,,children',s ,,rights ,a ,,book ,,of ,,nursery ,,logic ,,by ,,kate ,,douglas ,,wiggin ,a court as of angels1 ,a public not to be bribed4 ,not to be entreated1 ,not to be overawed4 #ahib ,,prefatory ,,note ,i am indebted to the ,editors of ,scribner's ,magazine1 the ,cosmopolitan1 and ,babyhood1 for permission to reprint the three essays which have appeared in their pages4 ,the others are published for the first time4 ,it may be well to ward off the full seriousness of my title ,nursery ,logic by saying that a certain informality in all of these papers arises from the fact that they were originally talks given before members of societies interested in the training of children4 ,three of them--,children's ,stories1 ,how ,shall we ,govern our ,children1 and ,the ,magic of ',together'--have been written for this book by my sister1 ,miss ,nora ,smith4 ,k4,d4,w4 ,,new ,,york1 ,august1 #ahib4 ,,contents ,,the ,,rights ,,of ,,the ,,child ,,children',s ,,plays ,,children',s ,,playthings ,,what ,,shall ,,children ,,read8 ,,children',s ,,stories4 ,nora ,a4 ,smith ,,the ,,relation ,,of ,,the ,,kindergarten ,,to ,,social ,,reform ,,how ,,shall ,,we ,,govern ,,our ,,children8 ,nora ,a4 ,smith ,,the ,,magic ,,of ,,together4 ,nora ,a4 ,smith4 ,,the ,,relation ,,of ,,the ,,kindergarten ,,to ,,the ,,public ,,school ,,other ,,people',s ,,children ,,the ,,rights ,,of ,,the ,,child ,give me liberty1 or give me death6 ,the subject of ,children's ,rights does not provoke much sentimentalism in this country1 where1 as somebody says1 the present problem of the children is the painless extinction of their elders4 ,i interviewed the man who washes my windows1 the other morning1 with the purpose of getting at the level of his mind in the matter4 ,dennis1 ,i said1 as he was polishing the glass1 ,i am writing an article on the ',rights of ,children4' ,what do you think about it8 ,dennis carried his forefinger to his head in search of an idea1 for he is not accustomed to having his intelligence so violently assaulted1 and after a moment's puzzled thought he said1 ,what do ,i think about it1 mum8 ,why1 ,i think we'd ought to give 'em to 'em4 ,but ,lor'1 mum1 if we don't1 they take 'em1 so what's the odds8 ,and as he left the room ,i thought he looked pained that ,i should spin words and squander ink on such a topic4 ,the ,french dressmaker was my next victim4 ,as she fitted the collar of an effete civilization on my nineteenth century neck1 ,i put the same question ,i had given to ,dennis4 ,the rights of the child1 madame8 she asked1 her scissors poised in air4 ,yes1 the rights of the child4 ,is it of the ,american child1 madame8 ,yes1 said ,i nervously1 of the ,american child4 ,mon ,dieu6 he has them6 ,this may well lead us to consider rights as opposed to privileges4 ,a multitude of privileges1 or rather indulgences1 can exist with a total disregard of the child's rights4 ,you remember the man who said he could do without necessities if you would give him luxuries enough4 ,the child might say1 ,i will forego all my privileges1 if you will only give me my rights3 a little less sentiment1 please1--more justice6 ,there are women who live in perfect puddles of maternal love1 who yet seem incapable of justice2 generous to a fault1 perhaps1 but seldom just4 ,who owns the child8 ,if the parent owns him1--mind1 body1 and soul1 we must adopt one line of argument2 if1 as a human being1 he owns himself1 we must adopt another4 ,in my thought the parent is simply a divinely appointed guardian1 who acts for his child until he attains what we call the age of discretion1--that highly uncertain period which arrives very late in life with some persons1 and not at all with others4 ,the rights of the parent being almost unlimited1 it is a very delicate matter to decide just when and where they infringe upon the rights of the child4 ,there is no standard2 the child is the creature of circumstances4 ,the mother can clothe him in ,jaeger wool from head to foot1 or keep him in low neck1 short sleeves and low stockings1 because she thinks it pretty2 she can feed him exclusively on raw beef1 or on vegetables1 or on cereals2 she can give him milk to drink1 or let him sip his father's beer and wine2 put him to bed at sundown1 or keep him up till midnight2 teach him the catechism and the thirty-nine articles1 or tell him there is no ,god2 she can cram him with facts before he has any appetite or power of assimilation1 or she can make a fool of him4 ,she can dose him with old-school remedies1 with new-school remedies1 or she can let him die without remedies because she doesn't believe in the reality of disease4 ,she is quite willing to legislate for his stomach1 his mind1 his soul1 her teachableness1 it goes without saying1 being generally in inverse proportion to her knowledge2 for the arrogance of science is humility compared with the pride of ignorance4 ,in these matters the child has no rights4 ,the only safeguard is the fact that if parents are absolutely brutal1 society steps in1 removes the untrustworthy guardian1 and appoints another4 ,but society does nothing1 can do nothing1 with the parent who injures the child's soul1 breaks his will1 makes him grow up a liar or a coward1 or murders his faith4 ,it is not very long since we decided that when a parent brutally abused his child1 it could be taken from him and made the ward of the state2 the ,society for the ,prevention of ,cruelty to ,children is of later date than the ,society for the ,prevention of ,cruelty to ,animals4 ,at a distance of a century and a half we can hardly estimate how powerful a blow ,rousseau struck for the rights of the child in his educational romance1 ,emile4 ,it was a sort of gospel in its day4 ,rousseau once arrested and exiled1 his book burned by the executioner 7a few years before he would have been burned with it71 his ideas naturally became a craze4 ,many of the reforms for which he passionately pleaded are so much a part of our modern thought that we do not realize the fact that in those days of routine1 pedantry and slavish worship of authority1 they were the daring dreams of an enthusiast1 the seeming impossible prophecy of a new era4 ,aristocratic mothers were converts to his theories1 and began nursing their children as he commanded them4 ,great lords began to learn handicrafts2 physical exercise came into vogue2 everything that ,emile did1 other people wanted to do4 ,with all ,rousseau's vagaries1 oddities1 misconceptions1 posings1 he rescued the individuality of the child and made a tremendous plea for a more natural1 a more human education4 ,he succeeded in making people listen where ,rabelais and ,montaigne had failed2 and he inspired other teachers1 notably ,pestalozzi and ,froebel1 who knit up his ragged seams of theory1 and translated his dreams into possibilities4 ,rousseau vindicated to man the right of ,being4 ,pestalozzi said ,grow6 ,froebel1 the greatest of the three1 cried ,live6 you give bread to men1 but ,i give men to themselves6 ,the parent whose sole answer to criticism or remonstrance is ,i have a right to do what ,i like with my own child6 is the only impossible parent4 ,his moral integument is too thick to be pierced with any shaft however keen4 ,to him we can only say as ,jacques did to ,orlando1 ,god be with you2 let's meet as little as we can4 ,but most of us dare not take this ground4 ,we may not philosophize or formulate1 we may not live up to our theories1 but we feel in greater or less degree the responsibility of calling a human being hither1 and the necessity of guarding and guiding1 in one way or another1 that which owes its being to us4 ,we should all agree1 if put to the vote1 that a child has a right to be well born4 ,that was a trenchant speech of ,henry ,ward ,beecher's on the subject of being born again2 that if he could be born right the first time he'd take his chances on the second4 ,hereditary rank1 says ,washington ,irving1 may be a snare and a delusion1 but hereditary virtue is a patent of innate nobility which far outshines the blazonry of heraldry4 ,over the unborn our power is almost that of ,god1 and our responsibility1 like ,his toward us2 as we acquit ourselves toward them1 so let ,him deal with us4 ,why should we be astonished at the warped1 cold1 unhappy1 suspicious natures we see about us1 when we reflect upon the number of unwished-for1 unwelcomed children in the world2--children who at best were never loved until they were seen and known1 and were often grudged their being from the moment they began to be4 ,i wonder if sometimes a starved1 crippled1 agonized human body and soul does not cry out1 ,why1 ,o man1 ,o woman--why1 being what ,i am1 have you suffered me to be8 ,physiologists and psychologists agree that the influences affecting the child begin before birth4 ,at what hour they begin1 how far they can be controlled1 how far directed and modified1 modern science is not assured2 but ,i imagine those months of preparation were given for other reasons than that the cradle and the basket and the wardrobe might be ready2--those long months of supreme patience1 when the life-germ is growing from unconscious to conscious being1 and when a host of mysterious influences and impulses are being carried silently from mother to child4 ,and if beauty born of murmuring sound shall pass into its face1 how much more subtly shall the grave strength of peace1 the sunshine of hope and sweet content1 thrill the delicate chords of being1 and warm the tender seedling into richer life4 ,mrs4 ,stoddard speaks of that sacred passion1 maternal love1 that like an orange-tree1 buds and blossoms and bears at once4 ,when a true woman puts her finger for the first time into the tiny hand of her baby1 and feels that helpless clutch which tightens her very heart-strings1 she is born again with the new-born child4 ,a mother has a sacred claim on the world2 even if that claim rest solely on the fact of her motherhood1 and not1 alas1 on any other4 ,her life may be a cipher1 but when the child comes1 ,god writes a figure before it1 and gives it value4 ,once the child is born1 one of his inalienable rights1 which we too often deny him1 is the right to his childhood4 ,if we could only keep from untwisting the morning-glory1 only be willing to let the sunshine do it6 ,dickens said real children went out with powder and top-boots2 and yet the children of ,dickens's time were simple buds compared with the full-blown miracles of conventionality and erudition we raise nowadays4 ,there is no substitute for a genuine1 free1 serene1 healthy1 bread-and-butter childhood4 ,a fine manhood or womanhood can be built on no other foundation2 and yet our ,american homes are so often filled with hurry and worry1 our manner of living is so keyed to concert pitch1 our plan of existence so complicated1 that we drag the babies along in our wake1 and force them to our artificial standards1 forgetting that sweet flowers are slow1 and weeds make haste4 ,if we must1 or fancy that we must1 lead this false1 too feverish life1 let us at least spare them6 ,by keeping them forever on tiptoe we are in danger of producing an army of conventional little prigs1 who know much more than they should about matters which are profitless even to their elders4 ,in the matter of clothing1 we sacrifice children continually to the ,moloch of maternal vanity1 as if the demon of dress did not demand our attention1 sap our energy1 and thwart our activities soon enough at best4 ,and the right kind of children1 before they are spoiled by fine feathers1 do detest being dressed up beyond a certain point4 ,a tiny maid of my acquaintance has an elaborate ,parisian gown1 which is fastened on the side from top to bottom in some mysterious fashion1 by a multitude of tiny buttons and cords4 ,it fits the dear little mouse like a glove1 and terminates in a collar which is an instrument of torture to a person whose patience has not been developed from year to year by similar trials4 ,the getting of it on is anguish1 and as to the getting of it off1 ,i heard her moan to her nurse the other night1 as she wriggled her curly head through the too-small exit1 ,oh ,i only ,god knows how ,i hate gettin' peeled out o' this dress6 ,the spectacle of a small boy whom ,i meet sometimes in the horse-cars1 under the wing of his predestinate idiot of a mother1 wrings my very soul4 ,silk hat1 ruffled shirt1 silver-buckled shoes1 kid gloves1 cane1 velvet suit1 with one two-inch pocket which is an insult to his sex1--how ,i pity the pathetic little caricature6 ,not a spot has he to locate a top1 or a marble1 or a nail1 or a string1 or a knife1 or a cooky1 or a nut2 but as a bloodless substitute for these necessities of existence1 he has a toy watch 7that will not go7 and an embroidered handkerchief with cologne on it4 ,as to keeping children too clean for any mortal use1 ,i suppose nothing is more disastrous4 ,the divine right to be gloriously dirty a large portion of the time1 when dirt is a necessary consequence of direct1 useful1 friendly contact with all sorts of interesting1 helpful things1 is too clear to be denied4 ,the children who have to think of their clothes before playing with the dogs1 digging in the sand1 helping the stableman1 working in the shed1 building a bridge1 or weeding the garden1 never get half their legitimate enjoyment out of life4 ,and unhappy fate1 do not many of us have to bring up children without a vestige of a dog1 or a sand heap1 or a stable1 or a shed1 or a brook1 or a garden6 ,conceive1 if you can1 a more difficult problem than giving a child his rights in a city flat4 ,you may say that neither do we get ours3 but bad as we are1 we are always good enough to wish for our children the joys we miss ourselves4 ,thrice happy is the country child1 or the one who can spend a part of his young life among living things1 near to ,nature's heart ,how blessed is the little toddling thing who can lie flat in the sunshine and drink in the beauty of the green things growing1 who can live among the other little animals1 his brothers and sisters in feathers and fur2 who can put his hand in that of dear mother ,nature1 and learn his first baby lessons without any meddlesome middleman2 who is cradled in sweet sounds from early morn to dewy eve1 lulled to his morning nap by hum of crickets and bees1 and to his night's slumber by the sighing of the wind1 the plash of waves1 or the ripple of a river4 ,he is a part of the shining web of creation1 learning to spell out the universe letter by letter as he grows sweetly1 serenely1 into a knowledge of its laws4 ,i have a good deal of sympathy for the little people during their first eight or ten years1 when they are just beginning to learn life's lessons1 and when the laws which govern them must often seem so strange and unjust4 ,it is not an occasion for a big burning sympathy1 perhaps1 but for a tender little one1 with a half smile in it1 as we think of what we were1 and what in young clothes we hoped to be1 and of how many things have come across2 for childhood is an eternal promise which no man ever keeps4 ,the child has a right to a place of his own1 to things of his own1 to surroundings which have some relation to his size1 his desires1 and his capabilities4 ,how should we like to live1 half the time1 in a place where the piano was twelve feet tall1 the door knobs at an impossible height1 and the mantel shelf in the sky2 where every mortal thing was out of reach except a collection of highly interesting objects on dressing-tables and bureaus1 guarded1 however1 by giants and giantesses1 three times as large and powerful as ourselves1 forever saying1 mustn't touch2 and if we did touch we should be spanked1 and have no other method of revenge save to spank back symbolically on the inoffensive persons of our dolls8 ,things in general are so disproportionate to the child's stature1 so far from his organs of prehension1 so much above his horizontal line of vision1 so much ampler than his immediate surroundings1 that there is1 between him and all these big things1 a gap to be filled only by a microcosm of playthings which give him his first object-lessons4 ,in proof of which let him see a lady richly dressed1 he hardly notices her2 let him see a doll in similar attire1 he will be ravished with ecstasy4 ,as if to show that it was the disproportion of the sizes which unfitted him to notice the lady1 the larger he grows the bigger he wants his toys1 till1 when his wish reaches to life-sizes1 good-by to the trumpery1 and onward with realities4#a ,footnote #a3 ,e4 ,seguin4 ,my little nephew was prowling about my sitting-room during the absence of his nurse4 ,i was busy writing1 and when he took up a delicate pearl opera-glass1 ,i stopped his investigations with the time-honored1 ,no1 no1 dear1 that's for grown-up people4 ,hasn't it got any little-boy end8 he asked wistfully4 ,that little-boy end to things is sometimes just what we fail to give1 even when we think we are straining every nerve to surround the child with pleasures4 ,for children really want to do the very same things that we want to do1 and yet have constantly to be thwarted for their own good4 ,they would like to share all our pleasures2 keep the same hours1 eat the same food2 but they are met on every side with the seemingly impertinent piece of dogmatism1 ,it isn't good for little boys1 or ,it isn't nice for little girls4 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson shows1 in his ,child's ,garden of ,verses1 that he is one of the very few people who remember and appreciate this phase of childhood4 ,could anything be more deliciously real than these verses8 ,in winter ,i get up at night1 ,and dress by yellow candle light3 ,in summer1 quite the other way1 ,i have to go to bed by day2 ,i have to go to bed and see ,the birds still hopping on the tree1 ,and hear the grown-up people's feet ,still going past me on the street4 ,and does it not seem hard to you1 ,that when the sky is clear and blue1 ,and ,i should like so much to play1 ,i have to go to bed by day8 ,mr4 ,hopkinson ,smith has written a witty little monograph on this relation of parents and children4 ,i am glad to say1 too1 that it is addressed to fathers1--that left wing of the family guard1 which generally manages to retreat during any active engagement1 leaving the command to the inferior officer4 ,this left wing is imposing on all full-dress parades1 but when there is any fighting to be done it retires rapidly to the rear1 and only wheels into line when the smoke of the conflict has passed out of the atmosphere4 ,open your heart and your arms wide for your daughters1 he says1 and keep them wide open2 don't leave all that to their mothers4 ,an intimacy will grow with the years which will fit them for another man's arms and heart when they exchange yours for his4 ,make a chum of your boy1--hail-fellow-well-met1 a comrade4 ,get down to the level of his boyhood1 and bring him gradually up to the level of your manhood4 ,don't look at him from the second story window of your fatherly superiority and example4 ,go into the front yard and play ball with him4 ,when he gets into scrapes1 don't thrash him as your father did you4 ,put your arm around his neck1 and say you know it is pretty bad1 but that he can count on you to help him out1 and that you will1 every single time1 and that if he had let you know earlier1 it would have been all the easier4 ,again1 the child has a right to more justice in his discipline than we are generally wise and patient enough to give him4 ,he is by and by to come in contact with a world where cause and effect follow each other inexorably4 ,he has a right to be taught1 and to be governed by the laws under which he must afterwards live2 but in too many cases parents interfere so mischievously and unnecessarily between causes and effects that the child's mind does not1 cannot1 perceive the logic of things as it should4 ,we might write a pathetic remonstrance against the ,decline and ,fall of ,domestic ,authority4 ,there is food for thought1 and perhaps for fear1 in the subject2 but the facts are obvious1 and their inevitableness must strike any thoughtful observer of the times4 ,the old educational regime was akin to the social systems with which it was contemporaneous2 and similarly1 in the reverse of these characteristics1 our modern modes of culture correspond to our more liberal religious and political institutions4 ,it is the age of independent criticism4 ,the child problem is merely one phase of the universal problem that confronts society4 ,it seems likely that the rod of reason will have to replace the rod of birch4 ,parental authority never used to be called into question2 neither was the catechism1 nor the ,bible1 nor the minister4 ,how should parents hope to escape the universal interrogation point leveled at everything else8 ,in these days of free speech it is hopeless to suppose that even infants can be muzzled4 ,we revel in our republican virtues2 let us accept the vices of those virtues as philosophically as possible4 ,a lady has been advertising in a ,new ,york paper for a ,german governess to mind a little girl three years old4 ,the lady's ,english is doubtless defective1 but the fate of the governess is thereby indicated with much greater candor than is usual4 ,the mother who is most apt to infringe on the rights of her child 7of course with the best intentions7 is the firm person1 afflicted with the lust of dominion4 ,there is no elasticity in her firmness to prevent it from degenerating into obstinacy4 ,it is not the firmness of the tree that bends without breaking1 but the firmness of a certain long-eared animal whose force of character has impressed itself on the common mind and become proverbial4 ,jean ,paul says if ,pas trop gouverner is the best rule in politics1 it is equally true of discipline4 ,but if the child is unhappy who has none of his rights respected1 equally wretched is the little despot who has more than his own rights1 who has never been taught to respect the rights of others1 and whose only conception of the universe is that of an absolute monarchy in which he is sole ruler4 ,children rarely love those who spoil them1 and never trust them4 ,their keen young sense detects the false note in the character and draws its own conclusions1 which are generally very just4 ,the very best theoretical statement of a wise disciplinary method that ,i know is ,herbert ,spencer's4 ,let the history of your domestic rule typify1 in little1 the history of our political rule2 at the outset1 autocratic control1 where control is really needful2 by and by an incipient constitutionalism1 in which the liberty of the subject gains some express recognition2 successive extensions of this liberty of the subject2 gradually ending in parental abdication4 ,we must not expect children to be too good2 not any better than we ourselves1 for example2 no1 nor even as good4 ,beware of hothouse virtue4 ,already most people recognize the detrimental results of intellectual precocity2 but there remains to be recognized the truth that there is a moral precocity which is also detrimental4 ,our higher moral faculties1 like our higher intellectual ones1 are comparatively complex4 ,by consequence1 they are both comparatively late in their evolution4 ,and with the one as with the other1 a very early activity produced by stimulation will be at the expense of the future character4 ,in these matters the child has a right to expect examples4 ,he lives in the senses2 he can only learn through object lessons1 can only pass from the concrete example of goodness to a vision of abstract perfection4 ,o'er wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule4 ,and sun thee in the light of happy faces8 ,love1 ,hope and ,patience1 these must be thy graces1 ,and in thine own heart let them first keep school4 ,yes1 in thine own heart let them first keep school6 ,i cannot see why ,max ,o',rell should have exclaimed with such unction that if he were to be born over again he would choose to be an ,american woman4 ,he has never tried being one4 ,he does not realize that she not only has in hand the emancipation of the ,american woman1 but the reformation of the ,american man and the education of the ,american child4 ,if that triangular mission in life does not keep her out of mischief and make her the angel of the twentieth century1 she is a hopeless case4 ,spencer says1 ,it is a truth yet remaining to be recognized that the last stage in the mental development of each man and woman is to be reached only through the proper discharge of the parental duties4 ,and when this truth is recognized1 it will be seen how admirable is the ordination in virtue of which human beings are led by their strongest affections to subject themselves to a discipline which they would else elude4 ,women have been fighting many battles for the higher education these last few years2 and they have nearly gained the day4 ,when at last complete victory shall perch upon their banners1 let them make one more struggle1 and that for the highest education1 which shall include a specific training for parenthood1 a subject thus far quite omitted from the curriculum4 ,the mistaken idea that instinct is a sufficient guide in so delicate and sacred and vital a matter1 the comfortable superstition that babies bring their own directions with them1--these fictions have existed long enough4 ,if a girl asks me why1 since the function of parenthood is so uncertain1 she should make the sacrifices necessary to such training1 sacrifices entailed by this highest education of body1 mind1 and spirit1 ,i can only say that it is better to be ready1 even if one is not called for1 than to be called for and found wanting4 ,,children',s ,,plays ,the plays of the age are the heart-leaves of the whole future life1 for the whole man is visible in them in his finest capacities and his innermost being4 ,mr4 ,w4,w4 ,newell1 in his admirable book on ,children's ,games1 traces to their proper source all the familiar plays which in one form or another have been handed down from generation to generation1 and are still played wherever and whenever children come together in any numbers4 ,the result of his sympathetic and scholarly investigations is most interesting to the student of childhood1 and as valuable philologically as historically4 ,in speaking of the old rounds and rhymed formulas which have preserved their vitality under the effacing hand of ,time1 he says1-- ,it will be obvious that many of these well-known game-rhymes were not composed by children4 ,they were formerly played1 as in many countries they are still played1 by young persons of marriageable age1 or even by mature men and women4444 ,the truth is1 that in past centuries all the world1 judged by our present standard1 seems to have been a little childish4 ,the maids of honor of ,queen ,elizabeth's day1 if we may credit the poets1 were devoted to the game of tag1 with which even ,diana and her nymphs were supposed to amuse themselves4444 ,we need not1 however1 go to remote times or lands for illustration which is supplied by ,new ,england country towns of a generation ago4 ,dancing1 under that name1 was little practiced2 the amusement of young people at their gatherings was playing games4 ,these games generally resulted in forfeits1 to be redeemed by kissing1 in every possible variety of position and method4 ,many of these games were rounds2 but as they were not called dances1 and as man-kind pays more attention to words than things1 the religious conscience of the community1 which objected to dancing1 took no alarm4444 ,such were the pleasures of young men and women from sixteen to twenty-five years of age4 ,nor were the participants mere rustics2 many of them could boast as good blood1 as careful breeding1 and as much intelligence1 as any in the land4 ,neither was the morality or sensitiveness of the young women of that day in any respect inferior to what it is at present4 ,now that our country towns are become mere outlying suburbs of cities1 these remarks may be read with a smile at the rude simplicity of old-fashioned ,american life4 ,but the laugh should be directed1 not at our own country1 but at the bygone age4 ,it must be remembered that in mediaeval ,europe1 and in ,england till the end of the seventeenth century1 a kiss was the usual salutation of a lady to a gentleman whom she wished to honor4444 ,the ,portuguese ladies who came to ,england with the ,infanta in #affb were not used to the custom2 but1 as ,pepys says1 in ten days they had 'learnt to kiss and look freely up and down4' ,kissing in games was1 therefore1 a matter of course1 in all ranks4444 ,in respectable and cultivated ,french society1 at the time of which we speak1 the amusements1 not merely of young people but of their elders as well1 were every whit as crude4 ,madame ,celnart1 a recognized authority on etiquette1 compiled in #ahcj a very curious complete manual of society games recommending them as recreation for business men4444 ',their varying movement1' she says1 'their diversity1 the gracious and gay ideas which these games inspire1 the decorous caresses which they permit1 all this combines to give real amusement4 ,these caresses can alarm neither modesty nor prudence1 since a kiss in honor given and taken before numerous witnesses is often an act of propriety4' ,the old ballads and nursery rhymes doubtless had much of innocence and freshness in them1 but they only come to us nowadays tainted by the odors of city streets4 ,the pleasure and poetry of the original essence are gone1 and vulgarity reigns triumphant4 ,if you listen to the words of the games which children play in