We are at present more inclined to produce these soft characters
than to develop paragons. But such movements go in waves and the
wave-lengths are growing shorter; we seem now to be reaching the end
of a period when, as it has been expressed, "the teacher learns the
lessons and says them to the child." We are beginning to outgrow too
fervid belief in methods, and pattern lessons, and coming back to
value more highly the habit of effort, individual work, and even the
saving discipline of drudgery. _We_ are beginning, that is those who
really care for children, and for character, and for life; it takes
the State and its departments a long time to come up with the
experience of those who actually know living children--a generation is
not too much to allow for its coming to this knowledge, as we may see
at present, when the drawbacks of the system of 1870 are becoming
apparent at last in the eyes of the official world, having been
evident for years to those whose sympathies were with the children and
not with codes. America, open-minded America, is aware of all this,
and is making generous educational experiments with the buoyant
idealism of a young nation, an idealism that is sometimes outstripping
its practical sense, quite able to face its disappointments if they
come, as undoubtedly they will, and to begin again.
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