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/ 
 
 THE 
 
 onnecting Link, 
 
 mm 
 
 BY 
 
 EMMA MARWEDEL 
 
MCGILL A WALLACE 
 
 „ PRINTERS, 
 
 1107 e Street 
 
THE 
 
 Connecting Link 
 
 TO CONTINUE THE THREE-FOLD DE- 
 VELOPMENT OF THE CHILD, FROM 
 THE KINDERGARTEN TO THE 
 MANUAL-LABOR SCHOOL, 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 EMMA MARWEDEL 
 
 ^A 
 

 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1S91, by 
 
 Emma Marwedel, 
 
 In the Office ol the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 "Oh, how happy this work will make our children; how 
 good and how useful they may become to themselves and to 
 others through this fascinating initiation into manual 
 dexterity ! " 
 
 This was the exclamation of my California friend on first 
 seeing these models for the Connecting L,ink. In her simple, 
 yet deeply expressive words, spoke the mother heart of our 
 great Nation. In them was embodied the truth that "Child- 
 hood's happiness is Manhood's blessing." 
 
 We owe our children not simply a schooling, but a happy, 
 rounded development of their best capacities. 
 
 Compulsory education will no longer be necessary when 
 the school can be made a joy to the child. It is not the toil- 
 some, overburdened, dissatisfied school-child that makes the 
 best citizen. It is the light-hearted, creative boy or girl who 
 has learned in childhood to love work for its own sake that 
 becomes the best man or woman in after life. 
 
 The following paper is not offered as a completed theory to 
 this point, but as a mere collection of statements, in part 
 theoretical, and in part practical. 
 
 The practical part illustrates, descriptively and by draw- 
 ings, what has already been proved successful in filling the 
 gap between the Kindergarten and the Manual Labor School. 
 It may be aptly termed the ' ' Connecting Link, ' ' and is 
 meant to be applied as the stepping-stone to a systematized 
 development, presenting a logical sequence to the principles, 
 method, and occupations prescribed by Froebel in the 
 kindergarten. 
 
 Personal investigation and study of the existing labor 
 schools in Europe for young children, together with the 
 inspiration gained from the reform through extension of play- 
 work, have developed the plan of this pamphlet, which 
 presents a series of occupations suited to the growing capa- 
 cities of the child. The extension of Frcebel's system into 
 manual training is being ably promoted in America through 
 Hailman's High School, Parker's Normal School, E. Mar- 
 wedel's Circular Drawing System and Botany, and many 
 other less known methods. The works of Miss Eva Rodhe, 
 
4 Introduction. 
 
 of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Franz Hertel, of Zwickau, 
 present the first stages of the "Connecting Link." They 
 are descriptively illustrated. The use of the knife as a tool 
 introduces the cutting of stiff paper, bristol-board, and paste- 
 board, as an advance from the use of the scissors and soft 
 paper. The capacity of the child from five to eight years of 
 age is thereby gradually developed to work in hard wood, thus 
 forming the introduction to the Manual Training School. 
 
 The merit of both these systematized occupations lies in 
 their admirable adaptation to the needs of a school reform for 
 children in the primary department. The vast variety of 
 illustrations herewith presented stimulates the creative powers 
 of the child, and gives rise to endless delight in play-labor. 
 The adjoined interesting article by Professor Hirschfelder, of 
 Leipsic, will afford welcome suggestions to parents and, 
 teachers who feel the responsibility of seeking a scientific 
 solution of the higher problems of education. 
 
 P. S. — A year has elapsed since writing the above. A year 
 not less devoted to general discussion on our educational plat- 
 form concerning the pro and contra as regards the introduction 
 of manual dexterity in our public schools. 
 
 While France, Belgium, Germany, including Austria, even 
 Denmark and Russia, recognize the Sloyd or Swedish system, 
 the original move in this direction, these countries show a 
 marked difference in their curriculum of school work. 
 Greater variety of work is carried on. Industrial art is fos- 
 tered, theoretically and practically, using individual designing 
 and ornamental work preparatory to studies of art, while the 
 making of apparatus (See Director Alois Bruhns' remarks on 
 public schools at Vienna) illustrating problems of natural 
 science presents, a not less important branch in manual labor 
 schools. '■■- 
 
 The American is a born workman — to be trained into an 
 artisan. To become this he needs plastic rest to unfold his 
 talents in this direction. The child's critical or negative pro- 
 pensities are too much cultivated and fostered (all over the 
 civilized world) at the expense of the development of its warm, 
 affirmative, and harmonious conception of things. (Die har- 
 monisch anschauliche Seite.) 
 
 * Director Bruhns, in personal conversation, complained exceedingly 
 about the lack of preparation and skill he experienced in the boys entering 
 his classes at the age of 10 or n years desirous of making physical instru- 
 ments — a fact that urged the writer to propose paper cutting and wood cut- 
 ting with a knife as most admirably adapted to serve as connecting link 
 between the kindergarten and manual training. 
 
Introduction. 5 
 
 In short, intellectual powers are more considered than 
 emotional powers, while psychology points to emotional im- 
 pulses as the motor forces to abstract thinking-. 
 
 The. kindergarten, or Froebel's system, with its ethical aims, 
 acts in strict accordance with these natural laws. It knows 
 that without interest, sympathy, or love, the necessary self- 
 activity (called attention or concentration) is not aroused and 
 no sufficient reasoning power awakened to retain a lasting 
 impression. 
 
 Pedagogical insight begins to recognize and analyze these 
 effects as the germ period of the coming artisan. 
 
 The first years in school life, less burdening with school 
 work, and the most accessible for the application of anything 
 that is true and beautiful, have therefore been chosen, and it is 
 proposed to continue the dealings with the beautiful prepara- 
 tory to industrial art by keeping and cultivating the child's 
 taste, creative faculties and skill. 
 
 My last work, "Form and Color," presents another at- 
 tempt in this direction as "A Connecting Link." A short 
 synopsis of it may speak for itself. It tends to children's 
 educational joy, and their judgment goes gratifyingly in my 
 favor wherever thev glance at it. 
 
 R. M. 
 
 Sax Francisco, November, 1890. 
 
THE MOTOR FORCES 
 
 OF 
 
 MANUAL TRAINING. 
 
 The noble structure of earnest devotion to the educational 
 needs of humanity stands on its broad platform, unique in its 
 reformatory power, under the simple name "Kindergarten." 
 
 Not as a remarkable outgrowth oi the American soil ; but 
 in the extent and rapidity of its growth in America, it has 
 no parallel. The independence, the generosity, the devotion, 
 the wealth, the republican spirit, and, above all, the clear 
 recognition of cause and effect of the American woman, 
 have promoted this process. 
 
 Hardly two-score years have passed since our venerable 
 friend, Miss K. P. Peabody, sent the glad tidings from Europe 
 to her sister, Mrs. Horace Mann, oi the work oi the great 
 educational reformer, Friedrich Froebel, urging the imme- 
 diate introduction of his teachings into this country. This 
 demand was met by a few German kindergarten trainers. 
 But it was Susan Blow of St. Louis, an American lady of 
 wealth and high culture, who first connected Frcebel's edu- 
 cational system with our public schools. Capable of per- 
 sonally conducting- her free training schools, and, aided by the 
 philosophic and practical insight of the city school superin- 
 tendent, W. T. Harris, she saw her work crowned by the 
 success of sixty free kindergartens at once connected with the 
 public schools of St. Louis. The exhibits of kindergarten 
 work, and an actual kindergarten at Philadelphia in 1876, 
 showed American readiness for the conception of a more 
 rational development of the children oi the Nation. Against 
 opposition and lethargy, criticism and indifference, the 
 highest inspiration and self-denial battled bravely until public 
 opinion was conquered by the unshaken mental and practical 
 influence of the motherly power in the virgins of America. 
 The loving charm of the virgin, her devotion and thorough- 
 ness, gave the method of Friedrich Frcebel its foothold, and, 
 it is to be hoped, its indestructible power. Even the learned 
 teachers in the National Teachers' Conventions consented to 
 make room for the work of the live and six years old school 
 aborers. Notwithstanding these efforts, it needed ten years' 
 
The Connecting Link. 7 
 
 hard labor and an outlay of almost a million dollars before 
 Mrs. Quincy Agassiz Shaw and her associates succeeded in 
 inducing the school board of Boston to adopt the kinder- 
 garten as a part of public instruction. It would be erroneous, 
 however, to accept the work thus far accomplished as work 
 completed. The great truth of a natural human development 
 does not end with the kindergarten — it rather begins with it. 
 
 PLAY IN WORK AND WORK IN PLAY. 
 No one denies that childish play is not devoid of labor. On 
 the other hand, it is generally admitted that play and labor 
 are so closely united, in their two-fold nature, that it is diffi- 
 cult to separate them. Nay, more, we have learned to respect 
 and promote their combined physical effect as a natural re- 
 quirement of the child as it is of the man, proving that labor 
 does not burden if a free and spontaneous activity is allowed. 
 For instance, an artist does not feel his labor to be a burden, 
 because his work comes freely and spontaneously to him. The 
 truth of this fact is laid down most convincingly in the open 
 letter of Dr. Oscar Browning, of Cambridge University, 
 England, in favor of Froebel's principles of education. He 
 says he noticed the exactness with which a boy was able to 
 give an account of the details of a cricket match, although 
 it had lasted for hours, and had consisted of many complicated 
 incidents, a proof that his power of memory had increased in 
 the ratio of his joy, because delight and animation had been 
 associated with free mental activity. Thus, illustrating a 
 fundamental principle of Frcebel, Mr. Browning continues : 
 "If we are obliged to acknowledge Friedrich Froebel's method 
 of education and teaching as appealing most to the universally 
 ruing laws of nature, then the consideration of a difference 
 inage is quite removed, and I see no reason why it should 
 not possess equal vitality in our universities." Of all that 
 man owes to Friedrich Frcebel, the educational application of 
 this principle to early childhood is recognized as most funda- 
 mental to its development. It was this development in its 
 natural needs which drove Frcebel into the humble hut of the 
 peasant mother in Thuringia. Here he found, in the simple 
 means of play-work, the childish sympathy of a mother's 
 heart yet untouched by artificial impressions, and these 
 means, discovered through the impressions of nature, bear 
 its character and manifest the fundamental truth. 
 
 Froebel's first play-tools for the baby represent this funda- 
 mental truth in form, color, and motion. From this stepping- 
 stone he gives a variety of experiences, which, in sympathy 
 with childish activity, furnish unconsciously a first and ever- 
 
8 The Connecting Link. 
 
 lasting conception of truth. The reproduction of these 
 impressions as free manifestations of the creative activity of 
 the child turned into educational labor presents but the 
 embodied logic of Frcebel's system, using the self-activity of 
 the child which develops itself from within. 
 
 THE MANUAL LABOR REFORM IN GERMANY. 
 
 Psycho-physiological education brings Frcebel's method 
 with renewed force to the front. No leader of a so-called 
 " manual-labor school" in Germany (Directoren der Handfer- 
 tigkeits-Schulen) fails to regard Frcebel's requirement for 
 "knowing by doing" as fundamental to the universal require- 
 ment of a reform in all grades of instruction. The existing 
 manual-training schools are the outgrowth of Frcebel's princi- 
 ples ripened, after the experience of twenty years, into their 
 present universal aim. The petition to this end presented 
 to the Reichstag in German}- had the full sanction of Prince 
 Bismarck, who granted 5,000 marks to the undertaking 
 through the minister of public instruction. This petition 
 was signed by more than seventeen thousand of the most dis- 
 tinguished men of all classes, and was supplemented by a 
 special appeal from the commission on school matters of the 
 academic association (Die Erweiterte Schul Commission der 
 Deutschen academischen Vereinigung). * 
 
 Lectures by men of all classes have been given. Exhibits 
 by the teachers and pupils of the different manual-labor 
 schools have promoted this cause. 
 
 These labor-training schools, as far as they have been intro- 
 duced, are the work of an extensive association for mutual 
 support, though the schools, individually, are independent of 
 each other. 
 
 Their leaders recognize the necessitv of providing early 
 childhood with a well-arranged preparatory course of work, 
 fundamental in principle and method to the higher grades, 
 in manual dexterity. 
 
 They agree that this preparatory course must be undertaken 
 by young, professionally-trained women, whose motherly power 
 and cheerful influence will turn the happy school-work 
 hours into a continued delight in home labor, thus uniting 
 parent and child in work and happy satisfaction. To this 
 end the seminary for the teaching of manual labor at Leip- 
 
 *The reports of 'S9 to '90 show a marked increase of teachers taking 
 courses in niauual-labor schools, and the same may be said about the 
 " Knaben horsts." 
 
The Connecting Link. p 
 
 sic, under the directorship of Dr. W. -Goetze, has of late 
 admitted ladies. The course is a short and inexpensive one, 
 and occurs in the season of general vacation. 
 
 The course lasts from April 25th to August 21st, and em- 
 braces: {a) Paste-board work; (b) carpentering ; (c) wood-carv- 
 ing (Kerbschnitt); and id) metal-work. 
 
 Four English ladies attended this course recently. (Twenty 
 ladies went to Copenhagen for the same purpose.) Men 
 students, of every nationality except American, have entered 
 the course. 
 
 The pioneer worker in manual dexterity, A von Clauson 
 Kaas, has opened a similar institution for ladies at Dresden. 
 His course gives instruction in wood-work (joinery, wood- 
 carving), scroll-work, inlaid-work, and picture-burning on 
 wood, in, paper and paste-board work, paper-cutting, and bris- 
 tol-board work, pressed- leather work, cork-work, and mod- 
 elling. 
 
 The extensive and valuable course of the manual-labor 
 school connected with the Vienna public school (Buerger- 
 schule) under their enthusiastic director, Alois Bruhns, de- 
 mands that the boy of nine or ten years old should possess a 
 certain degree of manual skill in order to be able to fashion 
 the material with which to experiment. Mr. Bruhns says: 
 
 "Normally endowed children try to busy themselves as 
 much as possible, physically, to give reality to their 
 thoughts. ' ' 
 
 What else is the play of children than the endeavor to give 
 practical expression to their world of thought? When the 
 child comes afterwards into the public school, and the in- 
 struction there progresses suitably and successfully, this 
 endeavor continues, although usually in a more limited de- 
 gree, according as the opportunities of instruction permit; the 
 child tries to draw, calculates and measures all possible 
 objects, and even tries to represent, with the help of its com- 
 rades, the stories which it has heard. How often one child 
 asks another, for instance, to play Little Red Riding Hood, 
 saying, "You be the wolf and I will be Little Red Riding 
 Hood." 
 
 When the child gets into the higher classes, where he 
 studies the exact sciences, he tries to reproduce at home 
 what he has seen at school; he experiments. 
 
 If a child does not do this it is either because of a diseased 
 development of the body, or because the instruction has given 
 him no clear ideas, so that he becomes discouraged with his 
 first attempts, and loses the desire of putting his thoughts into 
 practice. It is only success and the attainment of results that 
 give encouragement, which finally develops energy. 
 
jo * The Connecting Link. 
 
 What has been said being admitted, we may assert that it 
 instruction is to become more educational, and if it is to wake 
 up and develop all the slumbering- powers in the child, if 
 must include physical work within its scope. 
 
 This course indicates the limits within which physical work 
 should be pursued by whatever pedagogy has recognized as 
 the essential and correct thing for the several stages of in- 
 struction and education — that is, it has to adjust itself to the 
 real and proper world in which the child lives and to give 
 practical shape to its thoughts. Instruction in manual dex- 
 terity should, therefore, as far as it falls within the time in 
 which the child is undergoing school instruction, be strictly 
 confined to these limits. Bringing in foreign objects, which 
 are not connected with* the work, tears the child out of its 
 own world, withdraws it from its unitary development, and 
 overburdens it with double mental work, if the instruction in 
 manual dexterity does not become a mere mechanical drill. 
 
 The question might be asked here, whether our theoretical 
 instruction has any need of being supplemented by physical 
 work ? It would carry us too far to answer this question for 
 every stage, so we have given in the following only a rapid 
 review of the requirements of instruction in the upper grade 
 of public schools at Vienna, for industrial purposes, leaving 
 out the subjects which contribute only to culture, such as 
 writing, singing and athletics. 
 
 NATURAL SCIENCES. 
 
