The children pass out of their seats to the
cheerful sound of music, and are presently joining in an ideal sort of
game, where, in place of the mawkish sentimentality of "Sally Walker,"
of obnoxious memory, we see all sorts of healthful, poetic, childlike
fancies woven into song. Rudeness is, for the most part, banished. The
little human butterflies and bees and birds flit hither and thither
in the circle; the make-believe trees hold up their branches, and the
flowers their cups; and everybody seems merry and content. As they
pass out the door, good-bys and bows and kisses are wafted backward
into the room; for the manners of polite society are observed in
everything.
You draw a deep breath. This is a _real_ kindergarten, and it is like
a little piece of the millennium. "Everything is so very pretty and
charming," says the visitor. Yes, so it is. But all this color,
beauty, grace, symmetry, daintiness, delicacy, and refinement, though
it seems to address and develop the aesthetic side of the child's
nature, has in reality a very profound ethical significance.
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