of making evident the meaning of that appearance." *

That children who are brought up "simply and naturally never evade but rather seek obstacles has been noticed by Froebel in the Education of Man.

"Let it lie," the vigorous youngster exclaims to his father, who is about to roll a piece of wood out of the boy's way; "let it lie; I can get over it." With difficulty, indeed, the boy gets over it the first time, but he has accomplished the feat by his own strength. Strength and courage have grown in him. He returns, gets over the obstacle a second time, and soon he learns to clear it easily. If activity brought joy to the child, work now gives delight to the boy. Hence, the daring and venturesome feats of boyhood, the exploration of caves and ravines, the climbing of trees and mountains, the searching of the heights and depths, the roaming through fields and forests.

The most difficult thing seems easy, the most daring thing seems without danger to him, for his

*Froebel's Letters. Translated by E. Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore, p. 60.

I well know how hard it is to resist the fear which deters us from giving children occasion to cope with difficulties, conquer obstacles, confront reasonable perils. Yet I also know that if you wish to develop Harold's strength and manliness you must be ready to let him do and dare. Nor is it less true that if, as he grows older, you wish to develop his intellect you must avoid making the path of knowledge too smooth, broad, and easy, and if you wish to develop his moral energy you must permit him to grapple with moral problems.

The parents of a bright child are often victims to senseless exaggerations of his ability and senseless fears for his health. He is so clever he does not need to study, and so nervous and high-strung that he should not study. So when he is sent to school the teacher is enjoined not to push him, and he is kept in a class where he has nothing to do. By the time he is ten years old he has fallen in actual attainment behind the average child, has become so idle that it is impossible to make him work, and so conceited that he is an offense to all rational

*Education of Man. Hailmann's Translation, p. 102.

persons. His intellectual and moral debauchery is completed by home indulgence and the excuses woven by maternal vanity. As less and less is exacted of him he naturally exacts more and more of others, until at last his petty tyrannies become insupportable, and the régime of foolish indulgence is superseded by a régime of futile scoldings, threats, and punishments.

I should not express myself so strongly on this point were I not sure that hundreds of children are ruined because enough is not expected of them. The keener your realization of this peril, the more earnestly will you incite your infant Hercules to strangle, while still in his cradle, the twin serpents of sloth and selfishness. In your efforts to incite and discipline his energies you must, however, be careful to keep a just balance between his strength and the obstacles you ask him to overcome. Will may be paralyzed as well as dissipated, and through the failures born of attempts to grapple with overwhelming difficulties the child may be made moody and cowardly. Moreover, his affections are repelled from the mother or teacher who asks of him what even with his best effort he can not do, while conversely the impetuous currents of his love flow

freely toward all those who procure for him that elation of spirit which is the fine flower of successful achievement. Finally, it is from many small successes that he wins courage and modesty. Becoming accustomed to strife and victory, he learns just what he may venture to attempt, and in the end grows capable of that "reasoned rashness" which all great emergencies demand and all great successes imply.

By many persons Froebel is supposed to be the avowed champion of two very popular, very plausible, but very dangerous educational heresies, against which his whole system is a protest. One of these heresies has been called sugar-plum education, the other has been fitly baptized flower-pot education. Sugar-plum education in its moral aspect means coaxing, cajolery, and bribery; in its intellectual aspect it is the parent of that specious and misleading maxim that the chief aim of the educator is to interest the child. Like the theory which wrecks happiness by making it the aim of life, the effort to win interest results in methods which kill interest. / The end of life is not happiness, but goodness; the aim of education is not to interest the child, but to incite and guide his self

activity. Seeking goodness we win happiness; inciting self-activity we quicken interest./Please say to Helen that unless she wishes her kindergarten to be a wretched parody of Froebel's ideal she will say to herself, not "I must interest the children,” but "I must get and hold their attention." The kindergartner who lashes herself into a dramatic frenzy when playing the games, and talks herself hoarse in vain attempts to interest her children in their gifts, too often remains serenely complacent in face of their phlegmatic indifference to her wellmeant endeavors. Has she not done everything to interest them? They must, she thinks, be peculiarly unresponsive children; or perhaps they have been spoiled at home! If she would propose to herself the objective test, and frankly admit that unless she can hold attention she is a failure, she would hit upon devices appealing more to the self-activity of the pupils. Striving for attention she would win interest. For true interest can neither be seduced nor compelled; it must be incited.

These hints will help you to understand sugarplum education. Now for the flower-pot. Flowerpot education means the effort to make the child wise and good through the influence of an arti