should be matters of the most enthralling interest, in which he is eager to take his part and increasingly capable of doing so.  In the Montessori system there is provided an elaborate apparatus, the didactic material, designed to cultivate tactile sensation and the perception of sense stimuli.  It will generally suffice to advise the mother to make use of the ordinary apparatus of the nursery.  The imitativeness of the young child is so great that he will repeat in almost every detail all the actions of his nurse as she carries out the daily routine.  At eighteen months of age, when the electric light is turned on in his nursery, the child will at once go to the curtains and make attempts to draw them.  At the same age a little girl will weigh her doll in her own weighing-machine, will take every precaution that the nurse takes in her own case, and will even stoop down anxiously to peer at the dial, just as she has seen her mother and nurse do on the weekly weighing night.  But at a very early age children appreciate the difference between the real and the make-believe.  They desire above all things to do acts of real service.  At the age of two a child should know where every article for the nursery table is kept.  He will fetch the tablecloth and help to put it in place, spoons and cups and saucers will be carried carefully to the table, and when the meal is over he will want to help to clear it all away.  All this is to him a great delight, and the good nurse will encourage it in the children, because she sees that in doing so they gain quickness and dexterity and poise of body.  The first purposive movements of the child should be welcomed and encouraged.  It is foolish and wrong to repress them, as many nurses do, because the child in his attempts gets in the way, and no doubt for a time delays rather than expedites preparations.  The child who is made to sit immobile in his chair while everything is done for him is losing precious hours of learning and of practice.  It is useless, and to my mind a little distasteful, to substitute for all this wonderful child activity the artificial symbolism of the kindergarten school in which children are taught to sing songs or go through certain semi-dramatic activities which savour too much of a performance acquired by precise instruction.  If such accomplishments are desired, they may be added to, but they must not replace, the more workaday activities of the little child.  The child whose impulses towards purposive action are encouraged is generally a happy child, with a mind at rest.  When those impulses are restrained, mental unrest and irritability are apt to appear, and toys and picture books and kindergarten games will not be sufficient to restore his natural peace of mind.

(b) the suggestibility of the child