Nor do I
bother about the weeds. I just centre my attention and my hoe upon
loosening the soil and let the weeds look out for themselves. Hoeing
potatoes is a synthetic process, but cutting weeds is analytic, and
synthesis is better, both for potatoes and for boys. In good time,
if the boy is kept growing, he will have outgrown his stone-bruises,
his chapped hands, his freckles, his warts, and his physical and
spiritual awkwardness. The weeds will have disappeared.
The potato-patch is your true pedagogical laboratory and
conservatory. If one cannot learn pedagogy there it is no fault of
the potato-patch. Horace must have thought of _in medias res_ while
hoeing potatoes. There is no other way to do it, and that is
bed-rock pedagogy. Just to get right at the work and do it, that's
the very thing the teacher is striving toward. Here among my
potatoes I am actuated by motives, I invest the subject with human
interest, I experience motor activities, I react, I function, and I
go so far as to evaluate. Indeed, I run the entire gamut.
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