Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 207, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 September 1914 — INTERESTING ITEMS FROM THE CHIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

INTERESTING ITEMS FROM THE CHIES

Pupils Box and Tango in This Modern School NEW YORK.—What would you think of a school where children are allowed to do just as they please? Where a boy stealing jam is simply asked to consider whether he has not done wrong? ', ' '

Where two pupils having a fist fight in the classroom are asked whether it would not show’ more re gard for their teacher and the other boys and girls if they went into the play-yard to battle? Where a girl dancing the tango in the middle of the recitation room and singing an accompaniment is admonished, but allowed to proceed if •she pleases? ■Where each boy or girl can do just what particular lesson seems

most to his or her liking, and can drop the study of geography to peer through a-microscope at will? ‘ Yet just exactly these and even more remarkable doings are on view in the school of anarchists’ children in East One Hundred and Seventh street. “They will see their errors soon; it would be dangerous to their initiative and enterprise to prevent them from dancing or fighting. Children naturally dance and fight It is not good to stop them,” said their teacher. “But supposing a child said he was going to jump out of the window?” she was asked. “Well, none of them ever did —but we would simply try to show them the reasons for not injuring themselves. They could jump if they decided jto. “The Modern school has no rules or regulations. It is not authoritarian like the public schools, which cramp the child's mind and body,. It is libertarian. "We believe in the freedom of the child. We discuss with them what Is right and wrong, but we never forbid them things and never punish them.” The Modern school has 40 pupils.