function of the school, made a close and sympathetic appraisement of his
aptitudes, his native dispositions, his daily environment, and the bent of
his inherent spiritual qualities. First of all, she won his confidence.
Thus he found freedom, ease, and pleasure in her presence. Thus, too,
there ensued unconscious self-revelation and nothing in his life evaded
her kindly scrutiny. He opened his mind to her frankly and fully, and
never after did she permit the closing of the door. Only so could she
become his teacher.

She regarded him as an opportunity for the testing of all her knowledge,
all her skill, and the full measure of her altruism. Nor was he the
proverbial mass of plastic clay to be molded into some preconceived form.
Her wisdom and modernity interdicted such a conception of childhood as
that. Rather, he was a growing plant, waiting for her skill to nurture him
into blossom and fruitage. Some of his qualities she found good; others
not. The good ones she made the objects of her special care; the others
she allowed to perish from neglect. Her experience in gardening had taught
her that, if we cultivate the potatoes assiduously, the weeds will
disappear and need not concern us. She discerned in him a tender shoot of
imagination and this she nurtured as a priceless thing. She fertilized it
with legend, story, song, and myth, and enveloped it in an atmosphere of
warmth and joyousness. She led him into nature's realm, that his
imagination might plume its wings for greater flights by its efforts to
interpret the heart of things that live. Thus his imagination learned to
traverse space, to explore sights and sounds his senses could not reach,
and to construct for him another world of beauty and delight.

So, too, with the other spiritual qualities. Upon these goals her gaze was
fixed and she gently led him toward them. She taught the arithmetic with
zest, with large understanding, and in a masterly way, for she was causing