Elizabeth Harrison’s Writings
Biography in Brief
Image: Elizabeth Harrison in NaKinCo, Volume Two of the Year Book of the National Kindergarten College, 1918.
Elizabeth Harrison was born in Athens, Kentucky, September 1, 1849. At an early age, her family moved to Midway, Kentucky, and in 1856 to Davenport, Iowa. From her childhood, she suffered from poor health: chronic asthma and bronchitis, and in later years from recurring pneumonia.
In Davenport, she attended public schools and graduated from the local high school, whose faculty and administration were populated by the “Acht und Verzigers,” Germans who immigrated following the 1848 revolution in Germany. However, her father’s business reversals prevented her from attending college, and she devoted the next years of her life to caring for her sisters’ children in Marshalltown, Iowa.
In the summer of 1879, Harrison visited a high school classmate living in Chicago who persuaded her to attend the kindergarten training class organized by Alice Putnam. Putnam had opened the first kindergarten in Chicago in 1874 and began offering courses in her Kindergarten Training School at the Loring School on Prairie Avenue, Chicago, in 1879 (the following year Putnam founded the Chicago Froebel Association). Harrison returned to Chicago in September 1879 to attend Putnam’s Training School, completed the 36-week training course, and received both a diploma and a certificate to train kindergarten teachers.
In 1881-82 Harrison attended Susan Blow’s school in St. Louis, the first public kindergarten in the United States, which opened in 1873. In order to pay for her attendance at Blow’s school, Harrison opened a summer kindergarten in Marshalltown, Iowa, and in six months Harrison completed the two-year program. The following year she returned to the Loring School but almost immediately traveled to New York to study with Maria Boelte and her husband John Kraus. In 1854-56 Boelte had studied with Frau Louise Froebel, the widow of Frederich Froebel (1782-1852, founder of the kindergarten movement in Germany). Thus, within three years, Harrison had studied with the pioneers of the kindergarten education movement in the United States.
After returning to Chicago in 1883, Harrison and Putnam organized the Chicago Kindergarten Club, which initially attracted 30 members. The following year, Harrison began offering mothers’ classes to educate parents about the kindergarten, and in the fall of 1885 or 1886—National-Louis University and its predecessor colleges traditionally have traced their origins to the latter date, but the sources are contradictory—Miss Harrison’s Training Class (or School) opened with five students and two mothers.
By 1887, there were 48 kindergartens in Chicago and its suburbs (private, church, settlement house, and the first in a public school) and four kindergarten training schools. Harrison soon met Mrs. John N. (Rumah) Crouse—wife of a prominent Chicago dentist, founder and president (1877-1907) of the Women’s Baptist Home Missionary Society in Chicago, and mother of one of Harrison’s kindergarten students—and the two women began planning an expanded curriculum. By 1889 they had opened the Chicago Kindergarten Training School in the Chicago Art Institute, at Michigan Avenue and Van Buren Street. Although they shared many of the responsibilities of operating the school, Harrison focused on teaching and publicizing the kindergarten programs while Mrs. Crouse attended to the financial management, publicity, student recruitment, facilities management, and fund raising for the school.
Eighteen eighty-seven also saw the first of several literary schools, focusing on various historical literary figures, sponsored by the Chicago Kindergarten Club and the Chicago Kindergarten Training School. These began to attract the notice of the local Chicago newspapers. In 1889, Harrison began to offer courses in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for kindergarten teachers and mothers, and in 1890 she traveled to Germany to meet with Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz-Bulow and Henrietta Breyman Schrader, a niece of Froebel, and visited the Schrader Kindergarten Training School.
Harrison played a major role in the kindergarten exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. By then, there were 100 kindergartens in the Chicago area, and Chicago Kindergarten College students were supervising 50 of them. In 1894 Harrison organized the first national Mother’s Convocation in Chicago, forerunner of the Parent and Teachers Association (PTA), which drew 1,200 attendees. She was becoming a national figure.
At the turn of the 20th century, there were more then 5,000 public school kindergartens in the U.S. and more than 200 kindergarten training schools, and Chicago Kindergarten College alumni were holding positions of influence in the state and local Normal Schools, which were beginning to graduate kindergarten teachers.
Harrison was a founding member of the International Kindergarten Union in 1892, and in later years charted a moderate course between the conservative (strictly Froebelian) wing of the kindergarten movement, represented by Susan Blow, and the more liberal wing associated with John Dewey.
