freed from the trammels of collective teaching, while still being guided and protected, the more completely and harmoniously they will develop.
It is objected that without trials and confusions no child can learn self-control and determination to persevere against obstacles, and that too harmonious a life will turn out too helpless a child. But effective self-control and perseverance come, not from the habit of being in trouble, but from character; and the Community hopes to fit its children to deal with life by giving them a real sense of their own responsibility for their own actions.
The older children in the Nursery School have begun to show how, in the Community, this inner self-reliance may be developed. There comes a time, not at any fixed age, but variously, when a baby’s whims seem to change into real continuous purposes, and that is the moment when the child begins to take up the responsibility for his own life. If at that moment he is helped and encouraged he will find his own individuality, and undergo a sort of mental conversion; he has reached “the age of reason” and is no longer a haby. After that he can face his own troubles as he meets them, and need no longer merely avoid them, and it is from this that his discipline will come.
Suppose, for example, he has begun to sew, and plans to hem a handkerchief, he will begin with boundless enthusiasm, and then, perhaps, look round and see another beginning to knit a scarf. At once the enthusiasm drops, and the handkerchief with it; he must knit a rival scarf; nothing else is of any importance. As far as rules go he can do it, and if he is still a baby it is merely cruel that he should not; handkerchief, sewing, and all would be hateful, and he would certainly prick his fingers. But, if he is a child, he can face the trouble. He must be reminded that he wanted to sew, and he will find that he still wants to have hemmed the handkerchief. The decision will still lie with him, and he will take it, finding his discipline in his own will.
As far as the experiment has gone, this inner compulsion and inner discipline have proved immeasurably superior to the conventional rules, punishments, and obediences of ordinary child life; but of course, as the children grow older, this side of their education will become more and more important, and it is precisely in this direction that the Community hopes for its most interesting results.
In discipline, just as in learning, the underlying principle of the Community will be to seek to draw out what is within, relying as little as possible upon what can be imposed from without, and believing that real education lies not so much in the finished product, as in the grip that the child has upon his own learning and his own conduct.