Part 29

In the prospectus of their “new and scientific kindergarten,” the Misses Sarsfield warmly congratulated themselves and their prospective pupils, primarily, upon the physical advantages of their school building which included a large work-and-play room, “with generous window space on all sides, and finished throughout in pure, glazed white.” This description the head of the Clyde household read over twice; then he stepped to the door to intercept Mrs. Clyde’s mother who was passing by.

“Here, Grandma,” said he. “Our Chinese tyrant had diagnosed something wrong with that first page. Do you discover any kink in it?”

“Not I,” said Mrs. Sharpless, after reading it. “Nor in the place itself. I called there yesterday. It is a beautiful room; everything as shiny and clean as a pin.”

“Yesterday was cloudy,” observed the Health Master.

“It was. Yet there wasn’t a corner of the place that wasn’t flooded with light,” declared Mrs. Sharpless.

“And on a clear day, with the sun pouring in from all sides and being flashed back from those shiny, white walls, the unfortunate inmates would be absolutely dazzled.”

“Do you mean to say that God’s pure sunlight can hurt any one?” challenged Mrs. Sharpless, who was rather given to citing the Deity as support for her own side of any question.

“Did you ever hear of snow-blindness?” countered the physician.

“I’ve seen it in the North,” said Mr. Clyde. “It’s not a pleasant thing to see.”

“Glazed white walls would give a very fair imitation of snow-glare. Too much light is as bad as too little. Those walls should be tinted.”

“Yet it says here,” said Mr. Clyde, referring to his circular, “that the ‘Misses Sarsfield will conduct their institution on the most improved Froebelian principles.”

“Froebel was a great man and a wise one,” said Dr. Strong. “His kindergarten system has revolutionized all teaching. But he lived before the age of hygienic knowledge. I suppose that no other man has wrought so much disaster to the human eye as he.”

“That’s a pretty broad statement, Strong,” objected Air. Clyde.

“Is it? Look at the evidence. North Germany is the place where Froebel first developed his system. Seventy-five per cent of the population are defective of vision. Even the American children of North German immigrants show a distinct excess of eye defects. You’ve seen the comic pictures representing Boston children as wearing huge goggles?”

“Are you making an argument out of a funny-paper joke?” queried Grandma Sharpless.

“Why not? It wouldn’t be a joke if it hadn’t some foundation in fact. The kindergarten system got its start in America in Boston. Boston has the worst eyesight of any American city; impaired vision has even become hereditary there. To return to Germany: if you want a shock, look up the records of suicides among school-children there.”

“But surely that has no connection with the eyes.”

“Surely it has,” controverted Dr. Strong. “The eye is the most nervous of all the organs; and nothing will break down the nervous system in general more swiftly and surely than eye-strain. Even in this country we are raising up a generation of neurasthenic youngsters, largely from neglect of their eyes.”

“Still, we’ve got to educate our children,” said Mr. Clyde.

“And we’ve got to take the utmost precautions lest the education cost more than it is worth, in acquired defects.”

“For my part,” announced Grandma Sharpless, “I believe in early schooling and in children learning to be useful. At the Sarsfield school there were little girls no older that Bettina, who were doing needlework beautifully; fine needlework at that.”

“Fine needlework!” exploded Dr. Strong in a tone which Grandma Sharpless afterwards described as “damnless swearing.”

“That’s enough! See here, Clyde. Betty goes to that kindergarten only over my dead job.”

“Oh, well,” said Mr. Clyde, amazed at the quite unwonted excitement which the other exhibited, “if you’re dealing in ultimatums, I’ll drop out and leave the stricken field to Mrs. Clyde. This kindergarten scheme is hers. Wait. I’ll bring her. I think she just came in.”

“What am I to fight with you about, Dr. Strong?” asked Mrs. Clyde, appearing at the door, a vision of trim prettiness in her furs and veil. “Tom didn’t tell me the casus belli.”

“Nobody in this house,” said Dr. Strong appealing to her, “seems to deem the human eye entitled to the slightest consideration. You’ve never worn glasses; therefore you must have respected your own eyesight enough to—”

He stopped abruptly and scowled into Mrs. Clyde’s smiling face.

“Well! what’s the matter?” she demanded. “You look as if you were going to bite.”