I passed some time with the children, fitting up their playthings, conversing with them and learning as far as I could through the subtle meaning of looks, accents and gestures, their thoughts and feelings. The avenues to the spirit are all open, but how dim are our perceptions, how cold our sympathies, to appreciate the pure and bright things which glitter in the arena of the young mind! How little of this fairy land do we know--we, whose early associations have all been swept from the heart--over whose spirits have passed the cold winds, the pelting storms, withering and destroying the heart's young verdure! What is there to unite us with the spirit of a child? What have we in common with its joyous yearning for the beautiful, its trust in human sayings, its deep love for those on whom it relies for attention and support, its vivid picturing of ideal life, its simplicity, its freedom from prejudice and false sentiment? Where are these to be seen in our dim nature? He might have answered the question by looking within himself. Child companionship kept alive the spirit of the Alcott boy, which constantly shone through the man's philosophy. As the boy saw in every rock and tree and flower an expression of the Infinite, is it any wonder that the man should have recognized God's higher manifestation in the child, and should have written in his journal these lines, which are the very glorification of fatherhood and reveal the sacredness with which he looked upon his stewardship? He who deals with the child deals--did he know it--with the Infinite. Within the young spirit committed to his care are infinite capacities to be filled, infinite energies to be developed, and on him devolves the amazing responsibility--sacred, personal, all his own--of filling these capacities, unfolding these energies, from the stores and life of his own spirit. This is his office as a parent. But how can he who knows nothing of the Infinite within himself call it forth and direct its forces in others? From the first, Louisa must have shown strong individuality and unusual tendencies, for Mr. Alcott's notes on Louisa are entitled "Observations on the Vital Phenomena of My Second Child." A more vital, lovable, contradictory specimen of childhood cannot be imagined. Blessed with her father's brilliancy of mind, her mother's quick wit and love of fun, Louisa furnished a problem for endless study. She was less than two years old when her individuality had so asserted itself that her father found himself puzzled and admitted that elements were finding their way into his observations of whose origin he could give no account. "My analysis, however accurate and elaborate, was still imperfect, and I was left in doubt. I had made no provision for the admission of innate influences from the mind itself."