ABSTRACT
One of Henry James's shorter novels, Washington Square, centres around a young heiress who agrees to elope with her suitor, only to be jilted at the last moment. The heroine is a plain, simple-minded, stay-at-home girl, essentially a weak character. The heroine in the tale has learned nothing that could ever be communicated by formal classroom instruction: she has been taught a lesson, yes, but what exactly was its 'content'? In nursery and infants' classrooms and to some extent throughout the primary stage as a whole, sympathetic understanding of the problems of growing up, and informed attention to the affective side of learning have become the hall-marks of enlightened teaching. As it is, adequate outlets for personal satisfaction are denied to many pupils in the school-learning situation with the result that alternative outlets are being sought. There are many ways in which school-bound learning can be seen to be anxiety-prone.
