Class 
 
 Book »-C.sf* 
 
 Copyright W. 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
1 
 
TIHE BOOKLOVERS READING 
 CLUB HAND-BOOK TO AC- 
 COMPANY THE READING COURSE 
 ENTITLED, CHILD STUDT FOR 
 MOTHERS AND TEACHERS 
 
 SEYMOUR EATON 
 
 Librarian 
 
 FREDERIC W. SPEIRS, Ph.D. 
 
 Educational Director 
 
 (?) 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 CONGRESS. 
 
 Two Cocico HecfcivEO 
 
 NOV. 1 1901 
 
 Copyright entry 
 
 <7-e* a _ iqoi 
 
 CLASS CtXXc. No. 
 
 / % lp~) tr- 
 COPY J. 
 
 Copyright, 1901 
 The Booklovers Library 
 
CHILD S T U DY 
 
 for MOTHERS and TEACHERS 
 
 Course. Fill: Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 BOOKS SELECTED 
 
 FOR THIS READING COURSE 
 by 
 
 MARGARET E. SANGSTER 
 
 *J 
 
 
 (9) 
 
IV 
 
 V 
 
 
 \ 
 
 i 
 
 <\\s 
 
 f 
 
The BOOKS 
 
 E following four books are supplied by 
 The Booklovers Library to Club Members 
 who have enrolled for Course VIII. 
 
 /. A STUDY OF CHILD NATURE 
 
 (Elizabeth Harrison) 
 
 //. THE STUDY OF THE CHILD 
 
 (A. R. Taylor) 
 
 ///. BECKONINGS FROM LITTLE HANDS 
 
 (Patterson DuBois) 
 
 IV. THE POINT OF CONTACT IN 
 TEACHING 
 
 (Patterson DuBois) 
 
 The course of reading as outlined in this hand-book 
 is based on these books. A supplementary list of books 
 will be found at the end ■ 
 
 (") 
 
Child Study for Mothers and Teachers 
 
 TALKS and LECTURES 
 
 by 
 
 NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH 
 
 and 
 
 EMILIE POULSSON 
 
 and 
 
 KATE GANNETT WELLS 
 
 and 
 
 CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN 
 
 and 
 
 LUCY WHEELOCK 
 
 These papers by Miss Smith, Miss Poulsson, Mrs. 
 
 Wells, Mrs. Gilman and Miss Wheelock 
 
 have been prepared especially for 
 
 readers of this course. 
 
 EDITORIAL NOTES 
 
 by 
 CHARLOTTE BREWSTER JORDAN 
 
 (■3) 
 
A WORD from THE DIRECTOR 
 
 N the construction of this course we 
 have observed most carefully the precise 
 purpose expressed by the title. We 
 might have asked the occupant of a 
 university chair of psychology to select 
 the books for us. If we had planned 
 a professional course we should have 
 done so. But this is a course for mothers 
 and teachers, and we asked Mrs. Sangster to 
 recommend a list of books for us because we felt 
 that she would be able to take the view point of 
 the readers whom we had i?i mind. 
 
 OS) 
 
A Word from the Director 
 
 Child study literature has been pouring from 
 the presses during the last decade. The school of 
 psychologists best represented by Clark University 
 has produced an abundant technical literature. 
 In sharp contrast with the coldly scientific analyses of 
 the psychologists, we have had a flood of sentimental 
 productions which are valueless, if not positively 
 demoralizing. But, happily, there is a rapidly 
 growing body of literature which presents sound 
 psychological principles in such form that they may 
 be grasped by those who have had no technical 
 training in psychology. From this class of books 
 we have made our choice. 
 
 In the contributors of the papers we have a 
 strong representation of the kindergarten element. 
 Miss Nora Archibald Smith was a pioneer worker 
 in the free kindergarten movement of the West 
 and has written 7?iuch on the subject. Miss Lucy 
 Wheelock is the prificipal of one of the largest 
 kindergarten framing schools in the country. Miss 
 Emilie Poulsson is the editor of the Kindergarten 
 Review. 
 
 The other two papers of our course give us 
 views of the subject of child study from somewhat 
 different standpoints. Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells 
 has long been identified with general educational 
 administration and has devoted special attention 
 
 (16) 
 
A Word from the Director 
 
 to Sunday-school methods. Mrs. Charlotte Per- 
 kins Gilman has no connection with any educa- 
 tional system, either as teacher or administrator. 
 She has a wide reputation as a frank and fear- 
 less critic of various social institutions, and when 
 she expressed her theory of the proper training of 
 the child in her recent book, Concerning Chil- 
 dren, her views attracted much attention. What- 
 ever she writes arouses interest and stimulates 
 thought, and her non-professional discussion of the 
 purpose and method of child study is a valuable 
 supplement to the papers of those who are engaged 
 in teaching and in the management of schools. 
 
 We present this course to the public with the 
 assurance that it will promote intelligent observa- 
 tion of children and assist mothers and teachers 
 in solving many perplexing problems of the home 
 and the schoolroom. 
 
 07) 
 
Teaching is enabling another to restate the 
 truth in terms of his own life. — Patterson Du Bois. 
 
The Idea of the Course 
 
 (URING the last twenty-five years much 
 has been written, wise and otherwise, 
 upon the all-important subject of child 
 study. In the main, however, the re- 
 sults of such study have been highly 
 serviceable, leading in most cases from 
 " uncertain instinct into unhesitating 
 insight." Careful observation and sys- 
 tematic experiment have rendered such 
 convincing results that in many homes and schools 
 there has been a complete readjustment of 
 method. 
 
 Realizing that no substitute could ever be 
 found for the inventiveness of mother-wit, or for 
 the tenderness of mother-love, modern method 
 aims to adapt rather than to displace established 
 ideas. Its purpose is not to revolutionize but to 
 individualize ; not to judge childhood from the 
 adult standpoint, but from that of the individual 
 child. Judging themselves by the more recent 
 methods of child study, parents and teachers 
 have awakened to find that all too frequently 
 adult egotism, not of juvenile depravity, is respon- 
 sible for a wayward childhood ; that children often 
 suffer as much from unreasonable demands as from 
 neglect ; that moral delinquency in many instances 
 is traceable to defective physique ; and that the 
 
 (19) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 health and strength of maturity are largely de- 
 pendent upon the untrammeled expansion of 
 childhood. 
 
 Froebel's sympathetic power of divination gave 
 the first impetus to this study, and his child-lov- 
 ing constituency has carried on the good work in 
 a humanitarian and scientific spirit, gathering 
 wisdom which is rich in promise for the child of 
 the future. Froebel did not expect his theories 
 to receive general endorsement for two hundred 
 years ; yet in little more than a half-century his 
 principles have been impressed upon a rapidly 
 increasing number of students who are striving, 
 in consequence, to think themselves into the 
 mental attitude of the child. 
 
 In preparing a child study course for parents 
 and teachers, it has been our aim to avoid the 
 fragmentary and the hyper-ecstatic and to present, 
 as far as possible, the most practically useful 
 principles in popular form. The books which we 
 furnish cover the fundamental principles and at 
 the same time are rich in suggestion. The earn- 
 est study of this subject richly repays the effort. 
 Through the child, the man is uplifted ; through 
 the man, the race. Who, therefore, helps a little 
 child in its struggle toward the Infinite, by that 
 much advances all humanity. 
 
 (20) 
 
HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS TO 
 THE READER 
 
 I 
 
 ~)i order to get the best results from this course of 
 Child Study, give the books a hasty, general 
 first reading in the following order, making men- 
 tal or written notes of helpful paragraphs or of 
 points needing special, thoughtful attention. 
 
 First read A Study of Child Nature (from the 
 kindergarten standpoint) by Elizabeth Harrison. 
 The author's psychical knowledge of children's 
 needs is here communicated in such a friendly, 
 logical spirit, her illustrations are so practical and 
 forcible, and her deductions are so obvious that 
 the reader mounts two or three rounds of the 
 ladder of child study by a mere appreciative fol- 
 lowing in the author's footsteps. 
 
 Next read Beckonings from Little Hands, a 
 book originally written for private circulation, but 
 so strongly recommended by Miss Elizabeth Har- 
 rison for use in mothers' clubs that it has become 
 a regular publication. Since Miss Harrison intro- 
 duced it to the general public it is but fitting that 
 
 (21) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 this book should succeed her own in our course 
 of reading. Its intimate personal tone will place 
 you at once in sympathetic touch with child nature, 
 for it reaches always beyond the intellect and 
 touches the heart, thus supplementing, yet in a 
 measure modifying, the ultra-scientific spirit char- 
 acterizing certain phases of child study. 
 
 You are now ready for Taylor's The Study of 
 the Child. This book gives rather more promi- 
 nence to the teacher's share in child education 
 than do the other books. Dr. Taylor's scientific 
 study of the child from the child's standpoint clearly 
 shows the trend of the pedagogical revolution 
 which has been gathering force during the last 
 thirty years. The importance of sound physical 
 development is strongly emphasized, and the 
 numerous practical tests scattered throughout the 
 book contribute largely to its general helpfulness 
 and suggestiveness. Dr. Harris' preface is a 
 valuable contribution regarding the place of sym- 
 bolism in child study. 
 
 In The Point of Contact in Teaching, the scientific 
 method which has been adopted in general 
 teaching is applied with a peculiarly original force 
 to the long neglected subject of Sunday-school 
 teaching. Although this book had its beginnings 
 in the special line of Sunday-school work, its basic 
 principle " that in the child's instruction we must 
 begin at his point of contact with objective or ex- 
 
 (22) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 ternal life as he sees it" is one of universal value 
 applicable to all the relations of life. 
 
 Having gained a rough working outline of the 
 general plan of the course, give all the books a 
 second careful reading with special reference to 
 the topics suggested in the topical outline. 
 
 Many general topics, such as the unappreciated 
 struggles of childhood, the potency of the " love- 
 force," the various ways in which well-told stories 
 appeal through the imagination to the child's 
 highest instincts, have been so interwoven with 
 other subjects in the books that it has sometimes 
 been impossible to detach and utilize them as 
 main topics. The student will nevertheless find 
 it interesting to trace their course and work out 
 his own conclusions therefrom. 
 
 Parallel the illustrations given in the book with 
 those of daily occurrence in your home or school. 
 Consider the remedies suggested ; if they are not 
 practicable, where lies the fault — with the general 
 principle, with your personal viewpoint or with the 
 former injudicious training of the child? 
 
 Since this course is simply suggestive, many 
 special phases of this study may be successfully 
 carried on beyond the limits of the course by 
 means of the supplementary reading suggested 
 in this handbook. Take, for instance, the sub- 
 ject of punishment. Although Miss Harrison's 
 
 (23) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 logical suggestions, supplemented by Dr. Taylor's 
 valuable hints, cover a large part of the ground, 
 there is still some interesting territory to traverse. 
 The book which heads our bibliography, Gentle 
 Measures in the Training of the Young, by Jacob 
 Abbott, is a singularly helpful contribution to this 
 difficult subject. Abundant in illustration, simple 
 and direct in style, it makes a convincing plea for 
 the full establishment of authority through per- 
 sistently gentle measures. Many of the remedies 
 suggested are as ingenious as they are practical. 
 This book also contains a chapter, which will well 
 repay careful study, upon the natural causes of 
 restlessness and its wise treatment. 
 
 In some instances excellent authorities will be 
 found to differ regarding the solution of certain 
 mooted questions. Just here the individuality of 
 the student must assert itself, and the test of 
 what he has gleaned from the course will lie in 
 his increased ability to adapt that knowledge to 
 the personal peculiarities, the environment and 
 the rate of development of the child for whom 
 the course is studied. 
 
 Review by the test questions on pages 1 14 and 
 115. As far as possible write out the answers to 
 these and to the sub-questions which will naturally 
 present themselves. The effort to give verbal ex- 
 pression to newly acquired impressions will be 
 found to act as a powerful fixative. 
 
 (H) 
 
TOPICAL OUTLINE 
 
 F THE COURSE 
 
 1. The Place to Begin. From the parent's 
 standpoint. From the child's standpoint. The 
 child's point of contact with physical life ; with in- 
 tellectual life. The child's plane of experience in 
 general and religious teaching. 
 
 The Study of the Child, xlii-6. 
 
 The Point of Contact in Teaching. 3-45 ; 55-69 ; 
 
 123-127. 
 
 2. The Training of the Senses. The instinct 
 
 of investigation. Significance of sense defect. 
 Value of full sense development in the arts and 
 sciences. Moral, practical and intellectual value 
 of sense training. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 1-59. 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. 33-60. 
 
 3. The Bridge from the Physical to the 
 
 Mental. How sensations come into conscious- 
 ness. Consciousness and apperception. The child's 
 adjustment to widening experience. Progress from 
 the individual to the class, and development of the 
 sense of relationship. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 60-68. 
 
 4. Symbolism. Educational value. Relation to 
 imitation. Universalizing power. Symbolism 
 makes language possible. 
 
 Preface to The Study of the Child, v-xiv ; 76-92. 
 The Point of Contact in Teaching. 95-99. 
 
 (25) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 Memoranda : 
 
 (26) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 5. The Training of the Muscles. The in- 
 stinct of activity. The treatment of restlessness. 
 Kinds of movement best adapted to younger 
 children. Relation of sensory and motor nerves. 
 Muscular control and the nervous system. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 93-105. 
 A Study of Child Nature. 13-32. 
 
 6. The Training of the Affections. The 
 
 instinct of love, to be tested by its effect upon the 
 will. Child service. Self sacrifice. Relation of 
 emotional nature and physical organism. The in- 
 stinct of reverence more essential in the very 
 earliest period than dogmatic or specific teaching. 
 Reaction of bodily attitude upon inward feeling. 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. 29; 75-89; 164-182. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 1 1 1-1 14. 
 
 7. The Training of the Will. The instinct 
 
 of recognition. Voluntary and forced obedience. 
 Intellectual control economizes time and energy. 
 Reactive effect of the various kinds of control 
 upon the character of the child. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 1 15-123. 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. 136-163. 
 
 8. The Training of the Reason. Instinct 
 
 of continuity. The physical side of reasoning 
 and other mental activities. The development 
 and cultivation of judgment. The effect of logical 
 play in the kindergarten. 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. 90-1 12. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 137-150. 
 
 (27) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 Memoranda 
 
 (28) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 9. The Training of the Faith. The instinct 
 
 of imitation and its reaction upon character. Be- 
 ginnings of religious training. Force of example. 
 All-importance of the unseen side of life. 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. 183-207. 
 
 The Point of Contact in Teaching. 3-18; 122- 131. 
 
 10. Manners and Morals. Origin of the moral 
 
 instinct. The relation of the social to the moral 
 instinct. Distinction between politeness and mere 
 good manners. When the moral character appears. 
 Three elements in moral culture : right knowing, 
 right loving and right doing. Simple rules for 
 development of right motives. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 168-178. 
 
 1 1 . Positive and Negative Methods of 
 
 Training. Depressing influences to be avoided. 
 Suggestive illustrations of the advantages of posi- 
 tive methods of training. The spirit of investiga- 
 tion versus the destructive spirit. 
 A Study of Child Nature. 18-31. 
 
 12. Educative Value of Play. Children should 
 
 be taught how to play. Play as related to the 
 child's social life and future occupations. Indi- 
 vidual and general play. Toys. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 162-167. 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. 64-74. 
 
