The important thing to know is the kind of help that should be given, and when and how it is needed.  It is well to remember that in this connection a child’s limitations are not final, but only mark stages:  for example, in his early attempts to use thick cardboard he cannot discover the neat hinge that is made by the process known as a “half-cut”; he tries in vain to bend the cardboard, so as to secure the same result.  There are two ways of helping him:  either he can be quite definitely shown and made to imitate, or he can be set to think about it; he is given a cardboard knife and allowed to experiment:  if he fails, it may be suggested that a clean edge can only be got by some form of cutting; probably he will find out the rest of the process.  The second method is the better one, because it promotes thinking, while the first only promotes pure imitation and the habit of reckoning on this easy solution of difficulties.  A dull child may have to be shown, but there are few such children, unless they have been trained to dulness.

Imitation is not, however, always a medicine for dulness, nor does it always produce dulness.  There is a time for imitation and there is a kind of imitation that is very intelligent.  For example, a child may come across a toy aeroplane and wish to make one; he will examine it carefully, think over the uses of parts and proceed to make one as like it as possible:  here again is the maximum of consciousness, the essence of thinking.  Or the imitation may consist in following verbal directions:  this is far from easy if the teacher is at all vague, and promotes valuable effort if she is clear but not diffuse:  the putting of words into action necessitates a considerable amount of imagining, and the establishment of very important associations in brain centres.  Such cases might occur in connection with weaving, cardboard and paper work, or the more technical processes of drawing and painting, where race experience is actually given to a child, by means of which he leaps over the experiences of centuries.  This is progress.

If a teacher is to take handwork seriously, and not as a pretty recreation with pleasing results, she should be fully conscious of all that it means, and apply this definitely in her work:  it is so easy to be trivial while appearing to be thorough by having well-finished work produced, which has necessitated little hard thinking on the child’s part.  Construction gives a sense of power, a strengthening of the will, ability to concentrate on a purpose in learning, a social sense of serviceableness, a deepened individuality:  but this can only be looked for if a child is allowed to approach it in the right way, first as an experimenter and investigator, or as an artist, and afterwards as a learner, who is also an individual, and learns in his own way and at his own rate:  but if the teacher’s ambition is external and economic then the child is a tool in her hands, and will remain a tool.  We cannot expect the fruits of the spirit if our goal is a material one.