Higher Law alone. It may be contrasted, in every particular, with the
old-fashioned school, which is an absolute monarchy, where the children
are subjected to a lower expediency, having for its prime end quietness,
or such order as has "reigned in Warsaw" since 1831.

But let us not be misunderstood. We are not of those who think that
children, in any condition whatever, will inevitably develop into beauty
and goodness. Human nature tends to revolve in a vicious circle, around
the individuality; and children must have over them, in the person of
a wise and careful teacher, a power which shall deal with them as God
deals with the mature, presenting the claims of sympathy and truth
whenever they presumptuously or unconsciously fall into selfishness. We
have the best conditions of moral culture in a company large enough for
the exacting disposition of the solitary child to be balanced by the
claims made by others on the common stock of enjoyment,--there being
a reasonable oversight of older persons, wide-awake to anticipate,
prevent, and adjust the rival pretensions which must always arise where
there are finite beings with infinite desires, while Reason, whose
proper object is God, is yet undeveloped.

Let the teacher always take for granted that the law of love is quick
within, whatever are appearances, and the better self will generally
respond. In proportion as the child is young and unsophisticated, will
be the certainty of the response to a teacher of simple faith:

"There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them,--who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth.

"And blest are they who in the main
This faith even now do entertain,
Live in the spirit of this creed,
Yet find another strength, according to their
need."

Such are the natural Kindergartners, who prevent disorder by employing
and entertaining children, so that they are kept in an accommodating and
loving mood by never being thrown on self-defence,--and when selfishness
is aroused, who check it by an appeal to sympathy, or Conscience, which
is the presentiment of reason, a fore-feeling of moral order, for whose
culture material order is indispensable.

But order must be kept by the child, not only unconsciously, but
intentionally. Order is the child of reason, and in turn cultivates the
intellectual principle. To bring out order on the physical plane, the
Kindergarten makes it a serious purpose