 13. Stories. Their educative value. Why they 
 should be optimistic. Pointing the moral. 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. 1 49- 152. 
 Point of Contact. 1 20- 1 22. 
 
 (29) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 Memoranda : 
 
 (30) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 14. Habit-Forming and Habit-Breaking. 
 
 Education and habit. Habit and character. 
 The Study of the Child. 1 53-1 58. 
 A Study of Child Nature. 17-22. 
 
 15. Right and Wrong Punishments. The 
 
 child's inborn instinct of justice. Acceptance of 
 inevitable consequences of wrong-doing. The 
 office of punishment. Retributive rather than 
 arbitrary punishment. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 197, 198. 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. 1 1 2- 1 3 5 . 
 
 16. Self-Conquest, the True Conquest. The 
 
 victory of struggle. Self-government. 
 
 Beckonings from Little Hands. 19-28; 73-88. . 
 A Study of Child Nature. 163. 
 
 17. The Force of Sympathy. The test of the 
 
 true teacher. Working upon the sympathies of 
 the child. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 206-207. 
 
 A Study of Child Nature. 77-79. 
 
 Beckonings from Little Hands. 3-16. 
 
 18. Parent and Teacher. Synonymous use of 
 terms. The child as the teacher's teacher. Parents' 
 and teachers' clubs. 
 
 Point of Contact. 130, 131. 
 Beckonings from Little Hands. 97-98. 
 A Study of Child Nature. 108. 
 The Study of the Child. 209. 
 
 (30 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 Memoranda : 
 
 (32) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 19. Normals and Abnormals. Precocious and 
 defective children. Relation of physical and 
 mental defectives to moral defectives. Belated 
 development in children. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 179-194. 
 
 20. The Fatigue Point in Children. Causes 
 
 and remedies. Improperly arranged school pro- 
 grams frequently responsible for childish ex- 
 haustion. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 199-202. 
 
 21. Stages of Growth. Unconscious and sub- 
 conscious influences affecting the child. Transi- 
 tion from infancy to childhood, from childhood to 
 youth. Corresponding changes in ideals. 
 
 The Study of the Child. 195-199. 
 
 3o (33) 
 
Many think they have all the knowledge of child- 
 hood they require, from memory of their own childish 
 years. This is wrong. Mental and moral growth 
 necessarily i?ivolves increasing oblivion of every- 
 thing of childhood save mere i?icidents. — G. Stanley 
 Hall. 
 
THE STUDY OF 
 
 CHILDREN: Some 
 
 Suggestions by nora a. smith 
 
 (35) 
 
" And in the interest of the children I have still 
 another request to make — that you would record in 
 writing the most important facts about each separate 
 child. It seems to me most necessary for the compre- 
 hension and for the true treatment of child nature , 
 that such observations should be made public from 
 time to time, in order that children may become 
 better and better understood in their manifestations, 
 and may be more rightly treated; and that true 
 care and observation of unsophisticated childhood 
 may ever increase!' — Frederick Froebel. 
 
THE STUDY OF 
 CHILDREN: Some 
 
 Suggestions by nora a. smith 
 
 Miss Nora Archibald Smith, a native of Phila- 
 delphia, early removed to California where she 
 was graduated from the Santa Barbara College, 
 afterwards taking various degrees for kinder- 
 garten training. For a few years she traveled in 
 Mexico and Arizona, and her experiences at that 
 time are reflected in Under the Cactus Flag, one of 
 her recent stories. Her educational work went 
 hand-in-hand with that of her only sister, Kate 
 Douglas Wiggin, who organized the first free 
 kindergartens for poor children on the Pacific 
 coast. This line of philanthropic effort Miss 
 Smith continued for some years as superin- 
 tendent of the Silver Street kindergartens in San 
 Francisco, finding time also for literary effort in 
 the same direction. Her studies and stories com- 
 prise : The Children of the Future, The Kinder- 
 garten in a Nut Shell and The Message of 
 Froebel. In collaboration with Mrs. Wiggin she 
 has written The Story Hour, The Republic of 
 Childhood, in three volumes ; Children' s Rights 
 and several other kindergarten works. Miss 
 Smith now resides in Maine and contributes 
 frequently to periodicals. 
 
 On the thirtieth of January, 1841, Froebel wrote 
 the letter from which is taken the extract 
 printed on the opposite page ; and his scheme of 
 infant education as developed in the kindergarten 
 is evidence of his own preeminent care and obser- 
 vation of unsophisticated childhood. On the 
 twenty-first day of April, 1901, it may safely be 
 
 (37) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 said that at least one group of babies in every 
 town of this country, from Maine to California, 
 celebrated the birthday of the "discoverer of 
 childhood," for this opening year of the twentieth 
 century sees two hundred thousand children 
 attending kindergartens in the United States of 
 America alone. 
 
 There is now not a country on the globe and 
 there are very few islands of the sea where the 
 kindergarten is not known ; and that a system of 
 infant education based upon the study of chil- 
 dren should have traveled so rapidly around the 
 world in the fifty years since the death of its 
 founder is proof sufficient of how true was the 
 insight that developed it. 
 
 Although Froebel is frequently called the father 
 of child study and although his writings are con- 
 ceded to be among the most valuable of its docu- 
 ments, yet his work so far antedates others in the 
 same field that the new science was not even 
 named or considered as a special branch of inves- 
 tigation in his day. The work of Prof. Wilhelm 
 Preyer in Germany gave the special impetus to 
 the modern movement in this line and the publi- 
 cation of his wonderful book, The Mind of the 
 Child ( 1 88 1), may be said to have marked the 
 first milestone in its progress. Scientific observa- 
 tions of children began in this country in 1880, 
 and so much is it the instinct of our people, as 
 has been said, " to take a fresh and independent 
 
 (38) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 look at primal facts of human nature and at 
 growth itself" that we may safely say that more 
 has already been accomplished here than in any 
 other land. 
 
 Courses in child study are now given either in 
 the regular work or in the summer sessions of 
 most American colleges and universities. Spe- 
 cialists are preparing themselves in this country 
 and in Europe, hoping to become professors of 
 paidology, another name for the new science. 
 The program of no educational meeting is 
 complete without a paper or a series of papers 
 on the subject ; one magazine is wholly devoted 
 to its interests, special departments being con- 
 ducted in other periodicals ; and the number of 
 books dealing with the recently discovered branch 
 of knowledge is already very considerable. 
 
 And what does this mean, — this widespread 
 interest in the study of the little people, this out- 
 pouring of literature on the subject, this eager 
 desire to observe and record every manifestation 
 of child nature, no matter how minute or appar- 
 ently unimportant ? It means, in the first place, 
 that thoughtful people have come to the conclu- 
 sion that the modes of training and preparing for 
 life, the methods of education which are in ordi- 
 nary use in this and other countries, are lacking 
 in some vital points ; that the failures which they 
 make are frequently due to inherent defects in 
 the systems ; that these systems are not based 
 
 (39) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 upon a sufficiently intimate knowledge of child 
 nature, and that of all living beings the child is 
 least known and has been least studied. 
 
 To realize that a thing is imperfect is the pre- 
 liminary step toward making it right ; and as this 
 is the children's century and America preemi- 
 nently the children's country, we can scarcely be 
 surprised that so encouraging a beginning has 
 now been made in the task of redressing the 
 wrongs of our coming men and women. 
 
 It is customary to speak of paidology, "the 
 great sociological and humanitarian study," as 
 Dr. Stanley Hall calls it, as a new science. This 
 paper, indeed, has so alluded to it, but this after 
 all is a mistake, for Adam and Eve must have 
 taken it up, or at least sketched a preface for it, 
 when they began the education of little Cain and 
 Abel. That the methods of training which they 
 based upon their observations did not succeed 
 with all their offspring is true enough, but the 
 same thing might be said of many modern parents 
 with far greater advantages than those of the 
 Edenites. Even ignorant, inexperienced Eve, all 
 unversed as she was in the mysterious ways of 
 children, must often have remarked the striking 
 dissimilarity in the temper and characteristics of 
 her first two sons, and Adam must have had fre- 
 quent cause to be grateful that, in his case at 
 least, the sorely tried mother could not bewail, 
 in time of nursery outbreak, the unfortunate dis- 
 
 (40) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 position which her poor little Cain inherited 
 from his father's people. 
 
 In just as different guise as Cain and Abel 
 appeared to their astonished parents when the 
 world was young do modern children reveal 
 themselves today, and the problems of train- 
 ing in family and school resolve themselves 
 into : first, an earnest effort to become acquainted 
 with the personality of the young human being ; 
 and second, to draw forth all its powers and by 
 wise guidance to fit it for life. Every parent, every 
 teacher, is to some degree a paidologist, but the 
 work of both classes of persons up to late years has 
 been more or less empirical. Both the intelligent 
 mother and the enthusiastic teacher, thoroughly 
 devoted to their respective charges, have in all 
 times had a pretty thorough knowledge of them, 
 but the knowledge was fragmentary ; it came in 
 bits, as it were, and could seldom be massed or 
 viewed as a whole. It was unconscious knowl- 
 edge in a way, and as such was hardly in a state 
 to be acted upon — a knowledge of facts, not 
 reasons; of results, not causes. The purpose of 
 the present movement is an intelligent effort on 
 the part of persons entrusted with the responsi- 
 bility of children to gain a thorough systematic 
 knowledge of them from the beginning of their 
 days, and so to record the observations made that 
 they may form a guide for the training and 
 education not only of the particular child in 
 
 (41) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 question, but for other little ones whom no one 
 has time or interest to study. To prove that this 
 is possible, one of the most noted American 
 observers of children, Milicent Washburn Shinn, 
 has lately said that in many things all babies are 
 alike, since babyhood is mainly taken up with the 
 development of the large, general social powers, 
 individual differences being less important than 
 in later childhood. 
 
 Thus if, as Froebel advised, the most important 
 items about each separate child are recorded in 
 writing and made public from time to time, a foun- 
 dation is laid for that body of carefully observed 
 facts which Dr. Joseph Le Conte declares to be 
 of transcendent importance for the new science. 
 Many mothers already keep note-books in regard 
 to their children and many have done so in 
 the past ; but as the work has commonly been 
 felt to be of personal interest, rather than of 
 possible scientific value, the observations were 
 seldom made regularly or recorded systemati- 
 cally, and unless system and order are present, 
 no observations can be relied upon in any line of 
 research. 
 
 Professor Sully doubts whether the mother's 
 mind can be severe enough in its insistence on 
 plain ungarnished fact, or sufficiently trained in 
 minute and accurate observation and in sober, 
 methodical interpretation for such a task. "The 
 very excellences of maternity," he says, " seem, 
 
 (42) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 in a measure, to be an obstacle to a rigorous 
 scientific scrutiny of babyhood." But the con- 
 tributions of women to the new science will 
 generally have nothing to do with "interpreta- 
 tion"; it will rather be the careful, painstaking 
 amassing of facts in regard to the child's growth 
 and physical, mental and moral development. 
 Cannot an intelligent woman be trusted to note 
 such facts as well as the advent of a new planet 
 when it swims into our ken, or the careful 
 scrutiny of the characteristics which determine 
 a new species of plants ? And women have 
 become eminent astronomers and botanists ere 
 now. "Love the child," say the greatest obser- 
 vers, "and he will reveal himself to you," and if 
 success depends chiefly upon love, the other gifts 
 will be added unto it. 
 
 "And what shall we observe?" say the women 
 who are interested in the subject and whose great- 
 est delight in life is to watch the development of 
 their children. In the first place, in order to gain 
 an idea of the charms of the work and of the 
 fascinating way in which it may be treated, it 
 would be well to read Miss Shinn's Biography of 
 a Baby, which records her observations on her 
 niece during the first year of the baby's life. 
 
 Beginning by noting the first infantile move- 
 ments, such as stretching, yawning, swallowing, 
 crying, etc., which merely belong to the class 
 called reflex, and mostly come ready-made at the 
 
 (43) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 baby's birth, the first definitely conscious impres- 
 sions are observed when hearing becomes a real- 
 ized fact and the child's world of vision emerges 
 from confused " patches of light and dark with bits 
 of glitter and motion" to the actual seeing of things 
 about it. The development of taste and touch 
 is minutely noted, likewise the development of 
 mental qualities, such as memory, dawning affec- 
 tion, curiosity, voluntary locomotion and self-con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Attaining the age of nine months, the baby 
 has likes and dislikes ; she begins to enjoy life 
 and take keen interest in all about her ; outdoors 
 her happiness is even greater than the month 
 before, and her cries of rapture, as she looks 
 up, down and around, and realizes her own ac- 
 tivity in the midst of all the waving and shiny 
 and blooming things, are remarkable, uttered as 
 they are from the very deeps of her little soul, with 
 that impassioned straining of the central muscles 
 by which a baby throws such abandon of longing 
 or ecstasy into its voice. 
 
 During the next three months great progress 
 is noted in the practicing of the powers the in- 
 fant has just acquired, and so the story of the 
 swift, beautiful year is ended, and one wee soft, 
 helpless baby has become this darling thing be- 
 ginning to toddle, beginning to talk, full of a 
 wide-awake intelligence and rejoicing in her mind 
 and body. 
 
 (44) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 The observations, as will be seen, cover the 
 development of sensation and consciousness, of 
 emotion and intelligence, of sight and hearing 
 and speech, of voluntary motion and much be- 
 sides ; but few women are sufficiently trained in 
 psychology to make such extensive inquiries. 
 
 Although we may take this delightful book as 
 an ideal, both in scientific scope and literary treat- 
 ment, of what a baby biography may be, most of 
 us will have to content ourselves with a less am- 
 bitious series of notes, and for this purpose an 
 invaluable guide is Mrs. Adler's Hints for the 
 Scientific Observation and Study of Children, which 
 contains a detailed plan for the keeping of a jour- 
 nal and suggestions as to the first points to ob- 
 serve, as the development of senses, will, mind, 
 language, judgment, reasoning, etc. Mrs. Hall's 
 The First Five Hundred Days of a Child's Life 
 is also an admirable guide for those who do not 
 wish to be too technical, and so are Mrs. Jack- 
 man's Outlines for Child Study. 
 
 The possible value to science of a great mass 
 of careful observations of children is evident 
 enough when we consider that very little is known, 
 for instance, concerning the unfolding of the 
 child's faculties, while only a few exact notes are 
 on record of the development of language, and 
 still less material is at hand concerning the growth 
 of the moral perceptions, of conscience and the 
 feelings, and of the sense of personality. If the 
 
 (45) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 mother can trust herself to be careful, systematic, 
 impartial and absolutely veracious she can collect 
 material which will be of great value to the scien- 
 tist, but even if it never reach the eye of this 
 great personage, or be a twice-told tale when it 
 does reach him, the labor meantime will have been 
 of inestimable value to herself. It will have 
 given her an understanding of the inner life of 
 her child, a knowledge of his temperament and 
 peculiar characteristics, an insight into his possi- 
 bilities for good and evil, which many mothers fail 
 to gain in the course of their whole experience ; 
 for it is a mistake to suppose that we always 
 understand by intuition even those who are of 
 our own flesh and blood. More than this, she 
 will have developed herself mentally and morally 
 in making these long-continued observations and 
 will have become by so much the better guide for 
 her child in all methods of training and education. 
 Nor can her influence end here, for what she 
 knows of one small human creature she can 
 apply, if such work comes within her sphere of 
 influence, to the deserted little ones, the found- 
 lings and orphans, the defective and abnormal 
 children with whom the institutions of the State 
 are crowded. 
 