school yards1 on sidewalks1 and in the streets on pleasant evenings1 you will find that most of them1 to say the least1 border closely on vulgarity2 that they are utterly unsuitable to childhood1 notwithstanding that they are played with great glee2 that they are1 in fine1 common1 rude1 silly1 and boorish4 ,one can never watch a circle of children going through the vulgar inanities of ,jenny ,o',jones1 ,say1 daughter1 will you get up8 ,green ,gravel1 or ,here come two ducks a-roving1 without unspeakable shrinking and moral disgust4 ,these plays are dying out2 let them die1 for there is a hint of happier things abroad in the air4 ,the wisest mind of wise antiquity told the riddle of the ,sphinx1 if having ears to hear we would hear4 ,our youth should be educated in a stricter rule from the first1 for if education becomes lawless and the youths themselves become lawless1 they can never grow up into well-conducted or meritorious citizens2 and the education must begin with their plays4 ,we talk a great deal about the strength of early impressions4 ,i wonder if we mean all we say2 we do not live up to it1 at all events4 ,in childish play deep meaning lies4 ,the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world4 ,give me the first six years of a child's life1 and ,i care not who has the rest4 ,the child of six years has learned already far more than a student learns in his entire university course4 ,the first six years are as full of advancement as the six days of creation1 and so on4 ,if we did believe these things fully1 we should begin education with conscious intelligence at the cradle1 if not earlier4 ,the great ,german dramatic critic1 ,schlegel1 once sneered at the brothers ,jacob and ,william ,grimm1 for what he styled their meditation on the insignificant4 ,these two brothers1 says a wiser student1 an historian of ,german literature1 were animated by a pathetic optimism1 and possessed that sober imagination which delights in small things and narrow interests1 lingering over them with strong affection4 ,they explored villages and hamlets for obscure legends and folk tales1 for nursery songs1 even2 and bringing to bear on such things at once a human affection and a wise scholarship1 their meditation on the insignificant became the basis of their scientific greatness and the source of their popularity4 ,every child has read some of ,grimm's household tales1 ,the ,frog ,prince1 ,hans in ,luck1 or the ,two ,brothers2 but comparatively few people realize1 perhaps1 that this collection of stories is the foundation of the modern science of folk-lore1 and a by-play in researches of philology and history which place the name of ,grimm among the benefactors of our race4 ,i refer to these brothers because they expressed one of the leading theories of the new education4 ,my principle1 said ,jacob ,grimm1 has been to undervalue nothing1 but to utilize the small for the illustration of the great4 ,when ,friedrich ,froebel1 the founder of the kindergarten1 in the course of his researches began to watch the plays of children and to study their unconscious actions1 his meditation on the insignificant became the basis of scientific greatness1 and of an influence still in its infancy1 but destined1 perhaps1 to revolutionize the whole educational method of society4 ,it was while he was looking on with delight at the plays of little children1 their happy1 busy plans and make-believes1 their intense interest in outward nature1 and in putting things together or taking them apart1 that ,froebel said to himself3 ,what if we could give the child that which is called education through his voluntary activities1 and have him always as eager as he is at play8 ,how well ,i remember1 years ago1 the first time ,i ever joined in a kindergarten game4 ,i was beckoned to the charming circle1 and not only one1 but a dozen openings were made for me1 and immediately1 though ,i was a stranger1 a little hand on either side was put into mine1 with such friendly1 trusting pressure that ,i felt quite at home4 ,then we began to sing of the spring-time1 and ,i found myself a green tree waving its branches in the wind4 ,i was frightened and self-conscious1 but ,i did it1 and nobody seemed to notice me2 then ,i was a flower opening its petals in the sunshine1 and presently1 a swallow gathering straws for nest-building2 then1 carried away by the spirit of the kindergartner and her children1 ,i fluttered my clumsy apologies for wings1 and forgetting self1 flew about with all the others1 as happy as a bird4 ,soon ,i found that ,i1 the stranger1 had been chosen for the mother swallow4 ,it was to me1 the girl of eighteen1 like mounting a throne and being crowned4 ,four cunning curly heads cuddled under my wings for protection and slumber1 and ,i saw that ,i was expected to stoop and brood them1 which ,i did1 with a feeling of tenderness and responsibility that ,i had never experienced in my life before4 ,then1 when ,i followed my baby swallows back to their seats1 ,i saw that the play had broken down every barrier between us1 and that they clustered about me as confidingly as if we were old friends4 ,i think ,i never before felt my own limitations so keenly1 or desired so strongly to be fully worthy of a child's trust and love4 ,kindergarten play takes the children where they love to be1 into the world of make-believe4 ,in this lovely world the children are blacksmiths1 carpenters1 wheelwrights2 birds1 bees1 butterflies2 trees1 flowers1 sunbeams1 rainbows2 frogs1 lambs1 ponies1--anything they like4 ,the play is so characteristic1 so poetic1 so profoundly touching in its simplicity and purity1 so full of meaning1 that it would inspire us with admiration and respect were it the only salient point of ,froebel's educational idea4 ,it endeavors to express the same idea in poetic words1 harmonious melody and fitting motion1 appealing thus to the thought1 feeling1 and activity of the child4 ,physical impressions are at the beginning of life the only possible medium for awakening the child's sensibility4 ,these impressions should therefore be regulated as systematically as possible1 and not left to chance4 ,froebel supplies the means for bringing about the result in a simple system of symbolic songs and games1 appealing to the child's activities and sensibilities4 ,these he argues1 ought to contain the germ of all later instruction and thought2 for physical and sensuous perceptions are the points of departure of all knowledge4 ,when the child imitates1 he begins to understand4 ,let him imitate the airy flight of the bird1 and he enters partially into bird life4 ,let the little girl personate the hen with her feathery brood of chickens1 and her own maternal instinct is quickened1 as she guards and guides the wayward motion of the little flock4 ,let the child play the carpenter1 the wheelwright1 the wood-sawyer1 the farmer1 and his intelligence is immediately awakened2 he will see the force1 the meaning1 the power1 and the need of labor4 ,in short1 let him mirror in his play all the different aspects of universal life1 and his thought will begin to grasp their significance4 ,thus kindergarten play may be defined as a systematized sequence of experiences through which the child grows into self-knowledge1 clear observation1 and conscious perception of the whole circle of relationships1 and the symbols of his play become at length the truth itself1 bound fast and deep in heart knowledge1 which is deeper and rarer than head knowledge1 after all4 ,to the class occupied exclusively with material things1 this phase of ,froebel's idea may perhaps seem mystical4 ,there is nothing mystical to children1 however2 all is real1 for their visions have not been dispelled4 ,turn wheresoe'er ,i may1 ,by night or day1 ,the things which ,i have seen1 ,i now can see no more4 ,as soon as the child begins to be conscious of his own activities and his power of regulating them1 he desires to imitate the actions of his future life4 ,nothing so delights the little girl as to play at housekeeping in her tiny mansion1 sacred to the use of dolls4 ,see her whimsical attention to dust and dirt1 her tremendous wisdom in dispensing the work and ordering the duties of the household1 her careful attention to the morals and manners of her rag-babies4 ,the boy1 too1 tries to share in the life of a man1 to play at his father's work1 to be a miniature carpenter1 salesman1 or what not4 ,he rides his father's cane and calls it a horse1 in the same way that the little girl wraps a shawl about a towel1 and showers upon it the tenderest tokens of maternal affection4 ,all these examples go to show that every conscious intellectual phase of the mind has a previous phase in which it was unconscious or merely symbolic4 ,to get at the spirit and inspiration of symbolic representation in song and game1 it is necessary first of all to study ,froebel's ,mutter und ,kose-,lieder1 perhaps the most strikingly original1 instructive1 serviceable book in the whole history of the practice of education4 ,the significant remark quoted in ,froebel's ,reminiscences is this3 ,he who understands what ,i mean by these songs knows my inmost secret4 ,you will find people who say the music in the book is poor1 which is largely true1 and that the versification is weak1 which is often1 not always1 true1 and is sometimes to be attributed to faulty translation2 but the idea1 the spirit1 the continuity of the plan1 are matchless1 and critics who call it trifling or silly are those who have not the seeing eye nor the understanding heart4 ,froebel's wife said of it1-- ,a superficial mind does not grasp it1 ,a gentle mind does not hate it1 ,a coarse mind makes fun of it1 ,a thoughtful mind alone tries to get at it4 ,froebel#a considers it his duty to picture the home as it ought to be1 not by writing a book of theories and of rules which are easily forgotten1 but by accompanying a mother in her daily rounds through house1 garden1 and field1 and by following her to workshop1 market1 and church4 ,he does not represent a woman of fashion1 but prefers one of humbler station1 whom he clothes in the old ,german housewife style4 ,it may be a small sphere she occupies1 but there she is the centre1 and she completely fills her place4 ,she rejoices in the dignity of her position as educator of a human being whom she has to bring into harmony with ,god1 nature1 and man4 ,she thinks nothing too trifling that concerns her child4 ,she watches1 clothes1 feeds1 and trains it in good habits1 and when her darling is asleep1 her prayers finish the day4 ,she may not have read much about education1 but her sympathy with the child suggests means of doing her duty4 ,love has made her inventive2 she discovers means of amusement1 for play2 she talks and sings1 sometimes in poetry and sometimes in prose4 ,from mothers in his circle of relations and friends1 ,froebel has learned what a mother can do1 and although he had no children of his own1 his heart vibrated instinctively with the feelings of a mother's joy1 hope1 and fear4 ,he did not care about the scorn of others1 when he felt he must speak with an almost womanly heart to a mother4 ,his own loss of a mother's tender care made him the more appreciate the importance of a mother's love in early infancy4 ,the mother in his book makes use of all the impressions1 influences1 and agencies with which the child comes in contact3 she protects from evil2 she stimulates for good2 she places the child in direct communication with nature1 because she herself admires its beauties4 ,she has a right feeling towards her neighbors1 and to all those on whom she depends4 ,a movement of arms and feet teaches her that the child feels its strength and wants to use it4 ,she helps1 she lifts1 she teaches2 and while playing with her baby's hands and feet she is never at a loss for a song or story4 ,footnote #a3 ,eleonore ,heerwart4 ,the mother also knows that it is necessary to train the senses1 because they are the active organs which convey food to the intellect4 ,the ear must hear language1 music1 the gentle accents and warning voices of father and mother4 ,it must distinguish the sounds of the wind1 of the water1 and of pet animals4 ,the eyesight is directed to objects far and near1 as the pigeons flying1 the hare running1 the light flickering on the wall1 the calm beauty of the moon1 and the twinkling stars in the dark blue sky4 ,of the effect of ,froebel's symbolic songs and games1 with melodious music and appropriate gesture1 kindergartners all speak enthusiastically4 ,they know that-- ,first3 ,the words suggest thought to the child4 ,second3 ,the thought suggests gesture4 ,third3 ,the gesture aids in producing the proper feeling4 ,we all believe thoroughly in the influence of mind on body1 the inward working outward1 but we are not as ready to see the influence of body on mind4 ,yet if mind or soul acts upon the body1 the external gesture and attitude just as truly react upon the inward feeling4 ,the soul speaks through the body1 and the body in return gives command to the soul4 ,all attitudes mean something1 and they all influence the state of mind4 ,fourth3 ,the melody begets spiritual impressions4 ,fifth3 ,the gestures1 feeling1 and melody unite in giving a sweet and gentle intercourse1 in developing love for labor1 home1 country1 associates1 and dumb animals1 and in unconsciously directing the intellectual powers4 ,learning to sing well is the best possible means of learning to speak well1 and the exquisite precision which music gives to kindergarten play destroys all rudeness1 and does not in the least rob it of its fun or merriment4 ,we cannot tell how early the pleasing sense of musical cadence affects a child4 ,in some children it is blended with the earliest1 haziest recollection of life at all1 as though they had been literally 'cradled in sweet song2' and we may be sure that the hearing of musical sounds and singing in association with others are for the child1 as for the adult1 powerful influences in awakening sympathetic emotion1 and pleasure in associated action4 ,who can see the kindergarten games1 led by a teacher who has grown into their spirit1 and ever forget the joy of the spectacle8 ,it brings tears to the eyes of any woman who has ever been called mother1 or ever hopes to be2 and ,i have seen more than one man retire surreptitiously to wipe away his tears4 ,is it that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin8 ,is it the perfect self-forgetfulness of the children8 ,is it a touch of self-pity that the radiant visions of our childhood days have been dispelled1 and the years have brought the inevitable yoke8 ,or is it the touching sight of so much happiness contrasted with what we know the home life to be8 ,sydney ,smith says3 ,if you make children happy now1 you will make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it2 and we know that virtue kindles at the touch of this joy4 ,selfishness1 rudeness1 and similar weedy growths of school-life or of street-independence cannot grow in such an atmosphere4 ,for joy is as foreign to tumult and destruction1 to harshness and selfish disregard of others1 as the serene1 vernal sky with its refreshing breezes is foreign to the uproar and terrors of the hurricane4 ,for this kind of ideal play we are indebted to ,friedrich ,froebel1 and if he had left no other legacy to childhood1 we should exalt him for it4 ,if you are skeptical1 let me beseech you to join the children in a ,free ,kindergarten1 and play with them4 ,you will be convinced1 not through your head1 perhaps1 but through your heart4 ,i remember converting such a grim female once6 ,you know ,henry ,james says1 ,some women are unmarried by choice1 and others by chance1 but ,olive ,chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being4 ,now1 this predestinate spinster acquaintance of mine1 well nigh spoiled by years of school-teaching in the wrong spirit1 was determined to think kindergarten play simply a piece of nauseating frivolity4 ,she tried her best1 but1 kept in the circle with the children five successive days1 she relaxed so completely that it was with the utmost difficulty that she kept herself from being a butterfly or a bird4 ,it is always so2 no one can resist the unconscious happiness of children4 ,as for the good that comes to grown people from playing with children in this joyous freedom and with this deep earnestness of purpose1 it is beyond all imagination4 ,if ,i had a daughter who was frivolous1 or worldly1 or selfish1 or cold1 or unthoughtful1--who regarded life as a pleasantry1 or fell into the still more stupid mistake of thinking it not worth living1--,i should not 7at first7 make her read the ,bible1 or teach in the ,sunday-school1 or call on the minister1 or request the prayers of the congregation1 but ,i should put her in a good ,kindergarten ,training ,school4 ,no normal young woman can resist the influence of the study of childhood and the daily life among little children1 especially the children of the poor3 it is irresistible4 ,oh1 these tiny teachers6 ,if we only learned from them all we might1 instead of feeling ourselves over-wise6 ,i never look down into the still1 clear pool of a child's innocent1 questioning eyes without thinking3 ,dear little one1 it must be 'give and take' between thee and me4 ,i have gained something here in all these years1 but thou hast come from thence more lately than have ,i2 thou hast a treasure that the years have stolen from me--share it with me6 ,let us endeavor1 then1 to make the child's life objective to him4 ,let us unlock to him the significance of family1 social1 and national relationships1 so that he may grow into sympathy with them4 ,he loves the symbol which interprets his nature to himself1 and in his eager play1 he pictures the life he longs to understand4 ,if we could make such education continuous1 if we could surround the child in his earlier years with such an atmosphere of goodness1 beauty1 and wisdom1 none can doubt that he would unconsciously grow into harmony and union with the ,all-,good1 the ,all-,beautiful1 and the ,all-,wise4 ,,children',s ,,playthings ,books cannot teach what toys inculcate4 ,in the preceding chapter we discussed ,froebel's plays1 and found that the playful spirit which pervades all the kindergarten exercises must not be regarded as trivial1 since it has a philosophic motive and a definite1 earnest purpose4 ,we discussed the meaning of childish play1 and deplored the lack of good and worthy national nursery plays4 ,passing then to ,froebel's ,mother-,play1 we found that the very heart of his educational idea lies in the book1 and that it serves as a guide for mothers whose babies are yet in their arms1 as well as for those who have little children of four or five years under their care4 ,we found that in ,froebel's plays the mirror is held up to universal life2 that the child in playing them grows into unconscious sympathy with the natural1 the human1 the divine2 that by playing at the life he longs to understand1 he grows at last into a conscious realization of its mysteries--its truth1 its meaning1 its dignity1 its purpose4 ,we found that symbolic play leads the child from the symbol to the truth symbolized4 ,we discovered that the carefully chosen words of the kindergarten songs and games suggest thought to the child1 the thought suggests gesture1 the melody begets spiritual feeling4 ,we discussed the relation of body and mind2 the effect of bodily attitudes on feeling and thought1 as well as the moulding of the body by the indwelling mind4 ,froebel's playthings are as significant as his plays4 ,if you examine the materials he offers children in his gifts and occupations1 you cannot help seeing that they meet the child's natural wants in a truly wonderful manner1 and that used in connection with conversations and stories and games they address and develop his love of movement and his love of rhythm2 his desire to touch and handle1 to play and work 7to be busy71 and his curiosity to know2 his instincts of construction and comparison1 his fondness for gardening and digging in the earth2 his social impulse1 and finally his religious feeling4 ,froebel himself says if his educational materials are found useful1 it cannot be because of their exterior1 which is as simple as possible1 and contains nothing new2 but their worth is to be found exclusively in their application4 ,if you can work out his principles 7or better ones still when we find better ones7 by other means1 pray do it if you prefer2 since the object of the kindergartner is not to make ,froebel an idol1 but an ideal4 ,he seems to have found type-forms admirable for awaking the higher senses of the child1 and unlike the usual scheme of object lessons1 they tell a continued story4 ,when the object-method first burst upon the enraptured sight of the teacher1 this list of subjects appeared in a printed catalogue1 showing the ground of study in a certain school for six months3-- ,tea1 spiders1 apple1 hippopotamus1 cow1 cotton1 duck1 sugar1 rabbits1 rice1 lighthouse1 candle1 lead-pencil1 pins1 tiger1 clothing1 silver1 butter-making1 giraffe1 onion1 soda6 ,such reckless heterogeneity as this is impossible with ,froebel's educational materials1 for even if they are given to the child without a single word1 they carry something of their own logic with them4 ,they emphasize the gospel of doing1 for ,froebel believes in positives in teaching1 not negatives2 in stimulants1 not deterrents4 ,how inexpressibly tiresome is the everlasting ,don't6 in some households4 ,don't get in the fire1 don't play in the water1 don't tease the kitty1 don't trouble the doggy1 don't bother the lady1 don't interrupt1 don't contradict1 don't fidget with your brother1 and don't worry me now2 while perhaps in this whole tirade1 not a word has been said of something to do4 ,let sleeping faults lie as long as possible while we quietly oust them1 little by little1 by developing the good qualities4 ,surely the less we use deterrents the better1 since they are often the child's first introduction to what is undesirable or wrong4 ,i am quite sure they have something of that effect on grown people4 ,the telling us not to do1 and that we cannot1 must not1 do a certain thing surrounds it with a momentary fascination4 ,if your enemy suggests that there is a pot of ,paris green on the piazza1 but you must not take a spoonful and dissolve it in a cup of honey and give it to your maiden aunt who has made her will in your favor1 your innocent mind hovers for an instant over the murderous idea4 ,froebel's play-materials come to the child when he has entered upon the war-path of getting something to do4 ,if legitimate means fail1 then let the portcullis fall2 the child must be busy4 ,the fly on the window-pane will be crushed1 the kettle tied to the dog's tail1 the curtains cut into snips1 the baby's hair shingled1-- anything that his untiring hands may not pause an instant1--anything that his chubby legs may take his restless body over a circuit of a hundred miles or so before he is immured in his crib for the night4 ,the child of four or five years is still interested in objects1 in the concrete4 ,he wants to see and to hear1 to examine and to work with his hands4 ,how absurd then for us to make him fold his arms and keep his active fingers still2 or strive to stupefy him with such an opiate as the alphabet4 ,if we can possess our souls and primers in patience for a while1 and feed his senses2 if we will let him take in living facts and await the result2 that result will be that when he has learned to perceive1 compare1 and construct1 he will desire to learn words1 for they tell him what others have seen1 thought1 and done4 ,this reading and writing1 what is it1 after all1 but the signs for things and thoughts8 ,logically we must first know things1 then thoughts1 then their records4 ,the law of human progress is from physical activity to mental power1 from a ,hercules to a ,shakespeare1 and it is as true for each unit of humanity as it is for the race4 ,everything in ,froebel's playthings trains the child to quick1 accurate observation4 ,they help children to a fuller vision1 they lead them to see4 ,did you ever think how many people there are who having eyes1 see not8 ,ruskin says1 ,hundreds of people can talk for one who can think1 but thousands can think for one who can see4 ,to see clearly is poetry1 prophecy1 religion1 all in one4 ,a gentleman who is trying to write the biography of a great man complained to me lately1 that in consulting a dozen of his friends--men and women who had known him as preacher1 orator1 reformer1 and poet--so few of them had anything characteristic and fine to relate4 ,what1 he said is the use of trying to write biography with such mummies for witnesses6 ,they would have seen just as much if they had had nothing but glass eyes in their heads4 ,what is education good for that does not teach the mind to observe accurately and define picturesquely8 ,to get at the essence of an object and clear away the accompanying rubbish1 this is the only training that fits men and women to live with any profit to themselves or pleasure to others4 ,what a biographer1 for example1 or at least what a witness for some other biographer1 was latent in the little boy who1 when told by his teacher to define a bat1 said3 ,he's a nasty little mouse1 with injy-rubber wings and shoe-string tail1 and bites like the devil4 ,there was an eye worth having6 ,agassiz himself could not have hit off better the salient characteristics of the little creature in question4 ,had that remarkable boy been brought into contact1 for five minutes only1 with ,julius ,caesar1 who can doubt that the telling description he would have given of him would have come down through all the ages8 ,i do not mean to urge the adoption of any ultra-utilitarian standpoint in regard to playthings1 or advise you rudely to enter the realm of early infancy and interfere with the baby's legitimate desires by any meddlesome pedagogic reasoning4 ,choose his toys wisely and then leave him alone with them4 ,leave him to the throng of emotional impressions they will call into being4 ,remember that they speak to his feelings when his mind is not yet open to reason4 ,the toy at this period is surrounded with a halo of poetry and mystery1 and lays hold of the imagination and the heart without awaking vulgar curiosity4 ,thrice happy age when one can hug one's white woolly lamb to one's bibbed breast1 kiss its pink bead eyes in irrational ecstasy1 and manipulate the squeak in its foreground without desire to explore the cause thereof6 ,at this period the well-beloved toy1 the dumb sharer of the child's joys and sorrows1 becomes the nucleus of a thousand enterprises1 each rendered more fascinating by its presence and sympathy4 ,if the toy be a horse1 they take imaginary journeys together1 and the road is doubly delightful because never traveled alone4 ,if it be a house1 the child lives therein a different life for every day in the week2 for no monarch alive is so all-powerful as he whose throne is the imagination4 ,little tin soldier1 ,shem1 ,ham1 and ,japhet from the ,noah's ,ark1 the hornless cow1 the tailless dog1 and the elephant that won't stand up1 these play their allotted parts in his innocent comedies1 and meanwhile he grows steadily in sympathy and in comprehension of the ever-widening circle of human relationships4 ,when we have restored playthings to their place in education--a place which assigns them the principal part in the development of human sympathies1 we can later on put in the hands of children objects whose impressions will reach their minds more particularly4 ,dr4 ,e4 ,seguin1 our ,commissioner of ,education to the ,universal ,exhibition at ,vienna1 philosophizes most charmingly on children's toys in his ,report 7chapter on the ,training of ,special ,senses74 ,he says the vast array of playthings 7separated by nationalities7 left at first sight an impression of silly sameness2 but that a second look discovered in them particular characters1 as of national idiosyncrasies2 and a closer examination showed that these puerilities had sense enough in them1 not only to disclose the movements of the mind1 but to predict what is to follow4 ,he classifies the toys exhibited1 and in so doing gives us delightful and valuable generalizations1 some of which ,i will quote3-- ,chinese and ,japanese toys innumerable1 as was to have been expected4 ,japanese toys much brighter1 the dolls relieved in gold and gaudy colors1 absolutely saucy4 ,the application of the natural and mechanical forces in their toys cannot fail to determine the taste of the next generation towards physical sciences4 ,chinese dolls are sober in color1 meek in demeanor1 and comprehensive in mien4444 ,the favorite ,chinese toy remains the theatrical scene where the family is treated la ,molire4 ,persia sends beautiful toys1 from which can be inferred a national taste for music1 since most of their dolls are blowing instruments4 ,turkey1 ,egypt1 ,arabia1 have sent no dolls4 ,do they make none1 under the impression1 correct in a low state of culture1 that dolls for children become idols for men8 ,the ,finlanders and ,laplanders1 who are not troubled with such religious prejudices1 give rosy cheeks and bodies as fat as seals to their dolls4 ,the ,french toy represents the versatility of the nation1 touching every topic1 grave or grotesque4 ,from ,berlin come long trains of artillery1 regiments of lead1 horse and foot on moving tramways4 ,from the ,hartz and the ,alps still issue those wooden herds1 more characteristic of the dull feelings of their makers than