Hadow (1933)

(page numbers in brackets)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages (i-xxvi)
Membership, Analysis, Preface, Introduction
Chapter I (1-46)
History of the development of infant education
Chapter II (47-68)
Physical development of children up to 7
Chapter III (69-85)
Mental development of children up to 7
Chapter IV (86-97)
Age limits and organisation of the infant stage
Chapter V (98-115)
Medical supervision, education and training of under 5s
Chapter VI (116-148)
Training and teaching of children in infant and nursery schools
Chapter VII (149-158)
Staffing of infant and nursery schools, training of teachers
Chapter VIII (159-172)
Premises and equipment of infant and nursery schools
Chapter IX (173-197)
Summary of principal conclusions and recommendations
Appendix I (198-214)
List of witnesses
Appendix II (215-243)
Anatomical and physiological characteristics (Harris)
Appendix III (244-251)
Emotional development of children up to 7+ (Burt and Isaacs)
Appendix IV (252-264)
Notes on typical nursery schools and classes
Appendix V (265-266)
Manchester's student nurse scheme for 'helpers'
Appendix VI (267-272)
Practice in Europe and US
Index (273-282)

London: HM Stationery Office

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45. The processes of mental development up to the age of two. During the last three decades the views of psychologists regarding the mental development of children in the earlier phases of life have undergone a great change. Many of the older opinions have been modified, fresh facts have emerged, and above all it has been shown that experiences during the first few years of life probably do more than those of any later stage to determine character and intellectual interests. For the purpose of our present inquiry we are primarily concerned with the mental development of children between the ages of two and seven, but in order to understand the process of mental growth and the conditions required for normal healthy development between these ages, it is necessary to describe briefly the mental condition of the child at the beginning of this period and the particular processes that have been in operation up to the age of two.

These processes are still only imperfectly understood; future research may throw further light on the effect of varying conditions during the first one or two years of the child's life and during the nine months before birth, and also on influences deriving from heredity. It will suffice to point out here that though a child's form and activities at birth are in part determined by its heredity, the effects of hereditary influence are by no means wholly restricted to those manifested at birth. The vital reflexes are already present in the new born child and such processes as breathing and the beating of the heart are automatically and efficiently performed. Some more complex activities may be observed within the first hours of life - for example, sneezing, and the action of the kidneys and the bowels. Other activities are not manifested for some considerable time, though it is

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evident from the manner of their emergence that they do not require to be learnt or practised. The primitive expression of primary emotions such as anger and fear, develops somewhat gradually, (1) and early observers such as Darwin and Preyer emphasised the way in which these instinctive activities emerge almost spontaneously and so appear to be inherited.

46. Sensory Development. For the purposes of scientific study it is convenient to consider in turn the various aspects of the child's mental development, and to treat separately of sensory development, motor development, memory, reason and so forth; but it must be borne in mind that these are only scientific abstractions - aspects artificially selected from the whole activity of the child. In actual life it is always the individual child as an organic whole with whom we have to deal, and never with his sensory development alone or with his motor development alone. His activities in relation to the people and the things in his environment form an integral unity, every part of which is bound up with every other part.

In human beings the senses of highest significance to intellectual development are sight and hearing. The eye as a sense organ is ready to function at birth, though vision involves not merely gazing at an object, but following it and moving the eyes over it in order to analyse it. The new born child is able to make eye movements, but the eyes do not always move together. Soon after birth he sometimes seems able to follow a bright moving object, but even till the end of the third month most children lose sight of objects that are more than seven feet away, and it is clear that visual perception only develops slowly. Less is known about the development of hearing. The ear is apparently not quite so ready to function at an early stage as the eye, but by the end of the fourth month the child quickly recognises differences between the voices of different persons and between the emotional expression of the voice indicating anger, or pleasure, or fear.

Movement is controlled by the muscle sense, but little or nothing is known regarding its development. The remaining senses seem to be fairly well defined at, or soon after, birth.

(1) A summary of the salient points of our present knowledge on emotional development will be found in Appendix III.

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Smell or taste guides the child in taking his food, and, above all, touch seems to be highly developed from the beginning. Indeed, during the first few weeks of life it is chiefly the child's own skin which puts him in contact with his environment. When the child is awake and undistracted, he occupies himself largely in getting sensations of movement and touch.