 From the objections to child study which are 
 sometimes advanced one would suppose that it 
 was necessary to impale a child on a pin like a 
 butterfly, in order to observe him properly, or to 
 
 (46) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 fumble about his works with a sharp instrument, 
 as a watchmaker does with a timepiece that is out 
 of order. No view of the matter could be more 
 mistaken, for the moment the subject becomes 
 conscious that he is being observed that moment 
 the observations become valueless. He must be 
 absolutely free and unconstrained, his actions and 
 the movements of his mind spontaneous, else the 
 notes we make of his behavior will be useless. If 
 he has even the glimmering of an idea that he is 
 being watched he naturally becomes either shy 
 and secretive, or boastful, self-assertive and 
 anxious to impress us with his knowledge and 
 accomplishments. This is true of the older child, 
 conscious of his own personality, not of the in- 
 fant, of course; but in either case all that is 
 required is a more or less steady oversight during 
 certain periods of the day and the direction of 
 attention along certain lines. A child — any child 
 — is so interesting a creature in himself that he 
 is commonly the centre of attraction wherever he 
 may be ; and we shall do him far less harm by 
 watching what he does of his own volition than 
 by teaching him tricks which he may show off, on 
 occasion, like a performing poodle. The mother 
 who invites a playfellow to spend an hour with 
 her boy and then sits quietly at the window, 
 attentive to all that goes on, yet apparently 
 absorbed in her work, may thus gain an insight 
 into his temper, a glimpse of his dominant 
 
 (47) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 characteristics and of the faults that are likely to 
 beset him, which will illumine, as by a flashlight, 
 that vague sketch of his personality which has 
 hitherto hung but half-seen on the walls of her 
 mind. A record of many such hours spent in 
 oversight of work and play will reveal to the 
 parents the character in embryo as it really is, 
 and will suggest with some degree of certainty the 
 pruning which will be necessary here, the cultiva- 
 tion there, and perhaps even the line of life for 
 which the child will be best fitted in the future. 
 
 Leaving generalities and turning to particulars, 
 there are many observations upon the little one's 
 physical condition which the parent may make 
 with great advantage. As there is a certain 
 weight and height, a girth of chest, hips and 
 thigh, a breadth of shoulders, etc., which belong 
 by right to every child of a given age and nation- 
 ality, so any great deviation from this standard 
 may be noted by measurement and the cause for 
 the defect ascertained and removed if possible. 
 The sight and hearing are also to be tested with 
 regularity, for often these are, or become, 
 seriously impaired while the parent is in complete 
 ignorance of the fact. Tragic results may follow 
 upon this ignorance. Witness a child of whom 
 the writer knew who was long punished for wilful 
 disobedience, finally pronounced feeble-minded 
 and placed in a retreat, only to have it discovered 
 just before his death that his sight and hearing 
 
 (48) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 were so defective that he had never in all his 
 brief and wretched life seen any object in the 
 world as it really is, or clearly heard any com- 
 mand or suggestion given to him. His brain 
 was found to be quite normal, and a surgical 
 operation would have removed all his defects had 
 his parents ever taken the trouble to find them 
 out. 
 
 Special care must of course be given to the 
 child at the period when his growth is most rapid 
 and when he is most vulnerable to disease, and 
 here repeated and careful observations as to sleep 
 and appetite are necessary. "The modern child," 
 as a wise mother lately said, "growing up 
 amid the excitements of city life, needs to have 
 extraordinary intelligence and care manifested in 
 his management if he is to possess that physical 
 balance and nervous poise essential to normal 
 intellectual development. Common sense — un- 
 educated common sense — is not infallibly quick 
 to interpret the signs of brain fag and nerve 
 strain displayed in a child's postures and expres- 
 sions. Therefore the careful mother will study 
 her children, watching for the bewildered frown, 
 the nervous twitch of the face muscles, the peev- 
 ishness which should warn her that life is getting 
 to be too much for them. Nor will a careful 
 mother fail to appreciate the strain upon the body 
 involved in the change from home life to school 
 life. She will realize that more nourishing diet, 
 
 4« (49) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 longer periods of rest and exercise, will be 
 needed to make up for the fresh demand upon 
 nervous energy." 
 
 Constant oversight, too, is requisite lest the child 
 be forced by school competition or his parents' 
 exactions to attempt more than he is really able 
 to perform. It must be recognized that fatigue 
 varies with the condition of the mind and body. 
 Thus one tires sooner when the work is distaste- 
 ful or when the organs are unhealthy or when the 
 body is poorly nourished ; also, the body is wearied 
 more quickly when the mind is tired and the mind 
 more quickly when the body is fatigued. The 
 child tires more easily at some seasons than at 
 others. The condition of the atmosphere, the 
 weather and the time of day — all these affect the 
 normal power of endurance. Also, the rapidly 
 growing human creature fatigues readily. What 
 is learned is soon lost when a child is in this con- 
 dition, the mind's forces being easily dissipated 
 under such circumstances. The work done today 
 is done on to morrow's credit and the system is 
 wholly at a loss to protect itself against disease 
 and accident. Continual overpressure in child- 
 hood undoubtedly means weakened possibilities 
 in adult life. 
 
 The working of "sums," when long continued 
 and a source of anxiety to the pupil whose pro- 
 motion is perhaps in question, has often brought 
 on chorea, and worry over " practicing " and the 
 
 (50) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 gentle art of music in general has been known 
 to produce the same effect. It is clear enough 
 that no parent would see a nervous disease fasten 
 upon his child if he could avert it, and yet in 
 many cases he fails to do so because for one 
 reason or another he has never observed him 
 sufficiently to know his real condition. Do you 
 remember the unfortunate little radish, on Charles 
 Kingsley's Isle of the Tomtoddies, whose parents 
 constantly beat it for sullenness and obstinacy 
 and wilful stupidity, and never knew that the 
 reason why it could not learn or hardly even 
 speak was that there was a great worm inside it 
 eating out all its brains ? 
 
 If observing the child and recording the obser- 
 vations are begun as soon after birth as possible, 
 the parent will have much of value to communi- 
 cate to the teacher when school life begins. In 
 a certain school in Illinois a few years ago, a 
 regular course in child study was instituted 
 through the medium of the family. The parents 
 were asked in detail by the teachers when the 
 little ones were brought to them about the 
 general physical condition of the children, when 
 they began to walk and to talk, what illnesses 
 they had undergone, to what weaknesses or 
 physical defects they were subject, whether they 
 slept and ate well, took outdoor exercise, etc. 
 As to their general knowledge and mental ten- 
 dencies, it was inquired whether they had 
 
 (50 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 traveled at all, whether they were inquisitive, 
 whether they were familiar with any language 
 besides English, whether they had memorized 
 any songs or poems, what were their dispositions 
 and affections, their favorite games and stories, 
 their interest in animals, their environment and 
 experiences, their ability to get on with their 
 playmates, etc., etc. 
 
 The taxpayer who prides himself upon his 
 hard common sense will undoubtedly object, as 
 he reads the foregoing paragraphs, that such an 
 examination into each child's physical, mental 
 and moral condition would consume the entire 
 first week of the school session. Very possibly 
 it would, it may be answered, but the question to 
 be considered is rather how many weeks it would 
 save in the end. The teacher who knows noth- 
 ing about the pupil entrusted to her care save 
 his name and age is like a traveler set down in 
 an unknown country without map, guide or com- 
 pass and condemned to stumble along, forever 
 returning upon his own steps until by chance he 
 hits upon a main-traveled road, and journeys 
 somewhere, if not indeed to the wished-for goal. 
 All would applaud the traveler's wisdom if he 
 exhausted every effort to find a guide before con- 
 ducting himself through unknown regions, and 
 the teacher's case is precisely similar. The Illi- 
 nois teachers to whom reference has been made 
 found the efficiency of their work greatly increased 
 
 (52) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 by their knowledge of their pupils, and the par- 
 ents, discovering in many cases that they were 
 unable to give satisfactory answers to the ques- 
 tions asked of them, were incited to fresh obser- 
 vation of their offspring. The following blank 
 was finally filled out by the teacher in regard to 
 each pupil, and one may see that, though the 
 notes may not be absolutely correct in regard to 
 each separate point, yet the whole supplies a fair 
 working knowledge of the case in question. 
 
 Date. Name. Age. 
 
 Physical Notes. 
 
 Height Weight 
 
 Right or left handed 
 
 Chest measure] ^ngs full 
 
 S Lungs empty 
 
 Color 
 
 I^oior 
 Visual distance { Ri ^ ht 
 I Left , 
 
 Color 
 
 Hair- 
 
 *■ Texture 
 
 Indications of tubercular affections 
 
 Habit of sitting 
 
 " " standing 
 
 Deformities 
 
 Peculiar habits 
 
 Mental Notes. 
 
 Power of attention .... 
 " " observation . . . 
 " " memory .... 
 " " imagination . . . 
 
 " " reason 
 
 " " judgment .... 
 
 " " volition 
 
 f Self-control . 
 <■ Perseverance 
 
 (53) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 Power of oral expression 
 
 Courage, expressed how 
 
 Pride 
 
 Temper 
 
 Temperament in general 
 
 Affections {Epistic 
 
 <- Altruistic 
 
 Originality in thought 
 
 Rapidity of thought 
 
 Carefulness 
 
 Motive in school work 
 
 Purity of mind 
 
 (Place other remarks on back of this card.) 
 
 Teacher. 
 
 As we study the growing human being more 
 carefully and know him better in home and school 
 we shall treat him with more thorough justice, and 
 there is no question that a want of justice is some- 
 thing of which he may frequently complain. As 
 a school superintendent said the other day, it is 
 often as cruel to correct a child for laziness or 
 sullenness as to reprimand a patient for being ill. 
 The whole matter of punishment needs special 
 observation and attention. We punish a child for 
 lying when, as Sully says, he is only making his 
 first poetry ; we punish him for disobedience when 
 he cannot distinctly hear our commands, and for 
 carelessness in stumbling over objects and letting 
 them drop when he can see nothing clearly. He 
 falls under the ban for running away from home 
 and yet there is nothing there to interest him, and 
 for playing with children whose society is for- 
 
 (54) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 bidden, when he is given no pet and has not one 
 live thing to keep him company. When he fails 
 in his lessons he is frequently set longer tasks and 
 kept from play to study; although his poor brains, 
 like those of another Tomtoddy vegetable, are 
 already turning to water under the strain ; and 
 as he grows older he is continually being fitted 
 into round holes by people who have never taken 
 note of his lines and angles. 
 
 Truly the ways of these " little candidates for 
 immortality," as Oliver Wendell Holmes loved to 
 call them, are not always ways of pleasantness 
 nor their paths, paths of peace ; nor can they be 
 so until a clearer vision of the real nature of 
 the child has disclosed to us his true needs and 
 possibilities. 
 
 The physical, intellectual and spiritual powers 
 of the human being are so closely interwoven, 
 acting and re-acting upon each other continually, 
 that we cannot guide the child's development 
 rationally without knowing something of his 
 individual endowment in all three directions. 
 This knowledge is only to be gained by intel- 
 ligent observation, reflection and study. 
 
 (55) 
 
Children should have their times of being off 
 duty, like soldiers, and when o?ice the habit of obe- 
 dience if required is certain, the little creature 
 should be very early put for periods of practice in 
 complete command of itself, set on the bare-backed 
 horse of its own will and left to break it by its own 
 strength.— John Ruskin. 
 
Methods and Means of 
 Studying Children: A 
 
 Talk by LUCY WHEELOCK 
 
 (57) 
 
Methods and Means of 
 Studying Children: A 
 
 Talk by LUCY WHEELOCK 
 
 Miss Lucy Wheelock is known to the world of 
 letters through her stories and poems for children 
 which have appeared from time to time in the 
 magazines, and through Red Letter Stories and 
 Swiss Stories for Children and Those Who Love 
 Children (1885-87), translated from the German 
 of Johanna Spyri. She has, by lectures in the 
 larger cities of the United States and her connec- 
 tion with summer schools, devoted many years to 
 childhood and its needs and interests. Miss 
 Wheelock was for three years president of the 
 International Kindergarten Union, and has been 
 since 1889 at the head of a large kindergarten 
 training school in Boston, which sends its gradu- 
 ates to all parts of America. 
 
 *\7 ' ommt lasst uns tmsern Kindern leben" was 
 JlV the motto of Froebel, the great prophet of 
 the modern child study movement. His method 
 of making acquaintance with the life of child- 
 hood was neither by the keeping of a life book 
 nor an album nor yet by the compilation of rec- 
 ords of observation of particular activities and 
 tendencies in children. His was the more in- 
 timate method of companionship. 
 
 "A foolish old man" he was denominated by 
 the practical people of the village, as they saw 
 him walking through the streets followed by a 
 
 (59) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 troop of children, clinging to him wherever a tiny 
 hand could get hold. Utter foolishness to them 
 were the plays organized and directed by the 
 friendly old man when he had conducted his flock 
 to the green slope of a protecting hill. With the 
 affection of a father bestowed upon the children of 
 others and with the almost motherly intuition of a 
 heart loving childhood for its own sake, added to 
 the insight of a philosopher, the great German 
 teacher proclaimed his gospel of salvation for 
 humanity through right means of child nurture 
 and the elevation of the ideal of family life. 
 
 His mission was to give to mothers and teachers 
 practical guidance in ways and means of employ- 
 ing and directing to their proper ends the activi- 
 ties of children. His secret, he said, was caught 
 from mothers and is to be learned by the divining 
 heart. His method was to live with the children 
 whom he would know, joining as a friendly com- 
 panion in the sports and plays which are the true 
 revealers of child life. 
 
 "The thoughtful mother," whom he presents 
 in his book of Mother Play, is first pictured sit- 
 ting by the bank of a stream, observing her chil- 
 dren at play. One is an active boy watching the 
 water wheel he has placed in the brook. Another 
 is a thoughtful lad peering into the clear depths 
 of water and wondering over what he sees. A 
 third, a practical lassie, is wading into the water 
 eager to stir up something. Last is a shrinking 
 
 (6c) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 child clinging close to mother. Diverse in temper- 
 ament, differing widely in tendencies, how are they 
 to be guided and trained so as to reveal the best 
 in each ? This is the problem set by Froebel for 
 mothers and teachers. The book itself is a prac- 
 tical answer to the question. 
 
