Chapter XV: Freedom and Discipline (6)

Those who place the emphasis upon heredity, in the attempt to discredit the value of thoughtful and painstaking control of the environment of the developing child, usually remind us that a man like Lincoln achieved power and distinction in spite of what we would ordinarily consider serious obstacles to complete development, whereas thousands of college graduates who have had all the advantages that trained tutors and guarded surroundings can give have developed into mediocre men and women--have even developed into vicious and criminal men and women. They will remind us that from a class of children that had the same teachers for many years has emerged a group of very distinct men and women; they will remind us that brothers and sisters with the identical "environment" turn out to be so different.

On the other hand, those who see nothing in "heredity" will point to the same Lincoln and ask confidently why his ancestors and his descendants do not show the same degree of power and achievement. They will point to the same family of brothers and sisters who had the same "heredity" and ask why they all turned out so differently. The black sheep proves just as much--and just as little--for one side of the argument as it does for the other.

There are, it is true, many people who say that they "do not believe" in either heredity or environment. Such people see the difficulties of the disputants and reject both alternatives. They prefer to say frankly that they do not understand the situation; that life is too complex to be solved by puny human intellects. Or they resort to some equally unintelligible explanation, such as "Fate" or "Nature"--which is but another way of saying that we never _can_ understand. On the other side stands the scientist who refuses to shut his eyes to _any_ established facts, and insists upon trying to understand as much as possible, though he may never hope to understand all.

But no one is prepared to say authoritatively that either heredity or environment is the exclusive or even the predominant factor in determining the character of the individual. Indeed, the voice of the scientist, which is the only authoritative voice we have in such matters, is telling us very plainly that the whole question of "heredity _or_ environment" is not a real question at all: we are confronted in every child with a case of heredity _and_ environment, and the practical question is how to control the latter so as to get the most from the former.

To begin, then, in a modest way to understand what is understandable, in the faith that understanding will grow with thought and observation, is the first duty of those who are not content to fold their hands in resignation or despair. We know that we can control wherever we have real knowledge. The cook knows that she cannot make roast duck out of pork chops; but she knows also that she can make palatable and digestible pork chops by proceeding in one way, and that she can make tough and sickening pork chops out of the same materials by changing her procedure. In the same way the scientific approach to the problem of child training teaches us that, while we cannot make a "swan out of a goose," we can make the gosling into a better goose or a poorer goose by the treatment we apply to it.

A frequent source of doubt and misunderstanding is the universal occurrence of such distinct types among brothers and sisters. The query at once arises, "Have not these children the same heredity?" Brothers and sisters have the same ancestors, but not the same heredity. Recent biological discoveries teach us that the individual develops from a bundle of units derived from the two parents, but the units supplied by a parent never represent the totality of the parents' composition, nor do all the units that are passed on come to manifest themselves as parts of the character. The parent passes on sample units from her or his own inheritance, so that no two combinations are ever exactly alike. It is a commonplace observation that Johnny may have his maternal grandmother's chin, his paternal grandmother's eyes, his father's walk, his Uncle George's lips, his Aunt Mary's sharp tongue, his grandfather's alertness, and his mother's good judgment. Of course, he has _not_ his grandmother's eyes or his uncle's lips: these relatives still retain their respective facial organs, and his father still has his quick temper. What Johnny has inherited is a something, perhaps in the nature of a ferment, which _determines_ the color of his eyes, a certain something that makes his lips develop into that particular shape, a certain something that causes his brain to respond to annoyance in the same manner as that of his Aunt Mary's. And the various ancestors and relatives have received from their parents similar determining factors that have manifested themselves in similar peculiarities. We do not inherit from our relatives, or even from our parents: we are built up of the same elements as those of which our relatives are built, but each one of us has received his individual combination of factors. Hence, no two brothers or sisters are exactly alike, although they have the same parents and the same ancestors.

While it is universally recognized that no two individuals are exactly alike, we are not at all clear in our minds as to whether the important differences arise from differences in experience or _nurture_, or from essential differences in _nature_. We know that children of the same parents are essentially different from birth, and that no matter how similar the treatment they receive afterward they will always remain different, or even become more different as they become older. It is becoming more clear every day, as a result of scientific study, that every individual is absolutely unique, excepting only "true" twins.

If we accept this individuality of the person as a fact, what, then, is the importance of training or environment? Does not this admission settle at once the contention of those who see no value at all in a carefully-controlled environment? If this child is _born_ without mathematical ability, what is the use of drumming arithmetic into his head; or, if he is _born_ with musical genius, why should we bother about teaching him music?--he will "take" to it naturally.

