The Girl and the Kingdom

Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

The Girl and the Kingdom / Learning to Teach

Along, busy street in San Francisco. Innumerable small shops lined it from north to south; horse cars, always crowded with passengers, hurried to and fro; narrow streets intersected the broader one, these built up with small dwellings, most of them rather neglected by their owners. In the middle distance other narrow streets and alleys where taller houses stood, and the windows, fire escapes, and balconies of these, added great variety to the landscape, as the families housed there kept most of their effects on the outside during the long dry season.

Still farther away were the roofs, chimneys and smoke stacks of mammoth buildings—railway sheds, freight depots, power houses and the like—with finally a glimpse of docks and wharves and shipping. This, or at least a considerable section of it, was the kingdom. To the ordinary beholder it might have looked ugly, crowded, sordid, undesirable, but it appeared none of these things to the lucky person who had been invested with some sort of modest authority in its affairs.

The throne from which the lucky person viewed the empire was humble enough. It was the highest of the tin shop steps at the corner of Silver and Third streets, odd place for a throne, but one commanding a fine view of the inhabitants, their dwellings, and their activities. The activities in plain sight were somewhat limited in variety, but the signs sported the names of nearly every nation upon the earth. The Shubeners, Levis, Ezekiels and Appels were generally in tailoring or secondhand furniture and clothing, while the Raffertys, O'Flanagans and McDougalls dispensed liquor. All the most desirable sites were occupied by saloons, for it was practically impossible to quench the thirst of the neighborhood, though many were engaged in a valiant effort to do so. There were also in evidence, barbers, joiners, plumbers, grocers, fruit-sellers, bakers and venders of small wares, and there was the largest and most splendidly recruited army of do-nothings that the sun ever shone upon. These forever-out-of-workers, leaning against every lamp post, fence picket, corner house, and barber pole in the vicinity, were all male, but they were mostly mated to women fully worthy of them, their wives doing nothing with equal assiduity in the back streets hard by.—Stay, they did one thing, they added copiously to the world's population; and indeed it seemed as if the families in the community that ought to have had few children, or none at all, (for their country's good) had the strongest prejudice to race suicide. Well, there was the kingdom and there were the dwellers therein, and the lucky person on the steps was a girl. She did not know at first that it was a kingdom, and the kingdom never at any time would have recognized itself under that name, for it was anything but a sentimental neighborhood. The girl was somewhat too young for the work she was going to do, and considerably too inexperienced, but she had a kindergarten diploma in her pocket, and being an ardent follower of Froebel she thought a good many roses might blossom in the desert of Tar Flat, the rather uneuphonious name of the kingdom.

Here the discreet anonymity of the third person must be cast aside and the regrettable egotism of the first person allowed to enter, for I was a girl, and the modest chronicle of my early educational and philanthropic adventures must be told after the manner of other chronicles.

The building in Silver Street which was to be the scene of such beautiful and inspiring doings (I hoped) as had been seldom observed on this planet, was pleasant and commodious. It had been occupied by two classes of an overcrowded primary school, which had now been removed to a fine modern building. The two rooms rented for this pioneer free kindergarten of the Pacific Coast were (Alas!) in the second story but were large and sunny. A broad flight of twenty wooden steps led from street to first floor and a long stairway connected that floor with the one above. If anyone had realized what those fifty or sixty stairs meant to the new enterprise, in labor and weariness, in wasted time and strength of teachers and children—but it was difficult to find ideal conditions in a crowded neighborhood.

The first few days after my arrival in San Francisco were spent in the installing of stove, piano, tables, benches and working materials, and then the beautifying began, the creation of a room so attractive and homelike, so friendly in its atmosphere, that its charm would be felt by every child who entered it. I was a stranger in a strange city, my only acquaintances being the trustees of the newly formed Association. These naturally had no technical knowledge, (I am speaking of the Dark Ages, when there were but two or three trained kindergartners west of the Rocky Mountains) and the practical organization of things—a kindergarten of fifty children in active operation—this was my department. When I had anything to show them they were eager and willing to help, meantime they could and did furnish the sinews of war, standing sponsors to the community for the ideals in education we were endeavoring to represent. Here is where the tin shop steps came in. I sat there very often in those sunny days of late July, 1878, dreaming dreams and seeing visions; plotting, planning, helping, believing, forecasting the future. "Hills peeped o'er hills and Alps on Alps."

