Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/512

508 to learn. He ought to get toys not too realistic, for he loves to weave romance around his toys, but still things to observe and experiment with. He has most complex problems in physical science when he is only a few weeks old, the solution of which involves much labor, but it is pleasant labor and he is happy. And he will remain sweet-tempered and happy and unspoilt if there is real affection from his teachers. If, however, somebody teases him by playing practical jokes, or if a selfish mother who was unreasonably kind to him yesterday is unreasonably unkind to him to-day, he gets, because of his reasoning power, a sense of injustice. Man, woman, or child with a sense of injustice may be said to be possessed of a devil. During the first six years of a child's life the creation of its power to reason is more wonderful than anything else, and this reasoning power comes altogether by observation and experiment. An affectionate parent easily finds methods of helping nature in this process. The unspoilt boy of six years seems to forget nothing that he hears; he has gathered a most wonderful vocabulary; he knows endless nursery rhymes and simple poetry; he is as active and adventurous as a kitten, and everything he does is cultivating his senses. This is the time when he fills the smallest playground (which to grown-ups seems bare and desolate) with giants and fairies and Indians and pirates, with forests and mountains and rivers and oceans. His imagination is so extraordinary that the most uncouth creation of his own gives him exquisite pleasure. Why do I dwell upon this stage of a boy's development? Because it has been so perfect! Nature has learned to do this to children during perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, and it has been the most important time of a boy's life, the time when, if parents will only give the boy their love and greatly let him alone otherwise, he develops mentally more than during all the rest of his life. Speaking broadly, he has done nothing in all this time except what nature and affection made pleasant to him. I have studied the science of education and practised the art of teaching all my life, and I say that all our failures are due to our neglect of nature's methods, and our schools destroy the good effects which nature has produced.

As a rule I do not like to be told that certain subjects must be compulsory, but surely every child of eleven must have some such qualifications as these: (1) The power to speak and read and write in his own language. (2) To be able to do easy computation. (3) To have an exact knowledge of the simplest principles of natural science from his own observation and experiment. I think that every observer must acknowledge that these powers are possible for almost every boy of eleven. Some of us have for many years been endeavoring to show how the child of six may acquire these powers by the age of eleven if nature's methods—that is, kindergarten methods—are followed. For example, he plays at keeping shop, selling or buying things by weight and measure, and paying or receiving actual money and giving change. He weighs and