its normal development. The foetus must be nourished with blood; the
new-born infant with milk. If during its intra-uterine life the
foetus should lack blood rich in albuminous substances and oxygen,
or if poisonous substances should be introduced into its tissues, the
living being will not develop normally, and no after-care will
strengthen the man evolved from this impoverished source. Should the
infant lack sufficient milk, the mal-nutrition of the initial stage of
life condemns him to a permanent state of inferiority. The suckling
"prepares himself to walk" by lying stretched out, and spending long,
quiet hours in sleep. It is by sucking that the babe begins his
teething. So, too, the fledgling in the nest does not prepare for
flight by flying, but remains motionless in the little warm shell
where its food is provided. The preparations for life are indirect.

The prelude to such phenomena of Nature as the majestic flight of
birds, the ferocity of wild beasts, the song of the nightingale, the
variegated beauty of the butterfly's wings, is the preparation in the
secret places of a nest or a den, or in the motionless intimacy of the
cocoon. Omnipotent Nature asks only peace for the creature in process
of formation. All the rest she gives herself.

Then the childish spirit should also find a warm nest where its
nutrition is secure, and after this we should await the revelations of
its development.

It is essential, therefore, to offer objects which correspond to its
formative tendencies, in order to obtain the result which education
makes its goal: the development of the latent forces in man with the
minimum of strain and all possible fulness.

VII

WILL

When the child chooses from among a considerable number of objects the
one he prefers, when he moves to go and take it from the sideboard,
and then replaces it, or consents to give it up to a companion; when
he waits until one of the pieces of the apparatus he wishes to use is
laid aside by the child who has it in his hand at the moment; when he
persists for a long time and with earnest attention in the same
exercise, correcting the mistakes which the didactic material reveals
to him; when, in the silence-exercise, he retains all his impulses,
all his movements, and then, rising when his name is called, controls
these movements carefully to avoid making a noise with his feet or
knocking against the furniture, he performs so many acts of the
"will." It