ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the one aspect of ‘pre-craft’ education, which should more fittingly be called ‘play with materials’, children want to make things for many fundamental reasons. All serious educationists agree that painting is essential there are fundamental reasons why handcraft is necessary. The child needs two things: contact with the physical world in which he will live, with the varied and individual nature of its substances, and a material in which to express his own feelings and ideas. The teacher provides the materials and encourages the children to enjoy themselves with them. The child’s life is a whole, and there are no hard and fast divisions in his education, but there are differences of emphasis desirable at different phases of its development. If handcraft is to serve this individual need or spring from this individual experience, the child must obviously choose his own subject, so far as is possible.
