One of the difficulties that had to be overcome was the mastery of simple addition. Another was the art of writing; and of course reading is a necessary art of modern life. Instead of the usual drill and practice and exercises, this class passed through the drudgery stage without realizing that school was a prison. This was during the autumn of the Armistice. Food conservation and thrift were in the air. These children were presented with a quantity of garden vegetables, but there was more than they could use themselves, so the suggestion was made that they could have the surplus for future use. The children, under guidance, did all the work connected with cold-pack canning of the tomatoes. This work was not at every point "interesting," in the superficial sense; but the purpose of the entire project was one that appealed to the children, so that they were quite satisfied to do the many essential details. Did they not here learn to clean their dishes and jars as well as they would have done had the cleaning been a "duty" imposed arbitrarily from above? Must drudgery be dreaded to be well done? Let the teacher who had charge of this class describe what happened, in her own words. "The success of the first small group in carrying through the various steps ... led to further work of the same sort, as various vegetables were given us. The children also dried apples and lima beans which they gathered themselves at the school farm. "That the interest in this rather exacting work was sustained for two months was doubtless due to the fact that the children had a genuine purpose in canning a large quantity of vegetables. For early in the work, upon the suggestion of one of the class, it had been decided to have a sale and use the proceeds to buy milk for a sick baby. Although I had not thought of this plan myself, I was glad to lend it my support. "The final preparation for the sale occupied a large share of the time for several weeks. The chief consideration from the children's point of view seemed to be who should take charge of the business of selling. They had conducted a play store intermittently during the fall, but, upon testing, it was found that most of the class were ill prepared to act as salespeople.[A] The children readily recognized this fact and willingly went to work to drill on addition and subtraction. The most successful drill was accomplished by means of a dramatic rehearsal of the forthcoming sale, some children impersonating the visitors and the others the salesmen. Real money, correct prices, and the actual jars of vegetables and fruit were used for this play. [Footnote A: Remember these were second-grade children--most of them seven or eight years old.]