"Don't you?"
Then I remembered the kindergarten, and the "material"
devised by Signora Montessori, and guardedly replied: "To some
extent." But most of our games, I told her, were very old--came
down from child to child, along the ages, from the remote past.
"And what is their effect?" she asked. "Do they develop the
faculties you wish to encourage?"
Again I remembered the claims made by the advocates of "sports,"
and again replied guardedly that that was, in part, the theory.
"But do the children LIKE it?" I asked. "Having things made
up and set before them that way? Don't they want the old games?"
"You can see the children," she answered. "Are yours more
contented--more interested--happier?"
Then I thought, as in truth I never had thought before, of the
dull, bored children I had seen, whining; "What can I do now?";
of the little groups and gangs hanging about; of the value of some
one strong spirit who possessed initiative and would "start something";
of the children's parties and the onerous duties of the older people
set to "amuse the children"; also of that troubled ocean of
misdirected activity we call "mischief," the foolish, destructive,
sometimes evil things done by unoccupied children.
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