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CHAPTER VI. THE STUDY. One of the most cherished hypotheses of the Caldecott Community is that a child’s hrain has a better chance of developing through individual study than through class teaching. This is commonly accepted hy educationalists, but for different reasons. The schoolmaster of to-day sighs because he cannot give his boys more individual instruction. The Directors of the Caldecott Community see that it is not the instruction given that is of most value to the child, but the work he does hy himself, in his own way, and at his own pace. Knowledge does not transmute itself into Eternal Wisdom which shall serve the child throughout his years, does not become an integral part of himself, if it is given him perforce in large quantities, merely to he tolerated or endured by his superficial intellect, while his total personality discards it as useless. If the acquirement of knowledge in some form is made a compulsory process—and even the most daring pioneers have not yet had the temerity to throw off the last shackles in this direction—we are surely in honour bound to see that it is not given, or even offered, in a form which will deaden instead of inflaming the inner consciousness. “ So many men, so many minds ” ; and with children we may add the rider 44 so many phases of those minds.’ The moods and phases of ever-changing youth are countless, and only by a constant sacrifice of our own most cherished theories can we keep pace with them. If we fail to do so we drag often apparently willing docile minds in the wake of our own ideal, but the door to their true personality remains shut to us. From its earliest days the Community has given its children the opportunity of being taught for very short intervals only, either alone or in little groups of two or three. Ibis makes possible true intercourse between teacher and taught; discussion can and does follow every obscure or controversial question; there is no time wasted labouring points which are already sufficiently clear, or m presenting ideas too far beyond the child’s comprehension. From the Nursery babies to the children of the Senior Study, each child has a separate place to fill. There is no gang labour at the Community, either in study or m manual work. There is no class standard to he lived down to, or struggled after. There is one standard for each child—the measure of his own capacity; by that he stands or falls. In the Study the competitive element, supposed in the past to be so dear to the heart of youth, is entirely lacking. Occasionally attempts