Let us attempt to obtain light on the differences between these two principal methods that exist for teaching a language. What is the mother's method? How does she teach the child to speak? First let us notice that the mother follows the child: she allows him first to show interest in something and then helps him to express _himself_. Here we must pause to notice that what most interests the child is not a thing, an object for itself, but the capacity of the thing to do something, the possibilities of the thing for the performance of an action. A young child takes a thing in its hand and waves it, or strikes it against something, or passes it from one hand to the other; when it is older, it asks invariably, "What for?" The mother names the thing to the child, and also the action that may be therewith performed. The child begins to play. Here a specialty of the mother method comes into view. The mother tells the child that she is _pleased_ or _displeased_ with him, that it makes her _happy_ or _unhappy_ when the child does this or that, that she _thinks_ he is a good or a naughty boy, etc.--all of which remarks express her feelings, her thoughts, in contradistinction to the actions which have occasioned these feelings and thoughts; the realm of the mind as opposed to the world of activity. Let us here notice that the speech of every people contains these two classifications of words, the objective and the subjective; and indeed it must be so, since we perform actions and we judge of our actions. By this method the child learns in about a year from the time it begins to speak to express itself about what it does and what it thinks.