and the wicked thought may become 

 focal. Not by your desire that it shall 

 be so, but by the power of marginal 

 things in the mind which makes them 

 focal without your apparent anticipa 

 tion or desire to have them at the 

 focus. You cannot say that the multi 

 plication table is not in the mind 

 when you are repeating it and wonder 

 ing who will be at the party this 

 evening. It is there but not focal. 

 When you are reading the words of 

 the page the words may be in your 

 mind, but the focal point may be 

 occupied at the time by wondering 

 how the baby learned to climb so 

 young and guessing whether you 

 ought to catch her or run the risk of 

 her falling, and if she should fall how 

 much she would be injured, what the 

 people would think of you for sitting 

 there and letting her fall, why babies 

 have to fall so much, whether they 

 really learn much about slipping or 

 center of gravity by falls so early in 

 life, and a thousand other items in 

 child study. But the reading is in 

 your mind much as it used to be when 

 your teacher said to you, "Now I want 

 to see you keep your eyes on your 

 book for fifteen minutes without 

 looking off." 



The mind grows at first by use of 

 the senses. The sight is the main 

 instrument of youthful mental growth. 

 Things which can be seen or visually 

 remembered are most appropriate sub 

 jects for juvenile thinking. You can 

 not well converse with children upon 

 the pleasures of hope, the uses of ad 

 versity, nor any of the forms of mind 

 stuff that are called abstractions. True, 

 they like to play upon words and com 

 mit them to memory so as to repro 

 duce them. But this is not because of 

 the real meaning of the words com 

 mitted but because the ear is pleased. 

 Children enjoy talking like adults 

 as well as looking and acting like 



them in their unstudied masquerades. 



The proper material for juvenile 

 mind action is what may be acquired 

 by the senses. All those subjects in 

 the second paragraph of this article 

 are mainly appeals to the senses. 

 These readily become focal in any 

 mind, but chiefly in the mind that has 

 never been trained away from the 

 senses by abstract thinking. No child 

 can pay attention to anything else 

 when a bird flies in at the window. 

 The bird and its act, its motive, its 

 fellows, its appearance, its nest, its 

 young, and a thousand other notions 

 rush to the focus of his mind, no mat 

 ter how diligently he may strive to 

 keep them down. Instead of repress 

 ing in the mind what is naturally 

 inclined to become focal, education is 

 now finding out the value of permit 

 ting these things to come naturally 

 into the mind and so operating upon 

 them that mental growth ensues with 

 little or no friction, and without ask 

 ing the learner to flaggellate himself 

 continually that he may have knowl 

 edge to use in that distant and half- 

 believed-in time when he shall be a 

 man. 



Everyone knows that children are 

 delighted with colored pictures. But 

 there is an intensity of delight aroused 

 by a certain class of colored pictures 

 which has been a matter of surprise to 

 most educators and parents since color 

 photography has become practical for 

 illustration. Infants in arms, who 

 have never seen any birds except a 

 few of the size of a canary, are so fas 

 cinated with the bird charts that psy 

 chologists have found a new problem 

 presented. 



If we look upon the child as he 

 views an accurate colored picture we 

 note that he is affected just the same 

 as if the bird itself were before him. 

 His imagination carries him beyond 

 the picture to the thing itself, even it 



55 



