should, for the reason given in the footnote, be still ignorant of the
Arabic numerals. It should be able to handle a pencil and amuse itself
with freehand of this sort:--and its mind should be quite
uncontaminated by that imbecile drawing upon squared paper by means of
which ignorant teachers destroy both the desire and the capacity to
sketch in so many little children. Such sketching could be enormously
benefited by a really intelligent teacher who would watch the child's
efforts, and draw with the child just a little above its level. For
example, the teacher might stimulate effort by rejoining to such a
sketch as the above, something in this vein:--

The child will already be a great student of picture-books at five,
something of a critic (after the manner of the realistic school), and
it will be easy to egg it almost imperceptibly to a level where copying
from simple outline illustrations will become possible. About five, a
present of some one of the plastic substitutes for modelling clay now
sold by educational dealers, _plasticine_ for example, will be a
discreet and acceptable present to the child--if not to its nurse.

The child's imagination will also be awake and active at five. He will
look out on the world with anthropomorphic (or rather with paedomorphic)
eyes. He will be living on a great flat earth--unless some officious
person has tried to muddle his wits by telling him the earth is round;
amidst trees, animals, men, houses, engines, utensils, that are all
capable of being good or naughty, all fond of nice things and hostile
to nasty ones, all thumpable and perishable, and all conceivably
esurient. And the child should know of Fairy Land. The beautiful fancy
of the "Little People," even if you do not give it to him, he will very
probably get for himself; they will lurk always just out of reach of
his desiring curious eyes, amidst the grass and flowers and behind the