In 1912-13 Harrison visited Rome to observe the school of Maria Montessori, and in 1914 her study of the Montessori Method was published by the U.S. Bureau of Education. The following year the National Kindergarten College, successor to the Chicago Kindergarten College, began offering classes in the Montessori Method.
In 1917, a Children’s School was opened under the supervision of Clara Belle Baker, the younger sister of Edna Dean Baker, who had become Associate President of the National Kindergarten and Elementary College and would succeed Elizabeth Harrison as its president in 1920.
Following a heart attack in 1919, Elizabeth Harrison retired as president of the National Kindergarten and Elementary College in 1920. She spent the remaining years of her life principally in San Antonio, Texas, occasionally traveling to other parts of the U.S. Until the end of her life she revised her memoir, Sketches Along Life’s Road, which was eventually published in 1930, three years after her death on October 31, 1927.
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A Study of Child Nature: From The Kindergarten Standpoint
Elizabeth Harrison
Preface
These talks for mothers and teachers were given before my classes in Chicago and elsewhere. They are now published at the earnest request of the members of those classes, and are in nearly the same form as when given, which accounts for the number of anecdotes illustrating different points, as well as for the frequency of personal reminiscence. Fully aware of their many defects, but knowing well that "Charity covereth a multitude of sins," I give them with a loving heart to the mothers of America. I hop that the thought underlying them may be as helpful to others in the understanding of little children as it has been to me. I trust that these pages may lead each reader to a deeper study of Froebel's thought.
-E.H.
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The Unseen Side of Child Life: For the Guardians of Young Children
Elizabeth Harrison
Table of Contents
Introduction
Processional
Visitors Form the Outside World
Mastering the Machine
The Invisible Bridge
The Child's Art World
Recessional
Present Day Tendencies
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How Are We Educating Our Young Girls?
Elizabeth Harrison
From the Introduction to When Children Err: A Book for Young Mothers, by Elizabeth Harrison
Harrison discusses the way in which past educational thought, as pointed out by Herbert Spencer, does not prepare individuals for motherhood, to which she describes the importance and necessity to do so.
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When Children Err: A Book for Young Mothers
Elizabeth Harrison
Table of Contents: The Introduction, The Problem, Who Sets the Standards?, How Wrong Standards are Set Up, Danger of Vague and Varying Standards, When Standards Differ, The Highest Standard, The Growth of Standards, The Discipline of Nature, The Discipline of the Inner Life, The Discipline of the Social World, Value of Confession, Various Forms of Discipline, Arbitrary, or Impulsive Punishment, Retributive, or Revengeful Punishment, Protective, or Legal Punishment, Educative, or Wise Punishment, How to Avoid the Need of Punishment, The Answer Which Time Has Given
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The Montessori Method and the Kindergarden
Elizabeth Harrison
Report commissioned in 1914 by the U.S. Bureau of Education on a study of Dr. Maria Montessori's schools in Italy, by Miss Elizabeth Harrison. Describes Maria Montessori's contribution to the education of young children and compares her methods with that of the Froebelian Kindergarten method.
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Offero, the Giant: A Christmas-Eve Story
Elizabeth Harrison
This children's story tells the tale of Offero, the Giant, "the tallest and strongest man" in the world, who sets out to find the greatest ruler on Earth. While on his journey, he learns of Jesus Christ.
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Kindergarten Journal, Vol.7 No.2
Elizabeth Harrison
Includes a report of the meeting of the International Kindergarten Union, which took place in Cincinnati, Ohio. Also includes essays by Elizabeth Harrison, "Regarding Personality" and "Vacation Days", and an essay by Clara Belle Baker, former Director of the Baker Demonstration School, " How the Violets Came: A Fable".
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The Kindergarten Journal, Vol.6 No.4 1910-1911
Elizabeth Harrison
Includes the editorial, "Kindergarten Festivals", by Elizabeth Harrison on page 151 which describes the festivals that she believes are appropriate to celebrate in the Kindergarten setting, including: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hero Day, Easter, and the children's birthdays.
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Two Children of the Foothills
Elizabeth Harrison
Preface:
If this record of a happy year spent with two children will help to make some other woman study more earnestly Froebel's great book I shall be satisfied. To any in whose heart it may awaken this impulse I would recommend Mr. Denton J. Snider's "Mother's-Play-Songs", and Miss Susan E. Blow's "Letters to a Mother" from both of which books I have been permitted to quote freely. I wish also to acknowledge my obligations to D. Appleton and Company for their courtesy in allowing me avail myself of the illustrations from their "Mottos and Commentaries of Froebel's Mother-Play-Book", which are the reduced fac-simile of the larger pictures we used with these children.
