*About three years ago a well-known Ohio manufacturer, on his trips to and from Dayton, was greatly impressed with the barnlike appearance and desolate air of the little homes lining the railroad as it approached Dayton and other cities. He said to himself that the fences and back porches would be improved by a few creeping vines and flowers. From the back-yard view of these homes his thoughts turned to the barrenness of his own factory, and he decided to try the effect of some flowers and vines. The first thing he did was to plant a big bed of flowers in the center of the factory lawn. Instinctively he felt that something was wrong. He knew that his ideas were right, but he lacked the knowledge of how to carry them out.

"He sent for John C. Olmstead, the man who had charge of the landscape gardening at the World's Fair in Chicago. The plan of beautifying a factory was an idea so foreign to the usual utilitarian purposes of such an establishment that it impressed him. as very droll; but

"Mr. Olmstead's suggestions fell on fertile soil. Mr. Patterson not only decorated his factory grounds and buildings, but covered the telegraph poles and lamp posts with vines, so that the streets about the factory seemed like the approaches to a park. When he saw how beautiful all this looked from the factory, and when he reflected how simple were the principles of landscape gardening, he thought how fine a thing it would be to bring it to the homes of his factory people. He first secured material from Professor Bailey of Cornell; Mr. Simons of

he finally allowed himself to be persuaded to undertake the commission, when he learned that his client had a serious purpose in all this. The first suggestion was the removal of the set-piece in the center of the lawn. Then he corrected the planting of one bed of flowers with eight or nine colors. He pointed out how by making little bays and inlets of shrubs and flowers along the sides of the lawn a pleasing effect might be secured. Next he suggested that the two stable sheds opposite the factory should be connected with an arch, the roof painted vermillion, the sides olive, and rapid-growing vines planted at each end, thus forming a harmony of color that would be restful to the eye.

10 Quoted from Current Literature.

Chicago, sent him views from his estate, and Miss Helen Gould, being interested in his scheme, sent him photographs of the beautiful grounds at Lyndhurst, her Irvington home. These he made into lantern slides, so that he could show the people just what these superb effects meant when correctly applied.

"He began this educational work in the factory Sunday-school, and when spring came he distributed 12,000 packages of seeds to the children. To stimulate the best efforts prizes were offered for the best ornamental planting about the home, and for the most artistic arrangement and training of vines on houses, verandas, buildings, fences and posts. Boys and girls under sixteen were invited to compete for the best

vines, began to train them over the porch and added window-boxes, making bowers of beauty out of the previous packing-box style of house. When the autumn came and the vines disappeared then they realized how very ugly the fences looked without any adornment. The training of the summer bore fruit, and when Mr. Patterson advised taking them down and replacing them by a wire fence, which was just about one third cheaper and better adapted to the climbing vines, they were ready to do so. Some occupiers of adjoining houses did away with any kind of fence and planted, instead, a divisional line of flowers."

One important feature is left us to speak of and that is the kindergarten. The kindergarten is carried on in the N. C. R. House, and is well equipped with teachers and facilities for training the minds and hands of the children of the neighborhood.

About a year ago the factory announced that no application would be considered from anyone not a graduate of some high school; this announcement created a great deal of criticism. but it is interesting to notice that there was immediately a marked increase in the attendance at the schools in Dayton, and that the general average in scholarship and at

that makes my employe a better man, gives me, through him, a better machine. It is never a question, therefore, whether or not to spend money for his benefit, but only how it can be spent to increase his knowledge, his happiness, or his health. Money spent in any business so as actually to produce such results will bring as quick and sure returns as that invested in any other of the more customary ways of developing a business.

"Everything which this company has done that has involved expense has immediately resulted in an apparent gain to the business. From the first move to the present

people rather than to the coffers of the company.

"To abandon anything which makes the employe a better man is not the way to save a business, but is an additional menace to it."

At one of their yearly meetings given for the benefit of the employees on July 9, 1899, at Dayton, where over 5,000 persons were fed at the company's expense, where for two days and two nights a force was at work preparing twenty thousand sandwiches. and eighteen hundred loaves of bread were cut up in one pile, and where 164 gallons of ice cream and "barrels upon barrels" of

coffee was served, the president made these remarks: "The kindergarten teaches accuracy of eye, hand and mind. It teaches truthfulness. It teaches that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points; that two parallel lines never meet. It implants in these young minds the foundation. principles of designing and construction and mechanics. It teaches them to know the actual shapes and forms and characteristics of the things of which otherwise they would only learn the names.

