urn, and see what
special steps Egeria takes to foster its growth.

(1) _The Communicative Instinct_.

Through this instinct the child goes out of himself into the lives of
other persons and other living things. The desire is in its essence
one for intercourse, for communion, for the interchange of thoughts,
of feelings, of experiences. The normal child is, as we all know, an
inveterate chatterbox; but he is also a rapt listener. If he desires,
as he certainly does, to tell others about himself, he desires, in no
less a degree, to hear about others, either from themselves, or from
those who are best able to tell him about them. The balance between
the two desires is well maintained by Nature; and it should be
carefully maintained by those who train the young, if the
communicative instinct as a whole is to make healthy growth.

In too many elementary schools the instinct is systematically
starved, the scholars being strictly forbidden to talk among
themselves, while their conversational intercourse with their teacher
is limited to receiving a certain amount of dry information, and
giving this back, collectively or individually, when they are
expressly directed to do so. The child's instinctive desire to
converse, being deprived by education of its natural outlets, must
needs force for itself the subterranean and illicit outlet of
whispering in class, either under the teacher's nose, if he happens
to be unobservant or indolent, or behind his back, if he happens to
be vigilant and strict. And as the child is forbidden to talk about
things which are wholesome and interesting, it is but natural that in
his surreptitious conversations he should talk about things which
are less edifying, things which are trivial and vulgar, or even
unwholesome and unclean. Children are naturally obedient and
truthful; but in their attempts to find outlets for healthy
activities which are wantonly repressed, they will go far down the
inclined plane of disobedience and deceit.

In Utopia free conversation is systematically encouraged. No
elementary school is supposed to open before 9 a.m.; but Egeria is in
the habit of coming to school at 8.45 or earlier, so that the
children who wish to do so may come and talk to her freely about the
things that interest them,--what they have observed on their walks to
or from school, what they have heard or read at home, what they think
about things in general, and so on. The school has a good library o