Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/407

Rh express her wonder and satisfaction at her daughter's progress in reading, writing, and number. A father, after visiting the department, said, "My boy isn't learning anything; he's having a twaddle of experiments." Three months afterward he said, "My boy's whole attitude of mind is changed; he looks at the world with new eyes, and is also progressing rapidly in the studies common to children of his age."

A criticism frequently met was that the vocabulary was too difficult, and, being largely scientific and technical, could not fit children to read children's books. Experience proved the contrary. Reading for ideas, the children were not deterred by a few unfamiliar words. In reading stories in books, they could usually get the principal ideas; and to infer the meaning of the unknown forms had much novelty and interest. It was also objected that the ideas themselves were too difficult, and could not possibly be comprehended by the children. In a language lesson of the second year, Frank gave the sentence, "The soil is thin." A visitor asked, "Did you ever see a well dug?" "Oh, yes; at my grandfathers, last summer." "Was the soil there thick or thin?" "Thick." "How thick?" Looking from floor to ceiling, "Thicker than from this floor to the ceiling." "Then what do you mean by saying that the soil is thin?" was asked in a mocking, disconcerting tone. Frank dropped his eyes in thought; after a moment he said, "I mean it is thin when you think of all the way down to the center of the earth." This boy entered before he was six years old, and was at this time barely seven.

Teachers who visited the department said, "You have a comparatively small number of children from cultivated families; even similar results could not be obtained in the large, miscellaneous public-school classes." This could be met then by the statement only that mind has everywhere the same elemental possibilities, and must yield similar results for the same influences, although the time required might be much lengthened. This criticism has now been answered in part by the results of a trial made in the public schools at Englewood, Ill., an account of which will appear in a subsequent paper.

The few scientists who knew of the experiment looked on with favor. "It is the ideal way," said one. "A realization of my own dreams," said another. An eminent leader in educational affairs in this country objected that the great majority of our primaryschool teachers could not follow in the same line because lacking the requisite body of knowledge. When courses of study for lower schools are made out by eminent specialists with a view to putting into the hands of children the beginnings of their own lines of research, and when school authorities provide courses of lectures and other means of furnishing to teachers the necessary