Whether this theory be right or wrong, no one can question that it is interesting and suggestive. It is but one of dozens with which the teacher is supposed to be at least on speaking terms. There is another large field of experiment and accomplishment in what is known as the manual-training movement, the marvellous and so long unrecognized connection between the development of the hand and the development of the mind and morals. Any one craving greater marvels than are furnished in modern romance can find them in the reports of reformatories, prisons, lunatic asylums, or schools for the defective, in which manual training has been introduced.
The whole trend of education changed when the "three R's" ceased to be its war-cry, and it behooves the modern mother to realize this change and to adapt herself to it. For the school and the home are but two agencies in the training of the child, two powers which should work together for good; and the ideal relation between the two is that they should be as one. It was a very great Teacher who taught that "no man can serve two masters." Then let the mother conform her rule and her judgments to the laws of the sister kingdom.
Let her hold, for instance, that the principle of self-activity is stronger than blind obedience ever was; that emulation as a spur to effort is the abomination of desolation; that a sound mind in a sound body is more to be valued than riches; that a keen eye for color and form, a steady hand to guide a pencil or a tool, a mind alert, eager, and reasonable, a heart which feels its brotherhood with all living, growing things, a free, frank speech, a generous nature, and an honest tongue, are in themselves a Declaration of Independence and a Psalm of Life.
"GAMES IN GARDENS"
Isaac Borrachsohn, Room 18's only example of the gilded youth, could never be described as a brilliant scholar, but on a morning in early April Miss Bailey found him more trying even than was his wont. He was plainly the centre of some sub-evident interest. First Readers nudged one another and whispered together, casting awed or envious looks upon him, and when the hour for recess came he formed the centre of an excited and gesticulating crowd. But Isaac Borrachsohn had never quite outgrown his distrust for his Krisht teacher. It was fostered by all his womankind at home, and was insisted upon almost as an article of faith by his grandfather the Rabbi. It was not to him, therefore, that Miss Bailey looked for an explanation of the general excitement, though she knew that before the day should pass she would hear several accounts of it.