A Little Of Everything - 1912 Author:E. V. Lucas Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: hair was beginning to turn grey, and her figure had a fulness likely to be comforting for a homesick child to look upon. We talked idly for a little while, an... more »d then I asked her some questions as to her scholastic methods, which I had heard were simple. "Well," she said, "we don't as a matter of fact do much teaching here. The children that come to me — small girls and smaller boys — have very few formal lessons; no more than is needful to get application into them, and those only of the simplest — spelling, adding, subtracting, multiplying, writing. The rest is done by reading to them and by illustrated discourses, during which they have to sit still and keep their hands quiet. Practically there are no other lessons at all. "But I have heard so much," I said, "about the originality of your system." Miss Beam smiled. "Ah, yes," she said. "I am coming to that. The real aim of this school is not so much to instil thought as thoughtfulness — humanity, citizenship. That is the ideal I have always had, and happily there are parents good enough to trust me to try and put it into execution. Look out of the window a minute, will you?" I went to the window, which commanded a large garden and playground at the back. "What do you see?" Miss Beam asked. "I see some very beautiful grounds," I said, "and a lot of jolly children; but what perplexes me, and pains me too, is to notice that they are not all as healthy and active as I should wish. As I came in I saw one poor little thing being led about owing to some trouble with her eyes, and now I can see two more in the same plight; while there is a girl with a crutch just under the window watching the others at play. She seems to be a hopeless cripple." Miss Beam laughed. "Oh, no," she said; "she's not lame, really; this i...« less