and to Society. But anyone with any knowledge of children realises that, especially in the higher forms, this compulsory idleness is a real torment to them, and they suffer because the most natural of their instincts, the desire to be useful to other people, remains unrecognised. The schools of to-day artificially develop their ignorance of how to apply their energy and render it productive. At the completion of his studies a boy who has been to college looks everywhere without success for some work in which he might be useful to mankind, and he does not see the humdrum daily work, which is just as necessary, because he does not know how to apply himself to it."
SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THE SCHOOL.
The principle of self-government has also been introduced in the new schools, and Mme. Lenin shares on this subject the views of those American teachers, who believe in the greatest possible freedom for the development of their pupils' social instincts. She writes:—
"Those who believe in a liberal education are resolutely opposed to scholastic discipline and constraint in any form, whether physical or moral, in the sphere of education. This must be the very basis of a liberal education, and it is an axiom which there is no need to prove. Once constraint has been done away with, measures of police supervision at once become futile, and such posts as 'prefects' (so harmful to the youthful mind), chosen in some schools from among the pupils, can be abolished. Having got rid of this mockery of self-government, we are able at once to substitute the principle of participation by all the children in the organisation of the school and of the teaching given there."
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