Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/405

Rh Among the effects, perhaps the chief place should be assigned to the general attitude toward study. Compare two children trained in the two ways. On entering school both are equally eager and happy. One is kept for the most part away from learning, and laboriously taught to hold the empty wrappers of it; the other is taken at once into the shrine, where he soon becomes at home; and, while he gets wrappers as rapidly as the child outside, every one is full and overflowing. The former grows tired of tasteless drudgery and longs to have school days over; in the latter, nearness to the central fires kindles the sacred flame, and its shining through the fleshly covering makes his face a contrast to that of the other child. One finds the school-room a prison; the other an enchanted land where all is "truly true." If both leave school during the first six years—as so many do—the former is likely to have vague notions about a large field of study, and but little interest in its contents or faith in their value; while the latter will be as likely to preserve sympathy with learning, and desire to advance it in himself and others.

Among other effects may be mentioned:

1. The children learned to ask serious questions. In a lesson on clouds and rain, Emma asked, "Why is the rain not salt, if most of the cloud vapor comes from the ocean?" She was told to dissolve a certain amount of salt, to evaporate the solution over a fire, and note results. On the following day she reported that the same amount of salt was left after evaporation as she had first used, and gave as her conclusion that ocean-water in evaporating leaves all its salt behind; and the youngest boy added, "Then only pure water can float up into the blue sky."

2. They learned that opinion without knowledge is folly. In planting a window garden, they put seeds in pots of earth; I, between wet blotting-papers. Their decided opinion was that my seeds would not grow. A week later they were eager to give this sentence, "The seeds in Miss Alling's garden did grow."

3. They became fond of mental activity. They were not marked, formally examined, hurried, nor required to do a certain amount in a definite time. This freedom and leisure transformed their first laborious, timid thinking into a delight, which they entered upon as spontaneously and fearlessly as upon their outdoor physical games.

4. Their habits of thinking improved. At first they showed but a superficial interest in the objects studied, and much questioning was needed to direct and hold their attention; later, they voluntarily seized upon the marked features of objects and phenomena, and pursued them until practically exhausted. We did not flit hither and thither, giving the children new objects of study each day, but kept them at work upon one so long as it