 Object : Knowledge of the most important physical and 
 chemical phenomena, based principally upon experiment, 
 with continual regard to the requirements of town life , 
 knowledge of the fabrication of the most important products 
 of industry, with' especial regard to those which are of the 
 most importance locally. 
 
 FIRST CLASS — TWO HOURS A WEEK. 
 
 Forms of connection of bodies, cohesion; kinds of solid 
 bodies, adhesion and capillary phenomena, impenetrability, 
 divisibility, porosity, weight, comprehension of absolute and 
 specific weight, density. 
 
 Expansion of bodies by heat, thermometer, expansion of 
 water, expansion of air, draughts of air, wind. 
 
 Magnetic attraction, natural and artificial magnets, polar- 
 ity, construction of artificial magnets by stroking, distribu- 
 tion of magnetism. 
 
The Connecting Link. 11 
 
 Fundamental phenomena of electricity, electroscope, good 
 and bad conductors of electricity, electrization by communi- 
 cation and distribution, electrizing machines, leyden jars, 
 galvanism, voltaic battery, electric current. 
 
 Bottom pressure and side pressure, vessels of communica- 
 tion. 
 
 Air pressure, barometer, siphon. 
 
 Production and propagation of sound, kinds of sound. 
 
 Luminous and non-luminous, transparent and opaque 
 bodies, rectilinear propagation and rapidity of light, shadows, 
 strength of illumination (depending upon the angle of inci- 
 dence), reflection of light, the plane mirror. 
 
 Water, decomposition of water by the electrical current, 
 hydrogen and oxygen, chemical decomposition, oxy-hydrogen 
 gas, mixture, chemical combination, atmospheric air, essen- 
 tial constituents of air, nitrogen, carbon, sulphur; phosphor- 
 ous matches ; chlorine, disinfection ; iodine, bromine, ele- 
 ments, analysis. 
 
 SECOND CLASS — TWO HOURS A WEEK. 
 
 The subjects of instruction of the first class are reviewed 
 with the several chapters, and are carried farther : 
 
 Conduction of heat, good and bad conductors of heat, 
 change of forms of aggregation of bodies by heat, melting, 
 congealing, crystalization ; evaporation, vaporization, distilla- 
 tion, sublimation. 
 
 Magnetic needle, declination, compass, inclination (dip), 
 terrestrial magnetism. 
 
 Electrophore, atmospheric electricity; ozone, thunder- 
 storms, lightning-rods; the most frequently applied galvanic 
 batteries, physiological, thermal, illuminant and chemical 
 actions of the galvanic current, galvanoplastics. 
 
 Center of gravity, kinds of equilibrium, stability, lever 
 scales; roller, pulley; arbor, wheel. 
 
 Equilibrium and motion, inertia, uniform motion, compre- 
 hension of mechanical work, measurement of mechanical 
 work, pendulum, clocks, oppositions of motion. 
 
 Propagation of water pressure, hydraulic press ; loss of 
 weight in water, swimming, determination of specific gravity, 
 hydrostatic balance, arcemeter. 
 
 Air pumps, loss of weight in air ; air balloons, bellows, 
 suction and force pumps, Heron's German ball, fire-engine. 
 
 The most important sonorous bodies, rapidity, and strength 
 of sound; reflexion of sound, echo, reverberation, harmonics. 
 
12 The Connecting Link. 
 
 Curved mirror, refraction of light, optical lenses, dispersion 
 of colors, spectrum. 
 
 Lime burning, caustic lime; carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, 
 saltpetre, nitric acid ; acids, bases, salts (in the chemical 
 sense), sulphurous acid, sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, 
 muriatic acid, fluoric acid ; etching of glass, ammonia, sul- 
 phuretted hydrogen ; dry distillation, heavier and lighter 
 carburetted hydrogen gas, fire damp, safety lamps, coal, 
 illuminating gas, combustion, potash ; soda, lye, borax ; silicic 
 acid, glass, metals, magnesium, aluminium, clay, porcelain, 
 iron, lead, tin, zinc, copper, mercury, and silver, alloys. 
 
 THIRD CLASS — THREE HOURS A WEEK. 
 
 The subjects of instruction of the first and second classes 
 are reviewed and carried farther : 
 
 Radiation of heat, sources of heat, heating value of com- 
 bustible materials. 
 
 Laws of vaporization, humidity of the air, fog, clouds, rain, 
 snow, hail, dew, hoar-frost ; elasticity of water-vapor, steam- 
 engines. 
 
 Magnetic effects of the galvanic current, telegraph, induc- 
 tion of electrical currents, telephone. 
 
 Inclined planes, wedge, screw, free fall, projectile motion, 
 central motion, centrifugal force, water-wheels, grist-mills 
 (water-mills and wind-mills). 
 
 Vocal and auditory organs of man, hearing. 
 
 Strength of light, illuminating value of illuminating ma- 
 terials ; the human eye, sight, spectacles, microscope, tele- 
 scope, photography. 
 
 Getting iron out of the ores, blast furnaces. 
 
 Carbohydrates, spirituous fermentation, spirits of wine, 
 spirituous beverages, acid fermentation, acetic acid, vinegar 
 making; verdigris, detection of verdigris in foods; putrefac- 
 tion and decay, carbonization, fats, glycerine, fatty acids, and 
 other important organic acids, stearine candles, soaps, some 
 resins, and ethereal oils. 
 
 Tanning, coloring materials, and some of the most im- 
 portant colored goods, dyeing, calico printing, bleaching, 
 albumens, glues, foods, preservation and falsification of foods. 
 
 (This curriculum embraces the age of 10 to 14 years.) 
 
 SCHOOL REFORMS IN AMERICA. 
 The necessity for a similar reform "is felt by the educators 
 of America, and steps have been taken in Boston to form a 
 National Association of those who believe that extensive 
 
The Connecting Link. ij 
 
 modifications of the traditional curriculum in the direction 
 of kindergarten, tools, modeling, drawing, form, and color, 
 cooking, sewing, and elementary science, in most or all these 
 branches, are required for the good of both the scholars and 
 the schools. 
 
 To this end the association proposes to unify the various 
 departments of educational work from the kindergarten up- 
 ward ; to study the fundamental principles of education ; to 
 originate such a system as shall harmonize methods of instruc- 
 tion and training, and make them more effective in public 
 and private schools. 
 
 The following-named gentlemen have been elected officers 
 of this association: G. Stanley Hall, President; McAllister, 
 Melleney, Murray Butler, School Superintendent Edwin 
 Sewer, of Boston," and others. 
 
 At the same time it may be mentioned that the following 
 resolutions were passed by the convention of German-Ameri- 
 can teachers, at Buffalo, in 1885, to the effeel that — 
 
 1. The schools should harmoniously develop the pupil's 
 whole nature; his knowledge should be broadened, elevated, 
 and strengthened ; his will regulated, and his sense of the 
 beautiful encouraged. 
 
 2. Work should be introduced into the school as a new and 
 important factor in the attainment of these purposes. 
 
 3. The hand should lead the mind and the mind the hand. 
 
 4. Work should supplement instruction in athletics, and 
 serves as gymnastics for the hand and eye. 
 
 5. Work and the school work-bench must ac~t morally on 
 the children, and adapt and attract them early to friendly 
 and combined working and doing. 
 
 6. Work should serve as a compensation for bodily and 
 mental activity, and have a freshening and enlivening effect 
 upon instruction. 
 
 7. Work is necessary to the educator for a better acquaint- 
 ance with the scholar, and foreshadows more distinctly the 
 way along which he should lead his pupil. 
 
 8. By the school's esteem for work the workman's ambition 
 will be awakened in the child. 
 
 9. Skillful workmen will be trained, who will be fitted both 
 to do a higher grade of work and to demand a higher price 
 for their labor. 
 
 10. By the introduction of work into the schools a way will 
 be opened for the social elevation of the masses. 
 
 The problem of the continuity of human development in 
 its philosophic conception from the Kindergarten to the 
 Manual Training School, is of recent date. Our teachers 
 
// The Connecting Link. 
 
 hardly realize the necessity for a professional training in order 
 to teach the alternating culture of the head and the hand. 
 This desideratum can no longer be deferred, for it constitutes 
 not only the fundamental aim of the desired school reform, 
 but is a problem of grave, social, and national economy. It 
 presents the question : 
 
 Shall the child continue, without interruption, its three-fold 
 development as begun in the kindergarten? 
 
 That is to say, by a self-activity encouraged gradually and 
 systematically when the life's habits are being formed, by joy- 
 ful creative occupations, which lead "through work to work " 
 in its highest moral sense, and this at an age when the whole 
 nature demands work ; or, 
 
 Shall we systematically pervert and destroy all that has been 
 accomplished by the kindergarten system by failing to form 
 and control the child's life-habits through the continuation of 
 FrcebeV s developing pi'inciples f 
 
 Shall zve not rather seek for a ' ' Connecting Link ' ' to connect 
 the kindergarten with the primary department, introducing 
 educational labor methodically and gradually, thus becoming 
 the leading nation in this rational reform ? 
 
 The money furnished for industrial education by our wealthy 
 philanthopists will not accomplish this work of reform unless 
 Frcebel's kindergarten method is accepted as a fundamental 
 basis. That means either by elevating labor to its ideal, or 
 by merely facilitating and lessening the burden of labor to 
 humanity. 
 
 Ruskin and Canon Farrar represent the advocates of ideal 
 education in England. Farrar says, in a lecture before the 
 ' ' London Society of Art' ' : " Each neglect of art, imagination, 
 and the creative power of the child as a means of education, 
 must carry with it great drawbacks. We give early instruc- 
 tion in writing, 'reading, and arithmetic ; but the far more 
 important development of feeling and understanding of all 
 that is beautiful and true is shown to be completely neglected. " 
 
 It is deeply to be regretted that these valuable opinions 
 stand in direct opposition to the growing disposition in Eng- 
 land to introduce labor in early childhood as a means of train- 
 ing toward mere utility. This might be permissible if it did 
 not lead to the erroneous conclusion that the undeniable merits 
 of utility do not suffice for the harmonious, three-fold human 
 development of the head, heart and hand for which we are 
 seeking. This error has misled even prominent disciples of 
 Frcebel to see manifested in the Sloyd system and its use, on 
 the joiner's bench, the solution of the educational value of 
 labor. 
 
The Connecting -Link. ij 
 
 Similar danger lurks around our own doors. The revolu- 
 tionizing principles of Froebel's method have not sufficiently 
 permeated our primary development, so as to demand and 
 furnish a full course of kindergarten method throughout. 
 
 No doubt our normal schools will continue to respond to 
 this need as rapidly as they have begun. Should this be ac- 
 complished, the American nation can now hardly realize the 
 advantages it will possess in this particular over all other 
 nations. 
 
 America offers advantages in kindergarten training that 
 are found nowhere else. The German kindergarten system 
 admits the student at the immature age of fourteen, whereas 
 the American normal-class pupil seldom enters under eighteen 
 years of age. This maturity, together with the free training 
 and its underlying culture (provided ample time and oppor- 
 tunity are afforded for thorough theoretical and practical train- 
 ing) afford the greatest inducements to the study of Froebel's 
 system. 
 
 The general disposition to furnish the primary school 
 department with exercises in manual dexterity (which 
 should be nothing else in character but the extension of 
 the kindergarten), as before stated, evince the recognition 
 of the necessity of training of adequate teachers. 
 
 A special teacher will be needed for the direction and super- 
 vision of the primary practice department of every normal 
 school. This teacher may instruct the pupils of the normal 
 school as well as those who may be desirous of taking a 
 special course. The encouragement of a continuance of 
 salary during leave of absence would add to the teacher's zeal. 
 
i6 Tiic Connecting Link. 
 
 THE CONNECTING LINK 
 
 IXTROIH 
 
 KNIFE FOR CUTTING PAPER AND WOOD. 
 
 Comparison and Forms of Contents. 
 
 The folding and cutting- of paper with the scissors is a 
 familiar exercise in the kindergarten and develops, like other 
 occupations of Froebel, in three directions: in the understand- 
 ing of forms of knowledge, or of space and contents, of forms 
 of beauty and of forms of life. 
 
 Franz Hertel, director of the Manual-Labor Training School 
 at Zwickau, combines this useful occupation with the draw- 
 ing from objects instead of special patterns, recommending that 
 the result of the child's efforts should be kept in drawing 
 books, to serve as an exhibit of progress. 
 
 The new feature of Hertel' s Avork lies in the systematized 
 use of the knife instead of the scissors, as in the kindergarten, 
 thus forming the intermediate step toward the cutting of 
 wood and paste-board. 
 
 Both these occupations afford ample scope to the child in 
 the full expression oi form-language, in creativeness and de- 
 signing. It should be the chief aim of all play-work in 
 early childhood, to afford the child that amount of glee and 
 happiness which is its prime right toward a normal healthy 
 condition. The attractiveness of the objects and their con- 
 nection with the surrounding world in which the child lives, 
 the cheapness of the material, and the simplicity of the tools, 
 give this whole method an inexpressible superiority oi adap- 
 tation as the "Connecting Link between the kindergarten 
 and the Manual Training School. 
 
 The beneficial effect of the deductive method on the young 
 mind is a practical surprise to the thoughtful educator. In 
 clear perception of the simple fundamental knowledge of 
 things in a sympathetic playful direction of the older play- 
 mate (the teacher), the child, will acquire a wonderful power 
 of association of ideas and conclusions. The mental develop- 
 ment in the kindergarten is mainly due to the deductive 
 process, and will continue to be the source of spontaneous 
 
The Connecting Link. jy 
 
 inspiration, if continued through the school grades. "Don't 
 tell me!" exclaims even the youngest of the young when 
 bent on solving some difficulty theoretically or practically. 
 
 Practical Hints. 
 
 Furnish the child with one sheet of white and two sheets 
 of stiff colored paper, each of four inches square, with which 
 to illustrate similarity and dissimilarity in form and contents. 
 The child uses the ruler and knife to separate the desired 
 parts. This exercise teaches not only the discriminating of 
 shapes and contents, but also of fractional parts. 
 
 While the knife gives easy exercise preparatory to the more 
 difficult work of wood-cutting and paste-board work, the 
 accompanying chart may suffice to make this system per- 
 fectly clear; but for the less experienced the following few 
 words of direction may not be amiss, especially as it is in- 
 tended to illustrate the deductive method by which self-help 
 may be developed in the child. Experiments that have for 
 years been made in the writer's own school, prove that this 
 method is not only possible, but easy. 
 
 Analytical Comparison. 
 
 Having developed the understanding of a straight line 
 which might logically be derived from the previous use of 
 the curve (see Emma Marwedel's "Circular Drawing Sys- 
 tem "), the square, and the oblong, it will be easy to lead the 
 child to a clear idea of the wholes, halves, and quarters and 
 the multiplicity of corners and their inside points, called 
 angles. 
 
 Fundamental Knowledge of Things. 
 
 Fundamental knowledge of position, direction, and dimen- 
 sion, by means of measurement and the accurate use of terms, 
 have not been enough considered in their practical value in 
 the kindergarten or in our public schools. Modern education 
 begins to lay great stress upon the necessity of impressing the 
 child with the full meaning of terms and their connection to 
 its environment, requiring accurate description and compari- 
 son of objects in the child's own words; thus making him, so 
 to say, self-training in thought and reason, and preventing 
 him from stringing words parrot fashion. 
 
 Exercises in Drawing Lines. 
 
 Lines may be drawn by the use of the ruler, by the aid of 
 dots to be connected, and by using the eye-measure only. 
 
r8 m The Connecting Link. 
 
 Exercises in Cutting Straight Lines. 
 
 It is necessary to follow, first, lines of ruled paper carefully 
 with the knife, using the right and left hand alternately, 
 to prevent one-handed development. This should be prac- 
 ticed until a cut can be made which leaves the edges perfectly 
 smooth and straight. 
 
 PLATE I. 
 
 On the whole, it is expected that the following directions 
 are sufficient to enable teacher and pupil to produce the forms 
 described. If not so, please address Emma Marwedel, San 
 Francisco, and the forms will be sent for a nominal price cut 
 in stiff paper. 
 
 Do not neglect to furnish two or three harmoniously blend- 
 ing papers, and allow tasteful ornaments by drawing. 
 
 i. Exercises by cutting strips of equal size till they are 
 perfect. 
 
