LITTLE STUDIES IN COOPERATION 37 
leadership or in loyalty to leaders. A person is a born leader 
just as truly as he is a born teacher, doctor, or actor, no more 
and no less. To work in the highest sense cooperatively one 
must be trained. Since we so glibly say that we are educating 
children for life, a timely question arises. Are we educating 
them for the cooperative or for the competitive life.? and, 
putting aside any reasons we may have for pursuing one or 
the other of these two courses, should we not in justice to 
society be consistent ? 
On scrutinizing the beautiful fabric of life in the school- 
room, do we not discover, running through it, many ugly com- 
petitive threads .? Look, for instance, at the whole system of 
school prizes, — for these still exist, even though they mas- 
querade under various names. There are competitive examina- 
tions, rank lists, graded seating, promotions, and marks, — 
for marks are ever with us. Competition, we may conclude, 
is, on the whole, antisocial. The boy or girl, a social creature 
by nature, is through the arts of the schoolroom molded into 
the " model scholar.” Perhaps his most conspicuous trait 
hinges on habitually minding his own business. 
” Don’t you find kindergarten children inclined to be rest- 
less .?” said a visitor to a sour-looking primary teacher, whose 
class had been sitting all too long in the ” first position.” 
” Only the first day or two, for I mold them — mold them,” 
she answered. 
The Procrustean methods formerly used in such transfor- 
mations are by a very short span of years removed from our 
own day. President Briggs,^ for example, reminds us that in 
his own school days ” the boy who turned his head round to 
the boy behind had to stand on the platform with a spring 
clothespin on his nose till he saw another boy turn his head 
and transferred the clothespin to him.” 
1 Le Baron Briggs, School, College, and Character. 
