ith a
kind of ceremonious attention, enthralls a year-old child. If the unit
is simple enough to be remembered he will inevitably enjoy recognizing
it as it recurs and recurs. This is the embryonic pattern sense.

This pattern enjoyment too is motor in its basis. His early repetitions
of sounds are probably largely pleasure in muscle patterns. We all know
that a child uses first his large muscles,--arm, leg and back,--and that
he early enjoys any regular recurrent use of these muscles. So at the
time when the vocal muscles tend to become his means of expression, he
enjoys repeating the same sounds over and over. And soon he gets
enjoyment from listening to repetitions or rhythmic language,--a
vicarious motor enjoyment. Surely it is important that stories should
furnish him this exercise and pleasure. Three- and four-year-olds
will enjoy a positively astounding amount of repetition. In the Arabella
and Araminta stories a large proportion of the sentences are given in
duplicate by the simple device of having twins who do and say the same
things and by telling the remarks and actions of each. The selection
quoted is repeated entire four times, the variation being only in the
flower picked:

And Arabella picked a poppy, and Araminta picked a poppy, and
Arabella picked a poppy, and Araminta picked a poppy, and Arabella
picked a poppy, and Araminta picked a poppy, and Arabella picked a
poppy, and Araminta picked a poppy, and Arabella picked a poppy,
and Araminta picked a poppy, until they each had a great big bunch
(I should say a very large bunch), and then they ran back to the
house.

Arabella got a glass and put her poppies in it, and Araminta got a
glass and put her poppies in it.

And Arabella clapped her hands and danced around the table. And
Araminta clapped her hands and danced around the table.

Adult ears repudiate anything as obvious as this; they still, however,
enjoy a ballad refrain.

Just as small children cannot hear complications, so they cannot grasp
details if the movement is swift. We must give time for a child's slow
reactions. We usually fail to do this in ordinary social situations and
are often surprised to hear our three-year-old say "good-bye" long after
the front door is closed and our guest well on his way down the street.
In stories we must take a leisurely pace. We must also read very slowly
allowing ample time for a child to give the