CHAPTER III

‘MASTERLY INACTIVITY’

1. Contrast our sense of responsibility with that held in the fifties and sixties.

2. Show that the change in our point of view indicates moral progress.

3. What kind of responsibility presses heavily at present upon thoughtful people?

4. Show that anxiety is the note of a transition stage.

5. Why does a sense of responsibility produce a fussy and restless habit?

6. Why should we do well to admit the idea of ‘masterly inactivity’ as a factor in education?

7. What four or five ideas are contained in this of ‘masterly inactivity’?

8. What is Wordsworth’s phrase?

9. What is the first element in this attitude of mind?

10. Show that good-humour is the second element.

11. That self-confidence also is necessary.

12. What may mothers learn from the fine, easy, way of some fathers?

13. Show that confidence in children, also, is an element of ‘masterly inactivity.’

14. Why must parents and teachers be omniscient?

15. Show why ‘masterly inactivity’ is necessary to the bringing up of a child whose life is conditioned by ‘fate and free-will.’

16. What delicate poise between fate and free-will is to be aimed at for the child?

17. Show the importance of a sound mind in a sound body to the parent.

18. What may we learn from the quality which all the early painters have bestowed upon the pattern Mother?

19. Give one or two practical hints for tired mothers.

20. Why is leisure necessary to children’s well-being?

21. What is the foundation of the ‘masterly inactivity’ we have in view?

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