I take some credit to myself that when there were yet no such things as Settlements and Neighborhood Guilds I had an instinct that this was the right way to work.

"This school," I thought, "must not be an exotic, a parasite, an alien growth, not a flower of beauty transplanted from a conservatory and shown under glass; it must have its roots deep in the neighborhood life, and there my roots must be also. No teacher, be she ever so gifted, ever so consecrated, can sufficiently influence the children under her care for only a few hours a day, unless she can gradually persuade the parents to be her allies. I must find then the desired fifty children under school age (six years in California) and I must somehow keep in close relation to the homes from which they come."

How should I get in intimate touch with this strange, puzzling, foreign community, this big clump of poverty-stricken, intemperate, overworked, lazy, extravagant, ill-assorted humanity leavened here and there by a God-fearing, thrifty, respectable family? There were from time to time children of widows who were living frugally and doing their best for their families who proved to be the leaven in my rather sorry lump.

Buying and borrowing were my first two aids to fellowship. I bought my luncheon at a different bakery every day and my glass of milk at a different dairy. At each visit I talked, always casually, of the new kindergarten, and gave its date of opening, but never "solicited" pupils. I bought pencils, crayons, and mucilage of the local stationers; brown paper and soap of the grocers; hammers and tacks of the hardware man. I borrowed many things, returned them soon, and thus gave my neighbors the satisfaction of being helpful. When I tried to borrow the local carpenter's saw he answered that he would rather come and do the job himself than lend his saw to a lady. The combination of a lady and edged tools was something in his mind so humorous that I nervously changed the subject. (If he is still alive I am sure he is an Anti-Suffragist!) I was glad to display my school room to an intelligent workman, and a half hour's explanation of the kindergarten occupations made the carpenter an enthusiastic convert. This gave me a new idea, and to each craftsman, in the vicinity, I showed the particular branch of kindergarten handiwork that might appeal to him, whether laying of patterns, in separate sticks and tablets, weaving, drawing, rudimentary efforts at designing, folding and cutting of paper, or clay modelling.

I had the great advantage of making all of my calls in shops, and thus I had not the unpleasant duty of visiting people's houses uninvited, nor the embarrassment of being treated as peddlers of patronage and good advice are apt to be treated. Besides, in many cases, the shops and homes (Heaven save the mark!) were under one roof, and children scuttled in and out, behind and under the counters and over the thresholds into the street. They were all agog with curiosity and so were the women. A mother does not have to be highly cultured to perceive the advantage of a place near by where she can send her four or five year olds free of charge and know that they are busy and happy for several hours a day.

I know, by long experience with younger kindergartners and social workers in after years, that this kind of "visiting" presents many perplexities to persons of a certain temperament, but I never entered any house where I felt the least sensation of being out of place. I don't think this flexibility is a gift of especially high order, nor that it would be equally valuable in all walks of life, but it is of great service in this sort of work. Whether I sat in a stuffed chair or on a nailkeg or an inverted washtub it was always equally agreeable to me. The "getting into relation," perfectly, and without the loss of a moment, gave me a sense of mental and spiritual exhilaration. I never had to adapt myself elaborately to a strange situation in order to be in sympathy. I never said to myself: "But for God's grace I might be the woman on that cot; unloved, uncared for, with a new-born child at my side and a dozen men drinking in the saloon just on the other side of the wall * * * or that mother of five—convivial, dishonest, unfaithful * * * or that timid, frail, little creature struggling to support a paralytic husband." I never had to give myself logical reasons for being where I was, nor wonder what I should say; my one idea was to keep the situation simple and free from embarrassment to any one; to be as completely a part of it as if I had been born there; to be helpful without being intrusive; to show no surprise whatever happened; above all to be cheerful, strong and bracing, not weakly sentimental.