 2. Use the strips to lay down a figure of four equal 
 sides. 
 
 3. Ask name of the figure. 
 
 4. Cut the same number and size of strips. 
 
 5. Produce of them tzuo equally-shaped and equally-sized 
 figures of four sides. 
 
 6. Ask name of the figure. 
 
 7. Let similar figures be found in child's environments. 
 
 8. Compare similarity and dissimilarity between the square 
 and oblong. 
 
 9. Refer to the general and special qualities in condensed 
 and practical terms, and avoid the taught terms, as form, 
 corners, edges, angles, etc.* 
 
 10. Draw both figures in a drawing book, marking the 
 division by the strips. 
 
 11. Let some of the children state what they see, in all de- 
 tails. 
 
 *In my kindergarten and school the clear conception of those qualities 
 belonging to all objects called general qualities was experimentally 
 realized — (see "Conscious Motherhood and Childhood's Poetry and 
 Studies of Life and Form," by E. M., San Francisco, and " D. C. 
 Heath, Boston, Mass.) — as having matter, form or shape, color, and exten- 
 sion in three directions, taking space, and depending on the law of cohesion. 
 Reference to these parts — as general qualities belonging to all objects, and 
 special qualities of each object — formed habits, leading the youngest child to 
 classification and a logical discrimination between all objects — carrying an un- 
 deniable aid to a clear perception of all later studies and to expression of judg- 
 ment and thoughts. It is a very strong, yet neglected, demand of Frcebel's 
 method. 
 
The Connecting Link. 19 
 
 12. Compare the expressions and call for the judgment of 
 the children upon them. 
 
 13. Have the best statement put on the blackboard by a 
 child ; correct spelling. 
 
 14. Have it written in the drawing book. (This deducting, 
 descriptive, or Socratic method proved a marked success in 
 Miss Marwedel's kindergarten and school — joyful rivalry, 
 fostering pleasant animation and critical discrimination in 
 judgment and exact language.) 
 
 15. Cut seven equally - sized squares; form them in two 
 squares. 
 
 16. What happens ? 
 
 17. Cut three small squares. 
 
 18. Join them to form a square. 
 
 19. What happened in either of these two cases, and how 
 much is wanted to form three squares ? 
 
 20. How much of a whole square have you in either case ? 
 
 21. How do we call such parts of a whole? 
 
 22. Have stated what seen. 
 
 23. Compare what is seen in the two figures. 
 
 24. Criticise language. 
 
 25. Correct on black-board. 
 
 26. Draw in book, with best description. 
 
 27. Cut a square from corner to corner through the middle. 
 
 28. Ask name of these figures. 
 
 29. Lay clown a square and an oblong ; compare with one 
 and two triangles of the last square. 
 
 30. Have stated what was seen, using the proper names. 
 
 31. Criticise language. 
 
 32. Correct on black-board. 
 
 33. Draw in book with best statement. 
 
 34. Cut square diagonally and once through the middle. 
 
 35. How many parts have you ? 
 
 36. How much does each part present of the whole ? 
 
 37. Is a new form introduced ? 
 
 38. State, criticise, correct, and draw. 
 
 40. Cut a square, its contents consisting of two squares, 
 besides leaving how many eighths ? 
 
 41. Cut a square with four right angle triangles, the right 
 angles meeting in the center. (Have two sheets.) 
 
 42. Compare the last two squares. 
 
 43. State, criticise, correct, and draw. 
 
 44. Cut four half triangles out of two squares. 
 
 45. Place them in an oblong of paper, divided by a line 
 horizontally. 
 
 46. Join the longest side of the triangle middle to middle 
 with the horizontal line. 
 
20 The Connecting Link. 
 
 47. Right angle upwards. 
 
 48. Join another triangle to the left, acute angle to acute 
 angle. 
 
 4.9. Join the acute angle of the third triangle with the 
 middle of the base of the first triangle laid down to the left, 
 right angle downwards. 
 
 50. Join the fourth triangle, right angle downwards, acute 
 angle to acute angle to the left. 
 
 51. What forms and how many of each kind do you perceive 
 in square measurement ? 
 
 52. How much does each present of the whole? 
 
 53. State relation to each other. 
 
 54. Describe the new form you see. 
 
 55.. Discuss statement, correct, draw and write. 
 
 56. Divide square in two oblongs. 
 
 57. Cut triangle half the size of oblong. 
 
 58. Join its base to the left hand edge of the square. 
 
 59. How many parts do you see ? How do they differ in 
 shape ? 
 
 60. Repeat same figure in square instead of oblong, two 
 triangles, joining base to base in middle of the square. 
 
 61. Describe the new form you see. 
 
 62. Ask name. 
 
 63. State its contents. 
 
 64. How many parts have you of each ? 
 
 65. State similarity and dissimilarity between the two last 
 figures. 
 
 66. Discuss and correct statement, draw and write. 
 
 67. Cut square, divide in two oblongs by horizontal line. 
 
 68. Divide one of the oblongs by slanting cut from the 
 right hand upper corner of the oblong to the left hand lower 
 corner. (DonH forget that two squares are in operation.) 
 
 69. Describe the new form you see. 
 
 70. Ask name. 
 
 71. State its contents ; compare scalene triangle with right 
 angular triangle, oblong and square. 
 
 72. Cut squares. 
 
 73. Cut four scalene triangles. 
 
 74. Place two of them in square with right angles in the 
 left side upper and lower corner. 
 
 75. The other two right angles joining to middle of the 
 right hand edge of the square. 
 
 76. Construct a strictly opposite figure as regards position. 
 
 77. Compare the two figures in similarities and dissimilari- 
 ties. 
 
 78. State parts and contents. 
 
The Connecting Link. 2T 
 
 79. Discuss and correct statement, draw and write. 
 
 80. Divide square by line horizontally. 
 
 81. Cut one oblong in two scalene triangles. 
 
 82. The other by a horizontal cut. 
 
 83. State difference of forms and contents. 
 
 84. Use three squares always. 
 
 85. Divide by horizontal and vertical lines. 
 
 86. Cut two joined scalene triangles in one piece. 
 
 87. Place middle to middle in square. 
 
 88. What do you see ? 
 
 89. Ask name. 
 
 90. State difference of forms and contents. 
 
 91. Find the opposite of this form. 
 
 92. Compare the two figures. 
 
 93. Discuss and correct statement, draw and write. 
 
 94. Cut a square, divide by horizontal line. 
 
 95. Place an equilateral triangle middle to middle from the 
 left hand edge. 
 
 96. Divide the rest of the square into two scalene and two 
 equilateral triangles. 
 
 97. What are the contents? 
 
 98. Divide each of these parts in halves. 
 
 99. How many parts have you ? 
 
 100. What part of the whole do they present, fractionally 
 expressed ? 
 
 Any teacher will be able to extend these exercises. 
 
 Ornamentation by drawing and harmonious combinations 
 on the laws of aesthetics should be educationally considered. 
 
 A dozen sample forms may be received by sending 75 cents 
 to Miss Emma Marwedel, San Francisco. 
 
 PLATE II. 
 
 Cutting geometrical forms of stiff paper with the knife, 
 preparatory to Industrial Arts. 
 
 Developing : Skill, steadiness of the hand, conception of 
 harmony and beauty by models, to be analyzed and discussed, 
 leading to free production — excluding dictation or copying — 
 power to express that which is seen, by drawing and color- 
 ing, and individually spoken and written language. 
 
 Each form composed of three or more colors, the analysis 
 of geometrical diversities becomes a very attractive, instead of, 
 as hitherto, a dry study, while individual changes offer an 
 endless variety to serve as an instructive home pleasure. 
 
 A sequence of Frcebel's paper folding, the observing and 
 comparative faculties of the child are directed to an indi- 
 
22 The Connecting Link. 
 
 vidual construction of certain combinations with the special 
 view to harmony and beauty. For instance : 
 
 i. Produce a figure in three colors, forming a large equi- 
 lateral triangle, presenting in its centre, likewise, a smaller 
 equilateral triangle, surrounded with three scalene triangles— 
 the rest of the space divided by six equilateral triangle*. 
 
 2. Produce a figure in three colors, presenting a hexagon. 
 How many equilateral, and how many scalene triangles are 
 needed, and in what relation stand the two to each other 
 to show in the centre a circular form, divided in twelve parts, 
 radiating from the centre. Describe the figure. 
 
 Linear divisions of the square, twisted in and out, produce 
 charming effects, teaching to ornament the paste-board work. 
 Compare the different inventions of the child from an oestheti- 
 cal point. A dozen sample forms may be received by send- 
 ing 75 cents to Emma Marwedel, San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 PLATE III. 
 
 Cutting ornamental borders of stiff paper with the knife, 
 to be used for ornamentation on paste-board work. 
 
 A dozen sample forms may be received by sending 75 cents 
 to Miss Emma Marwedel, San Francisco. 
 
The Connecting Link. 23 
 
 WOODCUTTING 
 
 IN A 
 
 GRADED SERIES OF FORTY-TWO MODELS. 
 
 " Of all teachers who should be visited," said Dr. W. Goetze 
 (Director of the " Handfertigkeits " Seminary at Leipsic), 
 "Miss Eva Rodhe deserves the first place. She is a 'true 
 teacher, von Gottes Gnaden,' as we Germans say. She 
 preaches the gospel of a happy childhood, not merely by 
 words but by language of the heart which creates life and joy 
 where the every-day human being finds only insurmountable 
 hardships and impossibilities. Miss Rodhe has proved her 
 knowledge of child nature by introducing familiar forms in 
 work, representing toys and the forms of life and of its envi- 
 ronment, in exclusive preference to dead geometric combina- 
 tions, thus establishing a link between the school and the 
 home — between labor and enjoyment — whereby the combined 
 interest of parent and child is greatly increased. 
 
 Miss Rodhe is the very life-source of the "Connecting 
 Link." She kindly furnished the writer with the patterns 
 for wood cutting on the accompanying plates, which will be 
 supplied as a completed series in wood to schools ordering 
 them. 
 
 To those who may doubt the possibility of such practical 
 results being accomplished by young children, the writer may 
 state that she has seen similar work, made from old cigar 
 boxes, in Berlin, at the kindergarten of Frcebel's niece, Mrs. 
 Henrietta Shrader, president of the Pestalozzi-Frcebel Asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE ACCOMPANYING DRAWINGS. 
 General Remarks. 
 
 The figures illustrated in the accompanying drawings are 
 a few forms which may be used to illustrate this system, and 
 the teacher may invent other forms, those shown serving as 
 models. As it is the object of the system to teach children 
 the use of their hands in manipulating wood, the figures to 
 
24. The Connecting Link. 
 
 be made by them should commence with the elementary form 
 of nature (a circle), and gradually work up to one more com- 
 plicated and composed of several parts, which are loosely 
 joined together. The figures as shown are two-thirds of the 
 size they should be made. 
 
 Material. 
 
 The wood used should be one which is soft, not easily split, 
 and cheap, such as white pine or cedar. The latter may be 
 obtained from old cigar boxes, the nails of which are also 
 admirably adapted for fastening several pieces of the wood 
 together, when any such fastening is required, as they are 
 generally round and of the same diameter from head to 
 point, and will not, therefore, split the wood. If in any case 
 it should be necessary to buy nails they may be obtained at 
 hardware stores under the name of "wire" nails. No. 18, 
 this size being about the proper length. The wood should 
 be planed smooth on both sides, and should be about one- 
 eighth of an inch in thickness. In Mrs. Schrader's interme- 
 diate class a paste of clay or plaster of paris is put on the wood 
 of cigar boxes and, when dry, rubbed off" with sand, sandpaper 
 or glass till smooth. 
 
 Tools. 
 
 The most important of the tools is the knife, which should 
 have a sharp edge, and, if the age of the child permits, a sharp 
 point also, which may be used in making holes in the wood 
 when the holes are required to be of a larger size than can be 
 made with the awl. A brad-awl, which may be bought in 
 any hardware store for a few cents may be found useful in 
 making holes fop the insertion of the nails, especially when 
 the latter are to be used us pivots upon which parts turn, as 
 are the nails in figure 17. The diameter of the awl should 
 be about equal to that of the nail, and the advantage of its 
 use is that it will make a hole in the wood with less danger 
 of splitting it than will the latter. 
 
 Operation. 
 
 The teacher should draw upon the wood the outlines of the 
 figure to be made by the pupil, or if the figure consists of sev- 
 eral parts, the outline of each part, taking care to have the 
 greater length of the figure run in the same direction as the 
 grain or fibre of the wood. If, in any case, a hole or recess 
 is to be made in the wood, it should be made before the out- 
 
The Connecting Link. 23 
 
 line is cut out, as there is then less danger of splitting. It 
 the hole is intended for the reception of a nail, and a brad-awl 
 is not at hand, the nail may be driven in and then withdrawn 
 leaving a hole where it has been, and in which it may be 
 afterwards placed. If a recess, such as the recess tf , in figure 
 9, is to be made, a small hole should first be made with the 
 point of the knife and enlarged with the edge. This having 
 been done, the pupil should follow the outline drawn by the 
 teacher, cutting off the superfluous wood with the knife, after 
 which the work may be finished smooth by rubbing with sand 
 or emery paper of medium coarseness. If the figure consists 
 of several parts, all the parts should be finished as above 
 described ; and if any are to be nailed together, the nails 
 should be carefully driven in the holes previouslv made for 
 their reception. If the nails project through the wood, their 
 points should be bent over and rest against the side of the 
 wood. When driving the nails the wood should rest upon a 
 solid base. Also, the design in paper may be pasted on the 
 wood. 
 
 I. — Figures Made of a Single Piece. 
 
 Figure 1. — A circle. The outline being drawn by the 
 teacher, the pupil should follow the outline with the knife, 
 as above described. 
 
 Figure 2. — Hand Mirror. The hole a should first be made 
 with the point of the knife, and the outline then made as in 
 figure 1. 
 
 Figure 3. — Egg (ellipse). To be made in the same manner 
 as figure 1 (compare circle and ellipse). 
 
 Figure 4. — Square. To be made in the same manner as 
 figure 1. 
 
 Figure 5. — Butter Paddle. To be made in the same man- 
 ner as figure 2. 
 
 Figure 6. — Parallelogram. To be made in the same man- 
 ner as figure 1 (compare square and parallelogram). 
 
 Figure 7. — Head Stone, showing combination of figures 
 and 6. To be made in the same manner as figure 2. 
 
 Figure S. — Paper Knife, showing combination of curves. 
 To be made in the same manner as figure 1. When the 
 pupil is more advanced he may ornament the handle, a, by 
 making lines of small holes, b, with the point of a brad-awl 
 or a nail. The lines may be made to assume fanciful forms 
 or may serve as lines to define the different parts of the figure. 
 
 Figure 9. — Trellis for flowers. The recesses, «, should be 
 first made as described, and then the outlines cut as in figure 1. 
 
26 The Connecting Link. 
 
 Figure 10. — Leaf. The pupil should first cut out the out- 
 line as in figure i. When he has done this, he may cut with 
 the point of the knife channels, «, in the wood, representing 
 the veins of the leaf. It is desirable that the pupil copy the 
 different varieties of leaves from nature. 
 
 (This would point out at once the Botanist or Zoologist.) 
 
 Figure n. — Fish. To be made as figure 10, the channels, 
 a, representing the markings upon the fins, etc. Small 
 depressions, b, may be made in the wood with a brad-awl or 
 a nail, as in figure 8, and will serve to outline the different 
 parts of the body, while a larger depression, <f, may be made 
 in the head with the point of the knife and serve to represent 
 the eye. 
 
 Figure 12. — Crocodile. To be made as in figure 11. 
 
 II. — Figures Made of Two or More Pieces of Wood, 
 
 Rigidly Joined Together by Nails, or by 
 
 Mortise and Tenon Joints. 
 
 Figure 13. — Mortised Frame. Two pieces, c and c\ of the 
 outline shown in figure 13^, should be made. One of the 
 pieces, r, should then have a slot, d, cut in its central portion, 
 commencing at its top, while the other piece, c\ should have 
 a corresponding slot, d 1 , commencing at its bottom. In either 
 case the slot (d or d 1 ) should have a depth (ed or ed 1 ) equal to 
 one-half the breadth {fd or fd 1 ) of the piece (c or c 1 ) at the point 
 where the slot is cut, and the width {gd or gd 1 ) of the slot 
 should equal the thickness of the wood. When the pieces (c 
 and c 1 ) are in the position shown in figure 13^, and are brought 
 together they should assume the form shown in figure 13*2, 
 the top and bottom of each piece being even with the top and 
 bottom of the other. 
 
