KINDERGARTEN JUST OUT

First comes a sturdy youngster, round face, blue eyes, generally the look of a very bad boy. He has opened his coat and stuck both his hands deep into his pockets and looks defiantly at all the world as he struts along. “Hello,” no answer, he scorns me utterly. I pass on crushed.

Here come a group of little girls, in bright blues and reds, dancing in the sun-light One a sweet little motherly damsel stops to smile at me encouragingly. I beam back, and fed myself once more an independent mortal. A dear old grandmother is walking along with two little ones. One of them suddenly thinks of a secret She draws grandma’s white head down and whispers in her ear then turns exultingly to her little sister crying “You don’t know what I said.”

Last comes a little negress, delicate with beautifully cut features and her brother a sturdy youngster. They both smile at me happily and make the bright day seem even brighter. I owe them both a deep debt When I first came to Cambridge they alone of all the children, smiled at me. The youngster has confided to me his troubles. His teacher doesn’t like him, he says, he does not exactly know why but thinks it must be because he’s stupid. “You know I can’t learn much,” he adds cheerfully.

It is easy and sounds well to prate of the utilitaranism of the present day, to say that the ideal of all reform is simply the ideal of getting something to eat It is easy to talk so but at the same time it shows knowledge of the forces that have led the human race to its present high development

If we are to believe our modern theories at all, can we lose sight of the fact that all our ethical and aesthetic sense has had its rise in reactions useful for the preservation of the organism, that is in reactions necessary to get it something to eat?

When we turn to history can we forget that Hampden went to prison on a question of ship-money and that the American revolution was fought on a question of taxes? The getting something to eat is the incentive f and from that are developed noble spirits and heroic deeds.

Better would it be for the educated to-day to recognize this, and assist in modem reforms thus developing in the laborer the great qualities of prudence, endurance and self-sacrifice that co-operation induces, rather than to assume a fin de siècle tone and rail against the gross materialism round about him.

After leaving the church they all walked on very silently for some time. A chill had crept into the air. The joy had gone out of the streets. In place of the dancing children and the careless groups of elders, there were now but the wind wavering shadows of the trees. The sky had become overcast, all nature seemed to feel the reaction of sadness and chill after the excitement of this summer evening.

The group began to separate slightly, Hortense walking ahead with her favorite cousin. There was an uneasy silence that she tried again and again to break, but could not A strange feeling came over her as they walked on. She began to wonder whether she had really done this thing, whether she had yielded herself consciously or whether after all the position was accidental and she not a willing subject The excuses that she had framed to herself in the height of the excitement had taken an abiding hold on her and had become not excuses but a reality.

She wondered to see the process go on within herself. She tried to shake off her apathy but could not She was only a spectator and within herself gradually began without any effort of her own, a growing conviction that after all it had been absent-mindedness. Again she tried to struggle against this process, tried to force herself to confess the truth to her companion. It was useless, the false conviction increasing, soon took possession of her entirely, she was mentally paralysed.

Her cousin now also attempted to break the silence. At last they began to talk in rather a strained fashion. The tension was too much for Hortense, she drew the accusation down upon herself at last by asking somewhat indignantly, what the matter was. At this her cousin began telling her how pained and ashamed they all had been at seeing her so far forget herself.

When the accusation was actually worded, all Hortense’s doubts were at an end. She became filled completely with the sense of her own guiltlessness. She grew indignant and her anger passed directly into words. “What” she said frowning, “do you think as meanly of me as that? Can you believe that I could do a thing of that sort consciously? You all are ready enough to think ill of me if you can so easily accuse me of this. ” Don’t you know well enough, how unconscious I am of the things about me when I get interested? You know how absent-minded I am and yet it does not seem to have occurred to you that I was unconscious of that fellow’s presence ?.”

Her indignation grew stronger with its expression and she now only felt that she was innocent and wronged. Her cousin only too glad to receive her justification promised to tell the rest as soon as possible. This caused brought from Hortense another out-burst of wrath. “Tell them or not as you please, if you all have thought me guilty you can continue to do so for aught I care.” She continued the walk home silently, deeply angered, convinced now beyond question that she had been wronged. She felt that she was innocent, that her violation was only a hideous fantasy.

The next morning, according to her wont Hortense lay out on the grass basking in the sun-shine. Doubts began to assail her. Was she innocent, was she guilty? Had she been willing or had she only had a delusive sense of volition and could she really not have avoided her position. She lay there looking into the depths of the blue nes sky wondering and struggling.

Now the full conviction of her guilt would rush upon her and gritting her teeth muttering fiercely, she would struggle with the thought, then an apathetic feeling would succeed, and she would be certain that she had not been in the wrong.

Her old sense of isolation began to surge over her. Again she had become one apart. Again there was something that none knew beside herself, that no one else of those about her had been guilty of. The struggle continued at intervals all that day. She was outwardly as usual. In fact she herself seemed to take very little part in the war of doubts waged so hotly within her. She felt the struggle, she heard the reasons given again and again, but she herself seemed to be but an apathetic spectator…

On the other side were some nuns in their long black gowns, whispering kindly to each other, frightened at finding themselves in the midst of such a thing. One delicate little woman had fainted and the crowd were forced back enough to let her husband support her out.

Other women with that rudeness peculiar to their sex were abusing their neighbors and impatiently trying to see over their heads. An old woman barely able to totter, was trying to kneel before the central aisle, as is the custom on passing the figure of Christ. At last she succeeded but was almost crushed by a sudden movement in the throng around her. All those st

All those strange and curiously assorted types were there, that are always to be found in a Catholic church where all ranks and conditions find a common mother. The impressive ceremonies, the wealth and imagery displayed in the building, the poetic and mystic emblems, in the church particularly in the dim evening light attract alike the ignorant and the cultured. The passivity of obedience that the church teaches is an inestimable boon in this hurried struggling life of ours.