Why is the desire to excel one's own previous record preferable to
striving for the highest mark?

9. In one elementary school, products of the school garden were sold and
from the funds thus secured apparatus for the playground was bought. In
another school, children sold the vegetables and kept the money. Which,
in your judgment, was the most worth while from the standpoint of the
social development of boys and girls?

10. A teacher of Latin had children collect words of Latin origin,
references to Latin characters, and even advertisements in which Latin
words or literary references were to be found. The children in the class
were enthusiastic in making these collections, and considerable interest
was added to the work in Latin. Are you able to discover in the exercise
any other value?

11. Describe some teaching in which you have recently engaged, or which
you have observed, in which the methods of work employed by teacher and
pupils seemed to you to contribute to a realization of the social
purpose of education.

12. How can a reading lesson in the sixth grade, or a history lesson in
the high school, be conducted to make children feel that they are doing
something for the whole group?

13. In what activities may children engage outside of school which may
count toward the betterment of the community in which they live?

* * * * *

II. ORIGINAL NATURE, THE CAPITAL WITH WHICH TEACHERS WORK

After deciding upon the aims of education, the goals towards which all
teaching must strive, the fundamental question to be answered is, "What
have we to work with?" "What is the makeup with which children start in
life?" Given a certain nature, certain definite results are possible;
but if the nature is different, the results must of necessity differ.
The possibility of education or of teaching along any line depends upon
the presence of an original nature which possesses corresponding
abilities. The development of intellect, of character, of interest, or
of any other trait depends absolutely upon the presence in human beings
of capacity for growth or development. What the child inherits, his
original nature, is the capital with which education must work; beyond
the limits which are determined by inheritance education cannot go.

All original nature is in terms of a nervous system. What a child
inherits is not ideas, or feelings, or habits, as such, but a nervous
system whose corre