 Froebel's mother takes care of her own chil- 
 dren. She shares in the joy of their first discovery 
 of the kinship of "friends in feathers and fur." 
 With them she visits garden and stream to watch 
 the green, growing things, and to enjoy the dart- 
 ing, shimmering play of the fish, and to make 
 friends with chickens and pigeons. She does not 
 disturb with paltry explanations the childish 
 wonder over the silvery moon, sailing on high, 
 and the stars which light the dark, for out of this 
 wonder reverence is born. She may not always 
 accompany her children on their excursions ; but 
 she is ready to weave together the incidents of 
 the day into the bed-time story and thereby stamp 
 impressions and give continuity to experience. 
 She sings the song or suggests the play to fit the 
 occasion and strengthen the lesson it teaches. 
 She opens the gates into the mysterious post- 
 roads over which the rolling wagons seem to go 
 out to the end of the world, and rejoices in the 
 flight of the bird into the infinite. She paints 
 the human world as one of blessing and goodness 
 where everyone may play a happy part. The 
 carpenter builds the friendly house that shelters 
 
 (61) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 you and me ; the farmer gives us daily bread ; 
 the coal-man on his cart may have black hands 
 but his heart is kind and his work noble because 
 necessary. 
 
 " For where should we get a knife, spoon or fork, 
 If the honest coal-digger were not at his work ? " 
 
 It is her privilege to foster the spirit of true 
 worship, as did the mother of Carlyle, by setting 
 up in that holy of holies — a child's heart — the 
 altar of loving trust and reverence. Her little 
 ones see the loftiest whom they know on earth 
 bowed down before the loftier in Heaven, and 
 for them the busy day closes in peace. This is 
 Froebel's picture of a mother living with her 
 children. 
 
 "I live for my children," says the anxious 
 hard-working mother, busy with elaborate gowns 
 and coats, suitable for the season, and no worse 
 than her neighbor's. She has little time to make 
 herself the friend and confidante of her boys and 
 girls, and later, with a constant heartache, knows 
 that she has lost them. " It is all for my chil- 
 dren " is the excuse of the father, too much 
 occupied with business to make even the acquaint- 
 ance of his family. One could almost envy Harry 
 Richmond the possession of a father, impossible, 
 to be sure, in worldly ways, but able to make 
 himself into a menagerie of noble and spirited 
 animals, and to so vivify the history of kings and 
 
 (62) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 queens as to make them inspiring friends, and to 
 introduce the wild, courageous Will Shakespeare 
 as a boon companion — not an altogether admirable 
 parent ; but who would not choose such a father 
 rather than a Feveril with a system warranted 
 perfect in itself; but not warranted to fit? 
 
 There are children in the world whom we seek 
 to know en masse. There is the child, that 
 abstract nonentity to whom all ready-made 
 systems owe their origin. Then there is a child, 
 shy, variable, incomprehensible, eluding all our 
 systems, our notebook and our records. Who 
 is wise enough to know this "wild child-heart," 
 to lure it from the dark of its own individual con- 
 sciousness ? Without knowledge who is able to 
 guide it into fulness of life ? 
 
 There was a mother of old, who watched her 
 boy as he grew daily in wisdom and stature and 
 favor with God and man. As she watched him, 
 she kept all these things and pondered them in 
 her heart. Her child's life book was in her heart. 
 Her record was kept there and she pondered 
 it. This is the only secret of child study for 
 parent and teacher — to keep in the heart all the 
 sayings and doings of a child one loves. " Warm 
 it by your own heart " is Froebel's advice to those 
 who would use his book of child and mother lore. 
 But this is not all. 
 
 Community of interest must always lead to 
 cooperation. One may understand one's own 
 
 (63) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 child better by knowing how another has been 
 trained. A true mother sees her own child in 
 every child. "To communicate, forget not" is a 
 good scriptural injunction. The woman's club 
 has been an important influence in widening the 
 interests and enlarging the life of woman ; but 
 more important than the literary club or the 
 travelers' circle or the science class is the mothers' 
 round table or, better still, the parents' associa- 
 tion, where the problems of child nurture are 
 earnestly discussed. Such associations should 
 constitute a part of the social life of every com- 
 munity, and should make available to all the 
 constantly increasing literature of child study. 
 Mr. Will Monroe has compiled a bibliography 
 of the subject, showing already a long list of 
 books, pamphlets and periodicals. The list may 
 be indefinitely extended by the books, good for 
 us all, which give true pictures of child life and so 
 help revive childish memories and make one a 
 child again, even for one night. 
 
 " He is best able to guide childhood who can 
 most easily follow back the thread of life to child- 
 hood," says Froebel. To remember what made 
 us laugh and what made us cry, to recall the 
 message whispered long ago by birds and flowers, 
 to feel again the thrill of the half-sad ecstasy of 
 the sighing wind among the trees, or the joy of 
 dancing rain drops on the sidewalk is to enter on 
 the borders of the land of childhood. There 
 
 (64) 
 
A Course in Child Study' 
 
 are a few fathers and mothers and rare grand- 
 fathers who like Gladstone are able to retain the 
 love of sports and the feeling of play which make 
 a happy companion anywhere. 
 
 To those hardened by the cares of the world 
 and the deceitfulness of riches, no better boon 
 can be given than the child whose demand for 
 love and sympathy is like the warming sun of 
 spring to the ice-bound earth. It is well for a 
 busy man or woman to read occasionally such 
 books as Silas Marner, Mrs. Burnett's One I 
 Knew the Best of All, or Pierre Loti's Romance 
 of a Child, of which an English translation has 
 recently appeared. Such reading will change the 
 weights of the balance for a little while and some- 
 times readjust one's view of the world. 
 
 A teacher who is only a part of a system bound 
 to the uniform standard of promotion by which 
 all pupils alike must be measured, whether quick 
 or dull of wit, weak or robust in body, needs 
 especially the baptism of spirit that comes from 
 forgetting that the children are her pupils and 
 trying to know them as living things. She needs 
 to live with children by playing their games and 
 thinking their thoughts. She needs to get the 
 poet's view of childhood that holds the ideal 
 above the drudgery of the real. 
 
 No doubt she should be more scientific. Let 
 her learn what experts are doing in psycho- 
 logical laboratories, if she is able. Let her study 
 
 5g (65) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 to know the physical defects and mental limita- 
 tions of her pupils. Let her be quick to detect 
 signs of fatigue and to avoid the cause. Let her 
 provide for bodily comfort, as far as she is re- 
 sponsible, by attention to seating and matters of 
 hygiene. Let her watch for nascent periods of 
 development of function that she may always 
 know what to do and when to do it. Let her — 
 oh, wonderful woman — be as wise as Minerva and 
 far wiser ; but let her not neglect the weightier 
 matters of the law which commands love as its 
 own fulfilling. 
 
 For both mothers and teachers the question of 
 moral and religious training is an all important 
 one. In the Puritan household, children were 
 taught morals and religion by the Westminster 
 Catechism, Scripture texts, and Sunday school 
 lessons. Poor RicharcCs Almanac was as good 
 as any other textbook of morals. A few excel- 
 lent proverbs were current, such as u Example is 
 better than precept," and "As the twig is bent the 
 tree is inclined," but it is reserved for the mod- 
 ern study of imitation, suggestion and habit to 
 estimate the force of unconscious influence in 
 building character and awakening ideals. Here 
 again we are indebted to the psychologists, no- 
 tably Professors Royce, Baldwin and James, for 
 blazing out a path along which the ordinary way- 
 farer may travel. 
 
 " My mother says so," is usually a child's con- 
 
 (66) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 elusive argument, but after all what really deter- 
 mines a child's view of any situation is what he 
 divines mother to be in spite of what she says. 
 The family standards of life will ordinarily fall as 
 a heritage to the children. These are learned, not 
 by the precepts or texts taught, but by the ordinary 
 conversation heard by wide-awake listeners and 
 the business transactions witnessed by eyes eager 
 to learn what the world is like. 
 
 A timely utterance is that of Mr. Henderson in 
 the Kindergarten Review for June, 1901, on 
 Juvenile Traders. In this article Mr. Henderson 
 speaks strongly of the trade spirit which is 
 fostered in children, teaching the child to make 
 his own way in the world, saturating him with 
 the spirit of commercialism. 
 
 One of the most interesting monographs of the 
 child study literature is The Study of the Reli- 
 gious Life of California Children, by Earl Barnes. 
 This gives the account of a somewhat extended 
 examination of school children in California to 
 ascertain their religious concepts and beliefs. It 
 suggests the ineffectiveness of current methods 
 to convey appropriate religious ideas and the great 
 gap between instruction and religion. 
 
 One of the most sympathetic observations of 
 the unfolding of the spiritual is found in Miss 
 Peabody's Lectures to Kinder gar tners, a record of 
 the child entrusted to her care to receive his first 
 ideas of religion. "What a child cannot under- 
 
 (67) 
 
The Booklovers Reading 'Club 
 
 stand of religion," says Ruskin, "no man need 
 try to," and yet unseeing souls would force open 
 the beautiful gate of the temple not knowing 
 that it is always open to children. By wise guid- 
 ance the implicit faith of childhood may be trans- 
 formed gradually into genuine religious feeling. 
 
 A certain delightful German book is dedicated 
 "to children and those who love them." Very 
 few people would choose to be left out of the latter 
 class ; but it would be greatly decreased if limited 
 to those who love wisely. To know what to do is 
 little easier than to do, but the means of knowledge 
 are increasing every day with the growing litera- 
 ture on the subject of child culture and the ever 
 widening interest it creates. The child's world is 
 not a little one, but a wide, goodly land. Happy 
 are those able to enter in ! 
 
 (68) 
 
Handicapped Child- 
 hood: A Ten- Minute Talk 
 
 BT EMILIE POULSSON 
 
 (69) 
 
The true mother is a teacher whether she is con- 
 scious of it or not, and the true teacher uses the 
 innate mother element ; that which broods over the 
 child and warms it into life, as much as she does 
 her acquired knowledge. — Elizabeth Harrison. 
 
 
Handicapped Child- 
 hood: A Ten- Minute Talk 
 
 BY EMILIE POULSSON 
 
 Miss Emilie Poulsson has, since her gradu- 
 ation in 1881 from the Misses Garland and Wes- 
 ton's Kindergarten Normal School in Boston, 
 centred all her interests in the instruction and 
 amusement of children. When quite a young 
 woman, Miss Poulsson taught for three years in 
 the South Boston School for the Blind, resuming 
 afterwards the private teaching which had been 
 interrupted by a serious increase of the affection 
 of the eyes to which she has always been subject. 
 Of late years she has been writing assiduously 
 in prose and verse. Nursery Finger Plays was 
 published in 1889. Since then she has published 
 In the Child's World, Through the Farmyard 
 Gate, Child Stories and Rhymes, Love and Law 
 in Child Training and Holiday Songs. Miss 
 Poulsson is now joint editor of the Kindergarten 
 Review. 
 
 When there are so many beautiful, bright 
 subjects which we might consider, the 
 choice of so pitiful a theme as handicapped 
 childhood needs, perhaps, a word of apology. 
 The excuse for my choice is the only sufficient one 
 that can ever be urged for dwelling upon the ills 
 of life — the hope of remedying ills that exist and 
 the hope of preventing further ills of the same 
 sort. Ruskin says : " Men's proper business in 
 this world falls mainly into three divisions : First, 
 
 (70 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 to know themselves and the existing state of 
 things they have to do with; second, to be 
 happy in themselves and the existing state of 
 things ; third, to mend themselves and the exist- 
 ing state of things as far as either are marred or 
 mendable." "These," says Ruskin, "are the 
 three plain divisions of proper human business 
 on this earth." 
 
 The most heedless person, the most insensible 
 on-looker recognizes the grievous hindrance en- 
 cumbering the deformed or crippled child, the 
 blind child, the deaf child, and the child with im- 
 paired brain. The world has gained in merciful 
 care for these piteous little people. Society and 
 state recognize a duty toward them, and we 
 acquiesce approvingly. But society and state are 
 large bodies and move slowly and clumsily. They 
 need individuals to be to them as the swift foot 
 and ready hand for the execution of their benefi- 
 cent purposes ; they need individuals to connect 
 the needy child with the ministering agency. 
 Some of us perceive our duty in respect to this, 
 but do we all ? Have we tried, for instance, to 
 find out whether there are any such handicapped 
 children belonging to the families of our neigh- 
 borhood ? And have we made every effort to 
 have these little unfortunates placed where they 
 can receive fitting help ? 
 
 Many times, medical or surgical aid is the first 
 necessity ; but if the sad certainty is discovered 
 
 (7 = ) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 that the handicap is unremovable by such aid, 
 then every endeavor should be made to place the 
 child in the way of receiving the aid that will en- 
 able him to transcend the handicap as far as is pos- 
 sible for him while in the body. And how 
 blessedly far this is possible ! How many a soul 
 grows erect and full-statured despite the small, 
 misshapen body in which it dwells ! 
 
 In a certain city there went up and down the 
 streets a bent, humpbacked, weak little man ; but 
 he was a beloved physician of extraordinary skill 
 in his specialty, which was the treatment of defor- 
 mity. I never heard anything about his early 
 days and training, but certainly to see him and to 
 know his work was to read a story of victory in a 
 life race, a victory the grander because of the 
 handicaps which had been overcome. 
 
 "It aint so bad bein' blind," said Irish Mary, 
 after a few weeks at a school for the blind ; " it 
 aint so bad bein' blind when yez can do things. 
 Me aunt was always a-sayin', ' You can't do any- 
 thing ! You can't peel the praties, or turn a hand 
 to the dishes or the scrubbin' ! ' And now, whin I 
 go back, won't I show her just ! " 
 
 All this was in a burst of confidence to the 
 amanuensis when Mary was dictating her first 
 letter home. Mary is now an energetic, intelli- 
 gent, self-supporting woman, useful and respected ; 
 and her face and bearing declare unmistakably 
 that she lives in the light of the truth which she 
 
 (73) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 discovered at the school — " It aint so bad bein' 
 blind, when yez can do things." She is still 
 handicapped, certainly, but how lightly in com- 
 parison with what she would have been had she 
 not been placed under proper care when she was 
 a child. 
 
 The wonderful stories of Helen Keller, Edith 
 Thomas, Willie Elizabeth Robin and Tommy 
 Stringer are well known. Blind, deaf, and also 
 dumb when little children, they are now to a great 
 extent relieved of the third handicap, since they 
 can communicate not only by talking with their 
 fingers but by articulate speech. The deafness 
 and blindness are immeasurably lessened as handi- 
 caps by the miracle-working power of wise help 
 and education. All of these three girls and 
 Tommy spend lives of delight, activity and aspi- 
 ration. The handicaps are not removed — alas, 
 no ! — but what is the weight of the handicaps now 
 compared with what it was ? 
 
 In reply to a question as to whether she had 
 made any special resolution for the guidance of 
 her life, Helen Keller answered as follows : — 
 
 " I have, like other people, I suppose, made 
 many resolutions that I have broken or only half 
 kept ; but the one which I send you, and which was 
 in my mind long before it took the form of a 
 resolution, is the keynote of my life. It is this — 
 always to regard as mere impertinences of fate 
 the handicaps which were placed upon my life 
 
 (74) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 almost at the beginning. I resolved that they 
 should not crush or dwarf my soul, but rather be 
 made to 'blossom, like Aaron's rod, with flowers.' " 
 
 "If /am crooked, my verses need not be," 
 said a deformed poet (Pope). Think what it 
 must be to be awakened by wise teaching and 
 training to the realization of the truth suggested 
 in that saying ! Spirit and deed can be strong, 
 upright, beautiful in spite of the body's defects. 
 What joy and what incentive in this revelation ! 
 But many a deformed child, many a crippled child, 
 is languishing in hopelessness because no one 
 bears this message to him. Yet any one of us 
 might bear the glad tidings. Our share in bear- 
 ing the message may be to inform ourselves as to 
 what schools or institutions or other agencies are 
 available for children handicapped in these phys- 
 ical ways, and then to convince the parents as to 
 the benefit of the special place for the special 
 child. 
 
