In the kindergarten, the physical, mental, and spiritual being is consciously addressed at one and the same time.  There is no “piece-work” tolerated.  The child is viewed in his threefold relations, as the child of Nature, the child of Man, and the child of God; there is to be no disregarding any one of these divinely appointed relations.  It endeavors with equal solicitude to instill correct and logical habits of thought, true and generous habits of feeling, and pure and lofty habits of action; and it asserts serenely that, if information cannot be gained in the right way, it would better not be gained at all.  It has no special hobby, unless you would call its eternal plea for the all-sided development of the child a hobby.

Somebody said lately that the kindergarten people had a certain stock of metaphysical statements to be aired on every occasion, and that they were over-fond of prating about the “being” of the child.  It would hardly seem as if too much could be said in favor of the symmetrical growth of the child’s nature.  These are not mere “silken phrases;” but, if any one dislikes them, let him take the good, honest, ringing charge of Colonel Parker, “Remember that the whole boy goes to school!”

Yes, the whole boy does go to school; but the whole boy is seldom educated after he gets there.  A fraction of him is attended to in the evening, however, and a fraction on Sunday.  He takes himself in hand on Saturdays and in vacation time, and accomplishes a good deal, notwithstanding the fact that his sight is a trifle impaired already, and his hearing grown a little dull, so that Dame Nature works at a disadvantage, and begins, doubtless, to dread boys who have enjoyed too much “schooling,” since it seems to leave them in a state of coma.

Our general scheme of education furthers mental development with considerable success.  The training of the hand is now being laboriously woven into it; but, even when that is accomplished, we shall still be working with imperfect aims, for the stress laid upon heart-culture is as yet in no way commensurate with its gravity.  We know, with that indolent, fruitless half-knowledge that passes for knowing, that “out of the heart are the issues of life.”  We feel, not with the white heat of absolute conviction, but placidly and indifferently, as becomes the dwellers in a world of change, that “conduct is three fourths of life;” but we do not crystallize this belief into action.  We “dream,” not “do” the “noble things.”  The kindergarten does not fence off a half hour each day for moral culture, but keeps it in view every moment of every day.  Yet it is never obtrusive; for the mental faculties are being addressed at the same time, and the body strengthened for its special work.

With the methods generally practiced in the family and school, I fail to see how we can expect any more delicate sense of right and wrong, any clearer realization of duty, any greater enlightenment of conscience, any higher conception of truth, than we now find in the world.  I care not what view you take of humanity, whether you have Calvinistic tendencies and believe in the total depravity of infants, or whether you are a disciple of Wordsworth and apostrophize the child as a