Two divisions have gone into tiny, "quiet rooms" to grapple with the
intricacies of mathematical relations. A small boy, clad mostly in red
woolen suspenders, and large, high-topped boots, is passing boxes of
blocks. He is awkward and slow. The teacher could do it more quietly
and more quickly, but the kindergarten is a school of experience where
ease comes, by and by, as the lovely result of repeated practice....
We hear an informal talk on fractions, while the cube is divided into
its component parts, and then see a building exercise "by direction."
In the other "quiet room" they are building a village, each child
constructing, according to his own ideas, the part assigned him. One
of them starts a song, and they all join in--
"Oh! builders we would like to be,
So willing, skilled, and strong;
And while we work so cheerily,
The time will not seem long."
"If we all do our parts well, the whole is sure to be beautiful," says
the teacher. "One rickety, badly made building will spoil our village.
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