Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/687

Rh each other; or, as we are apt to say, the child begins to take notice. Then it is that the birth of the human soul into the little body becomes apparent. The child is observed to fix its gaze upon objects. It begins to recognize faces; it begins to see; it begins to hear; it begins to feel. In a word, intelligence has dawned.

The years succeeding infancy are full of incident. Each day is crowded with new experiences and new sensations. Years pass before the most obvious of these are exhausted of their interest. The child reaches out its hand for the moon; it finds delight in the glancing sunbeam; it is surprised by its own reflection in the glass; it is charmed by all forms of rapid motion; it dances gleefully before the fire; it is made curious by the rustling of a leaf. The little man is full of the spirit of investigation. He is a true experimenter. He is constantly putting questions to Nature, and, after a fashion, he is finding answers. He awakens to consciousness in a world that is for him full of wonders and surprises. There is no truer fairy-land than that in which he daily moves. The ever-present mystery; the delightful sense of anticipation; the persistent belief in the impossible, make childhood—in spite of its little worries and absurd fears—a veritable paradise, from which advancing years, like the angel with the flaming sword, casts us out all too soon.

The activity of the child is exceedingly interesting in the abstract; perhaps a little inconvenient in the concrete. He throws a goblet on the floor, and is as much amazed that it should break as the owner of the goblet is annoyed. It is a destructive age, and is apt to meet with but little sympathy from older persons who forget that they have gained their own store of knowledge from just such a series of adventures. Children willingly sacrifice a toy to learn what it is made of, and I am disposed to think that the knowledge so gained is worth more than the plaything. And so the first years of life are spent in becoming acquainted with surrounding objects. The days are very full of pleasure when one is acquiring knowledge in this simple and natural fashion. All of us have gone through these experiences. By hundreds of tests—pleasant and otherwise—we have learned that certain substances are brittle or tough; are hard or soft; are rigid or flexible; are light or heavy. By repeated falls we have gained some notion of gravitation—that bodies unsupported will fall to the ground. Burned fingers have taught us that flame and fire are hot. Torn jackets have shown us that there is a point beyond which we can not go and expect cloth to resist strains. It is in this way that we have gained our stock of common knowledge. Experience is undoubtedly the best teacher. When maturity is reached, all have gained the greater part of this common stock, and the