any one. She takes up a handful of fallen leaves. "What are these doing now? they don't give shade." "They are dead," quickly responds Earle. "Yes, we call it dying, when they come down; I think we mean they are changed-they have put on red and yellow dresses which are more beautiful and they can rest awhile; but in dying, they do something. Before they go, they give us fruit, then on the ground they lie together to cover over grass and flowers and keep them warm. This is their story 'None of us dieth to himself.' Don't forget to find out what else the trees do," says Miss Ethel at good-bye. And this good-bye, with a hand-shake, is given to each one as the children march out to music. FOURTH SUNDAY. Only a few have remembered last week's request. But Miss Ethel knows by experience that it takes long practice for this method to succeed. "The trees are homes for birds," says Helen. "And, papa says they're good for wood," says Eddie. (The latter is enlarged upon.) How do we get the Yes, wood? "Cut the tree down." You see, children, in dying, the tree gives us something just as the leaf-children did. We have building-wood and fire-wood. In the Bible I find the little verse that tells all about it. "None of us liveth to himself and none of us dieth to himself.” We can live-work and play for somebody, can't we? Don't you think the baby brothers and sisters might play a little nicer if we played with them? The verse learnt last Sunday is sung, and Miss Ethel follows it with ART PRINCIPLES IN THE KINDERGARTEN.* The beginning of Art lies deep down. in the instincts of the race, and to know how it grows and what are the things best calculated to nourish this growth seems quite as essential as any other branch of our work. In art we feel the love and joy of life, the beauty of existence, that it is a pleasure just to be. The overflow of soul is the artistic instinct; where it touches, beauty is the result. *Written for the Art Department of the N. E. A., held at Toronto, Can., July 14-17, by Alice E. Fitts, of Chicago. It showed itself first in the race as decoration-in the ornamentation of tools, implements of war and clothing, even earlier, for before he builds a house the savage tattooes his skin. Mere ornament, then, was not always beauty, but a searching after it. The instinct that is at first satisfied with mere repetition will soon reach out after higher things. The caprice that vents itself in vanity will find its satisfaction in simplicity and repose. The principle of continuity which is fundamental in art is an instinct in the ་ child who manifests it in many ways. He loves the repetition of sound made by running a stick along a picket fence or his fingers along the keys of a piano; he likes This is the house that Jack built," and all the old rhymes that repeat themselves; he wants to know what he did when he was a baby; what his mother did when she was a little girl, and her mother before her; he likes to connect things and events into a rounded whole, and thus his reasoning power develops. Everything in the Kindergarten is calculated to help this instinct, story, song and verse and with his paper circles squares and triangles he unconsciously tells in repetition stories in ornament ages old. The forms themselves have their limitations, but in his arrangements he is led to see there is a choice and finds the order, symmetry and flow of line that pleased the instinct of the child races long ago. For the child in a manner repeats the experiences of the race, but covers the ground they passed over in an immeasurably shorter time. The selection he makes in his patterns is gradual; he feels himself free yet is finding the limits of beauty. The limits set by the laws of ornament should not be a hindrance to invention but rather a help, reserving his strength and time for the beautiful rather than the ugly. The form and space once chosen, the laws governing their arrangement are the same as in any means of thought expression The forms of the Kindergarten are types and the solids used in play are to be the basis for his clay work. He must be able to make these forms well, be familiar with them, and know how to handle clay, before he can really translate form. The sphere, cube and cylinder are universal as well as particular forms; he has found in his play that they have universal characteristics, and are adapted to represent every object under the sun. The knowledge thus gained is very different from the facts of form discovered in merely handling and placing them in different positions, or even in finding objects based upon them; he has learned in the necessities of play that the sphere will represent all moving objects and is not adapted for standing still; the cube's most satisfactory characteristic is its stability and power of support, consequently while finding the type underlying the object, which he does unconsciously at first, he also knows instinctively the utility side, what it is best adapted for, as well as abstracting the salient characteristic. However great the child's power to make form it is not art unless beauty and suggestion of thought are there. Here judicious selection on the part of the teacher, of objects that bring beauty home to him, becomes important. At the same time he may want to make things that are not beautiful; by constant selection however, this will be changed and his taste for the best culti vated. The praise of certain forms by the older comrade unconsciously molds him too. The child must feel free to reproduce what he sees, he must have the technical skill, he must be able to find the basic form of the object, but added to this he must have the power to read the symbol, to distinguish between what is essential and what is not, and to put with suggestive touch the life into the clay. We find some children have the quick feeling for the type underlying the object and often catch the story in the form much quicker than ourselves and reproduce it, but not always; while others see nothing unless they are led to it. We must in play arouse their interest and feeling, lead them to see the first essential feature of the form, and then the next, guiding their steps, praising their efforts, leading them to see the thing expressed and then stop work at that point where more finish would destroy what has been done. A clay lamb made by a child four years old will illustrate this. The type form underlying it was evidently seen clearly by the boy for the body of the lamb, the legs and tail were undeniably cylinders; the work was crude, the form clumsy, but the weak hanging of the limbs, the pathetic droop of the head, with its rounded forehead, the lamb-like attitudes generally were true to the life and showed that by some means this child felt what he saw. In the Kindergarten we have always given the type but in our lessons on objects, they were apt to be mere imitation or finished too realistically. There are two kinds of finish, one that kills the life of the form and the other that adds strength to the beauty already there. This latter comes slowly and is not to be desired before the interpretation of thought is gained. It seems as if every Kindergartner ought practically to be an idealist, and yet the criticism given to our clay work is, that it tends