Adapted excerpt from "Some Rights of Children as Persons" In School Education by Charlotte Mason
A very interesting and instructive educational experiment on these lines has lately been tried in Hackney, where Mr. Sargent got together some
eighty boys and girls under the conditions of an ordinary elementary school... The results seem to have been purely delightful; the children
developed an amazing capacity for drawing, perhaps because so soon as they were familiar with the outlines of the flower and foliage of a given
plant, for example, they were encouraged to form designs with these elements. The really beautiful floral designs produced by these girls and
boys, after quite a short art training, would surprise parents whose children have been taught drawing for years with no evident result. These
children developed themselves a great deal on their school magazine also, for which they wrote tales and poems, and essays, not prescribed
work, but self-chosen. The children's thought was stimulated, and they felt they had it in them to say much about a doll's ball, Peter, the school
cat, or whatever other subject struck their fancy. "They felt their feet" as the nurses say of children when they begin to walk; and our
non-success in education is a good deal due to the fact that we carry children through their school work and do not let them feel their feet.