At
home, the system of ten minutes' lessons at short intervals seems to
answer well for young children; it exerts just enough pressure to give
rebound in the intervals of play. Of course this is not possible at
school.
But the illusion that lessons are play cannot be indefinitely kept up,
or if the illusion remains it is fraught with trouble. Duty and
endurance, the power to go through drudgery, the strength of mind to
persist in taking trouble, even where no interest is felt, the
satisfaction of holding on to the end in doing something arduous, these
things must be learned at some time during the years of education. If
they are not learned then, in all probability they will never be
acquired at all; examples to prove the contrary are rare. The question
is how--and when. If pressed too soon with obligations of lessons,
especially with prolonged attention, little anxious faces and round
shoulders protest. If too long delayed the discovery comes as a shock,
and the less energetic fall out at once and declare that they "can't
learn"--"never could."
Perhaps in one way the elementary schools with their large classes have
a certain advantage in this, because the pressure is more self-adjusting
than in higher class education, where the smaller numbers give to each
child a greater share in the general work, for better or for worse.
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