. Nicholas says, in discussing this matter of
charities, and the various means of effecting a radical cure of
pauperism, rather than its continual alleviation: "If you read the
parable of the Sower, I think that you will find that soil is quite as
necessary as seed--indeed, that the seed is thrown away unless a
soil is prepared in advance.... I believe in religion, but before I
undertake to plant it, I would like something to plant it in. The
sowers are too few, and the seed is too precious to be thrown away and
lost among the thorns and stones."

Last, but by no means least, the admirable physical culture that goes
on in the kindergarten is all in the right direction. Physiologists
know as much about morality as ministers of the gospel. The vices
which drag men and women into crime spring as often from unhealthy
bodies as from weak wills and callous consciences. Vile fancies and
sensual appetites grow stronger and more terrible when a feeble
physique and low vitality offer no opposing force. Deadly vices are
nourished in the weak, diseased bodies that are penned, day after day,
in filthy, crowded tenements of great cities. If we could withdraw
every three-year-old child from these physically enfeebling and
morally brutalizing influences, and give them three or four hours a
day of sunshine, fresh air, and healthy physical exercise, we should
be doing humanity an inestimable service, even if we attempted nothing
more.

I have tried, as briefly as I might in justice to the subject, to
emphasize the following points:--

I. That we must act up to our convictions with regard to the value of
preventive work. If we are ever obliged to choose, let us save the
children.

II. That the relation of the kindergarten to social reform is simply
that, as a plan of education, it offers us valuable suggestions in
regard to the mental, moral, and physical culture of children, which,
in view of certain crying evils of the day, we should do well to
follow.

The essential features of the kindergarten which bear a special
relation to the subject are as follows:--

1. The symmetrical development of the child's powers, considering him
neither as all mind, all soul, nor all body; but as a creature capable
of devout feeling, clear thinking, noble doing.

2. The attempt to make so-called "moral culture" a little less
immoral; the rational method of discipline, looking to the growth of
moral, self-directing power in the child,--the only p