We need the public kindergarten educationally as the
vestibule to our school work. We need it as a philanthropic agent,
leading the child gently into right habits of thought, speech, and
action from the beginning. We need it to help in the absorption and
amalgamation of our foreign element; for the social training, the
opportunity for cooeperation, and the purely republican form of
government in the kindergarten make it of great value in the
development of the citizen-virtues, as well as those of the
individual.
I cannot help thinking that if this side of Froebel's educational idea
were more insisted on throughout our common school system, we should
be making better citizens and no worse scholars.
If we believe in the kindergarten, if we wish it to become a part
of our educational system, we have only to let that belief--that
desire--crystallize into action; but we must not leave it for somebody
else to do.
It is clearly every mother's business and father's
business,--spinsters and bachelors are not exempt, for they know not
in what hour they may be snatched from sweet liberty, and delivered
into sweeter slavery.
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