The second plan allows the children to join actively with the teacher
in producing the ideas involved in the solution of the problem. It
shows the development method in operation, which places much more
responsibility upon the class. But the teacher even here takes
practically all of the initial steps. She is the one who breaks the
large problem up into its parts; who determines the wording of the
questions and the order in which they shall be considered. The
children follow her cue; they are subject to her constant direction,
and merely make response to her specific biddings. The reaching of new
thought by them under such immediate stimulus and suggestion involves
responsibility for thinking, to be sure, but very little
responsibility for the initial thinking or for initiative. Neither of
these methods, therefore, plainly develops the power of self-
direction.

Training in the exercise of initiative is provided, not when young
people are following some other person's plan and answering some other
person's questions, but when they are obliged to conceive their own
plans and their own questions. Here is the crux of the whole matter.
Some other method, therefore, is desirable, and it is not difficult to
find. After the making of the tile has been proposed, the teacher
might simply ask, "How will you plan this piece of work?" leaving the
conception of the main questions, together with the answers, as far as
possible to the children.

They would know that a certain size would need to be determined upon,
fixed by the size of a coffee pot; that the shape would have to be
considered, the round or square form being chosen according to
personal preference and ease of making; that the thickness would be a