toward realism. This is where the details and finish predominate, there is a self-assertion and lack of simplicity that carries us away from the essential and the meaning is lost in what should have been subordinate. The great lesson for us to learn is sim. plicity. Somebody says that only the most profound can be truly simple. The long process of carefully drawing out and making definite all the happy thoughts and feelings of our children is what we call child culture and has an artistic element of its own. A cultivated imagination that soars and yet can be brought back to earth, and embodied in form is the creative instinct, the basis of art. Froebel intended his material to be crude, so the child might have the pleasure of seeing the impress of his work upon it. Also as typical centers around which cluster the occupations of the great world of utility and art. It was meant to cover all the needs of the child's instincts up to a certain age, if it has failed from the æsthetic side it may not be the fault of the material. He also intended it to be definite. One of the values of the Kindergarten is, that it establishes clear, definite standards of form, color, numbers, size, proportion, etc., to give centers to reason from, and around which to cluster the child's accumulation of facts. This definite limit of our material seems hopeless to the art educator whose ideas of the beautiful are emdodied in the indefinite, the intangible, the subtle, and the illimitable, but this must not discourage them, the race learned the fact before the elements of beauty appeared; classic came before Gothic architecture; and something quite simple before that. Only wait, we will grow and attain unto the illimitable which is the blossom of Time. We still hear criticism of Froebel's drawing, we know now he did not intend it for Kindergarten children so much as for the older ones and for the training of his teachers in logical thought. Here again is definite limited work greatly condemned on account of drawing on printed lines of the paper. Although this now is but little used, to some extent checked blackboards and paper are chiefly to reproduce forms made with sticks of different lengths. Little children sometimes will not take a step unless they are limited in some way, finding this way that they can make what they see, they gain courage and are soon ready for exercises that give more freedom, and the limits can then be taken away. Again some children's imaginations help them to be satisfied with work we see no value in. Spread out plans of houses and places that have no limit to them, here the checked board is useful for giving definite measurements and making the child tell an honest story. Drawing on the board with great circles and long lines will very soon develop freedom. What shall be said for the much abused, much lauded and over-estimated paper cutting? It does not admit of the laws governing good ornament. The forms are principally rectangular, and give but little balance of straight and curved line. The relation of the parts to the whole are not good, as all the pieces must be used, and many of them are quite undesirable. To repeat these around a center, as a rosette, and expect the result to have æsthetic value to the child is in most cases impossible, and the lack of strength and repose is evident. That the child should have a logical sequence of paper cutting seems wise, that it should enable him to do inventive work and in someway use all the pieces is necessary; but that there is a possibility of getting a result that will bring clear, legible, simple things to the child we all hope and look forward to. Perhaps the greatest satisfaction in the Kindergarten comes through our color. work. The newpapers that have come to us, as well as better methods with the children, makes clear and simple what has been up to this time indefinite and complicated. To cultivate a feeling for color and an enjoyment of the beautiful, is now our object. Where before we used contrasts we now have self-tones. That a clear, soft and lovely red is more educational than a crude and glaring: color, is a relief. The color theories may all change again, but we are sure that this is a step in the right direction. If art is to be a part of general education its beginning is with us, and it is wisdom not to ignore it. We can not go amiss in making our environments such that harmony of color, of music, of dress and conduct will be felt. We can live close to our ideal and delight in life, and we can give the child the love for the absolutely beautiful, as far as we know it. The inheritance of centuries belongs to the child of to-day in art and literature, but it means nothing to him unless satisfying some inner need; he must also make it his own as the race has done by work or it is not his. With us lies the power to give the impulse to the whole man! to give the feeling of satisfaction that beauty holds, "the repose which results when the eye intellect and affections are satisfied!" God has spoken to man through symbols. In nature there is many a volume still unopened. Science and art are both seeking to open and read the one the law the other the love of the Creator. Science tries to make the so called facts speak. Art tries to grasp the indefinable beauty and re-tell it to the world. In each is a language that we are to lead the little child to understand, and when he has done so, he will find that both are one. TYPICAL KINDERGARTEN LESSONS. SYNOPSIS FOR THREE MONTHS' WORK. "YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER FEEDETH THEM.' 'HE CARETH FOR YOU." (b) Those which crawl. (c) Those which walk. (d) Those which swim. (e) Those which fly. September: 1. Animals which provide their own food, day by day, with no thought for the future. 2. Animals which hibernate when their food is gone. 3. Animals which migrate when their food is gone. Voice: (a) Those which sing. (b) Those which cackle. (c) Those which low. (d) Those which bleat. (e) Those which neigh. After a cheery "good-morning" to each other, the children who had a good breakfast are asked to raise their hands. The eager little ones tell what they had for breakfast. "Yes, we all had a good breakfast, did n't we? and I expect we shall have a good dinner. Where will mother get the potatoes and flour and meat for your dinner, to-day?" "At the grocery," "at the market, are the replies. Then those who have been to the market with or for their mothers, tell the others about the eggs, potatoes, etc., that they saw there, and how their mothers bought the things for the children's dinner and brought them home. "I know some very queer little people who have to go to market for themselves when they want dinner, but their market is not like ours. In this box I have one of these little people with some of his marketing." of his marketing." All look at the grasshopper, some recognizing it at once. Then we talk about what it eats and where its market is. "Do they walk to market just as we do? Who can show us how they go to market?" After several have tried to show the hopping of the grasshopper, we decide which is the best imitation. At the table the children use sticks to represent grass of different lengths, calling them the grasshopper's market. The |