Education and the Aim of human life

IV

The Class Work

I shall not speak of the teaching of reading, writing and counting. This teaching is started in the Kindergarten and pursued during the first two years of the school. It is a subject which has received considerable attention outside and we freely use the Montessori and other similar methods, though we do not follow strictly any one of them. The classes are small (not more than10-15 children) and there is a blending of collective teaching with individual attention: we make a large use of educational games and other devices that we owe to the ingenuity of our teacher.

It has been found preferable to have two teachers for one class, one of them giving only part of his time; the main teacher can be relieved for a few periods and at other times a division in two groups can be carried out, which is convenient for certain purposes.

We shall henceforth assume that the child has a good working knowledge of reading, writing and counting. Then only can the new system make the best of its originality and usefulness.

The work in a new class falls under three heads:

A. Collective teaching

B. Individual Work

C. Team Work.

A. Collective Teaching

In order to find out what part of the class-work can or should be done collectively, i.e., by the teacher addressing the whole class, let us first see more in detail what is the aim he has in view while speaking to his students. We must distinguish among our four types of talks:

1. The teacher speaks out his knowledge with the view to communicate it to the students, i.e., that they should accept it, try to understand it and remember all they can. This is the traditional aim of lectures - the imparting of knowledge — which, for reasons I shall just explain, we are led to reject entirely.

2. The teacher's aim is to train the ear of the students and their tongue if the talking is on both sides. This is an indispensable part of the teaching of languages and we do give it its due place here.

3. The aim is to supply a needed information. This aim is perfectly justified, but usually the need arises in one or a few students at a time and the delivery must be made to those students alone; to the others it is useless and boring. There fore, at least at school level, the resort to lectures of this type will arise rarely. For adults, the case is different, as we shall see later.

4. The teacher talks to his students with the view to give them guidance - of a specific nature and for a given work, or of a general nature, concerning their attitude, their approach to some problems of life or to some subject of study, etc. In most cases, the guidance is best given individually or to a small group. But it happens also that the group of interested Students grows to include the whole class. We shall discuss this in greater detail, and particularly the nature of the
legitimate guidance to be given - whether it should include admonition and reproach, the arousing of interest, the communication of the teacher's experience. This is a vast and difficult subject, full of subtle distinctions and I shall only give a few guiding hints. The teacher has also to build up his own experience and knowledge.

Let us first discuss the case of lecturing as a means of imparting knowledge. We have seen the strong objection taken by Sri Aurobindo against this very conception of teaching. It has also been subjected to attacks by a number of modern educationists. According to them the traditional means of teaching through lectures and collective explanations,

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followed by class-work and/or home-work, suffers from two main defects:

1. The teacher addresses the whole class. In spite of all efforts at a uniform grading, there is among the students a great diversity of talent and of nature. Even if they could be really of one single grade at the beginning of the year, this would not last long. The class contains brilliant and dull children, quick and slow, attentive and absent-minded, healthy and listless. When lecturing the teacher tries usually to reach what is called the average student - or a little above average. The brilliant ones understand quickly, almost quicker than the teacher speaks, and their mind remains partly vacant and distracted; they dislike explanations and repetitions that they do not need. This is surely not the way to keep their interest alive, to make the best use of their time and train their ability to the utmost. The duller ones follow with great effort or soon lag behind; they are constantly prodded by the teacher and accused of inattention and laziness - often quite wrongly. A child who is often scolded, by teacher or parents, gets nervous and upset; he comes to believe that he is unfit, gets discouraged and is inclined to give up the subject.

2. During all the lecture hours there is very little participation from the students. However interesting the teacher may be, the students are almost exclusively passive. And a passive mind cannot for long remain attentive. It becomes drowsy or wanders about.

What then develops in the child is the habit of remaining most of the time in a passive state, half-attentive, half-dreaming. The mind, accustomed to be spoon-fed - and spoon-fed to the brim - becomes blunt and sluggish.

