Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/122

112 And just as a thoughtful teacher learns nearly as much from his pupils as they learn from him, so do those who are engaged in widening the lives of the poor find themselves refreshed and strengthened by the wholesome simplicity, practical common sense, and steady patience which are so often found among those who spend their lives in hard manual toil. Steady work teaches many lessons which can not be learned in any other way, and when it does not absorb the whole nature, and is such that the worker can take pleasure in it—it is wholesome training. So much is this the case that perhaps what is most needed just.now for the children of those who are not poor is this same manual work, if only for a short time every day. In this would be found a cure for many of the nervous diseases which are so common. It would give some knowledge of the nature of the objects with which we are surrounded, and the right feeling of respect for labor which it is difficult to give in any other way. It would develop the physical powers and the natural tendency which children have to help others, a tendency which is very insufficiently developed at present. The work must be useful—one kind of useful work being of course the production of beautiful things—or it will fail in its chief object. The child must not think it is done entirely for his sole benefit, and therefore it must not be done solely for that purpose, as it is no part of sound education to deceive a child for his supposed good.

In a well-conducted Kindergarten the childenchildren [sic]do work which fulfills these conditions so far as it is possible to do so at their age. The right kind of beginning is made. As they get older they should learn to do harder work and work of a more practical kind, and also continue the endeavor to produce beautiful things. There is no kind of useful work which can not be made a pleasure to the worker if set about in the right way. Froebel, in writing of his childhood, mentions the advantage he received from helping his father and mother in gardening and in household occupations.

As in intellectual work, it is very important not to make too large demands at first upon the powers of the child. The development of his powers must be gradual and will then be pleasurable. If a feeling of despair is allowed to arise, progress becomes impossible until the happiness of the child is restored by encouragement. Pleasure and trust in the teacher are necessary conditions of development. Nothing satisfactory can be accomplished by a teacher without close sympathy with and love for the child. An attempt to further the development of a human being by harsh rule and stern command, with threats of punishment, is like pulling the branches of a tree to make them grow. If the tree be firm and strong, no effect is produced beyond some slight damage to the branches'; but if the tree be young and tender, its delicate