The trouble is that no one is satisfied with his own estate; lord, prelate, commoner—each accuses the other. The lower classes blame the gentleman and the townsman, and the upper classes blame the lower, and all is in confusion.... The days prophesied by Hosea are come to pass, when there shall be no wisdom in the earth. I know not if the fault lie with laymen or churchmen, but all unite in the common cry: “the times are bad, the times are bad.” * * * * * Annie Laws (_Kindergarten Review_) believes that she can trace the social spirit of the kindergartner as an important factor in stimulating, and in some cases, even initiating, many of the social movements of today, among them playgrounds, social centers, vacation schools, public libraries, mothers’ clubs and school and home gardens. The relation between the kindergarten and the big world outside the kindergarten Miss Laws states as follows: Some one has said that “the primary aim of the kindergarten is to create a miniature world which shall be to the child a faithful portrait of the greater world in its ideal aspects.” If the kindergarten can bring to each and all of us its aid in helping us to create for ourselves a miniature world, which shall be a faithful portrait of the greater world in its ideal aspects; and if it can aid in making us content to give to our communities the service for which we are best fitted, and can teach us to so live that not so much social efficiency as social reciprocity shall be our aim and purpose, then we shall all agree to give to the kindergarten its true place as one of the most valuable factors of social life and social work of the present time, one worthy of our best thought and effort. * * * * * A CONTRAST LAURA SIMMONS Across the gloom a shadow flits; I glimpse a sodden face Wherein the years of sin and toil and care have left their trace: A wanton laugh—I mark no more, for yonder in the glow One waiteth me—my love, my star! with welcoming, I know: Tender and fine is she: withal so stately sweet and fair My grateful heart thrills to Heaven, to see her standing there! If this be Woman—pure, benign, Man’s blessed beacon-light, Then—Christ! What that poor outcast soul that passed me in the night? * * * * * The following striking comparison is from The Road from Jerusalem to Jericho (_Good Housekeeping_), a plea by Frances Duncan for votes for women on the ground that woman is the ideal samaritan; man the priest and the Levite who at the present time alone has the power, but lacks the inclination, to stoop to care for the injured by righting social wrongs, especially those affecting women. Miss Duncan tells of a haunting drawing by Frederick Remington: