Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/200

Counter-Currents school measurably near the ideal proposed by Judge Lindsey,—a place where "there is something moving, something doing all the time," and which finds its closest counterpart in the rushing of engines on their tracks.

The theory that school work must appeal to a child's fluctuating tastes, must attract a child's involuntary attention, does grievous wrong to the rising generation; yet it is upheld in high places, and forms the subject-matter of many addresses vouchsafed year after year to long-suffering educators. They should bring to bear the "energizing force of interest," they should magnetize their pupils into work. Even Dr. Eliot reminds them with just a hint of reproach that, if a child is interested, he will not be disorderly; and this reiterated statement appears to be the crux of the whole difficult situation. Let us boldly suppose that a child is not interested,—and he may conceivably weary even of 184