"when they get ready to change, they change, that's
all."

I saw that a change was coming directly, so I waited to watch it. The
group had been working with what I should call a great deal of noise and
confusion. All at once this increased tenfold. Pupils jumped over seats,
ran into each other in the aisles, scurried and scampered from this
place to that, while the teacher stood in the front of the room wildly
waving her arms. The performance lasted several minutes. "There's
spontaneity for you," the principal shouted above the roar of the storm.
I acquiesced by a nod of the head,--my lungs, through lack of training,
being unequal to the emergency.

We passed to another room. The same group system was in evidence. I
noticed pupils who had been working at their seats suddenly put away
their books and papers and skip over to the construction table. I asked
concerning the nature of the construction work. "We use it," the
principal told me, "as a reward for good work in the book subjects. You
see arithmetic is dead and dry. You must give pupils an incentive to
master it. We make the privileges of the construction table the
incentive." "What do they make at this table?" I asked. "Whatever their
fancy dictates," he replied. I was a little curious, however, to know
how it all come out. I saw one child start to work on a basket, work at
it a few minutes, then take up something else, continue a little time,
go back to the basket, and finally throw both down for a third object of
self-realization. I called the principal's attention to this phenomenon.
"How do you get the beautiful results that you exhibit?" I asked. "For
those," he said, "we just keep the pupils working on one thing until it
is finished." "But," I objected, "is that consistent with the doctrine
of spontaneity?" His answer was lost in the din of a change of groups,
and I did not follow the investigation further.

Noon dismissal was due when I went into the corridor. Lines are
forbidden in that school. At the stroke of the bell, the classroom doors
burst open and bedlam was let loose. I had anticipated what was coming,
and hurriedly betook myself to an alcove. I saw more spontaneity in two
minutes than I had ever seen before in my life. Some boys tore through
the corridors at breakneck speed and down the stairways, three steps at
a time. Others sauntered along, realizing various propensities by
pushing and shoving each other, snatching caps out of others' hands,