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LETTER III.

FROM WIND TO SPIRIT.

Watch as your baby grows, and you will see
That his whole life, wherever he may be,
Is a perpetual mimicry.

An engine now, he puffs with all his might;

Anon, with brows perplexed, he feigns to write

Or strides his chair, a mounted knight.

Brimming with life, but knowing not as yet

Even the letters of his alphabet,

He imitates each pattern set.

And watching him, perchance you question why

Each new activity that meets his eye

Excites him his own skill to try.

His is an instinct ignorantly wise!

Only in doing can he realize

The thing that's done beneath his eyes.

A stranger 'midst the surging life of men,
He to his own life-stature shall attain

By taking-to give back again.

HENRIETTA R. ELIOT.

THE WEATHERVANE.

This way, that way,

Turns the weather-vane;

This way, that way,

Turns and turns again.

Turning, pointing, ever showing,

How the merry wind is blowing.

EMILIE POULSSON.

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DEAR yesterday was an unusually animated one. At the previous meeting I had asked the mothers to notice their children carefully and to report all the imitative actions which might occur during the week. The response was general and the results of observation very interesting. A baby fifteen weeks old had tried to purse his lips when his mother went through with this movement close in front of him. A boy of seven months had successfully imitated movements of the head. Several babies aged ten months had noticed and repeated the act of beckoning with the forefinger. A little girl of nine months had given her doll a bath, had kissed it as she herself was kissed, and had tried to sing it to sleep. A fifteen-months-old boy had gone through with the movements of shaving his chin. Another of the same age had pretended to read aloud, moving his finger along the lines of a book and modulating his voice. A little girl of twenty months had seen some flying pigeons, and had quickly and repeatedly opened and shut her fingers in imitation of their movement. A boy three years and a half old had happened to see a butcher kill some pigs, and in a spirit of imitation had arranged pieces of wood

-: The session of our mothers' class

and prepared to do the same. A somewhat older child had fastened feathers from an old duster to his little coat and hopped about the yard, scratching the ground as he had seen chickens do. A little girl had given herself a bad hurt by spreading her arms for wings and trying to fly from a high porch. Had this effort succeeded she intended her next flight to be from the roof of this same porch, which she could easily reach by climbing through her nursery window. This child, if I remember aright, was about six years old. Many other observations were reported, but as those already given are amply sufficient to illustrate the subject of this letter I spare you any further examples of the fact of imitation, and hasten to suggest its meaning.*

It was amusing to watch the change which stole over the spirit of the maternal dream as the reports accumulated. The complacency and pride which were evident in the tones and expressions of the mothers who made the earlier reports contrasted

* Wishing my illustrations to be reliable, particularly as to the ages of children, I have borrowed freely from Professor Preyer. See The Senses and the Will, pp. 282-292. The imitation of the butcher is recorded by Pestalozzi of his

son.

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amusingly with the matter-of-fact rehearsals of those who followed them. A two-horned dilemma

seemed gradually to define itself. Either each of the fifty mothers present was the possessor of a remarkable child, or imitativeness was no mark of unusual mental power. The question was brought to a climax by a spinster of scientific proclivities, whose latest hobby is the Simian intellect, and who followed up the reports of the mothers with a series of anecdotes illustrating the imitativeness of monkeys. A general and hearty laugh following her remarks showed which horn of the dilemma had been seized by the collective mind of the class.

Surrendering imitation as a mark of individual distinction we win it as the characteristic of an essential stage in the process of psychogenesis. The act of imitation proves that the infant has become conscious of his own power to originate movements, and that he voluntarily exercises this power. Hence, as Professor Preyer has pointed out, it is the first sure sign of the birth of will. Pondering this fact we begin to understand the psychologic instinct which led Froebel to follow the Kicking Game, whose motive is the solicitation of force, with the

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