Cultivating a Scientific Mind. Science is concerned with causes and effects, laws and principles of action, systematic classification of facts, exact knowledge of facts. A scientific habit of mind is developed in the little child by encouraging curiosity, exploration, experimenting, collecting, questioning; by consistent parental action and discipline, honesty and sincerity in statements, the answering of questions so as to provoke further thought.

Usually a child needs little stimulus to interest in natural science. Everything in the world is new to him. The baby is interested in every object he can touch, in shining or moving objects. The toddler is interested in moving things, especially animals, trains, clocks; in sticks, stones, and leaves because he can use them. The little child from three to six is interested in sun, moon, and stars, in day and darkness, in rain, snow, wind, in flowers and trees, as well as in animals and birds. Natural, spontaneous questions regarding the biological origin and development of life are asked between three and eight, and this is the period especially recommended for teaching the child of the mother’s part in his prenatal care, and the value of the father’s share, and thereby fostering his wholesome attitude of gratitude, and his respect for all motherhood and fatherhood. At four or five, rivers, lakes, hills, valleys, the time of day, attract his attention. Processes of mechanics, filling and emptying, pouring, pulleys, wheels, are matters of keen interest from early in his second year.

There is an early stage when he asks “What?” meaning what is its name. Later comes the “Why?” which is a search for physical causes and reasons, and also for philosophical reasons.

Learning the Fundamental Facts. The teacher of the very little child must first know what are the fundamental facts in science. Too often the traditional school training has given an intensive acquaintance with one or two sciences, so detailed that the fundamental foundations are obscured. The teacher of the very little child needs, instead, a comprehensive knowledge of many sciences, in their broad basic outlines,—especially physics, chemistry, nature-study, biology, physical geography, geology, astronomy, industrial geography and industrial processes, the story of primitive life and industries.

Nature Study That is Worth While. Moreover, her knowledge should not be purely impersonal; it must be human, poetic, related to industry and religion. The sense of wonder and of nurture is strong in the little child. He is more interested in feeding and caring for his rabbits or goldfish or flowers than in analyzing them, or describing their form or color; the latter are merely incidental in his interest, and they should be in his teaching. On the other hand, his knowledge of form, color, and such abstract qualities may well come quite naturally and incidentally through nature-study and handwork rather than through special apparatus, separated from real objects and life.

Geography. This comes naturally through his personal experiences. Maps, diagrams, globes, are complex and abstract and symbolic; they belong somewhere after six years, with most children not before nine years. The child must have arrived at the stage when he can think in terms of symbols, before he can really interpret them. It will do no harm to have a globe where he may see it, but it would be a fallacy to consider that he can really interpret it, and a mistake to attempt using it until he has grasped the idea of the bigness of the earth on which he lives. Maps will not be interpretable until later. He may point to places on the map, but without appreciation of their meaning. Somewhere between six and ten years of age he may begin making a “map” of the imaginary country he has built in the sand box, with rivers, lakes, cities; or of the room, locating the articles of furniture; or of the street, locating the houses, sidewalks, telegraph poles, first drawing freehand, and when more advanced, drawing to scale. At three or four years, with his sand pile, he can reproduce forms he has seen—hills, valleys, rivers, lakes. He will want to use real water for rivers. It is well to let him experiment with this until he is dissatisfied because of its disappearance, and then look for play substitutes,—gray, blue, or green yarn, paper or cloth, mica. It is more important that it should be representative to him than to his elders.

Real geography comes through seeing places and people. The little child under five or six belongs naturally in the country, where he has the opportunity for acquaintance with physical geography in many forms. Great variety of natural objects and experiences should be provided. On the other hand, intensive acquaintance with only a few people or nationalities is better. After four or five years of age, he is able to stand the excitement of traveling, and the risk of dust and crowds, and he is ready to profit by seeing other people, cities, customs, ways of traveling, industries. The least journey to a new environment is valuable, to enlarge his perspective and his sympathies. Even at three or four he likes to see pictures of other children in other countries, and how they live,—their houses, clothes, food, toys, pets. Especially is he attracted by stories of primitive, outdoor life. The story of Hiawatha, in Longfellow’s original, is well adapted to the sixth year, and some children love it and enjoy it earlier.

Dolls may be dressed to represent children of different lands. The sand box may be used to represent tropical, arctic, mountainous, agricultural, fishing, mining countries and scenes. Scrapbooks can be made for each country, with pictures from magazines, railroad or steamship folders, post cards. Foreign magazines may be obtained, in the east, through Brentano’s (New York). Correspondence could easily be arranged with a child in some foreign country if not through personal acquaintances, at least through some foreign school, mission, society, or consul. Early acquaintance with the children of other countries cultivates a feeling of sympathy that is the foundation of world fellowship and international peace. If there is opportunity to learn a few colloquial sentences in some of these languages, this will still further deepen the child’s sympathy. After six years, when his interest in collecting is strong, foreign stamps, flags, emblems, flowers, pictures, will be as keenly interesting to him as cigar labels or other inconsequential but glittering objects.

