FORMATION OF POPULAR SCIENCE CLUBS.
As the days passed after the reception, the new books were unpacked by
Fillmore Flagg, assisted by George Gerrish. As soon as possible they
were arranged and placed on appropriate shelves in each one of the ten
rooms prepared for them. Large steel engravings in plain oak frames, of
all the authors, together with the maps and charts, all neatly glazed
and mounted, adorned the walls of the particular room to which they
belonged, adding greatly to the attractiveness of the general
collection. As the work progressed, the keen interest displayed by all
members of the farm company seemed to increase. They could talk of
nothing else; they were eagerly and almost impatiently waiting for the
announcement of the formation of the clubs. Accordingly therefore, as
soon as the rooms were ready, a complete schedule of the books in each
series was made; these schedules being numbered from one to ten, to
indicate the series to which they belonged. They were printed and
distributed among the members of the company, with a request that one
week later, each member should return two of the numbered schedules
marked as first and second choice of the studies they desired to take
up. By this method of voluntary selection, the clubs were quickly and
easily formed, without friction or embarassment. Well stimulated by an
ever increasing fund of interest and enthusiastic ambition, the club
members, impressed with the wisdom of Fillmore Flagg's advice, promptly
took up the class work of the study chosen, eager to secure a generous
share of the educational benefits to be dispensed at the board of this
great literary feast, to which they had been so kindly invited as
especially selected guests. With some misgivings as to the final result,
Fillmore Flagg carefully watched the preliminary club work while yet in
its organic stage. He had been somewhat doubtful of the ability of the
average club member, who was not a trained student, to acquire a
sufficient interest in such abstract subjects, with which to develop the
mental force so necessary in order to digest and finally master them.
However, much to his surprise and delight, at the very threshold of the
work, the display of energy, ability and mental acuteness on the part of
the entire club membership, dispelled the last remaining doubt from his
mind; he was convinced of the practicability and final success of the
course.
In carefully analyzing the subject, he perceived that they were
quickened by the momentum of a united co-operative effort; also that
they were--perhaps subconsciously--pushed forward by a great number of
new ideas concerning the desirability of at once acquiring a larger
store of scientific lore, as a necessary and more complete equipment for
the practical duties of the battle of life. Dominant and central among
these ideas, was the one which so temptingly promised an increased
knowledge of themselves as individuals, by the mastery of the broad and
hitherto unexplored field of explanatory science; which might lead to a
better solution of the mystery of environmental conditions. Finally,
they were no doubt inspired strongly by a firm conviction that, once
armed with a thorough scientific education, they would possess an
additional power to aid in making Solaris Farm a speedier and more
pronounced success.
Fillmore Flagg accepted this demonstration of the combined ability of
the farm people to conquer the most difficult problems of science,
without the advantage of previous training, as an added proof that the
ideas and methods of the model farm were most assuredly in conjunctive
harmony with planetary evolution; therefore with the great force of
combined co-operative mental effort to push it forward, still more
surprising results might reasonably be expected, when these efforts were
more wisely and skillfully directed along lines indicated by nature as
lines of the least possible resistance. A realization of these
expectations would seem to suggest that the key to future success in all
educational work lies in discovering systems, methods, associations and
surroundings for the students, which are nearest in conjunctive harmony
with natural evolution, consequently along a pathway presenting the
fewest possible obstacles.