As the day of opening approached an unexpected and valuable aide-de-camp appeared on the scene. An American girl of twelve or thirteen slipped in the front door one day when I was practicing children's songs, whereupon the following colloquy ensued.

"What's this place goin' to be?"

"A kindergarten."

"What's that?"

Explanation suited to the questioner, followed.

"Can I come in afternoons, on my way home from school and see what you do?"

"Certainly."

"Can I stay now and help round?"

"Yes indeed, I should be delighted."

"What's the bird for?"

"What are all birds for?" I answered, just to puzzle her.

"I dunno. What's the plants and flowers for?"

"What are all flowers for?" I demanded again.

"But I thought 'twas a school."

"It is, but it's a new kind."

"Where's the books?"

"The children are going to be under six; we shan't have reading and writing."

We sat down to work together, marking out and cutting brown paper envelopes for the children's sewing or weaving, binding colored prints with gold paper and putting them on the wall with thumb tacks, and arranging all the kindergarten materials tidily on the shelves of the closets. Next day was a holiday and she begged to come again. I consented and told her that she might bring a friend if she liked and we would lunch together.

"I guess not," she said, with just a hint of jealousy in her tone. "You and I get on so well that mebbe we'd be bothered with another girl messin' around, and she'd be one more to wash up for after lunch."

From that moment, the Corporal, as I called her, was a stanch ally and there was seldom a day in the coming years when she did not faithfully perform all sorts of unofficial duties, attaching herself passionately to my service with the devotion of a mother or an elder sister. She proved at the beginning a kind of travelling agent for the school haranguing mothers on the street corners and addressing the groups of curious children who gathered at the foot of the school steps.

"You'd ought to go upstairs and see the inside of it!" she would exclaim. "It's just like going around the world. There's a canary bird, there's fishes swimmin' in a glass bowl, there's plants bloomin' on the winder sills, there's a pianner, and more'n a million pictures! There's closets stuffed full o' things to play and work with, and whatever the scholars make they're goin' to take home if it's good. There's a play-room with red rings painted on the floor and they're going to march and play games on 'em. She can play the pianner standin' up or settin' down, without lookin' at her hands to see where they're goin'. She's goin' to wear white, two a week, and I got Miss Lannigan to wash 'em for her for fifteen cents apiece. I tell her the children 'round here's awful dirty and she says the cleaner she is the cleaner they'll be.... No, 'tain't goin' to be no Sunday School," said the voluble Corporal. "No, 'tain't goin' to be no Mission; no, 'tain't goin' to be no Lodge! She says it's a new kind of a school, that's all I know, and next Monday'll see it goin' full blast!"

It was somewhat in this fashion, that I walked joyously into the heart of a San Francisco slum, and began experimenting with my newly-learned panaceas.

These were early days. The kindergarten theory of education was on trial for its very life; the fame of Pestalozzi and Froebel seemed to my youthful vision to be in my keeping, and I had all the ardor of a neophyte. I simply stepped into a cockle-shell and put out into an unknown ocean, where all manner of derelicts needed help and succor. The ocean was a life of which I had heretofore known nothing; miserable, overburdened, and sometimes criminal.

My cockle-shell managed to escape shipwreck, and took its frail place among the other craft that sailed in its company. I hardly saw or felt the safety of the harbor or the shore for three years, the three years out of my whole life the most wearying, the most heart-searching, the most discouraging, the most inspiring; also, I dare say, the best worth living.

"Full blast," the Corporal's own expression, exactly described the setting out of the cockle-shell; that is, the eventful Monday morning when the doors of the first free kindergarten west of the Rockies threw open its doors.

