OKLAllOAiA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 149 



lions, and immediately proceeded to look them up on the sky map. 

 He has been studymg the sky map now for about six months, at 

 first at rare intervals, later every night ; he usually finds new 

 constellations and stars in the sky himself, guided by the monthly 

 sky map. 



A.'s interest in map study, awakened at the age of three and a 

 half, grew steadi'y and at an increasing rate. There was never 

 a time when he was not interested in maps. In his arithmetical 

 interests I noticed some seasonal influence ; there were periods 

 when his interest in arithm.etic was at a low ebb. Not so with 

 geography, and particularly with map study. He invented a number 

 of different "games" which enabled him to pursue his studies. 

 Thus, at the age of six years and eight months he arranged his 

 little table, with his atlas on it, to represent an "office," and an- 

 nounced, that he has a "shop," in which orders are taken for in- 

 formation "about the world or trips, anything you want to know." 

 And he beged his father, his mother, and all the adult friends 

 of the family to give him "orders." Here are a few of the "orders" : 

 "Write out the states of the Atlantic coast; the states of the Paci'^ic 

 coast ; states through which you must pass going, from New York 

 City to the Pacific ocean," etc. He wrote these "orders" very care- 

 iuVy and worked with great enthusiasm, asking for "orders" anxi- 

 ously and assiduously. Some of the answers he copied on the type- 

 writer. Another "game" consisted in making imaginary trips. At 

 the age of eight and a half a new game appeared, which he has 

 been imposing on me for over two months now almost every day. 

 He wants me to mention a river, a mountain, a city, an island, a 

 peninsula, etc., and he te'ls me from memory its location. He 

 worked out rules for keeping a score, and never gets tired of this 

 game, though I often try to escape it. Very often he makes maps 

 of his own, representing imaginary lands. 



Analysing the above and other facts concerning A.'s interest in 

 map study, I found that this interest is based on three elements : 

 1. The first and earliest was undoubtedly the attraction of bright 

 colors. 2. The second chronologicary was that of following and 

 disentangling an intricate combination of lines. This aspect of the 

 map had an additional attraction in the fact that it suggested rail- 

 roads. A. was deeply interested in railroads and trains from the 

 age of eighteen months, and the lines on the maps which to him 

 represented railroad tracks appealed to him greatly. 



3. The third, the highest and most complicated aspect of his 

 map studies is, of course, that of location of places, of the form and 

 shape of islands and continents, and so on. This side of his map 