- E.H.
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How Shall We Best Conserve Our Nation's Moral Forces
Elizabeth Harrison
"What are the moral resources of a nation? Is not the greatest of these character? Say what we will, deep down in the heart of each and everyone of us we know that material prosperity is not the highest form of success..."
-Elizabeth Harrison
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Misunderstood Children: Sketches Taken from Life
Elizabeth Harrison
Book Contents: Sammie's Prayer, The Boy Who Hated School, Little Mary, The Twins, For Father's Amusement, A Sunday Morning Diversion, A Geography Lesson, The Sand-Pile, A Shop Scene, Jack and the Alley Boys, The Boy and the Scarlet Coat, Katie MacMahon, A Starved Soul, Daughters of Men, Herbert at His Grandmother's, Gertrude's Story, Miss Eleanor's Garden
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The Kindergarten Journal, Summer 1910
Elizabeth Harrison, Edna Dean Baker, and J.N. Crouse
Includes the essay, "The Value of Character", by Elizabeth Harrison (page 28), "Personal Mention" (page 20) and "Alumnae Report" (page 29) by Edna Dean Baker, and "Extension" (page 25) by J.N. Crouse, co-principal of the Chicago Kindergarten College.
Journal editors: Mrs. Todd Lunsford and Mrs. Florence Capron
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The Kindergarten Journal, Vol.1 No.3
Elizabeth Harrison and J.N. Crouse
Autumn 1910 issue of the quarterly journal. Includes Elizabeth Harrison's report on the 14th annual meeting of the National Congress of Mothers (page 95), an editorial by Elizabeth Harrison titled "The Kindergarten" (page 105) and an editorial titled "The Futurity of College" by Mrs. J.N. Crouse, co-principal of the Chicago Kindergarten College.
Journal editors: Mrs. Todd Lunsford, Mrs. Florence Capron
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The Stone Cutter: A Japanese Legend
Elizabeth Harrison and Francis M. Arnold
A retelling of a traditional Japanese tale in which a discontented stonecutter is never satisfied although his every wish is granted by Buddha. At last, through experience, Hashnu learns the lesson Buddha has been teaching.
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How Little Cedric Became a Knight
Elizabeth Harrison
This children's tale tells the story of Cedric, a little boy who wishes to become a knight by being kind, noble, and brave.
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Some Silent Teachers
Elizabeth Harrison
So kind and sympathetic a reception has been given my " Study of Child-Nature", wherein I treat of the value of understanding and wisely training the INHERETED INSTINCTS of the children, that I have ventured in this book to put forth some suggestions concerning the use of ENVIRONMENT in education. I hope to treat SELF-ACTIVITY and its importance in a third volume, thus completing the trilogy, the outline of which is given in the introduction to this. Thanking a generous public for its past interest, I make no other apology for putting it before the book.
- Elizabeth Harrison
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Some Evolutions in Kindergarten Work
Elizabeth Harrison
In this address delivered to the International Kindergarten Union at Pittsburgh, PA, Harrison discusses the expansion of Kindergarten thought and examines some previous evolutions of the field, which include: mother-play books, self-expression through play (particularly by way of rhythmic use of the body as a means of obtaining self-control), Froebel Gifts, and Occupations. Includes sequences for selected Gifts.
Originally published in Kindergarten Review, November 1903
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The Scope and Results of Mothers' Classes
Elizabeth Harrison
In this outline, Harrison discusses motherhood in relation to Mother's classes. She describes the scope and aim of the classes to be the rationalization of the "unconscious nurturing element".
Reprinted from the proceedings of the National Education Association, 1903.
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The Kindergarten Building Gifts
Elizabeth Harrison and Belle Woodsen
From the introduction of The Kindergarten Building Gifts:
To refuse to pass judgment upon a subject not yet understood is one of the surest evidences of the cultured mind. It is, therefore, with a feeling of confidence that the kindergartners ask the rest of the educational world to first understand Froebel's aim in creating the kindergarten Play-Gifts and see whether or not they fulfill the purpose in which they were made.
No one can easily comprehend Froebel without understanding his idea of the meaning of life. Over and over again he has stated that the chief end of education should be to bring the human soul to a consciousness of his oneness with the Divine Source of all things. This feeling of oneness with God was to him the greatest possible inspiration that could be given to a child to awaken it to a faith in itself.
