Returning now to the surface, we have the occupation of folding little squares of paper. Neither descriptions nor illustrations can give the reader any notion of the vast variety of uses to which this art is put "The little square of paper which Froebel gives to the child," says Jacobs, "becomes for him a whole geometry and a book of art." The resources of the paper as folded having at last been pretty well exhausted, the child is taught a world of new lessons by the cutting of the folded paper, which, after being cut out, is then opened, and thus made to produce a multitude of symmetric forms, which the pupil discusses and analyzes in the light of his past training. Forms of life are also made: half a man is cut in folded paper, which on being opened presents both sides, illustrating the symmetry of the human form, and lights and shadows are so produced in silhouette cutting as to give relief to the figures. Peas The next art is a very curious one. are softened by soaking; into these sharpened wires or sticks are inserted, so as to produce many curious forms. On one side this occupation holds to the sticks which the child had for one of his last gifts. But on the other side it is more advanced, for here he is taught to form the outlines of solids-to reconstruct in skeleton the figures which the cube, the sphere, the cylinder. It is now a solid which is plastic in his hands, full of · infinite possibilities. And a like transformation has taken place in his mind. He has traveled the road in two ways, as we have said. He has gone from concrete to abstract and back again, turning ever and retracing his CLAY-MODELING A LITTLE CHILD'S LOCOMOTIVE. steps until the road is now familiar. But that is not all. He has made that other pilgrimage that every mind must make in education. By gentle steps he has proceeded from the simple to the complexfrom one to many, from himself to God's great universe of objects. Having acquired | this discipline in the beginning, all the rest is possible to him. In learning to do he has learned to see, to distinguish, to think, to count, to imagine, to invent, to rely on himself in a word, he has planted all the A B C PEA-WORK. germinating seeds that ripen into the educated man. And he has done all this without forcing, without precocious over-study, without premature development and consequent arrest of growth. In this catalogue of employments I have not had room to mention the garden patches, nor the charming musical plays with which each day's work is diversified. These last always attract the attention of strangers more strongly than the occupations. In these merry song-plays the artistic instinct finds healthy development, the child acts the most beautiful fancies. When you observe children playing " Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow," "Drop the handkerchief," or other spontaneous games of the sort, you will see from what Froebel got his idea. The Kindergarten children, by concerted action set to music and poetry, mimic the grinding of a mill, the flying out of pigeons, the operations of the husbandman, the galloping of the horse, the hammering of the blacksmith, the gambols of animals, and a hundred other things. These plays are full of æsthetic education,-they are poetry and dramatic art for babes. PASTEBOARD-WORK. The Kindergarten has spread steadily since the death of Froebel. In Germany its chief promoter is the able and zealous Baroness Marenholtz-Bülow. Indeed, I might say that she is the apostle of Froebel's ideas for all Europe; in France, Italy, and England her influence is felt, as well as at home. Most of the very eminent teachers of educational methods, and many of the leading thinkers of Europe, have one by one given in their adhesion to the Froebellian method, and the practical work of founding Kindergartens and training-schools makes steady progress from year to year. In this country the first propagator of the Kindergarten idea was the gifted and enthusiastic Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody, of Boston, who began to cry in the wilderness of our evil methods more than a dozen years ago, while yet Froebel was an unknown name and the Kindergarten an unintelligible term. She has the qualities of a forerunning reformer, a contagious enthusiasm, and an over-hopefulness that nothing daunts, and a persistent energy that is not often found in one whose hairs are so white. With her the Kindergarten is a religion. She calls it "the noblest opportunity for coöperating with God." There were one or two isolated Kindergartens started in this country many years ago, in the German language, but they did not succeed. When, in 1867, Mrs. Matilda Kriege, and her daughter Miss Alma Kriege, a graduate of the training-school of the Baroness Marenholtz, undertook the difficult task of opening a training-school in Boston, the cause was fairly planted in America-planted, as every good thing is, in years of anxiety, of self-denial, of pecuniary loss. To Mrs. Kriege and her daughter-persons of great intelligence and the most unselfish devotion to their great work-belongs the credit of founding the first successful reproductive Kindergarten in America, and the very first training-school ever attempted here. After training some of the best Kindergarteners we have, Mrs. and Miss Kriege, during an absence in Germany, intrusted their Boston institution to Miss Garland, who, with Miss Weston, still conducts it. The next successful training-school was founded by Miss Haines, the eminent principal of a young ladies' school in New York. She employed for her first teacher Miss Boelte, now Mrs. Kraus. On Mrs. Kraus's retirement Miss Haines brought from Germany again the original founders of the Kindergarten in this country, Mrs. Kriege and her daughter, who now have charge of Miss Haines's Kindergarten and training-school in Grammercy Park. Meantime the former teacher of this school, Mrs. Kraus-Boelte arrived after a life-time of study and experience, but who have never taken the trouble to understand the alphabet of his system. 