We must regard this as a somewhat distorted application of the words of the gospel, but it is interesting as denoting that Goethe also, who stood so much in the centre of illumination, had perceived the revealing light to fall upon the heads of young children. It is not, however, so much by his direct as by his indirect influence that Goethe is connected with our subject. If Luther was both an exponent of German feeling and a determining cause of its direction, Goethe occupies a similar relation as an expression of German intellectualism and a stimulator of German thought. A hundred years after his birth, when measures were taking to celebrate the centenary by the establishment of some educational foundation to bear his name, the enthusiastic supporters of Froebel sought to divert public interest into the channel of this movement for the cultivation of childhood. Froebel’s philosophy has affected modern educational systems even where his method has not been scrupulously followed. Its influence upon literature and art can scarcely be traced, except so far as it has tended to give direction and set limits to the great body of books and pictures, which, made for children, are also expository and illustrative of the life of children. I mention him simply as an additional illustration of the grasp which the whole subject of childhood has obtained in Germany; it has made itself felt in religion and politics; so revolutionary was Froebel’s philosophy held to be that his schools were suppressed at one time by the government as tending to subvert the state. This was not strange, since Froebel’s own view as to the education of children was radical and comprehensive. A child’s life finds its chief expression in play, and in play its social instincts are developed. Now the kindergarten recognizes the fact that play is the child’s business, not his recreation, and undertakes to guide and form the child through play. It converts that which would otherwise be aimless or willful into creative, orderly, and governed action. Out of the play as governed by the wise kindergartner grows a spirit of courtesy, self-control, forbearance, unselfishness. The whole force of the education is directed toward a development of the child which never forgets that he is a person in harmonious relation to others. Community, not competition, is the watchword of the school. In this view the kindergarten has its basis in the same law which lies at the foundation of a free republic. Obedience, as taught by the system of public schools, is an obedience to rules; it may be likened to the obedience of the soldier,—a noble thing, but not the highest form of human subjection of the will. Obedience as evolved in the true kindergarten is a conscious obedience to law. The unity of life in the school, with entire freedom of development in the individual, is the aim of the kindergarten. * * * * *