so growth goes on from impulsive, somewhat undefined, activity through result to an analysis of this result through repetition with new emphasis to a final perception both of his own technique and of the principle involved. As he grows older he dwells more upon the technique process, or method, discriminating for the sake of results; older still, he concentrates upon the universal meaning of the act, or its really fundamental relations, but this whole education process exists in childhood and means freedom. The more this principle is seen and applied in all education the better do we understand what that lightly bandied word "freedom" means.

A new emphasis has been laid upon the meaning and process of individual growth. The fear of individualism need not daunt the teacher who recognizes that freedom implies the recognition and mastery of laws, laws of physical forces, laws of social give and take, laws of personal relation to both. Another element has appeared in current psychology which throws a stronger light on the relation of personal growth, which is another balance wheel, and which may well quiet the alarmist who asserts that these new schools will do so much to disturb respect for social laws as to endanger society.

The individual child is seen to be forming his personal habits and ideals upon those of the persons who surround him. Born with a strong will to do and a personal bent and equipment all his own, the imitative instinct still impels him toward

others who, by virtue of their own individual habits and achievements, are enlisting his wonder and emulation. He tries on, as far as he is able, the feelings and ideas of the people in his social world, taking out of each character temporarily assumed a certain knowledge or bias which illumines character to him. He could not be a separate individual if he should try, for one of the deepest instincts of his nature is prompting him at every meeting point to explore the personality of each member of his community in the taking over to himself their attitudes and modes of behavior. This does not mean that he is wholly at the mercy of the people surrounding him, a mere shuttlecock tossed about by each passerby. He is not a reflector, but a transformer. In imitating he is getting behind the act to its reaction on feeling, and thus finding its motive and effect. He may reject as much as he selects with approval. It is his mode of studying psychology, formative, to be sure, of his own character, but an imitation of a phrase or a trick of expression or tone does not necessarily mean the adoption of a habit, any more than any piece of adult acting. It does mean expansiveness and elasticity in the imitator's appreciation of the shades of character in life, and hence in literature. This appreciation lends richness and openness to the individual in his social relations. By virtue of the kind of knowledge that such imagination gives, one is able to live with many types of humanity in sympathetic relation. The person possessing this quality can be a leader

of men if he unites with it ambition. He can be a great teacher if he possesses motive for teaching. He can be a great business man, or a great lawyer, with this power developed which is at the root of a greater part of a child's representative plays. I once said tritely enough to the mother of four strong-willed, emotional, intellectual children that it must be a weighty responsibility to be the one person finally chargeable with their development for good or evil. She replied that any mother who supposed that she was the one person responsible for moulding her children's character was either hoping or fearing too much for her own power, for all growing boys and girls were being educated all day long by the world in countless ways, far outnumbering her own contacts with intent to influ

ence.

The procession of characters moves by the child; he contemplates, selects, tries on the mood, accepts or rejects its meaning. He enters into the arena of school conflicts and uses his borrowed knowledge to social advantage, he steps upon the stage of school politics, or takes part in the real drama of his social world, employing at every turn the adroitness gained in this experimental school of psychology. The person of strong individuality is very likely to have used with vast personal enrichment the characters by which he has been surrounded. Strong characters do grow up in isolation presumably, but they certainly can never be socially effective as those who are progressively using their social knowledge as they gain it, among their equals, their superiors, and their inferiors.

The individual gets his own value among the others of his social world. They furnish a reflection of himself, and are thus correctives. They furnish models, and so stimulus; they furnish unexpected reactions and call forth new effort. They offer, in general, the nourishment, correctives and theater for the growing personality of the individual.

This brings us to some of the practical points in method necessitated by the principles of growth.

The kindergartner and teacher can know her children at their best when they are engaged in somewhat independent work, so far as she is concerned. Yet this work or play must enlist their coöperative interest. Then the born leader shows his power; the quick one who catches the idea and fits in with it reveals his talent. The story teller exhibits his control of imagery in speech, and the quiet isolated worker gets his own independent results. Now the younger the child the smaller the group in which he is free to express himself; a child will be full of ideas and responsive in a group of ten, but dumb before an audience of from thirty to fifty children. To live always in a crowd cramps individual expression. A child who was reckoned shy and not anxious to lead at school said to his mother that he would be glad when next September should come because then the two classes of older children would have gone on into second grade and he would be one of the oldest and biggest, then all the little ones who had just come in from the kindergarten would look at him. and do as he did. No one would

have suspected from his school behavior that he was absorbing an idea of leadership, or in any way aiming toward it. This is the unconscious teaching that children give each other when individuality is exercised.

This all illustrates the demand for the small group where little children. are to get social stimuli from each other.

With the very large class another "idol of the forum" appears-the evil of demagogism. Little children with small power of coöperation have an equally small power of resisting outside impressions, and these qualities combined with very little reasoned self-control make a large body of little children extremely difficult to deal with. Orderly they must be, but the order cannot proceed from within. Control must come from without. The teacher is the integrating element, normally she should be a quietly informing force. As an educator her function is to give a turn to observation, start a question, modify an action, all of which she can only do when her policeman's work does not press, and she has time to see into each child's problem and present attitude far enough to give that touch which he needs. This is not individualism but personal con

tact.

She must create conditions that are socially fruitful, and see that no im

pulsive counter current prevents them from being carried out.

The teacher who deals only with the mass must tax all her resources in

one direction. She must compel, excite, tickle the fancy, appeal largely to imitation of her own model. As the only form of social unity, this sort of discipline fails, whether in kindergarten or high school.

The reflex effect upon the teacher is equally bad. To lead a crowd is to use the resources of the demagogue. One depends upon the impulses that sway the crowd. Many a public speaker degenerates intellectually through habitually addressing large audiences of lesser intelligence.

The members of the crowd, whether juvenile or adult, are under hypnotic influences, the higher consciousness is at rest, and the individual is under the spell of suggestion, is swayed by the crowd impulse.

Too often kindergartens are governed by this influence. Yet always as an occasional thing it is effective and a necessary element in life. The plea then is for a small working community, not a crowd, and not a mass of isolated units, but a mutually interested and helpful social group, leading, following, admiring, obeying, and even producing, each taking from the group something and giving of his own individuality to it.