 Figure 14. — Table. When the mortised frame shown in 
 figure 13 has been made, a cover, //, may be nailed over its 
 upper surface. The cover may be ornamented by holes, /, 
 cut with the point of the knife, if desired. 
 
 Figure 15. — Rake. Two pieces of wood (a and b) should 
 be glued together (with mucilage if glue can not be had) with 
 their fibers crossed. The outline of the rake should then be 
 drawn and a series of holes made with a brad-awl in the cross- 
 head, r, of the rake to receive the nails, d, which form the 
 teeth. The outline should then be cut and that one of the 
 pieces of wood, b, whose grain crosses the direction of the 
 handle, <?, of the rake from side to side should be cut off at f, 
 and broken away from the handle, thus leaving the latter of 
 the thickness of the piece, a, while the cross-head, r, is of 
 
The Connecting Link. 27 
 
 two thicknesses, a and &, the fibers of which cross and pre- 
 vent splitting. The nails, <aT, may be now inserted in the 
 holes, c, previously made, having their heads on that side of 
 the wood which forms the back of the rake. 
 
 III. — Figures Made of Two or More Pieces of Wood, 
 Loosely Joined Together. 
 
 Figure 16. — Baby rattle. The outlines of piece c (figure 
 i6£) having been drawn, the holes, rf, should be made with 
 the brad-awl. The wings, <?, similar to the piece c, except 
 that they have no handle, f, should also be drawn and have 
 holes made in them ; after which the piece r, and wings, e, 
 should be cut out, after which one of the wings should be 
 placed on each side of the piece c, and secured by cords, g, 
 passing through the holes, d, and having knotted ends, k, the 
 cord being loose enough to permit the wings to strike against 
 the bod}-, z', of the piece <r, when the latter is shaken by the 
 handle, f. 
 
 Figure 17. — Soldier. The piece a forming the body and 
 the head, the two pieces, b b, forming the legs, and the two 
 pieces, c c, forming the arms, should be cut out, after having 
 first made holes with a brad-awl for the reception of the 
 nails, d and <?, upon which the parts turn. One of these 
 nails, d, passes through the lower part of the body, a, and 
 through the upper part of each leg, /), one of which is on 
 each side of the body, and has its ends bent over, serving as 
 a joint for the legs to move on. Another nail, e, passes 
 through the body, a, and arms, c c, and serves as a pivot for 
 them to move upon in the same manner as does the nail, d, 
 for the legs, b b. A small piece of wood,y^ shaped as a gun, 
 sword, etc., may be inserted in a notch in the lower portion 
 of one of the arms, while a small depression, such as //, may 
 be made on the figure with the end of a brad-awl or the point 
 of a nail, and serve to mark the position of the belt, etc. 
 
 Figure 18. — Wood-Sawyer. The piece a forms the body, 
 a 1 , log of wood, a 2 , and saw " horse," a 3 . The piece b forms 
 the upper arm, and the piece c forms the fore-arm, c\ and 
 saw-frame, <r 2 , the recesses, d, in the several pieces <?, /), and 
 c, being made before their outline is cut out, as are the holes 
 for the reception of the nails e andy; The upper arm, £, is 
 fastened to the'body, a, by a nail, e, passing through its upper 
 end and through the shoulder of the body. The fore-arm, 
 c\ is secured to the lower part of the upper arm, b, by a nail, 
 f, passing through the elbow. The saw-frame, c 2 , and 
 arm, b, may be thus moved back and forth, causing the latter 
 
28 The Connecting Link. 
 
 to move over the log a 2 . As in the other cases in which 
 nails are used as pivots, the nails, <?, andy^ should have their 
 points bent down against the back of the rear piece through 
 which they pass, which are, in the present cases, the body a, 
 and arm, 6, respectively. 
 
 Figure 19. — Horseman. Two pieces, <?, should be made of 
 the shape of the body of the horse, and a piece, f, of the shape 
 of the tail while another piece, g, should be made in the shape 
 of the horse's head and neck. The head and tail should be 
 pivoted by nails, h, between the two sides, <?, of the body at 
 its front and rear, respectively, as shown in figure 1% which 
 shows one side of the horse and rider separated from the cor- 
 responding side, the said nails, //, passing through the sides, 
 e e, and through the ueck or tail. The hind legs are each made 
 of one piece and each one is pivoted on the outside of one of 
 the body pieces, ee, by a nail i\ which passes through both 
 the legs, /, through both body-pieces, e, and through apiece, z 2 , 
 which is placed between the body-piece to keep them apart. 
 The front legs are each composed of two pieces, the piece,/ 1 , 
 forming the lower part of the legs, and the piece, j, forming 
 the upper part, the two being pivoted together by a nail,/ 3 . 
 The upper part of the leg is pivoted to the forward portion of 
 the body of the horse in the same manner as the rear legs are 
 to the rear portion. 
 
 The rider is also composed of two pieces, k, between which 
 is pivoted by a nail, £ 2 , a head, k z , and a piece, k 3 , projecting 
 from the lower portion of the body, the free end of the piece 
 £ 3 , resting between the body pieces, e <\ of the horse, whereby 
 the rider is held on. Each of the legs and arms of the horse- 
 man are composed of two pieces, / and l\ and m and m\ re- 
 spectively, which are connected together in the same manner 
 as are the front legs of the horse, each arm and leg of the 
 horseman being attached to one of the body-pieces, k, as shown 
 in figure 19//, which is a view showing figure 19c as it would 
 appear if it were cut in half on the line x x. By moving the 
 different pieces of which the man and horse are composed on 
 their pivots, amusing effects will be produced, as will be seen 
 by comparison of figures 19*7 and 19$. 
 
 Figure 20. — A figure b constructed as is the soldier (figure 
 17), except that his legs are made of two pieces which are 
 pivoted together by a nail, has two holes made in the ends of 
 his arms, a. Two pieces, c, which are connected near their 
 middle by a brace, d, which is attached to them by nails, also 
 have two holes in their upper ends. Through these holes, 
 in one piece, a string is passed and twisted at c, then passed 
 through the holes in the arms, a, and again twisted at e 1 , and 
 
The Connecting Link. 29 
 
 then passed through the holes in the other piece, c. If now 
 the lower part of the pieces, c, be alternately drawn together 
 and released, the string will be alternately twisted and un- 
 twisted, causing the figure to jump, and forming a jumping- 
 jack. 
 
 ( The cutting of u 'ood to be con tinned and improvt 'd. Wooden 
 samples can be had. ) 
 
 The Value of Instruction in Manual Dexterity as Regards 
 Bodily Development and Hygiene. 
 
 A LECTURE 
 
 BY DR. BIRCH-HIRSCHFELDER. 
 
 ABSTRACT. 
 
 I speak as a physician, or rather as a medical schoolmaster. 
 The physician looks at the question from two points of view : 
 First, as it concerns the physicological development of man, 
 including the development of the bodily functions in their 
 relation to the mental. This may be called the anthropologi- 
 cal point of view. Secondly, he considers in how far instruc- 
 tion in manual dexterity is of value for the health)' develop- 
 ment of the body. This may be called the hygienic point of 
 view. 
 
 Considered anthropologically, instruction in manual dexter- 
 ity is pre-eminently adapted to the education of the senses. 
 Though the education of the senses is so often advocated, I 
 believe its full meaning has not always been fully compre- 
 hended. All education rests, from its positive point of view, 
 upon practice — methodical practice. The development of the 
 organs is promoted by orderly activity. Now, the education 
 of the senses has two aspects ; in the first place, it deals with 
 the exercise of the peripheral organs of sense, the tools of the 
 sense activity. For instance, we can educate the eye to 
 measure dimensions better and to appreciate color impressions 
 more exactly than is possible to the uneducated sense. The 
 hearing, touch, and other senses can be educated similarly, 
 but it would be a mistake to consider these gymnastics of the 
 senses as the essential part of the education of the senses. The 
 sense organ is an auxiliary of our mind; it takes cognizance 
 
jo The Connecting Link. 
 
 of external impressions, but the impressions are conveyed to 
 the brain through the nerves. There are receiving stations 
 in the brain for the separate nerves of sense, and these again 
 are connected with the central station, where the sense per- 
 ceptions pass over into consciousness. In this sense-practice 
 the capacity of the peripheral brain stations to act upon those 
 which are connected with the activity of the senses is exercised. 
 But, of course, there are other connections between the cen- 
 tral receiving stations in the brain and those portions of the 
 brain which serve as the instruments of the higher mental 
 functions. Here a central process takes place in connection 
 with the sense-activity, and the sense-impression elaborated 
 into an idea at the periphery becomes a mental possession. 
 I believe that when the high value of the education of the 
 senses is emphasized, this cultivation of the connection be- 
 tween the central sense station and those parts of the brain 
 which subserve the highest mental functions, is meant. 
 
 We can acquire knowledge in two ways : First, through 
 the. word (verbal, symbolic impression) ; and, second, by in- 
 spection. Therefore, the aim of the education of the senses 
 coincides with, that which is called instruction by inspection. 
 The great importance of this method of instruction by inspec- 
 tion is very familiar to us physicians. Our medical academ- 
 ical instruction will have no other. We can observe very 
 frequently how mere verbal knowledge differs from that which 
 is gained by inspection. For instance, one may learn a great 
 many anatomical facts from a book, but, if he tries to make 
 practical use of them, this mere verbal knowledge is found 
 immediately to be wholly unfruitful. There are often in our 
 classes (and partly in consequence of the whole direction of 
 their preceding education and culture) a number of persons 
 who are so accustomed to identify learning with verbal recep- 
 tion of knowledge, that they have no adequate appreciation 
 of the importance of education, by inspection. It is an im- 
 portant fact of experience also that even good illustrations are 
 no substitute for the inspection of the object itself, but only 
 of value in refreshing and fixing the memory of that which 
 has been seen. But our experience carries us still farther. 
 The exact knowledge of certain relations which is required 
 of the physician can not be gained by the mere inspection of 
 the natural object or preparation. Manual dexterity must 
 be brought in as a means of instruction. It is only by 
 the methodical dissection of the natural objecl; that the learner 
 gains that certain knowledge of shape and connection which 
 fits him again to construct the demolished organism in his 
 mind. The conditions are very much the same in instruction 
 
The Connecting Link. ji 
 
 in manual dexterity. For as the anatomist arrives at the 
 clearest knowledge of the natural object by dissection, so the 
 scholar learns to know most exactly the obje6t which he con- 
 structs. Four stages of thorough knowledge may therefore 
 be distinguished : (i) the knowledge of the object from a 
 verbal description ; (2) from a natural figure; (3) from the 
 inspection of the object itself, and (4) from the personal spon- 
 taneous construction of the same. No other means can_ per- 
 fect the relationship between sense activity and the higher 
 spiritual functions as well as instruction in manual dexterity. 
 
 Instruction has done but little, as yet, for the education of 
 the senses. The only sense which has been given preference 
 in this regard is that of hearing. Musical culture has not been 
 neglected, but extraordinarily little has been done for the other 
 senses. There are many more people who have learned to 
 hear than of people who can see, who can observe. Right 
 here, I believe instruction in manual dexterity can do a great 
 work. It exerts muscular activity on the one hand ; but, not 
 as in athletics, a combined and more refined muscular activity 
 is employed here for a definite purpose. Here also an im- 
 portant sense is exercised, namely, the muscular sense. The 
 cultivation of skill in a matter which exercises the hands does 
 not depend, for the most part, upon the increase of the strength 
 of the muscles, but upon the finer cultivation of the muscular 
 sense, which always, and, indeed unconsciously, informs us 
 what the muscle is doing, and this muscular sense becomes 
 exercised in a fine and many-sided way by suitable handwork. 
 But in instruction in manual dexterity the sense of sight is 
 necessarily exercised in a high degree, much more than in 
 the single subject of instruction, which has hitherto worked 
 in this direction, i. e., drawing. 
 
 I do not mean by this to question in the least the great 
 value of instruction in drawing ; indeed I wish its value were 
 more appreciated for the education of the senses in the courses 
 of instruction in the higher schools. Nevertheless, I must 
 insist that the material essence of the object is more fully 
 comprehended by instruction in manual dexterity than by the 
 symbolic reproduction in drawing. Here I do not take any 
 account of mere artistic considerations, for, of course, in this 
 regard no comparison can be made between drawing and the 
 production of objects by manual dexterity. A celebrated 
 sculptor told me himself that usually the experienced artist 
 cannot model a simple object correctly from his memory. 
 Making use of a trivial example, he said : "I could not even 
 model a boot-jack correctly from my memory. ' ' But I believe 
 that if he had made a boot-jack he would be able to model one 
 
32 The Connecting Link. 
 
 from his memory. This example may serve to show in what 
 way I believe that instruction in manual dexterity is of much 
 greater value than mere reproduction by drawing for the 
 cultivation of the senses, and for that combined activity of 
 the senses which fructifies in the favorable development of 
 the internal activity of the senses. 
 
 The objection might be made that while it is true that the 
 education of the senses is extraordinarily necessary, yet ordi- 
 nary life gives of itself so many educational impetuses that it 
 is not necessary for instruction to aim especially at this point. 
 The first and most special answer to be made to this objection 
 is that practice can produce no such effects in any other age 
 as it can in the age of childhood ; and that, therefore, putting 
 off this education of the senses until a later period of develop- 
 ment will entail a loss which can never be made up. And, 
 furthermore, it is by no means true that the unmethodical 
 exercise of the different senses has any such effect as to bring 
 about that adaptation for sharp perception and mental elabora- 
 tion of the impressions of sense which is desirable. Simple 
 experiments with cultivated and uncultivated men of the 
 different classes would demonstrate with surprising clearness 
 that very few individuals who have not been exercised me- 
 thodically in the proper direction are adapted to receive and 
 elaborate the simplest intuitions of space. 
 
 By instruction in manual dexterity the different processes 
 of the activity of the senses can be correctly carried on in a 
 methodical way. Handiwork, cabinet-making, carving, etc., 
 exercise the muscles, and especially those of the arms, in many 
 ways, and at the same time give many kinds of practice in 
 measurement by the eye. And here also, in addition, the 
 higher psychical functions can be acted upon, and attention 
 can very easily be called in the course of the work to the 
 sesthetical side of the things which are worked upon. I will 
 not go any farther into this. I believe you can, from your 
 own experience, already supply sufficient material to demon- 
 strate that instruction in manual dexterity is in the highest 
 degree suited to exercise the activity of the senses methodi- 
 cally. And we shall make no mistake in asserting that the 
 reaction of such a methodical exercise of the activity of the 
 senses upon the higher mental faculties deserves especial ap- 
 preciation. 
 
 There was a time when verbal knowledge, culture by words, 
 dominated the mental world. The greatest change which 
 ever was brought about in the history of mankind has been 
 accomplished in the course of the last two centuries, and cer- 
 tainly because natural philosophy has been developed in a 
 
The Connecting Link. jj 
 
 way previously unanticipated. But natural philosophy rests, 
 in its ultimate basis, upon induction. Proceeding from the 
 observation of particulars (of occurrences under natural con- 
 ditions or those determined by the observer), the inductive 
 method leads to the knowledge of the natural law. The 
 progress of the knowledge of natural law is promoted by the 
 broader cultivation of method and by the perfecting of the 
 apparatus of observation. Certainly, along with this is also 
 to be considered the capacity of accomplishment of the sense 
 organs and of the nervous apparatus therewith connected, 
 which has been trained from youth and thereby perfected. 
 The better schooling of the growing generation «for the in- 
 ductive method will be promoted when the influence of natural 
 philosophy upon the farther development of mankind is recog- 
 nized. Do not expect me to join those who refer all com- 
 plaints about the deficient capacity for accomplishment of our 
 generation, and its disposition to sickness, to the gymnasia, 
 to the so-called overburdening. I do not believe in the over- 
 burdening in the sense in which it is many times entertained. 
 I do not believe that our higher schools, in general, impose 
 upon the youthful capacities absolutely too great tasks. But, 
 nevertheless, a relative overloading frequently is produced, 
 and that, indeed, by the oue-sidedness of the practice. There 
 is a lack of sufficient impetuses of compensation as an offset 
 to the requirements which are not in themselves too high but 
 yet are always one-sided. This lies many times in the modern 
 formation of our lives, in the manner of life in the great city 
 communities, in the many accessory claims which are other- 
 wise made upon the time of the scholars. There is lacking 
 that natural compensation for the evils of pure instruction by 
 study which, under simple circumstances, in the country, in 
 smaller cities, often comes quite of itself. For this reason, I 
 believe, now there is so much the more necessity of empha- 
 sizing our duty, since the natural impetus of compensation 
 is continually diminishing, to introduce something into edu- 
 cation which, while promoting the mental development of 
 the scholar, may also at the same time act as a means of com- 
 pensation for the one-sided demands of instruction by study. 
 I said that the second point of view from which the physi- 
 cian regarded instruction in manual dexterity was the hygi- 
 enic. If we can look upon three kinds of things as the aim 
 of therapeutics in general, in the words of Bacon: "To 
 lengthen life, to maintain health, and to heal disease," then 
 the second, the promotion of the maintenance of health, cor- 
 responds to the contents of what is included in hygienics. 
 
jj. The Connecting Link. 
 