of the instincts of the animals they represent4 ,the ,american toys justify the rule we have found good elsewhere1 that their character both reveals and prefaces the national tendencies4 ,with us1 toys refer the mind and habits of children to home economy1 husbandry1 and mechanical labor2 and their very material is durable1 mainly wood and iron4 ,so from childhood every people has its sympathies expressed or suppressed1 and set deeper in its flesh and blood than scholastic ideas4444 ,the children who have no toys seize realities very late1 and never form ideals4444 ,the nations rendered famous by their artists1 artisans1 and idealists have supplied their infants with many toys1 for there is more philosophy and poetry in a single doll than in a thousand books4444 ,if you will tell us what your children play with1 we will tell you what sort of women and men they will be2 so let this ,republic make the toys which will raise the moral and artistic character of her children4 ,froebel's educational toys do us one service1 in that they preach a silent but impressive sermon on simplicity4 ,it is easy to see that the hurlyburly of our modern life is not wholly favorable to the simple creed of childhood1 delight and liberty1 when busy or at rest1 but we might make it a little less artificial than we do1 perhaps4 ,every thoughtful person knows that the simple1 natural playthings of the old-fashioned child1 which are nothing more than pegs on which he hangs his glowing fancies1 are healthier than our complicated modern mechanisms1 in which the child has only to press the button and the toy does the rest4 ,the electric-talking doll1 for example--imagine a generation of children brought up on that6 ,and the toy-makers are not even content with this grand personage1 four feet high1 who says ,papa6 ,mamma6 ,she is passe already2 they have begun to improve on her6 ,an electrician described to me the other day a superb new altruistic doll1 fitted to the needs of the present decade4 ,you are to press a judiciously located button and ask her the test question1 which is1 if she will have some candy2 whereupon with an angelic detached-movement-smile 7located in the left cheek71 she is to answer1 ,give brother big piece2 give me little piece6 ,if the thing gets out of order 7and ,i devoutly hope it will71 it will doubtless return to a state of nature1 and horrify the bystanders by remarking1 ,give me big piece6 ,give brother little piece6 ,think of having a gilded dummy like that given you to amuse yourself with6 ,think of having to play1--to play1 forsooth1 with a model of propriety1 a high-minded monstrosity like that6 ,doesn't it make you long for your dear old darkey doll with the raveled mouth1 and the stuffing leaking out of her legs2 or your beloved ,arabella ,clarinda with the broken nose1 beautiful even in dissolution1--creatures not too bright or good for human nature's daily food8 ,banged1 battered1 hairless1 sharers of our mad joys and reckless sorrows1 how we loved them in their simple ugliness6 ,with what halos of romance we surrounded them6 with what devotion we nursed the one with the broken head1 in those early days when new heads were not to be bought at the nearest shop4 ,and even if they could have been purchased for us1 would we1 the primitive children of those dear1 dark ages1 have ever thought of wrenching off the cracked blonde head of ,ethelinda and buying a new1 strange1 nameless brunette head1 gluing it calmly on ,ethelinda's body1 as a small acquaintance of mine did last week1 apparently without a single pang8 ,never6 ,a doll had a personality in those times1 and has yet1 to a few simple backwoods souls1 even in this day and generation4 ,think of ,charles ,kingsley's song1--,i once had a sweet little doll1 dears4 ,can we imagine that as written about one of these modern monstrosities with eyeglasses and corsets and vinaigrettes8 ,i once had a sweet little doll1 dears1 ,the prettiest doll in the world1 ,her face was so red and so white1 dears1 ,and her hair was so charmingly curled2 ,but ,i lost my poor little doll1 dears1 ,as ,i played on the heath one day1 ,and ,i sought for her more than a week1 dears1 ,but ,i never could find where she lay4 ,i found my poor little doll1 dears1 ,as ,i played on the heath one day2 ,folks say she is terribly changed1 dears1 ,for her paint is all washed away2 ,and her arms trodden off by the cows1 dears1 ,and her hair not the least bit curled2 ,yet for old sake's sake she is still1 dears1 ,the prettiest doll in the world4 ,long live the doll6 ,dolly-o'diamonds1 precious lamb1 ,humming-bird1 honey-pot1 jewel1 jam1 ,darling delicate-dear-delight-- ,angel-o'red1 angel-o'white6 ,take away the doll1 you erase from the heart and head feelings1 images1 poetry1 aspiration1 experience1 ready for application to real life4 ,every mother knows the development of tenderness and motherliness that goes on in her little girl through the nursing and petting and teaching and caring for her doll4 ,there is a good deal of journalistic anxiety concerning the decline of mothers4 ,is it possible that fathers1 too1 are in any danger of decline8 ,it is impossible to overestimate the sacredness and importance of the mother-spirit in the universe1 but the father-spirit is not positively valueless 7so far as it goes74 ,the newspaper-pessimists talk comparatively little about developing that in the young male of the species4 ,in three years' practical experience among the children of the poorer classes1 and during all the succeeding years1 when ,i have filled the honorary and honorable offices of general-utility woman1 story-teller1 song-singer1 and playmaker-in-ordinary to their royal highnesses1 some thousands of babies1 ,i have been struck with the greater hardness of the small boys2 a certain coarseness of fibre and lack of sensitiveness which makes them less susceptible1 at first1 to gentle influences4 ,once upon a time ,i set about developing this father spirit in a group of little gamins whose general attitude toward the weaker sex1 toward birds and flowers and insects1 toward beauty in distress and wounded sensibility1 was in the last degree offensive4 ,in the bird games we had always had a mother bird in the nest with the birdlings2 we now introduced a father bird into the game4 ,though the children had been only a little time in the kindergarten1 and were not fully baptized into the spirit of play1 still the boys were generally willing to personate the father bird1 since their delight in the active and manly occupation of flying about the room seeking worms overshadowed their natural repugnance to feeding the young4 ,this accomplished1 we played ,master ,rider1 in which a small urchin capered about on a hobby horse1 going through a variety of adventures1 and finally returning with presents to wife and children4 ,this in turn became a matter of natural experience1 and we moved towards our grand coup d'tat4 ,once a week we had dolls' day1 when all the children who owned them brought their dolls1 and the exercises were ordered with the single view of amusing and edifying them4 ,the picture of that circle of ragged children comes before me now and dims my eyes with its pathetic suggestions4 ,such dolls6 ,five-cent1 ten-cent dolls2 dolls with soiled clothes and dolls in a highly indecorous state of nudity2 dolls whose ruddy hues of health had been absorbed into their mothers' systems2 dolls made of rags1 dolls made of carrots1 and dolls made of towels2 but all dispensing odors of garlic in the common air4 ,maternal affection1 however1 pardoned all limitations1 and they were clasped as fondly to maternal bosoms as if they had been imported from ,paris4 ,bless my soul6 might have been the unspoken comment of these tiny mothers4 ,if we are only to love our offspring when handsome and well clothed1 then the mother-heart of society is in a bad way6 ,dolls' day was the day for lullabies4 ,i always wished ,i might gather a group of stony-hearted men and women in that room and see them melt under the magic of the scene4 ,perhaps you cannot imagine the union of garlic and magic1 nevertheless1 ,o ye of little faith1 it may exist4 ,the kindergarten cradle stood in the centre of the circle1 and the kindergarten doll1 clean1 beautiful1 and well dressed1 lay inside the curtains1 waiting to be sung to sleep with the other dolls4 ,one little girl after another would go proudly to the mother's chair and rock the cradle1 while the other children hummed their gentle lullabies4 ,at this juncture even the older boys 7when the influence of the music had stolen in upon their senses7 would glance from side to side longingly1 as much as to say1-- ,o ,lord1 why didst ,thou not make thy servant a female1 that he might dandle one of these interesting objects without degradation6 ,in such an hour ,i suddenly said1 ,josephus1 will you be the father this time8 and without giving him a second to think1 we began our familiar lullaby4 ,the radical nature1 the full enormity1 of the proposition did not 7in that moment of sweet expansion7 strike ,josephus4 ,he moved towards the cradle1 seated himself in the chair1 put his foot upon the rocker1 and rocked the baby soberly1 while my heart sang in triumph4 ,after this the fathers as well as the mothers took part in all family games1 and this mighty and much-needed reform had been worked through the magic of a fascinating plaything4 ,,what ,,shall ,,children ,,read8 ,what we make children love and desire is more important than what we make them learn4 ,when ,i was a little girl 7oh1 six most charming words67--it is not necessary to name the year1 but it was so long ago that children were still reminded that they should be seen and not heard1 and also that they could eat what was set before them or go without 7two maxims that suggest a hoary antiquity of time not easily measured by the senses71--when ,i was a little girl1 ,i had the great good fortune to live in a country village4 ,i believe ,i always had a taste for books2 but ,i will pass over that early period when ,i manifested it by carrying them to my mouth1 and endeavored to assimilate their contents by the cramming process2 and also that later stage1 which heralded the dawn of the critical faculty1 perhaps1 when ,i tore them in bits and held up the tattered fragments with shouts of derisive laughter4 ,unlike the critic1 no more were given me to mar2 but1 like the critic1 ,i had marred a good many ere my vandal hand was stayed4 ,as soon as ,i could read1 ,i had free access to an excellent medical library1 the gloom of which was brightened by a few shelves of theological works1 bequeathed to the family by some orthodox ancestor1 and tempered by a volume or two of ,blackstone2 but outside of these1 which were emphatically not the stuff my dreams were made of1 ,i can only remember a certain little walnut bookcase hanging on the wall of the family sitting-room4 ,it had but three shelves1 yet all the mysteries of love and life and death were in the score of well-worn volumes that stood there side by side2 and we turned to them1 year after year1 with undiminished interest4 ,the number never seemed small1 the stories never grew tame3 when we came to the end of the third shelf1 we simply went back and began again1--a process all too little known to latter-day children4 ,i can see them yet1 those rows of shabby and incongruous volumes1 the contents of which were transferred to our hungry little brains4 ,some of them are close at hand now1 and ,i love their ragged corners1 their dog's-eared pages that show the pressure of childish thumbs1 and their dear old backs1 broken in my service4 ,there was a red-covered ,book of ,snobs2 ,vanity ,fair with no cover at all2 ,scottish ,chiefs in crimson2 a brown copy of ,george ,sand's ,teverino2 and next it a green ,bailey's ,festus1 which ,i only attacked when mentally rabid1 and a little of which went a surprisingly long way2 and then a maroon ,david ,copperfield1 whose pages were limp with my kisses4 7,to write a book that a child would kiss6 ,oh1 dear reward6 oh1 sweet1 sweet fame67 ,in one corner--spare me your smiles--was a fat autobiography of ,p4,t4 ,barnum1 given me by a grateful farmer for saving the life of a valuable ,jersey calf just as she was on the point of strangling herself4 ,this book so inflamed a naturally ardent imagination1 that ,i was with difficulty dissuaded from entering the arena as a circus manager4 ,considerations of age or sex had no weight with me1 and lack of capital eventually proved the deterrent force4 ,on the shelf above were ,kenilworth1 ,the ,lady of the ,lake1 and half of ,rob ,roy4 ,i have always hesitated to read the other half1 for fear that it should not end precisely as ,i made it end when ,i was forced1 by necessity1 to supplement ,sir ,walter ,scott4 ,then there was ,gulliver's ,travels1 and if any of the stories seemed difficult to believe1 ,i had only to turn to the maps of ,lilliput and ,brobdingnag1 with the degrees of latitude and longitude duly marked1 which always convinced me that everything was fair and aboveboard4 ,of course1 there was a great green and gold ,shakespeare1 not a properly expurgated edition for female seminaries1 either1 nor even prose tales from ,shakespeare adapted to young readers1 but the real thing4 ,we expurgated as we read1 child fashion1 taking into our sleek little heads all that we could comprehend or apprehend1 and unconsciously passing over what might have been hurtful1 perhaps1 at a later period4 ,i suppose we failed to get a very close conception of ,shakespeare's colossal genius1 but we did get a tremendous and lasting impression of force and power1 life and truth4 ,when we declaimed certain scenes in an upper chamber with sloping walls and dormer windows1 a bed for a throne1 a cotton umbrella for a sceptre1 our creations were harmless enough4 ,if ,i remember rightly1 our nine-year-old ,lady ,macbeths and ,iagos1 ,falstaffs and ,cleopatras1 after they had been dipped in the divine alembic of childish innocence1 came out so respectable that they would not have brought the historic blush to the cheek of youth4 ,on the shelf above the ,shakespeare were a few things presumably better suited to childish tastes1--,hawthorne's ,wonder ,book1 ,kingsley's ,water ,babies1 ,miss ,edgeworth's ,rosamond1 and the ,arabian ,nights4 ,there were also two little tales given us by a wandering revivalist1 who was on a starring tour through the ,new ,england villages1 ,how ,gussie ,grew in ,grace1 and ,little ,harriet's ,work for the ,heathen1--melodramatic histories of spiritually perfect and physically feeble children who blessed the world for a season1 but died young1 enlivened by a few pages devoted to completely vicious and adorable ones who lived to curse the world to a good old age4 ,last of all1 brought out only on state occasions1 was a most seductive edition of that nursery ,gaboriau1 ,who ,killed ,cock ,robin8 with colored illustrations in which the heads of the birds were made to move oracularly1 by means of cunningly arranged strips pulled from the bottom of the page4 ,this was a relic of infancy1 our first introduction to the literature of plot1 counterplot1 intrigue1 and crime1 and the mystery of the murder was very real to us4 ,this book1 still in existence1 with all the birds headless from over-exertion1 is always inextricably associated in my mind with childish woes1 as a desire on my part to make the birds wag their heads was always contemporaneous1 to a second1 with a like desire on my sister's part2 and on those rare days when the precious volume was taken down1 one of us always donned the penitential nightgown early in the afternoon and supped frugally in bed1 while the other feasted gloriously at the family board1 never quite happy in her virtue1 however1 since it separated her from beloved vice in disgrace4 ,that paltry tattered volume1 when it confronts me from its safe nook in a bureau drawer1 makes my heart beat faster and sets me dreaming6 ,pray tell me if any book read in your later and wiser years ever brings to your mind such vivid memories1 to your lips so lingering a smile1 to your eye so ready a tear8 ,true enough1 we could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it4444 ,what novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known8 ,this autobiographical babble is excusable for one reason only4 ,it is in remembering what books greatly moved us in earlier days2 what books wakened strong and healthy desires1 enlarged the horizon of our understanding1 and inspired us to generous action1 that we get some clue to the books with which to surround our children2 and a reminiscence of this kind becomes a sort of psychological observation4 ,the moment we realize clearly that the books we read in childhood and youth make a profound impression that can never be repeated later 7save in some rare crisis of heart and soul1 where a printed page marks an epoch in one's mental or spiritual life71 then we become reinforced in our opinion that it makes a deal of difference what children read and how they read it4 ,agnes ,repplier says3 ,it is part of the irony of life that our discriminating taste for books should be built up on the ashes of an extinct enjoyment4 ,a book is such a fact to children1 its people are so alive and so heartily loved and hated1 its scenes so absolutely real6 ,prone on the hearth-rug before the fire1 or curled in the window seat1 they forget everything but the story4 ,the shadows deepen1 until they can read no longer2 but they do not much care1 for the window looks into an enchanted region peopled with brilliant fancies4 ,the old garden is sometimes the ,forest of ,arden1 sometimes the ,land of ,lilliput1 sometimes the ,border4 ,the gray rock on the river bank is now the cave of ,monte ,cristo1 and now a castle defended by scores of armed knights who peep one by one from the alder-bushes1 while ,fair ,ellen and the lovely ,undine float together on the quiet stream4 ,for forming a truly admirable literary taste1 ,i cannot indeed say much in favor of my own motley collection of books just mentioned1 for ,i was simply tumbled in among them and left to browse1 in accordance with ,charles ,lamb's whimsical plan for ,bridget ,elia4 ,more might have been added1 and some taken away2 but they had in them a world of instruction and illumination which children miss who read too exclusively those books written with rigid determination down to their level1 neglecting certain old classics for which we fondly believe there are no substitutes4 ,you cannot always persuade the children of this generation to attack ,robinson ,crusoe1 and if they do they are too sophisticated to thrill properly when they come to ,friday's footsteps in the sand4 ,think of it1 my contemporaries3 think of substituting for that intense moment some of the modern tuppenny climaxes6 ,i do not wish to drift into a cheap cynicism1 and apotheosize the old days at the expense of the new4 ,we are often inclined to paint the ,past with a halo round its head which it never wore when it was the ,present4 ,we can reproduce neither the children nor the conditions of fifty or even twenty-five years ago4 ,to-day's children must be fitted for to-day's tasks1 educated to answer to-day's questions1 equipped to solve to-day's problems2 but are we helping them to do this in absolutely the best way8 ,at all events1 it is difficult to join in the paean of gratitude for the tons of children's books that are turned out yearly by parental publishers4 ,if the children of the past did not have quite enough deference paid to their individuality1 their likes and dislikes1 and if their needs were too often left until the needs of everybody else had been considered1--on the other hand1 they were not surfeited with well-meant but ill-directed attentions4 ,if the hay was thrown so high in the rack that they could not pluck a single straw without stretching up for it1 why1 the hay was generally worth stretching for1 and was1 perhaps1 quite as healthful as the sweet and easily digested nursery porridge which some people adopt as exclusive diet for their darlings nowadays4 ,let us look a little at some of the famous children's books of a past generation1 and see what was their general style and purpose4 ,take1 for instance1 those of ,mrs4 ,barbauld1 who may be included in that group of men and women who completely altered the style of teaching and writing for children--,rousseau1 de ,genlis1 the ,edgeworths1 ,jacotot1 ,froebel1 and ,diesterweg1 all great teachers1--didactic1 deadly-dull ,mrs4 ,barbauld1 who composed1 as one of her biographers tells us1 a considerable number of miscellaneous pieces for the instruction and amusement of young persons1 especially females4 7,girls were always young females in those days2 children were infants1 and stories were tales47 ,who can ever forget those ,early ,lessons1 written for her adopted son ,charles1 who appeared in the page sometimes in a state of hopeless ignorance and imbecility1 and sometimes clad in the wisdom of the ancients8 ,the use of the offensive phrase excessively pretty1 as applied to a lace tidy by a very tiny female named ,lucy1 brings down upon her sinful head eleven pages of such moralizing as would only be delivered by a modern mamma on hearing a confession of robbery or murder4 ,all this does strike us as insufferably didactic1 yet we cannot approve the virulence with which ,southey and ,charles ,lamb attacked good ,mrs4 ,barbauld in her old age2 for her purpose was eminently earnest1 her views of education healthy and sensible for the time in which she lived1 her style polished and admirably quiet1 her love for young people indubitably sincere and profound1 and her character worthy of all respect and admiration in its dignity1 womanliness1 and strength4 ,nevertheless1 ,charles ,lamb exclaims in a whimsical burst of spleen3 ',goody ,two ,shoes' is out of print1 while ,mrs4 ,barbauld's and ,mrs4 ,trimmer's nonsense lies in piles around4 ,hang them--the cursed reasoning crew1 those blights and blasts of all that is human in man and child4 ,miss ,edgeworth has what seems to us1 in these days1 the same overplus of sublime purpose1 and1 though a much greater writer1 is quite as desirous of being instructive1 first1 last1 and all the time1 and quite as unable or unwilling to veil her purpose4 ,no books1 however1 have ever had a more remarkable influence upon young people1 and there are many of them--old-fashioned as they are--which the sophisticated children of to-day could read with pleasure and profit4 ,poor1 naughty ,rosamond6 choosing the immortal purple jar out of that apothecary's window1 instead of the shoes she needed2 and in a following chapter1 after pages of excellent maternal advice1 taking the hideous but useful red morocco housewife instead of the coveted plum4 ,people may say what they like of ,miss ,edgeworth's lack of proportion as a moralist and economist1 but we have few writers for children at present who possess the practical knowledge1 mental vigor1 and moral force which made her an imposing figure in juvenile literature for nearly a century4 ,there has never been a time when the difficulty of making a good use of books was as great as it is to-day1 or a time when it required so much decision to make a wise choice1 simply because there is so much printed matter precipitated upon us that we cannot see the wood for the trees4 ,it is not my province to discriminate between the various writers for children at the present time4 ,to give a complete catalogue of useful books for children would be quite impossible2 to give a partial list1 or endeavor to point out what is worthy and what unworthy1 would be little better4 ,no course of reading laid down by one person ever suits another1 and the published lists of best books1 with their solemn platitudes in the way of advice1 are generally interesting only in their reflection of the writer's personality4 ,i would not choose too absolutely for a child save in his earliest years1 but would rather surround him with the best and worthiest books1 and let him choose for himself2 for there are elective affinities and antipathies here that need not be disregarded1--that are1 indeed1 certain indications of latent powers1 and trustworthy guides to the child's unfolding possibilities4 ,books can only be profoundly influential as they unite themselves with decisive tendencies4 ,provide the right conditions for mental growth1 and then let the child do the growing4 ,if we dictate too absolutely1 we envelop instead of developing his mind1 and weaken his power of choice4 ,on the other hand1 we do not wish his reading to be partial or one-sided1 as it may be without intelligent oversight4 ,i was telling bedtime stories1 the other night1 to a proper1 wise1 dull little girl of ten years4 ,when ,i had successfully introduced a mother-cat and kittens to her attention1 ,i plunged into what ,i thought a graphic and perfectly natural conversation between them1 when she cut me short with the observation that she disliked stories in which animals talked1 because they were not true6 ,i was rebuked1 and tried again with better success1 until there came an unlucky figure of speech concerning a blossoming locust-tree1 that bent its green boughs and laughed in the summer sunshine1 because its flowers were fragrant and lovely1 and the world so green and beautiful4 ,this she thought1 on sober second thought1 a trifle silly1 as trees never did laugh6 ,now1 that exasperating scrap of humanity 7she is abnormal1 to be sure7 ought to be locked up and fed upon fairy tales until she is able to catch a faint glimpse of the light that never was on sea or land4 ,poor1 blind1 deaf little person1 predestined1 perhaps1 to be the mother of a lot of other blind1 deaf little persons some day1--how ,i should like to develop her imagination6 ,whatever children read1 let us see that it is good of its kind1 and that it gives variety1 so that no integral want of human nature shall be neglected1--so that neither imagination1 memory1 nor reflection shall be starved4 ,i own it is difficult to help them in their choice1 when most of us have not learned to choose wisely for ourselves4 ,a discriminating taste in literature is not to be gained without effort1 and our constant reading of the little books spoils our appetite for the great ones4 ,style is a matter of some moment1 even at this early stage4 ,mothers sometimes forget that children cannot read slipshod1 awkward1 redundant prose1 and sing-song vapid verse1 for ten or twelve years1 and then take kindly to the best things afterward4 ,long before a child is conscious of such a thing as purity1 delicacy1 directness1 or strength of style1 he has been acted upon unconsciously1 so that when the period of conscious choice comes1 he is either attracted or repelled by what is good1 according to his training4 ,children are fond of vivacity and color1 and love a bit of word painting or graceful nonsense2 but there are people who strive for this1 and miss1 after all1 the true warmth and geniality that is most desirable for little people4 ,apropos of nonsense1 we remember ,leigh ,hunt1 who says that there are two kinds of nonsense1 one resulting from a superabundance of ideas1 the other from a want of them4 ,style in the hands of some writers is like war-paint to the savage--of no perceptible value unless it is laid on thick4 ,our little ones begin too often on cheap and tawdry stories in one or two syllables1 where pictures in primary colors try their best to atone for lack of matter4 ,then they enter on a prolonged series of children's books1 some of them written by people who have neither the intelligence nor the literary skill to write for a more critical audience2 on the same basis of reasoning which puts the young and inexperienced teachers into the lowest grades1 where the mind ought to be formed1 and assigns to the more practiced the simpler task of informing the already partially formed 7or deformed7 mind4 ,there has never been such conscientious1 intelligent1 and purposeful work done for children as in the last ten years2 and if an overwhelming flood of trash has been poured into our laps along with the better things1 we must accept the inevitable4 ,the legends1 myths1 and fables of the world1 as well as its history and romance1 are being brought within reach of young readers by writers of wide knowledge and trained skill4 ,knowing1 then1 as we do1 the dangers and obstacles in the way1 and realizing the innumerable inspirations which the best thought gives to us1 can we not so direct the reading of our children that our older boys and girls shall not be so exclusively modern in their tastes2 so that they may be inclined to take a little less ,mr4 ,saltus1 a little more ,shakespeare1 temper their devotion to ,mr4 ,kipling by small doses of ,dante1 forsake ,the ,duchess for a dip into ,thackeray1 and use ,hawthorne as a safe and agreeable antidote to ,mr4 ,haggard8 ,we need not despair of the child who does not care to read1 for books are not the only means of culture2 but they are a very great means when the mind is really stimulated1 and not simply padded with them4 ,mr4 ,frederic ,harrison says3 ,books are no more education than laws are virtue4 ,of all men1 perhaps the book-lover needs most to be reminded that man's business here is to know for the sake of living1 not to live for the sake of knowing4 ,but a child who has no taste for reading1 who is utterly incapable of losing himself in a printed page1 quite unable to forget his childish griefs1 ,and plunge1 ,soul forward1 headlong into a book's profound1 ,impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth1 --such a child is to be pitied as missing one of the chief joys of life4 ,such a child has no dear old book-friendships to look back upon4 ,he has no sweet associations with certain musty covers and time-worn pages2 no sacred memories of quiet moments when a new love of goodness1 a new throb of generosity1 a new sense of humanity1 were born in the ardent young soul2 born when we had turned the last page of some well-thumbed volume and pressed our tear-stained childish cheek against the window pane1 when it was growing dusk without1 and a mother's voice called us from our shelter to ,lay the book down1 dear1 and come to tea4 ,for1 to speak in better words than my own1 ,it is the books we read before middle life that do most to mould our characters and influence our lives2 and this not only because our natures are then plastic and our opinions flexible1 but also because1 to produce lasting impression1 it is necessary to give a great author time and meditation4 ,the books that are with us in the leisure of youth1 that we love for a time not only with the enthusiasm1 but with something of the exclusiveness1 of a first love1 are those that enter as factors forever in our mental life4 ,,children',s ,,stories ,to be a good story-teller is to be a king among children4 ,the business of story-telling is carried on from the soundest of economic motives1 in order to supply a constant and growing demand4 ,we are forced to satisfy the clamorous nursery-folk that beset us on every hand4 ,beside us stands an eager little creature quivering with expectation1 gazing with wide-open eyes1 and saying appealingly1 ,tell me a story6 or perhaps a circle of toddlers is gathered round1 each one offering the same fervent prayer1 with so much trust and confidence expressed in look and gesture that none but a barbarian could bear to disappoint it4 ,the story-teller is the children's special property4 ,when once his gifts have been found out1 he may bid good-by to his quiet snooze by the fire1 or his peaceful rest with a favorite book4 ,though he hide in the uttermost parts of the house1 yet will he be discovered and made to deliver up his treasure4 ,on this one subject1 at least1 the little ones of the earth are a solid1 unanimous body2 for never yet was seen the child who did not love the story and prize the story-teller4 ,perhaps we never dreamed of practicing the art of story-telling till we were drawn into it by the imperious commands of the little ones about us4 ,it is an untrodden path to us1 and we scarcely understand as yet its difficulties and hindrances1 its breadth and its possibilities4 ,yet this eager1 unceasing demand of the child-nature we must learn to supply1 and supply wisely2 for we must not think that all the food we give the little one will be sure to agree with him4 because he is so hungry4 ,this would be no more true of a mental than of a physical diet4 ,what objects1 then1 shall our stories serve beyond the important one of pleasing the little listeners8 ,how can we make them distinctly serviceable1 filling the difficult and well-nigh impossible rle of useful as well as ornamental8 ,there are1 of course1 certain general benefits which the child gains in the hearing of all well-told stories4 ,these are1 familiarity with good ,english1 cultivation of the imagination1 development of sympathy1 and clear impression of moral truth4 ,we shall find1 however1 that all stories appropriate for young children naturally divide themselves into the following classes3-- ,i4 ,the purely imaginative or fanciful1 and here belongs the so-called fairy story4 ,,ii4 ,the realistic1 devoted to things which have happened1 and might1 could1 would1 or should happen without violence to probability4 ,these are generally the vehicle for moral lessons which are all the more impressive because not insisted on4 ,,iii4 ,the scientific1 conveying bits of information about animals1 flowers1 rocks1 and stars4 ,,iv4 ,the historical1 or simple1 interesting accounts of the lives of heroes and events in our country's struggle for life and liberty4 ,there is a great difference in opinion regarding the advisability of telling fairy stories to very young children1 and there can be no question that some of them are entirely undesirable and inappropriate4 ,those containing a fierce or horrible element must1 of course1 be promptly ruled out of court1 including the bluggy tales of cruel stepmothers1 ferocious giants and ogres1 which fill the so-called fairy literature4 ,yet those which are pure in tone and gay with fanciful coloring may surely be told occasionally1 if only for the quickening of the imagination4 ,perhaps1 however1 it is best to keep them as a sort of sweetmeat1 to be taken on1 high days and holidays only4 ,let us be realistic1 by all means2 but beware1 ,o story-teller6 of being too realistic4 ,avoid the shuddering tale of the wicked boy who stoned the birds1 lest some hearer be inspired to try the dreadful experiment and see if it really does kill4 ,tell not the story of the bears who were set on a hot stove to learn to dance1 for children quickly learn to gloat over the horrible4 ,deal with the positive rather than the negative in story-telling2 learn to affirm1 not to deny4 ,some one perhaps will say here1 the knowledge of cruelty and sin must come some time to the child2 then why shield him from it now8 ,true1 it must come2 but take heed that you be not the one to introduce it arbitrarily4 ,stand far off from childhood1 says ,jean ,paul1 and brush not away the flower-dust with your rough fist4 ,the truths of botany1 of mineralogy1 of zoology1 may be woven into attractive stories which will prove as interesting to the child as the most extravagant fairy tale4 ,but endeavor to shape your narrative so dexterously around the bit of knowledge you wish to convey1 that it may be the pivotal point of interest1 that the child may not suspect for a moment your intention of instructing him under the guise of amusement4 ,should this dark suspicion cross his mind1 your power is ,weakened from that moment1 and he will look upon you henceforth as a deeply dyed hypocrite4 ,the historic story is easily told1 and universally interesting1 if you make it sufficiently clear and simple4 ,the account of the first ,thanksgiving ,day1 of the discovery of ,america1 of the origin of ,independence ,day1 of the boyhood of our nation's heroes1--all these can be made intelligible and charming to children4 ,i suggest topics dealing with our own country only1 because the child must learn to know the near-at-hand before he can appreciate the remote4 ,it is best that he should gain some idea of the growth of his own traditions before he wanders into the history of other lands4 ,in any story which has to do with soldiers and battles1 do not be too martial4 ,do not permeate your tale with the roar of guns1 the smell of powder1 and the cries of the wounded4 ,inculcate as much as possible the idea of a struggle for a principle1 and omit the horrors of war4 ,we must remember that upon the kind of stories we tell the child depends much of his later taste in literature4 ,we can easily create a hunger for highly spiced and sensational writing by telling grotesque and horrible tales in childhood4 ,when the little one has learned to read1 when he holds the key to the mystery of books1 then he will seek in them the same food which so gratified his palate in earlier years4 ,we are just beginning to realize the importance of beginnings in education4 ,true1 a king of ,israel whose wisdom is greatly extolled1 and whose writings are widely read1 urged the importance of the early training of children about three thousand years ago2 but the progress of truth in the world is proverbially slow4 ,when parents and teachers1 legislators and lawgivers1 are at last heartily convinced of the inestimable importance of the first six years of childhood1 then the plays and occupations of that formative period of life will no longer be neglected or left to chance1 and the exercise of story-telling will assume its proper place as an educative influence4 ,long ago1 when ,i was just beginning the study of childhood1 and when all its possibilities were rising before me1 up1 up1 from glory to glory1--long ago1 ,i was asked to give what ,i considered the qualifications of an ideal kindergartner4 ,my answer was as follows1--brief perhaps1 but certainly comprehensive3-- ,the music of ,st4 ,cecilia4 ,the art of ,raphael4 ,the dramatic genius of ,rachel4 ,the administrative ability of ,cromwell4 ,the wisdom of ,solomon4 ,the meekness of ,moses1 and-- ,the patience of ,job4 ,twelve years' experience with children has not lowered my ideals one whit1 nor led me to deem superfluous any of these qualifications2 in fact1 ,i should make the list a little longer were ,i to write it now1 and should add1 perhaps1 the prudence of ,franklin1 the inventive power of ,edison1 and the talent for improvisation of the early ,troubadours4 ,the ,troubadours1 indeed1 could they return to the earth1 would wander about lonely and unwelcomed till they found home and refuge in the hospitable atmosphere of the kindergarten1--the only spot in the busy modern world where delighted audiences still gather around the professional story-teller4 ,if ,i were asked to furnish a recipe for one of these professional story-tellers1 these spinners of childish narratives1 ,i should suggest one measure of pure literary taste1 two of gesture and illustration1 three of dramatic fire1 and four of ready speech and clear expression4 ,if to these you add a pinch of tact and sympathy1 the compound should be a toothsome one1 and certain to agree with all who taste it4 ,and now as to the kind of story our professional is to tell4 ,in selecting this1 the first point to consider is its suitability to the audience4 ,a story for very little ones1 three or four years old perhaps1 must be simple1 bright1 and full of action4 ,they do not yet know how to listen2 their comprehension of language is very limited1 and their sympathies quite undeveloped4 ,nor are they prepared to take wing with you into the lofty realms of the imagination3 the adventures of the playful kitten1 of the birdling learning to fly1 of the lost ball1 of the faithful dog1--things which lie within their experience and belong to the sweet1 familiar atmosphere of the household1--these they enjoy and understand4 ,it will be found also that the number of children to whom one is talking is a prominent factor in the problem of selecting a story4 ,two or three little ones1 gathered close about you1 may pay strict attention to a quiet1 calm1 eventless history2 but a circle of twenty or thirty eager1 restless little people needs more sparkle and incident4 ,if one is addressing a large number of children1 the homes from which they come must be considered4 ,children of refined1 cultivated parents1 who have listened to family conversation1 who have been talked to and encouraged to express themselves1--these are able to understand much more lofty themes than the poor little mites who are only familiar with plain1 practical ideas1 and rough speech confined to the most ordinary wants of life4 ,and now1 after the story is well selected1 how long shall it be8 ,it is impossible to fix an exact limit to the time it should occupy1 for much depends on the age and the number of the children4 ,i am reminded again of recipes1 and of the dismay of the inexperienced cook when she reads1 ,stir in flour enough to make a stiff batter4 ,alas6 how is she who has never made a stiff batter to settle the exact amount of flour necessary8 ,i might give certain suggestions as to time1 such as1 ,close while the interest is still fresh2 or1 ,do not make the tale so long as to weary the children2 but after all1 these are only cook-book directions4 ,in this1 as in many other departments of work with children1 one must learn in that dear school which experience keeps4 ,five minutes1 however1 is quite long enough with the babies1 and you will find that twice this time spent with the older children will give room for a tale of absorbing interest1 with appropriate introduction and artistic dnouement4 ,as one of the chief values of the exercise is the familiarity with good ,english which it gives1 ,i need not say that especial attention must be paid to the phraseology in which the story is clothed4 ,many persons who never write ungrammatically are inaccurate in speech1 and the very familiarity and ease of manner which the story-teller must assume may lead her into colloquialisms and careless expressions4 ,of course1 however1 the language must be simple2 the words1 for the most part1 ,saxon4 ,no ponderous1 ,johnsonian expressions should drag their slow length through the recital1 entangling in their folds the comprehension of the child2 nor1 on the other hand1 need we confine ourselves to monosyllables1 adopting the bald style of ,primers and ,first ,readers4 ,it is quite possible to talk simply and yet with grace and feeling1 and we may be sure that children invariably appreciate poetry of expression4 ,the story should always be accompanied with gestures1--simple1 free1 unstudied motions1 descriptive1 perhaps1 of the sweep of the mother bird's wings as she soars away from the nest1 or the waving of the fir-tree's branches as he sings to himself in the sunshine4 ,this universal language is understood at once by the children1 and not only serves as an interpreter of words and ideas1 but gives life and attraction to the exercise4 ,illustrations1 either impromptu or carefully prepared beforehand1 are always hailed with delight by the children4 ,nor need you hesitate to try your 'prentice hand at this work4 ,never mind if you cannot draw4 ,it must be a rude picture1 indeed1 which is not enjoyed by an audience of little people4 ,their vivid imaginations will triumph over all difficulties1 and enable them to see the ideal shining through the real4 ,it is well now and then1 also1 to have the children illustrate the story4 ,their drawings1 if executed quite without help1 are1 most interesting from a psychological standpoint1 and will afford great delight to you1 as well as to the little artists themselves4 ,the stories can also be illustrated with clay modeling1 an idealized mud-pie-making very dear to children4 ,they soon become quite expert in moulding simple objects1 and enjoy the work with all the capacity of their childish hearts4 ,now and then encourage the little ones to repeat what they remember of the tale you have told1 or to tell something new on the same theme4 ,if the story you have given has been within their range and on a familiar subject1 a torrent of infantile reminiscence will immediately gush forth1 and you will have a miniature experience meeting4 ,if you have been telling a dog story1 for instance1--,i hed a dog once't1 cries ,jimmy breathlessly1 and is just about to tell some startling incident concerning him1 when ,nickey pipes up1 ,and so hed ,i1 and the pound man tuk him2 and so on1 all around the circle in the ,free ,kindergarten1 each child palpitating with eagerness to give you his bit of personal experience4 ,gather the little ones as near to you as possible when you are telling stories1 the tiniest in your lap1 the others cuddled at your knee4 ,this is easily managed in the nursery1 but is more difficult with a large circle of children4 ,with the latter you can but seat yourself among the wee ones1 confident that the interest of the story will hold the attention of the older children4 ,what a happy hour it is1 this one of story-telling1 dear and sacred to every child-lover6 ,what an eager1 delightful audience are these little ones1 grieving at the sorrows of the heroes1 laughing at their happy successes1 breathless with anxiety lest the cat catch the disobedient mouse1 clapping hands when the ,ugly ,duckling is changed into the ,swan1--all appreciation1 all interest1 all joy6 ,we might count the rest of the world well lost1 could we ever be surrounded by such blooming faces1 such loving hearts1 and such ready sympathy4 ,,the ,,relation ,,of ,,the ,,kindergarten ,,to ,,social ,,reform ,new social and individual wants demand new solutions of the problem of education4 ,social reform6 ,it is always rather an awe-striking phrase4 ,it seems as if one ought to be a philosopher1 even to approach so august a subject4 ,the kindergarten--a simple unpretentious place1 where a lot of tiny children work and play together2 a place into which if the hard-headed man of business chanced to glance1 and if he did not stay long enough1 or come often enough1 would conclude that the children were frittering away their time1 particularly if that same good man of business had weighed and measured and calculated so long that he had lost the seeing eye and understanding heart4 ,some years ago1 a ,san ,francisco kindergartner was threading her way through a dirty alley1 making friendly visits to the children of her flock4 ,as she lingered on a certain door-step1 receiving the last confidences of some weary woman's heart1 she heard a loud but not unfriendly voice ringing from an upper window of a tenement-house just round the corner4 ,clear things from under foot6 pealed the voice1 in stentorian accents4 ,the teacher o' the ,kids' ,guards is comin' down the street6 ,eureka6 thought the teacher1 with a smile4 ,there's a bit of sympathetic translation for you6 ,at last1 the ,german word has been put into the vernacular4 ,the odd1 foreign syllables have been taken to the ignorant mother by the lisping child1 and the kindergartners have become the ,kids' ,guards6 ,heaven bless the rough translation1 colloquial as it is6 ,no royal accolade could be dearer to its recipients than this quaint1 new christening6 ,what has the kindergarten to do with social reform8 ,what bearing have its theory and practice upon the conduct of life8 ,a brass-buttoned guardian of the peace remarked to a gentleman on a street-corner1 ,if we could open more kindergartens1 sir1 we could almost shut up the penitentiaries1 sir6 ,we heard the sentiment1 applauded it1 and promptly printed it on the cover of three thousand reports2 but on calm reflection it appears like an exaggerated statement4 ,i am not sure that a kindergarten in every ward of every city in ,america would almost shut up the penitentiaries1 sir6 ,the most determined optimist is weighed down by the feeling that it will take more than the ardent prosecution of any one reform1 however vital1 to produce such a result4 ,we appoint investigating committees1 who ask more and more questions1 compile more and more statistics1 and get more and more confused every year4 ,are our criminals native or foreign born8 that we may know whether we are worse or better than other people8 ,have they ever learned a trade8 that we may prove what we already know1 that idle fingers are the devil's tools2 ,have they been educated8--by any one of the sorry methods that take shelter under that much-abused word1--that we may know whether ignorance is a bliss or a blister2 ,are they married or single8 that we may determine the influence of home ties2 ,have they been given to the use of liquor8 that we may heap proof on proof1 mountain high1 against the monster evil of intemperance2 ,what has been their family history8 that we may know how heavily the law of heredity has laid its burdens upon them4 ,burning questions all1 if we would find out the causes of crime4 ,to discover the why and wherefore of things is a law of human thought4 ,the reform schools1 penitentiaries1 prisons1 insane asylums1 hospitals1 and poorhouses are all filled to overflowing2 and it is entirely sensible to inquire how the people came there1 and to relieve1 pardon1 bless1 cure1 or reform them as far as we can4 ,meanwhile1 as we are dismissing or blessing or burying the unfortunates from the imposing front gates of our institutions1 new throngs are crowding in at the little back doors4 ,life is a bridge1 full of gaping holes1 over which we must all travel6 ,a thousand evils of human misery and wickedness flow in a dark current beneath2 and the blind1 the weak1 the stupid1 and the reckless are continually falling through into the rushing flood4 ,we must1 it is true1 organize our life-boats4 ,it is our duty to pluck out the drowning wretches1 receive their vows of penitence and gratitude1 and pray for courage and resignation when they celebrate their rescue by falling in again4 ,but we agree nowadays that we should do them much better service if we could contrive to mend more of the holes in the bridge4 ,the kindergarten is trying to mend one of these holes4 ,it is a tiny one1 only large enough for a child's foot2 but that is our bit of the world's work1--to keep it small6 ,if we can prevent the little people from stumbling1 we may hope that the grown folks will have a surer foot and a steadier gait4 ,a wealthy lady announced her intention of giving #be1jjj to some ,home for ,incurables4 ,why1 cried a bright kindergartner1 don't you give twelve and a half thousand to some ,home for ,curables1 and then your other twelve and a half will go so much further8 ,in a word1 solicitude for childhood is one of the signs of a growing civilization4 ,to cure1 is the voice of the past2 to prevent1 the divine whisper of to-day4 ,what is the true relation of the kindergarten to social reform8 ,evidently1 it can have no other relation than that which grows out of its existence as a plan of education4 ,education1 we have all glibly agreed1 lessens the prevalence of crime4 ,that sounds very well2 but1 as a matter of fact1 has our past system produced all the results in this direction that we have hoped and prayed for8 ,the truth is1 people will not be made much better by education until the plan of educating them is made better to begin with4 ,froebel's idea--the kindergarten idea--of the child and its powers1 of humanity and its destiny1 of the universe1 of the whole problem of living1 is somewhat different from that held by the vast majority of parents and teachers4 ,it is imperfectly carried out1 even in the kindergarten itself1 where a conscious effort is made1 and is infrequently attempted in the school or family4 ,his plan of education covers the entire period between the nursery and the university1 and contains certain essential features which bear close relation to the gravest problems of the day4 ,if they could be made an integral part of all our teaching in families1 schools1 and institutions1 the burdens under which society is groaning to-day would fall more and more lightly on each succeeding generation4 ,these essential features have often been enumerated4 ,i am no fortunate herald of new truth4 ,i may not even put the old wine in new bottles2 but iteration is next to inspiration1 and ,i shall give you the result of eleven years' experience among the children and homes of the poorer classes4 ,this experience has not been confined1 to teaching4 ,one does not live among these people day after day1 pleading for a welcome for unwished-for babies1 standing beside tiny graves1 receiving pathetic confidences from wretched fathers and helpless mothers1 without facing every problem of this workaday world2 they cannot all be solved1 even by the wisest of us2 we can only seize the end of the skein nearest to our hand1 and patiently endeavor to straighten the tangled threads4 ,the kindergarten starts out plainly with the assumption that the moral aim in education is the absolute one1 and that all others are purely relative4 ,it endeavors to be a life-school1 where all the practices of complete living are made a matter of daily habit4 ,it asserts boldly that doing right would not be such an enormously difficult matter if we practiced it a little1--say a tenth as much as we practice the piano1--and it intends to give children plenty of opportunity for practice in this direction4 ,it says insistently and eternally1 ,do noble things1 not dream them all day long4 ,for development1 action is the indispensable requisite4 ,to develop moral feeling and the power and habit of moral doing we must exercise them1 excite1 encourage1 and guide their action4 ,to check1 reprove1 and punish wrong feeling and doing1 however necessary it be for the safety and harmony1 nay1 for the very existence of any social state1 does not develop right feeling and good doing4 ,it does not develop anything1 for it stops action1 and without action there is no development4 ,at best it stops wrong development1 that is all4 ,in the kindergarten1 the physical1 mental1 and spiritual being is consciously addressed at one and the same time4 ,there is no piece-work tolerated4 ,the child is viewed in his threefold relations1 as the child of ,nature1 the child of ,man1 and the child of ,god2 there is to be no disregarding any one of these divinely appointed relations4 ,it endeavors with equal solicitude to instill correct and logical habits of thought1 true and generous habits of feeling1 and pure and lofty habits of action2 and it asserts serenely that1 if information cannot be gained in the right way1 it would better not be gained at all4 ,it has no special hobby1 unless you would call its eternal plea for the all-sided development of the child a hobby4 ,somebody said lately that the kindergarten people had a certain stock of metaphysical statements to be aired on every occasion1 and that they were over-fond of prating about the being of the child4 ,it would hardly seem as if too much could be said in favor of the symmetrical growth of the child's nature4 ,these are not mere silken phrases2 but1 if any one dislikes them1 let him take the good1 honest1 ringing charge of ,colonel ,parker1 ,remember that the whole boy goes to school6 ,yes1 the whole boy does go to school2 but the whole boy is seldom educated after he gets there4 ,a fraction of him is attended to in the evening1 however1 and a fraction on ,sunday4 ,he takes himself in hand on ,saturdays and in vacation time1 and accomplishes a good deal1 notwithstanding the fact that his sight is a trifle impaired already1 and his hearing grown a little dull1 so that ,dame ,nature works at a disadvantage1 and begins1 doubtless1 to dread boys who have enjoyed too much schooling1 since it seems to leave them in a state of coma4 ,our general scheme of education furthers mental development with considerable success4 ,the training of the hand is now being laboriously woven into it2 but1 even when that is accomplished1 we shall still be working with imperfect aims1 for the stress laid upon heart-culture is as yet in no way commensurate with its gravity4 ,we know1 with that indolent1 fruitless half-knowledge that passes for knowing1 that out of the heart are the issues of life4 ,we feel1 not with the white heat of absolute conviction1 but placidly and indifferently1 as becomes the dwellers in a world of change1 that conduct is three fourths of life2 but we do not crystallize this belief into action4 ,we dream1 not do the noble things4 ,the kindergarten does not fence off a half hour each day for moral culture1 but keeps it in view every moment of every day4 ,yet it is never obtrusive2 for the mental faculties are being addressed at the same time1 and the body strengthened for its special work4 ,with the methods generally practiced in the family and school1 ,i fail to see how we can expect any more delicate sense of right and wrong1 any clearer realization of duty1 any greater enlightenment of conscience1 any higher conception of truth1 than we now find in the world4 ,i care not what view you take of humanity1 whether you have ,calvinistic tendencies and believe in the total depravity of infants1 or whether you are a disciple of ,wordsworth and apostrophize the child as a ,mighty prophet6 ,seer blest1 ,on whom those truths do rest ,which we are toiling all our lives to find2 if you are a fair-minded man or woman1 and have had much experience with young children1 you will be compelled to confess that they generally have a tolerably clear sense of right and wrong1 needing only gentle guidance to choose the right when it is put before them4 ,i say most1 not all1 children2 for some are poor1 blurred human scrawls1 blotted all over with the mistakes of other people4 ,and how do we treat this natural sense of what is true and good1 this willingness to choose good rather than evil1 if it is made even the least bit comprehensible and attractive8 ,in various ways1 all equally dull1 blind1 and vicious4 ,if we look at the downright ethical significance of the methods of training and discipline in many families and schools1 we see that they are positively degrading4 ,we appoint more and more monitors instead of training the inward monitor in each child1 make truth-telling difficult instead of easy1 punish trivial and grave offenses about in the same way1 practice open bribery by promising children a few cents a day to behave themselves1 and weaken their sense of right by giving them picture cards for telling the truth and credits for doing the most obvious duty4 ,this has been carried on until we are on the point of needing another ,deluge and a new start4 ,is it strange that we find the moral sense blunted1 the conscience unenlightened8 ,the moral climate with which we surround the child is so hazy that the spiritual vision grows dimmer and dimmer1--and small wonder6 ,upon this solid mass of ignorance and stupidity it is difficult to make any impression2 yet ,i suppose there is greater joy in heaven over a cordial thwack at it than over most blows at existing evils4 ,the kindergarten attempts a rational1 respectful treatment of children1 leading them to do right as much as possible for right's sake1 abjuring all rewards