Robert Owen says in his twenty years' experience in a kindergarten school not one child was punished.

This naturally leads the children to the next important principle

truthfulness.

After a study of children and child's nature for a number of years, I make the assertion that for a child to lie is an acquired habit. Children, until they are accused of falsehood, do not know what it is, or not until they fear punishment for some childish misdeed will they seek to hide behind a falsehood.

A lie is always the weapon of a coward.

Warren Hastings tells us that the chief characteristic of many tribes of India was their utter lack of truthfulness, simply because they were cowards and lacked the moral courage to face their misdeeds.

But in this childhood republic of ours, where all are equal and punishment is unknown, there is no need for a falsehood, and children soon learn to despise any semblance of an untruth.

As a natural sequence to gentleness and truthfulness, we find reverence one of the principles of the kindergarten.

It is here, that irrespective of sect or creed, all the little ones are taught to "lift the head and bend the knee" in thankfulness for life and health, and to ask for guidance in work and play. The last two lines of their morning prayer might well be adopted by us all:

"In our work and in our play,

Be Thou with us, O Lord this day."

Children taught in this way are naturally orderly and obedient. There is little effort required on the part of the teacher to secure order.

Do not misunderstand me, I do not mean to say that fifty healthy, active little children of four or five years of age will remain perfectly quiet for two or three hours. Far be it from me to ever desire to witness such infliction of misery, but "love," that great leveler of mankind, soon controls their acts, and nothing which the teacher would not approve is seen in the school room.

The little folks have now had gentleness, neatness, truthfulness, reverence and order impressed upon them by word and example of their instructors; these habits once formed lead to the desired end of all instruction-industry.

The kindergartners will tell you that they aim to develop the mental powers through self-activity.

Let us transpose this into the good old words of Pestalozzi and say: "We learn by doing."

It is just this one precept that we must look to closely if we wish to develop the future man or woman.

A child whose ideas are beginning to develop, surrounded by the gifts of the kindergarten, will naturally make a choice, clearly demonstrating the trend of its whole nature.

Here the artist, the engineer, or even the mechanic of future years, shows his inherent nature. How many people do we find in this world, unhappy and discontented in their vocation, simply because they are not fitted by nature for the work they have taken up.

Watching and developing these traits, helping the child to mature and polish crude ideas, is all the work of the true kindergartner.

Go to any man whose early years were spent in the kindergarten and ask him of his work done there, and you will find that some special feature of it made a lasting impression on his mind, and to some extent had its influence in shaping his future course of life.

I think I hear some one say: "Why go to a kindergarten or any other school? Why not let a boy select some path in life and follow it without education in any other direction?"

No-no-no the balance wheel of the engine may be a little heavier in one part of its rim, to carry it over the centre, but if all the weight be

put at that point it destroys the very thing for which it was created, and will always stop on the centre, and could not start without outside assistance.

So would I have it understood with the training of children in the direction of their natural talents.

Educate them into well rounded men and women, but at the same time, like the metal in the balance wheel, let the greater part fall to the point where most needed.

Another important work begun in the kindergarten is the implanting in the child's mind of patriotism and of the recognition of the equal rights of his fellow beings.

Without sacrifice of independence, the child must learn, and is here taught, to respect the rights of every other child, no matter what be his place in the social scale. The circumstances of birth or surroundings give him no preference or advantage over his little neighbor, and he must submit to the same authority.

This is the practical application of the "Golden Rule," as well as the fundamental principle of our form of government. If the public kindergarten system was universally adopted throughout this land, we should hear no more mutterings of socialism and of the discontent fomented by agitators among the poorer classes; poverty, idleness and strikes would be reduced to a minimum.

The laws of our country would be made by upright and fearless legislators for the benefit of the whole people, and executed impartially by an administration above criticism.

Let us suppose that a child has arrived at the age of six years, two of which have been spent in a kindergarten, is he any better fitted to enter the primary grade than his brother, who has been at home, without systematic training?

The one has been taught to listen, to think, to compare, to do, to act in a sympathetic way; the other, while his natural faculties may be just as good, suffers from a lack of this discipline, and, like the untrained trotter, knows not how to do. I have heard a first grade teacher say, often and again, "If I could only keep those children that come from the kindergarten busy, while the untrained scholar is looking for his pencil, wiping his slate, getting ready to start work (you all know the process), the trained one has finished the light task and is asking-what next?

I will now crave your pardon and give you what have been personal experiences in connection with kindergarten children in a public school during a period of seven years.

In September, 1892, the Baltimore County School Board, at the solicitation of a few interested persons, established a kindergarten in connec tion with the public school at Sparrow's Point, that hive of industry of the Maryland Steel Company.

The first year the experiment was but a partial success. The people did not take to it, and it was with considerable persuasion that we induced parents to send about thirty children.

It was something new, the children were too small, they could not be taught; besides, it was only a fad. They did not believe in its efficacy. The next year a few more came, better work was done, the parents manifested a little more interest, they visited the room, saw the little ones at their work, and went away satisfied that the teachers were interested in their children, and that in their little minds were being sown only the best of seeds for future growth.