 The particularly tender love of parents toward 
 their afflicted children makes even the suggestion 
 of separation, of sending the child away from home, 
 very painful to them. Gently, tactfully, patiently 
 must we work with these parents, not expecting 
 them to be convinced immediately by our argu- 
 ments, and placing the matter before them again 
 and again, without accepting denial as the final an- 
 swer. We must honor the tender, protecting love 
 which makes the parents cling to these little ones. 
 
 (75) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 What will win the day will be the belief in our 
 disinterested care for the good of the child. If, 
 as is usually the case, there are papers of admis- 
 sion to be made out and any kind of red tape to 
 be untangled, it will be wise to attend to this for 
 the parents if they are willing, since any such for- 
 malities are often lions in the way to people not 
 accustomed to them, whether ignorant people or 
 not. 
 
 By speaking as I have about persuading par- 
 ents to send their handicapped children to special 
 schools, I do not mean to imply that that is 
 always advisable. Sometimes a special teacher 
 at home will be more advantageous. Sometimes 
 the child will benefit more by being thrown among 
 normal children as much as possible. But just 
 as it is of great advantage to any child to be 
 thrown among his equals, so it is for the handi- 
 capped child ; and the special school affords him 
 that "fair field and no favor" which every spirit 
 craves, and the deprivation of which is some- 
 times the greatest sting and injury that is entailed 
 by the deafness, blindness, lameness or whatever 
 handicap. 
 
 Probably instances of the virtual annulment of 
 limitations prescribed by some bodily defect have 
 come to the notice of us all. Happy you, if you 
 have had a share in making such annulling pos- 
 sible ! 
 
 But since, even at the best, even when there is 
 
 (76) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 every chance for emancipating the spirit, these 
 children do suffer pain and deprivation, should not 
 the greatest effort be made to prevent children 
 from being thus handicapped ? 
 
 How pitiful, how terribly pitiful, to know that 
 the feeble-mindedness of a child has been caused 
 by wrong feeding ; that this child's deafness is 
 owing to a blow from his passionate yet affection- 
 ate mother, who ought to have known, yet did 
 not, the possible result ! How pitiful, again, to 
 know that that child's blindness could have been 
 prevented by simple cleanliness, the careful 
 washing of the new born baby's eyes ! Indeed, 
 a great portion of our handicapped children 
 might have escaped their unfortunate condition if 
 their parents had only known what parents ought 
 to know. 
 
 And now suppose we have a handicapped 
 child to deal with, at home, in kindergarten, in 
 school, in any relation whatever — what shall we 
 do ? The answer shines out clear and plain from 
 many victorious lives. In all our general treat- 
 ment of the child, we should ignore the handicap. 
 Treat the child as if the handicap were not. 
 
 Do you know that if a baby who is even totally, 
 hopelessly deaf is talked to all through its baby- 
 hood as if it could hear, and this treatment is con- 
 tinued, the child will grow up not only under- 
 standing spoken language, but speaking, also ? 
 
 Do you know that in the schools for the blind 
 
 (77) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 the pupils have taught their teachers to adapt 
 their teaching, and especially the appliances, less 
 and less ? When the kindergarten was first in- 
 troduced at the Perkins Institution for the Blind, 
 at South Boston, Mass., the same blunder was 
 made repeatedly, only to find that most of the 
 adaptation was unnecessary. The root of the 
 blunder was that we kept the handicap of these 
 children foremost in our thoughts instead of in 
 the background. 
 
 With feeble-minded children, too, whatever 
 awakening and improvement is possible is achieved 
 always by working in this way ; that is, by ignor- 
 ing the handicap and addressing, as if it were 
 awake, the intelligence which you hope to awaken. 
 
 After all, is not this the method which we see 
 successfully practiced every day by the mother 
 with her baby ? She talks to him as if he under- 
 stood, long before he can understand ; and shortly 
 he understands. She treats him as if he could 
 walk before he has taken a step ; and behold! her 
 faith and hope work the wonder, and he does 
 walk. 
 
 Set no limitations, therefore, for the handicapped 
 little ones, but let faith and courage incite endeavor 
 and be its constant support. With the wonderful 
 examples which the world has seen of handicaps 
 overcome, we ought to be more chary of say- 
 ing that anything is impossible. Who would not 
 have said that it would be impossible for a blind 
 
 (78) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 man to observe bees to any purpose? Yet Huber 
 is a prominent authority on this subject, suppos- 
 edly impossible as a study for a blind man. What 
 more patent barrier to the work of an artist than 
 to lack the very hands for wielding the brush ? 
 Yet we have the armless painter. To be para- 
 lyzed from below the waist and only able to go 
 about as much as a wheeled chair allows would 
 seem to condemn a solitary woman to narrow 
 limits. Yet such a person has gone to Europe, 
 making the journey without friend or maid, and is 
 pursuing her chosen studies there as independ- 
 ently and indefatigably as if there existed no ap- 
 parently impossible barrier against it. 
 
 The truest love and the truest pity is that which 
 looks through the imperfect and marred body and 
 sees ever the power of the spirit to transcend the 
 physical handicap and makes constant appeal to 
 that power. The disregarding attitude toward 
 the trouble as a handicap or limitation is quite 
 compatible with the tenderest consideration for 
 the child and his comfort. The great point is 
 that in our association with such children we 
 should keep clear in our own minds the fact that 
 the handicap's power is limited while the power of 
 the human spirit, by virtue of its divine element, 
 is illimitable. 
 
 ^^h^tJU. f^C^^TTrt 
 
 (79) 
 
Elementary education is nothing else but a su- 
 preme return to the truest and simplest form of 
 
 educational art, the education of the hoine. 
 
 Pestalozzi. 
 
Child Study as 
 Synthesis: a Talk 
 
 BY KATE GANNETT WELLS 
 
 6g (8i) 
 
Child Study as 
 Synthesis: a Talk 
 
 BY KATE GANNETT WELLS 
 
 Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells, a descendant of 
 Mary Chilton of the "Mayflower" and of Presi- 
 dent Ezra Stiles of Yale University, is the daugh- 
 ter and sister of Unitarian clergymen. Born in 
 England during the temporary residence of her 
 father, Ezra Stiles Gannett, she was educated in 
 Boston, where she still lives. Mrs. Wells is prom- 
 inent in her own home as a member of the State 
 Board of Education and a writer on normal 
 methods and school ethics. For over two score 
 years she has been zealous in humanitarian labors. 
 Her stories, In the Clearings, Miss Curtis and Two 
 Modern Women share public attention with a vol- 
 ume of essays, About People. 
 
 Child study has become such an organized 
 11 fad " that observation of the child, the 
 type, is hindering recognition of this, that and 
 the other child, for a child may be very different 
 from the child. This calm acceptance of the " era 
 of the child" has already resulted in a woful sub- 
 mission on the part of parents and teachers to the 
 child and in a still more grievous assertion on 
 the child's part of his importance to the universe. 
 Even the exaggerated kindergarten phraseology 
 that first infected natural speech now yields pre- 
 cedence to the language of child study with its 
 
 (83) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 analyses and its heraldic motto, " Do justice to 
 the nature of a child," until nursery discipline 
 and mother's love are being dominated by the 
 pedagogic command, "Observe! Observe!" 
 
 Though possibly Froebel might rejoice in this 
 modern outgrowth of his sentiment, it is doubtful 
 whether the sturdier intellects of Comenius and 
 Pestalozzi would not revolt against the emascu- 
 lated logic of what is often called child study, but 
 which does not represent its large, persistent, 
 real worth. Child study is truly a most important 
 course in the training of teachers and of parents, 
 even if to the latter it is a home-taught science. 
 Finding its source in natural affection it yet best 
 expresses itself in verified formulas which train 
 the student in knowledge of the child, somewhat 
 as art, though going back to nature for authority, 
 yet announces her message to the world in pre- 
 scribed values of decoration, composition and 
 harmony. 
 
 The only trouble in child study lies in its being 
 pursued chiefly by the deductive process. Ob- 
 servations are heaped upon observations and 
 then classified under various headings, that tes- 
 tify to the industry of the observer more than to 
 his intelligent separation of comparatively worth- 
 less from valuable data. It is all analysis, be- 
 cause, says the observer, the time has not come 
 for synthesis, forgetting, in his mania for collect- 
 ing, that each child must be taken as a whole, its 
 
 (84) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 nationality, heredity and environment contributing 
 to its personality. 
 
 A playground is a far better place than a 
 school-room in which to study the unadulterated 
 child and to pursue the synthetic method of child 
 study. There nationalities count first, else the 
 Polish Jew would not twit the Italian with the 
 nickname of " Banana," who retorts to this verbal 
 missile with a vigorous blow, vindicating the 
 justice of his action by quoting the Jew's own 
 refrain, " An eye for an eye and a tooth for a 
 tooth." The very ways of petty theft indicate 
 nationality. Though an unrelenting, personal 
 dignity on the part of teachers may have a re- 
 straining effect upon the children of Moses, the 
 power of a smile holds the Italian in check ; but 
 it takes both smile and dignity to control the 
 colored children, who yet, when obedient, surpass 
 their playmates in desire to help their officers. 
 In a playground also, the Irish Catholic seems 
 more liberal than the Israelitish ritualist, at least 
 as far as games and food are concerned, while 
 Jewish, Irish, Italian and colored children partake 
 alike of that pathetic meekness, through which 
 the constantly new baby is tended by its sister, 
 but little older than itself. " It never does to 
 lose one's temper in a playground," as the super- 
 intendent of one of them said, "since there is no 
 time to find it again." 
 
 The American child, however, must be studied 
 
 (85) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 in the home of his self-sacrificing parents or else 
 in the conventional school-room, where all chil- 
 dren are soon absorbed into the conglomerate 
 mass of the child, who, so far, has been princi- 
 pally studied in homes and schools of the so- 
 called middle and upper classes. Therefore the 
 type has been comparatively constant and has 
 enabled a philanthropic mother to transfer her 
 observations from her cultured home to the 
 "mothers' club" of a "settlement house," whose 
 women may admire her way of putting things but 
 will condemn her methods as not suited to them. 
 
 Their criticisms on her categories of child 
 thought well indicate the manifold variations of 
 children from the type child. Take the subject 
 of punishment for example. The type child must 
 not be whipped ; the exceptional child may be, to 
 the great advantage of all concerned. Hence it 
 is in just such variations from the actual or the 
 ideal type that is found the need for child study, 
 lest parents and teachers neither rejoice nor 
 grieve unduly. 
 
 The amount of divergence from the supposed 
 type is now often recorded by statistically inclined 
 parents in specially prepared scrap-books. Very 
 carefully is such work done after the birth of the 
 first child, carelessness usually increasing accord- 
 ing to the frequency of subsequent births. Such 
 records, useful as family tools in the bringing up 
 of children, also become accumulated data for 
 
 (86) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 general service in the training of the races. Let 
 no mother forego the keeping of them. They 
 will help her if her children live, and if death 
 takes them from her care the records of what 
 they did and were will solace her loneliness. 
 Still there is no more dreary reading than the 
 diary of an analytic psychologist or child study- 
 ing parent, who makes a diagram of her first 
 child's first smile and estimates the growth of its 
 tactile powers. But in time there comes the joy- 
 ful record of her child's first intelligent command, 
 of his early ideas about God, prayer, conscience, 
 all of which are intensely interesting, especially to 
 the child himself in later adult life. Then, as other 
 children are born into the same family, such rec- 
 ords become of large value in showing how far 
 the forces of environment and heredity can be 
 controlled by education, for personal interest in 
 family data, when extended into a comprehensive 
 plan of child study, may become useful to every- 
 one for the sake of every one. 
 
 Why the same method of guidance that suc- 
 ceeds with one child fails with another is a matter 
 for study. The old fashioned, devout mother 
 ascribed results to Providence ; the modern 
 mother is in search of a formula to help the 
 race ; the natural mother believes that in the in- 
 tuitions of love is found the fulfilment of law, the 
 victory over evil heredity and untoward circum- 
 stance, and guides her acts towards her children 
 
 (87) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 by her wise sympathies with them. She studies 
 them to regulate herself by them quite as much 
 as to rule them, and is more conscious of her 
 mistakes than of theirs ; child study becomes 
 heightened by her diagnosis into a self-conscious 
 study of her capacity for motherhood and her 
 records aid her discrimination. 
 
 The teacher, however, cannot wait on time and 
 circumstance to the same degree as the mother, 
 and thus his results of child study inevitably fall 
 into groups. If his analyses are larger they yet 
 may mislead as to the individual child. Not- 
 withstanding, it is with the modifications of the 
 type child, from whatever cause, that child study 
 must concern itself, balancing one factor against 
 another, until the result is a sy?ithetic study of a 
 child, rather than an analytic study of the child. 
 It is only by synthesis that we learn not to des- 
 pair of progress, individual or national. " On the 
 whole," a current Americanism — the phrase of 
 that synthetic state of mind by which we mean 
 that, all things considered, we decide so and so — 
 has a significance which needs now to be placed 
 upon child study, to correct its over analysis. 
 Let each mother do this in a large way, not by 
 daily records or prescribed formulas alone, but by 
 now-and-then retrospects of the growth of her 
 children. Such long reviews would not interfere 
 with her jotting down of special incidents and 
 remarks and would enable her to see each 
 
 (88) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 child as a whole and to make comparisons by- 
 wholes. 
 
 It is in this way that the "remarks" of a 
 teacher appended to her lists of averages con- 
 cerning her pupils are of more value than all her 
 recorded, analytic percentages, for the " remarks " 
 are her syntheses concerning the children. On 
 the same principle positions are awarded teachers 
 for their "personal fitness," which is the equiva- 
 lent of a synthetic estimate of their ability. 
 
 Child study thus pursued becomes a most help- 
 ful feature in the adaptation of parents and 
 teachers to children, save that if it is left solely to 
 women it will soon have the one-sided value of 
 the kindergarten. The more subtle the per- 
 sonality of both parent and teacher, the less will 
 the child know it is being observed and the less 
 will it be disposed to attribute its discipline to the 
 results of a "mothers' meeting." Only by child 
 study can the noblest fruition of parenthood and 
 education be achieved, love rather than formula 
 being its inspiration. 
 
 (89) 
 
We cannot educate our grand?nother, we say ; 
 but there are grandmothers whom we can educate. 
 
 The children of today are the grandmothers of 
 the future ; we can educate them. 
 
 Alice Wellington Rollins. 
 
IDEALS OF CHILD 
 CULTURE: A Talk by 
 
 CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN 
 
 (90 
 
IDEALS OF CHILD 
 CULTURE: A Talk by 
 
 CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN 
 
 Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a New Eng- 
 land woman, the great granddaughter of Lyman 
 Beecher, the grand niece of Harriet Beecher 
 Stowe and of Henry Ward Beecher. While in her 
 twenties, Mrs. Gilman went to California, where 
 she pursued her work for woman, for labor, and 
 for "reform" generally by lecturing and through 
 her paper called The Impress. In 1898 she pub- 
 lished two important books — a volume of poems, 
 In This Our World and a book on Women and 
 Economics, which attracted much attention. Her 
 poem, Similar Cases, a satirical allegory, has 
 been widely quoted. For a time Mrs. Gilman was 
 a resident of Hull House, a social settlement in 
 Chicago. She has lectured extensively in this 
 country and Great Britain ; and during the last 
 few years her papers urging equality of the sexes 
 and various reforms have frequently appeared in 
 the leading magazines. She recently published 
 a notable book Concerning Children. 
 
