mitation, the child learns, to be sure, to articulate words
likewise; but he does not learn to understand them or to use them
properly unless coincidences, intentional or accidental, show him this
or that result when this or that word is uttered by him. If the child,
e. g., hearing the new word "Schnee," says, as an echo, _nee_, and then
some one shows him actual snow, the meaningless _nee_ becomes associated
with a sense-intuition; and later, also, nothing can take the place of
the intuition--i. e., the direct, sensuous perception--as a means of
instruction. This way of learning the use of words is exactly the
opposite of that just discussed, and is less common because more
laborious. For, in the first case, the idea is first present, and only
needs to be expressed (through hearing the appropriate word). In the
second case, the word comes first, and the idea has to be brought in
artificially. Later, the word, not understood, awakens curiosity, and
thereby generates ideas. But this requires greater maturity.

The third way in which the first words are learned is this: The idea and
the word appear almost simultaneously, as in onomatopoetic designations
and interjections. Absolutely original onomatopoetic words are very rare
with children, and have not been observed by me except after the
children already knew some words. The names of animals, _bow-wow_,
_moo-moo_, _peep-peep_ (bird), _hotto_ (horse), from the expression of
the carter, "hott-ho" ("_tt_," instead of _Haut_ (the skin), i. e.,
"left," in contrast with "aarr"--_Haar_, _Maehne_ (the mane)--i. e.,
"right"), are spoken for the child by the members of his family. Some
names of animals, like _kukuk_ (cuckoo), also _kikeriki_ (cock) and
_kuak_ (duck, frog), are probably formed often without having been heard
from others, only more indistinctly, by German, English (American), and
French children. _Ticktack_ (_tick-tick_) has also been repeated by a
boy of two years for a watch. On the other hand, _weo-weo-weo_ (German,
_[)u]io_) for the noise of winding a watch (observed by Holden in a boy
of two years) is original. _Huet_, as an unsuccessful imitation of the
locomotive-whistle by my boy of two and a half years, seems also
noteworthy as an onomatope independently invented, because it was used
daily for months in the same way merely to designate the whistle. The
voice of the hen, of the redstart, the creaking of a wheel, were
imitated by my child of his own accord lon