It is easier, in my opinion, to raise money for, and interest the general man or woman in, the free kindergarten than in any other single charity.  It is always comparatively easy to convince people of a truth, but it is much easier to convince them of some truths than of others.  If you wish to found a library, build a hospital, establish a diet-kitchen, open a bureau for woman’s work, you are obliged to argue more or less; but if you want money for neglected children, you have generally only to state the case.  Everybody agrees in the obvious propositions, “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 reform,” and so on ad infinitum—­proverbs multiply.  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 plaintiff, before you open your lips to plead.

The whole matter is crystal clear; for happily, where the protection of children is concerned, there is not any free-trade side to the argument.  We need the public kindergarten educationally as the vestibule to our school work.  We need it as a philanthropic agent, leading the child gently into right habits of thought, speech, and action from the beginning.  We need it to help in the absorption and amalgamation of our foreign element; for the social training, the opportunity for cooeperation, and the purely republican form of government in the kindergarten make it of great value in the development of the citizen-virtues, as well as those of the individual.

I cannot help thinking that if this side of Froebel’s educational idea were more insisted on throughout our common school system, we should be making better citizens and no worse scholars.

If we believe in the kindergarten, if we wish it to become a part of our educational system, we have only to let that belief—­that desire—­crystallize into action; but we must not leave it for somebody else to do.

It is clearly every mother’s business and father’s business,—­spinsters and bachelors are not exempt, for they know not in what hour they may be snatched from sweet liberty, and delivered into sweeter slavery.  It is a lawyer’s business, for though it will make the world better, it will not do it soon enough to lessen litigation in his time.  It is surely the doctor’s business, and the minister’s, and that of the business man.  It is in fact everybody’s business.

The beauty of this kindergarten subject is its kaleidoscopic character; it presents, like all truth, so many sides that you can give every one that which he likes or is fitted to receive.  Take the aggressively self-made man who thinks our general scheme of education unprofitable,—­show him the kindergarten plan of manual training.  He rubs his hands.  “Ah! that’s common sense,” he says.  “I don’t believe in your colleges—­I never went to college; you may count on me.”