Page:Labour and childhood.djvu/198

 witnesses to tell how the children have grown brighter and fitter for work since this new subject was added to the curriculum.

Good results too seem to have followed the opening of special classes, especially of those for children who stammer. These receive speech and other physical training and many quickly get over their difficulties.

A word too, must be added, on the subject of the out-of-door school. It would appear that this really is in some respects the most promising departure of all! It is such, not merely because a large number of all the children who enter this kind of school recover health and strength. This is one "result"—but there are others, which are in the nature of a revelation! It seems that all the subjects have a new meaning for the children when they are taken out-of-doors. Arithmetic and geometry are no longer a kind of torture when they are studied as they were studied by the first mathematicians and reckoners, and when the foot, the hand, the arm, are again used as means of measurement. The first problems are solved on the grass or in the sand. The writing lesson becomes simple and easy. Writing is a tempting occupation outside, as one can see by looking at rocks and out-door seats. The little ones