ng of
musical sounds and singing in association with others are for the
child, as for the adult, powerful influences in awakening sympathetic
emotion, and pleasure in associated action."

Who can see the kindergarten games, led by a teacher who has grown
into their spirit, and ever forget the joy of the spectacle? It brings
tears to the eyes of any woman who has ever been called mother,
or ever hopes to be; and I have seen more than one man retire
surreptitiously to wipe away his tears. Is it "that touch of nature
which makes the whole world kin"? Is it the perfect self-forgetfulness
of the children? Is it a touch of self-pity that the radiant visions
of our childhood days have been dispelled, and the years have brought
the "inevitable yoke"? Or is it the touching sight of so much
happiness contrasted with what we know the home life to be?

Sydney Smith says: "If you make children happy now, you will make them
happy twenty years hence by the memory of it;" and we know that virtue
kindles at the touch of this joy. "Selfishness, rudeness, and similar
weedy growths of school-life or of street-independence cannot grow in
such an atmosphere. For joy is as foreign to tumult and destruction,
to harshness and selfish disregard of others, as the serene, vernal
sky with its refreshing breezes is foreign to the uproar and terrors
of the hurricane."

For this kind of ideal play we are indebted to Friedrich Froebel, and
if he had left no other legacy to childhood, we should exalt him for
it.

If you are skeptical, let me beseech you to join the children in a
Free Kindergarten, and play with them. You will be convinced, not
through your head, perhaps, but through your heart. I remember
converting such a grim female once! You know Henry James says, "Some
women are unmarried by choice, and others by chance, but Olive
Chancellor was unmarried by every implication of her being." Now, this
predestinate spinster acquaintance of mine, well nigh spoiled by
years of school-teaching in the wrong spirit, was determined to think
kindergarten play simply a piece of nauseating frivolity. She tried
her best, but, kept in the circle with the children five successive
days, she relaxed so completely that it was with the utmost difficulty
that she kept herself from being a butterfly or a bird. It is always
so; no one can resist the unconscious happiness of children.

As for the good that comes to grown people from playing with children
in this j