house. On the way there were many distractions, we sold our church pennies for candy, walked along the high steps and counted mailboxes. It was a competition. In this manner we were sure to be in church on time. But the contrary happened. When we realized how boring it was in church, we took care to come too late. We wandered along the beautiful houses on the Heren- and Keizersgrachten and unconsciously drank in the beauty of the regal merchants houses, the quite water, the arched stone bridges and the old elm trees. I remember every one of them. Sunday mornings could be so peaceful; especially during church time, few people wandered about. An odd empty flat barge lay against the wall. The water reflected the houses, the trees, the bridges and the high heaven of white clouds. Everything breathed peace. It was better out there than in the church. I thought so then and I still do now. Children do not belong in the large church!’. After his training as teacher, Jan Ligthart became head of the school in The Hague. Here he developed ideas about education. In his ‘pedagogy of the heart’ the personality of the child stood central, taking into consideration the interests and concerns of a child. They tried to include the children actively in the ‘matter’ of things. Teachers in his school worked with the education program that Ligthart had developed. He called his manner of teaching ‘The full life’. According to Ligthart it was not useful to teach city children that wheat and sugar beets were grown on clay ground and rye on sand. They did not know the difference between rye and wheat and between clay and sand. They had to discover for themselves what the differences were. He let the children sow grain themselves to follow the process of growth. They also harvested and made bread from the flour. If possible, they could also do carpentry work and sculpture. They even built a model of a grain mill.
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