ere early days. The kindergarten theory of education was on trial
for its very life; the fame of Pestalozzi and Froebel seemed to my
youthful vision to be in my keeping, and I had all the ardor of a
neophyte. I simply stepped into a cockle-shell and put out into an
unknown ocean, where all manner of derelicts needed help and succor. The
ocean was a life of which I had heretofore known nothing; miserable,
overburdened, and sometimes criminal.

My cockle-shell managed to escape shipwreck, and took its frail place
among the other craft that sailed in its company. I hardly saw or felt
the safety of the harbor or the shore for three years, the three years
out of my whole life the most wearying, the most heart-searching, the
most discouraging, the most inspiring; also, I dare say, the best worth
living.

"Full blast," the Corporal's own expression, exactly described the
setting out of the cockle-shell; that is, the eventful Monday morning
when the doors of the first free kindergarten west of the Rockies threw
open its doors.

The neighborhood was enthusiastic in presenting its offspring at the
altar of educational experiment, and we might have enrolled a hundred
children had there been room. I was to have no assistant and we had
provided seats only for forty-five, which prohibited a list of more than
fifty at the outside. A convert to any inspiring idea being anxious to
immolate herself on the first altar which comes in the path of duty, I
carefully selected the children best calculated to show to the amazed
public the regenerating effects of the kindergarten method, and as a
whole they were unsurpassed specimens of the class we hoped to benefit.

Of the forty who were accepted the first morning, thirty appeared to be
either indifferent or willing victims, while ten were quite the reverse.
These screamed if the maternal hand were withdrawn, bawled if their hats
were taken away, and bellowed if they were asked to sit down. This
rebellion led to their being removed to the hall by their mothers, who
spanked them vigorously every few minutes and returned them to me each
time in a more unconquered state, with their lung power quite unimpaired
and their views of the New Education still vague and distorted. As the
mothers were uniformly ladies with ruffled hair, snapping eyes, high
color and short temper, I could not understand the childrens' fear of
me, a mild young thing "in white"--as the Corporal would say--but they
evidentl