The answer to these and similar questions is to be found in the answer to another question, namely, "What is it precisely that the child is born with?" Surely no child is ever born with the ability to dance or sing or to do sums in algebra. When we say that a child has musical genius we mean merely that as he develops we may notice in him a certain capacity to acquire musical knowledge more readily than most other children do, or a certain disposition to express himself in melody, or a certain liking for music in some form, or a certain readiness to acquire control of musical instruments. In other words, the child is born with a capacity for acquiring certain things, from the outside, that is, from the environment--he is born with certain possibilities, which can become actualities only if the suitable conditions are provided. In the same way one child is born with a capacity for exceptional muscular development, and another for exceptional self-mastery. But in every case practice makes perfect, the muscles must be properly nourished and exercised, the will must be trained--and that means suitable environment.

Now, while every individual is unique, not every child is a born genius. The distinctiveness of each child lies in the fact that he consists of a _combination_ of capacities and tendencies, each of which varies in degree when compared with other individuals. For example, Evelyn has about the same capacity for physical work as Annie, but she stands lower than the latter in arithmetic and higher in language work. John shows about the same physical power as Henry, when measured by running and jumping and chinning; but John can hit the ball with his bat more times out of a hundred than Henry can, whereas Henry can hit the bull's-eye with his rifle more times out of a hundred than John can. In a thousand details any two children differ from each other, one excelling in nearly half of the points, the other excelling perhaps in about as many, and the two standing almost exactly alike in some matters.

A child that excels most of his colleagues in one or a few points is said to have marked ability in that direction--as the exceptional athlete, or the child with exceptional literary or moral feeling. On the other hand, a child that seems to measure well up to the average in most points, and even to excel in a few, may fall far short in some matters,--that is, may be deficient. Thus a perfectly good child in every other way may be unable to master the ordinary requirements in arithmetic, or a child may have an entirely satisfactory development in every way and be deficient in musical discrimination.

Another kind of difference is to be found in what may be called general capacity. Some children show higher capacity than the average along nearly every line that can be measured or tested, without showing a preponderance in any one direction. Such children are said to be of high grade, or of high "vitality." In the same way many children are below the average in nearly every line, without being particularly defective along any one line. They can do one thing about as well as another, just as the high-grade boys and girls can do one thing about as well as another; but in the former there is a limit to the possible development which is exceeded in the latter. Among both classes of children the full development depends upon suitable environment, but what is suitable for one may not be suitable for the other.

From a consideration of these differences in degree and difference in kind we may see that there is no course of training or treatment, no method of instruction, no trick for the mother or for the teacher that will be usable for all children under all circumstances, to make them all come up to some preconceived uniform standard. On the other hand, if we consider the differences as worth developing, and even emphasizing, it must be obvious that the training and the treatment should be adapted to the individual child so far as possible. Starting out with essentially different human beings, uniform treatment will not make them all alike, nor will _any_ treatment make them all alike. But starting out with a particular human being, we can learn to treat him in such a way as to make him develop into a more desirable person than he would become if he were neglected or if he were treated differently. And that is the main problem, after all.

The relation between heredity and environment may perhaps be made clear by an extreme illustration from the physical side. Here are two full-grown men, both five feet and four inches tall. We observe that they are both short. Now, the shortness of one of them turns out to be the result of heredity,--that is, he belongs to a strain of short people. No amount of feeding or of exercise or of special regime could have made him more than a quarter or half an inch taller. The other man, however, belongs to a race of rather taller men and women: his shortness of stature may be traced to undernutrition, or to overwork, or to sickness during his childhood. It is quite certain that a different kind of environment would have resulted in his being as tall as his brothers and sisters.

Now, the problem of training concerns itself practically not so much with the person who is particularly "long" by nature, nor so much with the person who is unusually "short" by nature--and we may apply "long" and "short" to every other trait as well as to stature. The problem with these extremes is simply to keep the child in good health. The special efforts of the teacher and of the parent are devoted to giving the child who appears somewhat below the average in some particular those special stimulations and exercises and feedings that will bring him up to the average. We find the extremely short too discouraging, and the extremely long do not clamor for our attention; but it is those near the middle-point that we want to help over to the other side of the dividing line. And this is just as true of an undesirable character as it is of a desirable one. We take no trouble to teach honesty to the child that seems instinctively honest; and we give up in despair with the child that convinces us of his utter lack of a moral sense: we concentrate our efforts upon the delinquents whom we catch early, or upon those who are in danger of sliding down if they are not helped along.

