the future world. As yet the ministry is unknown in the culture of the nations, but the hour draws near when love shall be felt as a chosen Bride of Wisdom, and the celestial pair preside over all the household of mankind.

Bronson Alcott did not feel his responsibility as a father alone; he appreciated his own debt to his children, the mental and spiritual help that came to him through them, an appreciation that found expression in this poem, entered in his journal before the birth of Elizabeth:

CHAPTER IV

The Alcott Baby Book

BRONSON ALCOTT wrote the first Baby Book, a book which throws new light on the character of the lovable philosopher, showing one of New England's intellectual leaders as a very human and lovable man as well as "a fond and foolish father."

His Baby Book, however, contains no minute record of the first tooth, or when the baby began to say "Goo" and "Pitty light"; rather it is the father's earnest effort to learn how early in life the infant mind begins to awaken, to indicate comprehension, thought, or logic. As Maeterlinck studied the bee, so Alcott studied his children, and his findings are a revelation, even to-day, when the study of the child has become a science.

Mr. Alcott considered vital the development of the child's individuality and mind; the body seemed to him of secondary importance, for this disregard of the material care of his family he has been severely censured; but, not recognizing in his own life the claims of the body, devoting all his energies to mental growth, it is not surprising that he found his fatherly duty in the guidance of his children's minds. His firm faith in the admonition, "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you," was to him excuse enough for considering the intellect more than the body.

His practical shortcomings reaped a rich and unexpected reward in the next generation, for Louisa M. Alcott would probably not have developed her original and highly entertaining literary gift without the vicissitudes caused by her father's impractical nature and his sublime faith that at all times and in all emergencies the Lord would provide. He did provide; but Louisa was usually the channel, and many of her stories were written under the whip of stern necessity.

Doing without has its advantages. The Alcott children, never overfed, overentertained, overburdened to baby boredom with dolls and toys and games, developed appreciation, observation, and ingenuity. The creative faculty was aroused. They found resources within themselves. What a handbook Louisa might have written on How to be Happy though Poor!

Mrs. Alcott's keen sense of humor, a characteristic inherited by Louisa, often came to her rescue and allowed her to get fun out of a harassing situation. In a letter to her brother, Colonel May, praising her husband's intellect, she laughingly comments upon his disregard of physical necessities: "I am not sure that we shall not blush into obscurity and contemplate into starvation."

But, to get back to the baby book, or, as Mr. Alcott called it, "the psychological history," it was started with a high and unselfish motive; it was developed to an astonishing degree. Its purpose and scope are best expressed in this extract from Mr. Alcott's journal:

When Anna was born, the father began keeping a record of her "physical and intellectual progress." When she was seven weeks old, her mother wrote: "It seems as if she were conscious of his observations and desirous of furnishing him daily with an item for this record."

The following excerpt from the father's diary shows how well Anna succeeded in her baby attempt:

Moral advancement of a baby five months old!

Birth of Louisa

On November 29, 1832, his thirty-third birthday and also the natal day of his friend, Ellery Channing, the poet, Mr. Alcott chronicles an "interesting event," how interesting the father little dreamed, nor how important, not alone to the house of Alcott, but to the world. Under the heading of Circumstances, the father thus records the birth of Louisa May Alcott:

While the New England philosopher was studying the development of his little daughters and deducing therefrom facts for his psychological history, these same little daughters were developing him, for, as the child nature unfolded, the father's understanding of childhood expanded.

Thus the baby book grew: