power to an unusual degree. They see so vividly that they become
frightened by the products of their own imaginations. Their dolls are
so truly personified that mishaps to them easily cause tears, and
their mistreatment by strangers is resented as though personal. Adults
hardly equal them in this imaginative quality.

_2. Their ability to imitate and think, as shown in conversation_

When children are left alone together they do not lack things to do
and say. Their minds are active enough to entertain one another as
well as adults do, and not seldom better. In fact, if they remain
natural, they are often more interesting to adults than other adults
are. They reach even profound thoughts with peculiar directness. When
I was attempting, one day, to throw a toy boomerang for some children,
one of the little girls, observing my want of success, remarked, "I
saw a picture of a man throwing one of these things. He stood at the
door of his house, and the boomerang went clear around the house. But
I suppose that people sometimes make pictures of things that they
can't do; don't they?"

_3. The success of development instruction_

The method of teaching called _development instruction_ is based on
the desire and ability of children to contribute ideas. That
instruction could not succeed as it has succeeded, if children did not
readily conceive thoughts of their own. Not only do they answer
questions that teachers put in such teaching, but they also propose
many of the questions that should be considered. That method
flourishes even in the kindergarten. In the kindergarten circle
children often interrupt the leader with germane remarks; and