But although this petrifying method of teaching and supervision is still practised, the reaction against it has already set in both in England and America. Unhappily that reaction has been too violent as such reactions commonly are. From one extreme of permitting the child no opportunity of the exercise of independent thought and action, we have flown to the other in adopting the principle which is now known as “Free Expression”—a principle which I can show to be no less harmful than over-supervision. In fact so far as the physical expression of a child is concerned, the methods of Free Expression are even more dangerous than those of the opposite school. In England, this movement towards “Free Expression” has not so far been crystallised into a definite propaganda, nevertheless a number of thoughtful but unhappily inexpert parents are trying to adopt the principle in their own homes. Mr. Shaw’s Preface to his _Misalliance_ puts the theory of the method in a very clear and convincing argument. His main assumption is as follows: “What is a child? An experiment. A fresh attempt to produce the first man made perfect; that is, to make humanity divine. And you will vitiate the experiment if you make the slightest attempt to abort it into some fancy figure of our own....” That represents, of course, an idealist attitude, and every idealistically minded parent in Great Britain who reads that Preface of Mr. Shaw’s on “Parents and Children” at once attempts to put the theory into practice. The results, if the theory is persisted in, will be disastrous; and although in many cases the parents realise their error by practical experience before the child reaches the age of seven or so, certain cases I have seen demonstrate all too clearly that much mischief is being done even at the age of seven; faults and bad habits have become so far established that it is sometimes very hard to eradicate them. And in America the mischief is going further still. So-called “free” schools have been instituted which, although they may differ in the detail of their methods, are based on the same underlying principles. As far as I have examined the theory and practice of these schools their purposes are: (1) To free the child as far as possible from outside interference and restraint. (2) To place him in the right environment and then to give him materials and allow him activities through which he may “freely express himself.” Now this presupposes, firstly, that the child if left to himself has the power of expressing himself adequately and freely; secondly, that through this expression, he can educate himself. How far both these suppositions are fallacies will be understood by any one who has followed my argument and my citations of actual cases even up to this point; but the matter is so important that I do not hesitate to bring forward further evidence to establish my objection to this new and dangerous method.