But the regular gymnastics and the romping plays must be alternated with quiet employments, of course, but still active.  They will sing at their plays by rote; and also should be taught other songs by rote.  But there can be introduced a regular drill on the scale, which should never last more than ten minutes at a time.  This, if well managed, will cultivate their ears and voices, so that in the course of a year they will become very expert in telling any note struck, if not in striking it.  The ear is cultivated sooner than the voice, and they may be taught to name the octave as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and their imaginations impressed by drawing a ladder of eight rounds on the blackboard, to signify that the voice rises by regular gradation.  This will fix their attention, and their interest will not flag, if the teacher has any tact.

Slates and pencils are indispensable in a Kindergarten from the first.  One side of a slate can be ruled with a sharp point in small squares, and if their fancy is interested by telling them to make a fish-net, they will carefully make their pencils follow these lines,—­which makes a first exercise in drawing.  Their little fingers are so unmanageable that at first they will not be able to make straight lines even with this help.  For variety, little patterns can be given them, drawn on the blackboard, (or on paper similarly ruled,) of picture-frames and patterns for carpets.  When they can make squares well, they can be shown how to cross them with diagonals, and make circles inside of the squares, and outside of them, and encouraged to draw on the other side of the slate, from their own fancy, or from objects.  Entire sympathy and no destructive criticism should meet every effort.  Self-confidence is the first requisite for success.  If they think they have had success, it is indispensable that it should be echoed from without.  Of course there will be poor perspective; and even Schmidt’s method of perspective cannot be introduced to very young children.  A natural talent for perspective sometimes shows itself, which by-and-by can be perfected by Schmidt’s method.[B]

[Footnote B:  See Common School Journal for 1842-3.]

But little children will not draw long at a time.  Nice manipulation, which is important, can be taught, and the eye for form cultivated, by drawing for them birds and letting them prick the lines.  It will enchant them to have something pretty to carry home now and then.  Perforated board can also be used to teach them the use of a needle and thread.  They will like to make the outlines of ships and steamboats, birds, etc., which can be drawn for them with a lead pencil on the board by the teachers.  Weaving strips of colored card-board into papers cut for them is another enchanting amusement, and can be made subservient to teaching them the harmonies of colors.  In the latter part of the season, when they have an accumulation of pricked birds, or have learned to draw them, they can be allowed colors to paint them in a rough manner.  It is, perhaps, worth while to say, that, in teaching children to draw on their slates, it is better for the teacher to draw at the moment on the blackboard than to give them patterns of birds, utensils, etc., because then the children will see how to begin and proceed, and are not discouraged by the mechanical perfection of their model.