It is true that words would not be available in such a case for fault-finding; for a child when learning to walk would be too young to understand them.  But the parent’s sense of the imperfections of the performance might be expressed in looks and gestures which the child would understand; but he sees, on the contrary, nothing but indications of satisfaction and pleasure, and it is very manifest how much he is encouraged by them.  Seeing the pleasure which his efforts give to the spectators, he is made proud and happy by his success, and goes on making efforts to improve with alacrity and delight.

It is the same with learning to talk.  The mistakes, deficiencies, and errors of the first rude attempts are seldom noticed, and still more seldom pointed out by the parent.  On the contrary, the child takes the impression, from the readiness with which its words are understood and the delight it evidently gives its mother to hear them, that it is going on triumphantly in its work of learning to talk, instead of feeling that its attempts are only tolerated because they are made by such a little child, and that they require a vast amount of correction, alteration, and improvement, before they will be at all satisfactory.  Indeed, so far from criticising and pointing out the errors and faults, the mother very frequently meets the child half way in its progress, by actually adopting the faults and errors herself in her replies.  So that when the little beginner in the use of language, as he wakes up in his crib, and stretching out his hands to his mother says, “I want to get up” she comes to take him, and replies, her face beaming with delight, “My little darling! you shall get up;” thus filling his mind with happiness at the idea that his mother is not only pleased that he attempts to speak, but is fully satisfied, and more than satisfied, with his success.

The result is, that in learning to walk and to talk, children always go forward with alacrity and ardor.  They practise continually and spontaneously, requiring no promises of reward to allure them to effort, and no threats of punishment to overcome repugnance or aversion.  It might be too much to say that the rapidity of their progress and the pleasure which they experience in making it, are owing wholly to the commendation and encouragement they receive—­for other causes may co-operate with these.  But it is certain that these influences contribute very essentially to the result.  There can be no doubt at all that if it were possible for a mother to stop her child in its efforts to learn to walk and to talk, and explain to it, no matter how kindly, all its shortcomings, failures, and mistakes, and were to make this her daily and habitual practice, the consequence would be, not only a great diminution of the ardor and animation of the little pupil, in pressing forward in its work, but also a great retardation in its progress.

Example of the other Method.