 If we now ask in what way we can maintain health, there 
 are only two ways possible: We can either protect the body 
 from evils which threaten it, or we can increase and exalt the- 
 re si sting capacity of the body. Every reasonable care of health 
 must be developed toward these two directions. The mere 
 following of rules which contribute to the protection of health 
 would, in its ultimate consequences, lead to the most extreme 
 effeminacy of mankind. If such a goal were practically at- 
 tainable at all, the absolutely protected man would be deprived 
 of the educational good influence which the struggle for exist- 
 ence exerts. Important for the public health as is the annihi- 
 lation of evils which, for instance, can affect health in the 
 dwelling or other environments of man, yet I consider the 
 second aim, making the body more resisting to evils, as more 
 important for the health of the individual, because this second 
 aim presupposes directly also the highest possible activity of 
 the man. 
 
 But how does the body and how do the several organs attain 
 an exalted power of resistance against evils ? There are three 
 momenta which contribute to this. First, the resisting power 
 of the single individual. The resisting power of each single 
 organ depends upon inheritance, in a certain degree, upon 
 the sum of capital which the individual man has brought 
 with him into the world, which is due, in a great part, to 
 his parents and ancestors. In the second place, this resisting 
 power depends upon the nourishment. The nourishment de- 
 pends upon the quantity and quality of the means of nourish- 
 ment in the widest sense, including the air. But this cer- 
 tainly very important factor is not the only determinative 
 one ; for, thirdly, the power of resistance is detemined by 
 the activity of the organs. Absolutely no normal develop- 
 ment can be given to an organ, however well developed, an 
 organism which might have the best and most favorable con- 
 ditions of nourishment, if this factor of activity be left out. 
 Every organism which is inactive, upon which therefore the 
 physiological stimulus of activity does not act, becomes stunted. 
 If a limb is placed in a plaster bandage it will become almost 
 entirely immovable in half a year; if you fasten a muscle com- 
 pletely, the muscular substance disappears entirely, and so it 
 is with all the organs. We are, therefore, dealing here with 
 a relation which in good part is under the influence of our vo- 
 lition. Therefore, while our ancestors are answerable for 
 whatever sum of life-material we have at the outset, and our 
 conditions of nourishment in the widest sense are many times 
 beyond our control, yet we can, to a certain degree, promote 
 the development of our bodies as we wish by the excitation 
 
The Connecting Link. jj 
 
 of activity even in the most limited spheres of life. Indeed, 
 it may be said, that an excitation of the bodily activity ar- 
 ranged according to the end to be gained, and carried out 
 in this sense, may even do wonders in conditions of life which 
 in and by themselves are defective. It is only in this way 
 that we can explain how a great part of the poorer men who 
 live under unfavorable conditions of income, and are by their 
 circumstances, compelled to a vigorous bodily activity, very 
 commonly surpass in health and in power of resistance to 
 evils, the spoiled rich. 
 
 In this regard the nervous system acts like the other or- 
 gans. Along with the original condition the influence of 
 function is a very essential factor, and one of the greatest im- 
 portance, particularly at the time of growth. 
 
 There are two extremes which finally produce the same re- 
 sult. Perfect inactivity of an organ leads to stunting, but ex- 
 cessive strain involves the same danger. Therefore, also lack 
 of exercise of the brain in a determinate direction leads to the 
 stunting of its capacity of performance. We have enough ex- 
 amples of this in practical life that certain individuals by a one- 
 sided activity of the brain in a determinate direction can do 
 extraordinary things in this direction, while by the neglect of 
 exercise in other directions they are in many ways inferior to 
 the normal man. One-sided demands made upon the activity 
 of the brain must have an especially injurious effect when they 
 take place at the time of the greatest brain development. 
 Here is often certainly laid the foundation of a diseased weak- 
 ness of the brain and nervous system. No connoisseur will 
 deny that the characteristic of the disease of our time is weak- 
 ness of nerves. And the question has already been asked from 
 very many sides what are really the causes of this wide-spread 
 weakness of the nervous system, which shows itself in the 
 most diverse forms ? Doubtless there are very different causes 
 for this, but one factor lies quite certainly in the one-sided- 
 ness of the demands which are made upon the nervous system 
 at the time of its development. If any one by preference 
 make demands upon determinate parts of the brain, and exer- 
 cise the nervous system very little in other directions, there 
 easily arises from this one-sidedness of the strain a disturb- 
 ance of equilibrium which does not prevent the brain from 
 producing eminent results in certain directions, but which 
 always involves the danger of disease. Now, it may be said, 
 that the danger of a one-sided influence of mental strain is to 
 be worked against by intervals of rest adapted to the purpose. 
 It is indeed quite correct that every rational hygienic measure 
 is founded upon the alternation of rest and work. We can, 
 
j 6 The Connecting Link. 
 
 by continuous muscular practice, cause our muscles to increase 
 in volume and their capacity of work to be raised in a corre- 
 sponding degree. This increase in mass and this access of 
 capacity for work is caused by the muscles in their activity 
 receiving more blood than in their rest. Now a removal of 
 the detritus, which is produced by the activity and a restora- 
 tion of new substance, is only possible when rest follows ac- 
 tivity. By an uninterruptedly continuous contraction the 
 muscle becomes at length exhausted and lamed. Now, just 
 that which can be understood very easily about the muscles 
 is true about the nervous system. In regard to this it is cer- 
 tainly true that every hygienic measure demands an alterna- 
 tion of work and rest. But the best kind of rest (in the wak- 
 ing hours) is that in which while the organ involved is recov- 
 ering, there is not perfect rest all over', but activity in other 
 directions. Evidently the nervous system recovers more fav- 
 orably if we do not let absolute rest follow strained, one-sided 
 nervous acti\ ity, but occupy ourselves in other ways. And 
 when, therefore, any one who is obliged to exert the higher 
 functions of his brain continually, and to do this in a sitting 
 and quite improper position, wants to have the best kind of 
 restorative to compensate for these evils, we can only advise 
 him to substitute movement for sitting, and work in other 
 directions, and especially work of the muscles and nerves, for 
 the one-sided exertion of certain mental activities. 
 
 It may be said that in this regard gymnastics and athletics 
 offer the best compensation for the one-sided exertion of the 
 activity of study. I do not in the least deny that athletics 
 have a great hygienic value, and that the school athletics of 
 our generation have had an extraordinarily favorable effect 
 in this direction ; and that we would notice yet much more 
 the injurious effects of the continually sitting method of life 
 of our youth, i'f school gymnastics had not been taken up as 
 an authorized subject of education. But athletics is not, from 
 its nature, a means which suffices perfectly as a compensation 
 in the sense spoken of. Athletics is concerned principally 
 with energetic muscular activity. Apart from its influence 
 in promoting muscular development itself, this acts upon the 
 activity of the breathing, the movement of the heart, etc. 
 As these means have a very beneficial effect upon the young 
 body, a very valuable stimulation of all the functions of the 
 body may be attained thereby. But athletics in and for itself, 
 just because it is concerned with energetic muscular activity, 
 is not a means which can be applied continually. It can not 
 be our purpose to strive for the education of athletes. We 
 see that just the highest increase of muscular practice brings 
 
The Connecting Link. * 37 
 
 again the same dangers as from a deficient practice. It nun- 
 be observed at this day that the disposition to disease of men 
 with excessively practiced muscles, such as athletes and jug- 
 glers, is very much greater than in the average man. Plato 
 calls attention to the same fact. I believe, in fact, that 
 children from nine to fifteen years of age ought not to have 
 more than four hours of real athletics in a week. 
 
 Instruction in manual dexterity stands midway between 
 athletics, which excite a too energetic activity of the muscles, 
 and instruction in study, with its one-sided activity of the 
 central nervous organs. Instruction in manual dexterity in- 
 cludes gymnastics, and I believe that certain subjects which 
 are practiced in instruction in manual dexterity are also bene- 
 ficial in this sense. Joinery, for instance, contains a good 
 proportion of valuable muscular practice; but it is necessary 
 that in instruction in manual dexterity, as in athletics, as all- 
 sided an activity of the muscles as possible should be excited, 
 and where that is not possible to the same degree, at least, in 
 regard to the groups of muscles which are set in activity, a 
 . certain alternation of occupations should prevail. It is, in- 
 deed, not to be feared that in the conducting of instruction 
 in manual dexterity those peculiar malformations will result 
 which are produced by a one-sided position of the body, and 
 with which we are acquainted in different handiworkers, as 
 in locksmiths, shoemakers, smiths, etc., but these conse- 
 quences of a one-sided strain will always induce us to take 
 care that all one-sidedness be avoided. 
 
 Instruction in manual dexterity, however, acts in a much 
 higher sense upon the nerves than upon the muscles, and this 
 is very especially to be considered. It works upon the organs 
 of sense, such as sight, muscular sense, taste, etc., which it 
 brings into continually combined activity, and it works upon 
 the peripheral regions of our nervous system. It might, there- 
 fore, be said that purely mental instruction in study exercises 
 the central parts of our brain, the finest tools of our mind. 
 Manual dexterity exercises the sense apparatus, the peripheral 
 nerves as tools of the senses. Athletic gymnastics act essen- 
 tially through the powerful excitation of muscular activity. 
 According to this, instruction in manual dexterity is .in a 
 higher sense gymnastics of the nerves, and, just because it is 
 a gymnastics of the nerves, it has an especially unburdening 
 effect upon the brain, which has been strained by one-sided 
 activity. 
 
 This consequence of the hygienic effect of instruction in 
 manual dexterity is at any rate of the highest importance for 
 the position of this subject in education. 
 
j8 , The Connecting Link. 
 
 What I have said may be summed up as follows: 
 (i.) Instruction in manual dexterity is a very praiseworthy 
 means of cultivation of the senses as the tools of the mind. 
 It completes that part of instruction by which the develop- 
 ment of those parts of the brain which serve for the higher 
 mental faculties are excited, while, by methodical exercise in 
 the elaboration of the impressions of the senses, it reacts in 
 favor of a harmonious cultivation of the mind. 
 
 (2.) Instruction in manual dexterity promotes sound bodily 
 development when a suitable choice of work is made. It 
 serves as a counterpoise to the influence of study-work, which 
 is connected with mental strain and continuous sitting, while 
 by the activity of the senses and nerves it has a diverting and 
 unburdening effect; and, at the same time, excites the activity 
 of the muscles as a lighter form of gymnastics, which cer- 
 tainly does not make athletics superfluous, but supplements 
 them in a desirable wav. 
 
 Note. — Among the hygeuic benefits of manual training might be enumer- 
 ated the joy of doing what is pleasant in constructing and fashioning the 
 product of our own brain and hands. 
 
Emm and G©Isfs. 
 
 EMMA MARWEDEL. 
 
 FORMS 
 
 2 Tones of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Colors. 
 
 COLORS 
 
 IN 
 
 24 Tints and Shades by means of the superior Conte Pencils instead of 
 Water Colors. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Five Charts — Outlining of Wooden Forms. 
 Three Charts — Outlining for Object Drawing. 
 Five Charts — Colored Forms. 
 
 The gradual unfolding of a child's innate capacities as manifested 
 in its unconscious play, developing into conscious play, and from 
 unconscious labor into conscious labor, demonstrates the natural 
 process of self-activity in human physical and mental growth, to be 
 supplemented by conceiving intelligently and justly those legacies 
 brought into the world from ancestry, and by furnishing experi- 
 mental activities calculated to cultivate and to revitalize these in- 
 herited gifts. 
 
 The Kindergarten or Froebel system aims at this in principle and 
 method, but lack of time prevents a full presentation of its educational 
 advantages. Practical common sense begins to feel this, and a re- 
 vision of Froebel's gifts and occupations, together with practical 
 demonstrations by some of Froebel's disciples— as W. N. Hailman, 
 City School Superintendent at La Porte, Indiana, and Col. Francis 
 Parker, Principal of Cook County Normal School, Normalville, Illi- 
 nois — leaves no doubt of the possibility of an organized connection 
 between public schools and Kindergartens. The problem of human 
 
4-0 The Connecting Link. 
 
 development, in its philosophic unity, occupies therefore the thinkers 
 of the age, and the question considering a desired school reform 
 from a standpoint of social and national economy, is heard in 
 Europe as well as here. It reads: "Shall the child continue 
 without interruption its threefold development as begun in the 
 Kindergarten?" 
 
 That is to say, by a self activity, developing gradually and sys- 
 tematically, when life's habits arc formed by joyful creative occu- 
 pations, which lead through work to work in its highest moral 
 sense. ;ind this at an age when the whole nature demands work ; or 
 
 Shall we systematically pervert and destroy what has been accom- 
 plished in developing innate capacities by creative self-activity, 
 according to Froebel's developing principles? Shall we not rather 
 seek to connect the Kindergarten with the primary department, in- 
 troducing creative, artistic labor methodically, thus becoming the 
 leading nation ? 
 
 Among the different manifestations in play, Froebel found the 
 constructive and creative faculties best adapted to serve in general 
 educational development. 
 
 They not only allow the widest scope for individual activity, but 
 lead to a close relation to nature, its beauty, and life, and to me- 
 chanics and art, 
 
 But neither the skill of the hand nor the training of the intellect 
 suffice to produce a complete human being. For this we need finer 
 keys to disclose and reveal ourselves to ourselves — keys to open the 
 lofty windows, into which streams of higher lights carry the message 
 of an universal call. 
 
 A call which, aloof from wisdom and skill, appeals to the life of all 
 life — to that which lies within ourselves — "the life of the soul" — 
 which cannot be taught by words, but by living in its spirit, It is 
 ingrained in the eternal sparks of our existence, born in each human 
 being, and is either kept forever slumbering or is awakened and 
 directed to life and action. It carries the seed-corn of strength, of 
 character, of harmony, of religion, of inspiration and of love. 
 
 As keen as reason may seem in the young child, he thinks and 
 judges by his sympathies. Unconscious as they are to the child, 
 educational development has to turn them to consciousness. 
 
 Conception of. order, harmony, and beauty, leading to ethics and 
 principles are, therefore, embodied in the Kindergarten atmosphere, 
 and who has never felt this irresistible power streaming from the 
 "littlest flock of the littlest people," affecting the strongest men, the 
 most indifferent women, the roughest parents, even the most 
 corrupted inhabitants of whole streets? 
 
 It is the spirit of harmony, the spirit of trust, the self-restraining 
 habit for the good and the happiness of all ; the working in 
 common, which cannot be practiced too much: the dealing with 
 
The Connecting Link. 41 
 
 the beautiful; — the poetry of nature, which Froebel's disciples 
 claim must be continued. It is not what man knows, but what man 
 is. Besides, daily proof declares that Froebel's system saves from 
 one to two years in the curriculum of public school life. 
 
 The crowned success of Froebel's system in America and else- 
 where gives proof of the unselfish enthusiasm, culture, and educa- 
 tional capacities in women; but in spite of it, Froebel's principles 
 of " The Education of .Man" are still kept in his offering hands. 
 His spirit in full has yet to come. For this purpose the home and 
 the school, man and woman, have to unite in work and aims. 
 
 from this standpoint the following may he kindly accepted and 
 judged. It resulted from the earnest request of three enthusiastic 
 workers for childhood's happiness and justice at Boston and Wash- 
 ington. Their request was — "give us the detailed and practical 
 description how to use your form and color system. We need it." 
 
