DEMONSTRATION PLAY SCHOOL—HETHERINGTON, 689 
that they shall take it secondhand. At one extreme there develops 
a group of individuals having the capacity to acquire large masses 
of book learning with a small foundation in practical experience; and 
at the other, a group who may or may not have had real experience, 
but who have a contempt for books and no realization of their value 
as essential aids in living or as sources of inspiration for a higher 
adjustment. 
Modern literature on teaching is strewn with the word “motiva- 
tion.” Every effort to find a motive for an activity or a subject of 
study is a search for its basis in a hunger or instinct which underlies 
the child’s spontaneous life. This search represents generally the 
attitude of the adult, with an adult’s interest, trying to find some way 
of attaching that interest to the child’s native tendencies. It illus- 
trates the breadth of the psychic gap between the teacher and the 
child and the dominance of the attitude of teaching rather than 
leading. 
Why not shift the problem from the organization of “subjects of 
study” that are selected products of racial achievement, to the organi- 
zation of the child’s own spontaneous active life; from the attitude 
of teaching primarily to that of leading (which includes teaching) ? 
Why not abandon our indifference toward the child’s play and recog- 
nize it as complete living, from his viewpoint, as well as the dominant 
source of all educational values? Why not put our aims and our 
specialized adult interests in the background of our consciousness 
and enter into the child’s life from his point of view, meeting his 
hunger for life and his desire for leadership with the resources of the 
adult? In this way we can make his activities a source of inspiration 
to him and perfect theu results from an educational standpoint. 
Does not this attitude complete modern tendencies in educational 
thought? Willit not make public education efficient for the masses ? 
In this larger conception of education, leadership is the prime 
essential. Teaching is but a part of the. leadership for which the 
child’s hunger is as conspicuous as his hunger for education. He 
craves life intensely, but his imagination outruns his skill and judg- 
ment. His resources are limited; his attention is fleeting; his enthu- 
siasm breaks down. He must have leadership if his activities are to 
be satisfying or educationally efficient. Though he rebels at domina- 
tion, he constantly appeals for help in finding something to do and in 
achieving his desires; and when leadership is given and accepted, he 
will submit to endless direction, and, as age advances, to increasingly 
severe discipline. This is proven daily on the play field and in boys’ 
and girls’ clubs. 
By entering into the child’s life, it is a simple matter to lead him 
so as to loop the cultural material of the race to his hungers and thus 
73176°—sM 191444 
