heart and
soul, or the moral feelings, or love of beauty? Upon what grounds, does
any one claim, or imagine, that such things are less important to the
growth of character, and a cheerful disposition, and fine standards of
conduct, than the training of the intellect? If we are perfectly
satisfied that the method employed to train the intellect does not and
need not interfere with a corresponding development of those other sides
of human nature--that is one thing. But let us not be satisfied to take
so much for granted, without giving it a little thought. That is the
first point to get clear.

All those thousands of hours spent over school-books, in school-rooms,
if they were not confined to that, might be devoted to other things.
That is obvious and inevitable. What kind of things? If they were
allowed a freedom of choice, children would want to do the things that
interested them the most--things they felt like doing. And the natural
feelings of each growing individual would be the dominant factor in
nearly all cases. The natural feelings of a little boy, or a little
girl, are nothing for any one to be ashamed of, or deplore, or wish to
make otherwise. They are part of the all-wise plan, designed more
profoundly and beautifully than any science of man can comprehend. And
nothing is more natural than that a boy, or a girl, growing up in an
atmosphere of love and sympathy and kindness, and what is right and fair
and admirable, should respond to those feelings, more and more, and grow
to have them, too. Some selfish instincts have to be guided and
controlled by deeper and better feelings and the exercise of reason, and
that is natural, too. And even the selfish instincts are just as natural
and just as wisely planned as the deeper and better feelings, or the
exercise of reason.

In the advanced stage of enlightenment at which we have arrived can any
reasonable person fail to recognize this palpable truth? It is possible
that some people might be found who have happened to overlook it; but
less easy to believe that they could fail to recognize it, when it is
called to their attention.

Any normal child delights in the exercise of all its faculties and
instincts and feelings--whether they be of the heart and the soul, or
the body and the brain. This is the natural method of their growth. And
the ideal individual would be one in whom all these sides had reached
their fullest development, in a perfectly balanced whole.

T