efforts are aided and not thwarted, before he is two years old he will
have become capable of conducting himself correctly, yet with perfect
freedom. The worst result of the continual repression which may be
constantly practised in the mistaken belief that the grasping phase is
a bad habit which persistent opposition will eradicate, is the nervous
unrest and irritation which it produces in the child. A passionate fit
of crying is too often the result of the thwarting of his nature, and
the same process repeated over and over again, day by day, almost hour
by hour, is apt to leave its mark in unsatisfied longing,
irritability, and unrest. Above all, the child requires liberty of
action.

We have here an admirable example of the effect of environment in
developing the child's powers. A caged animal is a creature deprived
of the stimulus of environment, and bereft therefore to a great extent
of the skill which we call instinct, by which it procures its food,
guarantees its safety from attack, constructs its home, cares for its
young, and procreates its species. If, metaphorically speaking, we
encircle the child with a cage, if we constantly intervene to
interpose something between him and the stimulus of his environment,
his characteristic powers are kept in abeyance or retarded, just as
the marvellous instinct of the wild animals becomes less efficient in
captivity.

The grasping phase is but a preliminary to more complex activities.
Just as in schooldays we were taught with much labour to make
pot-hooks and hangers efficiently before we were promoted to real
attempts at writing, so before the child can really perform tasks with
a definite meaning and purpose, he must learn to control the finer
movements of his hands. Once the grasping phase, the stage of