pot-hooks, is successfully past--and the end of the second year in a
well-managed child should see its close--the child sets himself with
enthusiasm to wider tasks. To him washing and dressing, fetching his
shoes and buttoning his gaiters, all the processes of his simple
little life, should be matters of the most enthralling interest, in
which he is eager to take his part and increasingly capable of doing
so. In the Montessori system there is provided an elaborate apparatus,
the didactic material, designed to cultivate tactile sensation and the
perception of sense stimuli. It will generally suffice to advise the
mother to make use of the ordinary apparatus of the nursery. The
imitativeness of the young child is so great that he will repeat in
almost every detail all the actions of his nurse as she carries out
the daily routine. At eighteen months of age, when the electric light
is turned on in his nursery, the child will at once go to the curtains
and make attempts to draw them. At the same age a little girl will
weigh her doll in her own weighing-machine, will take every precaution
that the nurse takes in her own case, and will even stoop down
anxiously to peer at the dial, just as she has seen her mother and
nurse do on the weekly weighing night. But at a very early age
children appreciate the difference between the real and the
make-believe. They desire above all things to do acts of real service.
At the age of two a child should know where every article for the
nursery table is kept. He will fetch the tablecloth and help to put it
in place, spoons and cups and saucers will be carried carefully to the
table, and when the meal is over he will want to help to clear it all
away. All this is to him a great delight, and the good nurse will
encourage it in the children, because she sees that in doing so they
gain quickness and dexterity and poise of body. The first purposive
movements of the child should be welcomed and encouraged. It is
foolish and wrong to repress them, as many nurses do, because the