nger who pays his first visit to this
school. One is the ceaseless activity of the children. The other is
the bright and happy look on every face. In too many elementary
schools the children are engaged either in laboriously doing
nothing,--in listening, for example, with ill-concealed yawns, to
_lectures_ on history, geography, nature-study, and the rest; or
in doing what is only one degree removed from nothing,--working
mechanical sums, transcribing lists of spellings or pieces of
composition, drawing diagrams which have no meaning for them, and
so forth. But in this school every child is, as a rule, actively
employed. And bearing in mind that "unimpeded energy" is a recognised
source of happiness, the visitor will probably conjecture that there
is a close connection between the activity of the children and the
brightness of their faces.

That the latter feature of the school will arrest his attention is
almost certain. Utopia belongs to a county which is proverbial for
the dullness of its rustics, but there is no sign of dullness on the
face of any Utopian child. On the contrary, so radiantly bright are
the faces of the children that something akin to sunshine seems
always to fill the school. When he gets to know the school, the
visitor will realise that the brightness of the children is of two
kinds,--the brightness of energy and intelligence, and the brightness
of goodness and joy. And when he gets to know the school as well as I
do, he will realise that these two kinds of brightness are in their
essence one.

Let me say something about each of them.

The Utopian child is alive, alert, active, full of latent energy,
ready to act, to do things, to turn his mind to things, to turn his
hand to things, to turn his desire to things, to turn his whole being
to things. There is no trace in this school of the mental lethargy
which, in spite of the ceaseless activity of the teachers, pervades
the atmosphere of so many elementary schools; no trace of the fatal
inertness on the part of the child, which is the outcome of five or
six years of systematic repression and compulsory inaction. The air
of the school is electrical with energy. We are obviously in the
presence of an active and vigorous life.

And the activity of the Utopian child is his own activity. It is
a fountain which springs up in himself. Unlike the ordinary
school-child, he can do things on his own account. He does not wait,
in the helplessness of passive