THE EXPRESSIVE WORK OF THE SCHOOL. 251 



medium through which the child must acquire most of 

 his knowledge of the great environment which is too 

 distant to be perceived through the senses. It is, there- 

 fore, the most important form of expression. 



But it is not, as we sometimes seem to assume, the 

 only form of expression. It is not the most natural 

 form of expression. It is not always with little chil- 

 dren, the best medium for expressing ideas. 



Language is a very difficult form of expression for 

 children. Words are artificial symbols. In talking, the 

 child has to learn to use artificial symbols for each 

 idea. In writing about what he sees, the child has to 

 use another set of artificial symbols for each idea he 

 tries to express. At first the effort to form these sym- 

 bols, the written words, requires considerable mus- 

 cular effort and control. When writing about what 

 he has been told, but has not seen, the child has to 

 interpret one set of artificial symbols, the spoken words, 

 into another set of symbols even more artificial, the 

 written words. That is, in telling what he has simply 

 heard he writes the symbol of the symbol (both artifi- 

 cial) of an idea. Is it strange that the idea is some- 

 times lost during the operation? 



On the other hand, language is a higher and more 

 general means of expression. Language expresses, as 

 nothing else can, life and action and function, the higher 

 side of the child's environment. It expresses the higher 

 relations, aesthetic, ethical, spiritual, as they cannot be 

 expressed, by the child, through any other form or me- 

 dium of expression. 



