FROEBEL'S EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES IN ENGLAND. 365 
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in each, and they get a general impression ; but on only the rarest occa- 
sion have I ever aroused sufficient interest to get a parent to read any 
sducational work. I keep pamphlets and distribute them, but rarely hear 
ov remark upon them. We get about five hundred visits annually—two 
hundred from parents, three hundred from strangers; and of these, three 
or four people annually will ask for books on educational subjects. 
“With regard to definite appreciation of the kindergarten, the occupa- 
sions appeal to some (a) as amusement ; (4) as a means of training artistic 
faculty ; and on the whole this is fairly well appreciated. 
“ Parents are slowest to observe the value of the whole training as a 
means for the development of character. If they recognize at all that the 
kindergarten is a little miniature world, they argue that on the whole 
they would prefer it without the mixture of good and bad. They see no 
good in the games or stories, but they see that on the whole the children 
get on, and so they bring them, and so they leave them. 
“The question is still too frequently asked as to the utility of the 
sbjects made, not only in the kindergarten, but also all through the 
cransition and manual-training classes. We have still to drive home 
she lesson that the real product is unseen and in the child ; the article 
nade has been but a means of aiding this unseen development.” 
We see from these remarks two facts which exercise a baneful influence 
—neglect of the study of Froebel by teachers of more advanced schools, so 
chat the combination of the system that aims at developing the whole 
faculty of the child with that which aims principally at giving knowledge 
for more or less definite objects—i.e., the right continuity of education—is 
rindered ; and the neglect of that same study by parents, so that a child 
passes, so to speak, from one mental climate to another between the kin- 
dergarten and home. Parents here really mean mothers. Unspeakable 
good would indeed be done did fathers study education, but there are ex- 
cuses for them which do not exist for mothers, whose first duty to God 
and to the nation is the right training of the young creatures given to 
sheir care. 
In summing up this report, this at least is certain : We have made con- 
siderable progress ; we are moving forward ; the means are abundant, both 
in schools and in teaching powers ; but the interest of the public, so in- 
dispensable in every modern undertaking, is lacking, as we may certify by 
the infallible money test. The position of Froebel as a reformer of educa- 
tion is not completely understood, save by a few, even among the serious 
educators of the day ; while mothers have not yet realized, as they should, 
that Aere is their own special guide and friend, the one among the teachers 
of men who turned from the pedantry of schools and called upon women 
fo help him, and to vindicate their own position as the heaven-appointed 
sducators of the race. 
I make no comparison between my own and other countries: 1 have no