When we entered the room the youngest class were all standing round a
piano, at which one of the teachers was playing, whilst she and the
other teacher were leading them on in singing a cheerful song, and it
was really quite touching to hear and see them; they sang very fairly,
not worse than children usually do at that age. After a quarter of an
hour of this they went through their Calisthenic exercises, marching in
perfect time, clapping their hands, and going through different
gestures with great accuracy, and these poor children a very few months
ago had hardly any control over their actions.
Another thing taught is, to distinguish colour and form--for which
purpose they have cards cut out into circles, squares, and octagons--and
other marked shapes, of every variety and shade of colour. Five or six
of these of different sorts were spread on the table, and a large
unsorted pack was placed before a little boy five or six years old, and
it was quite interesting to see him proceed to sort them by placing each
one on the top of the counterpart which had been placed at first on the
table. As there were many more kinds in the pack than those spread out
on the table, when he came to a new one he first placed it in contact
with the others to see if it suited, and after going round them all and
seeing that none were the same, he appeared puzzled, and at last set it
down in a place by itself.
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