Throughout education, from the first day to the last, there should be a sense of intellectual adventure. The world is full of puzzling things which can be understood by sufficient effort. The sense of understanding what had been puzzling is exhilarating and delightful; every good teacher should be able to give it. Madame Montessori describes the delight of her children when they find they can write; I remember a sense almost of intoxication when I first read Newton’s deduction of Kepler’s Second Law from the law of gravitation. Few joys are so pure or so useful as this. Initiative and individual work give the pupil the opportunity of discovery, and thus afford the sense of mental adventure far more often and more keenly than is possible where everything is taught in class. Wherever it is possible, let the student be active rather than passive. This is one of the secrets of making education a happiness rather than a torment. CHAPTER XV THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM BEFORE FOURTEEN The questions: what should be taught? and how should it be taught? are intimately connected, because, if better methods of teaching are devised, it is possible to learn more. In particular, more can be learnt if the pupils wish to learn than if they regard work as a bore. I have already said something about methods, and I shall say more in a later chapter. For the present, I shall assume that the best possible methods are employed, and I shall consider what ought to be taught. When we consider what an adult ought to know, we soon realize that there are things which everybody ought to know, and other things which it is necessary that some should know, though others need not. Some must know medicine, but for the bulk of mankind it is sufficient to have an elementary knowledge of physiology and hygiene. Some must know higher mathematics, but the bare elements suffice for those to whom mathematics is distasteful. Some should know how to play the trombone, but mercifully it is not necessary that every school-child should practise this instrument. In the main, the things taught at school before the age of fourteen should be among those that every one ought to know; apart from exceptional cases, specialization ought to come later. It should, however, be one of the aims of education before fourteen to discover special aptitudes in boys and girls, so that, where they exist, they may be carefully developed in the later years. For this reason, it is well that everybody should learn the bare beginnings of subjects which need not be further pursued by those who are bad at them. When we have decided what every adult ought to know, we have to decide the order in which subjects are to be taught; here we shall naturally be guided by relative difficulty, teaching the easiest subjects first. To a great extent, these two principles determine the curriculum in the early school years.