Life — July 4, 1912 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AT LIFE'S FRESH AIR FARM CHEERFUL SITTERS Life’s Fresh Air Fund Jy acknowledged. Clayton Gi $4607.43 D. M. D. il Grace F, Joseph M, Low Dorothy L. Hi Cash Wm. A Read. S. Wilbur Co Mrs." John’ t. i]. Bo Hussey John, B. Phillips. . COT Miss’ Miss Mild M. BL Wo Princeton Sch Mrs. 1. H, Nelson John DB, Crimmins........2222 Mr. and Mrs. George Lawrence, Sr. CM. Be Wm, P. Civde.. THANKS I shoes. fr ACKNOWLEDCED WiTIT n Mrs Dodge, g, from Mrs. Geo. Mills, rgetown, Co! hing, from Burr Mills, rretown, C Package of clothing, from Hubert Tay! Georgetown, Conn ‘One set Atlas chains, from Atlas Chai rooklyn, N. ¥ yi Teg, inner tubes, from Howard Parketon Repairs on runabout, from Maxwell Bris: coc Company, Tarrytown, N.Y. Four recliners, from Security Reliner Com pany, Montgomery, N.Y. Seventy-two packages of shreddet wheat biscuits, Shredded Wheat Company, Nia One ad.“ Life's Farm" note heads » from “A Friend.” The Latest Teaching Fad OME time ago Dr. Montessori, a very able Italian woman, began to attract considerable attention in this country by a system for the education of defective children. She wrote a book about it and educators gencrally discussed the matter at great length, with the result that schools embodying the Montessori system of education have now been established in this country. This is in perfect alignment with our us' receptivity about any new fad which comes along; and edu- cational fads are particularly numerous, The Montessori system of teaching is based upon the utmost freedom, and just as remarkable things have been accomplished with young children as we see accomplished by animal train- ers with wholly different methods. In other words, Dr. Montessori de- velops a lot of prodigies and then ¢ hibits them to the world. A youthful prodigy is about the most useless specimen of humanity that can be evolved, and Miss Bertha C. Down- ing (who writes in the Boston Tran- script) is perfectly correct when she states : “The so-called Montessori system surely leads to an carly senility, For research tells us the precocious child does not m. good in the world. . . . Children need free- dom, but do they need a perverted pedagogy that trains them to write at the age of four years?” They certainly do not. The trouble with all the educational fads is that they miss the main point, and that is the development of character. In- formation is the cheapest thing in the world; cleverness is of no consequence unless there is a well developed will- power back of it. And no educational system has yet been devised which creates will power. This is usually a combination of heredity and hard knocks, and an educational system which endeavors to soften the process is almost sure to incubate molly- coddles. What is the Constitution > HE Constitution is one of the few formal documents without which a democracy is impossible. It proceeds on the logical theory that progress can Le made only by providing that things shall not change. It was the happy compromise of an extended wrangle by our forefathers, than whom nobody since has been wiser. The beauty about it is that it can mean almost any- thing, but it takes a Supreme Court or a majority thereof to decide what it means at a given moment. It has lasted so long and has meant so many different things that it has now become mous. THE SURVIVAL OF THE FATTEST comicbookeneen