he movements
of his own body. The occupations and language of the home, the
operations of the workman, the movements and gestures of the older
children in their games, all these are spontaneously reproduced through
imitation. This enables the child to participate largely in the social
life about him. It is for this reason that he should observe only good
models of language and conduct during his early years.

=B. Symbolic Imitation.=--If we note the imitative acts of a child of
from four to six years of age, we may find that a new factor is often
entering into the process. At this stage the child, instead of merely
copying the acts of others, further clothes objects and persons with
fancied attributes through a process of imagination. By this means, the
little child becomes a mother and the doll a baby; one boy becomes a
teacher or captain, the others become pupils or soldiers. This form has
already been referred to as symbolic imitation. Frequent use is made of
this type of imitation in education, especially in the kindergarten.
Through the gifts, plays, etc., of the kindergarten, the child in
imagination exemplifies numberless relations and processes of the home
and community life. The educative value of this type consists in the
fact that the child, by acting out in a symbolic, or make-believe, way
valuable social processes, though doing them only in an imaginative way,
comes to know them better by the doing.

=C. Voluntary Imitation.=--As the child's increasing power of attention
gives him larger control of his experiences, he becomes able, not only
to distinguish between the idea of an action and its reproduction by
imitation, but also to associate some further end, or purpose, with the
imitative process. The little child imitates the language of his fellows
spontaneously; the mimic, for the purpose of bringing out certain
peculiarities in their speech. When first imitating his elder painting
with a brush, the child imitates merely in a spontaneous or unconscious
way the act of brushing. When later, however, he tries to secure the
delicate touch of his art teacher, he will imitate the teacher's
movements for the definite purpose of adding to his own skill. Because
in this type the imitator first conceives in idea the particular act to
be imitated, and then consciously strives to reproduce the act in like
manner, it is classified as conscious, or voluntary, imitation.

=Use of Voluntary Imitation.=--Teachers diffe