Perhaps one reason for the great confusion on this subject arises out of the fact that we have become accustomed to making a sharp distinction between physical characters on the one hand and so-called mental and moral qualities on the other. Every one recognizes family resemblances in physical features. A particular shape of nose or a peculiarity of the hand appears in every member of the family, sometimes for several successive generations. Facts like these we accept as evidence of "heredity" without any question. We also recognize that the Joneses of Centerville always take the measles "hard," whereas with the Andersons vaccination never "takes." But when it comes to mental qualities, which we are not accustomed to measure or to recognize with the same degree of discrimination, most of us fail to see that heredity is just as common for these as for physical traits. Moreover, mental qualities take on such a great variety of forms that their recognition is made doubly difficult. Thus it may be the same mental traits that make of a certain man a successful lawyer, of his brother an able scientist, and of their cousin a clever criminal. No doubt each of these three men has qualities in a degree lacking in the others; but the point is that they have many qualities in common which are obscured by the different lines of development they have followed.

The old parable of the wheat cast upon the ground may help us. That which falls upon stony ground fails of germination; that which falls upon poor soil will germinate, but will die of drought or be scorched by the sun; that which falls upon good soil will develop into a good plant. The _kind_ of plant that may develop is determined by the seed, by heredity; _how_ the plant will develop is determined by the surrounding conditions, by the environment. On the physical side these facts are so familiar to us that we never question the connection between development and food, or between development and exercise, or between development and other physical conditions. Of course, we say, an undernourished child will never be strong; of course, an overworked child will never be strong, of course, drinking and smoking and other dissipation will prevent healthy development. And yet, do we not know that of two underfed children, one will show the ill effects more than the other; that of two overworked children, one will survive abuse with less permanent injury than the other.

We must, then, have clear in our minds the idea that everything that happens to a child and that may produce a reaction or an effect is worth considering from the point of view of its influence upon his development. Indeed, instead of discussing heredity _versus_ environment, we should try to conceive of the personality of the child as made up of the effect of a certain heredity responding to a certain environment. For example, the child inherits the instinct to handle things. At a certain age this instinct will take the form of handling objects within reach, and of breaking them. We cannot say that the child has an instinct for breaking vases or tearing books; he has simply the instinct to _do_ something with material that he can handle. Now, it is possible for the child to exercise this instinct only on material that can be broken or torn; it is also possible for the child to exercise it on material that can be manipulated constructively--as blocks for building, clay for shaping, or, later, tools of various kinds. In one case the child establishes habits of tearing or breaking; in the other the same instincts--the same "heredity," that is--issues in habits of _making_. Or we may take the instinct of curiosity, which every normal child will manifest at an early stage. This instinct may find exercise in wondering what is in parcels or closed cupboards; or it may exercise itself in wondering about the thunder and the flowers and the things under the earth; or it may be quite suppressed by discouragement or by unsatisfying indulgence. Thus the same instinct may lead under different treatments to different results. This does not mean that every child has the making of an investigator; it means that a perfectly healthy instinct capable of being turned to good use is often perverted or crushed out because we have not learned to cultivate it profitably through control of the growing child's development.

There is abundant evidence that the mental and moral capacities are inherited in the same way as the purely physical or physiological ones. We have, however, much more to learn about how to control the development of the former than about the control of the latter. Yet this point should be clear to every parent and teacher; whatever the child's inheritance may be, the full development of his capacities is possible only under suitable external conditions. What these conditions are depends upon the combination of capacities that the particular child possesses. But to find out what these capacities are we must give the child an opportunity to show "what's in him." This we can do by placing him in an environment simple enough for him to adjust himself to readily, and at the same time complex enough to give every side of his nature a chance to respond. This is the significance of modern educational movements that seek to leave the child untrammelled in his responses to what goes on around him. We have learned that some children will become tall and that others will never reach beyond a certain height; we seek merely to keep them healthy by suitable feeding, exercise, rest, bathing, etc. But in the matter of mental development we have not yet learned that it is impossible for all children to reach the same degree of linguistic or mathematical or artistic development, and we try to bring all of them up to our preconceived standard of what a child _should_ do in each line. The thing that we need to find out is what a particular child _can_ do; and then we must give him the opportunity and the encouragement to do his best. The things we encourage him to do will be the basis for the habits which he will form, for the skill which he will acquire--and so for the activities that will yield him satisfaction and determine his behavior in relation to others. That is, the things the child learns to do well will determine what kind of a person he will be when he grows up.

