(2) He lives in a world of make-believe. His play, we have seen, is dramatic. Father's walking-stick becomes a horse, himself a soldier captain, and sticks of wood the enemy. He turns himself into a railroad engine, and goes even about his errands puffing and flailing his arms like driving-rods, backing and switching, and coming to a stop with the hiss of escaping steam. For hours or even for days he becomes another person or an animal. Lonely children often play with imaginary companions; and cases are to be found where such creatures of fancy abide and play a very real part in the child's life for months or even years. "Let's play we're sisters," said two little sisters who had been quarreling; and the imagined relationship brought the peace which the real one had failed to maintain.*

(3) He makes no clear distinction between imagination and reality. Personifying natural events as he does, he may fail to distinguish between the real happening and his interpretation of it. Beneath his make-believe there often runs an under-consciousness of its unreal character; but like as not he forgets, and grows really afraid of the make-believe lion, or cries over some imagined trouble. It is this confusion of fact and interpretation, of reality and play, that is responsible for many so-called "lies" of children. They call, not for punishment, but for comprehending sympathy and patient training.

(4) He comprehends no symbolism save that of the imagination. It is perfectly natural to a child to use symbols. In his dramatic play he has no difficulty in making one thing stand for another. He is not hindered, as we generally are, by a feeling that the symbol ought to resemble the thing it represents. Chips of wood can represent soldiers just as easily as the most elaborately uniformed tin warriors. The magic of his imagination can transform the dullest and most prosaic of objects.

Yet he cannot understand the symbolism of grown people, and is often absurdly literal in his interpretation of figures of speech or "object-lessons." It is because our symbols are of a totally different character from his own. They depend for their value upon some likeness to the thing they represent, and bring out the truth in terms of analogy. Take as examples some of the figures of speech which we constantly use to express religious truths-that we are "the sheep of His pasture," that "our cup runneth over," that Jesus is the "Lamb of God," that the "cross" is the way to the "crown." It takes more than the imagination to appreciate these analogies; it requires a reasoning power which the child does not yet possess. Moreover, we * This illustration comes, I think, from Miss Harrison; but I cannot now find it,

make too big a demand upon his little mind when we expect him to deduce from these concrete figures an abstract spiritual truth whose reality he has not yet experienced. In his own natural symbolism he lets one known thing stand for another equally concrete and wellknown-chips for soldiers, or stick for horse; but here we are asking him to let a known thing stand for something he knows nothing about.

(5) He is intensely eager for stories. They must be full of action and of pictures, simple and without intricacy of plot. They must lie close enough to the child's own experience to rouse definite mental pictures, yet have enough of mystery and novelty to stir his feelings. They must have a climax, and must lead straight to it and then stop. They must contain some rhythm or repetition in which he can delight. Above all, they must be told by one who himself retains the spirit of childhood, and who sees and feels the things he tells. Such stories the child will call for again and again, and often he wants them repeated in the very words that were used before.

5. A little child is credulous and suggestible. He believes anything you tell him, simply because of his lack of experience. He has no fund of established ideas as the rest of us do, to serve as a basis for distinguishing truth from falsehood. The suggestion remains uncontradicted, and issues in action from the very motive power that all ideas possess. Many little letters and prayers every year witness how real Santa Claus is to the child; real, too, is the "bogy-man" who will "ketch you ef you don't watch out." Make light of a little tot's fall and heal the bump with a kiss, and he will not cry; while you can bring on a very agony of tears if you pity him enough.

It is not only ideas that we wish the child to believe and act upon, that have this suggestive power. Chance remarks, unthinking actions, personal attitudes, are often more potent than direct suggestions. Objects, too, as well as persons, may “put ideas into his head" which are hard to get rid of.

6. The little child is exceedingly imitative. Imitation is one of the earliest of the instincts, and remains throughout early childhood a marked characteristic of the period.

It may be looked upon as a form of suggestion. We are more likely to be influenced by what others do than by what they say. At any time of life, the action of someone else is the most potent of suggestions.

But imitation does not depend at all upon the possession of ideas. It is often reflex. The presence of a stammering child at school has

a bad effect upon the speech of other children. The temper of your class is likely a reflection of your own. Smile, and they smile with you; frown, and they will soon give you reason to.