Thus has the first little public school kindergarten in Maryland grown, until, during the past year, we can boast of 157 children guided by four experienced teachers and the pride of the hearts of a hard-working town of four thousand iron-workers.

Now, what has this kindergarten done for the school proper? It has had a very beneficial effect on the morals. I have yet to hear a ten yearold boy, of kindergarten training, swear. I have never known one to play

truant, and of nearly five hundred who have entered school from the kin dergarten, not one has been punished for misbehavior. There is no doubt it has raised the mental standard, the children are doing more and better work than ever before, and in all classes where you find kindergarten children, they will be found at the head of the class.

With the little ones trained as these have been-reason, memory, perception, invention, concentration-all developed when the faculties are most impressionable, cannot fail to bring out well-rounded children, fully able and equipped to take up the burden of school life.

Let us hope now that Baltimore County has taken the initiative in this new era of education, our next Legislature will make the kindergarten a part of the school system of Maryland, and that ere another year, we will find them in every county in our State.

In conclusion, let me say one word to those of us who are to receive these tenderly-trained little ones from the nursery of instruction. See to it that we are fit to receive them, and continue their training along the high plane upon which they have started. Let our lives be as pure as we would teach them to be, and as spotless as we would have theirs.

We all remember when we sat on the nursery floor and piled our blocks high, only to knock them down, and the higher the pile the louder we laughed Who of us to-day can resist stopp ng in our walk along the road when we hear the woodman's axe to watch the giant oak crash down through its fellows? There is something of curiosity in human nature which impels us to look at the falling of a mighty structure.

Did it ever occur to you that your children might be watching to see you fall? As the pile of blocks to the baby, as the giant oak to you, so do we stand before our children, and let us each and all so build the foundation on which we stand that the tender lives intrusted to our care may not see the structure tumble in ruins, rather behold an enduring structure on whose model they may safely build their lives.

Association of School Commissioners and Examiners of Maryland.

THE ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS AND EXAMINERS OF MARYLAND held its annual session at the State Normal School Building, in Baltimore, December 7 and 8, 1899, with Hon. John D. Worthington, President, in the chair, and Prof. M. Bates Stephens, Secretary.

The Executive Committee presented the following program, a copy of which had been previously mailed to each member:

Paper,

(2) Nature Study in the Public Snhools, for what purpose and to what extent?

Herbert E. Austin, State Normal School. DISCUSSION.

(3) Should there be a Compulsory Educational Law in Maryland?

GENERAL DISCUSSION BY THE ASSOCIATION.

(4) Hygiene in the construction of School houses and in School man

(5) The State Teachers' Association-its proper functions and its needs.

(6) Proposed School Legislation.

Call of the Counties by the Presideut.
General Discussion by the Association.

(7) Inspection of the State Normal School December 8th, at one o'clock P. M.

(8) Luncheon, December 8th, at two o'clock P. M.

The minutes of the proceedings, as recorded by the Secretary, are as follows:

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL BUILDING,

BALTIMORE, MD., December 7, 1899.

The Association of School Commissioners and Examiners of the State met in annual convention with John D. Worthington, of Harford County, as Chairman. The President ordered a roll call of the counties, many of which appeared to be without representation. Minutes of last session of previous meeting

were read and approved.

Mr. Worthington on assuming the duties of Chairman, extended a hearty welcome to those present, and expressed his thanks for the honor conferred on him at the last meeting in selecting him President of the Association. He then gave an earnest and valuable talk on the history of Public Education in Maryland, and traced the progress of free education from the time when its pupils were but a mere handful, until now the children of school age who do not avail themselves of public school facilities have been reduced to a very low minimum. The greatest danger now apparent confronting the progress of public education in this State is in the matter of school legislation where it may represent ambitions rather than wise legislators.

The Free Book Bill has a defect which is an omission, in not naming a definite term for which a book should be adopted; a period of three years would be short enough for the life of a text-book.

Hon. E. B. Prettyman, State superintendent, gave a synopsis or summary of the school reports of various counties in the State and Baltimore city, which showed an increase in essential items and showing steady growth in all departments of the system, especially in higher grade studies of our schools. In one essential item there was a decrease of 6,671 in the enrollment of pupils. Prof. Henry A. Wise thought there was an inconsistency in a decreased enrollment and an increase in maintaining the schools. Mr. Nichols, of Talbot county, lamented the fact that county school boards should be required to maintain schools, and especially the colored schools, the full scholastic year where the attendance is so small as to make it a useless expenditure of money for several weeks of the fall term, and possibly the summer term also.

Henry A. Wise, superintendent of Baltimore city schools, made a pointed address on "Should there be a compulsory educational law in Maryland?" taking the ground that the hope of the nation, both in peace and war, lies in public school work, which supplies essential knowledge and skill requisite for life's emergencies. The failure of many States to make the law effecttive makes it important for the State to go slow in adopting a law until one can be adopted involving the least possible cost and