This procedure is well enough in the case of inanimate bricks, but it is far from well enough in the case of animate, sentient human beings.  It would be a calamity to have duplicate human beings, and yet the traditional school seems to be doing its utmost to produce duplicates.  The native tendencies of one boy impel him toward the realms of nature, but, all heedless of this big fact, we bind him hard and fast to some academic post with traditional bonds of rules and regulations and then strive to coerce him into partaking of our traditional pabulum.  His inevitable rebellion against this regime we style incorrigibility, or stupidity, and then by main strength and authority strive to reduce him to submission and, failing in this, we banish him from the school branded for life.  Our treatment of this boy is due to the fact that another boy in the school is endowed with other native tendencies and the teacher is striving to fashion both boys in the same mold.

In striving to inculcate the quality of integrity, wholeness, soundness, rectitude in Sam Brown our aim is to develop this specific boy into the best Sam Brown possible and not to try to make of him another Harry Smith.  We need one best Sam Brown and one best Harry Smith but not two Harry Smiths.  If we try to make our Sam Brown into a second Harry Smith, society is certain to be the loser to the value of Sam Brown.  We want to see Sam Brown realize all his possibilities to the utmost, for only so will he win integrity.  Better a complete Sam Brown, though only half the size of Harry Smith, than an incomplete Sam Brown of any size.  If the native tendencies of Sam Brown lead toward nature, certain it is that by denying him the stimulus of nature study, we shall restrict his growth and render him less than complete.  If we would produce a complete Sam Brown, if we would have him attain integrity, we must see to it that the process of teaching engages all his powers and does not permit some of these powers to lie fallow.

If Sam Brown is a nature boy, no amount of coercion can transform him into a mathematics boy.  True he may, in time, gain proficiency in mathematics, but only if he is led into the field of mathematics through the gateway of nature.  He may ultimately achieve distinction as a writer, but not unless his pen becomes facile in depicting nature.  Unless his native interests are taken fully into account and all his powers are enlisted in the enterprise of education toward integrity, he will never become the Sam Brown he might have been and the teacher cannot win special comfort in the reflection that she has helped to produce a cripple.  We can better afford to depart from the beaten path, and even do violence to the sanctity of the course of study, than to lose or deform Sam Brown.  If his soul yearns for green fields and budding trees, it is cruel if not criminal to fail to cater to this yearning.  And only by cultivating and ministering to this native disposition can we hope to be of service in aiding him to achieve integrity.