It is true that some participation is requested from the students during their exercises, problems, essays, etc. whether done at home or in the class-room. But here also, except perhaps in mathematics, much attention is given to reproduction and the great incentive of discovery is practically not utilised.

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whenever a child puts a question to his teacher, what he truly needs is a specific piece of information. But what he usually gets is an avalanche of words in which the very answer to his question is lost. After a few experiments of this kind, the child gives up questioning. Thus disappears the inquisitive attitude so natural to children when they join the school.

The dullness and lack of interest of students can be traced almost with a certitude to a mental overfeeding and the absence of the best incentive: a work leading to discovery and creation. It has been said with more than a grain of truth that lecturing satisfies only one need, that of the teacher for speaking.

The difference between imparting knowledge as such and supplying information is important and must be well grasped. I hope to be pardoned for my insistence.

When a lecture is given to a group of research workers (at post-graduate level, for instance), about a subject familiar to them, by somebody who has a personal contribution to offer, then the lecture is given and received as a piece of information and it takes its proper place in the documentation that the mature students have for their use. Well and good, it is then perfectly justified and useful. But this is not the case at school level, when the young students have just started building up their own knowledge. Here the lecture is not given as a piece of information, but as the very knowledge that they have to assimilate and store up in their mind. They are asked to listen, understand and possibly remember what the lecturer has said. Where is the purposeful activity, where the discovery?

Another legitimate use of lectures is the dissemination or presentation of information in a popular form to an adult audience: for instance, what is the present state of things in a that country or in the world at large. Such lectures are on a par with magazines, documentary films and news-reels: their role is to add a piece of information to an already existing

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documentation. Even when the object is to present a new discovery, this discovery is evidently made by another person and not by the listener.

Once again, this presentation of information has a completely different character when it is made to a mature mind or to a child at school level. The adult has already a constituted knowledge in the form of a frame or set of notions to which any new mental acquisition is forthwith compared so as to take its proper place in the mental setting. The child's critical faculty is not yet awakened (I mean the logical mental discrimination, for he can be very critical otherwise). His mental frame of reference is in the process of formation and still imperfect. Moreover, as I said, the lectures given at school level are always presented with the authority of one who knows - the teacher - to those who do not know yet - the students - with the aim that they will accept this knowledge and make it their own. And that is the wrong way of teaching. Says Sri Aurobindo: "He (the teacher) does not impart knowledge to him (the student), he shows him how to acquire knowledge."

Even in the outside educational world, at university level in Europe, lectures have nowadays come into disfavour. They are more and more replaced by variations of the tutorial system. For instance, the professor in charge may write his course which is then printed (or cyclostyled) and distributed to the students in sheet form all through the year. The students are arranged in groups of 10-12 under the guidance of assistants. They study the printed sheets alone and meet for discussion, exercises and other work under the guidance and strict control of the assistant. The professor carries on general supervision of the whole process and the assistants refer to him. The professor himself chooses often to deliver a few initial lectures and a concluding one to his whole class - probably to introduce himself to them and give a personal touch to his teaching.

Why has the magistral system of lectures been thus discredited? It is said that it involves a waste of time. The

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time of the students is used with better efficiency through a personal approach to the printed course, followed by a work done under the constant guidance and control of the assistant.

An argument that is sometimes advanced in favour of lectures is that they have an inspiring power, that they communicate something more than mere intellectual content and that -they should therefore have a place in a complete system of education.

It is true that a force is sometimes active behind the words of a speaker and this is often felt in a political leader or a religious orator of the revivalist type. This kind of transmission has no place in our educational scheme. It is certainly easy to inflame the emotions of children, but it is not a sound and healthy process as the level of the force involved is almost invariably vital. The case of a true spiritual force is very, very rare and, let me say it at once, when it manifests, everything should bow down to it.

But what the arguer has probably in view is the communication of an interest, an enthusiasm, the creation of an atmosphere. Such a power is said to be the mark of a true teacher. Many of us will remember the deep impact made upon us by the few rare teachers and professors of this type to whom we had the good fortune to listen.

