year, in public and private charities, about eight millions of dollars, and out of that great sum every penny that goes to kindergartens could well be multiplied an hundredfold with lasting advantage to the community. The New York Kindergarten Association was organized in 1889, and now supports fifteen schools, if they may be

Kindergarten Children.

so called, in different poor quarters of the city. After three years of constant effort the Board of Education was induced to appropriate five thousand dollars in order to try what is certainly no longer an experiment, and seven kindergartens are established in connection with the public schools. Twentynine more are supported by various private charities, and the Children's Aid Society is responsible for twelve besides these. Allowing that there are now seventy-five throughout the city, and that each has an average of sixty

pupils, that only makes forty-five hundred, and by the last sanitary census there were 160,708 children under five years of age in the teeming tenementhouse population of a million and a quarter souls.

Mr. Jacob Riis, in his valuable book. "The Children of the Poor," says, "Without a doubt the kindergarten is

one of the longest steps that has been taken in the race with poverty, for in gathering in the children it is gradually but surely conquering also the street with its power for mischief. As an adjunct to the public school in preparing the young minds. for more serious tasks, it is admitted by teachers to be most valuable. But its greatest success is as a jail deliverer; the more kindergartens, the fewer prisons, is a saying the truth of which the generation that comes after us will be better able to grasp than we."

Another of its many advantages is that it helps to make Americans out of the children of the emigrants who impose themselves upon us by the thousand. In 1893 the Rivington Street kindergarten had forty-seven names on its roll, though the room could hold only forty comfortably, and says in its report:

"About one-half of the children are of German parentage, and the other half German and Russian Hebrews. To many of them English was entirely strange, and we could with difficulty make them understand us; also, many of them did not know such familiar things as birds and trees, cows and sheep, never having seen them, so that

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enough to be of real service, and if the work attracts her she can always take a regular course of training in one of the schools for kindergartners. About thirty years ago, public indignation in England and France was The day nuraroused by the exposure of shameful neglect and cruelty inflicted on babies by those who were paid to care for them while their mothers were out working by the day. Thinking of this, and kneeling in Paris before one of the "crèches" or mangers which are shown in all Catholic churches at Christmas to recall the humble birth of Jesus Christ, a pious Frenchman named Marbeau resolved to establish a public cradle where everything should be done for the health and comfort of its helpless wards. His' beneficent mission was a success from the start, and now there is scarcely a charity for children in which the day-nursery does not have a share; and here again there is always work for those who will give it, as the success of all organized charity must largely depend upon intelligent interest and supervision from the outside.

at first our progress was very slow. We found a happy road to their minds when we began to teach them through singing. They are all passionately fond of music, and they remember and are keenly interested in the things they sing about. The gestures made with the songs also helped them to understand the words. Besides showing them pictures and other representations of objects, we took them as often as possible to Central Park in the afternoon, that they might for themselves see the things they were learning about. By the end of two months we began to see a great improvement in the children, in general intelligence and power of attention. The day before Thanksgiving their parents were invited to see them march with flags and to hear them sing their songs, and about thirty mothers came. They were delighted with the singing, and almost everyone told us how much the children sang at home, and how eager they were to come to the kindergarten, getting up at six o'clock in the morning so as not to be late. One mother said, 'The only amusement we have in the evenings is watching the children play the kindergarten games.""

The cost of establishing and maintaining for a year a kindergarten of fifty children is about fourteen hundred dollars, and to teach them satisfactorily the services of a principal and at least one assistant teacher are required. If any young girl has what old nurses call "a way" with children, and wants to make herself of some use to them, she cannot do better than to offer her help in a kindergarten. Her services will usually be gratefully accepted by the overworked teachers, and although at first she will be able only to assist the scholars in and out of their wraps, and aid in keeping the very little ones quiet, by watching the method of teaching she will pick up

ciety was tried in the manufacturing town of Lowell, Mass. It worked at

first imperfectly, being limited to one parish, but a general society was finally formed, which adopted its constitution and came to its maturity in 1886.

From the nature of its construction the society is intended to work within the Protestant Episcopal Church, and is distinctly a religious and Church organization. It is under the sanction of the bishop of each diocese; it seeks its field of labor in Church parishes, and requires the consent of their rectors to work at all. The girls whom it tries to reach are, first, the members of the particular parish to which that branch of the society belongs, next, strangers coming from other places, and last, those who are not members of any religious body, and go to no place of worship on Sundays. There are now 150,000 members and associates of the society in England and 10,885 in America, and it does an immense amount of good within its limits, not only to girls who are regular members of a certain church, but to those who may come as strangers into the parish.

The Young Women's Christian Association, in New York, is a most useful organization with a large The Y. W. C. A. membership. The Art classes have a regular course of three years, comprising mechanical and freehand drawing, clay modelling and applied design, the study of ornament, and drawing from objects and from life, besides special instruction in the various processes used in art illustrations. There are also classes in bookkeeping, business training, and stenography, as well as in millinery and in sewing by hand and by machine.

It is not necessary now to go into further details, for the simple reason that these suggestions are meant only to point out a few of the ways in which a woman may help others outside of any church organization. Religious faith has always been, and probably

always will be, one of the great impulses of humanity, especially with women, and there are many who feel that they can only give the best of themselves when they are working within the rules of the religious organization to which they belong. All that must be a matter of personal temperament and conviction. "All service ranks the same with God," if it be honestly and loyally tendered, and if a woman spend her life in caring for the poor and needy, it matters little whether she be called a Sister of Charity of the Roman Catholic Church, a Protestant Episcopal Deaconess, or a Presbyterian District Visitor. Each of these great divisions, however, has its own existing laws and regulations, administered by its own officers, and the only thing for anyone to do who wishes to make one of the army of a religious body, is to report for duty and obey orders like any other soldier.

Working girls' clubs differ from the Friendly Societies in that they are not Working girls under Church government,

clubs.

and the groups which form them are drawn together through the same natural aggregation and community of interests which go to make up any kind of club. It is estimated that at least one hundred and fifty thousand women and girls earn their own living in New York, and this does not include the large number who are not entirely dependent upon their own labor, although they contribute by it to the family support.

It will easily be seen that this second class is the worst enemy the first can possibly have, for, as Mr. Riis says pithily, "the pay they are willing to accept all have to take." For instance, much of the making of fine underclothes and shirts is done by the daughters of farmers in the Eastern States, who are contented to make two or three dollars a week for their clothes—