so she asked the class to write out a
letter to the manufacturers. The class, left to select, decided to send
this letter:

SCHOOL NO. 52,
Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 11, 1912.

AMERICAN PIN COMPANY,
Waterbury, Conn.

_Dear Sirs_: On seeing the pamphlet on pins you have been kind
enough to send us, I have decided to write and ask you if you
would kindly send us about twenty of your pamphlets on the
making of pins.

We are in the eighth grade, and expect to go out into the world
in January, and your process of making pins will be spread
abroad to the whole world.

We are very anxious to know more about the making of pins, and
we are very much interested in your process.

Yours sincerely,
RUTH HARRISON.

Need I say that the American Pin Company sent immediately twenty
duplicates of the desired pamphlet?

The work in this school where thought and activity go hand in hand, is
done by the regular grade teachers--done, and done well. They are as
enthusiastic as the pupils. Four years' trial has convinced them. On the
day that I visited the school, I walked into a classroom where twenty
girls were busy sewing. The order was perfect. Every one was busy. The
teacher was nowhere in evidence.

"That teacher," explained the principal to me later, "is off at a
teachers' meeting. She left these girls on their honor to work. You see
the result."

I saw and marveled. Yet why marvel? Was not this a typical product of
the system which knits thought and activity into such a harmonious,
fascinating whole as the most fortunate adults find in later life? Out
of such a school may we not well develop harmony and keen life? Never
yet have men gathered grapes from thistles, but often and often have
they plucked from fig trees the figs which they craved and sought.

XVII From a Blazed Trail to a Paved Highway

Pages might be filled with descriptions of similar successes, yet I
think that my point is already sufficiently established. How can we
disagree regarding so plain a matter? The path of educational progress
has led away from the three R's along a trail, blazed at first by a few
men and women who dreamed and stepped forward hesitatingly. Often they
retraced their steps, discouraged, and gave over the little they had
gained. By degrees, however, the trail was blazed. The way became
cle