save the pleasure of working for others and the delight that follows a good action1 and all punishments save those that follow as natural penalties of broken laws1--the obvious consequences of the special bit of wrong-doing1 whatever it may be4 ,the child's will is addressed in such a way as to draw it on1 if right2 to turn it willingly1 if wrong4 ,coercion in the sense of fear1 personal magnetism1 nay1 even the child's love for the teacher1 may be used in such a way as to weaken his moral force4 ,with every free1 conscious choice of right1 a human being's moral power and strength of character increase2 and the converse of this is equally true4 ,if the child is unruly in play1 he leaves the circle and sits or stands by himself1 a miserable1 lonely unit until he feels again in sympathy with the community4 ,if he destroys his work1 he unites the tattered fragments as best he may1 and takes the moral object lesson home with him4 ,if he has neglected his own work1 he is not given the joy of working for others4 ,if he does not work in harmony with his companions1 a time is chosen when he will feel the sense of isolation that comes from not living in unity with the prevailing spirit of good will4 ,he can have as much liberty as is consistent with the liberty of other people1 but no more4 ,if we could infuse the spirit of this kind of discipline into family and school life1 making it systematic and continuous from the earliest years1 there would be fewer morally slack-twisted little creatures growing up into inefficient1 bloodless manhood and womanhood4 ,it would be a good deal of trouble2 but then1 life is a good deal of trouble anyway1 if you come to that4 ,we cannot expect to swallow the universe like a pill1 and travel on through the world like smiling images pushed from behind4 ,blind obedience to authority is not in itself moral4 ,it is necessary as a part of government4 ,it is necessary in order that we may save children dangers of which they know nothing4 ,it is valuable also as a habit4 ,but ,i should never try to teach it by the story of that inspired idiot1 the boy who stood on the burning deck1 whence all but him had fled1 and from whence he would have fled if his mental endowment had been that of ordinary boys4 ,for obedience must not be allowed to destroy common sense and the feeling of personal responsibility for one's own actions4 ,our task is to train responsible1 self-directing agents1 not to make soldiers4 ,virtue thrives in a bracing moral atmosphere1 where good actions are taken rather as a matter of course4 ,the attempt to instill an idea of self-government into the tiny slips of humanity that find their way into the kindergarten is useful1 and infinitely to be preferred to the most implicit obedience to arbitrary command4 ,in the one case1 we may hope to have1 some time or other1 an enlightened will and conscience struggling after the right1 failing often1 but rising superior to failure1 because of an ever stronger joy in right and shame for wrong4 ,in the other1 we have a good goose who does the right for the picture card that is set before him1--a trained dog sort of child1 who will not leap through the hoop unless he sees the whip or the lump of sugar4 ,so much for the training of the sense of right and wrong6 ,now for the provision which the kindergarten makes for the growth of certain practical virtues1 much needed in the world1 but touched upon all too lightly in family and school4 ,the student of political economy sees clearly enough the need of greater thrift and frugality in the nation2 but where and when do we propose to develop these virtues8 ,precious little time is given to them in most schools1 for their cultivation does not yet seem to be insisted upon as an integral part of the scheme4 ,here and there an inspired human being seizes on the thought that the child should really be taught how to live at some time between the ages of six and sixteen1 or he may not learn so easily afterward4 ,accordingly1 the pupils under the guidance of that particular person catch a glimpse of eternal verities between the printed lines of their geographies and grammars4 ,the kindergarten makes the growth of every-day virtues so simple1 so gradual1 even so easy1 that you are almost beguiled into thinking them commonplace4 ,they seem to come in1 just by the way1 as it were1 so that at the end of the day you have seen thought and word and deed so sweetly mingled that you marvel at the universal dovetailedness of things1 as ,dickens puts it4 ,they will flourish better in the school1 too1 when the cheerful hum of labor is heard there for a little while each day4 ,the kindergarten child has just enough strips for his weaving mat1--none to lose1 none to destroy2 just enough blocks in each of his boxes1 and every one of them1 he finds1 is required to build each simple form4 ,he cuts his square of paper into a dozen crystal-shaped bits1 and behold6 each one of these tiny flakes is needed to make a symmetrical figure4 ,he has been careless in following directions1 and his form of folded paper does not come out right4 ,it is not even1 and it is not beautiful4 ,the false step in the beginning has perpetuated itself in each succeeding one1 until at the end either partial success or complete failure meets his eye4 ,how easy here to see the relation of cause to effect6 ,courage6 says the kindergartner2 better fortune next time1 for we will take greater pains4 ,can you rub out the ugly1 wrong creases8 ,we will try4 ,alas1 no6 ,wrong things are not so easily rubbed out1 are they8 ,use your worsted quite to the end1 dear3 it costs money4 ,let us save all the crumbs from our lunch for the birds1 children2 do not drop any on the floor3 it will only make work for somebody else4 ,and so on1 to the end of the busy1 happy day4 ,how easy it is in the kindergarten1 how seemingly difficult later on6 ,it seems to be only books afterward2 and books are good enough in their own way1 but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life4 ,the most superficial observer values the industrial side of the kindergarten1 because it falls directly in line with the present effort to make some manual training a part of school work2 but twenty or twenty-five years ago1 when the subject was not so popular1 kindergarten children were working away at their pretty1 useful tasks1--tiny missionaries helping to show the way to a truth now fully recognized4 ,as to the value of leading children to habits of industry as early in life as may be1 that they may see the dignity and nobleness of labor1 and conceive of their individual responsibilities in this world of action1 that is too obvious to dwell upon at this time4 ,to ,froebel1 life1 action1 and knowledge were the three notes of one harmonious chord2 but he did not advocate manual training merely that children might be kept busy1 nor even that technical skill might be acquired4 ,the piece of finished kindergarten work is only a symbol of something more valuable which the child has acquired in doing it4 ,the first steps in all the kindergarten occupations are directed or suggested by the teacher2 but these dictations or suggestions are merely intended to serve as a sort of staff1 by which the child can steady himself until he can walk alone4 ,it is always the creative instinct that is to be reached and vivified3 everything else is secondary4 ,by reproduction from memory of a dictated form1 by taking from or adding to it1 by changing its centre1 corners1 or sides1--by a dozen ingenious preliminary steps1--the child's inventive faculty is developed2 and he soon reaches a point in drawing1 building1 modeling1 or what not1 where his greatest delight is to put his individual ideas into visible shape4 ,the simple request1 ,make something pretty of your own1 brings a score of original combinations and designs1--either the old thoughts in different shape or something fresh and audacious which hints of genius4 ,instead of twenty hackneyed and slavish copies of one pattern1 we have twenty free1 individual productions1 each the expression of the child's inmost personal thought4 ,this invests labor with a beauty and power1 and confers upon it a dignity1 to be gained in no other way4 ,it makes every task1 however lowly1 a joy1 because all the higher faculties are brought into action4 ,much so-called busy work1 where pupils of the ,a class are allowed to stick a thousand pegs in a thousand holes while the ,b class is reciting arithmetic1 is quite fruitless1 because it has so little thought behind it4 ,unless we have a care1 manual training1 when we have succeeded in getting it into the school1 may become as mechanical and unprofitable as much of our mind training has been1 and its moral value thus largely missed4 ,the only way to prevent it is to borrow a suggestion from ,froebel4 ,then1 and only then1 shall we have insight with power of action1 knowledge with practice1 practice with the stamp of individuality4 ,then doing will blossom into being1 and ,being is the mother of all the little doings as well as of the grown-up deeds and heroic sacrifices4 ,the kindergarten succeeds in getting these interesting and valuable free productions from children of four or five years only by developing1 in every possible way1 the sense of beauty and harmony and order4 ,we know that people assume1 somewhat at least1 the color of their surroundings2 and1 if the sense of beauty is to grow1 we must give it something to feed upon4 ,the kindergarten tries to provide a room1 more or less attractive1 quantities of pictures and objects of interest1 growing plants and vines1 vases of flowers1 and plenty of light1 air1 and sunshine4 ,a canary chirps in one corner1 perhaps2 and very likely there will be a cat curled up somewhere1 or a forlorn dog which has followed the children into this safe shelter4 ,it is a pretty1 pleasant1 domestic interior1 charming and grateful to the senses4 ,the kindergartner looks as if she were glad to be there1 and the children are generally smiling4 ,everybody seems alive4 ,the work1 lying cosily about1 is neat1 artistic1 and suggestive4 ,the children pass out of their seats to the cheerful sound of music1 and are presently joining in an ideal sort of game1 where1 in place of the mawkish sentimentality of ,sally ,walker1 of obnoxious memory1 we see all sorts of healthful1 poetic1 childlike fancies woven into song4 ,rudeness is1 for the most part1 banished4 ,the little human butterflies and bees and birds flit hither and thither in the circle2 the make-believe trees hold up their branches1 and the flowers their cups2 and everybody seems merry and content4 ,as they pass out the door1 good-bys and bows and kisses are wafted backward into the room2 for the manners of polite society are observed in everything4 ,you draw a deep breath4 ,this is a real kindergarten1 and it is like a little piece of the millennium4 ,everything is so very pretty and charming1 says the visitor4 ,yes1 so it is4 ,but all this color1 beauty1 grace1 symmetry1 daintiness1 delicacy1 and refinement1 though it seems to address and develop the aesthetic side of the child's nature1 has in reality a very profound ethical significance4 ,we have all seen the preternatural virtue of the child who wears her best dress1 hat1 and shoes on the same august occasion4 ,children are tidier and more careful in a dainty1 well-kept room4 ,they treat pretty materials more respectfully than ugly ones4 ,they are inclined to be ashamed1 at least in a slight degree1 of uncleanliness1 vulgarity1 and brutality1 when they see them in broad contrast with beauty and harmony and order4 ,for the most part1 they try to live up to the place in which they find themselves4 ,there is some connection between manners and morals4 ,it is very elusive and1 perhaps1 not very deep2 but it exists4 ,vice does not flourish alike in all conditions and localities1 by any means4 ,an ignorant negro was overheard praying1 ,let me so lib dat when ,i die ,i may hab manners1 dat ,i may know what to say when ,i see my heabenly ,lord6 ,well1 ,i dare say we shall need good manners as well as good morals in heaven2 and the constant cultivation of the one from right motives might give us an unexpected impetus toward the other4 ,if the systematic development of the sense of beauty and order has an ethical significance1 so has the happy atmosphere of the kindergarten an influence in the same direction4 ,i have known one or two solid men and one or two predestinate spinsters who said that they didn't believe children could accomplish anything in the kindergarten1 because they had too good a time4 ,there is something uniquely vicious about people who care nothing for children's happiness4 ,that sense of the solemnity of mortal conditions which has been indelibly impressed upon us by our ,puritan ancestors comes soon enough1 ,heaven knows6 ,meanwhile1 a happy childhood is an unspeakably precious memory4 ,we look back upon it and refresh our tired hearts with the vision when experience has cast a shadow over the full joy of living4 ,the sunshiny atmosphere of a good kindergarten gives the young human plants an impulse toward eager1 vigorous growth4 ,love's warmth surrounds them on every side1 wooing their sweetest possibilities into life4 ,roots take a firmer grasp1 buds form1 and flowers bloom where1 under more unfriendly conditions1 bare stalks or pale leaves would greet the eye1--pathetic1 unfulfilled promises1--souls no happier for having lived in the world1 the world no happier because of their living4 ,virtue kindles at the touch of joy4 ,the kindergarten takes this for one of its texts1 and does not breed that dismal fungus of the mind which disposes one to believe that the pursuit of knowledge must necessarily be disagreeable4 ,the social phase of the kindergarten is most interesting to the student of social economics4 ,coperative work is strongly emphasized2 and the child is inspired both to live his own full life1 and yet to feel that his life touches other lives at every point1--for we are members one of another4 ,it is not the unity of the little birds1 in the couplet1 who agree in their little nests1 because they'd fall out if they didn't1 but a realization1 in embryo1 of the divine principle that no man liveth to himself4 ,as to specifically religious culture1 everything fosters the spirit out of which true religion grows4 ,in the morning talks1 when the children are most susceptible and ready to be good1 as they say1 their thoughts are led to the beauty of the world about them1 the pleasure of right doing1 the sweetness of kind thoughts and actions1 the loveliness of truth1 patience1 and helpfulness1 and the goodness of the ,creator to all created things4 ,no parent1 of whatever creed or lack of creed1 whether a bigot or unbeliever1 could object to the kind of religious instruction given in the kindergarten2 and yet in every possible way the child-soul and the child-heart are directed towards everything that is pure and holy1 true and steadfast4 ,if the child love not his brother whom he hath seen1 how can he love ,god whom he hath not seen8 ,love worketh no ill to his neighbor1 therefore love is the fulfilling of the law4 ,there is a vast deal of practical religion to be breathed into these little children of the street before the abstractions of beliefs can be comprehended4 ,they cannot live on words and prayers and texts1 the thought and feeling must come before the expression4 ,as ,mrs4 ,whitney says1 ,the world is determined to vaccinate children with religion for fear they should take it in the natural way4 ,some wise sayings of the good ,dr4 ,holland1 in ,nicholas ,minturn1 come to me as ,i write4 ,nicholas says1 in discussing this matter of charities1 and the various means of effecting a radical cure of pauperism1 rather than its continual alleviation3 ,if you read the parable of the ,sower1 ,i think that you will find that soil is quite as necessary as seed--indeed1 that the seed is thrown away unless a soil is prepared in advance4444 ,i believe in religion1 but before ,i undertake to plant it1 ,i would like something to plant it in4 ,the sowers are too few1 and the seed is too precious to be thrown away and lost among the thorns and stones4 ,last1 but by no means least1 the admirable physical culture that goes on in the kindergarten is all in the right direction4 ,physiologists know as much about morality as ministers of the gospel4 ,the vices which drag men and women into crime spring as often from unhealthy bodies as from weak wills and callous consciences4 ,vile fancies and sensual appetites grow stronger and more terrible when a feeble physique and low vitality offer no opposing force4 ,deadly vices are nourished in the weak1 diseased bodies that are penned1 day after day1 in filthy1 crowded tenements of great cities4 ,if we could withdraw every three-year-old child from these physically enfeebling and morally brutalizing influences1 and give them three or four hours a day of sunshine1 fresh air1 and healthy physical exercise1 we should be doing humanity an inestimable service1 even if we attempted nothing more4 ,i have tried1 as briefly as ,i might in justice to the subject1 to emphasize the following points3-- ,i4 ,that we must act up to our convictions with regard to the value of preventive work4 ,if we are ever obliged to choose1 let us save the children4 ,,ii4 ,that the relation of the kindergarten to social reform is simply that1 as a plan of education1 it offers us valuable suggestions in regard to the mental1 moral1 and physical culture of children1 which1 in view of certain crying evils of the day1 we should do well to follow4 ,the essential features of the kindergarten which bear a special relation to the subject are as follows3-- #a4 ,the symmetrical development of the child's powers1 considering him neither as all mind1 all soul1 nor all body2 but as a creature capable of devout feeling1 clear thinking1 noble doing4 #b4 ,the attempt to make so-called moral culture a little less immoral2 the rational method of discipline1 looking to the growth of moral1 self-directing power in the child1--the only proper discipline for future citizens of a free republic4 #c4 ,the development of certain practical virtues1 the lack of which is endangering the prosperity of the nation2 namely1 economy thrift1 temperance1 self-reliance1 frugality industry1 courtesy1 and all the sober host1--none of them drawing-room accomplishments and consequently in small demand4 #d4 ,the emphasis placed upon manual training1 especially in its development of the child's creative activity4 #e4 ,the training of the sense of beauty1 harmony1 and order2 its ethical as well as aesthetical significance4 #f4 ,the insistence upon the moral effect of happiness2 joy the favorable climate of childhood4 #g4 ,the training of the child's social nature2 an attempt to teach the brotherhood of man as well as the ,fatherhood of ,god4 #h4 ,the realization that a healthy body has almost as great an influence on morals as a pure mind4 ,i do not say that the consistent practice of these principles will bring the millennium in the twinkling of an eye1 but ,i do affirm that they are the thought-germs of that better education which shall prepare humanity for the new earth over which shall arch the new heaven4 ,ruskin says1 ,crime can only be truly hindered by letting no man grow up a criminal1 by taking away the will to commit sin6 ,but1 you object1 that is sheer impossibility4 ,it does seem so1 ,i confess1 and yet1 unless you are willing to think that the whole plan of an ,omnipotent ,being is to be utterly overthrown1 set aside1 thwarted1 then you must believe this ideal possible1 somehow1 sometime4 ,i know of no better way to grow towards it than by living up to the kindergarten idea1 that just as we gain intellectual power by doing intellectual work1 and the finest aesthetic feeling by creating beauty1 so shall we win for ourselves the power of feeling nobly and willing nobly by doing noble things4 ,,how ,,shall ,,we ,,govern ,,our ,,children8 ,not the cry1 says a ,chinese author1 but the rising of a wild duck1 impels the flock to follow him in upward flight4 ,long ago1 in a far-off country1 a child was born2 and when his parents looked on him they loved him1 and they resolved in their simple hearts to make of him a strong1 brave1 warlike man4 ,but the ,god of that country was a hungry and an insatiable ,god1 and he cried out for human sacrifice2 so1 when his arms had been thrice heated till they glowed red with the flame of the fire1 the mother cradled her child in them1 and his life exhaled as a vapor4 ,a child was born in another country1 and the tender eyes of his mother saw that his limbs were misshapen and his life-blood a sickly current4 ,yet her heart yearned over him1 and she would have tended and trained him and loved him better than all the rest of her strong1 well-favored brood2 but when the elders of her people knew that the child was a weakling1 they decreed that he should die1 and she bent her head to the law1 which was stronger than her love4 ,in a third land a child was to be born1 and the proud father made ready gifts1 and purchased silken robes1 and prepared a feast for his friends2 but1 alas6 when the longed-for soul entered the world it was housed in a woman-child's body1 and straightway the joy was changed into mourning4 ,bitter reproaches were heaped upon the mother1 for were there not enough women already on the earth8 and the fiat went forth that the babe should straightway be delivered from the trials of existence4 ,so1 while its hold on life was yet uncertain1 the husband's mother placed wet cloths upon its lips1 and soon the faint breath stopped1 and the white soul went fluttering heavenward again4 ,in still another of ,god's fair lands a child entered the world1 and he grew toward manhood vigorous and lusty2 but he heeded not his parents' commands1 and when his disobedience had been long continued1 the fathers of the tribe decreed that he should be stoned to death1 for so it was written in the sacred books4 ,and as the youth was the absolute property of his parents1 and as by common consent they had full liberty to deal with him as seemed good to them1 they consented unto his death1 that his soul might be saved alive1 and the evening sun shone crimson on his dead body as it lay upon the sands of the desert4 99 99 99 99 99 ,at a later day and in a ,christian country two children were born1 one hundred years apart1 and the world had now so far progressed that absolute power over the life of the offspring was denied the parents4 ,the one was ruled with iron rods2 he was made to obey with a rigidity of compliance and a severity of treatment in case of failure which made obedience a slavish duty1 and he was taught besides that he was a child of ,satan and an heir of hell4 ,he found no joy in his youth1 and his miserable soul groveled in fear of the despot who dominated him1 and of the blazing eternity which he was told would be the punishment for his sins4 ,his will was broken2 he was made weak where he might have been strong2 and he did evil because he had learned no power of self-restraint3 yet his people loved him1 and they had done all these things because they wished to purge him wholly from all uncleanness4 ,the parents of the other child were warned of the lamentable results of this gloomy training1 and they said one to another3 ,our darling shall be free as air2 his duties shall be made to seem like pleasures1 or1 better still1 he shall have no duty but his pleasure4 ,he shall do only what he wills1 that his will may grow strong1 and he can but choose the right1 for he knows no evil4 ,we will hold up before him no bugbear of future punishment1 for doubtless there is no such thing2 and if there be1 it will not be meted out to such a child4 ,he will love and obey his parents because they have devoted themselves to his happiness1 and because they have never imposed distasteful obligations upon him1 and when he grows to manhood he will be a model of wisdom and of goodness4 ,but1 lo6 the child of this training was as great a failure as the child of austerity and gloom4 ,he was capricious1 lawless1 willful1 disobedient1 passionate2 he thought of no one's pleasure save his own2 he cared for his parents only in so far as they could be of use to him2 and like a wild beast of the jungle he preyed upon the life around him1 and cared not whom he destroyed if his appetites were satisfied4 ,in every field of opinion and action1 men are found swinging from one extreme to the other of life's manifold arcs of vibration4 ,this perpetual movement may be the essential condition of existence1 for death is cessation of motion2 or it may be a never-ending effort of the mind to reach an ideal which discloses itself so seldom as to make its permanent abiding-place a matter of uncertainty4 ,doubtless there is somewhere a middle to the arc1 and in the lapse of ages the needle may at last find the pole-point of central truth and be at rest2 but as yet1 in every department of labor and thought1 it is vibrating1 and after tarrying a while at one extreme it swings unsatisfied back to the other4 ,nowhere are these extremes more noticeable than in the government of children4 ,centuries ago1 in the patriarchal period1 the father of the family seems also to have exercised the functions of a criminal judge2 but the uniting of the two sets of duties in one person does not appear to have inspired the children with insurmountable awe1 for laws are found both in ,numbers and ,deuteronomy fixing the penalty of disobedience1 and of the striking of a parent by a child4 ,still later1 the ,roman father possessed arbitrary powers of life and death over his children2 but it is probable that natural affection and a more advanced civilization commonly made the law a dead letter4 ,though the world in time grew to feel that life belonged to the being who held it1 not to those who gave it birth1 still discipline has for ages been directed more to the body than to the mind1 with an idea apparently that the pains of the flesh will save the soul4 ,pious parents until within recent dates have regarded the flogging of children as absolutely a religious obligation1 and many a tender mother has steeled her heart and strengthened her arm to give the blows which she regarded as essential to the spiritual well-being of her child4 ,the birch rod and the ,bible were the ,parents' ,complete ,guide to domestic management in ,puritan days1 and no one can deny that this treatment1 though rather a heroic one1 seems to have produced fine1 strong1 self-denying men and women4 ,governor ,bradford1 in #afdh1 speaks feelingly of the godliness of a ,puritan woman whose office it was to sit in a convenient place in the congregation1 with a little birchen rod in her hand1 and keep the children in great awe2 and1 from the frequency with which chastisement is mentioned in early ,puritan records1 it seems pretty clear that the sober little lads and lasses of the day did not suffer from over-indulgence4 ,when this wholesale whipping began to fall into disuse1 many philosophers prophesied the ruin of the race1 but these gloomy predictions have scarcely found their fulfillment as yet4 ,there has been1 however1 a colossal change in discipline1 from the days when disobedience was punishable with death to the agreeable moral suasion of the nineteenth century1 as exemplified in the fin de sicle nonsense rhyme3-- ,there once was a hopeful young horse ,who was brought up on love1 without force3 ,he had his own way1 and they sugared his hay2 ,so he never was naughty1 of course4 ,the results of this delightful method of treatment seem rather problematic1 and the modern child is universally acknowledged to be no improvement upon his predecessors in point of respect and filial piety at least4 ,a superintendent's report1 written thirty years ago for one of the ,new ,england ,states1 regrets that1 even then1 home government had grown lax4 ,he wittily says that ,young ,america is rampant1 parental influence couchant2 and no reversal of these positions is as yet visible in #ahib4 ,to those who note the methods by which many children are managed1 it is a matter of wonderment that the results in character and conduct are not very much worse than they are4 ,dr4 ,channing wisely says1 ,the hope of the world lies in the fact that parents cannot make of their children what they will4 ,happy accidents of association and circumstance sometimes nullify the harm the parent has done1 and the tremendous momentum of the race-tendency carries the child over many an obstacle which his training has set in his path4 ,it seems crystal-clear at the outset that you cannot govern a child if you have never learned to govern yourself4 ,plato said1 many centuries ago3 ,the best way of training the young is to train yourself at the same time2 not to admonish them1 but to be always carrying out your own principles in practice1 and all the wisdom of the ancients is in the thought4 ,if1 then1 you are a fit person to be trusted with the government of a child1 what goal do you propose to reach in your discipline2 what is your aim1 your ideal8 #a4 ,the discipline should be thoroughly in harmony with child-nature in general1 and suited to the age and development of the particular child in question4 #b4 ,it should appeal to the higher motives1 and to the higher motives alone4 #c4 ,it should develop kindness1 helpfulness1 and sympathy4 #d4 ,it should never use weapons which would tend to lower the child's self-respect4 #e4 ,it should be thoroughly just1 and the punishment1 or rather the retribution1 should be commensurate