OME KINDERGARTEN SCHOLARS.

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A visitor to the school could see ten or twelve classes at various
stages on the high road of learning, each under the control of a capable
young Chinese woman, before the Kindergarten room is reached.

Here, with merry shouts, the sixteen babies are all keen to display the
glories of the dolls' house, and all anxious to sing their action songs,
show their plasticine modelling, paper-plaiting, and fancy drill; still
possessing the child's heart, and therefore fearless of criticism. Each
one covets the role of spokesman to relate the travelling adventures of
the doll, which spends but little time in the house and is constantly
undertaking long and difficult journeys. From this intrepid traveller
they have obtained most of their geographical information.

Long hours of work are the order of the day in a Chinese school, the
terms being short owing to the exigencies of the extreme climate. The
wheat harvest falls in June, and it is necessary that wives and
daughters should fulfil their obligations to the home during this busy
season.

The month of September brings the eagerly looked-for day when by cart,
donkey, litter, or even on foot, from north, south, east, and west,
the small travellers wend their way to Hwochow. The babies of the
Kindergarten not infrequently sit in the panniers, slung across a
donkey's back, or in baskets which a man will carry balanced on his
shoulder. Each party on arrival passes through the room where Mr. Gwo, a
capable deacon, sits at the receipt of custom, and thence to the
guest-room where a respectful bow is made to the missionaries and head
teacher.

The next visit is to the dispensary where Fragrant Incense, my head
assistant in this department, conducts a strict inquiry into personal,
family, and village health, and where newcomers are being vaccinated.

"I hear that your uncle has smallpox," may be the alarming accusation.

"It is not worth speaking of," answers Snowflake.

"Have you been to the house?"

"A few times," says the puzzled scholar, quite unable to trace the
connection between her uncle's attack of "heavenly blossoms" and our
unwillingness to admit her to the school court.

Once a girl has entered the school premises it is not to leave them
again for the period of the term, and all that is necessary to fulfil
the conditions of her life is supplied in this little world.

One of her first visits will be to the bank w