Kate Douglas Wiggin was one of the heart-based education pioneers who founded the kindergarten movement in the US, starting in California. You may recognize her as the author of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

I just found this Foreword she wrote to a children's reader and thought it was worth passing along:

"Christ it was who disdained not the use of objects and symbols, remembering that it was the childhood of the race. He it was who spake in parables and stories, laying bare soul of man and heart of nature, and revealing each by diving analogy. He it was who took the little ones in His arms and blessed them; who set the child in the midst, saying, 'Except ye become as one of these.'

"May the afterglow that inspired teaching ever shine upon the path we are treading. May we bathe our tired spirits in its warmth and glory, and kindle our torches at the splendor of its light."

Art credit: Making a Flower String by Evert Pieters

I've posted this poem the last several years in appreciation for our husbands and fathers. We talk about mothers around here a lot--but Fathers! Oh how we need you too! And how much we love you.

Happy Father's Day

A POEM FOR MY HUSBAND

While you work, you give us the most cherished of all treasures
TIME
time...
for snuggling and cuddling
two morning-tousled lifeforms
beneath magical tents of sheets
Time...
to throw away the shopping plans
because it's ugly outside
and there's always tomorrow
Now we have time...
for glitter messes
and chocolate batter kisses
Time
to explore puddles
mountains of books
and the depths of our imagination
Your efforts allow me time...
to shape and mold
and rock and hold
THANK YOU

Thank you for adhering to unyielding, grinding schedules so that we can dance to the flow of the music each day. Thank you, my husband
for fighting traffic, office politics and the sterile business world
to give us...
Time
Together
Your sphere of equations and meetings
opens our world
to a deeper understanding of one another
Thank you for staring into a computer screen every day
So that I can gave into
our children's big, hungry eyes all day long.
Thank you for all o fus
We know how lucky we are.

​--Carol Mader

Art Credit: A Father's Return by Frederick Morgan

A little food for thought:

Oscar Wilde: "Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

David Bednar: "The most important learnings of life are caught--not taught." "An answer given by another person usually is not remembered for very long, if remembered at all."

Art credit: Songs of Innocence by Honor Appleton

"We are taught nearly everything except the very thing we ought to know--the art of living."

-Orisen Swett Marden

​Art credit: Song of the Bluebird by Ariane Beigneux