Page:Preparation of the Child for Science.djvu/74

70 From the time when an infant begins to stroke the cat, to smell flowers, and to handle a spoon, have geometric solids as ornaments or toys, so that the senses of sight and touch may actually develop in contact with true type-form.

Next, the training of associated ideas. When you purchase type-forms, have the correct names written on each, and take care to call each by its name, so that the children may grow up with well-formed groups of associated ideas clustered round the words which mathematical teachers will use. Be as careful as possible not to misuse mathematical terminology in daily talk; either use it accurately or not at all. For instance, do not talk about the 'centre' of a long table, nor say 'ellipse' when you mean the oval suggested by two intersecting circles.

Then comes the training of the executive faculty. When the child can handle a pencil firmly and has outgrown the stage of mere scrawling, when he begins brush-drawing of flowers, or the drawing in pencil of boats and houses, give the hand also some training in the production of type-forms and the use of geometric tools. A violin, by the fact of being played on repeatedly, ripens and mellows into fitness for making music, because a relation is gradually established between the wood and