 AVOODEN OUTLINING, 
 
 In its Possibilities of Intellectual Development. 
 
 The higher or lower grade of a clear perception is only proved 
 by reproduction. 
 
 The young child lacks the use of descriptive words long after it 
 has formed a clear perception of the thing itself. 
 
 Froebel used this fact educationally. In nourishing the child's 
 constructive and creative faculties he not only diverted its destruc- 
 tive tendencies, hut offered means to give expression and to prove 
 impressions at a period when all further intercourse between the 
 educator and child would fail, and neither its muscular nor visual 
 powers suffice for <lr<itrin</, of which outlining is but the coarser 
 attempt. By outlining, the child develops earlypowers of attention 
 and concentration of thought ; perception of diversities in form, size, 
 number; of an object as a whole ami in its parts, and of t hose objects 
 of which clear impressions are educationally wanted. It develops self 
 education of the will through the hand, and via versa, by trying to ac- 
 complish perfection in reproducing the true and the beautiful. Ex- 
 periencing the usual expressions needed for clear understanding of 
 facts and things, concerning position, direction, measurement, and 
 number, it is led to perceive the relation between two things for com- 
 parison, the chief handle in Froebel's developing method. The use 
 of this method, starting from the known to the unknown, oilers 
 ample means to direct reason and independent thoughts to a series 
 of simple and graded facts, by wooden outlining, evolving faculties of 
 judgment and clearness of conception of a superior order. 
 
 The net on drawing paper being almost abolished abroad, and in 
 many places here, on account of injury to the eyes, some prominent 
 
42 The Connecting Link. 
 
 Kindergartners have likewise quitted the net on tables, to bring 
 about a greater use of eye measurements. The assistance found in the 
 circular measurements lias therefore been greeted with enthusiasm. 
 The use of forms illustrated in I, chart 1, proceeds strictly in grad- 
 ually increasing diversities. 
 
 There is no surer means of gratifying the minor germ with a 
 higher sympathy for life than by children's stories — the timber of 
 the soul joining soul to soul by poetical waves, that carry, like a 
 soft breeze, murmurs of childhood's simplicity in words and actions. 
 They must present nothing strange, nothing artificial, but utmost 
 delicacy in form and thoughts, fragments of beauty, of harmony 
 and faith. Yet one must have all that in one's self. We may de- 
 ceive man. but we cannot deceive the child. We are told that chil- 
 dren are born lawless. Look at our reports of the most depraved 
 ones in our Kindergartens. How soon does their assimilation with 
 the si ent growth of kindness and righteousness bear fruit and flowers 
 of utmost delicacy ! Is it that we have turned their visions back to 
 the black side of life from which they came? Therefore, tray, picture 
 but the good and live in the beautiful. 
 
 To accomplish this, the imaginative powers of the child should be 
 connected with its reproductive faculties. The use of blocks and 
 sticks, in spite of their great merits, prove inadequate, by placing the 
 "curve," — " the line of beauty" — out of reach of contemplation. An 
 effort has been made to overcome this by introducing a combined use 
 of hemisphere, ellipsoids and rings, giving possibilities of producing 
 copies of objects of life size, which, when supplemented by attractive 
 coloring, furnish the desired culture in the use and tin combination of 
 colors. 
 
 Aside from this, opportunity is offered to counteract the one- 
 sided use of straight lines and combinations of lifeless geometrical 
 forms, to the neglect of the life-awakening and life-presenting forms, 
 leading to the perception of nature in its charm and beauty. The 
 young child measures each outer experience in relation to itself. It 
 lives and judges in personification's, in the poetry and great brother- 
 hood of all things; especially, of all Heine/ things. Its whole being 
 strives for knowledge of nature. Actual responsible care of animals 
 and plants should be called indispensable to a rounded moral and 
 physical development of a human being. The experience the 
 writer gained by laying out nine school gardens, situated from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific coast, to serve educational and botanical pur- 
 poses, proved a great success for the youngest child as well as for the 
 adult. Discussions for the establishment of school gardens, which 
 took place last year at Boston, may therefore be greeted with hearty 
 applause as one of the most beneficial progressive steps in education. 
 
 The following charts aim to direct the child's attention from the 
 beginning to elements of natural sciences, offering a methodically 
 
77ie Connecting Link. 43 
 
 arranged series, which, starting with the circle, advance from the 
 simple rounded fruit to vegetable forms, manufactured objects, and 
 animals, used with circular sewing cards, modelling, and drawing 
 in colors. 
 
 Wooden outlining, by the improved forms, furnishes the desired 
 means to complete objects true to their size and appearance. It is 
 a vast difference between fostering the child's imaginative faculties by- 
 material unadapted in its uncompleteness for reproduction, thereby 
 preventing it from ever reaching the truth, or to furnishing possibilities to 
 find truth for the sake of ham ing to love and seek truth as such. 
 
 The charts present but hints. The study of " Conscious Mother- 
 hood," of " Childhood's Poetry and Study in the Life Color and Form 
 of Nature," in the" Connecting Link between the Kindergarten and 
 Manual Training." and "A System of Child Culture " (the latter free 
 of charge) are earnestly recommended. 
 
 Note— Send for copies to D. C, Heath Publishing House, Boston, 
 Mass. ; John S. Lockwood, 47 Franklin street, Boston, Mass., and 
 Emma Marwedel, San Francisco, Cal., or Washington, D. C.,513 12th 
 street, care of W. Burchard, Esq.; George Philip & Son., Publishing 
 House, 32 Fleet street, London, England; George Winkelmann's 
 Sortiments, Buchhandlung, 2 Spittelmarkt, Berlin, Germany. 
 
 I. Chart 1.— Outlining in Wooden Hemispheres. 
 
 The Curve as Comparative Measurement. 
 
 Adaptation to Cona ption. — The hemisphere contrasting the 
 sphere; the sphere contrasting the circle; the circle, as standard 
 measurement, contrasting the forms presented on chart. Similarities 
 and dissimilarities presented. Their relation to each other. 
 
 Direction for Use. — Have sphere modeled same size of hemisphere ; 
 cut in halves by wire; compare before and after cutting. Draw no 
 objects on blackboard to be copied except for comparison. Guide 
 to reason and cause and effect. Provide real objects. Analyze 
 their outlines. See Conscious Motherhood ; " the nursery "; the sand- 
 table ; the solid balls; paper circles. Illustrate change of form by 
 soft rubber balls. Offer at first to all children equal number of 
 hemispheres for making circles. Change for more or less numbers 
 to effect differences in sizes of circumferences. Draw circles 
 around each figure presented on charts; observe existing deviation 
 between circle and figures. 
 
 Figure 1 — Circle. — Bring the circle to conception of the children; 
 compare with solid rubber balls. 
 
 Methodical Making of the Circle. — Use forms giving views of the 
 circle — as bottles, lids, rings of different sizes. In making the circles 
 the child may at first use the described manner ; then compasses, 
 and later, eye-measurement. 
 
^ The Connecting Link. 
 
 1. Finding the center of a piece of paper or the center of a figure. 
 
 2. Marking the center with a dot. 
 
 3. Placing a ring or circular form on the paper, center to center. 
 
 4. Tracing the circular form with pencil to bo done with the left 
 hand, as well as the right. All these exercises practiced on slates 
 and blackboard. 
 
 Figure 2 — Orange. — Press rubber ball top and bottom; observe 
 change of form. Compare circle and the grown orange. Taste, 
 smell and touch it. Cut open. Observe inner construction — flesh, 
 juice, seeds, pores, oil and color of skin. If possible, show flowers, 
 branches and leaves, and different stages of ripeness of fruit, 
 
 Describe beauty of orange groves. Tell stories and teach simple 
 rhymes. (See" Conscious Motherhood.") Have orange modeled life 
 size, and colored. Use sewing cards simultaneously with outlining. 
 Introduce peach, to observe difference in form, showing but one in- 
 dentation, and inner construction as stone fruit. 
 
 Figure 7 — Apple. — Make two indentations on rubber ball. 
 
 Show change of form. Compare carefully inner and outer con- 
 struction of orange, peach and apple as suggested. 
 
 Figure5—ihe Grape ; 6, the Plum : and 8, tin Pear. — Compare these 
 with stone fruit, with fruit of kernels. Present different specimens 
 of fruit. Compare and deal with thorn in prescribed manner. 
 Bring specimen of each kind. Boil, and compare difference with 
 dried, canned and sugared fruit, When able, let the child draw 
 the outlines. Point to the beauty and taste of fruits ; speak of the 
 delight it gives, and God the Creator. 
 
 Figure 3 — The Egg. — Compare the circle with the egg-shape in 
 form and appearance. 
 
 Compare the egg with the plum. Point first to similarities, then 
 dissimilarities in form, color, size, weight, as general qualities be- 
 longing to all objects, followed by similarities and dissimilarities of 
 special qualities. Break the egg. Have told what is known. Do 
 not tell ; do not meet the child with your own explanation. Wait 
 till next day for child's answer. Give ample time for self informa- 
 tion, the best teaching you can give, even if the investigation of the 
 egg should take a week. 
 
 Identify the egg, as a centre of life and growth, with the germ of 
 the plant, Speak of baby seed in the flower as well as in the egg; 
 that their little brother was but another yet more beautiful baby 
 seed. Impress the difference between life and dead matter — human 
 life, its love and obligation. (See Con. Moth.) Observe germina- 
 tion by putting seeds on blotting paper, between cotton, two panes 
 of glass, in boxes of sand and sand table. Make the care of the 
 growing plants in sand table a reward, as in San Francisco Free 
 Kindergartens. Furnish each child with a flower-pot to take care 
 of. Guide to a religious poetical conception of plant life, as this brings 
 
The Connecting Link. /j 
 
 higher moral value to the child than all learned dissertations in 
 after years. Refer to the striving for perfection in plant life, to 
 serve and to give. If possible, have some birds or a hen hatching 
 its eggs. Observe the whole process of incubation reverently. Point 
 to the self-negation shewn in the mother bird's care. 
 
 Figure 4-, the potato; 9, tht tomato ; 10, the corn. — Compare as usual. 
 Point to the short yet useful life of vegetables. Plant potato; 
 observe germination. Model the objects, from life, color, and, if 
 possible, draw them. (Sew sewing cards.) Be careful in choice of 
 natural colors for object-. 
 
 I. Chart 2.— Outlining in Ellipsoids. 
 
 Illustrating similarities and dissimilarities of form, color, size, number, 
 position and direction. 
 
 Adaptation of Conception. — Comparative difference- observed in 
 form, color, size, number, and names of things give a knowledge of 
 facts, without which no perception of one object nor any compara- 
 tive judgment between two things can take place. 
 
 Direction for use. — Begin with what the child knows, and add grad- 
 ually and carefully what he may know and should know. Never 
 tell, but slowly deduct. 
 
 Figure 1. Find out what knowledge the child has of form, color, 
 size, number, position, and direction, and distance measurement. 
 Give names if necessary, but preference to the crudest individual 
 description of the child. Have the forms discussed, of what they 
 were made, by whom, and for whom. 
 
 Figure 2. Describe what is seen in form, color, position, direction, 
 number. Separate and change figures — increase and decrease of 
 size and appearance. Compare with previous figure. Describe 
 difference of size. 
 
 Figure 3. Describe what is seen, etc., and compare in the same 
 manner figures 4, 5, 0, 7, and 8, offering the same exercises in variety 
 of appearance and increase of number of ellipsoids. 
 
 Be exact, not allowing the child more ellipsoids than are succes- 
 sively presented in exercise. Encourage two or three children to com- 
 bine for work in common. Be liberal in changing colors to taste. It 
 is a grave educational fault to over-feed the child with quanities of 
 educational means instead of giving experience of its own resources 
 b}^ doing great things with small means. 
 
 As soon as possible let one child give dictation to the class. Let 
 the children agree among themselves about terms they wish to use 
 for the points of connections on ellipsoids and rings. The obser- 
 vation of an almost yearly change of these terms, especially in the 
 
j.6 The Connecting Link. 
 
 dictation for forms of the fourth and fifth gift, affords much psycho- 
 logical interest; not less the exactness with which these terms were 
 kept, and the sharp criticism directed to clear, precise language among 
 small children — a point greatly undervalued in pedagogy, yet 
 fundamental to each branch of learning, for construction and 
 expression of thoughts. Dictation of oiu child to three other*, in 
 block-, stick-, tablets, and rings, starting from the centre, extended 
 by the four corners, with their intermediates, serving as a weekly 
 exercise in common, frightened not seldom the untrained normal 
 scholar, m spite of high school, college, and even university learning 
 — their rivals being children from nine to ten-and-a-half years of age. 
 Figurt 9. — Observe new elements. Describe what is seen in form, 
 color, size, etc. Point to similarities and dissimilarities between 
 figures 8 and 9. Ask the child of what the figures remind it. Re- 
 quest the child to bring flowers next day whose petals grow similar 
 to positions of ellipsoids in figures S, 9, 10, 11. 12, 13. Compare 
 colors of petals with those of ellipsoids. Expect plainest, individual, 
 but distinct language in describing. ^ Analyze each figure. Figures 
 14 and 15 suggest free use of combining hemispheres and ellipsoids. 
 The sewing cards furnish patterns for flowers and leaves. Let the 
 child combine them with stems imitated by hemispheres. Have the 
 whole drawn, and if well done have it colored. 
 
 I. Chart 3.— Outlining- in Ellipsoids of Objects in Life Size. 
 
 Adaptation to Conception. — Observing the young child's tendency 
 to content itself with small things, we experience not less the diffi- 
 culty to provide it with a clear perception of comparative measure- 
 ment between small and large objects, sufficiently observed by 
 having described real objects or pictures. — (Prof. Stanley Hall and 
 City Supt. Greenwood.) 
 
 Notwithstanding the moral obligation to satisfy the child's 
 natural craving for, wanting and knowing the truth and to supple- 
 ment its imaginative faculties, the practical need of teaching right 
 seeing is of no less weight. 
 
 The chart presents, therefore, by means of outlines, some objects 
 familiar to each child, which, though they may differ in form and 
 size, suggest the normal appearance of known things. Their ap- 
 pearance more or less corresponding with the real thing remembered 
 by the child, opens, when described, discussed, or on trial for repro- 
 duction, an unsurpassed opportunity for a lasting conception by 
 experimental activities, so much more valuable at a period when a 
 reproduction of pencil lines would be impossible. 
 
 Direction for Use. — Discuss form, size and use of the object. Ana- 
 lyze its outline-, its relation to home-pleasure and comfort, and the 
 material it is made of. Let the child describe the form and 
 color and size of the same objects used at home. By this they will 
 
TJic Connecting Link. 4.J 
 
 become observant of all they see at home. Show, if possible, coffee, 
 tea, chocolate and sugar in their raw state and prepared for use. 
 Speak of milk in its great usefulness and benefaction to man. 
 Point to the dependence of man on animal and plant life. 
 
 Man's Obligation /<> Care for Animal and Plant — This opens a wide 
 field to satisfy a child's inquisitive sympathies with its environments, 
 which will last for ever. If these forms are too difficult to copy, 
 take a simple mug, a simple cup, to begin with. Draw them in 
 lines on the blackboard, to be copied in wooden outlines, or cut 
 these forms in paper, letting the children place the ellipsoids around 
 the edges. Let the children propose what they desire to copy. 
 Dictation of one half the figure may be given, while the other half 
 is copied to complete the whole. Have the figures drawn and 
 colored by the teacher on the black-board. 
 
 I. Chart 4; Outlining of Objects to be Enlarged in Size. 
 
 Adaption to Conception. — It has been heretofore an educational 
 aim to observe and compare measurement between one or more ob- 
 ject-, while it is the object of this chart to lead to enlargement of size. 
 The objects, simple in outlines and construction, are familiar to the 
 child and allow any reasonable degree of enlargement, The exer- 
 cises consist in finding equal extension in height and width of the 
 objects to be enlarged. If the child proves practical capacity, and 
 a clear understanding of how to reconstruct the forms presented, its 
 sense of forms has greatly increased. 
 
