Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/402

388 years; "but it was to another woman's enthusiasm and her private munificence that the cause was to owe its conquering impulse. In 1877 Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw opened two; and from time to time others were added, till in 1883 she had established in Boston and its vicinity thirty-one. In 1887 the Boston School Board, having become convinced of their value, incorporated fourteen as part of the public-school system, and others have been gradually added, till now it has thirty-one, with an attendance of nearly two thousand children. But this children's crusade is by no means confined to Boston; there are kindergartens and manual training schools in St. Louis, in Philadelphia, in San Francisco, and, in short, they are taking root all over the country. Nowhere are they so much needed as in New York, where there is annually so much ignorance dumped from abroad; but, until there is not a single score of neglected, untaught children left unreached by this beneficent agency, let us hear no more wailings over superfluous womanhood. Where is the practical philanthropist who desires to leave noble men and women as his monument, who will supply the funds needed to rescue these children, while the municipal authorities are waiting to be convinced of the utility of not opening the stable-door at all, when thieves are about?

If there is such a waiting benefactor of his kind, there is plenty of accumulated experience to guide him in the choice of instruments. Lest those who have failed in other fields should fancy that here is a niche that they can fill, let them understand that it needs a high order of talent to succeed here. Mr. Chadwick says, "Those who have given earnest study to primary education are aware that the highest training power should be applied in the most formative period the infant-class"; and in the report of the Boston conference we read, "One strong feature of Mrs. Shaw's management, perhaps the one which raised the educational value of the Boston kindergartens, was the extreme care exercised in the selection of teachers"; and whenever the kindergarten is to win its way, this care must be exercised. In 1883 she induced two kindergartners of St. Louis, each excelling in a special line, to come and give advanced courses to her teachers, and these were supplemented by lectures, teachers' meetings, etc.

Manual training—still in the dawn of its development has come, and come to stay. It will enhance the respect due to honest labor, and go far to cure the disease of "millionism" from which we are just now suffering; and those who look to the Scriptures for guidance will remember that the brilliant reason er and follower of the carpenter's son, St. Paul, was a tent-maker, who called the elders of Ephesus to witness that "these hands have ministered to my necessities, and to them that were with me."