n
everything.

You draw a deep breath. This is a _real_ kindergarten, and it is like
a little piece of the millennium. "Everything is so very pretty and
charming," says the visitor. Yes, so it is. But all this color,
beauty, grace, symmetry, daintiness, delicacy, and refinement, though
it seems to address and develop the aesthetic side of the child's
nature, has in reality a very profound ethical significance. We have
all seen the preternatural virtue of the child who wears her best
dress, hat, and shoes on the same august occasion. Children are tidier
and more careful in a dainty, well-kept room. They treat pretty
materials more respectfully than ugly ones. They are inclined to be
ashamed, at least in a slight degree, of uncleanliness, vulgarity,
and brutality, when they see them in broad contrast with beauty and
harmony and order. For the most part, they try "to live up to" the
place in which they find themselves. There is some connection between
manners and morals. It is very elusive and, perhaps, not very deep;
but it exists. Vice does not flourish alike in all conditions and
localities, by any means. An ignorant negro was overheard praying,
"Let me so lib dat when I die I may _hab manners_, dat I may know what
to say when I see my heabenly Lord!" Well, I dare say we shall need
good manners as well as good morals in heaven; and the constant
cultivation of the one from right motives might give us an unexpected
impetus toward the other. If the systematic development of the sense
of beauty and order has an ethical significance, so has the happy
atmosphere of the kindergarten an influence in the same direction.

I have known one or two "solid men" and one or two predestinate
spinsters who said that they didn't believe children could accomplish
anything in the kindergarten, because they had too good a time. There
is something uniquely vicious about people who care nothing for
children's happiness. That sense of the solemnity of mortal conditions
which has been indelibly impressed upon us by our Puritan ancestors
comes soon enough, Heaven knows! Meanwhile, a happy childhood is an
unspeakably precious memory. We look back upon it and refresh our
tired hearts with the vision when experience has cast a shadow over
the full joy of living.

The sunshiny atmosphere of a good kindergarten gives the young human
plants an impulse toward eager, vigorous growth. Love's warmth
surrounds them on every side, wooing their sweetest p