 Compare objects on chart in the described manner. Discuss 
 shape, use and material of the objects presented. The ideas of the 
 exercise as intended, demanding independence of action, delight 
 each child. 
 
 Direction for Use. — Disturb the child as little as possible in its 
 individual conclusions to reach the goal. The power to solve cause 
 and effect by reason, pays highest in the market of life, and marks 
 " the self-made man and woman." Actual labor, to overcome diffi- 
 culties, strengthens this power; it forms characters by force of will, to 
 which the power of brain stands but subsidiary. For this reason we 
 want labor in our primary schools as we use it in Kindergartens. 
 
 I. Chart 5.— Outlining in Ellipsoids, Presenting 
 the Liine of Beauty. 
 
 Adaptation to Conception. — We know of the existence of Academies 
 of Pottery among the Greek and Romans, proving that the harmony 
 of proportion admired in the work of the ancients resulted from 
 submission to the studies of laws of harmony. 
 
 Our time has still to obey these underlying laws of beauty and 
 harmony. Unable to surpass their perfection, we use their models 
 
4:8 The Connecting Link. 
 
 as types of a noble grandeur and simplicity in outlines, with deli- 
 cate touches of a true conception of the idea of things, showing a 
 spontaneous individual originality as outgrowth of a poetic and 
 symbolic conception of nature and its beauty in plant-life. Unfortu- 
 nately, our ago lias given way to a submission to changing fashions 
 and their tyranny. A number of superfluous decorations are used to 
 hide the lack of simplicity and beauty in outlines. To counteract 
 this condition, especially at the first period of childhood, is an im- 
 portant educational obligation. 
 
 My own experience of the educational effect of familiarizing chil- 
 dren quite young with the ideas of the beautiful, has been surprising. 
 The "Bilder Atlas," a companion to Brockhaus' Encyclopaedia, 
 illustrating the history of culture and art, impressed children, 
 again and again, with renewed interest and joy, leading to the 
 request for books to satisfy their interest more extensively, while a 
 series of the "Munchner Bilder-bogen " (the Munich Picture Sheets), 
 illustrating the history of culture in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, 
 were chosen on rainy days to fill the recess hours with the sunlight 
 of intelligence and broader conception. 
 
 The successive collecting, the cutting out, the arranging, and 
 classification of objects uniting the pupils, the students of the normal 
 class, and the teachers in labor in common, produced a wonderful 
 educational effect.* 
 
 Direction for Use. — Proceed in the described manner, compare 
 one form with another, refer to use, material and the value we 
 attach to the models and their origin. Let children describe their 
 vases at home. Let each child give reason, if it can, why it prefers 
 one shape for another. If there is a collection at hand, show speci- 
 men of art from the most primitive to the artistic. 
 
 I. Charts 6, 7 and 8. Outlining of Three Birds. 
 
 Adaptation to Conception. — In the same degree as drawing becomes 
 recognized in its educational value by furnishing means to analyze 
 in lines, recrystalizing and reproducing previously received im- 
 pressions, the opinion grows that these exercises should accompany 
 our first teachings. For this purpose Froebel proposed outline-draw- 
 ing by wooden sticks. If charts 6, 7 and 8 brought outlines of a 
 snake or a fish, it would have seemed more practical; but having 
 a methodically arranged series in view, the birds were chosen only 
 
 * The playroom walls at San Francisco being without plastering, were covered 
 by cotton muslin, imitating brown arches, with inlaid panels of scarlet muslin, six 
 by two and a half feet. These panels contained a series of artistically arranged illustra- 
 tions, consisting of thoughtfully collected and cut-out pictures from periodicals. They 
 presented on these panels the stone period, architecture of Egypt, of Greece, of Roman 
 and of modern times. Also the living of human races, and presentations of the beauti- 
 ul and numerous scenes of animal and human life, etc. 
 
The Connecting Link -fg 
 
 because they present birds' life. The existence of birds, their rich 
 and wonderful practical plumage, their swift flight, their nests 
 as homes, their frugal habits, their artistic skill, their hatching their 
 lovely songs, make them refined friends of man, especially of chil- 
 dren, and no teacher will fail to enlighten and elevate the latter 
 with an endless variety of bird stories. 
 
 They were chosen in reference to the striking difference in their 
 way of living ; so striking that the mere feather, bill, or claw of a 
 bird tells a child, by reason, how he lives and where he lives, lead- 
 ing it, unknowingly, to classification. There are no creatures offer- 
 ing better exercises for comparative observation (Froebel's chief 
 factor of development by self-activity) and reasoning than insects 
 and birds, the latter preferable at the beginning. 
 
 The feathers, bills, and claws collected by the children for our cabi- 
 net were the open books, and, we read many others of similar kinds, 
 which could be read with delight at any free hour, with or without 
 teacher, long before they had to overcome the stumbling-blocks 
 of " spelling hard words." They read about them in the birds' own 
 hieroglyphic language with the very first freshness of childhood, at 
 a period of life when their sympathy for things they love is greater 
 and fuller than it ever will be afterwards. Not by intellectual, but 
 by emotional forces, is the ethical power of human developments. 
 " Cabinets. — That is a collection of things brought together by the 
 interests of the children and their friends, and should be in every 
 Kindergarten and school room. A shelf with some pigeon holes, 
 bought second-hand, can be painted by the older children with de- 
 light, We made our arbors, painted them — did the garden work, 
 the watering, and Friday gave the pleasure of a general weeding and 
 cleaning-up day in our large vegetable and flower garden and cozy 
 palm grove; furnishing work in play and play in work. Every 
 gift to the cabinet was labeled and placed by the children. Seeds 
 filled in bottles (they crossed the plains from Washington, D. C, to 
 San Francisco), wood polished and unpolished — stones, shells, bee- 
 tles — butterflies and cocoons raised by the children ; all kinds of furs, 
 of samples of cotton, linen, woollen, and silk goods were kept. They 
 served to illustrate or explain at any moment what seems desirable to 
 be observed. Certain days offered the privilege to appointed children 
 to select any object of which they desired information. This spon- 
 taneous answering to which the child loves to know, Dr. E. 
 Seguin calls " the only way to furnish lasting instruction." Self- 
 instruction is much undervalued. This expressed itself in rather a 
 cute manner among my pupils, ranging from six years and up- 
 wards : self-instruction demanded a magnifying glass, each child 
 one for itself. For this reason they made it a desired gift among 
 their birthday presents. 
 
50 The Connecting Link. 
 
 Plants fresh from the children's garden brought in each Monday 
 morning furnished oral, written, and drawn explanations of " what I 
 saw." Here the children of the Kindergarten and Primary Classes 
 relied in earnest on their microscopical investigation, u to be sure I 
 saiv rightly" thus developing character by self-reliance, steadiness, 
 exactness, reverence, seeking for and living in truth. 
 
 Direction for Use. — Analyze outlines. Compare the characteristics 
 of the three birds by general appearance and shape of limbs. Have 
 them copied by wooden forms. 
 
 Instruction in natural history without object drawing is no Longer 
 permitted at any stage of development. Outlining as presented is 
 the beginning of it. 
 
 The possibility of drawing and coloring botanical objects has been 
 demonstrated for years at my Kindergarten and school at San 
 Francisco. 
 
The Co7inecting Link. 5/ 
 
 MATERIAL. 
 
 1. Hemispheres in one Size.— Three-fourths an inch diam- 
 eter, in six primary and secondary colors: in wood color, 
 black, brown, and gray. 
 
 2. Ellipsoids in two Sizes.— One and one-sixteenth inch 
 in length, of similar colors to hemispheres. 
 
 3. Whole rings in three Sizes.— One and three-eighths 
 inch in diameter, one inch in diameter, three-fourths inch in 
 diameter, in twenty-four colors, in two shades of primary, 
 secondary and tertiary colors— black and wood color. 
 
 4. Half rings in three Sizes in same colors. 
 
 5. The Superior Conte Pencils in twenty-four colors, cor- 
 responding with the colors of the rings. 
 
 6. Five illustrations on charts 12 by 18, of outlining life-sized 
 objects and directions. 
 
 Three similar charts, presenting outlines of objects of natural 
 science and directions. 
 
 Five colored charts, furnishing gradual exercises for original 
 combinations in form and colors. 
 
 The charts illustrate visibly and descriptively each advance step, 
 sufficient to enable a most inexperienced teacher to use them in giv- 
 ing lessons in outlining, drawing, and coloring. 
 
 The Conte's pencils, used for years in my own establishment, fur- 
 nish the finest colors in the world. They produce faultless combina- 
 tion in delicate tints and shades.* They consume less lead, 
 
 *A well-kuown manufacturer of pencils would not recognize a drawing as done 
 by pencil. 
 
 Note. — I drew some years ago, at Washington, two Greek patterns on the blackboard. 
 They were compared, and at the close of the inventive drawing lesson almost all of the 
 forty children, ranging from five and a half to thirteen years, had invented one or two 
 charming patterns a la greque, still in my possession as relics, proving the natural 
 artistic creative capacities of childhood. 
 
 I remember a boy, Charlie, nine years old, of San Francisco, who, not quite 
 well, had to leave the drawing lesson on Friday. He asked for his drawing-book to do 
 some little work at home. Monday morning, returning his new book, it was filled to 
 the last page with a variety of most charming designs, each in turn worthy of practical 
 use. He was a high-born pattern designer, but he said he had to become a clerk in a 
 bank. 
 
^2 The Connecting Link. 
 
 and excel in not breaking- if cut carefully. They are of equal 
 expense with other 'pencils, while the educational advantage of 
 working with the more delicate pencil lines instead of dab- 
 bling with water colors at such an early age is apt to be over- 
 looked. In short, they solve in an unsurpassed degree the possibility 
 of a general introduction, admitting the justified objection of our 
 teachers in public schools, against the water colors. Give our highly 
 gifted, enthusiastic childhood the chances. The results will surprise 
 the age. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Clnlrthoo(Vs Joy — Man's Cirilizer. 
 
 No epoch of culture can be judged without reference to its under- 
 standing of form and color. The clear perception of simple grandeur 
 among the Greeks, the artistically original creation of their mytholog- 
 ical statues, and the harmonious perfection of their bodies, show an 
 insight into the relations of form which causes astonishment to our 
 cold, mathematically-artistic, imitative age. Still, we must admit 
 thai the sense of form is to be regarded as one of man's strongest 
 natural gifts. 
 
 Form is the first language which becomes intelligible to the child ; 
 it is the most impressive, the most indellible, because it falls on 
 the yet unwritten page of his soul, as the first means of development 
 which leads him from the unconscious to the conscious state. 
 
 In most cases a simple ring, a point in which the child dreams 
 over again the chief events of days and hours, is sufficient for the 
 child's observant eye. In spite of these hints of all means of edu- 
 cation, nothing has been left more to chance than an early compara- 
 tive understanding of form and color; and with this an early feel- 
 ing, seeing, and understanding of the beautiful and orderly in 
 our surroundings , and in nature. Therefore few are capable of 
 using form as an expression of ideas, a thing in which the ancients 
 and primitive nations were and are so far in advance of us. Why 
 should this be? Because there is a notion that an understanding 
 of form is a special power, not a general, one and as an individual 
 gift seldom found. Yet this view is decidedly contradicted by natu- 
 ral art industries among the Swiss, the folk of the Tyrol, and of 
 Thuringia, and Bohemia, as well as many primitive nations. 
 
 The simpler and more intense is an expression, and the oftener its 
 repetition takes place in animating change, the more permanent 
 are the healthily educational effects on the child. 
 
 The outlines of the simplest forms of Nature which surround the 
 child are therefore earliest comprehended by him, and first awake 
 the wish of imitation. The child sees in the ball the round apple 
 and at the same time tries to recognize the difference between them 
 
The Connecting Link. jj 
 
 because he is fond of them both. Educational guidance has to 
 avail itself of this. 
 
 Professor Virchow recently stated before the Anthropological 
 Society in Berlin, that he was obliged to recommend his young- 
 students color studies at the beginning of each fresh term, as he 
 found them incapable of distinguishing red, blue, or brown, in 
 black ; or yellow, white, or green, in grey. So important did this 
 shortcoming appear to him for the totality of human culture, that 
 he petitioned the Reichstag as to how 7 this could be avoided. The 
 state of affairs seems still more grave when celebrated oculists inform 
 us that in schools, especially elementary ones, the perceptive under- 
 standing of mixture, shades, and grades of colors is paid no attention 
 to : which is the more to be pitied, as Tyndall, in a prophetic anticipa- 
 tion of the future of a higher developed sense of color, points to the 
 existence of a wealth of colorsas yet undreamt of. Canon Farrar, of 
 Westminster Abbey, says, in a lecture before the London Society of 
 Arts: "Each neglect of art as a means of education must carry 
 with it great drawbacks. We give early instruction in reading, 
 writing and arithmetic, but the far more important development of 
 feeling and understanding for all that is beautiful is shown to be 
 completely neglected. The same child, who can tell you how many 
 pounds of meat he can get for a shilling, hasprobabl} 7 never inhaled 
 the odor of a rose with exalted feelings. Let us, then, before all, 
 begin with the culture of the senses in our homes and schools." 
 
 And now, as to the child himself. Observe his nature, his activity. 
 Science maintains that the strength of the senses of the child till his 
 eighth year is greater than that of an adult, and later on diminishes. 
 This becomes manifest when we consider what he acquires, without 
 our teaching, by the activity of his senses within the first four years, 
 two of which are passed without the means of speech. The child 
 wants to know, wants to learn, but not by passively receiving. 
 
 He ' himself wishes to see, hear, taste, feel, and smell ; he, so to 
 speak, dictates the course of his own teaching. Free conclusions of 
 reasons lead the child to free investigations about the what, how, 
 why, and when. The great principles of alternating influences, of 
 continual permutation of matter, the incorporation of that which 
 was, is, and will be, does not enter his young fresh child's soul as 
 science, but as a perception of his senses leading to reason. This is 
 the time when the beauty, the harmony, and the laws of life must 
 enter, like fertilizing sunbeams, in the emotional life of the child. 
 The child knows it; he wishes to strive with his own powers for this 
 self-education. He instinctively reaches for form and color. 
 
 This constantly reaching after the use of forms in its individual 
 and national value has impressed the mind of many prominent 
 leaders of education. 
 
54. The Connecting Link. 
 
 Wishing to assist in this just demand, I experimented at its solu- 
 tion foryearsby reason and by means of objects. Each proceeding 
 carried the weight of practical experience, gained from the small 
 child, to the adult. What appears is but the statement of happy 
 results achieved — the incorporation of children's Joy I 
 
 If. Chart 1.— Form and Color. 
 
 Child's earliest training in color sense. 
 
 The child having been playingly impressed with the existence 
 of colors and their modifications by the mother (see Baby's Delight. 
 in Conscious Motherhood) may also be playingly familiarized in 
 the Kindergarten by a glass prism — telling the fact that color is an 
 effect of light. (See E. Marwedel's Botany, " The Twin Sisters," "Air 
 and Light.") This should be followed by observing the spectrum 
 (from all sides), and being led to observe repeatedly the rainbow in 
 its metamorphic change of glowing and subdued colors ; the beauti- 
 ful interchanging flow of tints and shades in a sunset ; the moon 
 with her purified silvery rays, lightening the dark side of the world, 
 speaking in her grotesque individual language by her long-stretched 
 shadows, a miracle to each young child. The shades falling on the 
 waves of the water, falling on the hills and valleys, on the foliage of 
 trees and fields at different times of the day and the seasons should 
 touch its poetical nature with the great rhythm of harmony, impress- 
 ing it for ever and ever with the intensity of all things, and|this at an 
 age when discord and separatism have not yet destroyed the idea of 
 the great brotherhood of all that exists. 
 
 Not less should our own school rooms be educational. The 
 rosy tint— the effect of sunlight — of some red curtains falling on the 
 walls of my kindergarten served the purpose; so any other effect 
 of light and color in nature and in pictures. The school garden 
 with its flower beds; the choice of flowers for bouquets, picked fresh 
 from the own garden for mother and loving friends ; the filling of 
 vases with flowers for the school rooms were performed aesthet- 
 ically and discriminatingly. Even rainy days had to demonstrate 
 that the gray color effects soothingly the poetical home comfort. 
 
 These influences direct the child to see, and to live in color effects, 
 and to seek for tin rri. 
 
