Ebook Mother-Play and Nursery Songs

Who know one only mortal grief, Past all balsam and relief, When, by false companions crossed, The travellers have each other lost. Some persons have foolishly suggested that there must be a difference between an American and German kindergarten. But the kindergarten, true to the one nature of childhood, is irrespective of all local circumstances. Generosity, self respect, courtesy and reverence, spontaneous geometry, rhythmical motion, music, and plastic art, are universal as humanity; and it is these which make the kindergarten one and the same in all countries. Besides, so far as this book is redolent of the subjectivity of German life, it is a salutary contrast to the extreme objectivity of the American life; and the connection of opposites is the law of the complete, well-balanced life, that we are in pursuit of for our children and ourselves. We particularly call attention to Miss Fanny E. Dwight's rendering of the German songs into English, at once literal and graceful, and adapted to the cadences of the music. Miss josephine Jarvis's faithful translation of the prose is also commended.