Her "literary passions" were the Arabian Nights, Scottish Chiefs, Don Quixote, Thaddeus of Warsaw, Irving's Mahomet, Thackeray's Snobs, Undine, and the Martyrs of Spain. These volumes, joined to an old green Shakespeare and a Plum Pudding edition of Dickens, were the chief of her diet.

But stay! while I am talking of literary tendencies, I do remember a certain prize essay entitled "Pictures in the Clouds,"–not so called because it took the prize, alas! but because it competed for it.

There is also a myth in the household (doubtless invented by my mother) that my sister learned her letters from the signs in the street, and taught herself to read when scarcely out of long clothes. This may be cited as a bit of "corroborative detail," though personally I never believed in it.

Johnson's Sister,

N. A. S.

Like many who have won success in literature, her taste and aptitude showed themselves early. It would be unfair to take Polly Oliver's Problem as in any sense autobiographical, as regards a close following of facts, but it may be guessed to have some inner agreement with Mrs. Wiggin's history, for she herself when a girl of eighteen wrote a story, Half a Dozen Housekeepers, which was published in St. Nicholas in the numbers for November and December, 1878. She was living at the time in California, and more to the purpose even than this bright little story was the preparation she was making for her later successes in the near and affectionate study of children whom she was teaching. She studied the kindergarten methods for a year under Emma Marwedel, and after teaching for a year in Santa Barbara College, she was called upon to organize in San Francisco the first free kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. She was soon joined in this work by her sister; and the enthusiasm and good judgment shown by the two inspired others, and made the famous "Silver Street Kindergarten" not only a great object lesson on the Pacific Coast, but an inspiration to similar efforts in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia, and the Hawaiian Islands.

This school was, and is at the present time, located in a densely inhabited and poverty-ridden quarter of the city. It was largely among the very poor that Mrs. Wiggin's full time and wealth of energy were devoted, for kindergartening was never a fad with her as some may have imagined; always philanthropic in her tendencies, she was, and is, genuinely and enthusiastically in earnest in this work. It is interesting to know that on the wall of one apartment at the Silver Street Kindergarten hangs a life-like portrait of its founder, underneath which you may read these words:–

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

In this room was born the first free Kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. Let me have the happiness of looking down upon many successive groups of children sitting in these same seats.

We are told that the children love that room the best; it is pictured as a bright, cheery spot, where the children used to gather with "Miss Kate" in the bygone days. By the window there is a bird-cage; the tiny occupant bearing the historical name of "Patsy." Connected with this kindergarten is a training-school, organized by Mrs. Wiggin in 1880, and conducted by Miss Nora Smith for several years afterward. The two sisters in collaboration have added much valuable matter to kindergarten literature, notably the three volumes entitled The Republic of Childhood, Children's Sights, and The Story Hour.

On her marriage, Mrs. Wiggin gave up teaching, but continued to give two talks a week to the Training Class. She was also a constant visitor in the many kindergartens which had sprung up under the impulse of herself and her associates. She played with the children, sang to them, told them stories, and thus was all the while not only gathering material unconsciously, but practicing the art which she was to make her calling. The dozen years thus spent were her years of training, and, during this time she wrote and printed The Story of Patsy, merely to raise money for the kindergarten work. Three thousand copies were sold without the aid of a publisher, and the success was repeated when, not long after, The Birds' Christmas Carol appeared.

In 1888 Mrs. Wiggin removed to New York, and her friends urged her to come before the public with a regular issue of the last-named story. Houghton, Mifflin and Company at once brought out an edition, and the popularity which the book enjoyed in its first limited circle was now repeated on a very large scale. The reissue of The Story of Patsy followed at the hands of the same publishers, and they have continued to bring out the successive volumes of her writing.

It is not necessary to give a formal list of these books. Perhaps The Birds' Christmas Carol, which is so full of that sweet, tender pathos and wholesome humor which on one page moves us to tears, and the next sets us shaking with laughter, has been more widely enjoyed and read than her other stories, at least in America. It has been translated into Japanese, French, German, and Swedish, and has been put in raised type for the use of the blind. Patsy is a composite sketch taken from kindergarten life. For Timothy's Quest, one of the brightest and most cleverly written of character sketches, the author feels an especially tender sentiment. The story of how the book took form is old, but will bear repeating; it originated from the casual remark of a little child who said, regarding a certain house, "I think they need some babies there." Mrs. Wiggin at once jotted down in her note-book "needing babies," and from this nucleus the charming story of "Timothy" was woven into its present form. It is said that Rudyard Kipling considers Polly Oliver one of the most delightful of all girl-heroines; and Mrs. Wiggin really hopes some day to see the "Hospital Story Hour" carried out in real life.

She owns a most interesting collection of her books in several languages. The illustrations of these are very unique, as most of them are made to correspond with the life of the country in which they are published. Timothy's Quest is a favorite in Denmark with its Danish text and illustrations. It has also found its way into Swedish, and has appeared in the Tauchnitz edition, as has also A Cathedral Courtship. Her latest book, The Village Watch Tower, is composed of several short stories full of the very breath and air of New England. They are studies of humble life, interesting oddities and local customs, and are written in her usual bright vein.

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