But it would be a mistake to suppose that every child is born with a set of special aptitudes that fit him for some particular occupation. Many children do indeed have rather special types of native ability, as the child of artistic proclivities, or the "natural born" preacher. And, on the other hand, many children are born with marked shortcomings in their makeup, although these "deficiencies" need not always interfere with their developing into excellent men and women. For example, a child may be color-blind, or incapable of mastering a foreign language in school, or awkward in doing work requiring great skill--and yet capable of doing high-grade work in other lines. Those children that have strongly-marked proclivities--which usually show themselves early in life and which are commonly associated with strong likes and dislikes--will no doubt do the most effective work along the lines of their native talents. And those with marked deficiencies should certainly not be directed into occupations wherein the lacking talents are essential for success. But the great mass of children vary from each other not so much in the directions along which their special abilities lie as in the degree to which they are capable of developing the ordinary abilities which they do have. For such children the choice of an occupation cannot wisely be made very early in life, nor should a very special choice be made until there has been an opportunity to try out a large variety of activities and processes. Indeed, even for the child of decided genius it is desirable that there be a chance to try out many kinds of activities, both physical and mental. This is desirable not so much in the hope of counteracting his special bent on the theory of supplying exercise for the functions that are not to his liking as for the purpose of giving him an opportunity to find out _all_ he can do, and to give us a chance to find out all he can do well.

Even children who pass as "average" children, however, may be divided into classes according to the variations in their native capacities. That is to say, some children, although not exhibiting any special talents or special deficiencies, are nevertheless more easily adjusted to doing muscular work than others; some are more happy in the manipulation of numbers; some show greater patience; some are more easily fatigued by the repetition of a process; some cannot stand on their feet for long periods without suffering, and so on. These differences should certainly be taken into consideration, first of all, in the treatment accorded them in the school and at home, in what is required of them, in the selection of studies, etc. And, in the second place, these facts should be considered in the choice of general fields of occupation. It would be the height of cruelty and of injustice to insist upon Walter's preparing for and entering his father's business--just to keep up the family tradition--when a little attention to the boy's work in school and to his play and to his personal preferences and tastes would show that he was eminently unsuited for the business, and at the same time well suited for some technical pursuit such as engineering. Untold misery and failure spring from our negligence in these matters, no less than from our direction of the child's development in accordance with the parents' ambitions rather than in accordance with the child's discoverable abilities and disabilities.

How far short our ordinary training falls of giving our various capacities their full development is shown by the exquisite acuteness of touch and of hearing acquired by children who become blind in infancy. The senses of touch and hearing are here developed so far beyond what ordinary persons ever attain that the belief is quite common that one who is defective in one sense has been compensated by "nature" with special capacity in the other senses. As a matter of fact, however, the extreme development is not the result of special endowment or "heredity," but altogether the result of special training or "environment."

There is a certain sense in which the idea of heredity impresses one with a paralyzing feeling of inevitableness. When a child is born his sex is irrevocably fixed; the character of his eyes and of his hair, the form of his features and the ridges on his finger-tips are unalterable except through mutilation or disease. But up to a certain limit the child will grow just in proportion to the nurture that he receives. And what that limit is we may not know until we find out through years of patient effort, through endless trying out in every direction. He will grow farther in some directions than in others, and the _limit_ in each direction is the element of destiny supplied by heredity. Very few, however, reach their limit in many directions, and no person has ever reached his limit in every direction. The distance we do actually go depends, in practice, altogether upon the kind of environment that is supplied. This environment, so far as the growing child is concerned, is entirely within our control, and we have no right to give up our efforts and to shift the responsibility to unsatisfactory heredity until we are quite sure that all has been done that suitable surroundings and treatment--suitable "environment"--can do. We must watch and wait, and work hard while we wait and watch.

XV.

FREEDOM AND DISCIPLINE

Is it not strange that "school," which we provide for our beloved children for their own good, at so great a cost of thought and money, should be so little appreciated by them? Is it not strange that "school," which is intended to give power and freedom, should be looked upon by the children as no better than a prison--a good place from which to escape?

We grown folks know how valuable school and training and discipline are. Do we not sometimes sigh that we had not more of these blessings in our own childhood? Or that we did not take advantage of the little we had? If the children only knew--perhaps they would not so eagerly seek to escape into what they vainly imagine to be "freedom." Perhaps.

Grown folks who have thought about the matter know, of course, that "freedom" is something different from merely being left alone. They know that freedom is a state to be attained only through effort. They know that freedom results from a discipline which makes a person the master of his impulses, instead of leaving him their slave. They know that the freedom worth striving for is freedom from our own caprices and moods, from our blindness and ignorance and passions. It is for this reason that we value discipline, quite apart from anything that it may contribute to our ability to live harmoniously with others, quite apart from anything it may do to increase our power in an economic sense.