By

"These principles and this education are the foundation of mechanics and art, and if you cannot see the connection between the kindergarten and the factory ask our tool room men. They can tell you. this wonderful system of kindergarten teaching these little people will grow up intelligent, capable, practical boys and girls, with more real efficiency of hands and brain while yet in their teens than the average young man or woman of twentyfive or thirty years would acquire without this teaching.

"Do you

wonder

experience. You all have some of this wealth, and we do not want you to be miserly with it. We want you to use it for the good of others.

"The great trouble with most men who possess education or wisdom is that they do not know when or how to use it to advan

tage. They either lack the opportunity or do not understand the right methods of communicating their knowledge to others. Now that is what I want to speak to you about to-night.

"Now here is the greatest sermon in the world. These three sayings, 'Do Justice, love

that after the year 1915 we will not consider applications for employment from people who have not been | trained in the kindergarten?

"We used to think there was only one kind of capital-one kind of wealth-and that was money or its equivalent; but in these times we realize that education is capital, just as truly as money is; and a man can be miserly with his education or his experience just as truly as he can with his money.

"A man who possesses the wealth of education or practical wisdom and does not use it for the benefit of others is just as miserly as the man who hoards his money and neglects to put it into use.

"Every grown person has capital of some kind; if it is not money, it is the practical wisdom which springs from education or

Mercy, walk humbly,' are my text, and I want to preach that sermon to all.

"To the employer I want to say: Do justice to your people. You know what justice is; they know what it is. Be just; be fair; be honest with them.

"And give something more than mere justice. Let it be tempered with mercy, and let these feelings be mutual. Let the sense of justice and mercy work both ways. Oh, my people, be just and merciful to each other, to the foreman with whom you work, and to the company. While it is the duty of every company to show to its people that it is not a corporation without a soul, so it is fair for the people to show, as our people do, that they too have a soul, a spirit which responds to considerate treatment.

"And, above all, walk humbly. That is the greatest sermon of all, and it applies equally to all.

"You companies, you manufacturers, you ministers, you business men, whatever your position or authority be, walk humbly.

Don't think you know it all. Be willing to receive suggestions from the humblest person in your employ. That is the best advice I can give. If you want to be successful in this world, walk humbly."

SULLIVAN, IND.

A

SECOND point on which we would all agree is that the child must be trained into skill of expression. First, his own body should become an easily managed and unconsciously used instrument; hand, eye, ear, legs, arms and torso all have the power of silently expressing much without any help from words. One of the great factors of the kindergarten training is this skill in the easy use of these tools of the body. I will not stop longer to dwell upon how they are trained, but in passing would recommend the reading of the chapter on the "Human Hand" in Mr. Denton J. Snider's Commentary on Froebel's Mother-Play. The sense games, often played with rollicking fun and eager interest are at the same time sharpening and enlarging the power of other all-important instruments. Music and song and well modulated tones of voice train vocal organs until the body, both inner and outer, becomes what it should be, the willing and obedient servant of the spirit that dwells within it.

MATERIALS OF EXPRESSION.

But skill is required in the mastering of the outside world as well as of the body. Simple materials which can be easily handled and transformed are the best to place within the reach of the child, and also the best for showing him how to handle materials. Sand, clay and that recent invention of an equal mixture of salt and flour are, as we all know, invaluable in the first steps of constructive work. As the body is the chief instrument in the make-believe stage of the imagination and almost any object, oftentimes none at all, is sufficient for that form of externalization of inner impressions, so the simple, primitive materials of nature

are the best beginnings for constructive imagination which is the second step in the development of that all important faculty of mind.

Later on, and, in my judgment, after the kindergarten stage, come wood, hammer, tacks, etc., for this reason, that the heavier and less flexible material resists the child's attempt to transform it and consequently discourages his efforts.

I visited a kindergarten not long ago where the kindergarten director, with great pride and pleasure, showed me several shelves filled with "constructive work" done by her children. These articles consisted of market carts, street rollers, wooden chairs, miniature tables, dolls' cradles, and various other crude toys. I had that morning seen one of her assistants take a long stick and a bunch of excelsior shavings and, laying the latter against the former, say to the children at her table, "Now I want you to see just how I make this little broom for sweeping the streets." With this she picked up some fine hair wire, wound it slowly around the stick, binding the excelsior to the same; folding the excelsior over, she again bound the upper end of it down, thus making a toy broom. "There," she said when she had finished it, "now did you watch how I did that? Would not each one of you like to make a broom so that we can all clean the streets this morning?" The children gladly responded, and a stick and a bunch of excelsior and a piece of wire were portioned out to each, and most of them went to work with painstaking carefulness to reproduce the toy which she had made. Having this in mind I said to the director, "These are interesting in the way of constructive toys but are not all these made in the same manner in which