It is no doubt very necessary that the students should feel, not only an interest, but an enthusiasm for what they do, and the influence of the teacher in this respect is very great. But lectures are not necessary. It is rather the life and behaviour of the teacher that must, by his example, awaken a similar enthusiasm in the students. What is useful is a living enthusiasm, not a verbal enthusiasm. In a poem or a work of art, the teacher may show the beauty, through a few words. Beauty can be shown and seen; it is not necessary but rather detractive to describe it lengthily, at least to young people. To enter into long considerations will shift the emphasis from the experience of beauty to its intellectual analysis. This may be useful for the formation of an art

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critic, but not of an artist and lover of beauty. Those who are sensitive to beauty will not need your long explanations; and for those who are only sensitive to your words, I would say that it is your enthusiasm that you have infused into them; it is your experience that you have reproduced in them, by a kind of resonance. Is this entirely justified?

I believe that our aim must be something more stable, and more rooted in the student himself, less dependent on the teacher. The interest that we should try to evoke is from within the student in response to the stimuli of the external objects. The presentation of the objects has certainly an importance and to make them attractive is legitimate. But care should be taken lest the solicitation from the teacher should be of so forceful a nature that the personal reaction of the student has really been replaced by the teacher's, in which case the danger is that, when the excitation is absent, the enthusiasm will collapse, the interest will vanish. True, they may persist, which only means that the student was just ready and the lecture gave him the opening touch. Still this recourse to an external solicitation does not seem to be exempt from drawbacks. Therefore, while I would not advise against the occasional use of such lectures (provided of course the didactic element is eliminated), I would not advise either a habitual recourse to them as a means of keeping the interest of the students alive. It is almost a principle of the new education that the teacher should not act upon the student, but upon the environment. I quote again Sri Aurobindo: "He [the teacher] does not call forth the knowledge that is within; he only shows him [the student] where it is and how it can be habituated to rise to the surface."

Let me add that the importance in traditional education of a teacher capable of firing the interest of his student comes mostly from the fact that there is in the traditional setting no other means of provoking their interest. But the main object of our system is to generate in the student, by leading him to discovery and creation, a living and stable interest in his

work. So I feel that the need and importance of lectures of this kind will not be felt so keenly by us.

What is really valuable in a speech or a talk is the presence of a spiritual or psychic trend. But the immense value of a psychic atmosphere cannot be put forward as a plea in favour of lectures. The creation of such an atmosphere does not require a lecture. It has for prerequisite a certain harmonious, free and happy relation between teacher and students which is within the scope of our new system. Then, when the time comes and the opportunity presents itself, a few words from the teacher may bring about the inner concentration, the looking inwards that will release the psychic presence.

In agreement with the above analysis and discussion, it is only in the study of the languages that collective teaching is really necessary as a consistent and regular means of acquiring knowledge and capacity. It will consist in lectures from the teacher, reading aloud, comment, dictation, oral questions and answers, conversation, debate, drama - any work which is done in a raised voice with the aim of perfecting oral expression, whether prose or poetry, and which involves the whole class.

Collective teaching may conveniently fill 3 hours a week in both English and French, i.e., about half the time allocated formerly to these languages. The same proportion may hold for the other languages.

In subjects other than languages and at the secondary level, the need of a general lecture may be felt from time to time, but I believe this occasion will not be frequent, if only on account of the varied grading of the students in the new classes.

B. Individual Work

We have seen that the principles of our education require that students should receive individual guidance in their self- educative activity aiming at the discovery of knowledge.

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How is this to be achieved in a class of 20 to 30 students?

The method of individual work based on the work-sheet answers this stipulation to a large extent. At the same time it avoids the pitfalls of the magistral collective teaching.