But if discipline is the means for attaining freedom, how does it come about that in the past (and for most people to-day) discipline has appeared as a method of _compelling_ children to do the right thing--"until they have the habit"? How does it come about that discipline, in the minds of most people, consists so largely of _restraining_ children from doing undesirable acts--until they are well started into the safe age of discretion? The reason seems to be that the need for discipline or training makes itself most quickly felt where children--or older people--infringe upon the rights of others, or upon the proprieties. We miss discipline where a child fails of self-restraint, acts impulsively, or loses his temper. In short, failure of early training is indicated wherever there is lack of self-control, or a lack of proper application to the business in hand. It is therefore natural that discipline should early take the form of commanding and prohibiting.

It is but a short step from this view of discipline to the philosophy that what children do spontaneously, what they like to do, must be wrong. And the complement to this is the feeling that virtue and character can arise only from doing what is disagreeable or difficult.

But the newer studies in the psychology of childhood lead to a totally different theory of character formation. And many experiments made in schools and institutions confirm these new theories at every point. Moreover, if we look about, perhaps even in our own homes, I am sure we can all find abundant support for the modern view.

The new studies have to do with the relation that our emotions bear to our activities and especially to the formation of habits. To learn to do a thing, we have known for ages, we must practise continuously and uniformly. But we did not know that the state of feelings connected with the performance of the act had anything to do with the result. Richard must master the scales in his music study. These scales can be mastered in only one way--he must play them over and over and over again, until he just has them. But suppose Richard does not care to practise the scales over and over and over again? Suppose that he does not care whether he ever masters the scales or not. Well, he can be _made_ to practise, at any rate; and perhaps some day he will thank his elders for having thus forced upon him the extremely valuable but unappreciated command of the scales.

But what happens in the course of this forced practise? There is resentment, and antagonism and a growing hatred of scales, of the man who first vented scales, of sloping rows of notes on the page of music. And this resentment is more likely to prevent a real mastery of the task than the enforced practise is to ensure it. The antagonism will, at any rate, counteract the value of the practise to a large degree. The third element in the fixation of habits that we have heretofore too generally disregarded is that of _satisfaction_; this is no less important than regularity and frequency of action.

The absence of satisfaction, to say nothing of the presence of opposite feelings, is of itself sufficient to prevent effective learning, whether of knowledge or of skill. And when the opposite feelings are present, the acquired act or idea tends to be pushed out of the system at the earliest opportunity. It is in some such way as this that many specialists in the workings of the human mind would explain so much of our "forgetting." They say that we forget either because we really wish to forget--the facts are unpleasant-- or because we do not sufficiently care to remember--the facts are not sufficiently interesting, they do not sufficiently concern us.

Out of the psychological facts pertaining to the relation of the feeling state to the learning process and to the habit-forming process, is developed the doctrine of "interest" in education. The very name "interest" suggests to many that this must be some plan for sugar-coating education, or perhaps for giving children only what they like. And this is quite the opposite of the traditional view which is expressed by the humorist who said, "It does not matter much what you teach a boy, so long as he doesn't like it." But the idea of interest in modern psychology does not mean letting the child have his own way, any more than discipline means doing only what is unpleasant or difficult.

We can see the basic truth at the foundation of this view in the age-long usage of the race, which awards prizes and penalties for "good" actions and "evil" actions, respectively. If you should be asked "_Why_ did you reward Maryann," "_Why_ did you punish Henry;" you would no doubt say something like this: If we reward a child for doing what we approve, he is more likely to do that sort of thing again; if we punish, or impose unpleasant consequences, upon acts that we disapprove, such acts are less likely to be repeated. In other words, we have known right along that _satisfaction_ somehow leads the child to repeat the conditions that brought about the satisfaction; and that suffering somehow leads the child to avoid the conditions that brought about the suffering.

What the new psychology does here is to unify what we have known. We say not the performance of an act alone will establish a habit; not the repetition alone will establish it; not the subsequent satisfaction alone. All of these factors must take part, and they must take part in association. The feeling must accompany the act. It is not sufficient that Richard be assured that some time in the vague future he will derive deep satisfaction from being master of the scales; he must somehow be made to feel a present concern either in what he is doing, or a real interest in the outcome. The time that is to elapse between the beginning of his "practice" and the satisfaction he is to receive must not be beyond the child's power to appreciate.