 Are you a mother who is willing to learn some- 
 thing more of humaniculture ? Have you 
 the deep wide human interest in the young mem- 
 ber of society now so- absolutely in your hands, 
 but none the less a representative of a new step, 
 a farther step in the progress of the race ? Of 
 course, you love him as your own ; but remem- 
 ber, every female animal does that as well as you. 
 Passionate, self-sacrificing, instinctive love is com- 
 
 (93) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 mon to all motherhood. Human motherhood 
 needs something more. Human motherhood 
 needs wisdom — knowledge and wisdom. These 
 do not come by instinct. With the lower animals 
 all that is needed is to rear the young creature in 
 health and safety and teach him to take care of 
 himself; and, bear or fox or deer or donkey, 
 the mother can do her duty alone and does it. 
 To establish a human creature successfully in- 
 volves far more than this. Even in the primary 
 conditions of health and safety, the mother can 
 do little alone ; and in the extending processes of 
 education she has a task as much larger and more 
 complex than that of earlier mothers as society is 
 larger and more complex than a herd of deer. 
 The main use and purpose of an animal is to 
 take care of himself and improve his race by 
 direct transmission. The main use and purpose 
 of a human creature is to take care of other 
 people and improve his race through all the 
 numberless avenues of social conditions. Child 
 study is the study of the young of the human 
 species with a view to the improvement of that 
 species. We have striven long and valiantly with 
 all the engines of church and state to make peo- 
 ple better. Now we are beginning to study how 
 to make better people. Improvement through 
 heredity must be taught to the young men and 
 maidens ; we cannot improve the heredity of the 
 child after it is born. Child study is to show us 
 
 (94) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 how to improve the race as we have it. Improve- 
 ment through conditions is being urged all along 
 the lines of social progress — parks, playgrounds, 
 baths, libraries, better schools, better streets, 
 better cities — all this is at present mainly in the 
 fathers' hands. Mothers do not yet care enough 
 for children to do their duty by them as citizens ; 
 but they do care enough, some of them, to take 
 up child study. 
 
 We have in the child an undeveloped creature 
 full of latent traits and abilities, the ultimate 
 manifestation of which will make or mar his hap- 
 piness in great degree. It is the business of the 
 educator so to adjust the surrounding conditions 
 of the child and his direct training as to bring out 
 the best balance of faculties with the least ex- 
 pense of nervous capital to the child. To do this 
 we must know what a child is and how it works, 
 how to produce the desired changes in character 
 without accompanying injury. We have the adult 
 human creature before us to study, his faults and 
 his virtues. We wish to learn how to develop in 
 successive generations of children the group of 
 qualities most valuable to humanity, always re- 
 stricted by the limitations of personal character 
 in each child. For instance, courage is a most 
 valuable human characteristic. We wish to de- 
 velop courage in all children ; but if one particu- 
 lar George or Georgiana is markedly deficient in 
 courage and especially strong in patience or cour- 
 
 (95) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 tesy, we do not wish to lower the average by too 
 much insistence on one faculty. There are very 
 useful people in the world who are painfully lack- 
 ing in some desirable traits ; and while, on the 
 one hand, we wish to call out all the good quali- 
 ties possible, on the other we do not wish to sacri- 
 fice a good pear tree in the effort to make it bear 
 oranges. 
 
 Practical psychology is the main lack in our 
 treatment of children. We lack it quite suffi- 
 ciently in our treatment of each other as adults, 
 but it is a sucking vacuum in our crude efforts at 
 child culture. The basic lines of the work before 
 us are something like these : here is a young 
 human ; constitution and character partly predi- 
 cate from our knowledge of one or two preced- 
 ing generations, but mainly to be discovered. 
 Our purpose is to make this the best possible 
 specimen of its kind with the least possible loss 
 and waste. The method is : (a) By observation 
 of its nature and conduct under ordinary condi- 
 tions and by careful continuous record of the 
 same ; (d) by application of special conditions, on 
 lines suggested by natural conduct, to see if re- 
 sponse bears out our previous observation ; [c) 
 by continued application of those conditions which 
 elicit the conduct we consider desirable. 
 
 The child's character is manifested in his be- 
 havior. We must study behavior to discover 
 character. Character is modified by the reaction 
 
 (96) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 of behavior to a considerable extent, but far more 
 by conscious choice and volition. So far the 
 main line of treatment in child culture has been 
 to enforce certain behavior by any means at hand, 
 hoping perhaps for a resultant modification of 
 character. Right here is our principal error. We 
 have ignored the inner nature of the live thing in 
 our hands and sought only to "make it behave." 
 The proper behavior of the child, while a child, 
 has been our main desideratum regardless of 
 the unseen effects on character, and so on the 
 ultimate behavior of the adult. Childhood is but 
 a transient period : what we are rearing are not 
 children but adults ; we are making people. What 
 we want in the grown person is such and such 
 a character ; what we want in the child is the 
 orderly development of that character ; and this 
 development is to be produced by practice, not by 
 the arbitrary doing of certain specified things, but 
 by the right method of doing anything whatever. 
 For instance, if a child is slowly developing judg- 
 ment by repeated exercise of that faculty, even 
 through a number of foolish mistakes, that is far 
 better education than if he were coerced into 
 doing the right thing without effort of his own 
 and so developed no judgment whatever. 
 
 Certain qualities we must have in all civilized 
 society, we must seek to develop in all children. 
 Self-restraint is one of them, and another is its 
 accompanying self-direction. We all try to incul- 
 
 7G (97) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 cate self-restraint by various crude means ; but 
 few indeed carefully practice a child in self-direc- 
 tion. Now you might develop a Spartan stoic in 
 self-restraint who would be of no earthly use, for 
 lack of proper initiative. Love of one another is 
 one of the prominent requisites for advanced 
 human beings. We talk about this at church but 
 take almost no means to develop it in children. 
 The family affections they come into naturally 
 and are trained in religiously ; but they have no 
 proportionate training in that love for all the 
 world which is given us as the second command- 
 ment, "like unto" the love of God, and which is 
 not only the distinguishing precept of our religion 
 but the keystone of civilization. 
 
 Of all human faculties the most distinctive, 
 most desirable, most generally present and most 
 conspicuously neglected in child culture is reason. 
 Even love is of small use from a fool or to a fool. 
 The greatest thing love could do to a fool would 
 be to give him his reason. The power to think, 
 to judge, to decide, to connect and relate — this is 
 the human faculty. All children not idiotic have 
 it. All grown persons show more or less trace 
 of it. But most of our natural faculty of reason- 
 ing is lost by disuse and abuse in childhood. If 
 children were not encouraged to talk, were ridi- 
 culed and punished for talking, and were sur- 
 rounded with gibberish instead of conversation, we 
 should not find much development in language. 
 
 (98) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 The lack of reason in the surroundings of chil- 
 dren, the utter unreason of much of their treat- 
 ment, and the persistent discouragement of their 
 attempts to be reasonable are quite sufficient to 
 account for Carlyle's gloomy generalization. 
 
 To return to practical psychology. Action is 
 transmitted energy. In low stages of organic 
 development the creature acts under direct im- 
 pression, that is, he promptly reacts. In the 
 development of higher brain faculties there is 
 found a longer and more perfect retention of im- 
 pressions, a greatly increased number of these 
 impressions, and an increased power to correlate 
 them and act from their stored energy. A highly 
 organized brain remembers many things long and 
 accurately, puts two and two together, or even 
 ten and ten, and acts from the balanced force of 
 long-held numbers instead of the immediate stim- 
 ulus of one. This is what distinguishes men from 
 beasts and the wise from the foolish. If we wish 
 to produce a man or a woman capable of a rational 
 action, we need to train the child in habits of 
 rational action. " Action " here refers not to the 
 deed done but to the way the child works ; as in 
 the action of a horse or a machine. Not " Does 
 the child do such and such things?" or "Does 
 he obey promptly?" but "Does he act rationally?" 
 and "Does he show increasing ability to act ration- 
 ally ? " If he does not, the next questions are : " Is 
 the child lacking in intellect? " and "What is the 
 
 L.ofC ( 99 ) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 matter with his education ? " It is proven by care- 
 fully recorded efforts that even idiots may be 
 trained so as to increase their rational power ; and 
 if idiots can be so trained why not children of 
 sense ? Careful study of the child shows that he is 
 rational, but that the condition of childhood means 
 that impressions are generally slight and transient 
 as well as necessarily limited ; in other words, that 
 he "forgets " easily and does not know much. 
 
 The latest power of human development is 
 naturally the slowest to appear in the child, the 
 power of governing his own acts from his own 
 reason. Therefore, we should present to the baby 
 brain a carefully graduated series of impressions, 
 such as are clear, definite, in their natural order, 
 easy to remember and connect. The trained eye 
 carefully observing his progress will soon see 
 what are his natural faculties, in what order they 
 develop, and which need special help. 
 
 Most important is that highest power of judi- 
 cious action from his own decision. Every time 
 the young experimenter in living is seen to ob- 
 serve accurately, judge wisely, and act accord- 
 ingly, he is practicing that series of coordinate 
 nerve processes which go to build up the strong, 
 wise, reliable man. If the child's mind is full of 
 a hotchpotch of disproportionate and false ideas, 
 there is something terribly wrong in his environ- 
 ment. In concrete instance, see the baby learn- 
 ing life of a nursemaid, where we find not only 
 
 (100) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 all manners of ignorance and negative error, but 
 often positive terrorizing. An irregular and con- 
 fused memory in a child indicates that those im- 
 measurably important first impressions must have 
 come too thick and fast or not in their natural 
 order. If the child shows inability to act even up 
 to his own standard and knowledge, he has not 
 been trained in self-governing activities. 
 
 Not only child study but man and woman 
 study shows this condition as almost universal. 
 The most conspicuous lack in human nature is 
 this power to govern our own action even up to 
 the level of our own standards ; more than any 
 other training we need to be trained in this — not 
 to do as others do or as we are told, but as we 
 ourselves see to be right. 
 
 Our children have been treated so far with the 
 lingering rudiments of humanity's oldest methods ; 
 methods of government and methods of education 
 which adult civilization has outgrown by thou- 
 sands of years. It is true that the child passes 
 through the previous stages of our long exist- 
 ence, but not true that he should be treated after 
 their methods. As a man he will represent the 
 stage beyond us, and he needs our very highest 
 to fit him to go higher still. 
 
 (IOI) 
 
Representative Views 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY THOUGHTS 
 ON CHILD STUDY BY NOTABLE 
 TEACHERS AND WRITERS 
 
 (103) 
 
Representative Views 
 
 G. Stanley Hall. 
 "One of the oldest objections to child study, 
 now very rarely heard, is that it is liable to inter- 
 fere in some way with the naivete of children, and 
 to make them self-conscious. A few years ago I 
 heard a prominent professor declare, with great 
 emphasis, before an audience of applauding Boston 
 schoolmasters, that, as for his own children, they 
 should never be mentally vivisected ; that they 
 should be loved, not studied, etc. Love and study 
 in this field, as in that of natural science, instead 
 of interfering with, strengthen each other. Not 
 only are we better parents and teachers for both 
 knowing and doing this work, but those who fail 
 to utilize it are neglecting some of the most 
 urgent new duties of a new age." 
 
 "Among the more incidental advantages of the 
 study of children is the new bond which it often 
 establishes between the home and the school. 
 The teacher who no longer regards his pupils as 
 marionettes, to be treated as groups or classes, 
 but as free units, with a bond of sympathy between 
 each of their hearts and his own, desires to know 
 at least something of the home life of each child, 
 and to come to an understanding with parents. 
 Hence many very different organizations have 
 arisen, from Superintendent Dutton's educational 
 
 (105) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 club in Brookline, Mass., to the circles of mothers 
 who meet the teachers weekly after school at De- 
 troit, Mich." 
 
 "Another advantage of interest in child study is 
 that it helps to break down to some extent the 
 partitions between grades of work, so that the 
 kindergarten and university professor can cooper- 
 ate in the same task. Best of all, perhaps, it tends 
 to make family life with plenty of children in it 
 more interesting and desirable. Indeed, it is a 
 part of a great culture movement, marked by a 
 new love of the naive, the spontaneous, and the un- 
 sophisticated ; by a desire to get at what is primi- 
 tive and original in human nature as it comes 
 fresh from its primal sources. A prevalent theory 
 in art insists that the greatest defect of all art 
 products is a sign of conscious design, and that 
 the acme of aesthetic enjoyment is reached when 
 it is realized that the poem or picture is a product 
 of unconscious creative force, more or less irre- 
 sistible, and, as with the greatest geniuses, with 
 no thought of effect. Just so in childhood we are 
 coming again to realize that in its fresh thoughts, 
 feelings, and impulses we have an oracle which 
 declares that the world and human nature are 
 sound to the core." 
 
 JUL 
 
 Edward Howard Griggs. 
 11 It is in relation to this practical work of edu- 
 cation that our effort to study children gets its 
 
 (106) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 human value. There are always two points of 
 view possible with reference to life. From the 
 standpoint of nature and science, individuals count 
 for little. Nature can waste a thousand acorns to 
 raise one oak ; hundreds of children may be sacri- 
 ficed that a truth may be seen. But from the 
 ethical and human point of view the meaning of 
 all life is in each individual. That one child should 
 be lost is a kind of ruin to the universe. 
 
 " It is this second point of view which every 
 parent and every teacher must take ; and the 
 great practical value of our new study of children 
 is that it brings us into personal relation with the 
 child world, and so aids in that subtle touch of life 
 upon life which is the very heart of education." 
 
 Susan Blow.. 
 " By many persons Froebel is supposed to be 
 the avowed champion of two very popular, very 
 plausible, but very dangerous educational heresies, 
 against which his whole system is a protest. One 
 of these heresies has been called sugar-plum edu- 
 cation ; the other has been fitly baptized flower-pot 
 education. Sugar-plum education in its moral 
 aspect means coaxing, cajolery, and bribery ; in 
 its intellectual aspect it is the parent of that 
 specious and misleading maxim that the chief aim 
 of the educator is to interest the child. Like the 
 theory which wrecks happiness by making it the 
 aim of life, the effort to win interest results in 
 
 (107) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 methods which kill interest. The end of life is 
 not happiness, but goodness ; the aim of education 
 is not to interest the child, but to incite and guide 
 his self-activity. Seeking goodness we win happi- 
 ness ; inciting self-activity we quicken interest. 
 Now for the flower-pot. Flower-pot education 
 means the effort to make the child wise and good 
 through the influence of an artificially perfect en- 
 vironment. You will take your tender plant out 
 of the common ground and away from the common 
 air and keep it safe by setting it in a sunny win- 
 dow of your own room. The struggle for life may 
 mean something for other plants, but you will im- 
 prove on the divine method in rearing your choice 
 rose. Two false assumptions are latent in your 
 procedure : first, the assumption that character 
 may be formed without effort ; and second, the 
 assumption that evil is only outside your child, 
 and not at all in him. 
 
