EDUCATION 



1931 



EDUCATION 



children to have without at the same time 

 benefiting themselves. This is directly in line 

 with one of the Natural Education principles, 

 "We know that which we impart." 



Natural Education is not a stuffing process, 

 but one of its purposes is to fill children's 

 minds with thoughts worth remembering at a 

 time when they can memorize with the great- 

 est ease that is, from the second to the twelfth 

 year. Winifred Stoner was given a useful store 

 of information, or at least a foundation on 

 which she could reason, before she reached her 

 thirteenth year. When she entered the adoles- 

 cent period she was allowed to follow her own 

 inclinations as regards study. 



Most children in the adolescent period are in 

 the high school, at work which is much more 

 difficult for them than any they have had 

 previously. During this time of life, when 

 they are neither little folks nor grown-ups; 

 when they are in a dreamy rather than an 

 active state; when they are changing from 

 grubs to butterflies, they should not be forced 

 to study. The information which seems to 

 them dull and uninteresting might all have 

 been given to them before this time. .They 

 might have acquired in early childhood the 

 knowledge which, during their high school 

 years, they feel it drudgery to gain. 



But education of this sort cannot be given 

 in large classes. Individual training is the 

 ideal training through which knowledge may 

 be gained in a few months which now requires 

 years of time. There are no two things exactly 

 alike, not even two leaves on a tree or two 

 blades of grass. Why, then, should we expect 

 children to be so much alike that our son 

 should be made to learn all things and to do all 

 things in exactly the same way in which our 

 neighbor's son learns them and does them? 



Nature never intended that her children 

 should be put within brick walls, as if they 

 were prisoners, when they are gaining knowl- 

 edge. It is all wrong. The day will come 

 when the closed schoolroom will be the excep- 

 tion and the out-of-door school, the rule. 

 Nothing in nature is static; everything is dy- 

 namic. Why, then, should we have stationary 

 desks and other immovable furniture in the 

 schoolroom? Why should children be com- 

 pelled to have thirty minutes of geography, 

 then thirty minutes of arithmetic, and so on, 

 at stated times each day? Monotony such as 

 this kills interest, and when interest is gone 

 the acquisition of knowledge becomes painful 

 drudgery. It should be a joy. 



Why not introduce games into the public 

 schools which will be so interesting thai chil- 

 dren will play them after school hours and 

 during vacations games that will develop both 

 mind and body? Such games would necessitate 

 more playgrounds, to be sure, but the more 

 playgrounds we have the less need there will 

 be for penitentiaries. 



All children have a sense of rhythm that 

 expresses itself when they are very young, in 

 their love of nursery rhymes and jingles. 

 Learning, put into jingle form, is much more 

 easily remembered than in the form of prose. 

 Have you never begun the jingle, "Thirty days 

 hath September, April, June and November," 

 when you wanted to be sure of the number of 

 days in a particular month? This is a perfect 

 illustration of the point. There is no reason 

 why all sorts of facts which will be useful 

 throughout life cannot be put into just such 

 form. And the singing of the rhymes ami 

 jingles may be accompanied by body rhythms, 

 so that the mental and the physical can go 

 hand in hand, bringing about perfect coordina- 

 tion of mind and muscle. In other words. 

 make a game of the jingles, an active, interest- 

 in^ game. 



It is not necessary to buy expensive and 

 elaborate tools and toys for children. The 

 same old dolls and balls and hoops which 

 have always been in the nursery can be used as 

 aids in developing the imagination, teaching 

 rhythm, history, poetry, art. All toys should, 

 however, be of the constructive typo. But 

 beware of the destructive toy! Mothers who 

 give their little ones toy swords and pistols 

 are helping to keep alive the war spirit, that 

 menace to civilization. Children must be 

 taught to admire the constructive rather than 

 the destructive, the saver of life rather than 

 the taker. Let school-books contain, not nine- 

 tenths praise for the warrior and one-tenth for 

 the great inventor or artist or poet, but the 

 reverse. Let children be taught to revere the 

 high achievements of peace and not the ac- 

 complishments of war. 



The best toy that any child can have, a 

 veritable fairy toy, is a typewriter. No better 

 means can be furnished a child for learning to 

 read, to epell, to speak and write good Knglish, 

 to punctuate and to memorize. If he learns 

 to operate his machine well he will develop 

 his hands so that he will not have the same 

 difficulty in playing a piano or a stringed in- 

 strument as he would if he came to it with 

 untrained muscles. He may easily teach him- 



