Differentiation in Training.

Right here let me lay special stress upon the absurdity, not to call it by a harsher term, of running children through the same mill in a lot, with absolutely no real reference to their individuality. No two children are alike. You cannot expect them to develop alike. They are different in temperament, in tastes, in disposition, in capabilities, and yet we take them in this precious early age, when they ought to be living a life of preparation near to the heart of nature, and we stuff them, cram them, and overwork them until their poor little brains are crowded up to and beyond the danger-line. The work of breaking down the nervous systems of the children of the United States is now well under way. It is only when someone breaks absolutely away from all precedent and rule and carves out a new place in the world that any substantial progress is ever made, and seldom is this done by one whose individuality has been stifled in the schools. So it is imperative that we consider individuality in children in their training precisely as we do in cultivating plants. Some children, for example, are absolutely unfit by nature and temperament for carrying on certain studies. Take certain young girls, for example, bright in many ways, but unfitted by nature and bent, at this early age at least, for the study of arithmetic. . . . Can one by any possible cultivation and selection and crossing compel figs to grow on thistles or apples on a banana tree? I have made many varied and strange plant combinations in the hope of betterment, and still am at work upon others, but one cannot hope to do the impossible.