The Vitalized School

Table of

barrel and munched apples while his boy companions whitewashed the fence in his stead. Tom achieved this triumph because he knew how to emancipate work from the plane of drudgery and exalt it to the plane of a privilege. Indeed, it loomed so large as a privilege that the other boys were eager to barter the treasures of their pockets in exchange for this privilege. A

asy, natural way, with no parade or bombast. He had habit and tradition to contend against, just as the school has, but he overbore these obstacles and won the contest. Some of those boys, before that morning, may have thought it ignoble to perform menial tasks; but Tom s

e father and mother have so often complained of their work, in the presence of their children, that all work comes to assume the aspect of a hardship, if not a penalty. It often happens, too, that the parents encourage their children to think that education affords immunity from work, an

ves before them in connection with their home activities and thus exalted all their work to the plane of privilege, the work of the school would be greatly simplified. It is no slight task to eradicate this misconception of work, but somehow it must be done before the work of the

and nothing to do, but this conception merely proves that they are children with childish misconceptions. They see the railway magnate riding in his private car and conceive his life to be one of ease and luxury. They do not realize that the private car affords him the opportunity to do more and better work. They see the president of the bank sitting in his

ts of a vast army. They see the pastor in his study among his books, but do not know the travail of spirit that he experiences in his yearning for his parishioners. They see the farmer sitting at ease in the shade, but do not know that he is visualizing every detail of his farm, the men at their tasks, the flocks and herds, the crops, the st

ience to the behests of the mind. They will come to know that mental work is more far-reaching than physical work, in that a single mind plans the work for a thousand hands. They will learn that mental work has redeemed the world from its primitive condition and is making life more agreeable even if more

significance. They soon see that knowledge is power only because it is the agency that generates power, and that knowledge touches life at every point. They will come to realize that work is the one great luxury in life, and that education is designed to increase the capacity fo

ought to teem with joy in order to be at its best, and never be a drag. Work, therefore, being synonymous with life, should be a joyous experience, even though it taxes the powers to the utmost. If the child comes to the work of the school as the galley-slave goes to his task, there is a lack of adjustment and balance somewhere, and a readjus

in decimals or cube root. Much depends upon the mental attitude of the boy, and this in turn depends upon the skill of the teacher and her fertility of mind in supplying motives. Whitewashing a fence causes the arms to grow weary and the back to ache, but the boy

badgering. Such things are abnormal in life and no less so in the vitalized school. They are a confession on the part of the teacher that she has reached t

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