eacher
is just as strongly convinced that keeping school is a dull and sleepy
business. And yet the sources of interest are abundant to overflowing
for him who has eyes to see. That these sources and materials of
knowledge, arousing deep and lasting interests, are above other things
adapted to children and to the school room, is a truth worthy of all
emphasis.

Interest is a good test of the _adaptability_ of knowledge. When any
subject is brought to the attention at the right age and in the proper
manner, it awakens in children a natural and lively feeling. It is
evident that certain kinds of knowledge are not adapted to a boy at the
age of ten. He cares nothing about political science, or medicine, or
statesmanship, or the history of literature. These things may be
profoundly interesting to a person two or three times as old, but not
to him. Other things, however, the story of Ulysses, travel, animals,
geography, and history, even arithmetic, may be very attractive to a
boy of ten. It becomes a matter of importance to select those studies
and parts of studies for children at their changing periods of growth,
which are adapted to awaken and stimulate their minds. We shall be
saved then from doing what the best of educators have so frequently
condemned, namely, when the child asks for bread give him a stone, or
when he asks for fish give him a serpent.

The neglect to take proper cognizance of this principle of _interest_
in laying out courses of study and in the manner of presenting subjects
is certainly one of the gravest charges that ever can be brought
against the schools. It is a sure sign that teachers do not know what
it means "to put yourself in his place," to sympathize with children
and feel their needs. The educational reformers who have had deepest
insight into child-life, have given us clear and profound warnings.
Rousseau says: "Study children, for be sure you do not understand them.
Let childhood ripen in children. The wisest apply themselves to what
it is important to _men_ to know, without considering what _children_
are in a condition to learn. They are always seeking the man in the
child, without reflecting what he is before he can be a man." It is
well for us to take these words home and act upon them.

It is worth the trouble to inquire whether it is possible to select
subjects for school study which will prove essentially attractive and
interesting from the age of six on. _Are_ th