act with them. He feels that
other wonders must be accounted for--the snow, thunder and lightning,
the colours of summer, the changeful sea. At first the world of fairy
lore may satisfy him, later comes the life of the undying spirit, but
the two are continuous. He may attend "religious observances," and these
may help or they may hinder.

He is keenly interested in games, whether they are games of physical
skill, of mental skill, or games of pretence. Here most especially he
comes into contact with other people, and here he realises some of the
experiences of social life.

Such are the most usual sides of life sought by the ordinary child, and
on such must we base the surroundings we provide for our children in
school, and the aspects of life to which we introduce them, commonly
called subjects of the curriculum.

_Our third principle is therefore, evident: we find, in the child's
spontaneous choice, the nature of the surroundings and of the activities
that he craves for; in other words, he makes his own curriculum and
selects his own subject matter_.

The next consideration is the atmosphere in which a child can best
develop character by means of these experiences. A young child is a
stranger in an unknown, untried country: he has many strange promptings
that seek for satisfaction; he has strong emotions arising from his
instincts, he feels crudely and fiercely and he must act without delay,
as a result of these emotions. He is like a tourist in a new strange
country, fresh and eager, and with a similar holiday spirit of
adventure: the stimulation of the new arouses a desire to interpret, to
investigate and to ask questions: it arouses strong emotions to like or
dislike, to fear, to be curious; it leads to certain modes of conduct,
as a result of these emotions. Picture such a young tourist buttonholed
by a blase guide, who had forgotten what first impressions meant, who
insisted on accompanying him wherever he went, regulating his procedure
by telling him just what should be observed and how to do so, pouring
out information so premature as to be obnoxious, correcting his taste,
subduing his enthusiasm, and modifying even his behaviour. The tourist
would presumably pay off the unwelcome guide, but the children cannot
pay off the teacher: they can and do rebel, but docility and
adaptability seem to play a large part in self-preservation. For the
young child freedom must precede docility, because the only reasonabl