All modern Sociology is beginning to demand as the true ethical basis of the institutional life believed would follow when the world understood the brotherhood of man. All that modern education is beginning to demand concerning the development of the individuality of each child, he believed would then be readily conceded.
His kindergarten games were devised for no other purpose than to bring the to child, through joyous, child-like, dramatic play, to the fundamental relationships of family life, of society, of the trade world, and to a more limited extent, to a dawning of consciousness of the meaning of the state and church. It is true that they are played in time to music and that the words are usually sung, thereby exercising the child in rhythmic and healthful movement, and giving the needed physical activity and diversion of mind, but these things were a means to an end.
It is equally true that his so-called gifts and occupations (the play-tools which he puts into the hands of the kindergartner), were not created by him merely that the child might the sooner master the material world about him by becoming familiar with the fundamental properties of the matter through play with them: as, for example, to gain lasting sense-impressions by means of sharp contrast of large and small forms, curved and flat surfaces, long and short lines, near and far points, fixed and transformable shapes, bright and soft colors, rough and smooth textures, etc. etc.; nor was it his purpose simply to give the child objects by means of which he might the more readily classify the myriads of sensations that pour in upon his young mind. It is true that the few forms which are seen in the Kindergarten Gifts are the geometric types that underlie all forms of creation, and are therefore most helpful in the rational organization of what to the child is the chaos of the outside world, but to Frobel this was a means to an end. This end was to lead the young heart, through thus discerning the organized nature of form, to feel that underneath all forms lay one form, that one law governed by all creation, that all were but varying expressions or utterances of One Mind.
The above is a short and inadequate statement of the world-view of one of the most truly religious minds of modern times.
-Elizabeth Harrison
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Christmas-tide
Elizabeth Harrison
Elizabeth Harrison provides suggestions of how to celebrate Christmas with children. Includes recommendations for Christmas presents and songs. Also includes the stories Little Gretchen and Her Wooden Shoe, and The Legend of the Christ Child by Harrison and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
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Shop Windows: An Address Delivered Before Mother's Department of the Chicago Kindergarten College
Elizabeth Harrison
" So our shop windows may be to us merely spots where merchants exhibit their merchandise, which they hope we will purchase, or they may be great illumed volumes of filled with illustrations of the processes of the industrial world and the world of art. In them are to be found whole chapters on anthropology, evolution, sociology, morals, ethics and poetry, illustrated true to life. Which shall they be to you and your children?"
-Elizabeth Harrison, pg. 5
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Questions on a Study of Child-Nature
Elizabeth Harrison
Arranged by the Woman's Council and Mothers' Circles of Akron, Ohio.
To those thinking parents and teachers who are interested in the study and best development of their children, this question book, compiled from Miss Elizabeth Harrison's "A Study of Child Nature", may prove some assistance.
The questions are so arranged that the answers will suggest themselves while reading the text-book, or without it, may be answered from the parent's or teacher's experience.
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A Study of Child-Nature: From the Kindergarten Standpoint
Elizabeth Harrison
These talks for mothers and teachers were given before my classes in Chicago and elsewhere. They are now published at the earnest request of the members of those classes, and are nearly in the same form as when given, which accounts for the number of anecdotes illustrating different points, as well as the frequency of personal reminiscence. Fully aware of their many defects, but knowing well that "charity covereth a multitude of sins", I give them with a loving heart to the mothers of America. I hope that the thought underlying them will be as helpful to others in the understanding of little children as it has been to me. I trust that these pages may lead each reader to a deeper study of Frobel's thought.
-E.H
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In Story-Land
Elizabeth Harrison
Twelfth Edition.
Preface
It is not expected that the stories in this book will be told in their present form to Kindergarten children, as experience has shown that each Kindergartner must modify her story to suit the needs and capacities of her children, and must learn to take from any story just so much as may be helpful to her in creating a fresh story for the occasion. It is hoped, however, that they may serve the mother in her home reading with her group of children, and also that my colaborers in primary and second grade schools may sometimes use them for Friday afternoon readings.
A friendly critic has suggested that I add "One story a day is enough for a child." This is certainly the case if the story is to make any deep or lasting impression.
-E.H.