with the offense4 #f4 ,it should teach respect for law1 and for the rights of others4 ,finally1 it should teach voluntary obedience1 the last lesson in life1 the choral song which rises from all elements and all angels1 and1 as the object of true discipline is the formation of character1 it should produce a human being master of his impulses1 his passions1 and his will4 ,the journey's end being fixed1 one must next decide what route will reach it1 and will be short1 safe1 economical1 and desirable2 and the roads to the presumably ideal discipline are many and well-traveled4 ,some of them1 it is true1 lead you into a swamp1 some to the edge of a precipice2 some will hurl you down a mountain-side with terrific rapidity2 others stop half-way1 bringing you face to face with a blank wall2 and others again will lose you entirely on a bleak and trackless plain4 ,but no matter which route you select1 you will have the wise company of a great many teachers1 parents1 and guardians1 and an innumerable throng of fair and lovely children will journey by your side4 ,the road of threat and fear1 of arbitrary and over-severe punishment1 has been much traveled in all times1 though perhaps it is a little grass-grown now4 ,the child who obeys you merely because he fears punishment is a slave who cowers under the lash of the despot4 ,undue severity makes him a liar and a coward4 ,he hates his master1 he hates the thing he is made to do2 there is a bitter sense of injustice1 a seething passion of revenge1 forever within him2 and were he strong enough he would rise and destroy the power that has crushed him4 ,he has done right because he was forced to do so1 not because he desired it2 and since the right-doing1 the obedience1 was neither the fruit of his reason nor his love1 it cannot be permanent4 ,the feeling of justice is strong in the child's mind1 and you have constantly wounded that feeling4 ,you have destroyed the sense of cause and effect by your arbitrary punishments4 ,you have corrected him for disobedience1 for carelessness1 for unkindness1 for untruthfulness1 for noisiness1 and for slowness in learning his lessons4 ,how is he to know which of these offenses is the greatest1 if all have received the same punishment8 ,why should giving him a good thrashing teach him to be kind to his little sister8 ,why should he learn the multiplication table with greater rapidity because you ferule him soundly8 ,have you ever found pain an assistance to the memory8 ,if he has little intellectual perception of the difference between truth and falsehood1 why should you suppose that smart strokes on any portion of the body would quicken that perception8 ,is it not clear as the sun at noonday that1 since he observes the punishment to have no necessary relation to the offense1 and since he observes it to be light or severe according to your pleasure1--is it not clear that he will suppose you to be using your superior strength in order to treat him unfairly1 and will not the supposition sow seeds of hatred and rebellion in his heart8 ,another road to discipline is that of bribery4 ,to endeavor to secure goodness in a child by means of bribery1 to promise him a reward in case he obeys you1 is manifestly an absurdity4 ,you are destroying the very traits in his character you are presumably endeavoring to build up4 ,you are educating a human being who knows good from evil1 and who should be taught deliberately to choose the right for the right's sake1 who should do his duty because he knows it to be his duty1 not for any extraneous reward connected with it4 ,a spiritual reward will follow1 nevertheless1 in the feeling of happiness engendered1 and the child may early be led to find his satisfaction in this1 and in the approval of those he loves4 ,there are1 of course1 certain simple rewards which can be used with safety1 and which the child easily sees to be the natural results of good conduct4 ,if his treatment of the household pussy has been kind and gentle1 he may well be trusted with a pet of his own2 if he puts his toys away carefully when asked to do so1 father will notice the neat room when he comes home2 if he learns his lessons well and quickly1 he will have the more time to work in the garden2 and the suggestion of these natural consequences is legitimate and of good effect4 ,it is always safer1 no doubt1 to appeal to a love of pleasure in children than to a fear of pain1 yet bribes and extraneous rewards inevitably breed selfishness and corruption1 and lead the child to expect conditions in life which will never be realized4 ,though retribution of one kind or another follows quickly on the heels of wrong-doing1 yet virtue is commonly its own reward1 and it is as well that the child should learn this at the beginning of life4 ,froebel says3 ,does a simple1 natural child1 when acting rightly1 think of any other reward which he might receive for his action than this consciousness1 though that reward be only praise8444 ,how we degrade and lower the human nature which we should raise1 how we weaken those whom we should strengthen1 when we hold up to them an inducement to act virtuously6 ,emulation is often harnessed into service to further intellectual progress and the formation of right habits of conduct1 and this inevitably breeds serious evils4 ,it is well to set before the child an ideal on which he may form himself as far as possible2 but when this ideal sits across the aisle1 plays in a neighboring back yard1 or1 worse still1 is another child in the same family1 he is hated and despised4 ,his virtues become obnoxious1 and the unfortunate evildoer prefers to be vicious1 that he may not resemble a creature whose praises have so continually been sung that his very name is odious4 ,if the child grows accustomed to the comparison of himself with others and the endeavor to excel them1 he becomes selfish1 envious1 and either vain of his virtue and attainments1 or else thoroughly disheartened at his small success1 while he grudges that of his neighbor4 ,george ,macdonald says3 ,no work noble or lastingly good can come of emulation1 any more than of greed4 ,i think the motives are spiritually the same4 ,to what can we appeal1 then1 in children1 as motives to goodness1 as aids in the formation of right habits of thought and action8 ,ah6 the child's heart is a harp of many strings1 and touched by the hand of a master a fine1 clear tone will sound from every one of them1 while the resultant strain will be a triumphant burst of glorious harmony4 ,touch delicately the string of love of approval1 and listen to the answer4 ,the child delights to work for you1 to please you if he can1 to do his tasks well enough to win your favorable notice1 and the breath of praise is sweet to his nostrils4 ,it is right and justifiable that he should have this praise1 and it will be an aid to his spiritual development1 if bestowed with discrimination4 ,only ,titanic strength of character can endure constant discouragement and failure1 and yet work steadily onward1 and the weak1 undeveloped human being needs a word of approval now and then to show him that he is on the right track1 and that his efforts are appreciated4 ,of course the kind and the frequency of the praise bestowed depend entirely upon the nature of the child4 ,one timid1 self-distrustful temperament needs frequently to bask in the sunshine of your approval1 while another1 somewhat predisposed to vanity and self-consciousness1 feeds a more bracing moral climate4 ,there is no question that cleanliness and fresh air may be considered as minor aids to goodness1 and a dangerous outbreak of insubordination may sometimes be averted by hastily suggesting to the little rebel a run in the garden1 prefaced by a thorough application of cool water to the flushed face and little clenched hands2 while self-respect may often be restored by the donning of a clean apron4 ,beauty of surroundings is another incentive to harmony of action4 ,it is easier for the child to be naughty in a poor1 gloomy room1 scanty of furniture1 than in a garden gay with flowers1 shaded by full-leafed trees1 and made musical by the voice of running water4 ,dr4 ,william ,t4 ,harris says3 ,beauty cannot create a new heart1 but it can greatly change the disposition1 and this seems unquestionable1 especially with regard to the glory of ,god's handiwork1 which makes goodness seem the natural way of living4 ,yet we would not wish our children to be sybarites1 and we must endeavor to cultivate in their breasts a hardy plant of virtue which will live1 if need be1 on ,alpine heights and feed on scanty fare4 ,it is a truism that interesting occupation prevents dissension1 and that idle fingers are the ,devil's tools4 ,a child who is good and happy during school time1 with its regular hours and alternated work and play1 often becomes1 in vacation1 fretful1 sulky1 discontented1 and in arms against the entire world4 ,the discipline of work1 if of a proper kind1 of a kind in which success is not too long delayed1 is sure and efficacious4 ,success1 if the fruit of one's own efforts1 is so sweet that one longs for more of the work which produced it4 ,the reverse of the medal may be seen here also4 ,the knotted thread which breaks if pulled too impatiently2 the dropped stitches that make rough1 uneven places in the pattern2 the sail which was wrongly placed and will not propel the boat2 the pile of withered leaves which was not removed1 and which the wind scattered over the garden1--are not all these concrete moral lessons in patience1 accuracy1 and carefulness8 ,we may safely appeal to public opinion1 sometimes1 in dealing with children4 ,the chief object in doing this is to create a constantly advancing ideal toward which the child is attracted1 and thereby to gain a constantly increasing effort on his part to realize this ideal4 ,there comes a time in the child's development when he begins to realize his own individuality1 and longs to see it recognized by others4 ,the views of life1 the sentiments of the people about him1 are clearly noted1 and he desires to so shape his conduct as to be in harmony with them4 ,if he sees that tale-bearing and cowardice are looked upon with disgust by his comrades1 he will be a very ,spartan in his laconicism and courage2 if his father and older brothers can bear pain without wincing1 then he will not cry when he hurts himself4 ,oftentimes he is obdurate when reproved in private for a fault1 but when brought to the tribunal of the disapproval of other children1 he is chagrined1 repents1 and makes atonement4 ,he is uneasy under the adverse verdict of a large company1 but the condemnation of one person did not weigh with him4 ,it is usually not wise1 however1 to appeal to public opinion in this way1 save on an abstract question1 as the child loses his self-respect1 and becomes degraded in his own eyes1 if his fault is trumpeted abroad4 ,stories of brave deeds1 poems of heroism1 self-sacrifice1 and loyalty1 have their places in creating a sentiment of ideality in the child's breast1--a sentiment which remains fixed sometimes1 even though it be not in harmony with the feeling of the majority4 ,now and then some noble soul is born1 some hero so thrilled with the ideal that he rises far above the public sentiment of his day2 but usually we count him great who overtops his fellows by an inch or two1 and he who falls much below the level of ordinary feeling is esteemed as almost beyond hope4 ,to seek for the approval of others1 even though they embody our highest ideals1 is truly not the loftiest form of aspiration2 but it is one round in the ladder which leads to that higher feeling1 the desire for the benediction of the spirit-principle within us4 ,although discipline by means of fear1 as the word is commonly used1 cannot be too strongly condemned1 yet there is a godly fear of which the ,bible speaks1 which certainly has its place among incentives in will-training4 ,the child has not attained as yet1 and it is doubtful whether we ourselves have done so1 to that supreme excellence of love which absolutely casteth out fear4 ,a writer of great moral insight says3 ,has not the law of seed and flower1 cause and effect1 the law of continuity which binds the universe together1 a tone of severity8 ,it has surely1 like all righteous law1 and carries with it a legitimate and wholesome fear4 ,if we are to reap what we have sown1 some1 perhaps most of us1 may dread the harvest4 ,the child shrinks from the disapproval of the loved parent or teacher4 ,by so much the more as he reverences and respects those in authority over him does he dread to do that which he knows they would condemn4 ,if he has been led to expect natural retributions1 he will have a wholesome fear of putting his hand in the fire1 since he knows the inevitable consequences4 ,he understands that it is folly to expect that wrong can be done with impunity1 and shrinks in terror from committing a sin whose consequences it is impossible that he should escape4 ,he knows well that there are other punishments save those of the body1 and he has felt the anguish which follows self-condemnation4 ,there is nothing degrading in such fear1 but a heart-searching reverence and awe in the sincere and humble conviction that ,god's law is everywhere4 ,such are some of the false and some of the true motives which can be appealed to in will-training1 but there are various points in their practical application which may well be considered4 ,may we not question whether we are not frequently too exacting with children1--too much given to fault-finding8 ,were it not that the business of play is so engrossing to them1 and life so fascinating a matter on the whole1--were it not for these qualifying circumstances1 we should harass many of them into dark cynicism and misanthropy at a very early age4 ,i marvel at the scrupulous exactness in regard to truth1 the fine sense of distinction between right and wrong1 which we require of an unfledged human being who would be puzzled to explain to us the difference between a hawk and a handsaw1 who lives in the realm of the imagination1 and whose view of the world is that of a great play-house furnished for his benefit4 ,if we were one half as punctilious and as hypercritical in our judgment of ourselves1 we should be found guilty in short order1 and sentenced to hard labor on a vast number of counts4 ,there are many comparatively small faults in children which it is wise not to see at all4 ,they are mere temporary failings1 tiny drops which will evaporate if quietly left in the sunshine1 but which1 if opposed1 will gather strength for a formidable current4 ,if we would sometimes apply ,tolstoi's doctrine of non-resistance to children1 if we would overlook the small transgression and quietly supply another vent for the troublesome activity1 there would be less clashing of wills1 and less raising of an evil spirit1 which gains wonderful strength while in action4 ,do we not often use an arbitrary and a threatening manner in our commands to children1 when a calm1 gentle request1 in a tone of expectant confidence1 would gain obedience far more quickly and pleasantly8 ,some natures are antagonized by the shadow of a threat1 even if it accompanies a reasonable order2 and if we acknowledge that the oil of courtesy is a valuable lubricator in our dealings with grown people1 it seems proper to suppose that it would not be entirely useless with children4 ,we cannot expect to get from them what we do not give ourselves1 and it is idle to imagine that we can address them as we would a disobedient dog1 and be answered in tones of dulcet harmony4 ,again1 what possible harm can there be in sometimes giving reasons for commands1 when they are such as the child would appreciate8 ,we do not desire to bring him up under martial rule2 and if he feels the wisdom of the order issued1 he will be much more likely to obey it pleasantly4 ,cases may frequently occur in which reasons either could not properly be given1 or would be beyond the child's power of comprehension2 but if our treatment of him has been uniformly frank and affectionate1 he will cheerfully obey1 believing that1 as our commands have been reasonable heretofore1 there is good cause to suppose they may still be so4 ,educational opinion tends1 more and more every day1 to the absolute conviction that the natural punishment1 the effect which follows the cause1 is the only one which can safely be used with children4 ,this is the method of ,nature1 severe and unrelenting it may be1 but calm1 firm1 and purely just4 ,he who sows the wind must reap the whirlwind1 and he who sows thistles may be well assured that he will never gather figs as his harvest4 ,the feeling of continuity1 of sequence1 is naturally strong in the child2 and if we would lead him to appreciate that the law is as absolute in the moral as in the physical world1 we shall find the ground already prepared for our purpose4 ,much transgression of moral law in later years is due to the fatal hope in the evil-doer's mind that he will be able to escape the consequences of his sin4 ,could we make it clear from the beginning of life that there is no such escape1 that the mills of the gods will grind at last1 though the hopper stand empty for many a year1--could we make this an absolute conviction of the mind1 ,i am assured that it would greatly tend to lessen crime4 ,and this is one of the defects of arbitrary punishment1 that it is sometimes withheld when the heart of the judge melts over the sinner1 leading him to expect other possible exemptions in the future4 ,is it not sometimes given in anger1 also1 when the culprit clearly sees it to be disproportionate to the crime8 ,here appears the advantage of the natural punishment1--it is never withheld in weak affection1 it is never given in anger1 it is entirely disassociated from personal feeling4 ,no poisoned arrow of injustice remains rankling in the child's breast2 no rebellious feeling that the parent has taken advantage of his superior strength to inflict the punishment3 it is perceived to be absolutely fair1 and1 being fair1 it must be1 although painful1 yet satisfactory to that sense of justice which is a passion of childhood4 ,our ,american children are as precocious in will-power as they are keen-witted1 and they need a special discipline4 ,the courage1 activity1 and pioneer spirit of the fathers1 exercised in hewing their way through virgin forests1 hunting wild beasts in mountain solitudes1 opening up undeveloped lands1 prospecting for metals through trackless plains1 choosing their own vocations1 helping to govern their country1--all these things have reacted upon the children1 and they are thoroughly independent1 feeling the need of caring for themselves when hardly able to toddle4 ,entrust this precocious bundle of nerves and individuality to a person of weak will or feeble intelligence1 and the child promptly becomes his ruler4 ,the power of strong volition becomes caprice1 he does not learn the habit of obedience1 and thus valuable directive power is lost to the world4 ,the lowest classes of society1 says ,dr4 ,harris1 are the lowest1 not because there is any organized conspiracy to keep them down1 but because they are lacking in directive power4 ,the jails1 the prisons1 the reformatories1 are filled with men who are there because they were weak1 more than because they were evil4 ,if the right discipline in home and school had been given them1 they would never have become the charge of the nation4 ,thus we waste force constantly1 force of mind and of spirit sufficient to move mountains1 because we do not insist that every child shall exercise his inherited right1 which is1 that he be taught to obey4 ,it is a grave subject1 this of will-training1 the gravest perhaps that we can consider1 and its deepest waters lie far below the sounding of my plummet4 ,some of the principles1 however1 on which it rests are as firmly fixed as the bed of the ocean1 which remains changeless though the waves continually shift above3-- #a4 ,if we can but cultivate the habit of doing right1 we enlist in our service one of the strongest of human agencies4 ,its momentum is so great that it may propel the child into the course of duty before he has time to discuss the question1 or to parley with his conscience concerning it4 #b4 ,we must remember that force of character is cumulative1 and all the foregone days of virtue work their health into this4 ,the task need not be begun afresh each morning2 yesterday's strokes are still there1 and to-day's efforts will make the carving deeper and bolder4 #c4 ,we may compel the body to carry out an order1 the fingers to perform a task2 but this is mere slavish compliance4 ,true obedience can never be enforced2 it is the fruit of the reason and the will1 the free1 glad offering of the spirit4 #d4 ,though many motives have their place in early will-training1--love of approval1 deference to public opinion1 the influence of beauty1 hopeful occupation1 respect and rev for those in authority1--yet these are all preparatory1 the preliminary exercises1 which must be well practiced before the soul can spread her wings into the blue4 #e4 ,there is but one true and final motive to good conduct1 and that is a hunger in the soul of man for the blessing of the spirit1 a ceaseless longing to be in perfect harmony with the principles of everlasting and eternal right4 ,,the ,,magic ,,of ,,together ',together' is the key-word of the nineteenth century4 ,it is an old1 adobe-walled ,mexican garden4 ,all around it1 close against the brown bricks1 the fleur-de-lis stand white and stately1 guarded by their tall green lances4 ,the sun's rays are already powerful1 though it is early spring1 and ,i am glad to take my book under the shade of the orange-trees4 ,in the dark leaf-canopy above me shine the delicate star-like flowers1 the partly opened buds1 and the great golden oranges1 while tiny green and half-ripe spheres make a happy contrast in color4 ,the ground about me is strewn with flowers and buds1 the air is heavy with fragrance1 and the bees are buzzing softly overhead4 ,i am growing drowsy1 but as ,i lift my eyes from my book they meet something which interests me4 ,a large black ant is tugging and pulling at an orange-bud1 and really making an effort to carry it away with him4 ,it is once and a half as long as he1 fully twice as wide1 and ,i cannot compute how much heavier1 but its size and weight are very little regarded4 ,he drags it vigorously over ,alpine heights and through valley deeps1 but evidently finds the task arduous1 for he stops to rest now and then4 ,i want to help him1 but cannot be sure of his destination1 and fear besides that my clumsy assistance would be misinterpreted4 ,ah1 how unfortunate6 ant and orange-bud have fallen together into the depths of a ,colorado caon which yawns in the path4 ,the ant soon reappears1 but clearly feels it impossible to drag the bud up such a precipice1 and runs away on some other quest4 ,what did he want with that bud1 ,i wonder8 was it for food1 or bric-a-brac1 or a plaything for the babies8 ,never mind1--,i shall never know1 and ,i prepare to read again4 ,but what's this8 ,here is my ant returning1 and accompanied by some friends4 ,they disappear in the canon1 helpfulness and interest in every wave of their feelers4 ,their heads come into sight again1 and--yes6 they have the bud4 ,now1 indeed1 events move1 and the burden travels rapidly across the smooth courtyard toward the house4 ,can they intend to take it up on the flat roof1 where we have lately suspected a nest8 ,yes1 there they go1 straight up the wall1 all putting their shoulders to the wheel1 and resting now and then in the chinks of the crumbling adobes4 ,up the bud moves to the gutters1--,i can see it gleam as it is pulled over the edge1--they are out of sight1--the task is done6 ,how easy any undertaking1 ,i think1 when people are willing to help4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in a high dormer window of a great city1 in a nest of quilts and pillows1 sits little ,ingrid4 ,her blue ,danish eyes look out from a pinched1 snow-white face1 and her thin hands are languidly folded in her lap4 ,she gazes far down below to the other side of the square1 where she can just see the waving of some green branches and an open door4 ,her eyes brighten now1 for a stream of little children comes pouring from that door4 ,look1 mother6 she cries1 there are the children6 and the mother leaves her washing1 and comes with dripping hands to see every tiny boy look up at the window and flourish his hat1 and every girl wave her handkerchief1 or kiss her hand4 ,they form a ring2 there is silence for a moment and then1 'mid great flapping of dingy handkerchiefs and battered hats1 a hearty cheer is heard4 ,they're cheering my birthday1 cries ,ingrid4 ,miss ,mary knows it's my birthday4 ,oh1 isn't it lovely6 ,and the thin hands eagerly waft some grateful kisses to the group below4 ,the scene has only lasted a few moments1 the children have had their run in the fresh air1 and now they go marching back1 pausing at the door to wave good-by to the window far above4 ,the mother carries ,ingrid back to her bed 7it is a weary time now since those little feet touched the floor72 but the bed is not as tiresome as usual1 nor the washing as hard1 for both hearts are full of sunshine4 ,afternoon comes1--little feet are heard climbing up the stair1 and ,ingrid's name is called4 ,the door opens1 and two flushed and breathless messengers stand on the threshold4 ,we've brung you a birfday present1 they cry2 it's a book1 and we made it all our own se'ves1 and all the chilluns helped and made somefin' to put in it4 ,miss ,mary's down stairs mindin' the babies1 and she sends you her love4 ,good-by6 ,happy birfday6 ,happy birthday indeed6 ,golden1 precious1 love-crowned birthday6 ,was ever such a book1 so full of sweet messages and tender thoughts6 ,ingrid knows how baby ,tim must have labored to sew that red circle1 how ,john ,jacob toiled over that weaving-mat1 and ,elsa carefully folded the drove of little pigs4 ,everybody thought of her1 and all the chilluns helped1 and how dear is the tangible outcome of the thoughts and the helping6 99 99 99 99 99 ,far back in the childhood of the world1 the long-haired savage1 woaded1 winter-clad in skins1 went roaming for his food wherever he might find it4 ,he dug roots from the ground1 he searched for berries and fruits1 he hid behind rocks to leap upon his living prey1 yet often went hungry to his lair at night1 if the root-crop were short1 or the wild beast wary4 ,but if the day had been a fortunate one1 if his own stomach were filled and his body sheltered1 little cared he whether long-haired savage number two were hungry and cold4 ,every one for himself1 would he say1 as he rolled himself in his skins1 and the cave-bear1 or any other handy beast1 take the hindmost4 ,the simplicity of his mental state1 his complete freedom from responsibility1 assure us that his digestion of the raw flesh and the tough roots must have been perfection1 and the sleep in those furred skins a dreamless one4 ,what impending visitation of a common enemy1 what sudden descent of a fierce horde of strange1 wild1 long-forgotten creatures1 first moved him to ally himself with barbarians number two and three for their mutual protection8 ,and when long years of alliance in warfare1 and mutual distrust at all other times1 had slipped away1 and when savages were turning into herdsmen and farmers and toolmakers1 to what leader among men did a system of exchange of commodities for mutual convenience suggest itself8 ,one would like to have met that painted savage who first suggested combination in warfare1 or that later politico-economist upon whom it faintly dawned that mutual help was possible in other directions save that of blood-shedding4 ,a union born of the exigencies of warfare would be strengthened later by the promptings of self-interest1 and1 lo6 the experiment is no longer an experiment1 and the fact is proven that men may fight and work together to their mutual profit and advancement4 ',tis a simple proposition1 after all1 that ten times one is ten2 and the bees1 the ants1 the grosbeaks1 and the beavers prove it so clearly that any one of us may read1 though we pass by never so quickly4 ,yet all great truths appear in man's mind in very rudimentary form at first1 and each successive generation furnishes more favorable soil for their growth and development4 ,first1 men joined hands in offensive and defensive alliance2 second1 they found that1 even when wars were over1 still communication1 intercourse1 and exchange of goods were desirable2 third1 they discovered that no great enterprise which would better their condition would be possible without coperation2 and1 fourth1 they began to band themselves together here and there1 not only for their own protection1 for their own gain1 but to watch over the weak1 to succor the defenseless1 and even to uphold some dear belief4 ,the magic of ,together has thus far reached1 and who can tell what ,happy ,valley1 what fair ,land of ,beulah1 it may summon into existence in the future8 ,the incalculable value of coperation1 the solemn truth that we are members one of another1 that we cannot labor for ourselves without laboring for others1 nor injure ourselves without injuring others1--all this is intellectually appreciated by most men to-day1 all this is doubtless acknowledged2 yet ,i cannot find that it has obtained much recognition in education1 nor is especially insisted upon in the training of children4 ,but surely1 if children have any social tendencies1--and the fact