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I.—B,

contend that the cause of education will benefit materially by the exclusion of "infants" from our primary schools. I am an ardent advocate of the kindergarten system, which I hope yet to see made the initial grade of our education scheme. My reading on this subject and study of such admittedly'imperfect methods as have been brought under my notice have convinced me that th kindergarten is the best plan for the training and teaching of infants. People who do not understand it characterize it as "child's-play," pure and simple; but I hold that, if the physical and mental conditions of our children are to be taken into account, there is not enough play and pleasantness in the school-life of our infants. To use the words of an experienced English teacher: "The kindergarten ought to be looked on as a supplement to home-life, not as a substitute for it, except in the case of those neglected ones in whose homes bad influences prevail. For a part of the day it offers advantages which even the home does not. Owing to its gentle discipline, its large family, and its practised staff, it can do in some ways more than the home alone can do as a preparation for school and life." The system by enabling the infant to understand everything that is taught imparts a solid foundation for what is taught in the primary school, as, with its eye trained to form, and its hands to mechanical uses, the child will go out from the kindergarten well prepared to master the elementary principles of design, and with its powers of observation sharpened. It is further claimed for the system that it presents the pupil to the primary-school teacher with its mind so strengthened as to make its progress through the work of the standards very marked; indeed, it is asserted, for example, that " a child need only commence to learn to read when seven or eight years of age, but, owing to his kindergarten training, he will pass by one who may have learned reading several years earlier, but who has never had a regular course of object-lessons." Again, " arithmetic is taught during the first year wholly with things, and the results are most remarkable." I mention these things because lam aware that some authorities in this colony ridicule the system and refuse to believe in its efficacy. To them I would make reply that there must be spme real merit in a system that in America alone has in a decade attained an undeniable position in the national scheme, as the following figures show : — Number of Schools. Number of Teachers. Number of Pupils. 1874 55 ... 125 ... 1,636 1884 354 ... 831 ... 17,002 The adoption of the kindergarten in our chief cities ought to follow immediately on the raising of the school-age, as otherwise a large number of children will in all probability be allowed to roam the streets. There are, I fear, far too many children continually absent from school now, and any step that tended to increase that number must be deplored. Another objection to the kindergarten that I have heard advanced is that it cannot be grafted on to our common-school system. Is not the experience of countries wherein the system has been in operation for some time rather the other way? Commissioner Eaton, of the United States Education Bureau, gives his own testimony, and that of other leading educationists, to the success of the experiment wherever it has been tried (vide report for 1883-84); and Professor Hughes, Superintendent of Schools at Toronto, Canada, addressing a convention at the World's Industrial Exposition at New Orleans in 1885, said, " We have in Toronto, to a certain extent, solved the problem between the kindergarten and the public-school system. . . . When we decided to introduce the kindergarten into our schools we decided to introduce it permanently, and not as an experiment merely. So we took this teacher (who had been through the Albany Normal School, who had had some years' experience in primary work, and had spent two years teaching), paid her $600 a year, and sent her to St. Louis. She came back fully prepared to fulfil her work ; she is doing it now, and doing it admirably. We have now two distinct kindergartens in our city instructed by her, in which she spends alternate weeks ;. and we would have more if we had teachers prepared to conduct them. . . . Our work is a success so far as it has gone; but two years is altogether too short a time to settle it as a success. ... lam also glad to announce that we have taken another departure by establishing free kindergartens. Outside of Toronto the only town or city in Ontario in which the kindergarten has been placed is the Town of Portland. It has been conducted there for three years, and gives complete satisfaction to the trustees and the parents of the children. . . . We expect that the kindergarten will he introduced into all the other cities and towns of the province as rapidly as we can procure trained teachers. We believe in it. We believe in the organic union of the public school and the kindergarten, and we believe in accomplishing that union by the modification of the public"school instead of by the modification of the kindergarten itself." In Geneva, Switzerland, according to Mr. John Hitz, with a population of sixty thousand, no less than four thousand of the school-children attend the kindergartens, which are highly esteemed. Testimony of this kind to the value of the system and to its claim to be regarded as the most rational plan of infant instruction could be multiplied if time and space permitted ; but, before leaving this question, I may be allowed to call attention to the significant fact that the authorities of the other colonies are evidently alive to the merits of the system. For example, the Education Department has decided to obtain the services of two highly-trained kindergarteners, with the object of giving the necessary instruction in the Melbourne Training College, and facilitating the adoption of the system there. Tasmania has also lately established kindergarten schools as part of its national system, and also subsidises private schools of the same character. I regret that lam unable to refer, as I had hoped to be able, to the contention that the expense of the kindergarten system will prove a bar to its adoption here. I had expected to be in possession ere this of authoritative figures showing the cost of maintaining these schools in some of the large towns of the United States, but they have not come to hand. When they reach me they shall be forwarded to the Ghairman of the Committee. Without them Ido not care to express an opinion definitely. If, however, the question of expense can be satisfactorily settled, I think I have advanced some reasons why our youth will be advantaged educationally if they are not permitted to enter the primary schools before they are six years old. Coming now to the primary schools, I think I am warranted in saying that the children who 9—l. 8.