i26 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



in the training and discipline that come from the pupil's effort to 

 follow up from premise to conclusion, something which mightily in- 

 terests him because of its worthy purpose. The old found satisfaction 

 in a state of mind that was quietly receptive; the new sees hope in the 

 turbulence of inquiry; and all of these are irreconcilable differences 

 in kind. 



When the work of the children springs from their own initiative, 

 it will become essentially creative and not imitative. The theory that 

 the educational process is imitative and not creative especially in the 

 earlier and formative years of childhood is as old as psychology itself 

 and in practise the proposition stands almost unchallenged. The 

 average curriculum is formed on the idea that the pupils are imitators, 

 the followers of directions, and not creators and it is consequently 

 imposed. The daily lessons in scope and character, the methods of the 

 recitations, the modes of expression are all prescribed and all the 

 activities of the school are reduced as nearly as possible to that monot- 

 onous routine known to the devotee of system as ' regular work ' which 

 offers no play for the creative intelligence in either thought or deed. 



The constructive idea now being realized in various forms of hand- 

 work is the thin end of the wedge that is opening the way to reform. 

 Anything which involves the hand immediately arouses the creative 

 instincts. Much of this work is still of the illustrative type, merely 

 reproductive or imitative and in the beginning it was all of that char- 

 acter. In wood, for example, the ' exercises ' were all once manacled 

 to a set of models that made no claim upon creative powers either 

 through their use or beauty. 



At present, nearly all subjects in the curriculum make some appli- 

 cation of the constructive idea. The lessons of history are vivified by 

 reproducing typical creations of other days. Science becomes somewhat 

 more real by the performance of experiments set by book and teacher. 

 Mathematics has been improved through its applications to prescribed 

 construction. Something of both the technique and the spirit of art 

 is acquired by reproducing the work of the masters. This all repre- 

 sents a distinct improvement upon the old regime of books and lectures, 

 and such exercises will always form an organic and necessary part of 

 an educational system. 



But the high-water mark in school-teaching will be reached only 

 when such work becomes secondary because it is supplementary and 

 subsidiary. Only when the dominant note of the school is clearly cre- 

 ative does it lay direct hold upon the vital and continuous interests of 

 the children and become essentially educative. 



This is true regardless of subject-matter or material on the one 

 hand, and age or sex on the other, and to this fact some curious school- 

 room phenomena are due. Parents frequently marvel that the boys of 



