t step in advance, for it has hitherto
stopped at the welfare of the body. It must continue, however, to
advance; on the same positive lines along which it has improved the
health and saved the physical life of the children, it is bound in the
future to benefit and to reenforce their inner life, which is the real
_human life_. On the same positive lines science will proceed to
direct the development of the intelligence, of character, and of those
latent creative forces which lie hidden in the marvelous embryo of
man's spirit.

* * * * *

As the child's body must draw nourishment and oxygen from its external
environment, in order to accomplish a great physiological work, the
_work of growth_, so also the spirit must take from its environment
the nourishment which it needs to develop according to its own "laws
of growth." It cannot be denied that the phenomena of development are
a great work in themselves. The consolidation of the bones, the
growth of the whole body, the completion of the minute construction of
the brain, the formation of the teeth, all these are very real labors
of the physiological organism, as is also the transformation which the
organism undergoes during the period of puberty.

These exertions are very different from those put forth by mankind in
so-called _external work_, that is to say, in "social production,"
whether in the schools where man is taught, or in the world where, by
the activity of his intelligence, he produces wealth and transforms
his environment.

It is none the less true, however, that they are both "work." In fact,
the organism during these periods of greatest physiological work is
least capable of performing external tasks, and sometimes the work of
growth is of such extent and difficulty that the individual is
overburdened, as with an excessive strain, and for this reason alone
becomes exhausted or even dies.

Man will always be able to avoid "external work" by making use of the
labor of others, but there is no possibility of shirking that inner
work. Together with birth and death it has been imposed by nature
itself, and each man must accomplish it for himself. This difficult,
inevitable labor, this is the "work of the child."

When we say then that little children should _rest_, we are referring
to one side only of the question of work. We mean that they should
rest from that _external_ visible work to which the little child
thr