His eyes lit up, and away he ran to lay his foundations. He worked eagerly all day, but at night he seemed dissatisfied.
"I haven't got any railway or houses; Christo won't lend me a bit of his railway, and Gerda has all the houses."
I left him to work out his problem. In the morning he solved it; Christo wouldn't lend him any rails, but if Tommy liked he, Christo, would run his line up to Tommy's town from the class town. Tommy readily agreed. In a week's time Tommy's town was a suburb of the bigger town, and Tommy was appointed President of the whole state. He spent many an hour building his bridges and digging his tunnels. At first he would allow no one to enter his suburb, but in a few days he ceased to claim it as his own, and he worked as a member of the gang.
I think that most anti-social children are like Tommy: when their self-assertion is threatened they react with hostility. The cure for them is to direct their self-assertion to things instead of people. No boy will try to break up a ball game if he has a rabbit hutch to construct.
The danger is that the teacher will often step in when the boy ought to be left to his companions. The gang is the best disciplinarian.
One day a class and I were writing five-minute essays. I would call out a word or a phrase, and we would all start to write. The children loved the method; it allowed so much play for originality. For example, when I gave the word "broken" one girl wrote of her broken doll, another of a broken tramp, another of a broken heart; a boy wrote a witty essay on being stoney broke, another wrote of a broken window.
On this day Wolodia, a boy of eleven, did not want to write essays. I called out a word, and we started to write. Wolodia began to talk loudly.
"Stop it, man," I said impatiently, "you're spoiling our essay."
He grinned and went on talking.
"Oh, shut up!" cried Joy.