 "Why." asked a mother, "does my little girl (five-and-one-half 
 years old) so often look up to the clouds, enjoying their coloring, 
 and want me to have the same pleasures?" 
 
 " Watching the colors" was the term among the five and six year 
 old aesthetics. There was no teaching, but undeniably a self-educa- 
 tion in the conception of the beautiful, fostered by exercise and the 
 knowledge and sympathy on the part of the teacher. The usual 
 curriculum in the kindergarten begins by introducing, first the. 
 
The Connecting Link. 55 
 
 primary, then secondary colors in connection with the work. I 
 never yielded to this, conceiving the impossibility of exciting in this 
 manner the refinement of color sense, very desirous, however, 
 to restrict the number of color impressions to three, I use the pri- 
 mary colors in their tints and shades. 
 
 Yellow, less glaring than red, was first used. Yellow was shaded 
 almost to brown, the red to cardinal. The series of linear combina- 
 tions in sewing, including the square divided diagonally, was executed 
 in yellow. 
 
 Blue in its scale from light to dark served the second series, the 
 oblong divided diagonally; while red, shaded into cardinal, was 
 used for illustrating individual combinations of principles — called 
 applications. This was also practiced by my Training Class. 
 
 This considered four points: 1st, the power of seeing each color 
 by itself; 2d, comparatively to each other; 3d, comprehensively as 
 a unity of colors leading to combinations less crude in conception 
 and execution, allowances being made to break the glaring effect 
 of contrasts in every direction. Different tints of one color pre- 
 sented to the child on pieces of stiff pap< r, often in eight tones, were 
 not seldom more quickly and better distinguished by the children 
 than by the students. However, the highest scientific understand- 
 ing of color, "as color," and scientifically approved relation of each 
 to another affects no higher qualities in human development; with- 
 out the spiritual relation of the laws of the beautiful from within — 
 that is by the individual culture of the emotions capable of amelio- 
 rating the idea and the higher nature of things — color knowledge 
 remains but a professional training. 
 
 The danger involved must not be overlooked. Criticism issharp 
 and restless — negative. The American Nation is a critical one. 
 Plasticity wants rest, wants peace, and affirmation, for creative powers. 
 
 From the mere scale of order to symmetry, from symmetry to the 
 rhythm of harmony, to an elevated conception of art and its creative 
 forces, is a long distance. 
 
 With perception as its guide the man in the child depends on its 
 own self-activity. To the Nation falls the obligation to nourish and 
 strengthen the capacities necessary to reach the goal if possible; not 
 for the sake of an artist, but for the creation of happy cultured 
 beings in the scale of a progressive humanity able to comprehend the 
 law in beauty and beauty in law, the created in the creator. 
 
 For j^ears I have tried to introduce by means of instruction in 
 drawing and coloring, a certain grade of general culture, without 
 which no clear conception of man himself, or of his environments, 
 is possible. Botany in its general attractiveness and moral spirit 
 in developing human constructive instead of destructive faculties 
 seemed to be best adapted. 
 
^6 TJie Connecting Link. 
 
 A botany written for this two-fold purpose cultivates the poetry oi 
 plant-life without destroying scientific truth, fulfilling the mission 
 of bringing the child in daily contact with the beauty of nature by 
 drawing and coloring the objects placed under investigation, opening 
 the widest field for the studies of the harmony revealed in the tints 
 and shades and hues of nature. 
 
 The colored forms used in outlining are, therefore, changed to 
 colored rings and half rings of different sizes, enabling the child to 
 combine them in pleasing forms and colors at an age when no other 
 material can be used for the same purpose. 
 
 Some colored charts give direction, but may be obtained as un- 
 colored lithographs. 
 
 Charts for practice in mind pictures, identical with form and 
 color figures to recognize arithmetical diversities, can be obtained 
 with the ellipsoids free of charge. 
 
 Send for circular "A System of Child's Culture,'' by Emma Marwedel, free of charge, 
 from D. C. Heath Publishing House, Boston, Mass. Mrs. Grant, agent of Miss Marwedel. 
 at Chicago, 111., 2312 Indiana avenue. 
 
 PRICE-LIST. 
 
 Balls per 100 $4 00 
 
 Investigations. Printed matter. 
 
 Sewing Cards " 100 1 00 
 
 » •' •• 500 4 00 
 
 Will be improved by names. Printed matter. 
 
 Uucolored Ellipsoids, two sizes per 1000 2 50 
 
 ■ '• 500 1 50 
 
 Colored " " " '• 1000 3 75 
 
 " •• '• •• ■' 500 2 00 
 
 Uncolored Hemispheres, two sizes " 1000 2 50 
 
 Printed Matter. 
 
 Uncolored Hemispheres, two si/.es " 500 1 50 
 
 Colored " ■' " " 1U00 3 75 
 
 " •• " •• • 500 2 00 
 
 Uncolored Rings, three sizes " 1000 2 50 
 
 " - » •• " 500 1 50 
 
 Colored " " " " 1000 3 75 
 
 " •• 500 2 00 
 
 Uncolored Guide Book 50 
 
 Conscious Motherhood 2 00 
 
 Childhood Poetry and Studies 25 
 
 Conte Pencils (assorted colors) per doz 1 "0 
 
 " " ". " " half doz 00 
 
 Forms of stiff paper to be cut with knife. 
 
 I, II, III, (1 doz. samples each) 75 
 
 Fms in wood 25 or 50 samples. 
 
Testimonials. 
 
 Extracts from Letters received by Miss Marwedel, 
 with permission to publish. 
 
 57 
 
 I am pleased with Miss Marwedel's development of elementary drawing for kinder- 
 garten and primary work. It is philosophically correct, and delightfully practical. 
 Altogether, her modified plan of work seems to me to be a real and solid advance and 
 improvement. The abstract of the work on Motherhood indicates a manual of great 
 value. 
 
 JOHN SWETT, 
 /'/■in. Girls' High and Normal School, San Francisco. 
 May 10, 1882. 
 
 Normal Park, III., Aug. 2, 1884. 
 My dear Miss Marwedel : 
 
 Your plan of kindergarten work, so far as I can see, is entirely philosophical. 
 It is true to child nature, and adapted to its wants. We need very much a plan of 
 development into science, drawing, form, and color, that will take the child from the 
 kindergarten up through the primary schools. When I can get the steps of your plan, 
 so they can be used, I shall try it in primary schools with great confidence. 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 FRANCIS W. PARKER. 
 
 Normal Park, III., Aug. 5, 1884. 
 
 To WHOM IT MAY CONCERN : 
 
 Aside from being much pleased with the general interest which Miss Emma 
 Marwedel induced in us for the kindergarten during her short stay at Normal Park, we 
 were taken with the novelty and reasonableness of the system of drawing presented by 
 her. which finds its primary elements in the circle rather than in the right line, as is 
 the case with common systems. Nature is rich in curves and poor in straight lines ; 
 we hopefully await the future of that educational drawing which seeks perfection of 
 sense concepts rather than the artistic as its end. Surely the system as outlined for us 
 by San Francisco's great kindergartener tended in this line, and we wish it God-speed 
 in its developments. 
 
 HENRY D. HATCH, 
 Prin. School No. 2, Moline, III. 
 W. W. SPEER, 
 Teacher of Mathematics in the Cook County Normal School. 
 (Taking kindergarten work at Summer Institute, Normal Park, 111.) 
 
 28 Main Street, 
 
 Hartford, Conn., June 17, 1885. 
 Dear Miss Marwedel : 
 
 ... I sympathize with you heartily in the importance you attach to the mother 
 element in child culture; properly educated herself, the mother's nursery and home 
 would be the true kindergarten for the infant and young child ; but as mothers and 
 homes are, we must look to well-trained kindergarteners to perform that function prop- 
 erly. . . . Yours truly, 
 
 HENRY BARNARD. 
 
58 Testimonials. 
 
 July 19, 1882 
 Miss Emma Marwedel. 
 
 Dear Madam: I thank you for your patient explanation of the details of your plan to 
 substitute lessons on the globe and the circle for the straight line figures, that Froebel 
 introduced in the first lessons of the kindergarten course. 
 
 While I am not prepared to say that I see the truth of your position beyond all possi- 
 bility of change of opinion, yet I am now inclined to think that you have brought for- 
 ward a genuine improvement to the old plan of teaching the drawing lessons in the 
 kindergarten. It seems as if Froebel would have taken your course, if he had seen how 
 to make the minutely graded steps that you have made in giving the use of curved lines to 
 the pupil at so early a stage. No doubt your plan will interest the pupil more, and will 
 give him better powers of seeing unity of form in nature, and hence develop the artistic 
 talent more securely. * 
 
 Respectfully, 
 
 W. T. HARRIS. 
 
 Berkeley, Cal. 
 Miss Emma Marwedel, San Francisco. 
 
 Dear Madam; I am much pleased to see, from the prospectus just received, that your 
 work, connecting by an easy, interesting, and logical method of progression the kinder- 
 garten instruction as established by Froebel, with the " study. of the life and forms of 
 nature," is soon to be before the public. I cannot too strongly express mj- sense of the 
 importance of accomplishing what is directly contemplated by your expansion of Froebel's 
 system, namely, the early training of the child to habits of accurate perception and 
 observation of nature. The great majority of men and women pass through the world 
 as those who, although having eyes, see not; and it is with difficulty that the graduates 
 of our grammar schools, and even of our high schools, strive to make up, in later life, 
 for the omission to provide for the training of their perceptions, that is so flagrant a gap 
 in our educational system and diverts so many lives from their proper aims. The effect 
 of kindergarten training, as usually, understood, upon success in the later study of the 
 sciences is most striking ; but there is no reason why this advantage should not be more 
 fully realized by a direct introduction of the forms of nature into kindergarten training : 
 and this is admirably carried out in your work in the direct and comparative juxtaposi- 
 tion of the geometrical circle with such forms, showing their mutual relations. But 
 apart even from the kindergarten proper, the idea is a fruitful one for use in the ordin- 
 ary schools of drawing as well ; and the whole cannot fail to suggest to teacher as well 
 as pupils a different and much higher plane than that on which such exercises are com- 
 monly conducted. I earnestly hope that your work, and the principles it sets forth, 
 may find the widest acceptance among the educators of the young. 
 
 Sincerely yours, E. W. HILGARD. 
 
 State of Maryland, Education Department, 
 
 Baltimore, Md. 
 Miss Marwedel has explained to me her system of child training from the cradle up- 
 wards. I have great confidence in her methods, and await with some impatience the 
 publication of the book which she has in preparation on the subject. I feel assured it 
 will make an impression, and lead to good results. 
 
 M. A. NEWELL. 
 
 Superintendent, etc. 
 
Testimonials. 59 
 
 I have read the manuscript with great pleasure, and should be delighted to see it pub- 
 lished. Your circular system leads the child at once to life, beauty and nature instead 
 of dead matter. 
 
 LOUISA P. HOPKINS, 
 Supervisor of Schools, Boston. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 No woman in the country is more competent to write on earliest education and the 
 kindergarten than Miss Marwedel. I have examined her work and believe its publica- 
 tion will be serviceable in promoting a better knowledge of Froebel's philosophy and 
 methods. 
 
 JAS. MACALISTER, 
 Supt. Public Schools, Philadelphia. 
 
 4815 Kenwood Avenue, 
 
 Chicago, Oct. 6th . 
 My dear Miss Marwedel : 
 
 I think it must be a great satisfaction to you to realize that while so many folks 
 are groping about for the proper expression of Froebel's theoretical idea, you are able 
 to take so many elements of beauty into a child's life and by your material bring the 
 true art principle down within the baby's hand and heart. I wish we might all learn 
 from you of the true feeling of beauty which must come before the knowledge of it and 
 that we might all if we would, lead this sub-conscious stage of growth into a far higher 
 realm than we have ever attempted to reach. 
 
 With love, 
 
 ALICE H. PUTNAM. 
 
 Mrs. Alice H. Putnam being the first to order the ellipsoids writes as follows: " I 
 hope to hear that your material is largely used, for I believe it is adequate. Especially 
 do I feel so about the cutting in wood which comes to me to fill an " aching void " left 
 by the production of Sloyd that only speaks of use in its utilitarian sense and so far as I 
 have been able to see, totally ignores beauty, or anything approaching beauty, except 
 perhaps strength. Better days will come for my grand children! ' 
 
 And further on 
 
 " It made the tears come, to read the manuscript you sent me on color and to realize 
 that while nature is so free in her gifts of color, so true in her method of developing 
 this sense we have been so blind and stingy and so wrong in our use of it. I shall be 
 glad to have all of your thoughts in this big question in black and white. You have 
 said much of it in your 'Conscious Motherhood' that is available, and I have used the 
 book in my classes." 
 
 Washington, D. C, Oct. 28, 1890. 
 My Dear Miss Marwedel: 
 
 I wish I had both time and ability to write volumes, for I feel that too much 
 cannot be said in favor of your ingenious works of art for children. Those beauti- 
 ful drawings and harmonious blending of colors which you showed me it was pos- 
 sible to produce have been a great delight as well as a great help to me. I have 
 used your colored charts with very satisfactory results and hope to accomplish much 
 
60 Testimonials. 
 
 more with the rings and ellipsoids. From the slight experience L have had in using 
 your gifts I am confident that nothing but good results will follow. I feel sure that 
 your method of the curved lines will open a wide field of development for the 
 young. Yours very sincerely, 
 
 LOUISA MANN, 
 
 Chicago, Oct. 7, 1890. 
 I take pleasure, in recommending Miss Emma Marwedel's color forms. I have used 
 them and find them exceedingly interesting and instructive. 
 
 EVA B. WHITMORE. 
 General Superintendent of Chicago Free Kindergarten Association. 
 
 I most heartily recommend the use of Miss Marwedel's color forms. The colors har- 
 monize well and are restful to the eyes. The forms also are most satisfactory, as exper- 
 ience has proved. 
 
 MRS. MARY McC. B. PAGE. 
 Principal of Chicago Free Kindergarten Training Glass. 
 
 Among the testimonies to Conscious Motherhood, accept that of Mrs. Alice H. Put- 
 nam and of "Books" in -'Parent's Review, " London, England, published by W. H. 
 Allen & Co., 13 Waterloo Place. Edited by Charlotte M. Mason. "The book has 
 been very well received by the American press and deserves the praise bestowed on 
 it, but for all of its 500 pages it is too short or rather too sketchy. It is of course 
 one long address by one who understands children but twenty volumes would hardly 
 be enough to lay Miss Marwedel's subjects fully open. The author shows the full- 
 est appreciation of the importance of the subject. The whole book is a logical but 
 original development of Froebel and we are sure the author would claim that it 
 leads children to the maximum effect with the minimum waste of time and temper. 
 
60 Testimonials. 
 
 more -with the rings and ellipsoids. From the slight experience L have had in using 
 your gifts I am confident that nothing but good results -will follow. I feel sure that 
 your method of the curved lines will open a wide field of development for the 
 young. Yours very sincerely. 
 
 LOUISA MANN, 
 
 Chicago. Oct. 7. 1890. 
 I take pleasure in recommending Miss Emma Marwedel"s color forms. I have used 
 them and find them exeeedinglv interesting and instructive. 
 
 EYA B. WHITMORE. 
 General Superintendant of Chicago Free Kindergarten Association. 
 
 I most heartily recommend the use of Miss Marwedel's color forms. The colors har- 
 monize well and are restful to the eyes. The forms also are most satisfactory, as exper- 
 ience has proved. 
 
 MRS. MARY McC. B. PAGE. 
 Principal of Chicago Free Kindergarten Training Class. 
 
 Among the testimonies to Conscious Motherhood, accept that of Mrs. Alice H. Put- 
 nam and of -Books"' in -'Parent's Review." London, England, published by W. H. 
 Allen & Co.. 13 Waterloo Place. Edited by Charlotte M. Mason. -The book has 
 been very well received by the American press and deserves the praise bestowed on 
 it. but for all of its 500 pages it is too short or rather too sketchy. It is of course 
 one long address by one who understands children but twenty volumes would hardly 
 be enough to lay M;ss Marwedel's subjects fully open. The author shows the full- 
 est appreciation of the importance of the subject. The whole book is a logical but 
 original development of Froebel and we are sure the author would claim that it 
 leads children to the maximum effect with the minimum waste of time and temper. 
 
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