In reply, it is safe to say that they can be so trained, provided they
have some native capacity for self-reliance that can be used as a
basis for such training. And that they have such capacity can scarcely
be questioned. In their choice and leadership of games and other play;
in their plans for constructive work; in their serious tasks set by
themselves at home; in their selection of topics for conversation and
even in the turns that their remarks take, children plainly show power
of initiative.

Intelligent parents recognize this fact, and they not infrequently
take successful measures to cultivate this power. Kindergartners also
recognize it. Indeed, they expect children who are little more than
infants to propose suitable tasks, together with the method of their
execution, in the kindergarten, and to carry the responsibility of
leadership in the conversation of the "circle" and in the games. The
resourcefulness of a ten-year-old boy was recently suggested in a
certain class in composition. The subject that they were writing on
was Mining in the Far West, and spelling was a serious obstacle for
one youth, as it was for most of his mates. Finally, with apparent
innocence, he asked his teacher if he might not describe his
experiences as a miner in the miner's own dialect. On receiving her
consent he gloried in his freedom by misspelling nearly every word
that he used.

Evidently, latent power of self-direction is one of the "native
tendencies" of childhood. The statement may be ventured, also, that
while the field of experience of children is very different from that
of adults, the exercise of initiative within that field is as common
among children as it is among adults within their own field.