and a more organized imagination. His tastes and joys are almost identical. Give him large, coarse, flexible material; let him choose the material best adapted to his work and have the judgment to discard what is impractical. Let expression rather than technique be the guide in the choice of exercises given. Take time to let the children suggest how to make the object; let them discuss ways and means, not follow directions wholly; give the child one step in the process and let him figure out the next; some of the directions given in handwork with such precision are as unnecessary as lifting a child's feet when he climbs the stairs. When similar or familiar processes are used do not tell them over again, but let the children apply what has been already learned. Seize upon occasional days for free work. This is best accomplished by putting a lot of suggestive material—such as boxes, spools, a variety of shapes and sizes of wood, paste, paper, scissors, yarn, etc. on the table and allowing the children to choose what they will make, the kind of material they will use, and how they will make the article chosen. Even little children can make window boxes, clay flowerpots, cages for animals, strings and tassels for the curtains, and many other little devices for the comfort and cleanliness of the schoolroom.

Joyous, purposeful activity is the secret of honest living. Little children come to the school with a gift for being busy. The business of the schools is to transform this tendency into purposeful work. Children are not inherently idle or lazy. Idleness and laziness are the scars left by hours of joyless, distasteful work. So long as work is defined as an unwelcome task, so long will idleness increase. School work need not be irksome in order to be profitable, but should be the wholesome expression of changing tastes and increasing power.

CHAPTER XIV

LITERATURE

If our modern doctrines of education were faith, not theory; if we honestly believed in preserving to childhood its imagination, its emotional life, its ideals, and its humor, the so-called reading in the primary school would give place to the absorption of good literature. The word “liter"does not take on a sufficiently clear meaning in the minds of teachers. We do not have it in the schools because we are not sure what constitutes it. A mature person has the privilege of exercising personal judgment in the choice of what he will read; he may discard what falls short of personal approval. A child has no such privilege; he must base his standards and ideals upon the reading matter dealt out to him. When that reading matter is made up of the incongruous stuff contained in the average primer, what is to become of taste and discrimination?

Not one teacher in five hundred is bringing literature to little children. If she interests them she thinks all is well. Interest is no criterion in this connection, for a child will listen to almost anything put in story form. Literature is a question of units of thought, of taste, discrimination, and emotion. Much of the story work done in the grades is as demoralizing as vaudeville music; it is dissipating and cheap. We need to form standards of choice in the selection of literature; we need to have some convictions upon the subject which will guide us in our choice. Many stories told in the early grades are aimless jumbles of words, with

nothing to recommend them but a kind of sticky morality. They follow no preconceived plan and arrive at no adequate conclusion. Such stories arrest mental development by their fluid imbecility.

How may we recognize a good bit of literature? How may we determine whether a story is worth telling? Every good story is made up of essentials as necessary to its structure as bone and muscle to the human frame. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is a series of related incidents, each one illuminating the other and all converging upon the climax. Before selecting a story, see whether you can write an outline of it in one or two short sentences.

Literature, like life, is made up of action-action so vigorous that it overcomes all obstacles in the way of its success. As in life, the characters in a story should be individual, and full of purpose.

Children's stories should be dramatic; that is, they should be full of vim, vigor, and sequence. The plan of a story should resemble that of a simple drama; you should look for an introduction or opening, in which the boards are cleared and the characters introduced; there should be a setting of time and place, with a natural progression toward a climax. Look over many of the accepted children's stories and see whether there is any "economy of incident," or whether most of them are not made up of a number of unrelated incidents pointing to no adequate conclusion. Unity, action, sequence, and climax should characterize the construction of a story. Imagine a house built without a preconceived plan; what loss of time, what waste space and confusion, would result! A story without a definite method. of procedure is even more distressing, for it leads to a lack of organization in the thinking of the children.

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Good literature organizes the imagination, and affords good mental training. The simplicity of children's stories is no obstacle. Take the so-called constructive stories, such as The Little Red Hen," The Old Woman and her Pig," etc. Every incident in these stories grows out of the preceding and necessitates the following. One cannot take out one step in the process without destroying the whole. fabric of the story. These constructive stories, overlooked by many and considered permissible nonsense by others, hold in their make-up the essentials of good literature. Why? Because there is a simple plot, a main action, a steady movement toward a climax, and a unity of purpose which never falters until the tale is told. The character is introduced, the setting stated, the action set going without quibble or delay. These stories also contain a fair measure of suspense, a point of highest interest, an unraveling of the difficulty, and a definite conclusion. Such stories are moral in their influence, for they lead the mind step by step through a series of organized incidents toward a legitimate conclusion.

"Mother Goose," which, after all, represents the childish heartbeats of the race, is too much neglected. The primary teacher who cannot see the naïveté, humor, and suggestion of "Mother Goose"; who cannot swing to its rhythm, or enjoy the variety of its action, should ask to be transferred to some place in the elementary school where information, not humanity, rules. What does "Mother Goose" offer to the children? Why is it called good literature? First, it has plot, the very beginning of it. A good short story has a simple plot, and usually magnifies one character or incident. Again, the people who jump through the pages of "Mother Goose" have real individuality, character. Old Mother Hubbard, Little Tommy Grace, live in the

mind of childhood as tenaciously as some of Shakespeare's characters live in mature minds. It is only a question of development, analysis, complexity. The characters of "Mother Goose" are merely outline sketches, as incomplete and yet as suggestive as children's drawings. "Mother Goose" has movement, climax, and heroic justice. The characters in it quickly meet their natural fate, irrespective of manners and morals. There is no false altruism to suspend judgment, but the lively little characters are born to act, and to meet the consequences of their actions, with a promptness and decision which leave no room for argument.

"Mother Goose" is imaginative, and deals with the unexpected, the unusual, the grotesque, and the deliciously human. It offers a succession of pictures with such simple incident that the children can visualize them as they go. "Mother Goose" is full of rime, alliteration, music. The ear is tickled by the pronounced and constantly changing rhythm. "Mother Goose" is so childlike that it awakens an emotional response, and an emotional response means personal interest.

"Mother Goose" offers a study of motive within the child's comprehension, and starts some analysis of character which is most suggestive. There is always a problem to be solved. Each sketch is a simple problem represented as swiftly and as clearly as a moving picture. The whole story is grasped by the children in its completeness, yet these small units contain the essentials of more complex stories.

Good literature should bring vivid phases of life to the children, out of which each child may take what he needs, what he is ready for. Each child's heart, by inheritance and experience, is attuned to certain responses; it is hospitable to certain suggestions and ready for certain conclusions; it