^yORK AND REST: GENIUS AND STUPIDITY. 415 



The Child. — It is a fact of immemorial knowledge that the child 

 at play, in some respects nearest the animal, in others the most typical 

 representative of our human race, takes especial delight in continuing 

 his activity to the uttermost extreme of exhaustion. This is true like- 

 wise of intellectual pleasures in that early age when the little child 

 has not been subdued by the pedagogues; we see both in his first at- 

 tempts to speak and to listen, and often in his imitation of his elders, 

 the same genial exertion till weariness induces rest. Groos,* in his 

 ' Play of Man,' discusses this feature of early childhood, pointing out, 

 moreover, that, before the school places its ban upon the child, ' his 

 life, apart from feeding and sleeping, is spent almost wholly in play- 

 activities.' Play-time remains for years the absorbing, genial period 

 of his existence. And in its acmes of intensity he exhausts himself 

 corporeally and mentally. Some say it is ' complete absorption into 

 the genius of the present,' others that it is ' genial repetition of self,' 

 or 'delighted remanipulation of the right combination happily stumbled 

 upon.' Whatever it may be, enough is revealed to make it certain that 

 a sort of inspiration so works upon children as to make them tend to use 

 their powers of mind and body intensely to the furthest possible limit, 

 t. e., of course, when they are moved so to do, and not interfered with 

 by things alien to their type and mode of action. There is undoubtedly 

 monotony in the play-intensity of childhood, but the child has not the 

 innumerable sources of variety appealed to by the adult genius whom 

 he so often and so much resembles. The self-imitation of the child fore- 

 shadows a similar phenomenon, broader and deeper in the adult genius, 

 which is higher and greater than all hetero-imitation of any sort what- 

 soever. All things considered, these phenomena of childhood suggest 

 that the school is on the wrong track in seeking to force upon the young 

 lesson- restraints of several hours duration (both morning and afternoon, 

 nay, even at night sometimes), and placing the emphasis upon a high 

 average in all things and at all times. Ought it not rather to utilize 

 the brief periods of intense activity fathered by heredity, perhaps, and 

 mothered by interest? Is more than an hour really necessary for the 

 schoolman's art to deal with the growing child ? The shortening of the 

 school-day, advocated now in divers parts of the pedagogical world, 

 has not at all gone far enough, if it be true that a few minutes of the 

 child at his best outweigh the mediocre rest of his hour, or even day. 

 As the one brilliant figure or turn of speech in the arid desert of a set 

 composition acquits the child and condemns the teacher, so the one 

 bright answer or genial question, not the stupidity of the remainder 

 of the lesson, should go upon record. How often the pupil is * stung 

 by the splendor of a sudden thought,' which the routine mind of the 



*'Die Spiele der Menschen' (Jena, 1899), pp. 472-478. 



