Hofer, these associations formed themselves into a federation known as the Southern Kindergarten Association, and chose for its motto, "Kindergartens throughout the South, for the South, and by the South." It has succeeded in unifying and extending kindergarten interests and in raising the standard of work both in kindergartens and training schools. Their plan of work for 1909 is, briefly stated, as follows: To endeavor to form a kindergarten department in each state federation of woman's clubs and state teachers' organizations; to urge appropriations for schools, parks and public playgrounds; to endorse compulsory education and child-labor reform, and to increase the number of kindergartens. The president of the association is Miss Marion S. Hanckel, of Charleston, S. C.; honorary president, Professor P. P. Clayton, of the University of Tennessee. It holds a yearly meeting, at which reports are read by the state secretaries. The last meeting was held in Knoxville, Tenn.

Importance of the Kindergarten.

A marked evidence of the increased interest in the kindergarten in the South was the invitation extended to the International Kindergarten Union by the city of New Orleans to hold there its annual session in 1908. The invitation was accepted and a large and enthusiastic meeting was the result, at which were representatives from every state in the Union and from foreign countries. There is every sign that the South is awaking to a realization of the importance of taking the child between his nursery and school periods and by means of a system which is perfectly adapted to his stage of development and needs, preparing him for the concentrated study of after years. He must acquire the powers of concentration and attention, observation and self-expres

sion, self-discipline and coöperation. He must develop originality and imagination before he enters upon the work of learning, and at this habit-forming period of his life he must live daily the ideals which make for the highest type of manhood and womanhood. Statistics show that the child who has had two years in a good kindergarten goes ahead much more rapidly than other children and usually saves a year or more in his school life. That this is not always the case is partly due to the perversion of or imperfect application of Froebel's theoriessometimes to the unmodern methods of primary teachers. Of its moral influence Dr. Wm. T. Harris has said, in a pamphlet entitled, The Kindergarten as a Preparation for the Highest Civilization: "The child from four to six years of age, the proper age for the kindergarten, has not yet hardened himself through the influence of the slum, or through the influence of a too indulgent education in the nursery of a rich family, so as to be beyond the hope of cure through the school. The kindergarten is for this reason the most potent of all the instrumentalities used to overcome the influence of the slums which exist in our cities. The slum has been called the menace to civilization. It is certainly the menace to local self-government and political freedom. As a matter of self-preservation each city should organize a strong force of kindergartens throughout all precincts where the weaklings of society come together." Is not this a hint of the importance of establishing kindergartens for the negro children of whom the slums of the South are largely composed?

Growth of Kindergartens in South.

The following table gives the statistics of kindergarten growth in the Southern states:

There are at present thirty-two schools for teachers in the South, located as follows: Baltimore, Richmond, Norfolk, Farmville Normal, Hampton (colored), Charleston, Rockville, Greenville, Savannah, Atlanta, Columbus, Macon, Atlanta University (colored), Birmingham, New Orleans (2), Tallahassee, Stetson University, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Louisville (colored), Chattanooga, Little Rock, Edmond, Alva, Weatherford, Epworth University, Warrensburg, Kirksville, Cape Girardeau, St. Louis.

A word as to the education of Southern young women. The South has ever stood for the ideal of home and family life. The education which trains for her a wise motherhood is directly in line with her ideals. In the education of women in women's colleges an effort is being made to introduce household and domsetic arts-preparation for the woman's life of wifehood and motherhood; but is there not something more to be learned about motherhood than merely the physical nurture? Should the spiritual and intellectual nurture be left any longer to mere instinct? The ideal woman's college should include not only the culture studies and training in house

Vol. 10-25

hold arts, but that specific preparation for training the mind and heart of the child which is best learned through the study of Froebel's principles of child nurture. Then, indeed, should we have a new generation. Shall we not look to the South to train this highest type of womanhood?

BIBLOGRAPHY.-Reports of State Boards of Education; Reports of president and secretaries of Southern Kindergarten Association; Reports from United States Bureau of Education, viz.: Statistics of City School Systems, Statistics of Public and Private Kindergartens, Early History of the Kindergarten in St. Louis, Mo., and The Kindergarten, by Miss Laura Fisher.

ALICE N. PARKER,

Richmond, Va.

CHAPTER XVII.

GENERAL EDUCATIONAL AGENCIES IN THE SOUTH.

'HE question of the supervision of education throughout the United States has been during its whole history a matter in confusion. Under the constitution of the United States the General government does not assume the support or direction of education. This is left entirely to the states. It is true that the United States maintains a Bureau of Education, but the work of this office has been almost wholly statistical and its director has no power to supervise the educational systems of the various states.

In the states themselves the supervision of education has rested in the hands of a superintendent, either elected or appointed. His authority, however, has never extended beyond the limits of the sec

ondary schools. The state universities and state colleges, no less than those on private foundation, have not been under the supervision of any central authority, nor has there been in the various states any agency whose business it was to scrutinize or to report upon the work of these institutions of higher learning.

It is partly out of the lack of any central supervision, either from the National government or from the state, that there have grown up various boards which seek in the first place to stimulate education, and in the second place to criticize and in a measure direct it. These boards may be roughly classed in two groups: denominational boards of education organized with the purpose of making more effective the educational agencies of the denomination; secondly, institutions resting upon endowment furnished by individuals. These last have no formal authority over educational institutions, but are seeking to deal with education from the standpoint of a whole section or of the whole country. Some of these agencies are devoted entirely to the South; in the case of others the field of work covers the United States; and in the case of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Canadian educational institutions and interests are included, as well as those of the United States. These agencies in the order of their establishment are the following:

5.

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 1905

.1907

7.

The Jeanes Fund....

.1907

The Peabody Education Fund.

This fund, established in 1867 by George Peabody,