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The Vision of Dante: A Story for Little Children to Talk to Their Mothers
Elizabeth Harrison
It not the reason why the Divine Comedy is called a "world poem" to be found in these significant facts: it portrays the sudden awakening of the human soul to the human consciousness of having gone astray; it shows the loathsome nature of sin; it pictures the struggle necessary to be freed from sin; it emphasizes that God is ready to help as soon as the soul is ready to be helped; and at last it declares that the Vision of God will come to the soul which perseveres in the struggle? These are the essential truths which make the great poem of Dante one of the masterpieces of the world of art. May not it- as well as all other truly great things- to be given to children in a simple way?
-Elizabeth Harrison
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A List of Toys Suggested by the Mothers in the Second and Third Year's Course of Study
Elizabeth Harrison
Toys suggested by the mothers in the second and third year's course of study of the Mothers' Dept. of the Chicago Kindergarten College, together with notes on kindergarten materials. Toy suggestions are for children 1-2, 2-4, 3-5, 5-6 years of age.
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Relationship Between the Kindergarten and Great Literature: Dante
Elizabeth Harrison
Elizabeth Harrison offers an analysis of Dante, and how his work could be used as an aid in the study of character development in children.
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Relationship Between the Kindergarten and Great Literature: Homer
Elizabeth Harrison
Harrison discusses how the study of Kindergarten focuses on the influence of environment and the evolution in character. She compares the work of Homer as being relevant to Kindergarten thought due to his depictions of institutions that have grown out of human relationships.
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Relationship Between the Kindergarten and Great Literature: Shakespeare
Elizabeth Harrison
Harrison discusses how Shakespeare's use of environment sheds light on character building. She describes how through his work, he displays " clear insight into the magnitude of the ethical world, the duty of each individual to consider himself as a necessary portion of a might whole" (pg. 13). Harrison also makes comparisons Froebel's ideas through Shakespeare's work.
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Science Lessons: Kindergarten Talks and Tales
Elizabeth Harrison
Elizabeth Harrison suggests various science lesson plans for children that relate to the fields of Zoology, Geology, and Botany, and how each category relates to each other.
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Story of Christopher Columbus for Little Children
Elizabeth Harrison
This story was first told at the request of the Third Year's Mothers' Class of the Chicago Kindergarten College, Oct. 12th 1892 to help prepare the children for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, which honored Christopher Columbus.
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Suggestions for Summer Reading
Elizabeth Harrison
Harrison provides summer reading suggestions for the areas of: Making the Indefinite Definite, Passive Education, Active Education, Stories and How to Tell Them, Hand Work, Courtesy, Positive and Negative Training, Home Life and Influences, Influences of Harmonious Surroundings, and Parallel Between Race and Child.
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The Caterpillar and the Butterfly: Kindergarten Talks and Tales
Elizabeth Harrison
This children's story tells the tale of a caterpillar who seeks advice on how to care for caterpillar eggs. In turn, she learns the lifecycle of caterpillars and butterflies.
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The Kindergarten as an Influence in Modern Civilization
Elizabeth Harrison
In this opening lecture given before the Mothers' Department of the Chicago Kindergarten College, Harrison argues that education is no longer "a process by means of which facts are accumulated, but all thoughtful teachers now look upon it as preparation for the future." She also discusses Froebel's theories.
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The Story of a Raindrop: Kindergarten Talks and Tales
Elizabeth Harrison
This children's story describes how flowers need rain to grow.
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Toys and Their Place in the Education of a Child from "A Study of Child Nature"
Elizabeth Harrison
Harrison discusses educating a child's emotions and the roles toys have during play. She describes how toys direct emotional activity of the child, and "form a bridge between the realities and possibilities of life".
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The Legend of the Christ Child
Elizabeth Harrison
Adapted from German and presented to members of the Mother's Department of the Chicago Kindergarten Training School, Art Institute, this children's Christmas story is about a child who wanders the streets on Christmas Eve looking to share Christmas with someone.
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A List of Books For Children
Elizabeth Harrison
A list of books for children, recommended from the kindergarten standpoint by Elizabeth Harrison, Principal of the Chicago Kindergarten College, 1889. Includes suggestions for children under 6 years of age, children 6-8 years of age, and children aged 8-14.
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The Root of the Temperance Question
Elizabeth Harrison
Elizabeth Harrison discusses the importance of a healthy body and strong moral will power, and how to instill this thought process unto children.
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The Story of Friedrich Froebel: Kindergarten Tales and Talks
Elizabeth Harrison
This children's story tell the life of Friedrich Froebel and how his care for a garden as a child relates to his idea of the Kindergarten as a place where a child could grow.