Fundamentally, a work-sheet is a set of instructions concerning the work that the child should himself do. It includes, or may include:

a) A didactic part (didactic = meant to teach), where the student will find an introduction to the subject, definitions of the new terms, a historical background. That part may also contain a piece of reasoning that is given to the student as an example (a theorem of mathematics, for instance), or a description (history and geography) or a set of rules (grammar), etc.

Each detailed step of the didactic text must be so drafted that the student understands it readily. After each step questions are put which he must answer - by a word or a short sentence - easy questions which we may call (mind) focussing questions. Their function is to help the child to delve into the text, understand it and assimilate it. Then exercises or problems follow, that offer practice and training.

b) A heuristic part (heuristic = serving to discover), with the delineation of the research to be made, the indication of the documentation, or documentary equipment (models, skeletons, etc.), to be consulted or studied (natural science, history and geography), of the experiments to be done (physics and chemistry). Then comes a set of focussing questions, fixing the student's attention on certain points and guiding him in his work, and finally the concluding questions, in answer to which he is asked to supply his results, his conclusions.

It happens that some subjects require work-sheets where the didactic part is to a large extent predominant; this is the case with languages and mathematics. This type of work sheets may be called the didactic type.

For other subjects - zoology, botany, physics, chemistry the predominance is of the heuristic part. We may say that

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the work-sheet pertaining to them are of the heuristic type.

Finally, the work-sheets appropriate for history and geography are of a mixed type, as they contain at the best a didactic part and a heuristic part.

A fourth type of work-sheet consists in testing questions and is called the testing type. It is given to the student at the end of a section, of a chapter, and aims at leading him to recapitulation and control of his work. If he succeeds in the test he proceeds to a new section, a new chapter. If not, he is given a work-sheet of the supplementary type, suited to his deficiencies. If he answers to the testing questions of this supplementary work-sheet, he moves forward: otherwise he has to step back a little and make his knowledge more secure.

Thus we have already five types of work-sheets: didactic, heuristic, mixed, testing, supplementary. These names are not given to make a show, but with the view to establish among us a common language. More types will surely be evolved during the development of the process. A principle common to all: to ensure the utmost participation of the student in an active manner. The heuristic type asks for work done with the class documentation or the laboratory equipment. In the didactic type, the work is to be done with little or no help from anything else (dictionary), but the progress, the discovery are reached through the exercises (training) or the problems (solution).

A work-sheet is given to a student. He reads it and should be able to understand it readily, but if he does not, he goes to the teacher for an explanation. Then he goes back to his place and sets himself to work, answering the questions as they come, and jots down the answers in a rough note-book. If there is a question that he cannot answer, he goes again to the teacher, receives a hint and works again, and so on. When he has completed the work and written down all the answers,-he brings his note-book to the teacher who, on the spot if possible, checks his work, detects the answers that are incorrect and which need a further attempt by the

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student, and so on till the answers are all correct. The student has then to make a fair copy of the whole - questions and answers - in another note-book which will be again submitted to the teacher for control and signature. This note-book will be carefully preserved as a warrant of the work done, and at the same time as a reference book for future use.

After deduction of the periods allotted to collective work, the rest of the time forms a common pool for all the written work. The student is free to do his work in the order he likes, subject to the restriction that all the teachers are not available at all times for help and control. Students know the periods when each teacher will be present in the class and they organize their work accordingly. The necessary presence of a teacher can be roughly estimated at 11/2-2 times the number of periods previously assigned to his subject, e.g., 5 hours a week for written French or English, 6-7 hours for mathematics, about the same for science, etc.

There will then be always two and sometimes three teachers present in a class of 25-30 students. They will sit at different tables and students will come to them in their turn. Needless to say, all talking must take place in a subdued voice, almost a whisper. It is a very good discipline for all not to disturb the work of others and not to be disturbed by a slight external activity.

Home-work as such is not prescribed to the students, but if any student wishes to do part of his written work at home, he is naturally free to do so. Indeed many students do and some come to the class-room in the afternoon to continue in tranquillity their written work.

Let us now turn rapidly to the subjects of study and enumerate some peculiarities of their respective work-sheets.