 " But flower-pot and sugar-plum education are 
 attacks upon freedom. The former holds that the 
 child may be molded by environment, the latter 
 that his blind impulses may be played upon by 
 the educator. Froebel holds that he is a free 
 being, and therefore must be a self-making being. 
 Hence, while sugar-plum education appeals to the 
 activity of the educator, the flower-pot education 
 to the activity of environment, Froebel appeals 
 first, last, and always to the self-activity of the 
 child." 
 
 (.08) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 Mrs. S. M. I. Henry. 
 
 " In religious matters we shall save ourselves 
 a great deal of trouble if we remember that the 
 child is at first all physical, as the lily is all bulb. 
 He holds within him the germ of all that is to be 
 of him ; but it must be permitted to follow its own 
 law of development, or it will be ruined. After a 
 while he begins to manifest the signs of mental 
 growth ; but the spiritual nature is of much later 
 awakening — first the bud, then the bloom. It is 
 of no use at all to expect the bulb to be the 
 blossom, or the body to be or act like the soul ; 
 and if you treat it as if it were, you lose all. It is 
 of the earth, earthy ; it can live only on material 
 things, as the bulb lives in and from the soil. The 
 stalk and the leaf also are not the blossom, but 
 necessary to it. God knows its appointed time, 
 and if He can have His way with you and your 
 child, He will bring forth, by-and-by, its perfect 
 beauty and crown. The bulb dies that the lily 
 may come to perfection. So with man — first 
 that which is earthy ; then, by slower growth, 
 through life and death to newer life, that which 
 is spiritual." 
 
 JUL 
 
 Tacob Abbott. 
 
 11 There is a certain sense in which we should 
 feel a sympathy with children in the wrong that 
 they do. It would seem paradoxical to say that 
 in any sense there should be sympathy with sin, 
 
 (109) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 and yet there is a sense in which this is true, 
 though perhaps, strictly speaking, it is sympathy 
 with the trial and temptation which led to the sin 
 rather than with the act of transgression itself. 
 In whatever light a nice metaphysical analysis 
 would lead us to regard it, it is certain that the 
 most successful efforts that have been made by 
 philanthropists for reaching the hearts and reform- 
 ing the conduct of criminals and malefactors have 
 been prompted by a feeling of compassion for 
 them, not merely for the sorrows and sufferings 
 which they have brought upon themselves by their 
 wrong-doing, but for the mental conflicts which 
 they endured, the fierce impulses of appetite and 
 passion, more or less connected with and depend- 
 ent upon the material condition of the bodily 
 organs, under the onset of which their feeble moral 
 sense, never really brought into a condition of 
 health and vigor, was overborne. These merciful 
 views of the diseased condition and action of the 
 soul in the commission of crime are not only in 
 themselves right views for man to take of the 
 crimes and sins of his fellow-man, but they lie at 
 the foundation of all effort that can afford any 
 serious hope of promoting reformation. 
 
 " This principle is eminently true in its appli- 
 cation to children. They need the influence of a 
 kind and considerate sympathy when they have 
 done wrong, more, perhaps, than at any other 
 time ; and the effects of the proper manifestation 
 
 (no) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 of this sympathy on the part of the mother will, 
 perhaps, be greater and more salutary in this case 
 than in any other. Of course, the sympathy must' 
 be of the right kind, and must be expressed in the 
 right way, so as not to allow the tenderness or 
 compassion for the wrong-doer to be mistaken for 
 approval or justification of the wrong." 
 
 JUL 
 
 Florence Hull Winterburn 
 
 " A very unpleasing trait in a child and one 
 that occasions frequent reprimands is a habit of 
 self-excuse. Some children are so ready and 
 fertile in reply that it becomes almost impossible 
 to convict them of error. They have to be 
 'pinned down,' as it were, and even then show a 
 surprising ingenuity in making explanations, 
 which, without being precisely untrue, are a turn- 
 ing of points in their own favor. When a child 
 shows this disposition the right plan is not to 
 blame him directly, but manage so that when he 
 is in the wrong circumstances will convict him. 
 The logic of facts is incontrovertible, and arouses 
 no feeling of animosity toward persons. It is 
 also desirable to refrain from that common temp- 
 tation, ' driving a fault home.' Children do not 
 like the valley of humiliation any better than we 
 do ourselves, and do not derive any benefit to 
 their character from being forced into it. A look, 
 half-smiling, half-accusing, is efficacious ; but words 
 arouse the defensive instinct and lead to excuses." 
 
 (in) 
 
Stimulative Questions 
 
 he questions which follow 
 bear upon the topics of 
 the course as presented 
 in the hand-book. They 
 aim to stimulate further 
 research as well as to test the amount of 
 information gained. Full and thought- 
 ful answers (written out if possible) 
 will greatly assist in changing transitory 
 impressions into permanent ones, and 
 will make a fixed point of departure for 
 further study. 
 
 8g 
 
 ("3) 
 
STIMULATIVE QUESTIONS 
 
 1. What is meant by the "point of contact at the 
 plane of experience ?" 
 
 2. How do negative methods of training react upon 
 the character of the child ? 
 
 3. What relationship frequently exists between unde- 
 veloped sense-impression and intellectual or moral 
 dulness ? 
 
 4. Is a bad habit more easily displaced by suppress- 
 ing it directly or by building up other habits of an op- 
 posite tendency, thus accomplishing the change indi- 
 rectly ? 
 
 5. What effect have children's plays upon their 
 character ? 
 
 6. What of the mental and moral effects of physical 
 culture ? 
 
 7. Can self-activity be perfect as long as it is in any 
 degree dependent upon environment ? 
 
 8. Which should be educated first, the child's intel- 
 lect or emotions ? 
 
 9. Is there any real antagonism between politeness 
 and sincerity ? 
 
 10. Does the reward system exert a beneficial or a 
 degrading influence upon the character of the child ? 
 
 11. Would abundant sympathy tend to destroy or to 
 promote self -consciousness in a sensitive child ? 
 
 12. What would you do to awaken a child's conscience 
 when there seems to be no realization of wrong, his 
 only desire being to keep from detection or punishment ? 
 
 (114) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 13. How far should the same methods be applied to 
 Sunday school as to day school methods ? 
 
 14. In arranging school programs should reasoning 
 lessons or memory lessons come first ? 
 
 15. Which comes first educationally, the root or the 
 flower ? A knowledge of how the world was made or of 
 what the world is ? 
 
 16. Why should children of six years not generally be 
 put into the same class with children of ten ? 
 
 17. When is a teacher misled by a child's attitude of 
 delight or interest ? 
 
 18. Which is the natural condition of the young child, 
 belief or skepticism ? 
 
 19. Is it possible to secure a child's cooperation, yet 
 at the same time retain authority over him ? 
 
 20. Why do some children have good physical and 
 intellectual control and yet lack prudence ? May this 
 condition be attributed to poor health, impulse, inability 
 to realize ideals, or home or school government ? 
 
 21. Do children's savings-banks tend to develop 
 instincts of miserliness or of ultimate generosity ? 
 
 22. Does the cultivation of the esthetic instinct exert 
 a beneficial effect upon the morals of children ? 
 
 23. Do modern educational methods which tend to 
 smooth the way for children promote the most robust 
 development of their powers ? 
 
 24. Is antagonism essential to achievement ? How 
 would you apply this point in child development ? 
 
 25. What place has symbolism in the education of the 
 child ? 
 
 26. Why are optimism and enthusiasm such potent 
 factors in child development ? 
 
 (115) 
 
Topics for Special Papers 
 and for Open Discussion 
 
 i. Which is the stronger factor in child development, 
 heredity or environment ? Can one counteract the other ? 
 
 2. What evidence is there, if any, that literature be- 
 yond the child's plane of experience is beneficial ? 
 
 3. Is it advisable to teach the Santa Claus myth to 
 children ? 
 
 4. How far would you eliminate the cruel and re- 
 pulsive from children's literature ? 
 
 5. The border line between imagination and untruth. 
 How should it be treated ? 
 
 6. Are fairy tales beneficial or harmful to the mental 
 and moral development of childhood ? 
 
 7. How may the best mind expansion be gained with 
 the least disturbance of the physical equilibrium ? 
 
 8. How far has mere memorizing a part in mental 
 development ? 
 
 9. The sense of humor in children. 
 
 10. Character building. 
 
 11. Indications of genius. 
 
 12. The children of the poor. 
 
 13. The child's Sunday. 
 
 14. Vacation study. 
 
 15. The subconscious self. 
 
 16. Children's reading. 
 
 17. The home church. 
 
 18. Practical methods of overcoming fear, contradic- 
 toriness and disrespect. 
 
 (116) 
 
SUPPLEMENTARY BOOKS 
 
 Recommended for this course by 
 
 MARGARET E. SANGSTER 
 
 Gentle Measures in the Management and 
 Training of the Young. By Jacob Abbott. 
 
 Although this book is thirty years old it still remains 
 one of the best popular books ever written on the 
 subject of personal child training in the home. Its 
 keynote may be said to be authority , and the 
 general strain is that of the maintenance of parental 
 authority by measures which are calming and quiet- 
 ing, or pleasurably exciting, rather than by those 
 which inflame and irritate, or are painfully exciting. 
 It is sound in principle, thoroughly interesting, as 
 well as informing and stimulating. 
 
 From the Child's Standpoint. By Florence 
 
 Hull Winterburn. 
 
 Here is good sense, strongly put. " A series of little 
 studies or sketches, woven together by a slight thread, 
 in which I have tried to relate, as the child's spokes- 
 man, some of his ideas, feelings and needs." 
 
 A Study of a Child. By Louise E. Hogan. 
 
 A mother's unclassified record or diary of the first 
 eight years of her child's life. Parts of it show, quite 
 unconsciously to herself, what a discerning mother 
 the author was. She understood principles, had the 
 character to stand by them, and learned from her 
 own mistakes. 
 
 (ii7) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 Child Culture in the Home. By Martha B. 
 
 Mosher. 
 
 Essays on the home training of children ; charac- 
 terized by common sense and unusual discernment. 
 The subjects of heredity and environment are well 
 handled. 
 
 Studies in Home and Child Life. By Mrs. 
 
 S. M. I. Henry. 
 
 Readable essays, or discussions on topics appropriate 
 to the title. Strongly religious in impulse, with fre- 
 quent reference to Scripture as authority and as 
 illustration. 
 
 GENERAL REFERENCE LIST. 
 
 Children's Rights. By Kate Douglas Wiggin and 
 Nora A. Smith. 
 
 A number of essays on various topics suggested by 
 the title. Three of them are by Nora A. Smith. 
 These sisters are, as is well known, accomplished 
 kindergartners and both write incisively. A good 
 book for those whose attention has never been espe- 
 cially called to the fact that the child has rights and 
 suffers wrongs at the hands of those who love him. 
 
 Love and Law in Child Training. By 
 
 Emilie Poulsson. 
 
 Parents who claim to love their children do not 
 always know how to subject themselves to law in 
 order that they may rightly lay down law to their 
 children. This book is intended to help mothers in 
 
 (>i8) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 this predicament. The chapters on the Santa Claus 
 question handle this troublesome problem with a 
 degree of philosophical understanding and sanity 
 savoring of finality. 
 
 Two Children of the Foothills. By Elizabeth 
 
 Harrison. 
 
 It may fairly be said that this book is without a par- 
 allel in educational literature. The circumstances 
 out of which it grew are unique. An expert kinder- 
 gartner with a companion spending a year in the 
 foothills of California, having occasional oversight of 
 two children who knew nothing of social life, made 
 a complete demonstration of the fundamental truths 
 in Froebel's Mother Play. The tact, delicacy, dis- 
 crimination, insight, balance and fidelity to the prin- 
 ciple of unhindered self-activity, resulted in an 
 unmistakable endorsement of the principles of the 
 Froebelian system. Some knowledge of the Mother 
 Play will help to a better understanding of this 
 book which, although a true record, reads with the 
 fascination of romance. 
 
 Letters to a Mother. By Susan E. Blow. 
 
 The exposition of some fundamental principles of 
 Froebel's Mother Play written in the form of letters 
 addressed to a mother, by the greatest living ex- 
 ponent of the kindergarten and the Froebelian system 
 of educational philosophy and practice. Although 
 these chapters are in epistolary form they are from 
 the philosophical point of view profound and funda- 
 mental, and from the literary point of view brilliant, 
 eloquent and inspiring. Fascinating as they are 
 
 (119) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 they cannot be read without much thinking, and 
 their full value can be appreciated only by one who 
 has more or less acquaintance with Froebel's Mother 
 Play. 
 
 Children's Ways. By James Sully. 
 
 A shorter and more popular treatment of the same 
 general kind as the Studies of Childhood by the same 
 author. Abstruse discussions have been cut out and 
 technical language in large degree dropped. New 
 matter, however, has been added, thus making it 
 virtually a new work. It is full of illustrative inci- 
 dent drawn from many sources and is interesting 
 to the degree of being entertaining, yet seriously 
 instructive. The author is a distinguished English 
 psychologist. 
 
 The Contents of Children's Minds. By G. 
 
 Stanley Hall. 
 
 Results of experiments conducted by Dr. Hall on 
 many Boston school children in order to arrive at 
 some definite knowledge of children's conceptions of 
 things which are matters of every-day commonplace 
 to the average adult. 
 
 Hints on Child Training. By H. Clay Trum- 
 bull. 
 
 Child training and child study are so closely allied 
 that consideration of the one more or less involves 
 consideration of the other. This book is written 
 from the trainer's point of view with rare insight, 
 sound sense and practical wisdom. It consists of 
 thirty chapters, brief, pointed, with abundant illus- 
 tration. 
 
 (.20) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 Talks to Teachers on Psychology, and to 
 Students on Some of Life's Ideals. By 
 
 William James. 
 
 These lectures by one of the most eminent psychol- 
 ogists of our day have a high literary quality and are 
 delightful reading. 
 
 Biography of a Baby. By Milicent W. Shinn. 
 
 A scientifically exact yet popularly written biography 
 of a baby during its first year. Miss Shinn is the 
 baby's aunt, but this does not bias her view. Scien- 
 tifically, the story turns mainly on the study of 
 muscle sense with sight, and muscle sense with touch, 
 and then a re-combination of the two. The mouth 
 and not the hand is the primitive touch organ. Miss 
 Shinn's inferences are thoroughly independent and 
 she makes many of them practical. Many a mother 
 will read the book for its fascination as a story, 
 even though she be unable to fathom its full sig- 
 nificance. The literary style is strong, clear and 
 fascinating, with a more or less constant twinkle of 
 humor. 
 
 Concerning Children. By Charlotte Perkins Gil- 
 man. 
 
 Radical and vigorous in style. The discussion of 
 the nurse-maid and the neighborhood oversight of 
 children is suggestive. Especially noteworthy is 
 the chapter on « The Respect Due to Youth." 
 
 A Mother's Ideals. By Andrea Hofer Proudfoot. 
 Mrs. Proudfoot is a mother who was for years a 
 practical kindergartner. She, therefore, strongly 
 
 (.21) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 advocates professional motherhood. She discusses 
 marriage, the family and womanhood essentially 
 from the point of view of the mother. 
 
