t has been enumerated lies outside
his school experience; questions that demand an immediate answer. Even
if all this free-time work and play may have a certain value, how can
time be found for it without encroaching on the regular work and games
which, after all, must be the main concern of the school? And even
supposing that time could be found for both, will not all this
voluntary activity and pleasure-work absorb the interests and energies
that ought to be given to the more serious, if less attractive,
studies? And again, how can all this wide range of activity be
controlled? Who is going to teach, or look after, all these things?
How are they to be kept going? Are they, or any of them, to be
compulsory, or is a boy or girl to be allowed to do anything or
nothing, or to flit, butterfly-fashion, from one to another, learning
nothing except to fritter away energy in endless mental dissipation?

Only a brief answer can be attempted to these questions. It might
indeed be given in the answer to the old puzzle, _solvitur ambulando_;
for, given a clear aim and common sense, most difficulties in
education disappear as one goes on. It is, in fact, a question of
educational values; that settled, matters of detail soon settle
themselves. From what has been said above, it will be plain that the
writer is one of those who think these voluntary free-time activities
of such value that they are willing, in order to make room for them,
to jettison some of the traditions that have gathered about school
work and games. Let the morning hours be reserved for the severer
kinds of class work, but let the afternoons be mainly given to active
pursuits of other kinds as well as games; and on one of them at least
let expeditions in pursuit of the outdoor interests above outlined be
an alternative to the games chosen by the keen players, or compulsory
for those without an equivalent hobby. Then, too, in the evenings let
preparation be varied with handicrafts (the result will be an
intellectual gain rather than loss), and time be reserved for the
meetings of societies or for entertainments. It may be well to say
here that while every one of the things above mentioned is an actual
fact in some school, in none, probably, are all attempted at once,
nor, of course, do any of their members take up many of these pursuits
at the same time; but it is surprising how much can be done by
treating a part of some afternoons and evenings in the week as leisu