1. Languages: While the collective teaching, essential to the study of any living language, is done orally at fixed periods, the written work is a part of the common pool. The work-sheet is of the didactic type, very much like the pages of a self-instructor. There should be plenty of exercises and

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of a great variety. If drafted with zest, they will attract and stimulate the interest of children who take to this work with enjoyment. Even quizzes and cross-words can be used. Exercises requiring a little composition can be introduced gradually, but this kind of work should not be taxing. Later, essay writing can be brought in by easy stages. If properly tackled, children will feel by themselves the need of perfecting their self-expression. Free composition can be resorted to, i.e., a subject chosen entirely by the student.'

2. Mathematics: Here also the work-sheet is of the didactic type. In this subject especially each step of the reasoning should be so unmistakably clear that the normal student who has reached this point can follow it without help. The usual text-books are too condensed; the work-sheet has to be more detailed. And the focussing questions should bring out immediately an answer. A number of graded exercises shall precede the problems, which are also graded.

Besides the normal set of exercises and problems, it is advisable to give an optional set. Some children assimilate and reach mastery easily, but others require more practice. The optional set would meet this need.

It has also been found convenient to arrange for a self checking system. Parallel to the work-sheet-index, there is a solution-index, where the student can find a card bearing the correct solution of the problem he has done. After a short training the student will use this solution-index by himself. It has even been found useful to introduce a hint-index to which the student may apply himself when he needs a clue and before looking into the solution-index. These two indices are introduced with the view, not only to ease the task of the teacher, but also to teach the child honesty, restraint and fair play.

3. Science, i.e., elementary science ("leςons de choses” in French), botany, zoology, and later geology, biology, physics and chemistry: Here the work-sheet is of the heuristic type (botany, zoology, biology) or of the mixed type (elementary

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science, physics, and chemistry). Students should have a laboratory-book in which they jot their notes and prepare their answers; after submitting these answers to the teacher, they will carry them over to a fair note-book, again controlled and signed by the teacher. This fair note-book will be at the same time the testimony of their work and serve as a reference book for their future work. The use of drawings in observational and practical work is to be warmly encouraged; it is often more expressive than lengthy writing.

Outings can very well be arranged (perhaps from level 5 upward) to study insects, animals, plants, rocks, fossils, etc. in their natural surroundings, but precautions should be taken to keep an atmosphere of inquisitiveness and research; they should never be allowed to turn into picnic parties (picnic parties can be held separately, everybody enjoys them).

In physics and chemistry, instead of a work-sheet of the mixed type, there may be separate work-sheets for the didactic part and the experimental work. The latter will be much in the line of the usual instruction-sheets given for practicals at a later stage; but they should be more elaborate.

Here I shall make a remark which is valid not only for the science work-sheets, but for all the work-sheets. The fore most place must be given to the heuristic part; whenever it is possible to present a subject in a way leading to discovery, this is to be adopted. For instance, in physics and chemistry, an experimental work should be so drafted as to bring the student to rediscover a law rather than to verify it.

Another instance. Instead of telling the child that it is a law of arithmetic that 3 x 5=5 x 3 and that he can verify it, let him examine the figure

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

and count the dots first line-wise, then column-wise and compare. Ask him whether the same is true of any rectangular figure he can draw in this way. Then let him ponder

on the significance of this result and try to express it to someone else. If he can find by himself "Yes, 3 times 5=5 times 3", it will be surely a discovery.

A friend of ours, who is a professor of mathematics in an Indian University, related to me a few days ago that his father brought him to this very experience and that he was so much struck by it that he remembers it to this day. Very likely this incident was one of the determining factors of his career.

Practicals are for us of fundamental importance, both in natural history and in physics science. The ideal would be to have a small laboratory attached to each class. As this is not always possible, ways must be designed to send the children to the laboratories not only for demonstrations, but in small groups (see team work) for experimental work. Experiments are more profitable than documentation - they are on a quite different level.

