athered and sorted shells and smooth glistening pebbles, and laid
them in rows and patterns? The mere handling of a great store of these
gave a Midas-like delight, and what primitive artistic pleasure we
felt as we arranged them according to the principle of repetition to
border our garden-beds or to inclose our miniature parks and
playgrounds.

The same joy is felt in plucking, arranging, and stringing rose-hips,
the seeds of the ailantus, the nasturtium, the pumpkin, or the
"cheeses" of the mallow and wild geranium.

Miscellaneous Materials.

It will commonly be found that the child enjoys tenfold more the
objects for point-work which he finds himself than the more perfect
school-materials. Imagine the joy, for instance, of a bevy of
kindergarten children set free on Pescadero Beach (California), and
allowed to ramble up and down its shining sands to pick up the
wonderful Pescadero pebbles. What colors of dull red and amber, of
pink and palest green, what opaline lights, and smooth, glimmering
surfaces! "Busy work" with such materials would be worth while
indeed,--yet easy to obtain as they are, they are almost never seen
in use.

Smooth, white pebbles, washed entirely clean and sorted according to
size, are not uncommonly seen in the kindergartens, however, and are
especially useful in the sand-table, and if these and the shining
cream-colored shells could be found by the children themselves, their
pleasure in them would be immensely increased. That this is true is
proved by the experience of many teachers with seed-work. One of our
own brood of kindergartners once had a birthday melon party for one of
her children. The melons were brought to the kindergarten room and
there divided, the small host serving his guests himself. Great
interest was immediately shown in the jet-black seeds of the
water-melon in contrast with the smaller light-colored seeds of the
musk-melon, and unanimous appeals were made to the kindergartner that
they might be saved and used for inventions. This was done, and they
were always called for afterwards in point-work, rather than the
beans, or vegetable and wooden lentils.

In those kindergartens where the seeds of all fruits are saved by the
children at lunch hour, it is also noted that the collection thus made
is always the object of universal interest and preference.

Use of the Gift.

One of the first uses of the point may be in following the outline of
some form of life whic