l vary according to the children's experiences. It is
pretty evident to the honest-minded teacher that the subjects are, in
school terms, nature work and elementary science, mathematics,
constructive and expressive work, literature, music, language, physical
exercise and religion. The business of the younger child is with real
things and activity, not with symbols and passivity, therefore he is not
really in need of reading, writing, or arithmetic. We hear arguments
from ambitious teachers that children are fond of reading lessons
because they enjoy the fantasies in which these lessons are wrapped, or
the efforts made by the teacher to create interest; we hear that
children ask to be taught to read; they also ask to be taught to drive a
tram or to cook a dinner; but it is all part of the pretence game of
playing at being grown up. They do not need to read while stories and
poetry can be told or read to them; they are not ready to make the
effort of working for a remote economic end, where there is no real
pleasure in the activity, and no opportunity of putting their powers to
use. No child under six wants to sit down and read, and it would be very
harmful if he did; his business is with real things and with his
vocabulary, which is not nearly ready to put into symbols yet. If
reading is delayed, hours of weary drudgery will be saved and energy
stored for more precious attainments.

Therefore in the transition class (_i.e._ children over six at lowest)
the only addition to the curriculum already set out for the nursery
class, would be arithmetic and reading, including writing. The other
differences would be in degree only. In the junior class (with children
over seven at lowest) a desire to know something of the doings of people
in other countries, to hear about other parts of our own land, will lead
to the beginnings of geography; while with this less imaginative and
more literal period comes the request for stories that are more verbally
true, and questions about origins, leading to the beginnings of history.

It is very much easier to give the general curriculum than to deal with
the choice of actual material, because that is involved largely with the
principle of the unity of experience, and, as we know, experiences vary.
The normal town and country child, and the abnormal child of poverty
have all certain human cravings in common, and these are provided for in
the aspects of life or subjects that have been named--bu