田田 PERFORATION AND NEEDLE-WORK. an able and experienced Kindergartener, also -has started further up town a Kindergarten of her own, with a training-school. Miss Blow, daughter of the late Hon. Henry T. Blow, of St. Louis, was a pupil of Mrs. KrausBoelte at Miss Haines's. After her graduation she returned to her own city and consecrated freely to the work of promoting the new education her time, her large intelligence, and her means. She succeeded very early in enlisting the ardent coöperation of Mr. Harris, the superintendent of the city schools, and to-day St. Louis is the foremost city of the country in the number of Kindergartens in connection with the public schools. There are several difficulties which the promoters of Kindergarten work have to contend with. America is a land of dabblers. Everywhere there are people who pretend to have Kindergartens, without even knowing what a Kindergarten is. Quacks, both German and American, seek to make money out of the popularity of the name. There are people who claim to have improved on the method at which Froebel York; that of Mrs. Kraus-Boelte, in New | and some important matter transferred York; that of Misses Garland and Weston in Boston; that of Miss Blow, in St. Louis, and that of Miss Marwedel, in Washington. There are a large number of trained Kindergarteners in active service in the country. Of course they differ widely in natural aptitude, and even a trained Kindergartener, not fitted by nature for the care and instruction of little children, is capable of doing the cause a great injury. There is a constant demand for Kindergarteners, far exceeding the supply. But it is not a work for a selfish, a money-getting, or an indolent person to do. It is not a trade, but a mission. We have great lack of a good Kindergarten literature in the English language; but this lack is likely to be abundantly supplied, for here too there is an enthusiastic laborer, ready to do all that he can for the cause. Mr. E. Steiger, the German bookseller in Frankfort street, has made it his "mission" to import all the German, French, and English works, to publish such good American books on the subject as were offered, and to manufacture the material. The earliest publication in this country was Miss Peabody's "Kindergarten Guide," a book full of good thoughts, as is everything that Miss Peabody writes; but written before she was thoroughly acquainted with Froebel's system. Two of her lectures, recently published through the liberality of an enthusiastic Pittsburg clergyman, are much better. Miss Peabody issued for some years past a little monthly magazine, "The Kindergarten Messenger," now merged in the "New England Journal of Education." Very early in the history of the movement, Mr. Milton Bradley, of Springfield, Mass., a manufacturer of children's games, undertook, from disinterested motives, the publication of Wiebé's "Paradise of Childhood," a book chiefly valuable for its fine lithographic illustrations from the German works. The best statement of the fundamental principles of the Kindergarten, especially in its application to the smallest children, is to be found in Mrs. Kriege's "The Child," a free rendering of a German work by the Baroness Marenholtz. Of the German text-books, Köhler's "Praxis des Kindergartens" is one of the latest, amplest, and best. Karl Froebel's Kindergarten Drawing-books need no translator to commend themselves to the eye at a glance. Those who read no German, but who understand French, will find Jacobs' "Manuel Pratique des Jardins d'Enfants," a most serviceable manual. Ronge's "Practical Guide to the English Kindergarten," is a good London publication, but somewhat out of date. It may be well to say that no one can become a Kindergartener from books alone. The art can only be acquired in the training-school. Like their founder himself, the teachers and promoters of the Froebellian reformation are all enthusiasts. To be interested in the Kindergarten is to be enthusiastic. The teachers, the lecturers, the writers, the very booksellers who handle the books, make a sort of religion out of it. The millennium to which they look is the day when the primary school for little children shall be no more, the day in which all little children shall learn according to God's law in their own natures. And of all the sayings of the great Apostle of Infancy, the favorite one is that watchword which is graven on his tombstone. For you must know that the tomb of Froebel is just the most appropriate in the world-it is a cube, a cylinder, and a sphere—the "second gift." And on the cube, which serves for pedestal, they have graven his own battle-cry: "Kommt, läszt uns unsern kindern leben." Come, let us live for our children! MY FRIEND. THE friend who holds a mirror to my face, BIFRÖST, THE RAINBOW BRIDGE. A NORSE LEGEND. WHEN the Immortals stood in light They triumphed in that shining place- New-born, and radiant from on high. But their strong brother, who had gone Before them, walked the bridge alone, And proved his way the quicker path. Thus there are those who lightly tread Others there are who, lost and blind, Yet sooner reach the gleaming goal Take courage, then, ye sons of strength, TRURO PARISH. WHEN a corps of Sherman's Army, marching northward after the close of the Civil War, came to the vicinity of Mount Vernon, the soldiers were surprised at the sight of the village of Accotink, which in its appearance and inhabitants seemed to be a New England town. The white cottages with green window-blinds, the neatly kept yards, the Quaker meeting-house, and particularly the absence of the bar-room-that invariable feature of all the Southern towns-produced quite a home-like feeling on the heroes of the March to the Sea, and such as |