THE COUNTRY HOME [chapter 



home school of ours it is not a crime for a child to 

 whisper, nor is it a sin to smile during eight hours 

 of the twenty-four. Modern psychology teaches 

 — what every common-sense father knows — that 

 activity is a necessity for the young child, physi- 

 cally, mentally, and morally ; that the three lines of 

 growth are tied up together, and in the normal 

 child go hand-in-hand, reacting upon one another; 

 that *'the young child is continually reaching out 

 through his senses to lay hold upon everything 

 about him, to test it, to know about it, to see what 

 its relations to himself may be, to see if he can use 

 it and make something for himself out of it." 

 The influence of the country upon our schools, 

 to broaden out their schedule of work, must be 

 supplemented by a broad home life. We are not 

 very far from the days of school-gardens, when 

 the country school will be in nothing unlike the 

 country home, developing the child along the same 

 lines of thought and industry. 



But I am taking too much thought of the chil- 

 dren. The country must reform in another direc- 

 tion, to take care of its mothers. We have a class 

 of people to whom the house is practically a prison. 

 Women are not supposed to have equal rights 



[358] 



