Let the nationalists and socialists, and all the other reformers,
decide this vexed question as best they can, particularly with
regard to the "grown-up" Abels. Meanwhile, there are a few sweet and
wholesome services we can render to the brother Abels who are not big
enough to be nationalists and socialists, nor strong enough to fight
for their own rights.
Among these kindly offices to be rendered, these practical agencies
for making Abel a happy, self-helpful, and consequently a better
little brother, we may surely count the free kindergarten.
My mind convinces me that the kindergarten idea is true; not a perfect
thing as yet, but something on the road to perfection, something full
of vitality and power to grow; and my heart tells me that there is no
more beautiful or encouraging work in the universe than this of taking
hold of the unclaimed babies and giving them a bit of motherliness to
remember. The Free Kindergarten is the mother of the motherless, the
father of the fatherless; it is the great clean broom that sweeps the
streets of its parentless or worse than parentless children, to the
increased comfort of the children, and to the prodigious advantage of
the street.
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