The Kindergarten

"I know what will happen," Mr Brainer wenton to say. "You'll send Bobbie to what Germans call a Kindergarten. And it's a good thing for Germany, because all a German knows is what one tells him; and his graduation papers are a certificate that he needn't think any more. But we have introduced it into this country, and one day I dropped in on Mary Ellen and saw her Kindergarten. The children were sitting around on the floor and some were molding dogs out of mud and wiping their hands on their hair, and some were carving figures of a goat out of pasteboard, and some were singing, and some were sleeping and a few were dancing. And one boy was pulling another boy's hair.

'Why don't you punish the little savage, Mary Ellen?' said I.

'We don't believe in corporal punishment,'* said she. 'School should be pleasant for the children,' she said. 'The child whose hair is being pulled is learning patience, and the child that is pulling the hair is discovering the futility of human endeavour.'**

'Oh, well,' I said, 'that's very interesting, indeed. Times have certainly changed since I was a boy,' I said. 'Put them through their exercises,' I said, 'Tommy, spell "cat," I said.

'Go to the devil,' said the little angel.

'Very smartly said***," said Mary Ellen. 'You should not ask him to spell,' she said. 'They don't learn that till they go to college,' she said, 'sometimes not even then,' she said.

'And what do they learn?' I said.

'Playing,' she said, 'and dancing, and independence of speech, and beauty songs, and sweet thoughts, and how to make home homelike,' she said.

'I won't put them through any exercise today,' I said.

'...whisper, Mary Ellen,' I said. 'Do you never feel like whipping them?'****

'The teachings of Freebull and Pitzotly***** are contrary to that,' she said. 'But I'm going to be married and leave school on Friday the 22nd of January and on Thursday the 21st I'm going to ask a few of the darlings to the house and stew them over a slow fire.'"******

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* corporal punishment – телесные наказания

** the futility of human endeavour – тщетность человеческих усилий

*** very smartly said – очень умный ответ

**** Do you never feel like whipping them? –И вам никогда не хочетсяотшлепать их?

***** искаженное от Froebel – немецкий педагог,основатель детскихсадов, Pestallozi – выдающийся швейцарский педагог

****** to stew over a slow fire – зажарить на медленном огне