4. History and Geography: History must be first considered as the study of man's life and behaviour at different places and at different ages. Later on will come the notion of development and evolution.

The work-sheet is of the mixed type. The didactic part is interspaced with focussing questions, but the tendency to provoke an essay type of answer should be avoided - as such essays would not rest on a personal contact with the world, but only be a reproduction.

The heuristic part is a kind of research work, done with the help of a documentation - mostly with pictures. The relevant pictures can be attached to the work-sheet itself or they can be sorted out from the school documentation. Students have to pick out the pictures related to the questions put to them, study and compare them and draw their conclusions. The focussing questions should be precise and solicit short and relevant answers. Only one or two questions in a work-sheet should be of a concluding type, and aim at drawing somewhat more elaborate answers, as a summing up of the work done - about 10-15 lines at the levels 3-4 with a gradual

increase up to one page. Insistence must be placed on precision rather than diffusion.

At levels 1-2, history would be taught through legends and stories, the lives of heroes and great men. No written work.

At levels 3-4, history and geography can very well be taught together. History will be limited to selected concrete aspects of human life, with the aim of bringing the students in touch with the life of races and nations at different times. The subjects may include, for instance, the history of human dwellings, dresses, food, agriculture, means of transportation, relations of man with animals (hunting, fishing, taming, domestication, various uses of animals, pets, natural reserves), arts and crafts. Geography may have a few introductory separate work-sheets, after which a survey of the globe will be done through the history work-sheets. These work-sheets should naturally be drafted accordingly; they should put the students in touch with different continents, countries and natural configurations, different climates, faunae and florae. These work-sheets are of the mixed type and are drafted as already stated. The documentation consists in pictures.

At level 5, history will be the study of the daily life in various countries at different times, starting with tribal life (Red Indians, present day aborigines, Eskimos, nomads of Arabia), then proceeding with ancient Egypt, India, China, Pre-Colombian civilizations, Greece, Rome, Japan and other countries at various epochs. The heuristic work of the work-sheets will be carried out with the help of pictures, and a book or two (encyclopedias). The documentation may also include a few short anecdotes or stories assisting in figuring the daily life - if possible quotations from authors of that time. These written documentations will be typed on loose sheets. When a book is used. it should be only to find out a specific information (generally a picture).

All aspects of life will be brought under review: material life, agriculture, cities, crafts, trade, classes of society, dresses, habits, language, arts, religion, etc. At this stage

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geography should be synchronized with history. The work-sheet will deal with the same countries and contribute to the understanding of the daily life of the people.

At levels 6-7-8, history will consist in the study of a few historical movements which had a deep effect on civilization. Here the insistence will be on the dynamic and evolutive aspects of history. A few such subjects are listed here: birth and life of Buddha and spreading of Buddhism, life of Christ and the spreading of Christianity (martyrs, conquest of Europe, Crusades, religious wars, the Papacy and the Reformation), life of Mohammed and the expansion of Islam, the Mauryan period, the Gupta period, Charlemagne and his empire, the Renaissance in Europe, the great geographical discoveries, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Napoleonic Conquests and the Social Movement, the American War of Independence, the War of Secession, the First World War, the Liberation of India, etc.

At levels 9-10, there will be a more systematic study of the history of a few nations, with an emphasis on their political evolution throughout the ages. The Second World War and contemporary world history will be given a special attention.

The above programme is tentative; it has been given here only with the aim to show how, in my opinion, the study of history can be introduced at school level so as to conform to the general principles of the new education. Our aim will not be to teach history, but to teach how to work like a historian. Once a student becomes interested and has gone through this initiation, the reading of a few books on history will surely at a later stage complete his historical knowledge. He will have acquired what constitutes the spirit of history and he will know very well where and how to look for an information if/when it is needed. The same is true with geography.

