In another such case, the mother, on hearing the question, pauses long enough to look kindly and with a smile of encouragement upon her face towards Johnny, and to say simply, “The sun,” and then goes on with her conversation.  Johnny says “Oh!” in a tone of satisfaction.  It is a new and grand idea to him that the sun makes the rainbow, and it is enough to fill his mind with contemplation for several minutes, during which his parents go on without interruption in their talk.  Presently Johnny asks again,

“Mother, how does the sun make the rainbow?”

His mother answers in the same way as before, “By shining on the cloud:”  and, leaving that additional idea for Johnny to reflect upon and receive fully into his mind, turns again to her husband and resumes her conversation with him after a scarcely perceptible interruption.

Johnny, after having reflected in silence some minutes, during which he has looked at the sun and at the rainbow, and observed that the cloud on which the arch is formed is exactly opposite to the sun, and fully exposed to his beams, is prepared for another step, and asks,

“Mother, how does the sun make a rainbow by shining on the cloud?”

His mother replies that it shines on millions of little drops of rain in the cloud, and makes them of all colors, like drops of dew on the ground, and all the colors together make the rainbow.

Here are images presented to Johnny’s mind enough to occupy his thoughts for a considerable interval, when perhaps he will have another question still, to be answered by an equally short and simple reply; though, probably, by this time his curiosity will have become satisfied in respect to his subject of inquiry, and his attention will have been arrested by some other object.

To answer the child’s questions in this way is so easy, and the pauses which the answers lead to on the part of the questioner are usually so long, that very little serious interruption is occasioned by them to any of the ordinary pursuits in which a mother is engaged; and the little interruption which is caused is greatly overbalanced by the pleasure which the mother will experience in witnessing the gratification and improvement of the child, if she really loves him, and is seriously interested in the development of his thinking and reasoning powers.

Answers should attempt to communicate but little Instruction.

3.  The answers which are given to children should not only be short and simple in form, but each one should be studiously designed to communicate as small an amount of information as possible.

[Illustration:  “MOTHER, WHAT MAKES IT SNOW?”]

This may seem, at first view, a strange idea, but the import of it simply is that, in giving the child his intellectual nourishment, you must act as you do in respect to his bodily food—­that is, divide what he is to receive into small portions, and administer a little at a time.  If you give him too much at once in either case, you are in danger of choking him.