space, and will pick up and hold an object in his hand with precision.
Often he conveys everything to his mouth, not because his teeth are
worrying him, or because he is hungry, as we hear sometimes alleged,
but because his mouth, lips, and tongue are more sensitive, because
more plentifully furnished with the nerves of tactile sensation. By
constant practice the sense of touch and the precision of the movement
of his hands are slowly developed, and not these alone, for the child
in acquiring these powers has developed also the centres in the brain
which control the voluntary movements. When the child can walk he
continues these grasping and touching exercises in a wider sphere. As
the child of fifteen or eighteen months moves about the room, no
object within his reach is passed by. He stretches out his hand to
touch and seize upon everything, and to experience the joy of
imparting motion to it. The impulse to develop tactile sensation and
precision in the movements of his hands compels him with irresistible
force. It is foolish to attempt to repress it. It is foolish, because
it is a necessary phase in his development, and moreover a passing
phase. No doubt it is annoying to his elders while it lasts, but the
only wise course is to try to thwart as little as we can his
legitimate desire to hold and grasp the objects, and even to assist
him in every way possible. But the mother must assist him only by
allowing free play to his attempts. To hand him the object is to
deprive the exercise of most of its value. Incidentally she may teach
him the virtue of putting things back in their proper places, an
accomplishment in which he will soon grow to take a proper pride. If
she attempts continually to turn him from his purpose, reproving him
and snatching things from him, she prolongs the grasping phase beyond
its usual limits. And she does a worse thing at the same time. Lest
the quicker hands of his nurse should intervene to snatch the prize
away before he has grasped it, he too learns to snatch, with a sudden