Generally
speaking, children have to take the value of their mental work on the
faith of our word. They must go through a great deal in mastering the
rudiments of, say, Latin grammar (for the honey is not yet spread so
thickly over this as it is now over the elements of modern languages).
They must wonder why "grown-ups" have such an infatuation for things
that seem out of place and inappropriate in life as they consider it
worth living. Probably it is on this account that so many artificial
rewards and inducements have had to be brought in to sustain their
efforts. Physical exercise is a joy to healthy children, but it leaves
nothing behind as a result. Children are proud of what they have done
and made themselves. They lean upon the concrete, and to see as the
result of their efforts something which lasts, especially something
useful, as a witness to their power and skill, this is a reward in
itself and needs no artificial stimulus, though to measure their own
work in comparative excellence with that of others adds an element that
quickens the desire to do well. Children will go quietly back again and
again to look, without saying anything, at something they have made with
their own hands, their eyes telling all that it means to them, beyond
what they can express.
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