One of the lessons of the war is economy.  In handwork this has come to us through the quest for materials, but it has been a blessing, if now and then in disguise.  In the more formal period of handwork only prepared, almost patented material was used; everything was “requisitioned” and eager manufacturers supplied very highly finished stuff.  Not very many years ago, the keeper of a “Kindergarten” stall at an exhibition said, while pointing to cards cut and printed with outlines for sewing and pricking, “We have so many orders for these that we can afford to lay down considerable plant for their production.”  An example in another direction is that of a little girl who attended one of the best so-called Kindergartens of the time:  she was afflicted, while at home, with the “don’t know what to do” malady; her mother suggested that she might make some of the things she made at school, but she negatived that at once with the remark, “I couldn’t do that, you see, because we have none of the right kind of stuff to make them of here.”

It is quite unnecessary to give more direct details as to the kind of work suitable and the method of doing it; more than enough books of help have been published on every kind of material, and it might perhaps be well if we made less use of such terms as “clay-modelling,” “cardboard-work,” “raffia,” and took handwork more in the sense of constructive or expressive work, letting the children select one or several media for their purpose; they ought to have access to a variety of material; and except when they waste, they should use it freely.  It is limiting and unenlightened to put down a special time for the use of special material, if the end might be better answered by something else:  if modelling is at 11.30 on Monday and children are anxious to make Christmas presents, what law in heaven or earth are we obeying if we stick to modelling except the law of Red Tape.

CHAPTER XXV

EXPERIENCES OF THE LIFE OF MAN

This aspect of experience comes in two forms, the life of man in the past, with the memorials and legacies he has left, and the life of man in the present under the varying conditions of climate and all that it involves.  In other words these experiences are commonly known as history and geography, though in the earlier stages of their appearance in school it is perhaps better to call the work—­preparation for history and geography.  They would naturally appear in the transition or the junior class, preferably in the latter, but they need not be wholly new subjects to a child; his literature has prepared him for both; to some extent his experiments in handwork have prepared him for history, while his nature work, especially his excursions and records, have prepared him for geography.  That he needs this extension of experience can be seen in his growing demands for true stories, true in the more literal sense which he is coming fast to appreciate; undoubtedly most children pass through a stage of extreme literalism between early childhood and what is generally recognised as boyhood and girlhood.  They begin to ask questions regarding the past, they are interested in things from “abroad,” however vague that term may be to them.