Motor Development. During the third month of postnatal life the child begins deliberately to hold objects in his fist, and thereafter exhibits considerable activity in gripping things and moving them at random. At this stage he will often make flourishes with the legs as well as with the arms, as though he were not yet certain which was the prehensile limb. At this stage he can explore objects by vision and touch, but does not as yet connect the two processes. His hands do not reach out for the objects observed by his eyes, nor do his eyes turn to observe things which he is holding in his hands. This important development takes place towards the end of the fifth month, and then at last the child realises that the thing which he sees is identical with the thing that he is feeling. During the first half year of life, mental development accordingly consists chiefly in (i) the development of vision, leading to the capacity for fairly exact visual perception, and (ii) the development of hand-movement, leading up to prehension with the hands and finally to the exercise of the two processes in association.

47. Walking is one of the most important motor activities that mark the stage of development up to the age of two. A most interesting problem is to discover how far walking is an instinctive action, the urge to which is delayed after birth, to ripen when the appropriate time has arrived, and which is then learned spontaneously by the child; and how far it is a process which has to be taught. On the whole, it would seem that human beings, like the lower animals, inherit the power to use their legs for locomotion, but that much trial and error are required for the efficient and steady performance of this function in an upright posture. The power to walk, when finally acquired, brings with it important changes of character, since the child now becomes more independent of the mother or nurse, and desires to move about for his own purposes and at his own free will.

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48. An important stage in the intellectual development of the infant is marked by the beginnings of speech, a peculiarly human activity. Speech has apparently evolved out of primitive emotional cries such as even the lower animals can make. It has been a commonplace in literature that the new born child utters a cry on his first entry to a new and unfamiliar world. It is probable, however, that this initial cry is merely an automatic result of the first intake of breath. Thus the child can utter cries and can scream almost from the first, though, until the first four weeks of life are over, there is little correspondence between the cries and their causes. After the fourth week, however, the noises rapidly become differentiated. During the first four or five months they almost exclusively indicate bodily discomforts and needs, but presently the child begins to make noises expressive of contentment, and will babble when he is lying in comfort and quiet. At first differences in the child's noises are due simply to differences in the shape of the cavity of the mouth. Vowel sounds, such as a are usually the first articular sounds. Among the consonants, the labials m, b, p are usually the first heard, although sometimes gutturals precede them. The liquids come much later, and many children cannot pronounce r clearly until near the close of infancy. Before the end of the first six months many children use in babbling many of the vowels and consonants that enter into articulate speech. All that the child appears to inherit is a tendency to make specific articulate noises, and possibly also a tendency to attach some significance to sounds so made or heard. The child invents and uses sounds for himself long before he copies the words of other people. When the child learns to speak, he does it by putting together noises of his own that approximate to the words he hears from those around him. So far as is known, the child inherits no nervous organisation which tells him exactly what muscles to move in order to make a given sound.

The time of appearance of speech may be an important index of the child's intellectual development. At the age of twelve months, over 80 per cent of normal children have five or six words, and rapidly increase their vocabulary. At this stage, a child expresses a sentence by a single word aided by gesture or vocal intonation. Few children can combine two words appropriately and significantly till towards the end of the second year.

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49. During the period up to the age of two certain habits must be acquired, and the process may be of great significance for the child's future social development. Of these the most important are those connected with food, viz, the taking of food, and the excretion of its waste products. It may be observed that well meant, but tactless efforts on the part of parents may often, even at this early stage, seriously impair the child's social character, and in particular make him intractable when the time comes to inculcate higher and more elaborate habits. In brief, the proper principles would seem to be: (i) that the necessary situation and the daily routine should be so arranged as to evoke the desirable line of conduct at the appropriate time, without any personal pressure. The child's attention should be directed to desirable behaviour rather than to undesirable behaviour. His successes should be emphasised and his failures minimised, and in general all emotion should so far as possible be avoided, particularly emotions of shame or hostility. A tiny child may exhibit little interest in matters of food, but if the parent displays exaggerated interest, coaxing, reproaching or scolding the child in order to make him eat, the child will soon discover that he can use this resistance to the wishes of the parent or nurse as a convenient means of playing on their emotions. Like considerations apply to such matters as excretion, personal cleanliness, habits of sleep, and seemingly unimportant little tricks, e.g. fits of crying or thumb sucking.

