" It is
well for us to take these words home and act upon them.
It is worth the trouble to inquire whether it is possible to select
subjects for school study which will prove essentially attractive and
interesting from the age of six on. _Are_ there materials for school
study which are adapted fully to interest first grade children? We
know that fairy stories appeal directly to them, and they love to
reproduce them. Reading and spelling in connection with these tales
are also stirring studies. Reading a familiar story is certainly a
much more interesting employment than working at the almost meaningless
sentences of a chart or first reader. Number work when based upon
objects can be made to hold the attention of little ones, at least in
the last half of the first grade. They love also to see and describe
flowers, rocks, plants, and pictures. It probably requires more
skillful teaching to awaken and hold the interest in the first grade
than in the second or any higher grade, unless older children have been
dulled by bad instruction. On what principle is it possible to select
both interesting and valuable materials for the successive grades? We
will venture to answer this difficult question.
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