the unsatisfactory results so far attained. . 
Indeed, the whole scheme and character which is commonly understood 
to comprise the kindergarten, does not seem to me to express Froebel’s 
‘dea on this all-important subject of ¢“ How shall we train little children ?” 
However important Froebel considered the school in its totality and its 
influence upon the child, and although his sentiments in regard to educa- 
tion as expressed in the organized school and methods of teaching are