modern conditions have kidnapped and transported him. Books and
reading are distasteful, for the very soul and body cry out for a more
active, objective life, and to know nature and man at first hand.
These two staples, stories and nature, by these informal methods of
the home and the environment, constitute fundamental education.

But now another remove from nature seems to be made necessary by the
manifold knowledges and skills of our highly complex civilization. We
should transplant the human sapling, I concede reluctantly, as early
as eight, but not before, to the schoolhouse with its imperfect
lighting, ventilation, temperature. We must shut out nature and open
books. The child must sit on unhygienic benches and work the tiny
muscles that wag the tongue and pen, and let all the others, which
constitute nearly half its weight, decay. Even if it be prematurely,
he must be subjected to special disciplines and be apprenticed to the
higher qualities of adulthood; for he is not only a product of nature,
but a candidate for a highly developed humanity. To many, if not most,
of the influences here there can be at first but little inner
response. Insight, understanding, interest, sentiment, are for the
most part only nascent; and most that pertains to the true kingdom of
mature manhood is embryonic. The wisest requirements seem to the child
more or less alien, arbitrary, heteronomous, artificial, falsetto.
There is much passivity, often active resistance and evasion, and
perhaps spasms of obstinacy, to it all. But the senses are keen and
alert, reactions immediate and vigorous; and the memory is quick, sure
and lasting; and ideas of space, time, and physical causation, and of
many a moral and social licit and non-licit, are rapidly unfolding.
Never again will there be such susceptibility to drill and discipline,
such plasticity to habituation, or such ready adjustment to new
conditions. It is the age of external and mechanical training.