Industries. Let him see as many as possible of the forms of industry, especially the primitive simple forms, such as gardening, farming, care of animals, horse-shoeing, baking, sewing. He should go often to the grocery store (not during the busy hours) to see the different kinds of foods. Better yet, he should see some of these vegetables and fruits growing, the wheat and corn standing in the fields. He should see the ploughing, planting, weeding, harvesting; the feeding and the milking of the cow; the hauling and preparation of fuels. Little comment is necessary beyond remarking how everything that we eat or wear has come to us because other people have worked hard to make it grow, or to bring it or prepare it for us, and therefore we owe our thanks to all who have worked for our comfort. Thus from his own experience he may know and appreciate the postman who brings the letters, the fireman who hurries to put out the fire, the policeman who helps us across the crowded street and watches night and day to keep us protected from harm and danger, the street-sweeper and sprinkler who keep the streets clean, the man who brings the coal or wood or groceries, the street-car conductor and motorman, the engineer and fireman on the train that takes us about the country or brings the freight.

Through gratitude for the hard work that others do for him he will also learn to respect all labor, even though it does cause dirty hands and faces and clothes, and he will naturally infer that it is his duty to do his share and to work also for others.

History. Children, like savages, are historically nearsighted; they have not yet the experience to appreciate historic time; every event is located near the present, and their interest in history is more or less fictitious and artificial. This is the period for the great myths, for imagination now exceeds experience, and any adventure is credible.

There comes a time, about six years of age, when children begin to ask for a “true” story, meaning a realistic story, historically true. Then is the opportunity to recount the experiences of mothers and children, as well as of brothers and fathers, in other times. Nor need these be limited to his own country or modern times. “Once upon a time” or “A long, long time ago” is somewhere back in a vague sometime; yesterday or a million years ago are not yet spaced in his mind. This sense of time-duration may be developed by calling attention to it in his experience, for the two-year-old, day and night; in the fourth year, morning and afternoon, yesterday, to-day and to-morrow, seasons; in the fifth year, the days of the week and the months of the year will begin to have significance and sequence; in the sixth year, “last Christmas”, “next Fourth of July”, the date of this year, and the marking of duration, under various circumstances, of a minute, an hour, a day.

Of course, the little child will not be able to distinguish between different nations or races of the past; it is all one to him. This fact is easily overlooked by the eager teacher, who has so long since classified historic data in her own mind. This historical appreciation does not develop until the early teens.

For these reasons, it is good pedagogy to let the first historical stories be of the country in which the child lives. Historic sequence in the telling of these anecdotes is of slight importance.

Since so much of written history has hitherto been military and political, it is easy to fall into the error of telling stories of military experiences, especially wars and battles. In the light of modern developments, the superficialness and, for the child, the misleading effect of the usual military story should be clearly evident. It should not be made the ideal, nor a substitute for the adventure, courage, heroism, which the child craves and admires. The teacher’s responsibility is to find historic tales of those who served their fellowmen by constructive bravery and venture,—life-saving, exploring, inventing. Even a simple, homely incident in the life of a noteworthy historical character will be an introduction to deeper acquaintance later. In American history, Columbus, the Pilgrims, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, Eli Whitney, Edison, are a few examples. Stories from English history easily relate themselves to the little child’s vision. The childhood of noteworthy men and women furnishes many stories for this age period.

The teacher needs to beware of the fallacy of reading to children or telling to them things which they can learn through their own experience, experimenting, or observation. Many informational books of this kind are at hand, both in science and history. The temptation often is strong, especially for the teacher who is eager that the child shall learn much, and who has not clearly distinguished between mere erudition, encyclopedic accumulation of facts and, on the other hand, the vital, living experiences of life, with the growing power to observe, interpret, and enjoy for one’s self. The latter is dynamic, the way of wisdom.

Where museums or historical collections are available, there is a great educational opportunity, although much of the material is dead and unrelated to its natural situation.

Mathematics. The elements of arithmetic and geometry have but a slight place in the life or interest of the little child. At five or six he may begin to count objects, but his capacity is limited. The mere memorizing of numbers, as a series of words, is of no more mathematical significance than a nonsense jingle, and is not to be encouraged until, through his interest in counting, the child has an appreciation of the concrete meaning of numbers, at least to the range of ten or twelve. Measuring, using the actual standard measures of foot, yard, pound, pint, quart, gallon, dozen, is usually of interest at six or seven years. Interest in geometric forms is naturally slight, and even this is doubtless an æsthetic, not a mathematical, interest. Teaching of geometric form is easily overdone.

Reading and Writing. These have no place, biologically, before six years, and some psychologists say they belong psychologically after eight years, in the period of interest in symbols, abstractions, and rote learning. It is known that normal children who enter school at nine years usually finish the grades with those of their own age who started three years earlier. It is evident that with a natural outdoor environment, the child will acquire a better physique, a larger acquaintance with realities, and a richer development of invention, initiative, self-expression, than he does in the schoolroom. The ancient Greeks taught only games, dancing, and music to children under nine. Doctor G. Stanley Hall, Professor Lightner Witmer, Professor Arthur Holmes, Professor Clifton E. Hodge are among the authorities advising such late introduction to the use of abstract symbols. What can be done educationally in that period from six to nine years, without teaching the three R’s, has been amply demonstrated by Mrs. Marietta Johnson in her school at Fairhope, Alabama, and at The Little School in the Woods at Greenwich, Connecticut.