And What We Gain 231 



really very little sympathy. It is a standard 

 in which the commonplace dominates. Mat- 

 thew Arnold attributed the uninteresting char- 

 acter and monotony of much of the casual talk 

 which he heard in our public places to the uni- 

 versal custom of sending children to the public 

 schools. Spencer holds that there is no harm, 

 but rather good, in allowing a child to grow up 

 a healthy animal almost ignorant of ordinary 

 school rudiments until he reaches the age of 

 eight or ten. By that time it is to be hoped 

 that he will be less plastic, and that the in- 

 fluence of home surroundings will have brought 

 out an individuality not to be effaced by the 

 routine schooling of the next few years. The 

 tendency to do away with book lessons for 

 young children has always seemed to me one 

 of the healthiest signs of the day, and with my 

 own children I have had no compunctions of 

 conscience in teaching them to swim and row 

 and to love fishing and hunting before they 

 knew how to read or write a line. The worst 

 that could happen to them would be to have 

 them turn out to be counterparts of the com- 

 monplace type I find in most of the public 



