others dropped what they themselves were holding and gathered
aimlessly and noisily round us. When I had finished explaining the
nature of an object, all the children snatched at it and quarreled for
its possession. The children showed no interest in the material: they
passed from one object to another without persevering in the use of
any.... One of the children was so incapable of keeping still that he
could not remain seated long enough to run his fingers round one of
the little circular objects we give the children. In many cases, the
movements of the children were quite aimless, they ran round the room
without any apparent object. During these movements, they made no
attempt to respect the objects about them; indeed, they stumbled
against the table, upset the chairs and stepped upon the material;
sometimes they began an occupation at one spot, and then ran off in
another direction; they took up the objects and cast them aside
capriciously."

Miss Dufresne describes the initial disorder of her first attempt as
follows: "I must confess that the first four weeks were disheartening;
the children could not settle to a task for more than a few moments;
they showed no perseverance, no initiative; at times they followed one
another like a flock of lambs; when one child took up an object, all
the others wanted to imitate him, sometimes they rolled on the floor
and overturned the chairs."

From an experiment with rich children here in Rome, we get the
following laconic description: "The greatest difficulty was the
question of discipline. The children showed a complete lack of
attraction to their work, and seemed disinclined to begin upon it."

These persons, who were all working independently, are all agreed
later in their accounts of the initiation of order: the phenomenon is
identical; at a given moment, a child begins to show an intense
interest in one of the exercises. It is by no means necessary that it
should be that exercise pertaining to the object determined as the
first series; it may be any other object that fixes the attention of
the child so deeply; the important factor is not the external object,
but the internal action of the soul, responding to a stimulus, and
arrested by it.

Now when a child once shows this deep interest in any one of the
objects we present to him as something answering to his psychical
needs, he goes on to show a like interest in all the objects, and
begins to develop activities as