Excerpt from The Kindergarten in American Education Wherever the democratic idea has emerged during the past century it has been accompanied by certain movements which have tended to anchor and hold it fast. Of all such social phenomena the kindergarten has been one of the most interesting and enduring. German thinkers had been for half a century consciously imaging the universal ideals of freedom and unity in their literature, philosophy, and art. "The Faust," "The Ode to Joy," "The Ninth Symphony," and Novalis' "Blue Flower" were embodiments of that national spirit which had been inarticulate for two centuries. At last the Idee craved political expression and midway down the century all Europe was stirred by spirited revolutions. These revealed the extent to which men's hearts were reanimated with courage and humanitarian purpose. New social programs were offered by patriots and freethinkers to the several governments under agitation. For the most part these were rejected or proscribed, and their authors cast out across the waters, only to propagate and quicken the democratic idea wherever they were received. The United States being made by and for such as these, they came from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, and Bohemia with the ideal of liberty more consciously enthroned in their minds than ever before. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.