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Part of the American
History & Genealogy Project |
Louise Pollock 1832 ~
With all the time and attention now
given to the study of psychology in America it is interesting to
review the career and work of a pioneer in this line of work.
Mrs. Pollock was born in Erfurt, Prussia, October 29, 1832. Her
father, Frederick William Plessner, was an officer in the
Prussian army, but retiring from active service was pensioned by
the emperor and devoted the rest of his life to literary labors.
He seems to have taken special delight in directing the
education of this young daughter, who at an early age showed a
marked preference for literary pursuits.
On her way to Paris, where she was sent at the age of sixteen to
complete her knowledge of French, she made the acquaintance of
George H. Pollock, of Boston, Massachusetts, whose wife she
became about two years later in London. Her own five children
started her interest in books treating of the subject of infant
training, hygiene and physiology, and in 1859 she first became
acquainted with the philosophy of the kindergarten by receiving
from a German relative copies of everything that had been
published upon the subject up to that time. Her first work as an
educator was naturally enough in her own family, but her husband
being overtaken by illness and financial reverses, Mrs. Pollock
turned her ability to pecuniary account and began her literary
work in earnest Executing a commission from Mr. Sharland, of
Boston, she selected seventy songs from German melodies for
which she wrote the words; then she translated four medical
works, a number of historical stories, besides writing for
several periodicals. In 1861 her "Child's Story Book" was
published and among the kindergarten works which she received
from Germany was a copy of Lena Morganstern's ''Paradise of
Childhood," which she translated in 1862, into English. She
had become so enthusiastic over adopting the kindergarten system
in her own family that she sent her daughter Susan to Berlin,
where she took the teacher's training in the kindergarten
seminary there.
In 1862, upon the request of Nathaniel T. Allen, principal of
the English and Classical School, of West Newton, Massachusetts.
Mrs. Pollock opened a kindergarten in connection therewith, the
first pure kindergarten in America. During 1863, she wrote four
lengthy articles on the kindergarten, which were published in
the Friend of Progress, New York, and were the earliest
contributions to kindergarten literature in this country. In
1874, Mrs. Pollock visited Berlin for the purpose of studying
the kindergarten system is operation there, and upon her return
to America she moved her family to the City of Washington where
her 'Ledroit Park Kindergarten" was opened, and her
series of lectures to mothers was commenced. The sixty hygienic
and fifty-six educational rules which she wrote in connection
with those lectures were afterwards published in the New England
Journal of Education, Other works from her pen are: "The
National Kindergarten Manual,' "The National
Kindergarten Songs and Plays" and her song book, "Cheerful
Echoes." In 1880 through President Garfield, she presented
a memorial to Congress, asking an appropriation to found a free
national kindergarten normal school in Washington. But, although
it was signed by all the chief educators of the country, it was
unsuccessful.
Then she turned from Congress to Providence and with better
success, for after giving a very profitable entertainment in
1883, the "Pensoara Free Kindergarten," with the motto,
"Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, ye have done
it unto me,' was opened. In order to raise the necessary funds
for its continuance a subscription list was started at the
suggestion of Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes, who during her life was
a regular subscriber. In connection with that kindergarten, Mrs.
Pollock had a training class for nursery maids in the care of
young children, and in San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and other
places, nursery maids' training classes were soon opened upon
the same plan. Mrs. Pollock with her daughter was for years at
the head of the National Kindergarten, a kindergarten normal
institute for the training of teachers, hundreds of whom went
out to fill positions throughout the country.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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