I sat aghast. "Devising games?" I protested. "Making up new ones, you
mean?"

"Exactly," she answered. "Don't you?"

Then I remembered the kindergarten, and the "material" devised by
Signora Montessori, and guardedly replied: "To some extent." But most
of our games, I told her, were very old--came down from child to child,
along the ages, from the remote past.

"And what is their effect?" she asked. "Do they develop the faculties
you wish to encourage?"

Again I remembered the claims made by the advocates of "sports," and
again replied guardedly that that was, in part, the theory.

"But do the children LIKE it?" I asked. "Having things made up and set
before them that way? Don't they want the old games?"

"You can see the children," she answered. "Are yours more
contented--more interested--happier?"

Then I thought, as in truth I never had thought before, of the dull,
bored children I had seen, whining; "What can I do now?"; of the little
groups and gangs hanging about; of the value of some one strong spirit
who possessed initiative and would "start something"; of the children's
parties and the onerous duties of the older people set to "amuse the
children"; also of that troubled ocean of misdirected activity we call
"mischief," the foolish, destructive, sometimes evil things done by
unoccupied children.

"No," said I grimly. "I don't think they are."

The Herland child was born not only into a world carefully prepared,
full of the most fascinating materials and opportunities to learn, but
into the society of plentiful numbers of teachers, teachers born and
trained, whose business it was to accompany the children along that, to
us, impossible thing--the royal road to learning.

There was no mystery in their methods. Being adapted to children it was
at least comprehensible to adults. I spent many days with the little
ones, sometimes with Ellador, sometimes without, and began to feel a
crushing pity for my own childhood, and for all others that I had known.

The houses and gardens planned for babies had in them nothing to
hurt--no stairs, no corners, no small loose objects to swallow, no
fire--just a babies' paradise. They were taught, as rapidly as
feasible, to use and control their own bodies, and never did I see such
sure-footed, steady-handed, clear-headed little things. It was a joy
to watch a row of toddlers learning to walk, not only on a level floor,
but, a little later, on a sort of rubber rail raised