128 MOBAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



soning has crowded it from its regnant rule in 

 the adolescent years. 



As we analyze this imitative activity we dis- 

 cover there is a slight tendency to imitate things, 

 as an engine; but much more to imitate persons. 

 Another important element of this tendency is 

 that the child imitates the adult much more than 

 other children or animals, and the imitation of 

 adults increases with the years up till eleven years 

 of age. Thus the Almighty has given the parent 

 an advantage over any competitors in influence 

 during these years. Neither things nor animals 

 nor undeveloped children can take away the child 

 from the molding influence of the parent. There 

 are tied up in this law unmeasured possibilities 

 for the good of the future generation. 



The Creative Imagination: the Romancing 

 Period. We adults are learning that we do not 

 live under the intellectual dominion purely of the 

 world of objective fact. The mind is constructive. 

 Its ultimate construction is limited by the mate- 

 rial that comes to it from without; but the form 

 in which it builds and the arrangement of the men- 

 tal product is by no means identical with the ob- 

 jective material. We are idealists, to whom the 

 objective world furnishes the bricks and mortar 

 that we are using in building our castles, which 

 are the true home of the soul. 



It is not wonderful, then, that it is quite easy 

 for the child to be estranged from the literal facts 

 of sensation and perception. By himself he will 



