need of conditions
which will enable an individual to make his own special contribution
to a group interest, and to partake of its activities in such ways that
social guidance shall be a matter of his own mental attitude, and not a
mere authoritative dictation of his acts. Because what is often called
discipline and "government" has to do with the external side of conduct
alone, a similar meaning is attached, by reaction, to freedom. But when
it is perceived that each idea signifies the quality of mind expressed
in action, the supposed opposition between them falls away. Freedom
means essentially the part played by thinking--which is personal--in
learning:--it means intellectual initiative, independence in
observation, judicious invention, foresight of consequences, and
ingenuity of adaptation to them.

But because these are the mental phase of behavior, the needed play of
individuality--or freedom--cannot be separated from opportunity for
free play of physical movements. Enforced physical quietude may be
unfavorable to realization of a problem, to undertaking the observations
needed to define it, and to performance of the experiments which
test the ideas suggested. Much has been said about the importance of
"self-activity" in education, but the conception has too frequently been
restricted to something merely internal--something excluding the free
use of sensory and motor organs. Those who are at the stage of learning
from symbols, or who are engaged in elaborating the implications of a
problem or idea preliminary to more carefully thought-out activity,
may need little perceptible overt activity. But the whole cycle
of self-activity demands an opportunity for investigation and
experimentation, for trying out one's ideas upon things, discovering
what can be done with materials and appliances. And this is incompatible
with closely restricted physical activity. Individual activity has
sometimes been taken as meaning leaving a pupil to work by himself or
alone. Relief from need of attending to what any one else is doing is
truly required to secure calm and concentration. Children, like grown
persons, require a judicious amount of being let alone. But the time,
place, and amount of such separate work is a matter of detail, not of
principle. There is no inherent opposition between working with others
and working as an individual. On the contrary, certain capacities of an
individual are not brought out except under the stimu