At the present moment, the summer of 1898, there rests in the custody of the mayor of Chicago, Hon. Carter H. Harrison, 2nd, a report of a special commission appointed by him to recommend changes in the educational methods of the city of Chicago and the county of Cook, that are intended to bring them up to the level of the highest ideals. Among the recommendations it is advised that an ample kindergarten shall be attached to every school, and that there shall always be school facilities so that every child of school age shall have a seat at his disposal. The recommendations relative to the higher branches of education do not concern our present argument, but the suggestion relative to extending kindergarten facilities is of the greatest importance. The mayor and a majority of the aldermen are believed to hold the welfare of the community they govern in earnest care, so that it is a good time to strengthen their hands to do the best and completest thing in the way of reform while changes are being made, and to insist on nothing less than Strict Social Quarantine to protect all the children of tender ages in order that the work of reform may begin _now_, at the root, and insure a generation of eager students and workers to use the splendid facilities, already supplied, when they arrive at school age. It is not necessary to wait for the construction of fine buildings, and there will be ready for any need a competent army, if required, to take up the work of training.[2] [2] In the city of Saint Louis, at the end of the 1896 school-year, there were seventy-one volunteer kindergartners, and the length of the waiting list of the training schools precluded promise of even volunteer appointments for three years to come. This is but an illustration of the trend of interest in the direction of character-building school employment. Many young women are beginning to learn that _true happiness is the evidence and fruit of conscious usefulness_, and that the work of the kindergarten and industrial schools, in producing conscious good results, creates much happiness and enthusiasm in their devotees, and they are being drawn to appreciate, and will eagerly participate in, so pleasurable an occupation,--the only one that quite satisfies the mother impulse within them. It is also a recognized fact, as an outgrowth of the development of character-school training, that no other preliminary experience is so good in fitting a young woman for the duties of married life as a course of kindergarten study; and, furthermore, there is no part of the kindergarten work that is not useful, in its simple suggestiveness, to anyone, of no matter what sex or age.