He looks upon the strange, new life with amazement, yet without
understanding. Finally, his mind becomes familiar in a mechanical
manner, ill-suited to the tastes of a child, with the work and
exercises of primary instruction, the consequence being, very often, a
feeble body and a stuffed mind, the stuffing having very little more
effect upon the intellect than it has upon the organism of a roast
turkey." The kindergarten can remedy these intellectual difficulties,
beside giving the child an impulse toward moral self-direction, and a
capacity for working out his original ideas in visible and permanent
form, which will make him almost a new creature. It can, by taking the
child in season, set the wheels in motion, rouse all his best, finest,
and highest instincts, the purest, noblest, and most vivifying powers
of which he is possessed.
There is a good deal of time spent in the kindergarten on the
cultivation of politeness and courtesy; and in the entirely social
atmosphere which is one of its principal features, the amenities of
polite society can be better practiced than elsewhere.
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