veins. It is not so common for people to come together for advantages which exist only because they are mutual; and yet the latter is the only basis for true fellowship. If it is ever your privilege to be invited to a social occasion at a settlement, do not overlook it. You will find a new class of society at such a reception; you will find fresh topics for conversation and an exhilaration such as comes when traveling abroad among new surroundings. As the kindergarten movement, so that of the social settlement is creating a new strata in society, and it is far more than merely interesting to meet on a common social plane a boodle alderman, or your own laundress, or the barkeeper's daughter with her bridegroom.

As the chief reason for the existence of a social settlement is that of meeting the various needs of a community, its policy must necessarily be flexible and adjustable, ready for experiment and keen to recognize every avenue of assistance which is offered. The kindergarten movement, as many others, might gain great benefit by leaving to a remoter time the crystallization of its theories into a system, and by a more vigorous study of the immediate actual needs of child nature. This social settlement is daily proving that men want more Christianity in their daily lives. The kindergartner, as well as the social worker, needs more, not less, Christianity, and should systematically reject the temptation which argues that an indirect method will answer the same purpose of revealing the Christ. As the abolitionist surrendered his whole being to the great movement which appealed to his natural love for humanity, so the kindergartner must learn to look upon her work, not merely as a scientific profession but as a Christian movement, carrying with it all the requirements of self-renunciation attendant upon such. It will then become an easy task to cherish the weaker members of the profession, and every ef fort will be made to guard this family of workers against disintegration or deterioration, and then will come that potent recognition of all those unprecedented excellencies which rise to the surface of every expanding movement. The political economist proves conclusively that hard times are the result of some congestion in the economic system of the country. A perfect circulation and interchange of values is as essential to the vitality and usefulness of an educational body as of the body politic. If our kindergarten body is to fulfill its possibilities and normal activities, complete circulation must be maintained. Pestalozzi wrote in 1800 the following fable: "A king, who was standing alone under a lime tree, was struck by the beauty of its foliage, and exclaimed: 'Oh, noble tree; would that my subjects held to me as do your leaves to your branches! The tree answered him: 'I am forever carrying the sap of my roots to each of my leaves.'"

Like the social settler, the kindergartner must possess unlimited social resources, and in proportion to her sincere affection for the people of a given community will she be faithful to continue her work in the same locality for more than one or two years.

We do not hesitate to demand to-day of state legislatures state support of our kindergartens, and we heartily recommend to those in authority that the workers, including matrons, teachers, and superintendents of state institutions, shall be more or less familiar with the kindergarten method of handling their peculiar problems.

But greater than these signs of the expansion of our work is the growing appreciation among our number for the social profit accruing to lesser communities and smaller towns from a vital, earnest kindergartner, who makes herself a center for the children of the locality. Her influence does not stop at the schoolroom door, nor at the neighborhood dooryards; but it penetrates every human relationship in a community, touching parents, teachers, church workers and lay workers of all classes. She becomes a Christian socialist, and may well say with the good gray poet, Whitman:

Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity-
When I give, I give myself.

In these brave days, when our national committee of fifteen have substituted in place of the despised phase, "The three R's," that other phrase which appeals more readily to the heart, viz., "Humanity studies;" in this day of schoolroom art leagues, village improvement societies, the people's church, good government clubs, neighborhood guilds and civic federations, the social settlement, the kindergarten workers need no longer feel that they stand alone. The fraternal spirit ripens on all sides into labor unions and lodges, clubs and parties. The bricklayers and the joiners have each their brotherhood, their fraternity. The next logical step in the process of our kindergarten work is that of federation; nor must this be accomplished merely for purposes of professional protection or the concentration of power. It must stand on that broader platform of the mutual social interest, which alone will generate the neighborliness and the friendships essential to the life and growth of an organization, as well as of an individual.

"The Village Improvement Society" says: "The village must be something more than moral and beautiful. It must be beautiful that it may be worthy of the love that every home should inspire." "The People's Church" declares, that there are many in the church, as well as out of it, who need to learn that Christianity is neither a creed nor a ceremonial, but a life, vital, connected with the living Christ. The social settlement, as voiced by one of its eminent workers, makes the

statement before the world-"if we tell a man he is a son of God, we must go further and say, You are a brother man." The kindergarten says, in the words of the originator: "It takes the whole world of men and women loving each other to make up the perfect image and likeness of God."

THE WORK OF THE PESTALOZZI-FROBEL HAUS.

BY MRS. S. H. HARRIMAN, PROVIDENCE, R. I.

Anyone who has made a study of Fræbel's "Mother Play" will recall one picture which shows three or four little children peeping into a bird's nest, and watching with eager delight the young life therein. It is an experience in the life of a child which Froebel would emphasize, because through it the child may be led to an understanding of his family relations, may gain a deeper insight into the meaning of home life. It is hard for him to view fairly that of which he is a part; therefore, he must see the family relations, the home life pictured elsewhere-in this case, in a bird's nest. And we, as older children, know the value of stepping outside our own little sphere and looking at our work from another point of view. We realize that there is an inspiration which comes from seeing another's work, which often takes on a glow of the ideal, perhaps for the reason that we fail to see the hidden workings, which, undoubtedly to those most intimately concerned, are not without friction.