50. One of the most obvious and significant facts about children during the first two or three years of life is the relative strength of their emotions and impulses, which they show little power of modifying or restraining according to the wishes of others or the requirements of reality. The reason for this is that man, like other higher mammals, inherits a number of powerful instincts, the majority of which ripen within the first few weeks of life. Intelligence, on the other hand, though an innate capacity, matures far more slowly. Hence, the tiny child's instinctive reactions are completely out of proportion to his understanding and his power of self-control. During the first two years of life the child's emotional reactions are concerned primarily either with physical comfort or with bodily nutrition. The reflexes and instincts connected with nutrition are fairly definite, but it is important to

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realise that the processes involved are not merely a matter of reflex action. Hence the problem of training young children in respect of feeding or excretion should not be regarded purely as a matter of controlling local physiological mechanisms. (1)

One obvious point of technique is to aim at regular times both for feeding and excretion. During the first year of life the chief crisis in development is that connected with weaning. With the first appearance of the teeth there is a marked tendency to use them, and the child seems almost to take a pleasure in biting. If this quasi-destructive instinct be thwarted, it may become exaggerated and develop into a medium of defiance and rage. Excessive destructiveness in little children is often a vestige of injudicious handling during the period of weaning. During the second year of life there is a noticeable increase in the variety and vividness of the child's emotions. When the child can walk by himself, he begins to display more independence, and there is sometimes a tendency to treat him as a small adult. Systematic investigations have shown that outbursts of anger often rise to a maximum during the second year. If, however, the child be given definite opportunities for self-help and self-expression, and if there be no increase in the amount of scolding or punishment, this phase tends rapidly to pass away. Throughout the first two years of life the most marked feature in the child's emotional attitude is his attachment to his parents. He may become definitely jealous over the attention of grown-ups or playmates who seek to share his toys. Other children may interest him, but it is mainly to the adult that the child of this age looks for emotional satisfaction.

51. The emergence of certain inherited tendencies and their significance in the child's daily life. From the age of two onwards there are no sudden changes or well marked stages in the mental development of the growing child. The acquisition of speech and of locomotion are changes which appear at fairly well-marked dates and are mastered within a comparatively short period; their effect on the child's intellect and character is very noticeable. Nothing of this type occurs during the later stages of mental growth.

(1) This topic is discussed in greater detail in appendix III.

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Older psychologists recorded the emergence of new emotions and fresh interests in the children whom they studied, and at first believed that the appearance of such emotions and interests occurred almost abruptly at certain ages. Many inquirers held that these emerging interests corresponded closely with the interests and occupations shown by primitive man. It was assumed that man passed through definite cultural stages; and so long as the 'recapitulation' theory was generally accepted, it was supposed that the individual child tended to repeat in the same order, though in abbreviated form, all the successive phases through which his ancestors had passed. This view, commonly called the 'culture epoch' theory, exercised a profound and, in some respects, a salutary influence upon the planning of syllabuses and 'curricula' for infant schools. In the hands of persons of practical experience and common sense, it undoubtedly did much to improve traditional methods of instruction, since it substituted activities of a simpler and more natural type for premature attempts at formal instruction in the 3Rs.

The theory itself, however, must not be pressed too far, and the main assumptions on which it was based are now largely abandoned. It was too simple to explain the facts, and the facts reveal, not the abrupt and successive emergence of a few definite interests, but a progressive and almost continuous evolution.

Most psychologists, however, still hold that the mental development of tiny children is to a large extent determined by specific tendencies which are inherited. They still differ widely, however, regarding the character and number of those innate tendencies. The 'Behaviourists' would recognise only three or four tendencies of the simplest and most mechanical type. Other psychologists, like Thorndike, have drawn up long lists of innate tendencies which they regard as being little more than complex reflexes. In Great Britain the prevailing view groups these tendencies together, regarding them as manifestations of about a dozen appetites and instincts. The best way to discover what these particular forms most commonly are, is to watch the child while he is engaged in free spontaneous play. Every observant parent, nurse and teacher will have noticed that children at successive ages are disposed to prefer different forms of play. Many psychologists have endeavoured by means of questionnaires and statistical analysis to study the type of game that seems specially appropriate for children at each successive age.

