42 GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 



While scholars are growing in moral and intellectual vigor 

 as they practice cooperation, the teacher gets insight into 

 human nature, and wisdom for further guidance, through 

 studying the play of cooperative forces. As has been more 

 than once suggested, watching the formation of groups among 

 students who have perfect freedom to combine as they please 

 brings great returns. The youngsters of unlike dispositions 

 and different intellectual and social gifts often seem pecu- 

 liarly drawn to one another. And yet what the combinations 

 are that will blend harmoniously cannot be predicted by the 

 wisest. The reactions are as mysterious as those that take 

 place in the chemical laboratory, where a tiny globule of crys- 

 tal-clear fluid is dropped into a test tube containing a second 

 colorless fluid, and lo ! a beautiful play of color. In the words 

 of the butler in the play, " You never can tell, sir, you never 

 can tell." 



At the call of a school emergency it may happen that 

 some scholar whose ability has always struck the school- 

 master as mediocre is all of a sudden voted by his classmates 

 into a position of importance. The teacher's first impulse — 

 as natural as the breath he draws — is to interfere. Instead, 

 however, he waits. As the game of life goes on, he is sur- 

 prised to find that the judgment of this newly elected leader, 

 however slow, is sound; his determination, firm. By the grace 

 of some hidden force he is making good. Every comrade is 

 standing by him. At the finish this boy's efficiency, hitherto 

 unguessed by his teacher, has completely justified the confi- 

 dence which "the fellows" placed in him. On the playground 

 such revelations are common, but all too rare in school ! 



And yet it must ever be a matter for regret that so often 

 the strength of a child's personality lies sleeping until school 

 days are finished, — all too earl)-, perhaps, — and life takes him 

 up. In the stress of life surely he is judged by his fellows. 



