If a
kindergartner is looked upon, or paid, or treated as a nursery maid,
her ranks will gradually be recruited from that source. The ideal
teacher of little children is not born. We have to struggle on as best
we can, without her. She would be born if we knew how to conceive her,
how to cherish her. She needs the strength of Vulcan and the delicacy
of Ariel; she needs a child's heart, a woman's heart, a mother's
heart, in one; she needs clear judgment and ready sympathy, strength
of will, equal elasticity, keen insight, oversight; the buoyancy of
hope, the serenity of faith, the tenderness of patience. "The hope of
the world lies in the children." When we are better mothers, when men
are better fathers, there will be better children and a better world.
The sooner we feel the value of beginnings, the sooner we realize that
we can put bunglers and botchers anywhere else better than in nursery,
kindergarten, or primary school (there are no three places in the
universe so "big with Fate"), the sooner we shall arrive at better
results.
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