A year ago this summer it was my privilege to step outside my own work-outside the American work-and to catch a glimpse of the German kindergarten as seen in the Pestalozzi-Froebel Haus of Berlin. I think this work is generally acknowledged to be truer to Fræbel's ideas than any other work in Germany; perhaps for the reason that it is under the direction of a niece of Froebel, who as a young woman studied with him at Marienthal. From this view of the foreign work there came to me the lesson of the bird's nest-a deeper insight into my own life-work, a truer appreciation of Fræbel's aim; and as it was a great pleasure then to observe the work, it has been a great pleasure since to tell those interested what I saw and a great pleasure to address you to-day.

The Pestalozzi-Fræbel Haus is an institution whose aim is to advance the educational ideas of those two educators in honor of whom it is named. It is chiefly dependent for its support upon private benefactors, its chief patroness being the Empress Frederick,

very dear to the German people as the wife of the emperor whom they loved to call "Unser Fritz." The government, too, having satisfied itself as to the worth of the work, pays a small sum annually into the treasury. Each pupil in attendance also pays a small tuition fee, some at the rate of twelve and a half cents per week, which does not seem so small when we find one of the teachers in the training class, a lady of noble birth and a personal friend of the Empress Frederick, receiving a smaller salary than is usually paid an assistant in an American kindergarten.

It was on a warm June morning that we made our first visit to the Pestalozzi-Froebel Haus. Passing through the large, roomy hall we entered the rooms devoted to the kindergarten, but there was no suggestion of the American kindergarten. These rooms were small and dark, with scarcely a picture to brighten the dull bare walls. The furniture was of the crudest possible type. No tables with polished and checked surface; none of the little chairs which we provide for the use of Young America. In place of these were tables and benches of planks, roughly supported, and suggesting in their arrangement the old-fashioned schoolroom. All this, together with the total lack of sunshine, was almost depressing to eyes accustomed to the brightness which we deem necessary to kindergarten life; but as the children came in their round, rosy, German faces served as sunlight, and one forgot the bare walls as the kindergartners followed, so kind and motherly were the faces, so cheery and joyous the voices. As if by magic the room was furnished. There are about seventy children in the different departments, and these were assembled in the playroom for the morning exercises, which were very simple, consisting of a short prayer, repeated after Frau Richter (at that time acting as principal), followed by a hymn; the children standing in a compact body, instead of sitting in a ring, as is customary with us. After the exercises the children filed out, some to other rooms, some to the garden. We followed, and found the little ones playing in the sand garden, where on pleasant days they spent much of their time. Here was a sand garden indeed, shaded by trees; not the box which we dignify by that name. Here they could dig with their strong toy shovels; here they could transport the sand from place to place in their little carts. Passing through the sand garden we entered the real garden, which is the characteristic feature of the Pestalozzi-Froebel Haus-that which distinguishes it from the American work. Here an opportunity is given for the observation and care of plant and animal life. In one corner we saw a goat, honored above its fellow in being brought here as the subject for study during June. Her small stable was most comfortable, and as we approached was being made ready for

the day by a few of the older children under the supervision of a member of the training-class. Beyond was a tiny henhouse and rabbit cage, all cared for by the children. Correlation, the principle emphasized by educators of to-day, was here lived out by the children, for the grass cut by them from the lawn was given to the goat. Her milk was carried to the kindergarten, carefully skimmed at the proper time, churned into butter by the children, and eaten by them at lunch; while the children who had been helping in the indoor work by shelling peas were seen carrying the pods out for the goat's dinner. Surely a practical and clear demonstration of the law of interdependence between the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. In still another quarter children picked currants, taking them to the summer-house, where they were stemmed and later carefully and scientifically transformed into jelly, the children getting ready the small alcohol lamp, extracting the juice from the fruit, weighing the sugar, boiling, skimming, and testing, until at last is was poured into a glass ready to give to a sick playmate or beloved teacher.

But this practical work is only one aspect of the work. Returning to the building we found a class busy with gift work, building from the fourth gift a barn for the goat by night and fencing in a yard for his use by day; and in each yard was a tiny paper goat, which had been the occupation work of another class the previous day-for the carrying home of work, which we think so desirable, they look upon as undesirable, saving it for use in other classes. Passing on in our search for new ideas which might prove applicable and beneficial to our own work, we visited a room where the group work, the most interesting and characteristic feature of the indoor work, was being carried on.

As many numbers of the training class graduate from this school as nursery governesses it is an important part of their training that they be fitted to deal with children of different ages, To meet this need, these groups are formed by bringing children from different departments together and placing them in charge of a young woman whose aim it is to bring into the group an atmosphere of home life, and to keep the children happy and busy through interesting them in some simple home duty; in other words, to make the ordinary home duties a means of educational training for the children in that home. As we entered a family work basket seemed to be the center of interest. It was large, and full of such odds and ends as a family basket would naturally contain. The little ones rewound the spools neatly, while a boy was busy sorting needles and placing them neatly on a cushion. Another used the emery to free certain needles from rust, while an older girl, having found a bit of ribbon which suggested a doll's dress, was aided in cutting and fitting the desired gar