ittle men and women,
not realizing that the most perfect childhood is the best basis for
strong manhood.

Further, I have tried to show that Froebel's system gives us the only
rational beginning; but I confess frankly that to make it productive
of its vaunted results, it must be placed in the hands of thoroughly
trained kindergartners, fitted by nature and by education for their
most delicate, exacting, and sacred profession.

Now as to compromises. The question is frequently asked, Cannot
the best things of the kindergarten be introduced in the primary
departments of the public school? The best thing of kindergartening
is the kindergarten itself, and nothing else will do; it would be
necessary to make very material changes in the primary class which
is to include a kindergarten--changes that are demanded by radically
different methods.

The kindergarten should offer the child experience instead of
instruction; life instead of learning; practical child-life, a
miniature world, where he lives and grows, and learns and expands. No
primary teacher, were she Minerva herself, can work out Froebel's idea
successfully with sixty or seventy children under her sole care.

You will see for yourselves that this simple, natural, motherly
instruction of babyhood cannot be transplanted bodily into the primary
school, where the teacher has fifty or sixty children who are beyond
the two most fruitful years which the kindergarten demands. Besides,
the teachers of the lower grades cannot introduce more than an
infinitesimal number of kindergarten exercises, and at the same time
keep up their full routine of primary studies and exercises.

Any one who understands the double needs of the kindergarten and
primary school cannot fail to see this matter correctly, and as I
said before, we do not want a few kindergarten exercises, we want the
_kindergarten_. If teachers were all indoctrinated with the spirit of
Froebel's method, they would carry on its principles in dealing with
pupils of any age; but Froebel's kindergarten, pure and simple,
creates a place for children of four or five years, to begin their bit
of life-work; it is in no sense a school, nor must become so, or it
would lose its very essence and truest meaning.

Let me show you a kindergarten! It is no more interesting than a good
school, but I want you to see the essential points of difference:--

It is a golden morning, a rare one in a long, rainy winter. As we turn
int