hem microscopists; I would give them a knowledge
of the cultivation of plants and train them to observe their
physiology; I would direct their observation to insects, and would
make them study the general laws of biology. And I would not have them
concerned with theory alone, but would encourage them to work
independently in laboratories and in the bosom of free Nature.

This complex program of observation must not exclude the physical
aspects of the child. Thus the direct and immediate preparation for a
higher task should be the knowledge of the physical needs of the
child, from birth to the age when psychical life is beginning to
develop in his organization and becomes susceptible to treatment. By
this I do not mean merely a theoretical course of anatomy, physiology,
and hygiene; but a "practise" among little children, which aims at
following their development closely, and foresees all their physical
needs. The teacher, in other words, should prepare herself according
to the methods of the biological sciences, entering with simplicity
and objectivity into the very domain in which students of the natural
sciences and of medicine are initiated, when they make their first
experiments in the laboratory, before penetrating into the more
profound problems of life related to their special study. In like
manner those young men, who in our universities are destined to study
vast and complex sciences, must in the beginning undertake the quiet
and restful work of preparing an infusion, or the section of a
rose-stalk, and thus experience, as they observe through the
microscope, that emotion born of wonder, which awakens the
consciousness and attracts it to the mysteries of life with a
passionate enthusiasm. It was thus that we, accustomed hitherto to
read in school only ponderous and arid printed books, felt that the
book of Nature was opening before our spirit, infinite in its
possibilities of creation and of miracle, and responding to all our
latent and uncomprehended aspirations.

This should also be the book of the new teacher, the primer that
should mold her for her mission of directing infant life. Such a
preparation should generate in her consciousness a conception of life
capable of transforming her, of calling forth in her a special
"activity," an "aptitude" which shall make her efficient for her
task. She should become a providential "force," a maternal "force."

But all this is but a part of the "preparation." The t