needs no proof1--these tendencies should be given direction from the beginning toward benevolence1 toward harmonious working together for some common aim4 ,this would be comparatively easy even in a nursery containing three or four little people2 and how much simpler when school life begins1 and when the powers of children are greatly increased1 while they are in hourly contact with a large number of equals6 ,society1 as ,dr4 ,hale says1 is the great charm and only value of school life2 but this charm and this value are reduced to a minimum in many schools4 ,emulation1 that devil-shadow of aspiration1 so often used as a stimulus in education1 must forever separate the child from his fellows4 ,how can ,i have any ,christian fellowship with a man when ,i am envying him his successes and grudging him his honors8 ,am ,i not tempted to withhold my help from my weak brother across the way1 lest my assistance place him on an equality with me8 ,again1 the monitor system1 as sometimes carried out1 tends to separation and engenders dislike and distrust4 ,i am not likely to desire close communion1 except in the way of fisticuffs1 with a boy who has been spying upon me all day1 or who has very likely reported me as having committed divers venial offenses4 ,it is the idea of some teachers that discipline is furthered if children are trained to have as little as possible to do with each other1 and there is no question that this method does facilitate a toe-the-line kind of government4 ,it would probably be more satisfactory to such a teacher if each child could be brought to school in a sedan-chair1 with only one window and that in front1 and could be kept in it during the whole session4 ,as such a plan1 however1 is scarcely feasible2 as children1 with or against our wills1 have a natural and ,god-given instinct for each other's company2 as they keenly enjoy banding themselves together for whatever purpose1 should not education follow the suggestions which an earnest study of child-nature can but give8 ,froebel1 with those divinely curious eyes of his1 saw deeper into the child's mind and heart than any of his predecessors1 and for every faint stirring of life which he perceived provided adequate conditions of development4 ,true prophet of the coming day1 his philosophy is rich with suggestions for the cultivation of the social powers of the child4 ,no one ever felt more keenly than he the inseparable1 the organic connection of all life2 and with deep spiritual insight he provides nursery plays and songs by which the babe1 even in his mother's arms1 may be led faintly to recognize in his being one of the links of the great chain which girdles the universe4 ,later1 when as a child of three or four years he makes his first step into the world1 and loosing his mother's hand1 enters a larger family of children of his own age1 he is still led to feel himself a part of a vast union1 each member of which has ministered to him1 and numberless ways are opened by which he can join with others to give back to the world some of the benefits he has enjoyed4 ,stories are told and games are played which lead him to thank the kindly hands which have furnished his daily bread1 his warm clothing1 and his sweet1 white bed at night4 ,the feeling of gratitude1 grown and strengthened1 must overflow in action4 ,the world has done so much for him1 what can he do for the world8 ,is there not some little invalid who would greatly prize a book of dainty pictures1 embroidered1 drawn1 and painted by her child-friends8 ,then he will join with his companions1 and patiently and lovingly fashion such a book4 ,is the class room somewhat bare and colorless8 ,then he can give up some of his cherished work to make a bright frieze about the walls4 ,a national holiday is perhaps approaching4 ,he will unite with all the other babies in making flags1 tri-colored chains1 and rosettes to deck the room appropriately1 and to please the mothers1 fathers1 and friends who are coming to celebrate the occasion4 ,one of the greatest pleasures which is offered is that of being allowed to help somebody4 ,if a child is quick1 neat1 and careful1 if he has finished his bit of work1 he may go and help the babies1 and very gently and very patiently he guides the chubby fingers1 threads the needles1 or ties on little caps1 and conquers refractory buttons4 ,to be a little helper1 whether he is assisting his companions or the grown-up people about him1 grows to seem the highest honor within his reach4 ,he knows the joy of ministering unto others1 and he feels that to help is to do the work of the world4 ,thus we endeavor to give external expression to the feelings stirring in the heart of the child1 knowing that even love can grow cold if not nourished4 ,the whole spirit of the work1 if carried out as ,froebel intended1 must tend directly toward social evolution1 and the intense personalism which is a distinguishing mark of our civilization1 and is clearly seen in our children1 needs anointing with the oil of altruism4 ,the circle in which the children stand for the singing is itself a perfect representation of unity4 ,hands are joined to make a round and lovely ring4 ,if any child is unkind1 or regardless of the rights of others1 it is easily seen that he not only makes himself unhappy1 but seriously mars the pleasure of all the other children4 ,if he willfully leaves the circle1 a link in the chain is broken which can only be mended when he repents his folly and pleasantly returns to his place4 ,thus early he may be made to feel that all lives touch his own1 and that his indulgence in selfish passion not only harms himself1 but is the more blameworthy in that it injures others4 ,the songs and games cannot be happily carried on unless each child is not only willing to help1 but willing also to give up his chief desires now and then4 ,all the children would like to be the flowers in the garden1 perhaps1 but it is obvious that some must remain in the circle1 in order that the fence be perfect1 and prevent stray animals from destroying what we love and cherish4 ,so there is constant surrendering of personal desires in recognition of the fact that others have equal rights1 and that1 after all1 one part is as good as another1 since all are essential to the whole4 ,in coperative building1 the children quickly see that the symmetrical figure which four little ones have made together1 uniting their material1 is infinitely larger and finer than any one of them could have made alone4 ,if they are making a village at their little tables1 one builds the church1 another workshops and stores1 others schools and houses1 while the remainder make roads1 lay out gardens1 plant trees1 and plough the fields4 ,no one of the children had strength enough1 time enough1 or material enough to build the village alone1 yet see how well and how quickly it is done when we all help6 ,the sand-box1 in which of course all children delight1 lends itself especially to coperative exercises4 ,they gather around it and plant gardens with the bright-colored balls2 they use it for geography1 moulding the hills1 mountains1 valleys1 and tracing the rivers near their homes2 they arrange historical dramas1 as ,paul ,revere's ,ride1 or the ,landing of the ,pilgrims3 but no child does any one of these things alone2 there is constant and happy coperation4 ,it is the aim of one day's exercise1 perhaps1 to retrace with the child the various steps by which his comfortable chair and his strong work-table have come to him4 ,across one end of the sand-box1 a group of children plant a forest with little pine branches which they have brought4 ,the wood-cutters come1 fell the trees1 and cut away the boughs4 ,another party of children bring the heavy teams1 previously built from the play-material1 harness in the horses 7taken from a ,noah's ,ark71 and prepare to carry off the logs4 ,now here come the road-makers1 and they lay out a smooth1 hard road for the teams1 reaching to the very bank of the river1 which another party of little ones has made4 ,the logs are tumbled into the stream2 they float downward1 are rafted1 carried to the mill2 little sticks are furnished to represent the boards into which they are sawn2 and the lumber is taken to the cabinet-maker1 that he may fashion our furniture4 ,though there be twenty children around the sand-box1 yet all have been employed4 ,each has enjoyed his own work1 yet appreciated the value of his neighbor's4 ,they have worked together harmoniously and the doing has reacted upon the heart1 and strengthened the feeling of unity which is growing within4 ,such exercises cannot fail to teach the value and power of social effort1 and the necessity of subordinating personal desires to the common good4 ,yet the development of individuality is not forgotten1 for our power as individuals depends upon our recognition of the rights of others4 ,it is true that the social problem is an intricate one and cannot be worked out1 even partially1 at any stage of education1 unless the leader of the children be a true leader1 and be enthusiastically convinced of the essential value of the principles on which the problem is based4 ,yet this might be said with equal truth of any educational aim1 for the gospel must always have its interpreters1 and some will ever give a more spiritual reading and seize the truth which was only half expressed1 while others1 dull-eyed1 mechanical1 kill with the letter4 ,after all1 says ,dr4 ,stanley ,hall1 there is nothing so practical in education as the ideal1 nor so ideal as the practical2 and we may be assured that the direction of the social tendencies of the child toward high and noble aims1 toward the sinking of self and the generous thought of others1--that this is not only ideal1 not only a following after the purest light yet vouchsafed to us1 but is at the same time practical in its detailed workings1 and in its adaptation to the needs and desires of the day4 ,,the ,,relation ,,of ,,the ,,kindergarten ,,to ,,the ,,public ,,school ,the nature of an educational system is determined by the manner in which it is begun4 ,the question for us to decide to-day is not how we can interest people in and how illustrate the true kindergarten1 for that is already done to a considerable extent2 but1 how we can convince school boards1 superintendents1 and voters that the final introduction of the kindergarten into the public school system is a thing greatly to be desired4 ,the kindergarten and the school1 now two distinct1 dissimilar1 and sometimes1 though of late very seldom1 antagonistic institutions1--how will the one affect1 or be affected by the other8 ,as to the final adoption of the kindergarten there is a preliminary question which goes straight to the root of the whole matter4 ,at present the state accepts the responsibility of educating children after an arbitrarily fixed age has been reached4 ,ought it not1 rather1 if it assumes the responsibility at all1 to begin to educate the child when he needs education8 ,thoughtful people are now awaking to the fact that this regulation is an artificial1 not a natural one1 and that we have been wasting two precious years which might not only be put to valuable uses1 but would so shape and influence after-teaching that every succeeding step would be taken with greater ease and profit4 ,we have been discreet in omitting the beginning1 so long as we did not feel sure how to begin4 ,but we know now that ,froebel's method of dealing with four or five year old babies1 when used by a discreet and intelligent person1 justifies us in taking this delicate1 debatable ground4 ,so far1 then1 it is a question of law--a law which can be modified just as soon and as sensibly as the people wish4 ,before1 however1 that modification can become the active wish of the people1 its importance must be understood and its effects estimated4 ,could it be shown that after-education will be hindered or in any way rendered more difficult by the kindergarten1 clearly all efforts to introduce it must cease4 ,were it merely a matter of indifference1 something that would neither make nor mar the after-work of schools1 then it would remain a matter of choice or fancy1 for individual parents to decide as they like2 but1 if it can be shown that the work of the kindergarten will lay a more solid foundation1 or trace more direct paths for the workers of a later period1 then it behooves us to give it a hearty welcome1 and to work out its principles with zealous good will3 and working out its principles means1 not accepting it as a finality--a piece of flawless perfection--but as a stepping-stone which will lead us nearer to the truth4 ,if it is a good thing1 it is good for all2 if it is truth1 we want it everywhere2 but if this new department of education and training is to gain ground1 or accomplish the successful fruition of its wishes1 there must be perfect unity among teachers concerning it4 ,if they all understood the thing itself1 and understood each other1 there could be no lack of sympathy2 yet there has been misunderstanding1 conflict occasionally1 and some otherwise worthy teachers have used the kindergarten as a sort of intellectual cuttle-fish to sharpen their conversational bills upon4 ,of course ,i am not blind to the fact that after we have determined that we ought to have the kindergarten1 there are many questions of expediency3 suitable rooms1 expense of material1 salaries1 assistants1 age of children at entrance1 system of government1 number of children in one kindergarten2 and greatest of all1 but least thought of1 strangely1 the linking together of kindergarten and school1 so that the development shall be continuous1 and the chain of impressions perfect and unbroken4 ,suffice it to say that it has been done1 and can be done again2 but it needs discretion1 forethought1 tact1 earnestness1 and unimpeachable honesty of administration1 for unless we can depend upon our school boards and kindergartners implicitly1 counting upon them for wise coperation1 brooding care1 and great wisdom in selection of teachers1 the experiment will be a failure4 ,we have risks enough to run as it is2 let us not permit our little ones1 more susceptible by reason of age than any we have to deal with now1--let us not permit them to become victims of politics1 rings1 or machine teaching4 ,the kindergarten is more liable to abuse than any other department of teaching4 ,there is no ground in the universe so sacred as this4 ,but the difference between primary schools is just as great1 only1 unfortunately1 we have become used to it2 and the kindergarten being under fire1 so to speak1 must be absolutely ideal in its perfection1 or it is ruthlessly held up to scorn4 ,there is a tremendous awakening all over the country with regard to kindergarten and primary work1 and this is well1 since the greatest and most fatal mistakes of the public school system have been made just here2 and the time is surely coming when more knowledge1 wisdom1 tact1 ingenuity1 forethought1 yes1 and money1 will be expended in order to meet the demands of the case4 ,the time is coming when the imp of parsimony will no longer be mistaken for the spirit of economy2 when a woman possessed of ordinary human frailty will no longer be required to guide1 direct1 develop1 train1 help1 love1 and be patient with sixty little ones1 just beginning to tread the difficult paths of learning1 and each receiving just one sixtieth of what he craves4 ,the millennium will be close at hand when we cease to expect from girls just out of the high school what ,socrates never attempted1 and would have deemed impossible4 ,look at ,senator ,stanford's famous ,palo ,alto stock farm4 ,each colt born into that favored community is placed in a class of twelve4 ,these twelve colts are cared for and taught by four or five trained teachers4 ,no man interested in the training of fine horses ever objects1 so far as ,i know1 to such expenditure of labor and money4 ,the end is supposed to justify the means4 ,but when the creatures to be trained are human beings1 and when the end to be reached is not race-horses1 but merely citizens1 we employ a very different process of reasoning4 ,that this subject of early training is a vitally interesting one to thinking people cannot be denied4 ,the kindergarten has become the fashion1 you say1 cynically4 ,this is scarcely true2 but it is a fact that the upper1 the middle1 and the lower classes among us begin to recognize the existence of children under six years of age1 and realize that far from being nonentities in life1 or unknown quantities1 they are very lively units in the sum of progressive education4 ,when we speak of kindergarten work among the children of the poor1 and argue its claims as one of the best means of taking unfortunate little ,arabs from the demoralizing life of the streets1 and of giving their aimless hands something useful to do1 their restless minds something good and fruitful to think of1 and their curious eyes something beautiful to look on1 there is not a word of disapproval4 ,people seem willing to concede its moral value when applied to the lower classes1 but1 when they are obliged to pay anything to procure this training for their own children1 or see any prospect of what they call an already extravagant school system made more so by its addition1 they become prolific in doubts4 ,in other words1 they believe in it when you call it philanthropy1 but not when you call it education2 and it must be called the germ of the better education1 toward which we are all struggling1 the nearest approach to the perfect beginning which we have yet found4 ,we see in the excellence of ,froebel's idea1 educationally considered1 its only claim to peculiar power in dealing with incipient hoodlumism4 ,it is only because it has such unusual fitness to child-nature1 such a store of philosophy and ingenuity in its appliances1 and such a wealth of spiritual truth in its aims and methods1 that it is so great a power with neglected children and ignorant and vicious parents4 ,the principles on which ,froebel built his educational idea may be summed up briefly under four heads4 ,first1 ,all the faculties of the child are to be drawn out and exercised as far as age allows4 ,second1 ,the powers of habit and association1 which are the great instruments of all education1 of the whole training of life1 must be developed with a systematic purpose from the earliest dawn of intelligence4 ,third1 ,the active instincts of childhood are to be cultivated through manual exercise 7chiefly creative in character71 which is made an essential part of the training1 and this manual exercise is to be valued chiefly as a means of self-expression4 ,fourth1 ,the senses are to be trained to accuracy as well as the hand4 ,the child must learn how to observe what is placed before him1 and to observe it truly1 an acquirement which any teacher of science or art will appreciate4 ,to work out these principles1 ,froebel devised his practical method of infant education1 and the very name he gave to the place where his play lessons were to be used marks his purpose4 ,no books are to be seen in a kindergarten1 because no ideas or facts are presented to the child that he cannot clearly understand and verify4 ,the object is not to teach him arithmetic or geometry1 though he learns enough of both to be very useful to him hereafter2 but to lead him to discover truths concerning forms and numbers1 lines and angles1 for himself4 ,thus in the play-lessons the teacher simply rules the order in which the child shall approach a new thing1 and gives him the correct names which1 henceforth1 he must always use2 but the observation of resemblances and differences 7that groundwork of all knowledge71 the reasoning from one point to another1 and the conclusions he arrives at1 are all his own2 he is only led to see his mistake if he makes one4 ,the child handles every object from which he is taught1 and learns to reproduce it4 ,it is not enough to say that any ordinary system of object teaching in the hands of an ingenious teacher will serve the purpose or take the place of the kindergarten4 ,people who say this evidently have no conception of ,froebel's plan1 in which the simultaneous training of head1 heart1 and hand is the most striking characteristic4 ,the kindergarten is mainly distinguished from the later instruction of the school by making the knowledge of facts and the cultivation of the memory subordinate to the development of observation and to the appropriate activity of the child1 physical1 mental1 and moral4 ,its aim is to utilize the now almost wasted time from four to six years1 a time when all negligent and ignorant mothers leave the child to chance development1 and when the most careful mother cannot train her child into the practice of social virtues so well as the truly wise kindergartner who works with her4 ,we learn through doing is the watchword of the kindergarten1 but it must be a doing which blossoms into being1 or it does not fulfill its ideal1 for it is character building which is to go on in the kindergarten1 or it has missed ,froebel's aim4 ,what does the kindergarten do for children under six years of age8 ,what has it accomplished when it sends the child to the primary school8 ,i do not mean what ,froebel hoped could be done1 or what is occasionally accomplished with bright children and a gifted teacher1 or even what is done in good private kindergartens1 for that is yet more2 but ,i mean what is actually done for children by charitable organizations1 which are really doing the work of the state4 ,i think they can claim tangible results which are wholly remarkable2 and yet they do not work for results1 or expect much visible fruit in these tender years1 from a culture which is so natural1 child-like1 and unobtrusive that its very outward simplicity has caused it to be regarded as a plaything4 ,in glancing over the acquirements of the child who has left the kindergarten1 and has been actually taught nothing in the ordinary acceptation of the word1 we find that he has worked1 experimented1 invented1 compared1 reproduced4 ,all things have been revealed in the doing1 and productive activity has enlightened and developed the mind4 ,first1 as to arithmetic4 ,it does not come first1 but though you speak with the tongues of men and angels1 and make not mention of arithmetic1 it profiteth you nothing4 ,the ,first ,gift shows one object1 and the children get an idea of one whole2 in the ,second they receive three whole objects again1 but of different form2 in the ,third and ,fourth1 the regularly divided cube is seen1 and all possible combinations of numbers as far as eight are made4 ,in the ,fifth ,gift the child sees three and its multiples2 in fractions1 halves1 quarters1 eighths1 thirds1 ninths1 and twenty-sevenths4 ,with the ,sixth1 ,seventh1 and ,eighth ,gifts the field is practically unlimited4 ,second1 as to the child's knowledge of form1 size1 and proportion4 ,his development has been quite extensive3 he knows1 not always by name1 but by their characteristics1 vertical1 horizontal1 slanting1 and curved lines2 squares1 oblongs2 equal sided1 blunt and sharp angled triangles2 five1 six1 seven and eight sided figures2 spheres1 cylinders1 cubes1 and prisms4 ,all this elementary geometry has1 of course1 been learned baby fashion1 in a purely experimental way1 but nothing will have to be unlearned when the pupil approaches geometry later in a more thoroughly scientific spirit4 ,third1 as to the cultivation of language1 of the power of expression1 we cannot speak with too much emphasis4 ,the vocabulary of the kindergarten child of the lower classes is probably greater than that of his mother or father4 ,you can see how this comes about4 ,the teachers themselves are obliged to make a study of simple1 appropriate1 expressive1 and explicit language2 the child is led to express all his thoughts freely in proper words from the moment he can lisp2 he is trained through singing to distinct and careful enunciation1 and the result is a remarkably good power of language4 ,i make haste to say that this need not necessarily be used for the purposes of chattering in the school4 ,the child has not1 of course1 learned to read and write1 but reading is greatly simplified by his accurate power of observation1 and his practice of comparing forms4 ,the work of reading is play to a child whose eye has been thus trained4 ,as to writing1 we precede it by drawing1 which is the sensible and natural plan4 ,the child will have had a good deal of practice with slate and lead pencil2 will have drawn all sorts of lines and figures from dictation1 and have created numberless designs of his own4 ,if1 in short1 our children could spend two years in a good kindergarten1 they would not only bring to the school those elements of knowledge which are required1 but would have learned in some degree how to learn1 and1 in the measure of their progress1 have nothing to unlearn4 ,let those who labor1 day by day1 with inert minds never yet awakened to a wish for knowledge1 a sense of beauty1 or a feeling of pleasure in mental activity1 tell us how much valuable school time they would save1 if the raw material were thus prepared to their hand4 ,after spending five or six years at home or in the street1 without training or discipline1 the child is sent to school and is expected to learn at once4 ,he looks upon the strange1 new life with amazement1 yet without understanding4 ,finally1 his mind becomes familiar in a mechanical manner1 ill-suited to the tastes of a child1 with the work and exercises of primary instruction1 the consequence being1 very often1 a feeble body and a stuffed mind1 the stuffing having very little more effect upon the intellect than it has upon the organism of a roast turkey4 ,the kindergarten can remedy these intellectual difficulties1 beside giving the child an impulse toward moral self-direction1 and a capacity for working out his original ideas in visible and permanent form1 which will make him almost a new creature4 ,it can1 by taking the child in season1 set the wheels in motion1 rouse all his best1 finest1 and highest instincts1 the purest1 noblest1 and most vivifying powers of which he is possessed4 ,there is a good deal of time spent in the kindergarten on the cultivation of politeness and courtesy2 and in the entirely social atmosphere which is one of its principal features1 the amenities of polite society can be better practiced than elsewhere4 ,the kindergarten aims in no way at making infant prodigies1 but it aims successfully at putting the little child in possession of every faculty he is capable of using2 at bringing him forward on lines he will never need to forsake2 at teaching within his narrow range what he will never have to unlearn2 and at giving him the wish to learn1 and the power of teaching himself4 ,its deep simplicity should always be maintained1 and no lover of childhood or thoughtful teacher would wish it otherwise4 ,it is more important that it should be kept pure than that it should become popular4 ,i have tried1 thus1 somewhat at length1 to demonstrate that our educational system cannot be perfect until we begin still earlier with the child1 and begin in a more childlike manner1 though1 at the same time1 earnestly and with definite purpose4 ,in trying to make manhood and womanhood1 we sometimes treat children as little men and women1 not realizing that the most perfect childhood is the best basis for strong manhood4 ,further1 ,i have tried to show that ,froebel's system gives us the only rational beginning2 but ,i confess frankly that to make it productive of its vaunted results1 it must be placed in the hands of thoroughly trained kindergartners1 fitted by nature and by education for their most delicate1 exacting1 and sacred profession4 ,now as to compromises4 ,the question is frequently asked1 ,cannot the best things of the kindergarten be introduced in the primary departments of the public school8 ,the best thing of kindergartening is the kindergarten itself1 and nothing else will do2 it would be necessary to make very material changes in the primary class which is to include a kindergarten--changes that are demanded by radically different methods4 ,the kindergarten should offer the child experience instead of instruction2 life instead of learning2 practical child-life1 a miniature world1 where he lives and grows1 and learns and expands4 ,no primary teacher1 were she ,minerva herself1 can work out ,froebel's idea successfully with sixty or seventy children under her sole care4 ,you will see for yourselves that this simple1 natural1 motherly instruction of babyhood cannot be transplanted bodily into the primary school1 where the teacher has fifty or sixty children who are beyond the two most fruitful years which the kindergarten demands4 ,besides1 the teachers of the lower grades cannot introduce more than an infinitesimal number of kindergarten exercises1 and at the same time keep up their full routine of primary studies and exercises4 ,any one who understands the double needs of the kindergarten and primary school cannot fail to see this matter correctly1 and as ,i said before1 we do not want a few kindergarten exercises1 we want the kindergarten4 ,if teachers were all indoctrinated with the spirit of ,froebel's method1 they would carry on its principles in dealing with pupils of any age2 but ,froebel's kindergarten1 pure and simple1 creates a place for children of four or five years1 to begin their bit of life-work2 it is in no sense a school1 nor must become so1 or it would lose its very essence and truest meaning4 ,let me show you a kindergarten6 ,it is no more interesting than a good school1 but ,i want you to see the essential points of difference3-- ,it is a golden morning1 a rare one in a long1 rainy winter4 ,as we turn into the narrow1 quiet street from the broader1 noisy one1 the sound of a bell warns us that we are near the kindergarten building4444 ,a few belated youngsters are hurrying along1--some ragged1 some patched1 some plainly and neatly clothed1 some finishing a portable breakfast thrust into their hands five minutes before1 but all eager to be there4444 ,while the ,lilliputian armies are wending their way from the yard to their various rooms1 we will enter the front door and look about a little4 ,the windows are wide open at one end of the great room4 ,the walls are tinted with terra cotta1 and the woodwork is painted in ,indian red4 ,above the high wood dado runs a row of illuminated pictures of animals1--ducks1 pigeons1 peacocks1 calves1 lambs1 colts1 and almost everything else that goes upon two or four feet2 so that the children can1 by simply turning in their seats1 stroke the heads of their dumb friends of the meadow and barnyard4444 ,there are a great quantity of bright and appropriate pictures on the walls1 three windows full of plants1 a canary chirping in a gilded cage1 a globe of gold-fish1 an open piano1 and an old-fashioned sofa1 which is at present adorned with a small scrap of a boy who clutches a large slate in one hand1 and a mammoth lunch-pail in the other4444 ,it is his first day1 and he looks as if his big brother had told him that he would be walloped if he so much as winked4 ,a half-dozen charming girls are fluttering about2 charming1 because1 whether plain or beautiful1 they all look happy1 earnest1 womanly1 full to the brim of life4 ,a sweet1 heart-lifting cheerfulness1 ,like spring-time of the year1 ,seems ever on their steps to wait4 444 ,they are tying on white aprons and preparing the day's occupations1 for they are a detachment of students from a kindergarten training school1 and are on duty for the day4 ,one of them seats herself at the piano and plays a stirring march4 ,the army enters1 each tiny soldier with a shining morning face4 ,unhappy homes are forgotten 444 smiles everywhere 444 everybody glad to see everybody else 444 happy children1 happy teachers 444 sunshiny morning1 sunshiny hearts 444 delightful work in prospect1 merry play to follow it4444 ,oh1 it's a beautiful world1 and ,i'm glad ,i'm in it2 so the bright faces seem to say4 ,it is a cosmopolitan regiment that marches into the free kindergartens of our large cities4 ,curly yellow hair and rosy cheeks 444 sleek blonde braids and calm blue eyes 444 swarthy faces and blue-black curls 444 woolly little pows and thick lips 444 long arched noses and broad flat ones4 ,here you see the fire and passion of the ,southern races1 and the self-poise1 serenity and sturdiness of ,northern nations4 ,pat is here with a gleam of humor in his eye 444 ,topsy1 all smiles and teeth1444 ,abraham1 trading tops with ,isaac1 next in line1444 ,gretchen and ,hans1 phlegmatic and dependable1444 ,franois1 never still for an instant1444 ,christina1 rosy1 calm1 and conscientious1 and ,duncan1 as canny and prudent as any of his people4 ,pietro is there1 and ,olaf1 and little ,john ,bull4 ,what an opportunity for amalgamation of races1 and for laying the foundation of ,american citizenship6 for the purely social atmosphere of the kindergarten makes it a life-school1 where each tiny citizen has full liberty under the law of love1 so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of his neighbor4 ,the phrase ,every man for himself is never heard1 but ,we are members one of another is the common principle of action4 ,the circles are formed4 ,every pair of hands is folded1 and bright eyes are tightly closed to keep out the world1 the flesh1 and the rest of it1 while children and teachers sing one of the morning hymns3-- ,birds and bees and flowers1 ,every happy day1 ,wake to greet the sunshine1 ,thankful for its ray4 ,all the night they're silent1 ,sleeping safe and warm2 ,god1 who knows and loves them1 ,will keep them from all harm4 ,so the little children1 ,sleeping all the night1 ,wake with each new morning1 ,fresh and sweet and bright4 ,thanking ,god their ,father ,for his loving care1 ,with their songs and praises ,they make the day more fair4 ,then comes a trio of good-morning songs1 with cordial handshakes and scores of kisses wafted from finger-tips4444 ,good-,morning1 ,merry ,sunshine1 follows1 and the sun1 encouraged by having some notice taken of him in this blind and stolid world1 shines brighter than ever4444 ,the song1 ,thumbs and ,fingers say ',good-,morning1' brings two thousand fingers fluttering in the air 7#aj x #bjj1 if the sum seems too difficult71 and gives the eagle-eyed kindergartners an opportunity to look for dirty paws and preach the needed sermon4 ,it is ,benny's birthday2 five years old to-day4 ,he chooses the songs he likes best1 and the children sing them with friendly energy4444 ,three cheers for ,benny1--only three1 now6 says the kindergartner4444 ,they are given with an enthusiasm that brings the neighbors to the windows1 and ,benny1 bursting with pride1 blushes to the roots of his hair4 ,the children stop at three1 however1 and have let off a tremendous amount of steam in the operation4 ,any wholesome device which accomplishes this result is worthy of being perpetuated4444 ,a draggled1 forsaken little street-cat sneaks in the door1 with a pitiful mew4 7,i'm sure ,i don't wonder6 if one were tired of life1 this would be just the place to take a fresh start47 ,the children break into the song1 ,i ,love ,little ,pussy1 ,her ,coat is so ,warm1 and the kindergartner asks the small boy with the great lunch pail if he wouldn't like to give the kitty a bit of something to eat4 ,he complies with the utmost solemnity1 thinking this the queerest community he ever saw4444 ,a broken-winged pigeon appears on the window-sill and receives his morning crumb2 and now a chord from the piano announces a change of programme4 ,the children troop to their respective rooms fairly warmed through with happiness and good will4 ,such a pleasant morning start to some who have been hustled out of a bed that held several too many in the night1 washed a trifle 7perhaps671 and sent off without a kiss1 with the echo of a sick mother's wails1 or a father's oaths1 ringing in their ears6 ,after a few minutes of cheerful preparation1 all are busily at work4 ,two divisions have gone into tiny1 quiet rooms to grapple with the intricacies of mathematical relations4 ,a small boy1 clad mostly in red woolen suspenders1 and large1 high-topped boots1 is passing boxes of blocks4 ,he is awkward and slow4 ,the teacher could do it more quietly and more quickly1 but the kindergarten is a school of experience where ease comes1 by and by1 as the lovely result of repeated practice4444 ,we hear an informal talk on fractions1 while the cube is divided into its component parts1 and then see a building exercise by direction4 ,in the other quiet room they are building a village1 each child constructing1 according to his own ideas1 the part assigned him4 ,one of them starts a song1 and they all join in-- ,oh6 builders we would like to be1 ,so willing1 skilled1 and strong2 ,and while we work so cheerily1 ,the time will not seem long4 ,if we all do our parts well1 the whole is sure to be beautiful1 says the teacher4 ,one rickety1 badly made building will spoil our village4 ,i'm going to draw a blackboard picture of the children who live in the village4 ,johnny1 you haven't blocks enough for a good factory1 and ,jennie hasn't enough for hers4 ,why don't you club together and make a very large1 fine one8 ,this working for a common purpose1 yet with due respect for individuality1 is a very important part of kindergarten ethics4 ,thus each child learns to subordinate himself to the claims and needs of society without losing himself4 ,no man liveth to himself is the underlying principle of action4 ,coming back to the main room we find one division weaving bright paper strips into a mat of contrasting color1 and note that the occupation trains the sense of color and of number1 and develops dexterity in both hands4 ,but what is this merry group doing in the farther corner8 ,these are the babies1 bless them6 and they are modeling in clay4 ,what an inspired version of pat-a-cake and mud pies is this6 ,the sleeves are pushed up1 showing a high-water mark of white arm joining little brown paws4 ,what fun6 ,they are modeling the seals at the ,cliff ,house 7for this chances to be a ,california kindergarten71 and a couple of two-year-olds1 who have strayed into this retreat1 not because there was any room for them here1 but because there wasn't any room for them anywhere else1 are slapping their lumps of clay with all their might1 and then rolling it into caterpillars and snakes4 ,this last is not very educational1 you say1 but virtue kindles at the touch of joy1 and some lasting good must be born out of the rational happiness that surrounds even the youngest babies in the kindergarten4 ,the sand-table in this room represents an ,italian or ,chinese vegetable garden4 ,the children have rolled and leveled the surface and laid it off in square beds with walks between4 ,the planting has been make believe1--a different kind of seed in each bed2 but the children have named them all1 and labeled the various plats with pieces of paper1 fastened in cleft sticks4 ,a gardener's house1 made of blocks1 ornaments one corner1 and near it are his tools1--watering-pot1 hoe1 rake1 spade1 etc41 all made in cardboard modeling4 ,we now pass up-stairs4 ,in one corner a family of twenty children are laying designs in shining rings of steel2 and as the graceful curves multiply beneath their clever fingers1 the kindergartner is telling them a brief story of a little boy who made with these very rings a design for a beautiful rose window1 which was copied in stained glass and hung in a great stone church1 of which his father was the architect4 ,another group of children is folding1 by dictation1 a four-inch square of colored paper4 ,the most perfect eye-measure1 as well as the most delicate touch1 is needed here4 ,constant reference to the sharp angle1 blunt angle1 square corner and right angle1 horizontal and vertical lines1 show that the foundation is being laid for a future clear and practical knowledge of geometry1 though the word itself is never mentioned4 ,there is one unhappy little boy in this class4 ,he has broken the law in some way1 and he has no work4 ,that is a strange idea1 said the woman visitor4 ,in my time work was given to us as a punishment1 and it seemed a most excellent plan4 ,we look at it in another way1 said the kindergartner1 smiling4 ,you see1 work is really the great panacea1 the best thing in the world4 ,we are always trying to train the children to a love of industry and helpful occupation2 so we give work as a reward1 and take it away as a punishment4 ,we pass into the sunny upper hall1 and find some children surrounding a large sand-table4 ,the exercise is just finished1 and we gaze upon a miniature representation of the ,cliff ,house embankment and curving road1 a section of beach with people standing 7wooden ladies and gentlemen from a ,noah's ,ark71 a section of ocean1 and a perfect ,seal ,rock made of clay4 ,run down-stairs1 ,timmy1 please1 and ask ,miss ,ellen if the seals are ready4 444 ,timmy flies4444 ,presently the babies troop up1 each carrying a precious seal extended on two tiny hands or reposing in apron4 ,they are all bursting with importance4444 ,of course1 the small ,jonah of the flock tumbles up the stairs1 bumps his nose1 and breaks his treasure4444 ,there is an agonized wail4444 ,i bust my seal6444 ,some one springs to the rescue4444 ,the seal is patched1 tears are dried1 and harmony is restored4444 ,the animals are piled on the rocks in realistic confusion1 and another class comes out with twenty-five paper fishes to be arranged in the waves of sand4 ,later on1 the sound of a piano invites us to witness the kindergarten play-time4 ,through kindergarten play the child comes to know the external world1 the physical qualities of the objects which surround him1 their motions1 actions1 and reactions upon each other1 and the relations of these phenomena to himself2 a knowledge which forms the basis of that which will be his permanent stock in life4 ,the child's fancy is healthily fed by images from outer life1 and his curiosity by new glimpses of knowledge from the world around him4 ,there are plays and plays6 ,the ordinary unguided games of childhood are not to be confounded for an instant with the genuine kindergarten plays1 which have a far deeper significance than is apparent to the superficial observer4 ,take the simplest circle game2 it illustrates the whole duty of a good citizen in a republic4 ,anybody can spoil it1 yet nobody can play it alone2 anybody can hinder its success1 yet no one can get credit for making it succeed4 ,the play is over2 the children march back to their seats1 and settle themselves to another period of work1 which will last until noon4 ,we watch the bright faces1 cheerful1 friendly chatter1 the busy figures hovering over pleasant tasks1 and feel that it has been good to pass a morning in this republic of childhood4 ,i have given you but a tithe of the whole argument1 the veriest bird's-eye view2 neither is it romance2 it is simple truth2 and1 that being the case1 how can we afford to keep ,froebel and his wonderful influence on childhood out of a system of free education which has for its aim the development of a free1 useful1 liberty-loving1 self-governing people8 ,it is too great a factor to be disregarded1 and the coming years will prove it so2 for the value of such schools is no longer a matter of theory2 they have been tested by experience1 and have won favor wherever they have been given a fair trial ,but how important a work they have to do in our scheme of public education is clear only when we consider the conditions which our public schools must meet nowadays4 ,on the theory upon which the state undertakes the education of its youth at all--the necessity of preparing them for intelligent citizenship--a community might better economize1 if economize it must1 anywhere else than on the beginning4 ,an enormous immigrant population is pressing upon us4 ,the kindergarten reaches this class with great power1 and increases the insufficient education within the reach of the children who must leave school for work at the age of thirteen or fourteen4 ,it increases it1 too1 by a kind of training which the child gets from no other schooling1 and brings him under influences which are no small addition to the sum total of good in his life4 ,the entire pedagogical world watches with interest the educational awakening of which the kindergarten has been the dawn4 ,if people really want to make the experiment1 if parents and tax-payers are anxious to have for their younger children what seems so beneficent a training1 then let them accept no compromises1 but1 after taking the children at a proper age1 see to it that they get pure kindergarten1 true kindergarten1 and nothing but kindergarten till they enter the primary school4 ,then they will be prepared for study1 and begin it with infinite zest1 because they comprehend its meaning4 ,having had that beautiful beginning1 every later step will seem glad to the child2 he will not see knowledge through a glass darkly1 but face to face1 in her most charming aspect4 ,,other ,,people',s ,,children ,where is thy brother ,abel8 ,we will suppose1 for the sake of argument1 that the rights of our own children are secured2 but though such security betokens an admirable state of affairs1 it does not cover the whole ground2 there are always the other people's children4 ,the still small voice is forever saying1 ,where is thy brother ,abel8 ,there are many matters to be settled with regard to this brother ,abel1 and we differ considerably as to the exact degree of our responsibility towards him4 ,some people believe in giving him the full privileges of brotherhood1 in sharing alike with him in every particular1 and others insist that he is no brother of theirs at all4 ,let the nationalists and socialists1 and all the other reformers1 decide this vexed question as best they can1 particularly with regard to the grown-up ,abels4 ,meanwhile1 there are a few sweet and wholesome services we can render to the brother ,abels who are not big enough to be nationalists and socialists1 nor strong enough to fight for their own rights4 ,among these kindly offices to be rendered1 these practical agencies for making ,abel a happy1 self-helpful1 and consequently a better little brother1 we may surely count the free kindergarten4 ,my mind convinces me that the kindergarten idea is true2 not a perfect thing as yet1 but something on the road to perfection1 something full of vitality and power to grow2 and my heart tells me that there is no more beautiful or encouraging work in the universe than this of taking hold of the unclaimed babies and giving them a bit of motherliness to remember4 ,the ,free ,kindergarten is the mother of the motherless1 the father of the fatherless2 it is the great clean broom that sweeps the streets of its parentless or worse than parentless children1 to the increased comfort of the children1 and to the prodigious advantage of the street4 ,we are very much interested in the cleaning of city streets1 and well we may be2 but up to this day a larger number of men and women have concerned themselves actively about sweeping them of dust and dirt than of sweeping them free of these children4 ,if dirt is misplaced matter1 then what do you call a child who sits eternally on the curbstones and in the gutters of our tenement-house districts8 ,i believe that since the great ,teacher of humanity spoke those simple words of eternal tenderness that voiced the mother side of the divine nature1--,suffer little children to come unto me1 and forbid them not1--,i believe that nothing more heartfelt1 more effectual1 has come ringing down to us through the centuries than ,froebel's inspired and inspiring call1 ,come6 let us live with the children6 ,this work pays1 in the best and the highest sense as well as the most practical4 ,it is true1 the kindergartner has the child in her care but three or four hours a day2 it is true1 in most instances1 that the home influences are all against her2 it is true that the very people for whom she is working do not always appreciate her efforts2 it is true that in many cases the child has been born wrong1 and to accomplish any radical reform she ought to have begun with his grandfather2 it is true she makes failures now and then1 and has to leave the sorry task seemingly unperformed1 giving into the mighty hand of ,one who bringeth order out of chaos that which her finite strength has failed to compass4 ,she hears discouraging words sometimes1 but they do not make a profound impression1 when she sees the weary yet beautiful days go by1 bringing with them hourly rewards greater than speech can testify6 ,she sees homes changing slowly but surely under her quiet influence1 and that of those home missionaries1 the children themselves2 she gets love in full measure where she least expected so radiant a flower to bloom2 she receives gratitude from some parents far beyond what she is conscious of deserving2 she sees the ancient and respectable dirt-devil being driven from many of the homes where he has reigned supreme for years2 she sees brutal punishments giving place to sweeter methods and kinder treatment2 and she is too happy and too grateful1 for these and more encouragements1 to be disheartened by any cynical dissertations on the determination of the world to go wrong and the impossibility of preventing it4 ,it is easier1 in my opinion1 to raise money for1 and interest the general man or woman in1 the free kindergarten than in any other single charity4 ,it is always comparatively easy to convince people of a truth1 but it is much easier to convince them of some truths than of others4 ,if you wish to found a library1 build a hospital1 establish a diet-kitchen1 open a bureau for woman's work1 you are obliged to argue more or less2 but if you want money for neglected children1 you have generally only to state the case4 ,everybody agrees in the obvious propositions1 ,an ounce of prevention--,as the twig is bent--,the child is father to the man--,train up a child--,a stitch in time--,prevention is better than cure--,where the lambs go the flocks will follow--,it is easier to form than to reform1 and so on ad infinitum--proverbs multiply4 ,the advantages of preventive work are so palpable that as soon as you broach the matter you ought to find your case proved and judgment awarded to the plaintiff1 before you open your lips to plead4 ,the whole matter is crystal clear2 for happily1 where the protection of children is concerned1 there is not any free-trade side to the argument4 ,we need the public kindergarten educationally as the vestibule to our school work4 ,we need it as a philanthropic agent1 leading the child gently into right habits of thought1 speech1 and action from the beginning4 ,we need it to help in the absorption and amalgamation of our foreign element2 for the social training1 the opportunity for coperation1 and the purely republican form of government in the kindergarten make it of great value in the development of the citizen-virtues1 as well as those of the individual4 ,i cannot help thinking that if this side of ,froebel's educational idea were more insisted on throughout our common school system1 we should be making better citizens and no worse scholars4 ,if we believe in the kindergarten1 if we wish it to become a part of our educational system1 we have only to let that belief--that desire--crystallize into action2 but we must not leave it for somebody else to do4 ,it is clearly every mother's business and father's business1--spinsters and bachelors are not exempt1 for they know not in what hour they may be snatched from sweet liberty1 and delivered into sweeter slavery4 ,it is a lawyer's business1 for though it will make the world better1 it will not do it soon enough to lessen litigation in his time4 ,it is surely the doctor's business1 and the minister's1 and that of the business man4 ,it is in fact everybody's business4 ,the beauty of this kindergarten subject is its kaleidoscopic character2 it presents1 like all truth1 so many sides that you can give every one that which he likes or is fitted to receive4 ,take the aggressively self-made man who thinks our general scheme of education unprofitable1--show him the kindergarten plan of manual training4 ,he rubs his hands4 ,ah6 that's common sense1 he says4 ,i don't believe in your colleges--,i never went to college2 you may count on me4 ,give the man of esthetic taste an idea of what the kindergarten does in developing the sense of beauty2 show him in what way it is a primary art school4 ,explain to the musician your feeling about the influence of music2 show the physical-culture people that in the kindergarten the body has an equal chance with mind and heart4 ,tell the great-hearted man some sad incident related to you by one of your kindergartners1 and as soon as he can see through his tears1 show him your subscription book4 ,give the woman who cannot reason 7and there are such7 an opportunity to feel4 ,there is more than one way of imbibing truth1 fortunately1 and the brain is not the only avenue to knowledge4 ,finally1 take the utter skeptic into the kindergarten and let the children convert him4 ,it commonly is a him by the way4 ,the mother-heart of the universe is generally sound on this subject4 ,but getting money and opening kindergartens are not the only cares of a ,kindergarten ,association4 ,at least there are other grave responsibilities which no other organization is so well fitted to assume4 ,these are the persistent working upon school boards until they adopt the kindergarten1 and1 much more delicate and difficult1 the protection of its interests after it is adopted2 the opening of kindergartens in orphanages and refuges where they prove the most blessed instrumentality for good2 the spreading of such clear knowledge and intelligent insight into the kindergarten as shall prevent it from deterioration2 the insistence upon kindergartners properly trained by properly qualified training teachers2 the gentle mothering and inspiring and helping those kindergartners to realize their fair ideals 7for ,froebel's method is a growing thing1 and she who does not grow with it is a hopeless failure72 the proper equipment and furnishing of class-rooms so that the public may have good object-lessons before its eyes2 the insistence upon the ultimate ideals of the method as well as upon details and technicalities1--that is1 showing people its soul instead of forever rattling its dry bones4 ,and when all is said and done1 the heaviest of the work falls upon the kindergartner4 ,that is why ,i am convinced that we should do everything that sympathy and honor and money can do to exalt the office1 so that women of birth1 breeding1 culture1 and genius shall gravitate to it4 ,the kindergartner it is who1 living with the children1 can make her work an integral part of the neighborhood1 the centre of its best life4 ,she it is1 often1 who must hold husband to wife1 and parent to child2 she it is after all who must interpret the aims of the ,association1 and translate its noble theories into practice4 7,ay6 and there's the rub47 ,she it is1 who must harmonize great ideal principles with real and sometimes sorry conditions4 ,a ,kindergarten ,association stands for certain things before the community4 ,it is the kindergartner alone who can prove the truth1 who can substantiate the argument1 who can show the facts4 ,there is no more difficult vocation in the universe1 and no more honorable or sacred one4 ,if a kindergartner is looked upon1 or paid1 or treated as a nursery maid1 her ranks will gradually be recruited from that source4 ,the ideal teacher of little children is not born4 ,we have to struggle on as best we can1 without her4 ,she would be born if we knew how to conceive her1 how to cherish her4 ,she needs the strength of ,vulcan and the delicacy of ,ariel2 she needs a child's heart1 a woman's heart1 a mother's heart1 in one2 she needs clear judgment and ready sympathy1 strength of will1 equal elasticity1 keen insight1 oversight2 the buoyancy of hope1 the serenity of faith1 the tenderness of patience4 ,the hope of the world lies in the children4 ,when we are better mothers1 when men are better fathers1 there will be better children and a better world4 ,the sooner we feel the value of beginnings1 the sooner we realize that we can put bunglers and botchers anywhere else better than in nursery1 kindergarten1 or primary school 7there are no three places in the universe so big with ,fate71 the sooner we shall arrive at better results4 ,i am afraid it is chiefly women's work4 ,of course men can be useful in many little ways2 such as giving money and getting other people to give it1 in influencing legislation1 interviewing school boards1 securing buildings1 presiding over meetings1 and giving a general air of strength and solidity to the undertaking4 ,but the chief plotting and planning and working out of details must be done by women4 ,the male genius of humanity begets the ideas of which each century has need 7at least it is so said1 and ,i have never had the courage to deny it or the time to look it up72 but the female genius1 ,i am sure1 has to work them out1 and to help is to do the work of the world4 ,if one can give money1 if only a single subscription1 let her give it2 if she can give time1 let her give that2 if she has no time for absolute work1 perhaps she has time for the right word spoken in due season2 failing all else1 there is no woman alive1 worthy the name1 who cannot give a generous heartthrob1 a warm hand-clasp1 a sunny1 helpful smile1 a ready tear1 to a cause that concerns itself with childhood1 as a thank-offering for her own children1 a pledge for those the hidden future may bring her1 or a consolation for empty arms4 ,there is always time to do the thing that ought to be1 that must be done1 and for that matter who shall fix the limit to our powers of helpfulness8 ,it is the unused pump that wheezes4 ,if our bounty be dry1 cross1 and reluctant1 it is because we do not continually summon and draw it out4 ,but if1 like the patriarch ,jacob's1 our well is deep1 it cannot be exhausted4 ,while we draw upon it1 it draws upon the unspent springs1 the hill-sides1 the clouds1 the air1 and the sea2 and the great source of power must itself suspend and be bankrupt before ours can fail4 ,the kindergarten is not for the poor child alone1 a charity2 neither is it for the rich child alone1 a luxury1 corrective1 or antidote2 but the ideas of which it tries to be the expression are the proper atmosphere for every child4 ,it is a promise of health1 happiness1 and usefulness to many an unfortunate little waif1 whose earthly inheritance is utter blackness1 and whose moral blight can be outgrown and succeeded by a development of intelligence and love of virtue4 ,the child of poverty and vice has still within him1 however overlaid by the sins of ancestry1 a germ of good that is capable of growth1 if reached in time4 ,let us stretch out a tender strong hand1 and touching that poor germ of good lifting its feeble head in a wilderness of evil1 help it to live and thrive and grow6