and those which are evident in their natural simplicity 

 will reveal themselves to the child in due season. Re- 

 member, every child in your charge is an Edison, every tot 

 a Columbus, and the idealizing disposition of all of them sees 

 a Garden of Eden in a vacant lot. I insist upon mere 

 association of plants and children. Even if the habits of 

 the former are apparently overlooked by those less responsive 

 to the development of bough and leaf, the fact of having 

 been in such association will make itself manifest in after- 

 years. Through the company of plants we add an element 

 of attraction, and a stimulus for which nothing else 

 can be substituted. We should carefully discriminate in 

 what is to surround our children at this age. If we are 

 successful in our attempts, we will be able to do away with 

 the multitude of palatial reform schools and improvement 

 leagues of all descript and nondescript. If a community 

 would establish sufficient kindergartens of such type, it 

 would require only one generation to remodel the morals of 

 its population. We mold and reform in every direction, and 

 maintain the most complicated machinery for the application 

 of so-called justice ; whereas, the mere investment in simple 

 kindergartens would render unnecessary the endless ramifica- 

 tions of those institutions. The existence of jails and asylums 

 is no credit to a nation. It is, in the first place, admission 

 of the fact that the early life of its people has been neglected. 

 Give me a nation whose youth is reared in kindergartens 

 like mine, and a prophetic voice exclaims : "To forbid a 

 citizen to re-enter his home for a period of years will be the 

 worst punishment you could inflict upon a wrong-doer," 