The neighborhood was enthusiastic in presenting its offspring at the altar of educational experiment, and we might have enrolled a hundred children had there been room. I was to have no assistant and we had provided seats only for forty-five, which prohibited a list of more than fifty at the outside. A convert to any inspiring idea being anxious to immolate herself on the first altar which comes in the path of duty, I carefully selected the children best calculated to show to the amazed public the regenerating effects of the kindergarten method, and as a whole they were unsurpassed specimens of the class we hoped to benefit.

Of the forty who were accepted the first morning, thirty appeared to be either indifferent or willing victims, while ten were quite the reverse. These screamed if the maternal hand were withdrawn, bawled if their hats were taken away, and bellowed if they were asked to sit down. This rebellion led to their being removed to the hall by their mothers, who spanked them vigorously every few minutes and returned them to me each time in a more unconquered state, with their lung power quite unimpaired and their views of the New Education still vague and distorted. As the mothers were uniformly ladies with ruffled hair, snapping eyes, high color and short temper, I could not understand the childrens' fear of me, a mild young thing "in white"—as the Corporal would say—but they evidently preferred the ills they knew. When the last mother led in the last freshly spanked child and said as she prepared to leave: "Well, I suppose they might as well get used to you one time as another, so good-day, Miss, and God help you!" I felt that my woes were greater than I could bear, for, as the door closed, several infants who had been quite calm began to howl in sympathy with their suffering brethren. Then the door opened again and the Corporal's bright face appeared in the crack.

"Goodness!" she ejaculated, "this ain't the new kind of a school I thought 'twas goin' to be!—Stop your cryin', Jimmy Maxwell, a great big boy like you; and Levi Isaacs and Goldine Gump, I wonder you ain't ashamed! Do you 'spose Miss Kate can do anything with such a racket? Now don't let me hear any more o' your nonsense!—Miss Kate," she whispered, turning to me: "I've got the whole day off for my uncle's funeral, and as he ain't buried till three o'clock I thought I'd better run in and see how you was gettin' on!"

"You are an angel, Corporal!" I said. "Take all the howlers down into the yard and let them play in the sand tables till I call you."

When the queue of weeping babes had been sternly led out by the Corporal something like peace descended upon the room but there could be no work for the moment because the hands were too dirty. Coöperation was strictly Froebelian so I selected with an eagle eye several assistants from the group—the brightest-eyed, best-tempered, and cleanest. With their help I arranged the seats, the older children at the back tables and the babies in the front. Classification was difficult as many of them did not know their names, their ages, their sexes, nor their addresses, but I had succeeded in getting a little order out of chaos by the time the Corporal appeared again.

"They've all stopped cryin' but Hazel Golly, and she ran when I wa'n't lookin' and got so far I couldn't ketch her; anyway she ain't no loss for I live next door to her.—What'll we do next?"

"Scrub!" I said firmly. "I want to give them some of the easiest work, two kinds, but we can't touch the colored cards until all the hands are clean.—Shall we take soap and towels and all go down into the yard where the sink is, children, and turn up our sleeves and have a nice wash?" (Some of the infants had doubtless started from home in a tolerable state of cleanliness but all signs had disappeared en route).

The proposition was greeted amiably. "Anything rather than sit still!" is the mental attitude of a child under six!

"I told you just how dirty they'd be," murmured the Corporal. "I know 'em; but I never expected to get this good chance to scrub any of 'em."

"It's only the first day;—wait till next Monday," I urged.

"I shan't be here to see it next Monday morning," my young friend replied. "We can't bury Uncle every week!" (This with a sigh of profound regret!)

