ndrop from the roof
to the rivulet, on to the river, then to the ocean, then into vapor and
on into rain down into the earth, then up into the tree, out into the
orange, until it finally reappears as a drop of juice upon the rosy lip
of his little six-year-old.

=The child's conception.=--Whether the child ever wins the large
conception of the sea that her father has depends, in part, upon the
father himself, but, in a still larger degree, upon her teacher. If the
teacher thinks of the sea merely as a word to be spelled, or defined, or
parsed, that she may inscribe marks in a grade book or on report cards,
then the child will never know the sea as her father knows it, unless
this knowledge comes to her from sources outside the school. Instead of
becoming a living thing and the source of life, her sea will be a desert
without oasis, or grass, or tree, or bird, or bubbling spring to refresh
and inspire. It would seem a sad commentary upon our teaching if the
child is compelled to gain a right conception of the sea outside the
school and in spite of the school, rather than through and by means of
the school.

=The quest of teacher and child.=--The vitalized teacher knows the sea
as the sage knows it, and can infuse her conception into the
consciousness of the child. She feels it to be her high privilege to
lead the child on in quest of the sea and to find, in this quest,
pulsating life. In this alluring quest, she is putting content into the
word, and thus discovering, by experience, what life is. This is
education. This is the inviting vista that stretches out before the eyes
of the child under the spell and leadership of such a teacher. In their
quest for the meaning of the sea, these companions, the child and the
teacher, will come upon the fields of grain, the orchards, the flocks
and herds, the ships, the trains, and the whole intricate world of
commerce. They will find commerce to be a manifestation of the sea and
moreover a big factor in life. It will mean far more than mere cars to
be counted or cargoes to be estimated in the form of problems for the
class in arithmetic. The cargoes of grain that they see leaving the port
mean food for the hungry in other lands, and the joy and vigor that only
food can give.

=The sea as life.=--At every turn of their ramified journey, these
learners find life and, best of all, are having a rich experience in
life, throughout the journey. They are immersed in life and so are
ab