ctual form of the object, but
personified it, and further personified himself, talking perpetually,
pretending to be some one else, and seeming incapable of fixing his
attention upon the objects. While his mind was in this chaotic state
he was unable to perform any precise action; he could not, for
instance, button a single button.... All at once a miracle seemed to
take place within him. I noted the great change in him with
astonishment. He took one of the exercises as his favorite task, then
went on to choose all the others in succession, and thus calmed his
nerves."

I will choose from various individual studies made by two mistresses
of a Children's House at Rome for well-to-do children, those of two
children of very different characters. One of these children came to
the school too late, when he was too old, and had already developed in
another environment. The other is a little creature of the normal age
for entrance to the Children's Houses. The older child (a boy of five)
had already been to a Froebelian Kindergarten, where he was considered
very troublesome because of his restlessness. "For the first few days
he was a torment to us, because he wanted to work, but could not
settle to any occupation. He said of everything: 'This is a game,' and
ran about the class-room, or annoyed his companions. At last he began
to take an interest in drawing." Although normally drawing comes
_after_ the sensory exercises, he was left at liberty to do what he
wished; the teachers rightly thought that it would be useless to
insist that the child should apply himself to a different task.
Indeed, this child, having passed the age when the primary materials
answer to the psychical needs of childhood, was for the first time
attracted by an exercise of a higher order, that of drawing. "Whereas
at first the child had passed from one occupation to another, and had
even taken up the letters of the alphabet, but had never settled to
work with any one of the objects, now suddenly discipline was
established. We do not know exactly at what moment the change took
place, but discipline was maintained and perfected, and reached a
higher level in proportion to the growing interest of the child in
every kind of occupation. Interest having been primarily aroused by
drawing, the child spontaneously went on to the rods used in the
teaching of length, then to placing the plane geometric insets, and so
gradually worked through all the earlier sensory