I have given you but a tithe of the whole argument, the veriest bird’s-eye view; neither is it romance; it is simple truth; and, that being the case, 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 free, useful, liberty-loving, self-governing people?  It is too great a factor to be disregarded, and the coming years will prove it so; for the value of such schools is no longer a matter of theory; they have been tested by experience, 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 nowadays.

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 economize, if economize it must, anywhere else than on the beginning.  An enormous immigrant population is pressing upon us.  The kindergarten reaches this class with great power, and increases the insufficient education within the reach of the children who must leave school for work at the age of thirteen or fourteen.  It increases it, too, by a kind of training which the child gets from no other schooling, and brings him under influences which are no small addition to the sum total of good in his life.

The entire pedagogical world watches with interest the educational awakening of which the kindergarten has been the dawn.  If people really want to make the experiment, if parents and tax-payers are anxious to have for their younger children what seems so beneficent a training, then let them accept no compromises, but, after taking the children at a proper age, see to it that they get pure kindergarten, true kindergarten, and nothing but kindergarten till they enter the primary school.  Then they will be prepared for study, and begin it with infinite zest, because they comprehend its meaning.  Having had that beautiful beginning, every later step will seem glad to the child; he will not see knowledge “through a glass darkly, but face to face,” in her most charming aspect.

OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN

“Where is thy brother Abel?”

We will suppose, for the sake of argument, that the rights of our own children are secured; but though such security betokens an admirable state of affairs, it does not cover the whole ground; there are always the “other people’s children.”  The still small voice is forever saying, “Where is thy brother Abel?”

There are many matters to be settled with regard to this brother Abel, and we differ considerably as to the exact degree of our responsibility towards him.  Some people believe in giving him the full privileges of brotherhood, in sharing alike with him in every particular, and others insist that he is no brother of theirs at all.  Let the nationalists and socialists, and all the other reformers, decide this vexed question as best they can, particularly with regard to the “grown-up” Abels.  Meanwhile, there are a few sweet and wholesome services we can render to the brother Abels who are not big enough to be nationalists and socialists, nor strong enough to fight for their own rights.