 Bits of Talk About Home Matters. By 
 
 Helen Hunt Jackson. 
 
 Worth reading through, but especially the three 
 chapters on the "Inhumanities of Parents." The 
 chapter on " Breaking the Will " is perhaps the most 
 noted. Those on "The Awkward Age," "A Day 
 with a Courteous Mother " and " Boys Not Allowed " 
 are of great practical value as well as of high literary 
 quality. 
 
 Mental Development of the Child. By w. 
 
 Preyer. 
 
 Preyer was one of the earliest scientific students of 
 the child. He makes imitation the first sure sign of 
 the development of the will. Notwithstanding his 
 scientific point of view, he believes that the observa- 
 tion of mental development in the earliest years 
 naturally falls to a mother, and his book is written 
 mainly with the object of initiating mothers into 
 the complicated science of psychogenesis. 
 
 The Physical Nature of the Child. By Stuart 
 
 H. Rowe. 
 
 While many other good books on child study include 
 discussion of the child's physical nature, this dock 
 confines itself to it. The book revolves about the 
 two basal facts that action is the first law of growth, 
 and that individuals vary in their mental and physical 
 capabilities. An untechnical treatise, valuable alike 
 to parents, teachers and those in charge of orphan- 
 ages and other charities for children. 
 
 (122) 
 
A Course in Child Study 
 
 The Study of Children. By Francis Warner. 
 Dr. Warner examined one hundred thousand English 
 school children on a fixed plan. He advocates keep- 
 ing the psychological methods distinct from the 
 physical. In the physical study of brain action and 
 bodily conditions we should describe simply what we 
 see, and employ no terms implying results of con- 
 sciousness and states of feeling. Popularly valuable, 
 as teaching how to observe a child, what to look for, 
 the points to look at, and what may be seen. Direc- 
 tions for observing and describing are explicit. 
 Descriptions of types are given. The chapter on 
 adolescence is important. 
 
 The Nervous System of the Child. By 
 
 Francis Warner. 
 
 Especially noteworthy are the ten general characters 
 of brain action. The book is largely hygienic in 
 purport, from the indications of fatigue or brain 
 defect all the way to the making of a bill of fare. 
 The book is mainly for teachers, though not exclu- 
 sively so. 
 
 The Development of the Child. By Nathan 
 
 Oppenheim. 
 
 The keynote of this book may be said to be nutri- 
 tion, in the large sense. The first two chapters are 
 a valuable professional demonstration of the import- 
 ant fact that the child is not an "adult in small." 
 It is an arraignment of those methods which force 
 on the undeveloped organism the things which belong 
 to adulthood, from the medical expert's point of 
 
 (123) 
 
The Booklovers Reading Club 
 The Story of a Sand Pile. By G. Stanley 
 
 Hall. 
 
 An exceedingly valuable little brochure by the lead- 
 ing American exponent of scientific child study. It 
 gives an account of the way in which some boys at 
 play in a large sand pile worked out life problems. 
 Brimful of vital suggestion. 
 
 How John and I Brought up the Child. 
 
 By Elizabeth Grinnell. 
 
 A very suggestive record of the training of a child 
 to manhood. Written in a frank, racy, vivacious, 
 winning way. It shows both the discrimination and 
 the mistakes of parents, not through abstract dis- 
 cussions but in a concrete form. 
 
 Your Little Brother James. By Caroline H. 
 
 Pemberton. 
 
 A story, founded on fact, of the rescue of a child 
 from vicious surroundings. Written with rare artis- 
 tic power, it demonstrates the insignificance of hered- 
 ity in the formation of character. 
 
 The Story of a Child. By Pierre Loti. 
 
 Among all books of personal reminiscence of child- 
 hood this may be said to stand alone. Loti has the 
 power of taking his original childish point of view 
 in a very wonderful degree. This reminiscence car- 
 ries him from his earliest recollections, about his 
 third year, up to his fifteenth. It is often pathetic 
 and always subtle and exquisite. 
 
 (124) 
 
Twenty-Five Reading Courses 
 
 No. i— PROBLEMS IN MODERN DEMOCRACY 
 
 Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this 
 course are ex-President Cleveland; Woodrow Wilson, Professor 
 of Politics, Princeton University ; Henry J. Ford, author of Rise 
 and Growth of American Politics; and Henry D. Lloyd, author 
 of Neivest England. The books for the course are selected 
 by Mr. Cleveland. 
 
 No. 2— MODERN MASTERS OF MUSIC 
 
 Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this 
 course are Reginald de Koven, Dr. W. S. B. Mathews, editor of 
 Music ; James G. Huneker, editor of Musical Courier ; Henry 
 E. Krehbiel, musical critic New York Tribune; and Gustave 
 Kobbe", author of Wagner's Life and Works. The most attrac- 
 tive reading course ever offered to lovers of music. 
 
 No. 3— RAMBLINGS AMONG ART CENTRES 
 
 Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this 
 course are F. Hopkinson Smith, Dr. John C. Van Dyke, Dr. 
 John La Farge, President of the Society of American Artists ; 
 Kenyon Cox and Dr. Russell Sturgis. The handbook is 
 attractively illustrated. Mr. Smith and Dr. Van Dyke are 
 responsible for selecting the books to be read. 
 
 No. 4— AMERICAN VACATIONS IN EUROPE 
 
 This course is the next best thing to going abroad oneself. 
 Among the contributors to the handbook are Frank R. Stockton, 
 Jeannette L. Gilder, editor of The Critic; Mrs. Schuyler Crown- 
 mshield and George Ade. The handbook has a fine portrait 
 frontispiece. 
 
 No. 5— A STUDY OF SIX NEW ENGLAND CLASSICS 
 
 The books for this course are selected by Dr. Edward 
 Everett Hale. Among the contributors to the handbook are 
 Dr. Hale, Julian Hawthorne, Mrs. James T. Fields and Dr. 
 Edward Waldo Emerson. Dr. Emerson is a son of Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson. This is one of the most attractive courses in the 
 entire series. 
 
 No. 6- SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLISH KINGS 
 
 The plays are selected for this course by H. Beerbohm 
 Tree, the well-known English actor, and the books to be read 
 in connection with the plays are selected by Sir Henry 
 
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The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 Irving. Among the other contributors to the handbook are Prof. 
 Edward Dowden, acknowledged the greatest Shakespearean 
 scholar of Great Britain, Dr. Hiram Corson, of Cornell Univer- 
 sity; Dr. William J. Rolfe and Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie. The 
 handbook is very attractively illustrated. 
 
 No. 7— CHARLES DICKENS: HIS LIFE AND WORK 
 
 Among the contributors to the delightful handbook accompany- 
 ing this course are George W. Cable, the well-known novelist; 
 Irving Bacheller, author of Eden Ho/den; Andrew Lang, the 
 distinguished English writer ; Amelia E. Barr, the novelist ; and 
 James L. Hughes, author of Dickens as an Educator. The 
 books to be read are selected by Mr. Cable and Mr. 
 Bacheller. The handbook is beautifully illustrated. 
 
 No. 8— CHILD STUDY FOR MOTHERS AND TEACHERS 
 
 Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this 
 course are Margaret E. Sangster, Nora Archibald Smith, Anne 
 Emilie Poulson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Lucy Wheelock 
 and Kate Gannett Wells. Mrs. Sangster selects the books to be 
 read. 
 
 No. 9— INDUSTRIAL QUESTIONS OF THE DAY 
 
 The following distinguished writers on economic problems 
 contribute to the handbook accompanying this course : Presi- 
 dent Jacob Gould Schurman, of Cornell University ; Jeremiah 
 Whipple Jenks, Professor of Political Science, Cornell University ; 
 Richard Theodore Ely, Director of the School of Economics, 
 Political Science and History, University of Wisconsin ; Sidney 
 Webb, Lecturer London School of Economics and Political 
 Science, Member London County Council ; and Carroll Davidson 
 Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor. 
 
 No. io— FLORENCE IN ART AND LITERATURE 
 
 Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this 
 course are William Dean Howells, Dr. Russell Sturgis, Frank 
 Preston Stearns, author of Midsummer of Italian Art, Life oj 
 Tintoretto, etc.; Dr. William Henry Goodyear, Curator Fine Arts 
 Museum of Brooklyn Institute; and Lewis Frederick Pilcher, 
 Professor of Art, Vassar College. The handbook has some 
 attractive illustrations. 
 
 No. ii— STUDIES OF EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS 
 
 The books have been selected specially for this course by the 
 Rt. Hon. James Bryce, of the English House of Commons, and 
 the Hon. Andrew D. White, United States Ambassador to Ger- 
 
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The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 many. Among the other contributors to the handbook are Jesse 
 Macy, Professor of Constitutional History and Political Science, 
 Iowa College; and John William Burgess, Professor of Political 
 Science and Constitutional Law, and Dean of the Faculty of 
 Political Science, Columbia University. 
 
 No. 12— FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this 
 course are Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Margaret Deland 
 and Charlotte Brewster Jordan. The handbook has several 
 very interesting illustrations. 
 
 No. 13— THE MODERN CITY AND ITS PROBLEMS 
 
 Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this 
 course are Dr. Frederic W. Speirs ; Dr. Albert Shaw, editor 
 of The Review of Reviews ; Bird S. Coler, Comptroller of the 
 City of New York, author of Municipal Government; and Charles 
 J. Bonaparte, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the 
 National Municipal League. The books are selected by Dr. 
 Speirs. 
 
 No. 14— STUDIES IN APPLIED ELECTRICITY 
 
 This is without exception the most attractive and the most 
 helpful reading course ever offered to students of electricity. 
 Thomas A. Edison selects the books specially for these studies. 
 Among the other contributors to the handbook are Dr. Edwin 
 J. Houston, Dr. Elihu Thomson, Carl Hering, Ex-President of 
 the American Institute of Electrical Engineers ; and Arthur V. 
 Abbott, Chief Engineer of the Chicago Telephone Company. 
 
 No. 15— FIVE WEEKS' STUDY OF ASTRONOMY 
 
 Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this 
 course are Charles A. Young, Professor of Astronomy, Prince- 
 ton University ; Sir Robert S. Ball, Professor of Astronomy, 
 Cambridge University, and Director of Cambridge Observa- 
 tory, England; Camille Flammarion, founder of the As- 
 tronomical Society of France, and author of Marvels of the 
 Heavens, Astronomy, etc.; George C. Comstock, Director of 
 Washburn Observatory, University of Wisconsin ; and Harold 
 Jacoby, Professor of Astronomy, Columbia University. The 
 study programme includes contributions from the most famous 
 astronomers of England and France. 
 
 No. 16— RECENT ENGLISH DRAMATISTS 
 
 Lovers of the best modern dramas will find much pleasure in 
 these studies. Among the contributors to the handbook are 
 Brander Matthews, Professor of Literature, Columbia University; 
 
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The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 Dr. William Winter, Dramatic Critic for the New York Tribune ; 
 Dr. Harry Thurston Peck, Editor of The Bookman; Louise 
 Chandler Moulton ; and Norman Hapgood, the well-known 
 writer of dramatic criticism. The handbook has some interest- 
 ing illustrations. 
 
 No. 17— STUDIES IN CURRENT RELIGIOUS THOUGHT 
 
 The books are chosen for the course by Dr. Lyman Abbott 
 and Dr. Washington Gladden. Among the contributors to 
 the handbook are Dr. Samuel D. McConnell, Rector of Holy 
 Trinity Church, Brooklyn ; President William DeWitt Hyde, of 
 Bowdoin College ; Dr. Amory H. Bradford, Editor of The 
 Outlook ; Dr. Henry Collin Minton, of San Francisco Theological 
 Seminary, late Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly ; 
 Dr. H. W. Thomas, Pastor of the People's Church, Chicago; 
 and Dr. Theodore T. Munger, Pastor of the United Congrega- 
 tional Church, New Haven. For clergymen and laymen who 
 wish to stimulate the growth of a theology which is in harmony 
 with the best thought of the time we recommend this handbook 
 and this reading course. 
 
 No. 18— THE GREATER VICTORIAN POETS 
 
 The books are selected for this course by Thomas Bailey 
 Aldrich. Among the other contributors to the handbook are 
 Thomas R. Lounsbury, Professor of English, Yale University; 
 Dr. T. M. Parrott, of Princeton University ; and Marie Ada Moli- 
 neux, author of The Phrase Book of Browning. 
 
 No. 19— OUT-OF-DOOR AMERICANS 
 
 Among the contributors to the handbook accompanying this 
 course are John Burroughs, Ernest Seton-Thompson, President 
 David Starr Jordan, of the Leland Stanford Junior University ; 
 Ernest Ingersoll and Hamlin Garland. Lovers of nature will 
 find delight in the outlines and recommendations of this course. 
 
 No. 20— THE WORLD'S GREAT WOMAN NOVELISTS 
 
 Mrs. Humphry Ward, the well-known English novelist, is the 
 first contributor to the handbook accompanying this course. 
 The other contributors are Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Mary 
 E. Wilkins, Agnes Repplier, Katherine Lee Bates, Professor of 
 English, Wellesley College; and Oscar Fay Adams. The hand- 
 book contains some interesting illustrations. 
 
 No. 21— AMERICAN FOUNDATION HISTORY 
 
 Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge selects the books for this course. 
 Among the other contributors are Albert Bushnell Hart, Pro- 
 fessor of American History, Harvard University ; John Bach 
 
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The Booklovers Reading Club 
 
 McMaster, Professor of American History, University of Penn- 
 sylvania ; Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of the State Histori- 
 cal Society of Wisconsin, author of The Colonies ; Paul Leicester 
 Ford, author of Janice Meredith; and Andrew Cunningham 
 McLaughlin, Professor of American History, University of 
 Michigan. 
 
 No. 22— STUDIES IN AMERICAN LITERARY LIFE 
 
 Professor Barrett Wendell and Professor Lewis E. Gates, of 
 Harvard, and Dr. Horace E. Scudder, late editor of The Atlantic 
 Monthly, contribute to the handbook accompanying this course. 
 For a brief stimulative and instructive course in American litera- 
 ture nothing better could possibly be offered. 
 
 No. 23— STUDIES IN RECENT FRENCH FICTION 
 
 Alcee Fortier, Professor of Romance Languages, Tulane 
 University of Louisiana, has chosen the books for this reading 
 course. Among the contributors to the handbook are the three 
 distinguished French writers, Edouard Rod, Ferdinand Bru- 
 netiere and Paul Bourget, and the notable American critic, 
 Dr. Benjamin W. Wells, author of Modern French Literature and 
 A Century of French Literature. 
 
 No. 24— THE ENGLISH BIBLE : HOW WE GOT IT 
 
 The contributors to this course include President William R 
 Harper, of the University of Chicago ; John Franklin Genung, 
 Professor of Rhetoric, Amherst College ; William Newton Clarke, 
 Professor of Christian Theology, Colgate University; and Richard 
 G. Moulton, Professor of English Literature, University of 
 Chicago. The handbook is a very interesting and instructive 
 volume in itself. 
 
 No. 25— THE MECHANISM OF 
 
 PRESENT DAY COMMERCE 
 
 In Preparation. The books are selected by the Hon. Lyman 
 J. Gage, Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
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