OF EDUCATION 7 



do not get out of order when their work is more 

 interesting than play. 



The basis of a child's education must be his own 

 observation, and not the observation of another who 

 has written a book or a reading lesson for him. He 

 wants original ideas, not second-hand ideas. He 

 is not satisfied with the shadows of ideas which come 

 through words. By oral instruction and reading he 

 may derive interesting and useful information, but 

 information is not education, it is not intellectual 

 power, without which all education is radically de- 

 fective. True education comes mainly through the 

 inductive method. Every child, in the freedom of 

 nature, intuitively educates himself in this method. 

 He correlates and organizes impressions of all kinds 

 through all the years preceding the school age, and 

 he enters school with his education well begun. He 

 has learned something of every branch of science, 

 and at the same time has learned a language more 

 thoroughly and in less time than the schools have 

 yet been able to teach one. He has learned more of 

 his environment than he will ever learn in school in 

 the same length of time. The reason for his wonder- 

 ful advance in education in these years of early child- 

 hood, is because his method has been natural instead 

 of artificial. 



All the great branches of learning should be intro- 