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Such studies may prove suggestive to the teacher in planning occupations for the nursery stage, but different individuals, different races, and different social classes, vary so much in these respects that earlier generalisations can only be accepted with reservation. It is more satisfactory to provide freedom in a suitable environment for the individual children or the particular group, and then to observe what interests predominate.

52. One of the most striking discoveries of recent psychology is that the normal child will learn spontaneously a large number of things which it was formerly considered necessary to teach him deliberately. Some of the older psychologists believed that each child was born with no special character or tendencies of its own, being simply a lump of malleable material that had to be moulded into shape by parents and teachers. Later psychologists recognised that the new born child was already equipped with certain inherited tendencies. It has now for many years been recognised that a large number of tendencies to action which are not obvious at birth may nevertheless be inherited: their emergence is merely deferred. They ripen spontaneously, though after some delay. For instance, many parents imagine that they have to teach their babies to walk. It would appear, however, that, when the inner nervous mechanisms have had time to develop, the child will of its own accord begin to learn to walk.

These tendencies to spontaneous action may be divided into two main groups: (i) those sometimes termed appetitive; (ii) those described as reactive. Behaviour arising from the former is mainly concerned with physiological needs, and arises out of inner feelings. If the appetitive tendencies remain dominant in the child's mental development, he becomes immersed in his own pleasures and pains and continues to be isolated. Too exclusive an insistence on the daily incidents of hygienic routine - eating, drinking, excretion, dressing, washing, and the like - may easily foster this self-absorption, and thus ultimately warp the emotional development of the child. Under natural conditions, the child's ordinary surroundings would be full of objects and situations calculated to stimulate his reactive tendencies, and so keep him in constant touch with the real world outside. In the ordinary urban environment there is little to satisfy the child's natural impulses; it is important, therefore, to provide an

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environment which will do so. Persons in charge of children under the age of five should, accordingly, try so far as possible to keep them in the open air surrounded with trees, plants, animals, places that they can explore, pools in which they can paddle, and sandpits in which they can dig. (1)

53. Motor Development. The most patent characteristic of the child at this stage is his great capacity for muscular activity. In the main, the muscles which are brought under control during this stage of development are the larger, rather than the finer, muscles, and particularly the mechanism of locomotion. It is most important that children should be allowed to toddle, run about, clamber and climb as much as they wish. Facilities should, therefore, be afforded to children under the age of five to move about freely in safety.

Some of these activities involve very delicate movements and extremely fine muscular coordinations, for instance, those concerned in adjusting the two eyes for binocular vision and those involved in adjusting the various organs for speech. It should be noted that, although these are highly skilled actions, they do not require to be directly taught.

Sensory Development. Between the ages of two and five the child is gaining knowledge about the world around him through his senses, and is learning to exercise these senses in themselves. In human beings the sense organs of highest cognitive value are the eye, the ear, and what is commonly called 'touch' (which is mainly muscle sense). The child's constant desire to look at things, and to handle them, finger them, and even pull them to pieces, should be restricted as little as possible. In the home the objects which the child can explore and handle freely are often limited. In school children should be surrounded with objects and materials which will afford scope for experiment and exploration.

Recent research has shown that in young children the more primitive senses afford pleasures which are far more intense than those experienced by adults. The infant is more eager to smell and taste than the older child, and as Madame Montessori has shown, he can often acquire a clearer perception of shapes and textures through touch and the muscle sense than through vision. The higher senses, particularly the eye and ear, require opportunities for 'sense training'. Careful

(1) See Chapter VI, Section 90.

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experiment however has shown that what is true of the muscles is not true of the senses; merely to exercise the senses does not in itself suffice to strengthen or train them. Indeed, after the first few months of life it would appear that the chief need is to teach the child to discriminate what was previously unnoticed or confused, and to assist him to perceive what is to be learnt. It is only possible to ascertain by careful experiment which of these tasks are most appropriate. The essential principles are to keep well within the range of the child's spontaneous interests and to give variety and meaning to his sense-perception. Small differences are unnoticed until they have been repeated in differing contexts and have acquired a meaning for the individual child.

54. It is a mistake to regard the mental life of the child at this stage as wholly immersed in movement and sensation. The older division of growth into well marked stages is misleading in so far as it implies that the inner life of thought and fancy develops only after the sensory and motor stages. From the beginning the child not only moves and perceives, but feels pleasure or pain in his actions and their results. Until he has acquired sufficient language to enable him to think conceptually, his mental processes are mainly concerned with feelings or fancies, and his thinking remains imaginative, rather than logical, until he has attained the age of six or seven. It is more concerned with the avoidance of pains and the satisfaction of impulses and desires than with rational inquiry or systematic planning. This is the reason that children's play consists so largely of 'make-believe' and that fairy tales appeal to them. Most British psychologists would welcome the inclusion of fiction and romance in the teaching given to young children, but it is important that the world of fancy should not exclude the world of reality.

The value of conversation about what the child sees and hears cannot be over-emphasised. It helps to fix his attention and to clarify his thoughts, and stores his mind with ideas on which he can draw on future occasions.

55. The intensity of the child's emotional life reaches its zenith towards the end of the third year. Never again, except in early adolescence, are emotions experienced so fully and

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vividly. In its quick changes and shifting colours the child's life at this period is kaleidoscopic. With the utmost inconsistency he turns from laughter to tears, from affection to hostility, and back again. Soon, however, the first acuteness of these conflicts begins to diminish, and the child slowly learns to integrate his clashing emotions into more temperate and stable relations. When children go to school at the age of three they generally show a tendency to cling to the grown-ups for attention and shelter, but by the middle of their fourth year they begin to display an interest in other children, and learn, not indeed to play with them, but at least to play among them. Social and gregarious tendencies have not yet emerged to any considerable extent. Hence when groups form spontaneously among children of this age they are usually quite small groups; two children, or three or four at the most, tending to play together. Even these little groups, however, tend to break down at any moment through an outbreak of childish quarrelling. This is the opportunity for the tactful leadership of a sympathetic adult, under whose care the group feeling may be sustained with greater stability than if the children were left wholly to themselves. By allowing the child to gain in this way greater confidence in himself, he will quickly learn to trust other children, and by the end of the fifth year should become more and more stable in his emotional life. Friendships with other children tend to wean him from his exclusive dependence upon adults.

56. The development of elementary psychological capacities: Sensation - Touch. In the sense of touch the young child shows noticeable superiority, which is still manifest at the age of seven. Ordinary laboratory tests indicate that the child of seven is about twice as sensitive in this respect as the adult. Girls are usually more sensitive than boys. The delicacy of the fingers has never been actually measured in children at or below the age of seven, but it would probably exhibit the same sensitivity as the rest of the skin.

Muscle Sense. In muscle sense also children show comparatively great delicacy. Professor Spearman in his earlier researches with laboratory tests concluded that 'younger children are almost equal to older children in this respect, and both are not far from adults'. Later investigators, however,

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have found that muscle sense gradually improves with age. It is probable that in the finer muscles of the body, e.g. those of the fingers, the sensory acuity of children at this age is not so marked as at later stages of development. In the larger muscles children can probably rely as much on muscle sense as adults. In this respect boys appear to be superior to girls.

Hearing. Tests of pitch discrimination indicate that at the age of six or seven the sense of hearing has not reached its maximum power. Some competent investigators, however, suggest that the results of these tests may be due to improvement in intelligence rather than to improvement in sense discrimination as such. Even at the age of five some children exhibit remarkable powers of discrimination. The appreciation of rhythm is more acute than appreciation of melody or harmony.

Vision. Visual discrimination is in some ways unexpectedly poor in early childhood. In general, it may be said that at the age of seven nearly 80 per cent of children are long sighted (hypermetropic) and about 2 or 3 per cent short-sighted (myopic). During subsequent years long sight diminishes, and short sight noticeably increases, but hypermetropia is more difficult to detect than myopia. Thus in early childhood the eye is an imperfect organ, naturally under-focused and ill-adapted for close work or fine discrimination. It is therefore most important that children under the age of seven should not be expected to read small print or indeed to do any close work for long periods. It seems to us important that school doctors and teachers should point out to parents that the correction of various defects in the vision of young children by means of spectacles does not necessarily involve their permanent use. Indeed, in some instances the early use of glasses is the only way in which to avoid their permanent use in later life.

57. Strength. The child of seven is still weak in muscular strength. With the tests ordinarily employed his strength of grip at the age of seven is about ten kilograms; by the age of twelve it is doubled; and by the age of twenty-one it often amounts to fifty kilograms. Girls are slightly weaker than boys, though the sex difference is not so pronounced as at later ages.

