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 J 
