, all joy! We might count the
rest of the world well lost, could we ever be surrounded by such
blooming faces, such loving hearts, and such ready sympathy.

THE RELATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN TO SOCIAL REFORM

"New social and individual wants demand new solutions of the problem
of education."

"Social reform!" It is always rather an awe-striking phrase. It seems
as if one ought to be a philosopher, even to approach so august a
subject. The kindergarten--a simple unpretentious place, where a lot
of tiny children work and play together; a place into which if the
hard-headed man of business chanced to glance, and if he did not stay
long enough, or come often enough, would conclude that the children
were frittering away their time, particularly if that same good man of
business had weighed and measured and calculated so long that he had
lost the seeing eye and understanding heart.

Some years ago, a San Francisco kindergartner was threading her way
through a dirty alley, making friendly visits to the children of her
flock. As she lingered on a certain door-step, receiving the last
confidences of some weary woman's heart, she heard a loud but not
unfriendly voice ringing from an upper window of a tenement-house just
round the corner. "Clear things from under foot!" pealed the voice, in
stentorian accents. "The teacher o' the _Kids' Guards_ is comin' down
the street!"

"Eureka!" thought the teacher, with a smile. "There's a bit of
sympathetic translation for you! At last, the German word has been put
into the vernacular. The odd, foreign syllables have been taken to the
ignorant mother by the lisping child, and the _kindergartners_ have
become the _Kids' Guards!_ Heaven bless the rough translation,
colloquial as it is! No royal accolade could be dearer to its
recipients than this quaint, new christening!"

What has the kindergarten to do with social reform? What bearing have
its theory and practice upon the conduct of life?

A brass-buttoned guardian of the peace remarked to a gentleman on a
street-corner, "If we could open more kindergartens, sir, we could
almost shut up the penitentiaries, sir!" We heard the sentiment,
applauded it, and promptly printed it on the cover of three thousand
reports; but on calm reflection it appears like an exaggerated
statement. I am not sure that a kindergarten in every ward of every
city in America "would almost shut up the penitentiaries, sir!" The
most determined optimist is