IT WAS AN HONOR TO WASH JANET’S CLOTHES 
Some of the work connected with practical Mothercraft is not, under ordinary circumstances, 
the pleasantest in the world; but the camp girls entered into it in the spirit of fun and 
friendly rivalry, and found it all interesting. Photograph by Mrs. Luther H. Gulick. 
(Fig. 4.) 
And this is my principal point: That 
these girls were getting real education, 
the education of the affections, the 
training of the emotions, the directing 
of desire. Intellectual culture was an 
insignificant side play, and, although the 
momentousness of that tender, delicately 
plastic learning instrument, that small, 
restless mass of exquisitely sensible 
impressionableness grew upon them, and 
although the significance of the early 
learning process together with its evi- 
dent detail was clear before them as a 
bit of practical psychology—that was 
not the capital issue at all. The 
mystery and wonder of childhood played 
incarnate before them. The marvel 
of it had time to sink deep into their 
own impressionable souls. They came 
to love it, and to find joy in serving it, 
even to the washing of its sometimes 
very dirty clothes. There was con- 
tagion in the child’s character. They 
absorbed the atmosphere that its pres- 
ence created. They had opportunity 
and leisure to learn real things. 
For the very word school comes from 
the old Greek word  schole (axodn) 
which meant leisure. And education 
means to draw out, lead forth (educare). 
These girls had leisure to observe, to 
experiment, to do things of their own 
accord, to ask spontaneous questions, 
and to sit on the great grey rocks 
beetling over the lake and think. 
Eight weeks of such education—for 
let it not be forgotten that along with 
mothering Janet went swimming, danc- 
ing, canoeing, tramps on the open road 
and through the deep forest, hand- 
craft, letter-writing, pantomime and 
play, music and stories around the open 
fire, reading together from good books 
and communion one with another around 
a self-cooked meal—eight weeks of 
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