[Sidenote: Right Doing Made Easy]

There are those who object that by the kindergarten method right doing
is made too easy. The children do not have to put forth enough effort,
they say; they are not called upon to endure sufficient pain; they do
not have the discipline which causes them to choose right no matter
how painful right may be for the moment. Whether this dictum is ever
true or not, it certainly is not true in early childhood. The love of
righteousness needs to be firmly rooted in the character before it is
strained and pulled upon. We do not start seedlings in the rocky soil
or plant out saplings in time of frost. If tests and trials of virtue
must come, let them come in later life when the love of virtue is so
firmly established that it may be trusted to find a way to its own
satisfaction through whatever difficulties may oppose.

[Sidenote: Neighbors' Opinions]

In the very beginning of any effort to live up to Froebel's
requirements it is evident that children must not be measured by the
way they appear to the neighbors. This is to reaffirm the power of
that rigid tradition which has warped so many young lives. She who
is trying to fix her child's heart upon true and holy things may well
disregard her neighbor's comments on the child's manners or clothes
or even upon momentary ebullitions of temper. She is working below the
surface of things, is setting eternal forces to work, and she cannot
afford to interrupt this work for the sake of shining the child up
with any premature outside polish. If she is to have any peace of mind
or to allow any to the child, if she is to live in any way a simple
and serene life, she must establish a few fundamental principles by