Page:Labour and childhood.djvu/213

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THE SCHOOL DOCTOR AT HOME
187

as we say, at school buildings like their German confrères. But the thoughts of some happily took a much wider range. The hygiene of instruction is more advanced here than in Germany.

Beginning in the infant school, they studied the little ones. They watched them drilling, drawing, and learning their letters. They brought their knowledge of a child brain and nervous system into the infant room, and by-and-by new light was thrown on old "occupations." Things that Froebel did not know were made clear to the infant-school mistress. She began to see what a baby eye, a baby brain, and baby muscles are. But all the while she was not simply a learner; she also had something to teach the doctor, new as he was to one half of his whole task.

Into the class rooms of older children too he, the school doctor, passed, listened to the singing, looked at the singers, and began to speak of things which are not mentioned in song books, and to speak of matters that are not dwelt on by many singing masters, even among those who have degrees for music and get splendid reports. And he threw new light on the teaching of drawing,[1] of languages, of

  1. It was the school doctor who showed, for example, the real meaning of bi-manual drawing, who showed how as crawling, on all fours,