MANY DIFFERENT KINDS OF TRAINS 251
BORIS WALKS EVERY WAY IN NEW YORK 267
SPEED 281
FIVE LITTLE BABIES 291
ONCE THE BARN WAS FULL OF HAY 299
THE WIND 309
THE LEAF STORY 315
A LOCOMOTIVE 320
MOON, MOON 322
AUTOMOBILE SONG 323
SILLY WILL 325
EBEN'S COWS 340
THE SKY SCRAPER 353

FOREWORD

Our school has always assumed that children are interested in and will
work with or give expression to those things which are familiar to them.
This is not new: the kindergarten gives domestic life a prominent place
with little children. But with the kindergarten the present and familiar
is abandoned in most schools and emphasis is placed upon that which is
unfamiliar and remote. It is impossible to conceive of children working
their own way from the familiar to the unknown unless they develop a
method in understanding the familiar which will apply to the unfamiliar
as well. This method is the method of art and science--the method of
experimentation and inquiry. We can almost say that children are born
with it, so soon do they begin to show signs of applying it. As they
have been in the past and as they are in the present to a very great
extent, schools make no attempt to provide for this method; in fact they
take pains to introduce another. They are disposed to set up a rigid
program which answers inquiries before they are made and supplies needs
before they have been felt.

We try to keep the children upon present day and familiar things until
they show by their attack on materials and especially upon information
that they are ready to work out into the unknown and unfamiliar. In the
matter of stories and verse which fit into such a program we have always
felt an almost total void. Whether other schools feel this would depend
upon their intentional program. Surely no school would advise giving
classical literature without the setting which would mak