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Updated: May 3, 2025
All the interests and means of training that they represent, and others as well, need to be brought more into the daily routine; to some extent in place of the too exclusively literary, or at least bookish, training, that has hitherto been the staple of education, but more, perhaps, since it is not possible to include in the regular curriculum all that is of value, as optional subjects and free-time occupations, though organised as part of the school course.
From what has been said above, it will be plain that the writer is one of those who think these voluntary free-time activities of such value that they are willing, in order to make room for them, to jettison some of the traditions that have gathered about school work and games.
Sometimes, indeed, such a free-time hobby reveals the bent that might otherwise have gone undiscovered, and determines the choice of a special line of work for the future career. But the chief value of such interests lies rather in their influence on other work, and on the general development of character.
Even if all this free-time work and play may have a certain value, how can time be found for it without encroaching on the regular work and games which, after all, must be the main concern of the school?
He was still standing undecided when he suddenly saw in the crowd that now, when work was over and free-time come, was winding its way through the entrance to the station like a long worm and dividing itself into arms to go up the steps to the right and left, a mass of fair hair gleaming under a white sailor-hat trimmed with a blue velvet band and pressed down on a forehead, which seemed well-known to him.
At any rate these free-time interests can supply a very useful stimulus to much of the routine work. In these a boy may find himself for the first time, and discover, despite his experience in class, that he is no fool.
They only become free-time pursuits, in the sense here intended, in so far as practice for them is optional, and a large amount of free time spent upon it.
In some few cases, where there is a strong natural bent and the free-time pursuit is a serious object of study, this may be a thing not to be discouraged, as it will provide the truest means of education.
For the rest, if free-time work is found to take the first place in a boy's thoughts, may not this be a sign that the ordinary curriculum and methods of teaching are capable of improvement, and that more use of these natural interests may with advantage be made in class time as well?
Of the free-time pursuits more properly so called, in which many can share, the commonest are probably the various school societies. Most schools have one or more debating societies, with meetings at regular intervals throughout the winter terms, for the discussion of questions of general or special interest; the difficulty being more often to find a subject than speakers.
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