. The dramatic method of teaching. led into passive childrens minds minusthe joy of assimilation ; but it must be the real study ofliving and working nature, absorbed in the open air underconditions which allow for free movement under naturaldiscipline. And since nature is the storehouse from whichpoet and artist draw their inspiration, it naturally followsthat we found it but a short step from the study of theopen book of nature into the Elysian fields of literatureand the arts. Nature study then became the basis of everypossible lesson ; and the school nature gardens and na-ture rambles supp
. The dramatic method of teaching. led into passive childrens minds minusthe joy of assimilation ; but it must be the real study ofliving and working nature, absorbed in the open air underconditions which allow for free movement under naturaldiscipline. And since nature is the storehouse from whichpoet and artist draw their inspiration, it naturally followsthat we found it but a short step from the study of theopen book of nature into the Elysian fields of literatureand the arts. Nature study then became the basis of everypossible lesson ; and the school nature gardens and na-ture rambles supplied subject matter for lessons in singing,reading, writing, arithmetic, drawing, painting, recitation,composition, grammar, and much of the geography. It was because the lessons in history could not be sowell connected with nature study, and therefore lackedthe living interest which the other subjects now acquiredfrom nature, that the historical play in my school came tobe evolved. A child learns, and retains what he is learning,. INTRODUCTION 7 better by actually seeing and doing things, which is aguiding principle of kindergartners. There is not a verymarked difference between the ages of the children whoenjoy learning by kindergarten games and of the so-called older pupils. Why not continue the principle of thekindergarten game in the school for older pupils ? I didso, but with this difference : instead of letting the teacheroriginate or conduct the play, I demanded that, just asthe individual himself must study nature and not have itstudied for him, the play must be the childs own. How-ever crude the action or dialogue from the adults pointof view, it would fitly express the stage of developmentarrived at by the childs mind, and would therefore bevaluable to him as a vehicle of expression and assimila-tion (which is, after all, what we need), rather than a fin-ished product pleasing to the more cultivated mind of anadult, and perhaps uninteresting to a child. So far as ori
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherbosto, bookyear1912
