hing else:
if modelling is at 11.30 on Monday and children are anxious to make
Christmas presents, what law in heaven or earth are we obeying if we
stick to modelling except the law of Red Tape.

CHAPTER XXV

EXPERIENCES OF THE LIFE OF MAN

This aspect of experience comes in two forms, the life of man in the
past, with the memorials and legacies he has left, and the life of man
in the present under the varying conditions of climate and all that it
involves. In other words these experiences are commonly known as history
and geography, though in the earlier stages of their appearance in
school it is perhaps better to call the work--preparation for history
and geography. They would naturally appear in the transition or the
junior class, preferably in the latter, but they need not be wholly new
subjects to a child; his literature has prepared him for both; to some
extent his experiments in handwork have prepared him for history, while
his nature work, especially his excursions and records, have prepared
him for geography. That he needs this extension of experience can be
seen in his growing demands for true stories, true in the more literal
sense which he is coming fast to appreciate; undoubtedly most children
pass through a stage of extreme literalism between early childhood and
what is generally recognised as boyhood and girlhood. They begin to ask
questions regarding the past, they are interested in things from
"abroad," however vague that term may be to them.

Perhaps it will be best to treat the two subjects separately, though
like all the child's curriculum at this stage they are inextricably
confused and mingled both with each other, and with literature, as
experiences of man's life and conduct.

The beginnings of geography lie in the child's foundations of
experience. Probably the first real contact, unconscious though it may
be, that any child has in this connection is through the production of
food and clothing. A country child sees some of the beginnings of both,
but it is doubtful how much of it is really interpreted by him; the
village shop with its inexhaustible stores probably means much more in
the way of origins, and he may never go behind its contents in his
speculations. It is true he sees milking, harvesting, sheep-shearing,
and many other operations, but he often misses the stage between the
actual beginning and the finished product--between the wool on the
sheep's back and his Sunday clot