I believe that we must greatly modify our ideas regarding infant psychology, as soon as trained psychologists begin to observe the spontaneous manifestations of children, to the end of encouraging their tendencies.
Having applied scientific methods in the "Children's Houses," we were amazed at the behaviour of those little children; for instance, they showed contempt for toys, while they loved objects on which they could exercise their free powers of reason.
Intellectual exercise is the most pleasing of all to the small child if he is in good health. Indeed, we already know that children break their toys in order to see how they are made inside; this shows that the exercise of their intellect interests them more than playing with an object that is often irrational. But children are not, as is generally believed, naturally destructive; on the contrary, their instinct is to preserve. This is seen in the way in which they save little objects that they have acquired by themselves; and in the "Children's Houses," we have also seen it in the way that they preserve unharmed even the most trivial scrap of paper, although free to tear it up, so long as that scrap of paper helps them to exercise their thoughts.
Here we see the great difference between the healthy, normal child who employs himself in the way that pleases him, and is attentive and tranquil; and another child who, equally healthy and normal, is obliged to do what other people wish him to do, and is restless, and troublesome and cries.
To aid the physical development of the child under the guidance of natural laws is to favour his health and his growth; to aid his natural psychic tendencies is to render him more intelligent.
This principle has been intuitively recognised by all pedagogists, but the practical application of it was not possible, excepting under the guidance of scientific pedagogy, founded upon a direct knowledge of the human individual.
To-day it is possible for us to establish a régime of liberty in our schools, and consequently it is our duty to do so.
Whenever a child exhibits anomalies of character that do not signify rebellion against irrational methods of education, and are not expressions of a struggle for liberty, he represents the unhappy effect of some pathological cause, or of some social error, that has only too fatally accomplished its corruptive task.
This is what the biographic history will reveal!
As a general rule, a bad child should be taken to see a physician, because it is almost certain that he is a sick child.