d a
few remarks on the development of the _"I"-feeling_.

The child's questioning as a means of his culture is almost universally
underrated. The interest in causality that unfolds itself more and more
vigorously with the learning of speech, the asking why, which is often
almost unendurable to parents and educators, is fully justified, and
ought not, as unfortunately is too often the case, to be unheeded,
purposely left unanswered, purposely answered falsely. I have from the
beginning given to my boy, to the best of my knowledge invariably, an
answer to his questions intelligible to him and not contrary to truth,
and have noticed that in consequence at a later period, in the fifth and
the sixth and especially in the seventh year, the questions prove to be
more and more intelligent, because the previous answers are retained.
If, on the contrary, we do not answer at all, or if we answer with jests
and false tales, it is not to be wondered at that a child even of
superior endowments puts foolish and absurd questions and thinks
illogically--a thing that rarely occurs where questions are rightly
answered and fitting instruction is given, to say nothing of rearing the
child to superstition. The only legend in which I allow my boy to have
firm faith is that of the stork that brings new babes, and what goes
along with that.

With regard to the development of the "I"--feeling the following holds
good:

This feeling does not awake on the day when the child uses for the
first time the word "I" instead of his own name--the date of such
use varies according as those about it name themselves and the child
by the proper name and not by the pronoun for a longer or a shorter
period; but the "I" is separated from the "not-I" after a long
series of experiences, chiefly of a painful sort, as these
observations have made clear, through the _becoming accustomed to
the parts of one's own body_. These, which at first are foreign
objects, affect the child's organs of sense always in the same
manner, and thereby become uninteresting after they have lost the
charm of novelty. Now, his own body is that to which the attractive
objective impressions (i. e., the world) are referred, and with the
production by him of new impressions, with the changes wrought by
him (in the experimenting which is called "playing"), with the
experience of being-a-cause, is developed more and more in the child
the feeling of self. With this he raises himself higher a