showed themselves early. It would be unfair to take _Polly Oliver's
Problem_ as in any sense autobiographical, as regards a close following
of facts, but it may be guessed to have some inner agreement with Mrs.
Wiggin's history, for she herself when a girl of eighteen wrote a
story, _Half a Dozen Housekeepers_, which was published in _St.
Nicholas_ in the numbers for November and December, 1878. She was
living at the time in California, and more to the purpose even than
this bright little story was the preparation she was making for her
later successes in the near and affectionate study of children whom she
was teaching. She studied the kindergarten methods for a year under
Emma Marwedel, and after teaching for a year in Santa Barbara College,
she was called upon to organize in San Francisco the first free
kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. She was soon joined in this
work by her sister; and the enthusiasm and good judgment shown by the
two inspired others, and made the famous "Silver Street Kindergarten"
not only a great object lesson on the Pacific Coast, but an inspiration
to similar efforts in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia,
and the Hawaiian Islands.

This school was, and is at the present time, located in a densely
inhabited and poverty-ridden quarter of the city. It was largely among
the very poor that Mrs. Wiggin's full time and wealth of energy were
devoted, for kindergartening was never a fad with her as some may have
imagined; always philanthropic in her tendencies, she was, and is,
genuinely and enthusiastically in earnest in this work. It is
interesting to know that on the wall of one apartment at the Silver
Street Kindergarten hangs a life-like portrait of its founder,
underneath which you may read these words:--