s flesh." "Something
that eats people."

_Unsatisfactory._ "To eat you up." "To kill people." "To travel
in the circus." "What eats people." "It is a tiger," etc. "You
run from it," etc.

(c) _Football_

_Satisfactory._ "It is a leather bag filled with air and made
for kicking." "It is a ball you kick." "It is a thing you play
with." "It is made of leather and is stuffed with air." "It is a
thing you kick." "It is brown and filled with air." "It is a
thing shaped like a watermelon."

_Unsatisfactory._ "To kick." "To play with." "What they play
with." "Boys play with it." "It's filled with air." "It is a
football." "It is a basket ball." "It is round." "You kick it."

(d) _Soldier_

_Satisfactory._ "A man who goes to war." "A brave man." "A man
that walks up and down and carries a gun." "It is a man who
minds his captain and stands still and walks straight." "It is a
man who goes to war and shoots." "It is a man who stands
straight and marches."

_Unsatisfactory._ "To shoot." "To go to war." "It is a soldier."
"A soldier that marches." "He fights." "He shoots." "What
fights," etc. "When you march and shoot."

Silence accounts for only a small proportion of the failures with
children of 8, 9, and 10 years.

REMARKS. The "use definitions" sometimes given at this age are usually
of slightly better quality than those given in year V. Younger children
more often use the infinitive form, "to play with" (doll), "to drive"
(horse), "to eat on" (table), etc. Use definitions of this year more
often begin with "they," or "what"; as, "they go up in it" (balloon),
"they kick it" (football), etc.

Why, it may be asked, is the use definition regarded as inferior to the
descriptive or the classificatory definition? Is not the use to which an
object may be put the most essential thing about it, for the child at
least? Is it not more important to know that a fork is to eat with than
to be able to name the material it is made of? Is not the use primary
and does it not determine most of the physical characteristics of the
object?

The above questions may sound reasonable, but they are based on poor
psychology. We must rest our case upon the facts. The first lesson which
the student of child psychology must learn is that it is unsafe to set
up criteria of intelligence, of maturity, or of any other mental trait
on the basis of theoretical considera