Reflex imitation is present almost from the beginning. Dramatic imitation we have already considered. It appears about the third year. Voluntary imitation begins a little before—when the child purposely seeks to act like another does. His repetition of words, as we teach him to talk and he tries the difficult pronunciations again and again to secure our approval, is an example. He imitates single actions rather than persons; he wants to do something like uncle, rather than to be like him.

7. A child of this age is naturally self-centered. He knows no motives other than those of his own pleasure and pain. His little acts of generosity are done only for the approval or pleasure they bring. The social and altruistic instincts have not yet awakened. If he plays with other children, or if he likes to be with others, they are ministers to his own enjoyment. He is the center of his world, and everything and everybody in it exists for him. The word “my” is the great one in his vocabulary. Yet this is not selfishness; it is simple nature. It is tempered by the fact that he is very affectionate and is keenly sensitive to the personal attitudes of others. He finds the greatest of pleasure in a smile or caress, and is heart-broken at a frown. A boy of two wept bitterly because he had caught a look of surprise and disapproval on the face of a visitor when he had struck at his mother. A week after he saw the visitor again. "Do you remember,” he plaintively queried, "how you looked when I hit mamma? I don't like you to look that way." The child's feelings are not deep or lasting-his tears come like April showers and are forgotten-but they lie near the surface. There is truth in the old adage that one may trust a man whom children and animals like. The child, at least, instinctively fathoms the dispositions. Nature has put him close to the heart of men.

Here lies his defence when one would impose upon his credulity. He soon comes to know whom he can believe. His faiths become personal. He has implicit confidence in those who love him, and learns to reject the suggestion of meanness or of ridicule. We are sometimes urged to have the faith of a child-and rightly. For the faith of a child is at bottom faith in a Person.

1. What is the distinction between work and play? What are some of the values of play in the life of a child?

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2. Describe the distinctive characteristics of the play of early childhood. Imitative alone

3. Why are the little child's senses more impressionable than ours? 4. In what forms does the instinct of curiosity manifest itself in early childhood? What should be our attitude toward it?

5. What are some of the peculiarities of a little child's memory? 6. What do you understand by the imagination? What are its functions?

7. Describe some of the ways in which the imaginativeness of early

childhood is revealed. Poismefiés

8. Why is a little child credulous?

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9. What do you understand by a suggestion? How does it differ from a command? How does an indirect differ from a direct suggestion?

10. What is reflex imitation? Dramatic imitation? Voluntary imitation? When does each appear in the life of a child?

II. Is a little child selfish when he takes all the playthings of the nursery to himself? Give reasons for your answer.

12. Why is it best that a child should be self-centered?

13. Can you cite any illustrations of a little child's sensitivity to the personal attitudes?

There is no evident transition from early to middle childhood. Most of the characteristics of the former period belong to this. The child of six to eight is still impulsive and suggestible. He is active and restless, and not yet able to give sustained attention, or to concentrate himself upon a disagreeable task. His real life is one of play, and your appeal must be to senses and imagination. He is still self-centered and the creature of capricious instincts and feelings.

Yet the child of six or more differs from the one who has not reached that birthday. He has had a wider experience, of course, which gives a richer meaning to every perception and a more definite control for every impulse. But the great difference lies in the fact that he has entered school. That gives him a wholly new view-point. His world has changed. He has now a place of his own in the social order, and enters into a wider circle of companionship and a more definite round of responsibilities than home or kindergarten had made possible.

1. Physically, this period is one of rapid growth, though less rapid, of course, than that of the former period. From six to nine, weight increases 32 per cent, as opposed to 45 per cent during the years from three to six. Height increases somewhat over 13 per cent, against 25 per cent in the preceding three years. While the deathrate continues to decrease, there is about the eighth year a rapid increase of liability to sickness. This is to be traced in part to conditions associated with the appearance of the permanent teeth, and in part to the relative weakness of the heart, which has less than one-third of its adult weight, and must force the blood over a body which has two-thirds of its adult height. The heart is especially pushed, of course, by muscular exercise, of which the body craves a great deal. This is doubtless the explanation of the quickness with which an eightyear-old becomes fatigued.

2. Physical activity and play characterize this period of childhood as well as the first. But there are manifest differences:

(1) Activity is more purposive and controlled. Whereas the younger child found delight in the mere activity itself, the child of this period