THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN.

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Over $450,000 have been given me to carry on the kindergartens of the Golden Gate Association.

The kindergarten gets hold of the little child just as early in life as possible—the earlier the better. It believes, with Lord Broughham, that a child can and does learn more before the age of six years than it does or can learn after that age during his whole life, however long it may be. For this is the root-life of the human plant, and the root-life must forever determine what the stem and blossoms shall be. In short, the world is beginning to recognize the fact that a general education, that has not in it some provision for a special education and training in some particular industry, is practically a failure. Technical and industrial education for the people is no theory. It is a question of civilization. It is a national question, and touches the very exist­ence of the state. The kindergarten lies at the foundation of this sort of education. All honor, then, to those who foster these blessed schools for the little children!

Governor Stanford struck the key-note when he said, that he believed the surest foundation on which any educational structure could rest was the rock of thorough kindergarten training, begun at the earliest possible age. At the age when moral and industrious habits are most easily formed, the taste improved, and the finer feelings which give fiber to the will are cultivated. On the bed-rock of such training the true university may rest—a university such as the Stanford University is outlined to be— a university embracing the science of human life, in its varied industries, arts, science, literature, government, political economy, ethics, moral unfoldment, hygiene—and in short all that goes to make up a perfected human life; a university where the school and the workshop clasp hands, where body and mind are educated together, where the mechanical and classical student will strike hands together, where the artist and the artisan will eat at one common board. Democracy means equitable opportunity. Liberty of growth and equality at the start is the law of all true democratic life.

And the primal aim of all education, from the kindergarten straight through to the university, should be the unfolding of all that is in the human being—the equip­ping of the young for maintaining themselves in honest independence. Some one has said there are three ways of earning a living: by working, by begging, or by stealing; and those who come to years of responsibility, and do not work, are doing one of the other two things, dress it out in whatever pretty guise you please. I believe it was Florence Nightingale who said: “ If to three R’s—Reading, ’Riting and ’Rithmetic—there be not added something that will give the mind a practical turn, we shall soon have a fourth R, which will stand for rascality.” The true mission of education is the developing of vigorous, capable, and cultivated human beings, and launching them on their life career, well armed and equipped with facts and principles as a propelling power on the track of an instructed industry. We have all too many sad travesties of highly educated folks, whom old Dame Poyser describes as being “too high learnt to have much common sense.” Hence, we must go back to the method of Providence in educating the race, and begin with labor and experience, which are sure to lead up to science and art.

Throw open the kindergarten and the schools for industrial and art training to every child, and with the heart pure, the head clear, the hand skillful and ready, we shall hear no more of the vexed question: “What shall we do with our boys and girls?” Our fair land shall take its place in the very front ranks of nations distin­guished for their industrial achievements.

There must be more of genuine human sympathy between the top and the bottom of society. The prosperous and the happy must clasp hands and heart with the toil­ers and the strugglers. The living, loving self is wanted. The heart must be the missionary. The life must be the sermon. All mankind must be brothers. The chil­dren must be taught these great principles and aided in putting them in practice. They must be made to feel and to know that it is what they put into life and not what they get out of it that measures their worth to the world. “Then shall our sons be as plants grown up in their youth, our daughters as corner-stones polished after