must indulge in many movements when there is no one about who
has leisure to make music for them. Still, when they come to the
quarrelsome age, a few minutes' rhythmic play to the sound of music
will be found to harmonize the whole group wonderfully. For this
purpose the ordinary hippity-hop, fast or slow according to the music,
is sufficient. It is as if the regulation of the body to the laws
of harmony reacted upon minds and nerves. Such an exercise is
particularly valuable just before bed-time. The children go to sleep
then with their minds under the influence of harmony and wake in the
morning inclined to be peaceful and happy.

[Sidenote: Songs]

A book of Kindergarten songs, such as Mrs. Gaynor's "Songs of the
Child World" and Eleanor Smith's "Songs for the Children," ought to be
in every household, and the mother ought to familiarize herself with a
dozen or so of these perfectly simple melodies. Of course the children
must learn them with her. When once this has been done she has a
valuable means of amusing them and bringing them within her control at
any time. She may hum one of the songs or play it. The children must
guess what it is and then act out their guess in pantomime, so that
she can see what they mean. Perhaps it is a windmill song; their
arms fly around and around in time to the music, now fast, now slow.
Perhaps it is a Spring song; the children are birds building their
nests. Other songs turn them into shoemakers, galloping horses, or
soldiers.

[Sidenote: Dramatic Plays]

Dramatic plays, whether simple, like this, or elaborate, are,