things with life, and play and suffer with them as with their real
playmates. The little girl not only talks with her dolls, but weeps with
and for them when disaster overtakes them. The boy faces foes of his own
making in the woods, or at lonely places in the road, who are quite as
real to him as the people with whom he lives. By common agreement a
locality often becomes a historic spot to a whole group of boys; enemies
are met and overcome there; grave perils are bravely faced; and the
magic sometimes lingers long after the dream has been dissolved in the
dawning light of definite knowledge, Childhood is one long day of
discovery; first, to the unfolding spirit, there is revealed a
wonderland partly actual and partly created by the action of the mind;
then follows the slow awakening, when the growing boy or girl learns to
distinguish between tact and fancy, and to separate the real from the
imaginary.

This process of learning to "see things as they are" is often regarded
as the substance of education, and to be able to distinguish sharply and
accurately between reality and vision, actual and imaginary image is
accepted as the test of thorough training of the intelligence. What
really takes place is the readjustment of the work of the faculties so
as to secure harmonious action; and in the happy and sound development
of the nature the imagination does not give place to observation, but
deals with principles, forces and laws instead of with things. The loss
of vision is never compensated for by the gain of sight; to see a thing
one must use his mind quite as much as his eye. It too often happens, as
the result of our educational methods, that in training the observer we
blight the poet; and the poet is, after all, the most important person
in society. He keeps the soul of his fellows alive. Without him the
modern world would become one vast, dreary, soul-destroying Coketown,
and man would sink to the level of Gradgrind. The practical man develops