In our actual dealing with children our experience leads us to make use of these principles, often without realizing all that is implied. For example, when the young child by your side shows signs of weariness, and you still have some distance to go, you try to stimulate his interest by telling him of the good things to come at journey's end. If this does not serve your purpose, you draw his attention to the bird on the tree only a hundred feet away, or you challenge him to race with you to the next telegraph post. And if you challenge him to such a race, you are sensible enough to let him win it, for you know very well that nothing will discourage him so much as defeat--that is, the unpleasant feeling of failure; and you know that nothing will stimulate him quite as much as the satisfaction of defeating you. In other words, you set before him one goal after another, each but a small fraction of the main journey, and each within the appreciation of the child, and each offering a satisfactory conclusion that is readily and eagerly seized as _worth striving for_, here and now.

Now it may be asked, what discipline is there in doing always what brings satisfaction? How can the children ever learn to do the disagreeable but necessary tasks that make up so large a part of every-day living? Where will they ever learn that some things must be done, not because we like to do them, but because it is our duty to do them? And these are indeed serious questions. There are two sets of answers. One of them consists of the results actually achieved in dealing with children from the new point of view. The other is a challenge to make clear just what we mean by discipline and task and duty.

To take the latter first, is it not true that one part of our object is in the form of acquired knowledge and acquired skill? Practising the scales, or studying the multiplication table is not an end in itself. We require study and practice because we believe that the knowledge or the skill is worth having. Now it has been shown over and over again that what is learned with satisfaction sticks; and what is learned with pain is thrown overboard the first minute the watchman is off his guard. Are the names of writers with the titles of their books less well remembered by children who learn them through the game of "Authors" than they are by children who might be required to memorize them from a catalog? Are the sums and products of numbers acquired in keeping scores of games less accurate and less permanent in the mind of the child than the same sums and products learned as school exercises? Is the skill acquired in handling tools--sewing costumes, or making scenery for an amateur play--any less effective or less lasting than the skill acquired in sewing yards of stitches or sawing yards of board just for "exercise" in a class? On the contrary, other things being equal, arithmetic and authors and sewing and tinkering can be made both more effective and more lasting when associated with pleasurable feelings than when performed under strain, compulsion and resentment. If it is only a question of "learning" this or that, there is no doubt that the pleasant way is in every respect the better way.

But, of course, it is not merely a question of learning the specific skill or knowledge. There is also the need for learning application, persistence through difficulties, endurance, and the other hardy virtues that distinguish a disciplined character. And here the contrast between the old attitude and the new is most marked. We can certainly force children to do what is disagreeable; we can hold them to their tasks when they are tempted to abandon the monotonous and wearisome round of uninteresting drudgery. But is this the only way to get for the children experience with such necessary, though unpleasant, work? We are assuming of course that such experience is necessary, since uninteresting work cannot be separated from most important undertakings. A typical experience in a school that has for several years conducted a class along the lines of the newer psychology can answer our question.

One of the difficulties that had to be overcome was the mastery of simple addition. Another was the art of writing; and of course reading is a necessary art of modern life. Instead of the usual drill and practice and exercises, this class passed through the drudgery stage without realizing that school was a prison. This was during the autumn of the Armistice. Food conservation and thrift were in the air. These children were presented with a quantity of garden vegetables, but there was more than they could use themselves, so the suggestion was made that they could have the surplus for future use. The children, under guidance, did all the work connected with cold-pack canning of the tomatoes. This work was not at every point "interesting," in the superficial sense; but the purpose of the entire project was one that appealed to the children, so that they were quite satisfied to do the many essential details. Did they not here learn to clean their dishes and jars as well as they would have done had the cleaning been a "duty" imposed arbitrarily from above? Must drudgery be dreaded to be well done?

Let the teacher who had charge of this class describe what happened, in her own words.

"The success of the first small group in carrying through the various steps ... led to further work of the same sort, as various vegetables were given us. The children also dried apples and lima beans which they gathered themselves at the school farm.

"That the interest in this rather exacting work was sustained for two months was doubtless due to the fact that the children had a genuine purpose in canning a large quantity of vegetables. For early in the work, upon the suggestion of one of the class, it had been decided to have a sale and use the proceeds to buy milk for a sick baby. Although I had not thought of this plan myself, I was glad to lend it my support.

"The final preparation for the sale occupied a large share of the time for several weeks. The chief consideration from the children's point of view seemed to be who should take charge of the business of selling. They had conducted a play store intermittently during the fall, but, upon testing, it was found that most of the class were ill prepared to act as salespeople.[A] The children readily recognized this fact and willingly went to work to drill on addition and subtraction. The most successful drill was accomplished by means of a dramatic rehearsal of the forthcoming sale, some children impersonating the visitors and the others the salesmen. Real money, correct prices, and the actual jars of vegetables and fruit were used for this play.

[Footnote A: Remember these were second-grade children--most of them seven or eight years old.]

"The need of invitations, of price lists, and of bookkeepers the day of the sale, was also recognized and led to much needed practice in written English. The prices were determined by a study of the latest food catalog, a small group with a teacher undertaking this work. It necessitated the use of an alphabetical index, and in some cases the calculation of the price of pints, when only quarts were listed, as we had used both pint and quart jars.

"Further preparation consisted of the making of labels for the jars and of posters for the room. The art teacher, when called in to advise, taught the children how to make accurate square letters, which they used in various sizes for the labels and posters. The making of fifty or more small labels with half-inch letters proved irksome to the little people, but they showed much persistence in completing the task, because of their interest in the sale. The eight children who made the final large posters did a great deal of intelligent, painstaking work. From the artistic point of view, the posters were not noteworthy, but they represented the children's own suggestions.

"The sale was conducted by the children, who made their own change, kept records of sales and wrapped up purchases. The various duties were agreed upon by the class, in accordance with each one's proved ability to carry them out, and everyone had some share."

In this simple account of an experimental class conducted at the Ethical Culture School, in New York, under the direction of Miss Mabel R. Goodlander, are many references to drill and practice. But throughout all of the work it was possible to maintain the interest of the children because, apparently, the attention was not on the drill as an end in itself, but upon the special skill or knowledge as a means to a more remote end. And this remote end was not the formal one of "passing," or being promoted, or getting a good mark, but the vital, urgent purpose of raising money through the sale for a sick baby's milk. Undoubtedly the "motives" of the several children in this class were varied and mixed--like the motives of good citizens who are united in support of a particular candidate, or a particular platform. But there was enough common purpose to insure cooperation and persistence and effort from every single child in proportion to his ability. The learning of stupid sums and the practice in penmanship are no more attractive to these children than they are to ordinary children in ordinary schools in all parts of the country. But they overcame all internal obstacles, went through with all of the monotony and drudgery, and to that extent triumphed over any disposition to shirk or to loaf or to dawdle or to flit from work to sensation.

And how is it with the learning of responsibility, with acquiring a sense of duty? Many of us have no doubt learned what we have learned of duty and responsibility, through the constant repetition of "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not" by our elders during our own growing years. But results at least as valuable have been obtained in the cases of others through the constant rubbing up against their equals in a free give-and-take atmosphere. Children learn to live with others by living with others. They learn to work with others--to "cooperate"--by working with others. They learn to play the game, to do teamwork, to play fair, to play in good form, to hit hard only by playing according to rule, with others, with worthy opponents, under good supervision. In short, the "discipline" that makes for power and freedom may be quite as easily obtained through the exercise of freedom as through external coercion--nay, more easily, and more effectively.

It is fair to ask whether training for a game is not quite analogous to our idea of training for life; and whether the methods which are found to be effective in the former kind of training are not equally valuable for the latter. Assuming the analogy, would you have a child learn the rules of such games as baseball or tennis from a book before allowing him to handle a ball, or before letting him see a game? Would you expect him to cooperate in teamwork after a long period of drill upon the _rules_ governing team cooperation? Would you expect him to hit hard because he has learned the correct answer to the question, How should a player hit?

This may not seem a fair comparison to some of the "training" that has actually been tried. Perhaps a more familiar analogy would be in teaching a child correct movements for the game to be mastered, separated from any experience with real games. Boys are "practicing" for a game, and each one is drilling on some special detail, hitting, catching, running bases, long throws, or what not; each one of them has in mind as part of his moving purpose not only his team's success and glory, but his own individual responsibility. Contrast this with the same boys required to drill at precisely the same movements on the theory that the "exercise" will do them good, or that some time in the future they might have to meet a situation in which a long throw or a swift run would be significant. Do you expect the same enthusiasm and energy to be developed in both cases? And if not the same enthusiasm and energy, can we expect the same results--whether we view the results as so much skill or technic, whether we view the results as so much "training in drudgery," or whether we consider the results from the viewpoint of moral values as so much devotion, self-sacrifice, restraint? The "moral" values that have been for years attributed to athletics appear after all to be the effects of intense, enthusiastic, and interested participation in teamwork--that is, in purposeful and energetic concern with joint undertakings.

The responsibilities we wish to develop, the sense of duty, no less than the application and persistence, no less than knowledge and skill, are types of habits which are best formed under the glow of satisfying experience. Far from assuming a soft life for the child, the idea of interest assumes the most strenuous kind of life. And the experiences of all who have tried it justifies the assumption. The experimental class already mentioned, similar experiments by Mrs. Marietta Johnson at Fairhope, Alabama and elsewhere, experimental classes at the Lincoln School and at the Horace Mann School, at various "play" schools in this country and in England, all show more continuous application of the children to whatever they happen to have in hand, longer periods of intense activity, and no sign whatever of loafing or shirking. The activities selected by the children themselves involve just as much "discipline" as anything that can be selected for them.