Many days were spent in learning the unpronounceable names of my flock and in keeping them from murdering one another until Froebel's justly celebrated "law of love" could be made a working proposition. It was some time before the babies could go down stairs in a line without precipitating one another head foremost by furtive kicks and punches. I placed an especially dependable boy at the head and tail of the line but accidentally overheard the tail boy tell the head that he'd lay him out flat if he got into the yard first, a threat that embarrassed a free and expeditious exit:—and all their relations to one another seemed at this time to be arranged on a broad basis of belligerence. But better days were coming, were indeed near at hand, and the children themselves brought them; they only needed to be shown how, but you may well guess that in the early days of what was afterwards to be known as "The Kindergarten Movement on the Pacific Coast," when the Girl and her Kingdom first came into active communication with each other, the question of discipline loomed rather large! Putting aside altogether the question of the efficiency, or the propriety, of corporal punishment in the public schools, it seems pretty clear that babies of four or five years should be spanked by their parents if by anyone; and that a teacher who cannot induce good behavior in children of that age, without spanking, has mistaken her vocation. However, it is against their principles for kindergartner's to spank, slap, flog, shake or otherwise wrestle with their youthful charges, no matter how much they seem to need these instantaneous and sometimes very effectual methods of dissuasion at the moment.

There are undoubtedly times when the old Adam (I don't know why it shouldn't be the Old Eve!) rises in one's still unregenerate heart, and one longs to take the "low road" in discipline; but the "high road" commonly leads one to the desired point without great delay and there is genuine satisfaction in finding that taking away his work from a child, or depriving him of the pleasure of helping his neighbors, is as great a punishment as a blow.

You may say such ideal methods would not prevail with older boys and girls, and that may be true, for wrong development may have gone too far; but it is difficult to find a small child who is lazy or indifferent, or one who would welcome the loss of work; difficult also to find one who is not unhappy when deprived of the chance of service, seeing, as he does, his neighbors happily working together and joyfully helping others.

I had many Waterloos in my term of generalship and many a time was I a feeble enough officer of "The Kid's Guards" as the kindergarten was translated in Tar Flat by those unfamiliar with the German word.

The flock was at the foot of the stairs one morning at eleven o'clock when there was a loud and long fire alarm in the immediate vicinity. No doubt existed in the mind of any child as to the propriety or advisability of remaining at the seat of learning. They started down the steps for the fire in a solid body, with such unanimity and rapidity that I could do nothing but save the lives of the younger ones and keep them from being trampled upon while I watched the flight of their elders. I was left with two lame boys and four babies so fat and bow-legged that they probably never had reached, nor ever would reach, a fire while it was still burning.

Pat Higgins, aged five and a half, the leader of the line, had a sudden pang of conscience at the corner and ran back to ask me artlessly if he might "go to the fire."

"Certainly not," I answered firmly. "On the contrary please stay here with the lame and the fat, while I go to the fire and bring back the other children."

I then pursued the errant flock and recovering most of them, marched them back to the school-room, meeting Judge Solomon Heydenfelt, President of the new Kindergarten Association, on the steps. He had been awaiting me for ten minutes and it was his first visit! He had never seen a kindergarten before, either returning from a fire or otherwise, and there was a moment of embarrassment, but I had a sense of humor and fortunately he enjoyed the same blessing. Only very young teachers who await the visits of supervisors in shuddering expectancy can appreciate this episode.

The days grew brighter and more hopeful as winter approached. I got into closer relation with some homes than others, and I soon had half a dozen five-year-olds who came to the kindergarten clean, and if not whole, well darned and patched. One of these could superintend a row of babies at their outline sewing, thread their needles, untangle their everlasting knots, and correct the mistakes in the design by the jabbing of wrong holes in the card. Another was very skillful at weaving and proved a good assistant in that occupation.

I developed also a little body guard which was efficient in making a serener and more harmonious atmosphere. It is neither wise nor kind to burden a child with responsibilities too heavy or irksome for his years, but surely it is never too early to allow him to be helpful to his fellows and considerate of his elders. I can't believe that any of the tiny creatures on whom I leaned in those weary days were the worse for my leaning. The more I depended on them the greater was their dependableness, and the little girls grew more tender, the boys more chivalrous. I had my subtle means of communication, spirit to spirit! If Pat Higgins, pausing on the verge of some regrettable audacity or hilarious piece of mischief, chanced to catch my eye, he desisted. He knew that I was saying to him silently: "You are not so very naughty. I could almost let you go on if it were not for those others who are always making trouble. Somebody must be good! I cannot bear it if you desert me!"