I saw that a change was coming directly, so I waited to watch it. The group had been working with what I should call a great deal of noise and confusion. All at once this increased tenfold. Pupils jumped over seats, ran into each other in the aisles, scurried and scampered from this place to that, while the teacher stood in the front of the room wildly waving her arms. The performance lasted several minutes. "There's spontaneity for you," the principal shouted above the roar of the storm. I acquiesced by a nod of the head,--my lungs, through lack of training, being unequal to the emergency.
We passed to another room. The same group system was in evidence. I noticed pupils who had been working at their seats suddenly put away their books and papers and skip over to the construction table. I asked concerning the nature of the construction work. "We use it," the principal told me, "as a reward for good work in the book subjects. You see arithmetic is dead and dry. You must give pupils an incentive to master it. We make the privileges of the construction table the incentive." "What do they make at this table?" I asked. "Whatever their fancy dictates," he replied. I was a little curious, however, to know how it all come out. I saw one child start to work on a basket, work at it a few minutes, then take up something else, continue a little time, go back to the basket, and finally throw both down for a third object of self-realization. I called the principal's attention to this phenomenon. "How do you get the beautiful results that you exhibit?" I asked. "For those," he said, "we just keep the pupils working on one thing until it is finished." "But," I objected, "is that consistent with the doctrine of spontaneity?" His answer was lost in the din of a change of groups, and I did not follow the investigation further.
Noon dismissal was due when I went into the corridor. Lines are forbidden in that school. At the stroke of the bell, the classroom doors burst open and bedlam was let loose. I had anticipated what was coming, and hurriedly betook myself to an alcove. I saw more spontaneity in two minutes than I had ever seen before in my life. Some boys tore through the corridors at breakneck speed and down the stairways, three steps at a time. Others sauntered along, realizing various propensities by pushing and shoving each other, snatching caps out of others' hands, slapping each other over the head with books, and various other expressions of exuberant spirits. One group stopped in front of my alcove, and showed commendable curiosity about the visitor in their midst. After exhausting his static possibilities, they tempted him to dynamic reaction by making faces; but this proving to be of no avail, they went on their way,--in the hope, doubtless, of realizing themselves elsewhere.