Permit me to ask the favor of your calling at Col. May's at 4 o'clock precisely on Sunday afternoon next, to accompany me and my friend Miss May to King's Chapel. With esteem, A. B. Alcott Thursday, May 20, 112 Franklin St. 1830. So began the Alcott pilgrimage, their fortune consisting of love and faith and brains. In these they were rich indeed, and thus closed another chapter in the life of the gentle philosopher, of whom Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: "Our Alcott has only just missed being a seraph." CHAPTER III THE ALCOTT CHILDREN FOR some months after their marriage the Alcotts lived in Boston, where the young enthusiast taught a school for infants. Again his fame as a teacher traveled, and he received an offer from the Quakers of Philadelphia to start a school there, an offer so tempting that the Alcotts moved to Germantown, Pennsylvania, where Anna and Louisa were born. Eugenics and prenatal influence were not discussed then as they are to-day, but in the Alcott family nearly a century ago they were being thought and lived. Bronson Alcott and his wife considered children an expression, not of themselves, but of divinity, and as such to be accepted as a trust, rather than as a gratification of their own human longing for fatherhood and motherhood. They felt it their parental privilege rather than their duty to aid the human development of the child and thus further the fulfillment of its destiny. Each little soul was humbly asked for and reverently prepared for. From the moment they knew their prayer had been granted, the individuality and rights of that soul were respected. It was considered as a little guest that must be made happy and comfortable, carefully cherished, mentally and physically, while its fleshly garment was being prepared and the little personality made ready for its earthly appearance. How careful they were of every thought and influence, for to both parents this period was the most sacred and wonderful in their lives and in the lives of their children. The depth of his joy and the simplicity of his faith are exquisitely expressed in the lines which Bronson Alcott wrote before the birth of his first child, Anna: TO AN EXPECTANT MOTHER