KINDERGARTEN AS A BASIS FOR LIFE. 349 
This can only be brought about in the family environment, or in insti- 
tutions where the home spirit prevails. The pivot of the family is nurture 
—the nurture which brings consideration to each individual member both 
for soul and body. There is no other condition than that of the well- 
ordered home center which makes this possible—a home center, the soul 
and heart of which is the home-keeper, the mother. Her duties are by 
no means limited to housework, absorbing her full time and energy ; and 
still it were unnatural if she did rot thoroughly understand all those many 
practical things which become the essentials of a true home. She should 
«know the ways and means in order to be free before her servants, in order 
ro influence all her co-laborers properly, and be able to fully satisfy the 
laily needs of her household. 
To properly fulfill every duty of a small home circle gives opportunity 
to each child to contribute in some degree to the real comfort and value 
of the home, and at the same time to supply scientific knowledge and 
engender ethical power. Here the child is brought close to nature and 
true industry, not from the standpoint of intellectual gain, but through a 
spontaneous willing in accordance with ethical law. 
It is vital and essential that we should recognize the care for plants and 
animals as a part of the household environment, and in order that the 
educational opportunities and advantages of family surroundings may be 
fully appreciated. It was this for which Pestalozzi so earnestly pleaded. 
The natural standard for such environment in which to develop through 
aormal activity is the German family, which is neither in bondage through 
great poverty, nor yet swept from its moorings by an overflow of riches. 
In a large establishment, with its many servants, where parents are 
pledged to important social duties, the children should still be granted a 
small household circle of their own, with proper attendance, wherein the 
mother shall take part as much as is possible, and wherein the father may 
find a salutary resting place after exhausting service in the busy world. 
Let us but once recognize home activities as an important educational 
means, and proper surroundings to secure the same will be speedily 
provided. 
There is no more harmful movement in modern evolution than that 
socialism which demands the dissolution of the family, or which interferes 
with the organic necessity of man’s truly living and expressing affection in 
she human family. By so doing, the very foundation upon which rests a 
anified development of the child’s soul and body is destroyed, as well as 
‘he only means by which his spiritual power may be completely unfolded, 
and also that environment which is its best nourishment. since it provides 
spontaneous instinctive moral action. 
In the face of such statements it is sometimes argued that machinery is 
snatching the work out of man’s hand, or is condensing the duties of the 
aousehold to a minimum which could scarcely suffice to serve as an