that all work is honorable," said the Directress to
me, "and our teachers are all _ladies_." The aim of the institution is
to develop healthfully and fully the children committed to its care,
and to prepare girls to be good mothers, Kindergarten teachers,
housekeepers, and servants. There is thus a Kindergarten proper, with
several departments; and a training-school with two grades, in one of
which young ladies are received who are preparing to be educators,
and in the other, girls to be trained for household work.

No distinction is made in receiving rich and poor. Having learned by
experience that the poor truly value only that for which they make
some return, the managers set a price upon everything, except help in
cases of sickness. In cases of extreme poverty some member of the
committee pays the dues; and in illness, appliances and comforts,
medicines, and the services of a trained nurse are furnished without
charge whenever there is need.

The Kindergarten had, at the time of my visit, over one hundred
children, between the ages of two and seven years. The price of
tuition is about twelve cents a month to the poor, and seventy-five
cents per month to those able to pay this larger sum. The children are
brought in the morning by the mothers or nurses, and taken away early
in the afternoon. They are divided into groups of about a dozen, under
supervision of the heads of the different departments, assisted by
those who are learning the system in the normal or training school.
Each group has, alternating with the others, garden-play and work, and
house-guidance and help.

We were first shown into a secluded walled garden-plot, covered only
with clean sand. The children are disciplined by freedom, as well as
healthful restraint. In this sand-garden they are free. With their
little wooden shovels and spoons, and with their hands, they revel in
the sand, as all healthy children do. They were no more abashed by our
presence than tamed and petted birdlings would be to feed from the
hand of those they had learned to love and trust.

In the next garden, radiant with spring sunshine, a lady was
surrounded by a group who were digging, planting, watering,--veteran
gardeners of three and a half years. They are not free, but must learn
obedience as well as gardening during the hour they spend here.
Pansies in bloom bordered the regular beds and trim walks, and some
were watering them from little water-pots. The stone wall ar