The Girl and the Kingdom | Page 2

fine modern building. The two rooms rented for this pioneer free kindergarten of the Pacific Coast were (Alas!) in the second story but were large and sunny. A broad flight of twenty wooden steps led from street to first floor and a long stairway connected that floor with the one above. If anyone had realized what those fifty or sixty stairs meant to the new enterprise, in labor and weariness, in wasted time and strength of teachers and children--but it was difficult to find ideal conditions in a crowded neighborhood.
The first few days after my arrival in San Francisco were spent in the installing of stove, piano, tables, benches and working materials, and then the beautifying began, the creation of a room so attractive and homelike, so friendly in its atmosphere, that its charm would be felt by every child who entered it. I was a stranger in a strange city, my only acquaintances being the trustees of the newly formed Association. These naturally had no technical knowledge, (I am speaking of the Dark Ages, when there were but two or three trained kindergartners west of the Rocky Mountains) and the practical organization of things--a kindergarten of fifty children in active operation--this was my department. When I had anything to show them they were eager and willing to help, meantime they could and did furnish the sinews of war, standing sponsors to the community for the ideals in education we were endeavoring to represent. Here is where the tin shop steps came in. I sat there very often in those sunny days of late July, 1878, dreaming dreams and seeing visions; plotting, planning, helping, believing, forecasting the future. "Hills peeped o'er hills and Alps on Alps."
I take some credit to myself that when there were yet no such things as Settlements and Neighborhood Guilds I had an instinct that this was the right way to work.
"This school," I thought, "must not be an exotic, a parasite, an alien growth, not a flower of beauty transplanted from a conservatory and shown under glass; it must have its roots deep in the neighborhood life, and there my roots must be also. No teacher, be she ever so gifted, ever so consecrated, can sufficiently influence the children under her care for only a few hours a day, unless she can gradually persuade the parents to be her allies. I must find then the desired fifty children under school age (six years in California) and I must somehow keep in close relation to the homes from which they come."
How should I get in intimate touch with this strange, puzzling, foreign community, this big clump of poverty-stricken, intemperate, overworked, lazy, extravagant, ill-assorted humanity leavened here and there by a God-fearing, thrifty, respectable family? There were from time to time children of widows who were living frugally and doing their best for their families who proved to be the leaven in my rather sorry lump.
Buying and borrowing were my first two aids to fellowship. I bought my luncheon at a different bakery every day and my glass of milk at a different dairy. At each visit I talked, always casually, of the new kindergarten, and gave its date of opening, but never "solicited" pupils. I bought pencils, crayons, and mucilage of the local stationers; brown paper and soap of the grocers; hammers and tacks of the hardware man. I borrowed many things, returned them soon, and thus gave my neighbors the satisfaction of being helpful. When I tried to borrow the local carpenter's saw he answered that he would rather come and do the job himself than lend his saw to a lady. The combination of a lady and edged tools was something in his mind so humorous that I nervously changed the subject. (If he is still alive I am sure he is an Anti-Suffragist!) I was glad to display my school room to an intelligent workman, and a half hour's explanation of the kindergarten occupations made the carpenter an enthusiastic convert. This gave me a new idea, and to each craftsman, in the vicinity, I showed the particular branch of kindergarten handiwork that might appeal to him, whether laying of patterns, in separate sticks and tablets, weaving, drawing, rudimentary efforts at designing, folding and cutting of paper, or clay modelling.
I had the great advantage of making all of my calls in shops, and thus I had not the unpleasant duty of visiting people's houses uninvited, nor the embarrassment of being treated as peddlers of patronage and good advice are apt to be treated. Besides, in many cases, the shops and homes (Heaven save the mark!) were under one roof, and children scuttled in and out, behind and under the counters and over the thresholds into the street. They were all agog with curiosity and