CHAPTER VII.
ACTIVITY AND EXPRESSION.
1. Boys ever delight in being occupied in something, for their youthful blood does not allow them to be at rest.[1] Now as this is very useful, it ought not to be restrained, but provision made that they may always have something to do. Let them be like ants, continually occupied in doing something, carrying, drawing, construetion, and transposing, provided always that whatever they do be done prudently. They ought to be assisted, by showing them the forms of all things, even of playthings; for they cannot yet be occupied in real works, and we should play with them. We read that Themistocles, supreme ruler of the Athenians, was once seen riding with his son on a long reed as a horse, by a young unmarried citizen; and observing that he wondered how so great a man could act so childishly, he begged of him not to relate the incident to any one until he himself had a son,—thus indicating that when he became a father, he would be better able to understand the affection of parents for their children, and that he would cease to be surprised at the conduct which now seemed to him childish.[2]
- ↑ The regulation of the spontaneous activity of children, a cardinal principle in the Kindergarten, is here suggested. Its founder wrote: “Be this especially noted with reference to unfolding and improving natural activity in the production of outward results; that is, to foster industry—love of bodily work.”
- ↑ Emerson observes: “Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored
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