merciless little critics.

Now this charming little drama takes place in somebody's nursery
corner at twilight, when you are waiting for "that cheerful tocsin of
the soul, the dinner-bell," or around somebody's fireside just before
the children's bedtime; but the same scene is enacted every few days
in the presence of the fresh-hearted, childlike kindergartner, of all
women the likeliest to find the secret of eternal youth. She chooses
the story as one of the vessels in which she shall carry the truth to
her circle of little listeners, and you will never hear her say, like
the needy knife-grinder, "Story? God bless you, I have none to tell,
sir!"

If the group chances to be one of bright, well-born, well-bred
youngsters, the opportunity to inspire and instruct is one of the most
effective and valuable that can come to any teacher. On the other
hand, if the circle happens to be one of little ragamuffins, Arabs,
scrips and scraps of vagrant humanity (sometimes scalawags and
sometimes angels), born in basements and bred on curbstones, then
believe me, my countrymen, there is a sight worth seeing, a scene fit
for a painter. It might be a pleasant satire upon our national
hospitality if the artist were to call such a picture "Young America,"
for comparatively few distinctively American faces would be found in
his group of portraits.

Make a mental picture, dear reader, of the ring of listening children
in a San Francisco free kindergarten, for it would be difficult to
gather so cosmopolitan a company anywhere else: curly yellow hair and
rosy cheeks ... sleek blonde braids and calm blue eyes ... swarthy
faces and blue-black curls ... woolly little pows and thick lips ...