Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/82

72 schools. The imaginary child which each student set up for himself displayed his ignorance of child life; and his processes of questioning showed the limitations of his grasp of the principles involved. To the student whose sympathy with childhood is spontaneous and whose grasp of principles is intuitive, such drill is needlessly irksome. But that the vague notions of childhood and vaguer grasp of principles of most normal students can be developed and trained by such courses of drill only, the subsequent twenty weeks in the practice school will abundantly demonstrate.

The school has been exceptionally fortunate in its social and physical environments; and no enumeration of the causes of her



success can afford to omit these potent influences. The site of the city, at the mouth of the Oswego River and on the shores of Ontario, one of the fairest of our Great Lakes, is unsurpassed, both for beauty and for commercial and manufacturing advantages. Ridges which rise gently on both sides of the river near its mouth, and, farther back, form bold, picturesque hills, furnish almost ideal ground for a city. The place is not lacking in the charm of