Geography should probably, from level 6 upwards, be treated as a separate science with a mixed type of work-sheets. The practical work already begun during the preceding years will start with the drawing of plans and maps

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and their various uses (plan of a house, of the school, of a part of the city, etc.). A few study trips in the country will help to connect the world and the maps, familiarize with the technical vocabulary of geography, demonstrate the use of maps in the open (orientation). The same precautions must be taken for these outings as in the case of natural history. An interesting practical work will be the preparation of a trip from one city of the world to another, i.e., itinerary, means of transportation, time-table, expenses, places of interest, living conditions of the peoples on the way, etc. If such a study is coupled with the showing of a suitable film, it will enhance the interest of both.

Economical and political geography will be introduced at level 10.

The preparation of the work-sheets for history and geography and the collection of the necessary documentation is a considerable work. It is also a new venture and I am sure that we shall make many interesting discoveries all along.

As I am speaking of films, let me say that, in our new system, slides and films should be treated as additional sources of information. In spite of their vividness they can practical or experimental work. A too great reliance on films and slides would have the same inhibiting effect on creative activity as the use of text-books and the indulgence in novels.

C. Team Work

I have already pointed out that team work takes into consideration the need of the child for contact, association and collaboration with other children (social need). I have also said that the association of children for work should be left entirely to the discretion of the participants. If the teacher has something to say, he must give it as an advice, a suggestion. The decisions must be taken by the children themselves: scope of the work, how it is to be done,

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allocation of its various parts to the participants, materials needed and where to get them, rules and details of execution.

The attitude of the teacher must always be the same: a constant and attentive presence, always ready to guide and to assist, but understanding the needs of the children and respecting their freedom. Such a guidance is not resented and is none the less effective. Why do children engaged in a common work so often say to the adults: "Do not come; we shall show you the work when it is finished"? It is because they apprehend the intervention of the adults.

But if the teacher must spare his commands and his criticisms, he should not spare his interest in the work that is being done and in the achievement.

Many subjects lend themselves to such team work. Practical work in science is an ideal matter. But there are others: plans and maps, models, toys and every kind of manual work requiring several hands, dramas, etc.

Recapitulative charts with drawings and captions have this year captivated the interest of many children of the new class. They seem to find in such work the answer to several needs: social need, need of ensuring their knowledge by a revision, of gaining a synthetic view of the subject, of giving a concrete shape to abstract notions, of relaxation by a manual work from a purely mental work, of doing a work as perfectly as possible, of achieving something. It is a kind of liberation.

I have only a few more words to add about the material organization of the class-room. As I have already said, each student has a table, always the same. On the whole, the students prefer flat tables to inclined desks. Flat tables have also the advantage that they can be assembled into larger units for team work.

Some space should be usually kept between the tables, though for special reasons (experience in friendly contacts) tables may be temporarily joined.

As two or three teachers may be simultaneously present in

the class-room, accommodation should be provided for them. A large cement table is also very convenient for special work and for talks to a small group of students. Besides these, shelves or other tables must be available to keep the class equipment: reference books, boxes and files that contain the work-sheets of the various subjects, solution indices, hint indices, the documentation in pictures, etc. One or two black-boards and hanging fixtures for maps and charts will complete the material set-up of the class.

It is clear that the room itself should be larger than the usual class-room. The children remain indoors sometimes the whole morning; they cannot be crammed into a small place. There is no objection to two rooms communicating by a door.

It will be found that the disposition of the tables and chairs may go through several modifications in the course of the year. The class as a whole is a living organism with changing needs.

The placing of the children in the class-room must suit both the child and the teacher. It is good to give heed to the preferences of the child, though the teacher has naturally a say in the matter. He may sometimes yield to a strongly felt preference but warn the child of the probable consequences of his choice. Whenever a child asks for a change of places, it should be carefully considered and granted if there is a valid reason for it (generally a turn in the personal relation between children).

The children should feel when they enter their class-room a sense of freedom and security, the twin needs of which I have stressed the importance.

There is only one principle on which the teacher must insist with firmness: the freedom of each is conditioned by the freedom of others.

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