CHILD 



1324 



CHILD 



The age at which children begin walking 

 varies so greatly that it is impossible to give 

 any date for it. But since a baby learns by 

 imitation, he is likely to begin walking at an 

 earlier age if there are other children in the 

 family. Some babies learn to walk before 

 they are a year old; others do not walk until 

 nearly the second year. Of course the baby 

 kicks and practices creeping before he begins 

 to walk; othenvise he would not have sufficient 

 muscular strength to master the art. Walking 

 has a marked effect on most babies. They 

 get a new view of things when they can see 

 the world from a standing position, and as a 

 rule they actually sleep better, eat more and 

 become better-natured and happier. 



In order that growth in muscular control may 

 develop properly, children should be encour- 

 aged to be active, to use all the large muscles 

 of their bodies. All children should be free 

 to run around, to romp and to play as much 

 as they wish. When they are a little older 

 they will be greatly assisted in learning con- 

 trol of the smaller muscles by having plenty 

 of tools to work with, and they should ' be 

 encouraged to make their own toys, play- 

 houses, doll clothes and other things. 



Language. Tears, smiles, cries and gestures 

 are the baby's first means of expressing his 

 emotions. A baby cries from the first; he 

 will shed tears any time after the twenty-third 

 day, and he sometimes smiles in the second 

 week. By the fourth month he will stretch out 

 his hands toward the thing he wants, and still 

 later he will put his hands together as if he 

 wanted to grasp an object. Between the eighth 

 and the twelfth month he begins pointing at 

 the thing he wants. He will begin in the 

 sixth month to express affection through imi- 

 tating the kisses, pats and hugs of other people 

 and begin using a real gesture language. He 

 will tug at his mother's dress if he is hungry, 

 will stretch out his arms to be taken up, and 

 learns to wave "bye-bye." A little later all 

 sorts of coaxing and begging gestures will 

 appear. 



Even after he begins to speak he will sup- 

 plement his words with gestures, just as many 

 savages do. A baby's greatest difficulty at 

 first is learning to articulate. Once this ability 

 has been acquired his progress in learning to 

 talk will be very rapid. Another obstacle is 

 learning to walk. While he is doing this a baby 

 acquires no more speech and may even go 

 backward, but afterwards the learning and 

 understanding of words is very rapid. His 



progress at this stage will be greatly influenced 

 by the people around him. It is only by ob- 

 serving the language used by a baby and noting 

 his mistakes that an adult begins to realize 

 what an immensely-complicated thing is 

 speech. Surely the fact that most children by 

 the fifth year have obtained a good working 

 knowledge of the mother tongue would alone 

 justify the claim that these are the years of 

 most importance, the years of greatest develop- 

 ment. 



The Kindergarten Child. Froebel, the man 

 who conceived the idea of the kindergarten, 

 and Maria Montessori, one of the great child 

 educators of to-day, both set out with the 

 idea of helping the child under six to develop 

 to the height of his powers. The necessity for 

 the normal development of the senses has 

 already been shown. This development is 

 bound to go on, whether it is encouraged or 

 not, but if it is systematically fostered and 

 stimulated the child will be better equipped 

 than if he has to acquire everything in a hap- 

 hazard fashion. Such a system of child training 

 as is furnished by the kindergarten and the 

 Montessori school goes still further. It not 

 only helps a child to develop the senses, but 

 it also trains him to associate his sensations 

 with the spoken symbols, so that everything 

 he learns is made more usable. It also helps 

 him to acquire muscular control, teaches him 

 to use the large muscles of his body and arms 

 and legs and the smaller muscles of the hands 

 and fingers. And hand in hand with this 

 training goes the development of all the mental 

 powers, imagination and reason, memory and 

 perception (see PSYCHOLOGY). 



The School Child. Let us suppose that the 

 child up to the age of six has lived in an 

 environment which has developed brain and 

 body to its fullest capacity. Bubbling over 

 with energy, alert, imaginative, eager and 

 curious, expressing himself spontaneously and 

 exuberantly on every occasion, the six-year- 

 old comes to the public school. Here every 

 sense he has begun developing, every interest 

 he has displayed, should be made use of; his 

 curiosity must be stimulated and satisfied; his 

 energy directed. He should go on acquiring 

 more discrimination as to colors, more delicacy 

 of touch, more sensitiveness of hearing, greater 

 muscular control and a larger appreciation of 

 everything beautiful. And he must also go 

 on learning to express himself more clearly and 

 accurately, both in spoken and in written 

 language. 



