ational
awakening of which the kindergarten has been the dawn. If people
really want to make the experiment, if parents and tax-payers are
anxious to have for their younger children what seems so beneficent a
training, then let them accept no compromises, but, after taking the
children at a proper age, see to it that they get pure kindergarten,
true kindergarten, and _nothing_ but kindergarten till they enter the
primary school. Then they will be prepared for study, and begin it
with infinite zest, because they comprehend its meaning. Having had
that beautiful beginning, every later step will seem glad to the
child; he will not see knowledge "through a glass darkly, but face to
face," in her most charming aspect.

OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN

"Where is thy brother Abel?"

We will suppose, for the sake of argument, that the rights of our own
children are secured; but though such security betokens an admirable
state of affairs, it does not cover the whole ground; there are always
the "other people's children." The still small voice is forever
saying, "Where is thy brother Abel?"

There are many matters to be settled with regard to this brother
Abel, and we differ considerably as to the exact degree of our
responsibility towards him. Some people believe in giving him the
full privileges of brotherhood, in sharing alike with him in every
particular, and others insist that he is no brother of theirs at all.
Let the nationalists and socialists, and all the other reformers,
decide this vexed question as best they can, particularly with
regard to the "grown-up" Abels. Meanwhile, there are a few sweet and
wholesome services we can render to the brother Abels who are not big
enough to be nationalists and socialists, nor strong enough to fight
for their own rights.

Among these kindly offices to be rendered, these practical agencies
for making Abel a happy, self-helpful, and consequently a better
little brother, we may surely count the free kindergarten.

My mind convinces me that the kindergarten idea is true; not a perfect
thing as yet, but something on the road to perfection, something full
of vitality and power to grow; and my heart tells me that there is no
more beautiful or encouraging work in the universe than this of taking
hold of the unclaimed babies and giving them a bit of motherliness to
remember. The Free Kindergarten is the mother of the motherless, the
father of the fatherless; it is the great clean bro