Page:First steps in mental growth (1906).djvu/58

 year, to get the child to cut pictures from newspapers, but without success. He could not control the scissors and the paper at the same time.

Learning to screw the top on a paste-bottle.—The child R. learned, from watching another, to turn the top on a small, library paste-bottle (twenty-seventh month). It seemed that the ability to make the necessary left to right turning motion with the fingers of the right hand was natural. At any rate, the motion required no practice or teaching beyond seeing another person make it. But the child could not make the right to left motion necessary to unscrew the top, and I could not teach it to him even by putting his hand through the motion. The experiment with the paste-bottle was repeated in the thirty-first month. Then, as on the former occasion, the child failed to grasp the method of unscrewing the top unless the bottle was held in the right hand and the top turned with the left. He succeeded then because the easy, natural turning motion with the left hand unscrewed the top. The experiment was made again in the thirty-sixth month. I took off the cover and asked the child to put it on. He first set the cover on the bottle saying, "On now." I then said, "Turn it on," which he did with ease. Then I said, "Now take it off," and he began turning the cap in the same direction as when putting it on. I then said, "turn the other way," and he immediately reversed the turning motion and unscrewed the top without