" One "went through so much
to learn so little"; and the results depending so often upon help from
others to bring them to any conclusion, there was no sense of personal
achievement in a work accomplished. Others planned, cut out and prepared
the work, and the child came in as an unwilling and imperfect sewing
machine merely to put in the stitches. The sense of mastery over
material was not developed, yet that is the only way in which a child's
attainment of skill can be linked on to the future. What cannot be done
without help always at hand drops out of life, and likewise that which
calls for no application of mind.
To reach independence in the practical arts of life is an aim that will
awaken interests and keep up efforts, and teachers have only a right to
be satisfied when their pupils can do without them. This is not the
finishing point of a course of teaching, it is a whole system, beginning
in the first steps and continuing progressively to the end. It entails
upon teachers much labour, much thought, and the sacrifice of showy
results. The first look of finish depends more upon the help of the
teacher than upon the efforts of children. Their results must be waited
for, and they will in the early years have a humbler, more rough-hewn
look than those in which expert help has been given.
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