Too much participation and direction are fatal to the active cooperation and secondary leadership of others. Hence the teacher will bring about, in his own good time and way, the organization of a baseball team under the direction of a captain chosen by the boys. The choice, it is true, may probably be inspired by the teacher. The same would take place in regard to every game, sport, or activity, mental, social, or physical, in the community. The danger always is that the initial leader may become too dominant. It is hard on flesh and blood to resist the temptation to be lionized. But it is incomparably better to have partial or almost total failures under self-government than to be governed by a benevolent and beneficent autocrat. And so it is much better that boys and girls work out their own salvation under leaders of their own choice, than to be told to organize, and to do thus and so. It requires a rare power of self-control in a real leader to be compelled to witness only partial success and crude performance under secondary leaders groping toward success, and still be silent and patient. But this is the true process of education--self-activity and self-government. =Self-activity and Self-government.=--In order to develop initiative, which is the same thing, practically, as leadership, opportunity must be given for free self-activity. Children and adults alike, if they are to grow, must be induced to _do_. It is always better to go ahead and blunder than to stand still for fear of blundering. Many kind mothers fondly wish--and frequently attempt to enforce their wish--that children should learn how to swim without going into the water. Children see the folly of this and, in order not to disturb the calm and peace of the household, slip away to a neighboring creek or swimming-hole, for which they ever after retain the most cherished memories. In later years when all danger is over these grown-up children smilingly and jokingly reveal the mysteries of the trick! Children cannot learn to climb trees without climbing trees, or to ride calves and colts without the real animals. Some chances must be taken by parents and guardians, and more chances are usually taken by children than their guardians ever hear of. Accidents will happen, it is true, but in the wise provision of Mother Nature the world moves on through these persistent and instinctive self-activities.