question
is how--and when. If pressed too soon with obligations of lessons,
especially with prolonged attention, little anxious faces and round
shoulders protest. If too long delayed the discovery comes as a shock,
and the less energetic fall out at once and declare that they "can't
learn"--"never could."

Perhaps in one way the elementary schools with their large classes have
a certain advantage in this, because the pressure is more self-adjusting
than in higher class education, where the smaller numbers give to each
child a greater share in the general work, for better or for worse. In
home education this share becomes even greater when sometimes one child
alone enjoys or endures the undivided attention of the governess. In
that case the pressure does not relax. But out of large classes of
infants in elementary schools it is easy to see on many vacant restful
faces that after a short exertion in "qualifying to their teacher" they
are taking their well-earned rest. They do not allow themselves to be
strung up to the highest pitch of attention all through the lesson, but
take and leave as they will or as they can, and so they are carried
through a fairly long period of lessons without distress. As they grow
older and more independent in their work the same cause operates in a
different way. They can go on by themselves and to a certain extent they
must do so, as o n account of the numbers teachers can give less time
and less individual help to each, and the habit of self-reliance is
gradually acquired, with a certain amount of drudgery, leading to
results proportionate to the teacher's personal power of stimulating
work. The old race of Scottish schoolmaster in the rural schools
produced--perhaps still produces--good types of such self-reliant
scholars, urged on by his personal enthusiasm for knowledge. Having no
assistant, his own personality was the soul of the school, both boys and
girls responding in a spirit which was worthy of it. But the boys had
the best of it; "lassies" were not deemed worthy to touch the classics,
and the classics were everything to him. In America it is reported that
the best specimens of university students often come from remote schools
in which no external advantages have been available; but the tough
unyielding habit of study has been developed in grappling with
difficulties without much support from a teacher.

With those who are more gently brought up the problem is how to obtain
this