place. Only in this
way can we discriminate. If we isolate the child's present inclinations,
purposes, and experiences from the place they occupy and the part they
have to perform in a developing experience, all stand upon the same
level; all alike are equally good and equally bad. But in the movement
of life different elements stand upon different planes of value. Some of
the child's deeds are symptoms of a waning tendency; they are survivals
in functioning of an organ which has done its part and is passing out of
vital use. To give positive attention to such qualities is to arrest
development upon a lower level. It is systematically to maintain a
rudimentary phase of growth. Other activities are signs of a culminating
power and interest; to them applies the maxim of striking while the
iron is hot. As regards them, it is perhaps a matter of now or never.
Selected, utilized, emphasized, they may mark a turning-point for good
in the child's whole career; neglected, an opportunity goes, never to
be recalled. Other acts and feelings are prophetic; they represent the
dawning of flickering light that will shine steadily only in the far
future. As regards them there is little at present to do but give them
fair and full chance, waiting for the future for definite direction.

Just as, upon the whole, it was the weakness of the "old education" that
it made invidious comparisons between the immaturity of the child and
the maturity of the adult, regarding the former as something to be got
away from as soon as possible and as much as possible; so it is the
danger of the "new education" that it regard the child's present powers
and interests as something finally significant in themselves. In truth,
his learnings and achievements are fluid and moving. They change from
day to day and from hour to hour.

It will do harm if child-study leave in the popular mind the impression
that a child of a given age has a positive equipment of purposes and
interests to be cultivated just as they stand. Interests in reality are
but attitudes toward possible experiences; they are not achievements;
their worth is in the leverage they afford, not in the accomplishment
they represent. To take the phenomena presented at a given age as
in any way self-explanatory or self-contained is inevitably to result
in indulgence and spoiling. Any power, whether of child or adult,
is indulged when it is taken on its given and present level in
consciousness. Its gen