He is
always doing something. It remains for the parent to direct this
restless movement and to transform some of it into useful labor. Work,
in the sense of accomplishing results for the satisfaction and benefit
of the parent, is quite foreign to our plan for training the young
child. But work for the child's own satisfaction and for the formation
of the habit of industry must occupy our attention in large measure.
The child's playthings should from his earliest days be chosen in
recognition of his desire to do things and make things. The shops are
filled with showy toys, mechanical and otherwise, and children find
the toyshop a veritable fairyland. But once satiated with the sight of
any particular toy, however cunningly devised--and satiety comes
soon--the child forsakes the gorgeous plaything for his blocks, or
paper and a pair of scissors, or even his mother's clothespins. He can
do something with these.

The Montessori materials are perhaps the most thoughtfully planned in
this direction of anything now obtainable; and no one having the care
of young children should be without some knowledge of this now famous
method. All the materials have this advantage: they offer definite
problems and consequently afford the child the joy of accomplishment.
A few of the occupations of life afford us unending enjoyment at every
stage of the doing, but not many. It is rather the achievement of our
end, the "lust of finishing," which carries us through the tiresome
details of our work. The child must therefore be early introduced to
the joy of accomplishment. Instead of unending toys, give him
something to work with. He will appreciate your thoughtfulness, and he
will find not only joy but real development in their use.

At first the child's work will consist of fragmentary efforts, but at
a remarkably early age he will show evidence of a power of
concentration and persistence which will make possible the
accomplishment of finished undertakings. He begins to know what he
wants to do and to exhibit considerable ingenuity in finding and
combining materials. Most of all, he wants to imitate the activities
he sees around him.

In the strain of modern life a widespread restlessness seems to have
seized mankind. Whatever people do, they want to be doing something
else, and the pathway of the average individual is strewn with crude
beginnings, half-finished jobs, abandoned work. The child very easily
falls into line with this tende