raining of the one-year-old and of the two-year-old child must
be, so far as possible, prevented. I have in this respect been so far
successful that my child was not until late acquainted with such tricks
as children are taught, and was not vexed with the learning by heart of
songs, etc., which he was not capable of understanding. Still, as the
record shows, not all unnecessary training could be avoided. The earlier
a little child is constrained to perform ceremonious and other
conventional actions, the meaning of which is unknown to him, so much
the earlier does he lose the poetic naturalness which, at any rate, is
but brief and never comes again; and so much the more difficult becomes
the observation of his unadulterated mental development.

5. Every interruption of one's observation for more than a day demands
the substitution of another observer, and, after taking up the work
again, a verification of what has been perceived and noted down in the
interval.

6. Three times, at least, every day the same child is to be observed,
and everything incidentally noticed is to be put upon paper, no less
than that which is methodically ascertained with reference to definite
questions.

In accordance with these directions, tested by myself, all my own
observations in this book, and particularly those of this chapter, were
conducted. Comparison with the statements of others can alone give them
a general importance.

What has been furnished by earlier observers in regard to children's
learning to speak is, however, not extensive. I have collected some data
in an appendix.

CHAPTER XIX.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEELING OF SELF, THE "I"-FEELING.

Before the child is in a condition to recognize as belonging to him the
parts of his body that he can feel and see, he must have had a great
number of experiences, which are for the most part associated with
_painful feelings_. How little is gained for the development of the
notion of the "I" by means of the first movements of the hands, which
the infant early carries to the mouth, and which must give him, when he
sucks them, a different feeling from that given by sucking the finger of
another person, or other suitable objects, appears from the fact that,
e. g., my child for months tugged at his fingers as if he wanted to pull
them off, and struck his own head with his hand by way of experiment. At
the close of the first year he had a fancy for striking hard substances
against h