210 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



principle of mental growth. Self-activity does not mean activity 

 in working out the directions of a teacher or any other superior 

 mind ; it means the revelation or execution of the conceptions of 

 the child himself. The child's work should be self-expression, not 

 imitation, not mere responsive action in accord with the sugges- 

 tion of a teacher. " The children are not interested in study, and 

 most of them need to be forced to learn ; so it would be worse than 

 folly to expect them to find problems for themselves." So says 

 the teacher who has had no true inspiration, no clear enlighten- 

 ment. My dear friend, it is quite true that the children are not 

 interested in your i)roblems. It is true, moreover, that the few 

 who gratify you and their parents by paying attention to your 

 problems and learning your lessons usually make weak men, 

 lacking in originality and force. Every head boy who leaves 

 school with a load of prizes in his arms and a load of knowledge 

 in his head, and then becomes a respectable nonentity, is an un- 

 ripe, falling apple to set educational Newtons thinking. 



The pupils do rebel against your problems ; but they do not 

 rebel against the problems of Nature before they go to school. 

 Wake up ! There are apples falling all around you. The great- 

 est development in school processes during the next twenty-five 

 years will be the introduction into the schoolroom of appropriate 

 material, calculated to stimulate the investigative and executive 

 powers of children, and thus continue the natural educational 

 processes that led to such rapid and definite growth before school 

 life began. 



By reversing Nature's plan, and bringing the problems to chil- 

 dren, instead of allowing them to find them for themselves, teach- 

 ers prevent the development of the power to recognize new prob- 

 lems. This is the most important of all intellectual powers. The 

 solution of new problems is a simple matter when we can clearly 

 recognize them. The ability to see the things yet unseen must 

 precede the knowledge of the things yet unknown. The power to 

 see new problems should grow in strength and clearness more 

 rapidly than any other mental power. It can not grow unless it 

 has the opportunity for exercise. The greatest teacher is the one 

 who presents to the child the best opportunities for the recogni- 

 tion of new problems by his own mind, and the most perfect 

 facilities for expressing or representing his new conceptions in 

 material form. The wonderment of the child in regard to the 

 material world should become much more than a mental stimu- 

 lus ; it should ultimately become our highest, broadest, keenest 

 spiritual insight. We are ever in the midst of new spiritual 

 problems that we fail to recognize, because our wonder power was 

 not allowed to act up to its natural limit. 



In the kindergarten, knowledge is made clear by the self- 