Speed of Movement. In rapidity of movement as distinct from strength, the younger child does not show noticeable inferiority to older children. For instance, in 30 seconds a

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child of seven can make about 140 taps, whereas at the age of twelve he can make about 170. Girls are only slightly, if at all, inferior to boys in speed of movement.

Accuracy of Control. Sufficient data are not yet available to determine the degree of improvement in manual or muscular skill throughout the period of childhood. Several investigators, however, have observed a remarkable gain between the ages of six and eight. In general, it may be said that by the age of six the child has acquired fairly accurate control of the larger muscles, but control of the finer muscles does not exhibit very noticeable improvement till about the age of eight. It is accordingly important that during the earlier stages of childhood attempts to develop muscular control should be directed mainly to that of the larger muscles and that fine work with hands and fingers should not be expected. This lack of delicate control is noticeable not only in the movements of the hands, but also in those of the eyes and vocal organs. These in particular are liable to be upset by anything that disturbs the child's nervous balance. Childish impediments such as lisping and stammering are not uncommon at the age of six or seven. Later they rapidly diminish. Left-handedness and right-handedness respectively are well established at a very early age, and these tendencies appear to be in part hereditary. It is, however, difficult to determine how much is due to the congenital factor and how much to early training and obscurer factors. It is generally believed that if a teacher forces a left-handed child to use his right hand, the child may begin to exhibit signs of nervous instability which may in some cases lead to stammering. If the teacher uses indirect and tactful methods, these symptoms are not likely to develop. But certainly during the past twenty years teachers in infants schools have been less prone to insist upon the use of the right hand for left-handed children, and this has led to an apparent increase in the number of such children. (1)

Rhythm. At this stage the child's movements often tend to assume a rhythmic form. More advantage might be taken in infant schools of this sense of rhythm.

(1) Our psychological witnesses informed us that no problem is so often referred to psychologists in connection with children under the age of seven as that of left-handedness. Suggestions regarding ways of dealing with left-handedness and with 'mirror writing' will be found in Dr Cyril Burt's Manual of Mental and Scholastic Tests, page 312. See also The Nature and Treatment of Stammering, by EJ Boome and MA Richardson (1931).

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58. If a child of the age of three be shown a picture of a simple and familiar scene and asked what he sees therein, he can, as a rule, only enumerate the items. By the age of six, however, the same child may begin to describe what is going on in the picture and will probably use significant verbs as well as nouns in his description. By the age of seven he may mention the colours and even refer to the space relations shown in the picture. Other attributes, however, for instance those of size and of number, he will rarely notice till two or three years later, and he will not, as a rule, try to explain the situation in the picture as a whole in terms of motive or cause, till he has reached the age of eleven or twelve.

One common test for children of the age of seven is that devised by Binet. The child is shown pictures of familiar objects with essential parts left out, and by the age of seven he will nearly always discover what is missing. If he be actually confronted with comparable objects, he will often, when asked, be able to distinguish the more salient differences. To discover similarities, however, is a harder task, and the ordinary child seems, as a rule, unable to express them in words till he is a year or two older than seven. At this stage the child's intellectual activities and most of his direct learning depend on the exercise of the sense organs, particularly those of sight. (1) These sensory activities, however, are closely bound up with actual movement. When a child has attained the age of six, his attitude resembles that of the artist rather than that of the scientist, being synthetic rather than analytic. He takes in general impressions and grasps things as a whole, but requires definite help if he is to compare and to discriminate. The power to relate objects one to another, and to an underlying hidden or abstract cause, is only just beginning to emerge. Out of this kind of practical observation the child's higher intellectual activities will gradually evolve. His ideas, thoughts, and imagination grow mainly out of what he sees, handles, and does, and in this process language will become more and more important. To know the name for an object is an invaluable aid towards singling it out from a complex context, and still more valuable for evoking it in memory. At first the child's thoughts and memories will remain imbedded in

(1) Touch and muscle-sense are still important, though perhaps not so important as at an earlier age. Smell and taste are, as a rule, less used than they were before the age of three.

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the actual experience in which they first arose. Only by degrees will he be able to detach and abstract them, and so advance to a stage at which he is able to rearrange his own ideas. It should be borne in mind that words mean nothing to the young child unless they are definitely associated with active experience. The right choice of words, therefore, forms an essential part of his instruction at this stage.

59. Reproductive Imagination. Comparatively little is known about the higher mental capacities in children under the age of seven or eight, since it is extremely difficult to carry out accurate tests. It is certain, however, that from the age of eight at least, if not indeed at earlier ages, most children possess excellent visual memories. It is probable that most children by the age of seven do a great part of their thinking in concrete visual terms. (1) It is only at a later stage that they gradually learn to think in terms of words. There is some evidence indicating that, below the age of about six, children may perhaps think almost as much in terms of muscle sense - in terms of feeling, and touch, and movement - as in terms of visual qualities.

Constructive Imagination. The stage of predominating phantasy comes to an end in children about the age of seven. There are dangers in phantasy, but at the same time many psychologists are now disposed to think that the infant school often does not make sufficient use of it. Scope should still be afforded for 'make-believe' in the children's play, but their fancy should not be over-stimulated, and should be brought increasingly into contact with the universe of fact by encouraging them to follow their developing interests among real things. On the other hand it is most undesirable that phantasy should be wholly ignored or repressed.

60. It has often been claimed that the mechanical memory of the young child is superior to that of the older child and even to that of the adult. Careful tests have shown that this notion is erroneous. The younger child learns more slowly and forgets more rapidly than the older child. The real difference

(1) There are, however, children whose visual memory is distinctly poor, and in such cases recourse might be had to auditory memory and to the sense of touch.

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between them is that, owing to the young child's undeveloped reasoning power, he relies more on mere mechanical retention. The small child will readily learn songs, jingles and simple rhymes, but it is undesirable to begin too early to encourage him to memorise such things as arithmetical tables.

61. Attention is closely related to memory, and part of the young child's difficulty in committing certain things to memory is due to the fact that his power of concentration is very limited. For instance, many teachers will have observed that a child of the age of six or seven will rarely remember all the items in an order containing four commands, even if that order be repeated several times. It accordingly follows that the ideas presented to a child at or before this stage must be very simple and few at a time. The child's power of sustaining attention at the age of six or seven is still weak, and hence oral lessons should be short, and closely related to his practical interests.

(62) There has been a tendency in the past to under-estimate the small child's powers of reasoning. Recent investigations have shown that by the age of seven a child can answer simple syllogistic problems and is capable of dealing with simple inductive arguments in the strict sense of the word 'induction', i.e. eliminating inconsistent hypotheses, and so discovering the only right solution. (1) At this age the child still finds difficulty in dealing with abstract ideas, and is only beginning to understand the relation of objects in space, while problems in time, except the simplest, are beyond his grasp. Moreover the ordinary child of seven has only the vaguest notion of the relation of cause and effect; but, as Dr Susan Isaacs has shown, this disability seems to depend largely on the fact that the ordinary child has had no chance or occasion to think out problems in physical causation in the world around him.

63. At this stage of emotional development the child begins to turn from his parents and even from adults generally, and to find his chief source of interest either in other children or in the objects of the outside world. A feeling of comradeship with his playfellows begins to develop, which gives him

(1) Cf. J Piaget. Le jugement et Ie raisonnement chez I'enfant, Neuchâtel, 1924, which contains an interesting discussion of the development of reasoning in children at this stage.

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a greater sense of confidence and independence. Adults should realise that this detachment is a necessary phase if a strong and independent character, free from neurotic dependence, is to be gradually built up. The fact that the child now begins to conceal his emotions, indicates that he is learning, or at any rate trying, to control them. Up to the age of about six, the whole pattern of the ordinary child's social life tends still to repose on the relation of parent and offspring, that is, of authority and obedience or disobedience. He treats his dolls and other children in the way in which he imagines his parents have been treating him. Hence, small children, both in their moral judgements and in their notions of just punishment, are far more severe than they are in later years. Weak in his relations towards adults, the child up to the age of six is often inconsistently tyrannical in his relations towards children younger than himself. Those moral values which depend on the recognition of the rights of others develop gradually with the child's increasing independence of his parents from about the age of six, but for some time these values will necessarily remain concrete, immediate and personal. It is clearly undesirable to talk to children too much in abstract ethical language.