enting
transactions of merchandise and whose business it is to take a
proprietary bite out of each. He develops a perverted look at life, and
a bad bill of moral health. There is no exception to this, though he
conduct a weekly bible lesson for the young, even move his chair to a
church every seventh day.

The drama of the trade mind is yet to be written. It is a sordid story;
the figure at the last is in no way heroic. It would not be a popular
story if done well.

The time is not far off, except to those whose eyes are dim, when
countries will be Fatherlands in the true sense--in the sense of
realising that the real estate is not bounded land, vaulted gold, not
even electrified matter, but the youth of the land. Such is the treasure
of the Fatherland. The development of youth is the first work of man;
the highest ideal may be answered first hand. Also through the
development of the young, the father best puts on his own wisdom and
rectitude.

The ideal of education has already been reversed at the bottom. There is
pandemonium yet; there is colossal stupidity yet, but Order is coming
in. It would be well for all men meditatively to regard a kindergarten
in action. Here are children free in the midst of objects designed to
supply a great variety of attractions. There is that _hum_ in the room.
It is not dissonance. The child is encouraged to be himself and express
himself; never to impinge upon his neighbour's rights, but to lose
himself in the objects that draw him most deeply.

I have mentioned the man who caught the spiritual dream of all this, who
worked it out in life and books. One of his books was published nearly a
hundred years ago. It wasn't a book on kindergarten, but on the
education of man. I have not read this of Froebel's work. I wanted to do
these studies my own way, but I know from what I have seen of
kindergartens, and what teachers of kindergartens have told me, that the
work is true--that "The Education of Man" is a true book. Nor would it
have lived a hundred years otherwise.

The child is now sent to kindergarten and for a year is truly taught.
The process is not a filling of brain, but an encouragement of the
deeper powers, their organisation and direction. At the end of the year,
the child is sent into the first grade, where the barbaric process of
competitive education and brain-cramming is carried on as sincerely as
it was in Froebel's time.... A kindergarten teacher told me in that low