d continually
to enrich itself by fresh observations.

* * * * *

Our children have long been preparing the hand for writing.
Throughout all the sensory exercises the hand, whilst cooperating
with the mind in its attainments and in its work of formation, was
preparing its own future. When the hand learned to hold itself
lightly suspended over a horizontal surface in order to touch rough
and smooth, when it took the cylinders of the solid insets and
placed them in their apertures, when with two fingers it touched the
outlines of the geometrical forms, it was coordinating movements,
and the child is now ready--almost impatient to use them in the
fascinating "synthesis" of writing.

The _direct_ preparation for writing also consists in exercises of the
movements of the hand. There are two series of exercises, very
different from one another. I have analyzed the movements which are
connected with writing, and I prepare them separately one from the
other. When we write, we perform a movement for the _management_ of
the instrument of writing, a movement which generally acquires an
individual character, so that a person's handwriting can be
recognized, and, in certain medical cases, changes in the nervous
system can be traced by the corresponding alterations in the
handwriting. In fact, it is from the handwriting that specialists in
that subject would interpret the _moral character_ of individuals.

Writing has, besides this, a general character, which has reference to
the form of the alphabetical signs.

When a man writes he combines these two parts, but they actually exist
as the _component parts of a single product_ and can be prepared
apart.

_Exercises for the Management of the Instrument of Writing_

(THE INDIVIDUAL PART)

In the didactic material there are two sloping wooden boards, on each
of which stand five square metal frames, colored pink. In each of
these is inserted a blue geometrical figure similar to the geometrical
insets and provided with a small button for a handle. With this
material we use a box of ten colored pencils and a little book of
designs which I have prepared after five years' experience of
observing the children. I have chosen and graduated the designs
according to the use which the children made of them.

The two sloping boards are set side by side, and on them are placed
ten complete "insets," that is to say, the frames with the geometrica