he can see without strain, where he has a desk fitted to
his body and work fitted to his maximum abilities, a teacher who is
physically strong and mentally inspiring, and plenty of play space and
play time, there will be no nervousness. One who visits vacation
schools is struck with the difference in the atmosphere from that of
the winter day schools. Here are the same rooms, the same children, and
in many cases the same teachers, but different work. Each child is busy
with a bright, interested, happy expression and easy attitude. Some are
at nature study, some are weaving baskets, making dresses, trimming
hats, knitting bright worsted sacks and mittens for the winter. Boys
are at carpentering, raffia, or wrought-iron work. In none of the rooms
is the absolute unity or the methodical order of the winter schoolroom,
but rather the hum of the workroom and the order that comes from a
roomful of children interested in the progress of their work. This
condition only illustrates what a winter schoolroom might be were
physical defects corrected or segregated, windows open, light good, and
work adapted to the child.

[Illustration: VACATION SCHOOL INTEREST: AN ANTIDOTE TO
NERVOUSNESS]

Nervousness is not a monopoly of city teachers and city pupils. In
country schools that I have happened to know, nervous children were the
chief problem. Nervousness led in scholarship, in disorder, in
absences, in truancy, and in backwardness. After reading MacDonald's
_Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood_, I became interested in one or two
particularly nervous children, just to see if I could overcome my
strong dislike for them. To one boy I gave permission to leave the room
or to go to the library whenever he began to lose his self-control. My
predecessors had not been able to control him by the rod. A few weeks
after Willie's emancipation from rules, the county superintendent was
astonished to see that the county terror led my school in history,
reading, and geography.

Had I known what every teacher should be taught in preparation,--the
relation of eye strain, bad teeth, adenoids, "overattention," and
malnutrition to nervousness and bad behavior,--I could have restored
many "incorrigibles" to nerve control. Had I been led at college to
study child psychology and child physiology, I should not have expected
a control that was possible only in a normal adult.[6] In its primary
aspect the question of nervousness in the schoolroom is pure