lus of associating
with others. That a child must work alone and not engage in group
activities in order to be free and let his individuality develop, is
a notion which measures individuality by spatial distance and makes a
physical thing of it.

Individuality as a factor to be respected in education has a double
meaning. In the first place, one is mentally an individual only as he
has his own purpose and problem, and does his own thinking. The phrase
"think for one's self" is a pleonasm. Unless one does it for one's self,
it isn't thinking. Only by a pupil's own observations, reflections,
framing and testing of suggestions can what he already knows be
amplified and rectified. Thinking is as much an individual matter as
is the digestion of food. In the second place, there are variations of
point of view, of appeal of objects, and of mode of attack, from person
to person. When these variations are suppressed in the alleged interests
of uniformity, and an attempt is made to have a single mold of method
of study and recitation, mental confusion and artificiality inevitably
result. Originality is gradually destroyed, confidence in one's own
quality of mental operation is undermined, and a docile subjection to
the opinion of others is inculcated, or else ideas run wild. The harm
is greater now than when the whole community was governed by customary
beliefs, because the contrast between methods of learning in school and
those relied upon outside the school is greater. That systematic advance
in scientific discovery began when individuals were allowed, and then
encouraged, to utilize their own peculiarities of response to subject
matter, no one will deny. If it is said in objection, that pupils
in school are not capable of any such originality, and hence must be
confined to appropriating and reproducing things already known by
the better informed, the reply is twofold. (i) We are concerned with
originality of attitude which is equivalent to the unforced response of
one's own individuality, not with originality as measured by product.
No one expects the young to make original discoveries of just the same
facts and principles as are embodied in the sciences of nature and man.
But it is not unreasonable to expect that learning may take place under
such conditions that from the standpoint of the learner there is genuine
discovery. While immature students will not make discoveries from
the standpoint of advanced students, they make