The intention of the school is to open up
opportunities for such expansive expressions of the concrete
experience as time and the capacity of the pupils admit, provided
that the expression has its valid relation to the promotion or the
enrichment of the enterprise of which they are responsible members.
Certain pupils, we will say, will elect to carry further than others
the testing of fuel, of heating and ventilating. Others may be
concerned with experiments in power. A subject possibly will become
of such absorbing interest to a pupil that he will want to experiment
with the one he elects for its own sake and without relation to the
problems in the shop. His interest may carry him into pure science,
unattached to any problem in hand. In such cases the pupil should
be given a chance to test out his interest; he should be placed on
probation in relation to his elected subject and if his interest
holds and is sufficiently serious he will be advised to give up the
school-shop work and follow the lead his interest has taken in some
other place or school.
Indeed the value of the experiment will rest on discovering whether or
not it holds the interest of the pupils, or how and where it diverts
it. The experiment is launched on the assumption that the normal
adolescent child is concerned with the responsibilities of adult life;
especially it is assumed that he is concerned to function creatively,
to associate with others in productive work, to help supply such
fundamental needs as the housing, feeding and clothing and the
pleasures of the world demand.
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