At last he secured a school, and then began the realization of his ideals regarding the teaching of children. His methods were original and highly successful, especially with the very young. He established a mental kindergarten, and the fame of his teaching spread abroad. Through his work as a teacher he achieved his greatest happiness, for it led to his meeting with the woman who was destined to become his wife. As the result of correspondence between himself and Mr. May of Brooklyn, Connecticut, whose attention had been attracted to the work of the young teacher, Alcott, then twenty-eight years old, drove from the Wolcott home to Brooklyn, where he met Abigail May of Boston, who was visiting her brother. With both it was love at first sight, a love that grew into a perfect spiritual union. It seemed almost providential that Bronson Alcott should have come into Abigail May's life at just this time, when her heart had been touched by its first great sorrow--the loss of her mother. Hitherto she had been a light-hearted girl, fond of dancing and of the material side of life. The young philosopher, with his dreams and his ideals, brought a new interest into her now lonely life, and all that was spiritual in her nature responded as he freely discussed his plans and ambitions with her. In her he found both sympathy and understanding. A year of letter-writing, a frank and honest exchange of thought, brought out the harmony of their natures and developed in both a sense of oneness, laying a firm foundation for the comradeship which was not broken through all the years, even when the wife and mother passed into the Great Beyond. The Alcott-May courtship was ideal. Retaining the heaven that lay about him in his infancy, keeping his close companionship with God and God's great laboratory, Nature, Bronson Alcott demanded something more than mere physical attraction in choosing his wife. A certain quaint circumspection characterized their love-making. Abigail May once wrote: "Mr. Alcott's views on education were very attractive, and I was charmed by his modesty," and long after their engagement she spoke of her lover as "her friend." He was, and so he continued to be in the highest sense of the word. So satisfying were those friendship-courtship days, that apparently both were loath to end them, for another twelvemonth passed before the announcement of their betrothal, and it was nearly three years from the date of their first meeting before their marriage in King's Chapel, Boston, where the brother who had been the means of bringing them together performed the ceremony. As their marriage day approached, there was little festivity and none of the rush that usually precedes a modern wedding. Everything was simple, quiet, and sure. This is Bronson Alcott's letter, asking a friend to act as best man at his wedding. Dear Sir: