gradually introducing new knowledge as occasion offers, the field of study is sufficiently widened. Children profit little by books and tools alone: they crave encouragement and some direct constructive criticism. In such an atmosphere their endeavors become significant and profitable, and the accumulated learning will be applied to business or economic ideas which result in progressive thinking, which uses information as a tool, not an end in itself.

If then the arts of a people stand as monuments to its beliefs and ideals, an intimate understanding of some of the arts ought to be provided for in every scheme of education both at home and in school. The child is by nature interested in the attributes of things associated with his life and upbringing. He wants to know about them, how they are made, and learn their uses by means of experiment. The elements of science, mechanics and natural phenomena, business and household art, and finally play (which is often adult living in miniature)—these comprise a large portion of the subject matter which is of prime importance to children. It is just such material as this which bids fair to serve in the future as the basis for public school curricula, simply because of its strong appeal to youth and its potential worth in forming the adult.

The boy makes a kite, a telegraph outfit, or sled in order to give to his play a vestige of realism. He seeks to mold the physical world to personal desires, as men do. Incidentally he taps the general mass of scientific facts or data and extracts therefrom no small amount of very real, fruitful information. The result possesses marvelously suggestive and lasting qualities because it came through effort; because the boy wanted above all things to see his machine or toy work, move, or obey his guiding hand, he was willing to dig for the necessary understanding of the problem. His study brought about contact with numerous other lines of work which were not at the time, perhaps, germain to the subject, but were suggestive and opened various side lines of experiment to be considered later. Therein lies the lure of mechanics and craft work, gardening, outdoor projects, camping, etc.: the subject is never exhausted, the student can never "touch bottom." There is always an unexplored path to follow up. The intensity of interest in mechanical things and in nature is the one influence which can hold the boy in line. Turn him loose among mechanical things where nicety of fitting and accurate workmanship are essential and he appreciates construction immediately, because it is clear that workmanship and efficiency go hand in hand. It is very much the same with the girl: she may not enjoy the tedium of mere sewing, but when the sewing serves a personal end, when sewing is essential to her greatest needs, these conditions provide the only, inevitable, sure stimulus to ambition and effort.

The school of the past, and often that of the present, has sought to produce the adult by fertilizing the child with arithmetic, grammar, geography, and language. The process resulted in all kinds of crooked, stunted, oblique growth, the greatest assortment of "sports" (to use a horticultural term) the world has ever seen. It isn't intellectual food the child needs most (though some is very necessary); the real need is intensive cultivation. Within himself he possesses, like the young plant, great potential strength and virility, enough to produce a splendid being absolutely at one with his time and surroundings; he simply requires the chance to use the knowledge and opportunities which lie at hand. It is, then, the common subjects of every-day interest—science, business, nature and the like—which are the sources of knowledge which has greatest worth to children.[A] They are the valuable ones because they are of the type which first attracts and holds the child's attention; they are concrete. Through them one may learn language and expression, because one has something worth saying.

The second question, "Why do children like to make things and what is their choice?" in the light of what has been said practically answers itself. Children work primarily in response to that law of nature which urges the young to exercise their muscles, to become skilful and accurate in movement, for the sake of self-preservation and survival. It is another phase of the same law which makes one carry out in work, in concrete form, the ideas which come tumbling in from all conceivable sources. The child can only think and learn in terms of material things. Finally, the child's interests, the things he desires to make and do, are such as will minister to his individual or social needs, his play and imitation, and such as will satisfy his desire to produce articles of purpose. The need may be a temporary, minor one, but every child is stubborn on this one point, that everything he does must lead to utility of a sort; through such working with a purpose he in time rises to an appreciation of beauty and other abstract qualities.

Now this complex condition of child and school and society, in which there is seemingly so much waste—"lost motion"—has always existed; the facts are not new ones by any means. It is a condition where the child is always curious, inquisitive and ready to "hook a ride" on the march of business, science and learning, but the school sternly commands "learn these stated facts because they are fundamental" (philosophically), while society, represented by the parent, alternately abuses the school, which is collectively his own institution, or spoils the child by withholding the tools for learning easily. In the meantime the child, with the native adaptability and hardiness of true need, thrives in barren, untoward surroundings, and matures notwithstanding. In other words, the school and society have always tended toward misunderstanding—toward a lack of mutual interest. In this period of uncertainty, of educational groping, the child is found in his leisure hours pushing along the paths which connect most directly with life and action, shunning the beaten but roundabout highways of custom and conservatism.

The deductions are evident and clear-cut. If one accepts the foregoing statement of the case, and there is ample evidence in any community of size, it will be clear that certain definite opportunities should be opened to the boy or girl to make the most of native talent and enthusiasm. Encourage the young business adventurer or artisan to make the most of his chosen hobby (and to choose a hobby if he has not one already), to systematize it, develop it, make it financially profitable if that is the desire; but first, last and all the time to make it a study which is intensive enough to satisfy his or her productive ambitions. At this age (up to the high school period) the boy or girl may not have been able to decide upon a profession or business, but he is working toward decision, and he is the only one who can choose. Instead of trying to select an occupation for him, father and mother would do well to put the child at the mercy of his own resources for amusement, recreation and business, merely lending a hand now and then in their full development. It will preserve the freshness of youth beyond the ordinary time of its absorption by a blasé attitude toward the world, and lead toward a more healthy and critical kind of study than the haphazard lonesomeness, or the destructive gang spirit of the modern community.