Poor mites; you stiffen on a bench
And stoop your curls to dusty laws;
Your petal fingers curve and clench
In slavery to parchment saws;
You suit your hearts to sallow faces
In sullen places:
But no pen
Nor pedantry can make you men.
Yours are the morning and the day:
You should be taught of wind and light;
Your learning should be born of play.

(_Caged:_ GEORGE WINTHROP YOUNG.)

Had England but honoured her own prophets, we should have had Nursery
Schools a hundred years ago. In 1816, the year in which Froebel founded
his school for older boys at Keilhau, Robert Owen, the Socialist,
"following the plan prescribed by Nature," opened a school where
children, from two to six, were to dance and sing, to be out-of-doors as
much as possible, to learn "when their curiosity induced them to ask
questions," and not to be "annoyed with books." They were to be
prevented from acquiring bad habits, to be taught what they could
understand, and their dispositions were to be trained "to mutual
kindness and a sincere desire to contribute all in their power to
benefit each other." They "were trained and educated without punishment
or the fear of it.... A child who acted improperly was not considered an
object of blame but of pity, and no unnecessary restraint was imposed on
the children."

But the world was not ready. Owen's "Rational Infant School" attracted