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The San Francisco Sunday Call
He'll be Ready
for
High School
at Seven
By Virtue of His
Mother's System
of "Living His
Education' Fou
r Haven
Hart of Los
Gatos Is Already
Master of the
Three R's, Geog
raphy and ——
Ironing!
Henry Meade Bland
THERE is a little restful bungalow
out under the shelter of the laurel
clad blue hills of Los Gatos in
which is now going on one of the
freshest, most Interesting of recent ex
es- periments in child training. It is here
that little 4 year old Haven Hart has
been trained by his teacher-mother
(and it has all been done in the last
eight months) till today, should he be
sent to the public schools, he could
easily work with 8 year olds, and his
mother says he will be ready for high
school when he is 7.
When I strolled a bright sunshiny
morning to the home of Mr. and Mrs.
O. B. Hart I was first shown into the
kitchen, and here Haven was flourish
ing a flatiron giving the final touches
to a boy's little linen suit he was iron
ing. He carefully folded the clothes
and, I was going to say, he showed me
into his schoolroom—but the whole
house, front yard and back, barn and
all, is his to live the little drama in
which he is playing himself into an
education.
"Spell California," said I as soon as
he began to feel at ease with me, and
his mother had indicated to begin the
test.
"Capital C-a-1-i-f-o-r—oh, what a
funny automobile:—n-l-a." Haven
stopped short at the end of the third
syllable, made his comical observation
on the chugging one cylinder auto
passing, then correctly finished the long
word.
"Santa Clara county," dictated Mrs.
Hart. The spelling was again per
fect, ending with "capital C-o- period,"
with the precision of a boy three times
his age.
Then came other marvels of learn
ing from the child, who, as yet, is
scarce a kindergartener in age. He
traced on a small hand globe, his con
stant plaything, the course of a load
of wheat from San Francisco to Liver
pool, naming oceans, seas, gulfs, bays
and straits along the route, with coun
tries by the schooner on Its
way. He quoted from "Hiawatha,"
which he said was written by Mr.
Longfellow; he recited from "Julius
Caesar," with the ease of a high school
faeshman!
"That nature might stand up and say
to all the world: this was t man"; and
his mother told me that he wnce argued
that Caesar was a crybaby because the
story said: "When that the poor nave
cried, Caesar hath wept." He talked
learnedly about Columbus and Wash
ington.
■ *»aa expected to see some bril
liant work—brilliant for a 4 year old;
but famlliarrty with a Shakespearean
classic went beyond me; yet I remem
bered tha* Benjamin Franklin did not
remember when he could not read; that
John Stuart Mill knew Greek at 4 and
read Plato in the original at 8; that
Thomas Babington Macaulay read
voluminously at 3, and at 8 wrote a
*»aipendlum of Universal History and
a long poem in imitation of Scott. Then
I recalled President Eliot's belief that
children generally should be able to
r-ter the secondary school at 12.
"But, you see. Haven will be through
with the grades in three years and
ready for the secondary school," quick-
Ay rejoined Mrs. Hart to these sugges
mal American child, under the right
system, could be doing the same things
as her baby, thereby saving many years
of the usual educational process.
"Wait till you understand the
method," she continued, "and my
motive for beginning this work. I
saw that Haven demanded a life of
freedom and out of doors. His father,
you know, was seized with tubercular
hemorrhages six months before Haven
was born; yet, after being given up by
four physicians, Mr. Hart has thrown
off the disease. The fear that Haven
would inherit it determined me never
to sentence him to the confinement of
the public school It was then decided
to educate him through play—'profit
able play.'
"I knew he should not be forced,'
continued the mother, "so I resolved
he should live his education; and every
movement about the house became a
game which he entered into and car
ried on, sometimes dragging me from
my work to take a part. His learning
was wholly spontaneous. We avoidet
formal toys and substituted sticks,
if iron and other things which
ed up, and which, in Haven's
imagination, became the wild
r the dangerous gun. What
had we made. Always the
as a game. For example, when
t him to read the names of
;ave him a stick for a gun, and
about the house shooting the
had printed on cards and put
ne walls or on the chairs and
When he had found and shot
he brought it to me and told
t it was. Varying the play
I have taught him hundreds of
words, which he now uses in
a second reader was brough
■en read with facility, showing
that he grasped what he read,
ibiting powers usually found In
9 year old child,
education of Haven was begun
y simple way. We had a rabbi
lack yard and on the cage o
I put the name "rabbit" ir
rinted letters. Haven quickly
the word, and could recognise
here. Then I labeled other ob
le hay, the cow, the milk, bran
1 found the words were ver
acquired. This was the first
nd Haven showed such an Ira
kept it up. In a very shof.
was reading in the first readei.
ser work we began by counting
gs around us. We learned th«
r coins by handling the gold
er. We played store and real
om the newspaper advertising."
Elart makes it plain that she
closely Haven's natural tenden
:om playing with mud pies she
clay modeling, and in this he
ly assimilating ideas of simple
ical form. The day I saw him
:he was intent on making a
nest. I recited to him some
lines: 'There are three green
a small, round pocket.', 'Edwin
n wrote that,' he broke In.
(ffice is a game he never tires
is postmaster and hands out
;o his mother, reading the en
o her as he does so. In this
not only learns the words, but
as of geography. Haven is by
s a bookworm, but makes him
him at his own house he was vigor
ously cultivating the cosmos and other
flowering plants. He Is very fond o:
the blossoms, showing this by putting
his face to the blooms from time to
tim e and drinking deep breaths of the
The remarkable thing about Haven's
progress is that it Is In the face of
heavy handicaps. He was prematurely
born and when a month old weighed
only 6 pounds. He was a mere midget
at birth, and physicians thought it im
possible for him to survive. The ill
ness of his father had borne heavily on
the mother. Yet in spite of all this
the boy is a healthy chunk today, full
of life, weighing 46% pounds, and Is
3 feet 8% inches tall.
There isi one clement of which this
mother-teacher is scarcely conscious,
but which makes strongly for the un
usual advance of Haven, and that is tha
strong mother love she always shows.
This she recently expressed in the
Short Story Club Magazine in "A
Mother's Poem."
"Long had I yearned to write a song
Which to the world might seem to give
All of the love in the wood dove's
mating,
All of the spring winds' balmy fra
grance;
And then I turned in the midst of my
longing,
And there was he all smiling before me.
My wee one —my poem complete."
The boy tenderly responds to his
mother's affection and echoes back to
her the "dearie" when he addresses
her—a term which is her pet name for
him. Without this interplay of in
tense love insurmountable difficulties
might arise. As It is, Haven is rarely
or never stubborn, but always re
sponsive to suggestions.
A quatrain, "Mt. Shasta," quoted in
the California advanced geography
under a full page photo reproduction
of the famous mountain, is further in
dicative of the literary taste which en
ables the mother to interest her boy
In writers. Furthermore, she Is an ex
perienced teacher of the public school,
and knows what i* ordinarily de
manded of children in the school room.
When asked as to whether she could
do as good work if she had more than
one child to teach, she was positive
that with more to work with, the little
drama of life she plays would be more
interesting. As it is, when others are
necessary to play a game, Haven's
dolls have to be called in and Havan
thinks they are dumb and uninterest
ing.
Mrs. Hart does not especially fol
low the plans of Doctoressa Montessorl
as she finds many of the Italian's
exercises unnecessary in an education
through "profitable play," for example,
she considers the lacing and buttoning
apparatus useless. Nor does she fol
low the methods used In training Violo
Olerich as she believes her brain forced
by the use of exercises are death to
the interest of ordlqary children.
