NEW LIFE IN OLD SUBJECTS 177 



publishing house but in accordance with children's daily 

 needs ; and freedom to do this, whatever the subject, stimu- 

 lates the teacher. Certain it is that every time a teacher re- 

 peats the happy experience of answering real questions, of 

 ministering to a child's actual need, she becomes less tolerant 

 of stuffing even willing children with information to be used 

 in later life. 



Not long ago it happened that some visitors were listening 

 to an examination of the Little Housekeepers class. Many 

 questions had been answered with surprising accuracy and 

 promptness. Finally, a question was passed along from child 

 to child accompanied by scowls and shakes of the head on 

 the part of the little girls. The question was, " How often 

 should windows be washed .? " This important fact had of 

 course been taught, but somehow everybody had forgotten. 

 In this moment of suspense one child spoke out, to the sur- 

 prise of the teacher and the delight of the visitors, " When 

 they need it." This refreshing answer might be given with 

 equal effect by many a grown person regarding matters of 

 detail in a course of study. 



Some, at least, of the instruction given to children might 

 properly be furnished them in response to their own demand. 

 Older persons, of course, are in a measure justified in antici- 

 pating the needs of the future for their children ; and yet no 

 generation, with all its store of wisdom, has ever sounded 

 exactly the dominant note of the next. Many are the mis- 

 takes in education which are never told in words. Indeed, it 

 is only when some distinguished man or woman discloses the 

 incidents of his early training that we listen, startled by the 

 truth. Pitifully enough, many of these failures have happened 

 in the discharge of what is piously called the parents' or the 

 teacher's duty. The shortsightedness of teachers is a by- 

 word when it is a question of recognizing in a pupil the taste 



