Here, then, is an aim most plainly stated, “higher appreciation of nature, music, poetry and art,” and if we adopt it, we must make sure that we start on a road leading to that end.

To Kindergarten children, apart from movement, rhythm comes first in nursery rhymes, and if we honestly follow the methods of the mother we shall not teach these, but say or sing them over and over again, letting the children select their favourites and join in when and where they like.  This is the true Babies’ Opera, as Walter Crane justly names an illustrated collection.  Froebel’s Mother Songs, though containing a deal of sound wisdom in its mottoes and explanations, is an annotated, expurgated, and decidedly pedantic version of the nursery rhymes of his own country.  That these should ever have been introduced to our children arose from the fact that the first Kindergarten teachers, being foreigners, did not know our own home-grown productions.  Long since we have shaken off the foreign product, in favour of our own “Sing a Song of Sixpence,” “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and their refreshingly cheerful compeers.  Froebel’s book suggests songs to suit all subjects and all frames of mind—­the wind, the moon, and stars, the farm with its cows and sheep, its hens and chickens, the baker and carpenter, fish in the brook and birds in nests, the garden and the Christmas fair.

We can supply good verses for all these if we take pains to search, and if we eschew ignorant and unpoetic modern doggerel as we eschew poison.  Besides the nursery rhymes, we have Stevenson, with his “Wind,” “Shadow,” and “Swing,” Christina Rossetti’s “Wrens and Robins,” her “Rainbow Verses” and “Brownie, Brownie, let down your milk, White as swansdown, smooth as silk.”  There are many others, and a recent charming addition to our stock is “Chimneys and Fairies,” by Rose Fyleman.  One thing we should not neglect, and that is the child’s sense of humour.  For the very young this is probably satisfied by the cow that jumps over the moon, the dish that runs after the spoon, Jill tumbling after Jack, and Miss Muffet running away from the spider.  But older children much enjoy nonsense verses by Lewis Carroll or by Lear, and “John Gilpin” is another favourite.

It is a mistake to keep strictly within the limits of a child’s understanding of the words.  What we want here, as in the realm of Nature, is joy and delight, the delight that comes from musical words and rhythm, as well as from the pictures that may be called up.  Even a child of four can enjoy the poetry of the Psalms without asking for much understanding.