In these schools the children never hear the teacher call for "attention," for although everybody knows that attention is an essential of effective work, the attention takes care of itself where the children already feel a genuine concern in the outcome. And this concern insures satisfactory application, since the children look forward to satisfying results. This does not mean, of course, that either the work itself or the result is necessarily "pleasant," in the ordinary sense. Often, indeed, it is quite the reverse, as when the racer is exerting every last reserve of his energy in the final spurt, or when the contestants are in suspense awaiting the decision of the judges as to which is the best cake. And the endless grind of practice and preparation is no more "pleasant" to the child who knows the purpose and approves the purpose of his efforts (having taken part in selecting the undertaking) than similar exertion is to the child whose work is all planned and directed by outsiders; but the satisfactions connected with the exertions are different in the two cases, and the corresponding results are correspondingly different.

The principle of interest as a guide to the training of children can be applied in the home as well as in the school. It means, first of all, taking into account the interests, tastes, preferences of the children. As has already been suggested in earlier chapters, there are many occasions when the child may be consulted or given a choice of action, of amusements, of purchases, and so on--situations in which it is a matter of indifference to older people, but in which the making of a decision or a choice is both satisfying and valuable to the child. Even where the decision is not an indifferent one, our own should not be imposed in an arbitrary manner; when it differs from that of the child, we can get his assent and cooperation, where an arbitrary choice leaves him cold or even resentful.

The games children play, whether by themselves or with other children, are only in part manifestations of tastes: they represent to a degree stages of development. For the reason, therefore, that interests develop, we shall find that what is a favorable time for one child is not necessarily a favorable time for another child to learn a particular thing. This is very well shown by the great differences found among children, as to learning school subjects like reading or writing. In some the interest is aroused very early, and for them this is the best time; with others the interest does not appear until the third or fourth grade, or even later, and for such children this is the best time. There is no one period that is best for all children; by attempting to treat all alike, therefore, we not only waste a great deal of energy and good feeling, but we often defeat our purpose by antagonizing the children and thus making them resist the very things we want them to hug to themselves. And this is just as true of what we try to do in the home as it is of school teaching.

To discover the interests of the children requires that they be given an opportunity to express themselves. This means in most cases much more freedom than children have heretofore enjoyed. But it means also constant vigilance on the part of the elders, not so much to guard against the freedom being abused, as to guard against the opportunity being wasted. The taste in games or in reading, the choice of companions or of leisure time occupations must not only show themselves to be indulged; they must be seized upon by those who guide the children, as means for giving drive and direction to further development. A child who devotes too much time to athletics and too little to literature, may be drawn to reading through books about athletic contests of the classics, or through modern stories of college life. On the other hand, the boy who is prone to get his satisfactions vicariously and to neglect active participation in games and other activities, must be led through his reading, properly selected and unostentatiously placed under his nose, to more direct concern with producing practical effects in his environment. The interest, once discovered, must be the means for stimulating to greater exertion and to closer unification of the child's activities.

One of the things that presents a difficulty in every generation is the fact that the social and moral ideals change from age to age. We are thus constantly tempted to put into the characters of our children those traits that were valued highly by our parents, without always considering the importance of each item for the days in which our children will play their parts. Thus it comes about that many of the virtues that have a traditional value may be questioned when offered as staples for citizens of to-morrow. Obedience, for example, is a permanent necessity in a society that rests upon the assumption that one or a few chosen men represent the will of the gods on earth, but has only a transitory value in a democracy. As someone has said, obedience in childhood must be considered as a scaffold that is useful while the lasting parts of the structure are being put in place; when the desired structure is completed, obedience is naturally removed as of no further service. Now the kind of discipline required in a democracy calls for an attitude or disposition that makes cooperation with others come as a matter of course; it calls for the making of decisions, or the forming of opinions, on the basis of facts; and it calls for the habit of taking due account of the rights of others. The training for this class of habits is best obtained through methods that take full account of children's interests.

Just as the older outlook turned to "discipline" as a means for obtaining freedom, the new psychology utilizes freedom as a means for obtaining discipline. In both cases the end is of course the same--that is, the liberation of the human spirit and the organizing of the individual's powers to the greatest good. But as our ideas of human relations and of values have changed, science has given us new methods for attaining the final goals that we set ourselves.