The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-03-25
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. IN PINAFoREs.
Five-Year-O1ds Who Discuss 'Phf1O-
sophie Law, and ..Higher Life"

SOPHIE l4aW" ana L11c.'
San Francisco Examiner.
Twenty little San Francisco children are
studying metaphysics.
They are banded together for that
Spiritual Kindergarten, the only one of its
kind in the world, and the organization of
Mrs. Irene Plunkett, of this city. The OBJ
Ject of the class of tiny seekers after
knowledge is to not only increase their
fund of wisdom in a general way, but to
study Spiritual law in the natural world
sist upon using, and which, perhaps, best
explains their exalted motives.
There are twenty of these little folks,
ranging from five years old up, and since
the inception of the idea, less than a year
proportions.
The personnel of the Spiritual Kinder
garten is Florence and Jennie Jackson, Ar
thur and Flora Davis, Edna Funke, Edna
and Clara Morrow, Emma Schultz, Mer-
cedes Durham, Paul Plunkett and Stanley
Dawson, also Flossie Davis, May Smith
and others. They meet once a week at SIS
Eddy, at the house OF their teacher, Mrs.
Piunkett, and there engage in the solemn
consideration of subjects usually discussed
by earnest women and bearded men with
shaven upper lips-speculations and asser-
the way to learn about the higher life,'
and more that the uninitiated would
not grasp. They are following out their
plan rather simply now, owing to the
smallness of the class. but in time hope to
see their kindergarten become an annex to
the general kindergarten system in the city
and elsewhere To the general system it
will sustain the relation of advanced class.
And 1t is advanced enough in all conscience
enough SO to make a chance nearer of
their discourses actually ashamed of his
ignorance. In fact, it would not do for a
vain person to come into comparison with
these precocious little philosophers with
their Understanding terms and their scru-
the most of every faculty they have, and
able to disconcert many a person who
prides himself on some few fragments of
knowledge.
Sunday is the day generally chosen for a
meeting of the baby metaphysicians, and
they are never happier, so their parents
say, than when they are studying the great
subject: They prepare. papers, which they
read aloud to their fellow-members, and
on the facts they have learned throughout
the week. They sometimes write ESSAYS
and deliver she sn .1eefu rigsad their ~ teacher s,che SAYS
subjects, following up their oral exercises
with questions and answers on the some
what ponderous problems in which they
have chosen to interest themselves. Their
lessons are conducted upon the lines of
what the older classes learn, made plain
to their years. Nuts, fruits, animals,
pictures of the same, and moral attributes
of interest, and from these are drawn all
the subjects of their talks. They are to
universe, in the form of the tree with its
branches, leaves, and flowers, all taking
are shown the characteristics of birds and
flowers and have their own human fail
ingS and virtues pointed out through this
object lesson.
I'ney are taught a great many simple
and beautiful truths in a very tender way,
and they are growing wiser and better
for it every day, their mothers say, al
though some of it may be ncomprehensi-
BILE to them, In fact. the study of truth
is one of the terms of their sometimes
strange jargon. But it is certain they. are
learning nothing harmful or useless from
the pleasant-voiced little Spanish woman
who takes them in charge and who is
giving them mothering, unconsciously, as
much as she is giving them metaphy-
sizes. They have cards and cards of seeds
that they know the names of, and they
cannot only do this, but they can draw
thing, thus going a step higher than the
same general system of child culture prac-
ticed in the public schools. And their
parents say they grow more loving and
wise under this study of spiritual things,
which they do not want COMPOUNDED with
spiritualism.
oral lessons from the teacher, who draws
a spiritual parallel from every stem, claw,
root and bead of their school furnishings.
The prodigy of the class is a little bit of
a girl, one of the smallest members, who
is called the theosophist, "a young person
of advanced views, and who informs you
can illustrate her meaning, moreover.
She insists that she is undergoing a re-
incarnation now and that she was once
a man, because she wants to ride a boys
bicycle all the time She is a comical
little creature, who evidently has profited
somewhat by the method of drawing out
the imagination and developing the indi-
viduality employed in the class to which
she belongs.
In spite of all this application to a some
w nbwaici o5str4Se y snn5ees the in the latt Wor,d mesas
healthy, normal boys and girls and just
as fond of whispering and nudging and
stepping on one another,s toes as other
toned, but they are natural and unaffected.